9. THE EVENING ROBBERY

A policeman relieves himself...

Albert knew the man in his grip was a thug from the expression on his face when he tried to spin him round in order to get a good look at him. He was not exactly unshaven but rather badly shaven in a way that didn’t speak of designer stubble or a fashionable beard. In addition his face was scarred in too many places for Albert to feel comfortable looking at it as he struggled like mad to free himself from a grip that was far more powerful than any the thirteen year old Albert Tench could have managed on his own.

Albert knew instinctively that he had become a policeman. The uniform, or what he could see of it seeing as he was wearing it, gave him a clue, and the sensation that the helmet on his head was being held in place by a chin strap was a sort of confirmation.

Handcuffs in place, he pushed his prisoner against a wall.

Albert could see that it was the wall of a house, with a front door, modern and made of white plastic, to his right and the bay of a window to his left. And it was that window that had given his dreadful game away because it had been his means of entry. He had smashed it and climbed in believing the house to be empty.

Albert heard a mewling sound of someone in pain from within the building and he found himself shouting for help. A female police constable, smart and pretty in a severe sort of way, came up to him from where she’d been searching at the rear of the house.

“I’ve put bracelets on the scum,” he growled, “can you cope with him while I see what the trouble is? And get an ambulance here, double quick!”

“Of course, sarge,” she said, her voice as severe as her appearance. She grabbed hold of the thug and accidentally kneed him with painful violence in the testicles as she force-marched him onto the street.

“Ouch!” yelped her prisoner, “that’s against the law!”

“What is? Accidents?” she asked laconically, and her smirk was enough to quell any further protest. But she added, to confirm her point of view, that if he struggled it was odds on that there’d be another accident. “And there’s only so much a pair of balls can take without bursting,” she added.

The officer sharing his body with Albert grinned at her and told her he was glad not to be on the wrong side of her at the wronf time of the month, then went to the window. Evening had fallen and he could barely make anything out in the half light that was all that was left of natural daylight. But what he could make out nearly froze his heart, or at least would nearly have frozen Albert’s heart if he’d had one.

There was a woman lying on the floor in a spreading pool of blood, and it was she who was weeping and whimpering.

“Hold on, darling,” he called, “there’s an ambulance on the way.”

Then he climbed over the jagged glass that was all that was left of the broken window and jumped down into the room.

The woman was bleeding from a knife wound to her side and he breathed a sigh of relief when he saw that it was more a flesh wound than one likely to prove fatal. But it needed attention or the blood loss would become a danger in itself.

Sergeant Ivor Goodwin knew what to do, which made Albert Tench a great deal more relieved than he would have been had he been all alone with a bleeding woman. He located the source of the bleeding and staunched it with a rolled-up handkerchief, pressing firmly though trying to avoid causing the poor woman any more pain than was necessary.

“I can hear the ambulance in the distance,” he said, comfortingly, “there’ll be trained medics on board and you’ll be right as rain sooner than soon.”

The woman managed a weak whimper.

“What’s your name, lovey?” he asked, “I can’t keep on talking to you without knowing what to call you, now, can I?”

The woman tried to smile, but it didn’t work. There wasn’t much about the situation she found herself in that was at all humourous.

“I’m Miranda,” she said, gasping a little as she spoke, “Miranda Tinkle.”

Of course she was! Albert knew the moment she gave out her name that she was the one girl who he had really liked at school. And what’s more, from what he’d picked up since that dreadful cycling accident, she liked him. She’d even said she loved him which still made him want to shiver if he’d had a body to do it with.

“Stay with us,” urged Sergeant Goodwin, overriding Albert’s own thoughts. “Can you hear it now, the ambulance, Miranda? We’ll get you patched up in no time at all and then we’ll be able to do what we please with the nasty little gentleman who broke your window...”

“It’s … it’s Tony. Tony Scallop,” she whispered. “He lives down the road...”

“Don’t waste your breath, darling,” said the sergeant, using his own words rather than Albert’s. “Just keep your strength up and you’ll br okay. Ah, see, here are the ambulance men. Look, I’ll go and open the door for them, if you don’t mind.”

“Okay...” she breathed, “but you’ll come back, won’t you?”

He stood up. “Just hold this against where you’re bleeding,” he instructed her, taking her by one hand and pressing it gently onto his blood-soaked handkerchief, “Of course I’ll come back! Wild horses wouldn’t stop me!”

Then he strode from that room, into a hallway, and opened the front door. “This way, lads,” he said to the two paramedics who’d just arrived on the scene. “It’s a knife wound, I reckon it looks worse than it is but you’re the experts.”

He led them to their patient. “I’m back, Miranda,” he said quietly, “and these two men will see that you’re all right while I go and sort out the pathetic little creep who thinks it’s all right to have a violent go at women!”

“His name’s Tony. Tony Scallop,” Miranda managed for force out as the two paramedics took over.

“I’ll see you again before long,” promised Sergeant Ivor Goodwin, and he winked at her.

Then he went into the street where Constable Brewer was holding a very one-sided conversation with the prisoner who sullenly refused to reply to any of her questions. He’d been bundled into the back seat of a police vehicle and looked the very picture of an abused bully.

“I donlt reckon bullies like the idea of being bullied, sarge,” she grinned.

“I’ll be back in a tick if you’re okay,” he said to his Constable, and he made his way round to the back of the building where there was a quietly shadowed spot, shaded by the darkened sky and a wall of tall trees.

“Well, fellow who’s hitched a ride in my head,” he muttered, undoing his flies “I’m going to have a slash while you work out how to tell me who you are and why you’re perched inside my nut!”

© Peter Rogerson 09.05.19