10. A SHOT IN THE NIGHT

A policeman's life can be quite dangerous...

It felt odd to Albert Tench as he stood in the shadowed part of a private back garden, occupying the body of a police sergeant who he didn’t know and who was urinating on a flower bed.

Andhe was having to find a way to answer the questions who he was and why was he there.

“I’m dead,” he forced through Sergeant Goodwin’s lips in a hoarse whisper, “and I don’t know why I’m here.”

“A ghost, eh?” sniggered the officer in what must have been a great deal quieter than a whisper, “well, that’s got me beat! But I know you’re there. I can’t see you or feel you or even smell you, but I can sense you with, I don’t know, an extra sensory bit of me I didn’t know I had and don’t particularly like.”

“I can’t help it!” snapped Albert. “I didn’t want to crash my bike and be squashed flat by a tractor! I didn’t want to die and I don’t want to be blamed for it!”

The officer’s stream dried up and he shook his penis, and a few drops of urine splashed against his trouser leg. “That’s what a prostate does for you,” he mumbled. “Well, lad, you’re stuck with me until one of us finds a way of dislodging you, and the first thing I’ve got to do is follow that ambulance to the hospital, check on the lady who got knifed and see if she’s up to answering a few questions, and I’d be as grateful as possible if you kept yourself to yourself while I do it.”

“You won’t know I’m here,” Albert tried to assure him.

“Then shut up right now. Here’s Constable Brewer and she already thinks I’m half way to being nuts.”

“Sarge,” acknowledged the police woman as they approached her.

“I’ve just checked the back,” the sergeant said, though not explaining which part he had been checking, and why and with what.

“You might have done your flies up, sir,” she said pointedly.

“Damned zip’s for ever coming down of its own accord,” grunted Goodwin. “I’m off to the hospital to see what the woman Tinkle has to say. When the lads have taken the perp back to the station and got him tucked into a nice cosy cell you can join me there. She might be more forthcoming to a woman.”

“I’m looking forward to it then, sir,” grinned the female officer, dropping the more severe tone in her voice and replacing it with something bordering on the suggestive. He frowned at her, but in the darkness she took it for a smile.

The ride to hospital was truly odd so far as Albert was concerned because he was sitting inside someone who didn’t want him there and who was consequently trying to suppress some of the thoughts that the flesh is heir to. And one of those thoughts was based on a memory of police Constable Ingrid Brewer in her underwear.

It had been in the station a week or so earlier and the connecting door between a small cloakroom and the ladies changing room was open when he walked in. It was her fault that it was open at precisely the same moment as she was removing her underwear before popping into the station unisex shower to remove as much as the filth from the sports ground where she’d been the butt of many snide comments by football supporters. She’d been up to the job, easily if the truth were told, but the afternoon had involved mud from the pitch somehow finding its way onto her pristine skin, hence the need for a shower.

Albert became aware of all of this as pictures of her flashed in front of the sergeant’s inner eyes, and then were dismissed almost in the same instant. And being technically still a thirteen year old boy he’d been fascinated. His years as a young mother to Miranda had taught him nothing.

“Keep your mind off my mind,” growled the sergeant. “I hate this, and you can bog off as soon as you can find a way.”

“Don’t worry,” Albert thought back, “I never like being where I’m not wanted or appreciated.”

By the time they arrived at the casualty department of Brumpton General Hospital Miranda was being stitched up and they had to wait before they could see her.

“She’s staying in for the night,” explained a doctor, “it’s not the wound, but she lost a scary amount of blood and we want to keep an eye on her.”

“I’d like to ask her a few questions,” said Ivor Goodwin in the sort of voice that expected nothing but compliance.

“Five minutes,” replied the doctor, “and that’s all. She needs time to recover.”

Miranda was lying down when they got to see her, eyes closed and looking almost asleep.

“Be easy on her,” advised a pristine starched nurse with a peaches and cream complexion as well as a smile to die for.

“As if I wouldn’t,” nodded the sergeant, and Mildred slowly and wearily opened her eyes.

“Hello,” she said in a tired voice, “are you the policeman who saved me?”

“I came to help,” nodded Sergeant Goodwin, “can you tell me, briefly, what happened?”

“I was watching the television in my back room,” she whispered, “and I heard this loud noise, of breaking glass and someone clomping about. So I went to investigate. I picked up a knife to defend myself with and went to sort out whoever was in my home, and saw him in my front room, rifling through my DVDs.”

“So that’s what he was after,” scowled the Sergeant, “a lot of trouble for something like DVDs.”

“That’s what I thought,” she sighed, “it was Tony Scallop from down the road. He’s almost a neighbour and I get on quite well with his mother.”

“We know of him,” the sergeant told her, “he’s been drawn to our attention plenty of times in the past year or so. And his old man’s a nightmare too.”

“Well, when he saw me jumped as if he’d seen a ghost.”

“He would. I believe he thought you were out and that the house was empty, and if that was the case there might be easy pickings that he could grab without being seen. He usually goes for small but expensive things, like jewellery, smart phones that sort of thing. He probably thought he’d take a peek at your DVDs on his way to the better stuff,” murmured the sergeant thoughtfully.

“Well, I‘m most grateful for being rescued,” she said, “and sorry for spoiling your hankie!”

“I think that’s enough for the moment,” he told her, “but I’ll probably need to see you tomorrow, if only to see that you’re okay.”

“Thanks again, officer,” she said weakly, and the smile she tried to offer him was watery at best.

“I wonder what happened to the constable,” he mumbled as if to himself as he made his way to the hospital exit.

He didn’t have to wonder for long, though.

Just outside the door a wild looking red-haired man had his arms round Police Constable Ingrid Brewer, pinning her so that struggling was futile, and he was waving what could only be a gun in the direction of the hospital door.

“Sod it,” grunted the sergeant, and he shouted out “Scallop, put my officer down and drop your weapon!”

“I want my lad!” slurred the man in a thick alcohol-shaped voice. “You get my lad or I’ll kill the b***h!”

“This is a hospital,” began the sergeant wearily, “and your lad’s not here. Now do as I say or you’ll be in deeper water than your lad’s in.”

“You bashtard!” cursed the red headed drunk, and there was the sudden roar of a gun being fired.

Albert almost felt it as a bullet smashed into the flesh of the policeman, and he somehow he managed to blink.

When he looked again he was standing in a pulpit high above a tiny congregation in a country church.

“Dearly beloved,” he said in a sepulchral voice, “we are gathered here in the presence of Almighty God...”

© Peter Rogerson 10.05.19