12. Retribution

Tanie can be a very determined young woman,...

By the time she returned to work after a poor lunch at the cafe (poor because she left most of it, her mind in a chaos of confusion) Tania was in no mood for doing anything, let alone operating the till on Checkout number five, which was supposed to be her duty that afternoon

Her supervisor, Jane Ridley, noticed that something must be awry and she put one and one together and arrived at two. It didn’t take much in the way of computing skills for her brain to do that!

“I saw the slip of a girl, that police constable,” she told Tanie, “and she didn’t seem so sure about anything.”

“I got the impression that she was all right, Jane, but she said she had a boss behind her and she had to do as she was told,” sniffed Tania, “I mean, it was bad enough spotting the woman from next door dead in my wheelie bin. That almost made me take a day off and go to bed with a double vodka inside me. But no, I soldiered on, and then she turns up and as good as told me her boss had worked it all out and I killed, what was it, three people! I tell you, if I come upon him all alone down a dark road it’ll be four!”

“That’s my girl,” smiled Jane, “and as a treat I’ll tell you what I’ll do off my own bat. Take the rest of the day off on full pay and do whatever you want, but come back smiling and refreshed tomorrow. Make it a triple vodka this afternoon if you have to.”

“Are you sure, Jane?”

“And if one of the bosses finds his way here from wherever it is they lurk in their shoals, I’ll tell him you’re on the loo because you came on unexpectedly in the middle of serving a bishop.”

“You would? I mean, a bishop!”

“And I’ll fix it that you don’t lose a farthing’s pay. Now get off my girl and straighten yourself out before I burst into tears as well.”

That last phrase was because unaccountably Tania had done what Tania hadn’t done since agreeing to divorce Kevin and started crying.

She was well on her way home when she paused and frowned and then scowled.

That’s it, she thought to herself, I’ll go and beard the monster in his den, Fancy even thinking that I’d commit murder once let alone three times!

And truth to tell it was a ridiculous notion because Tania was exactly what she seemed to be, a decent hard working and intelligent young woman who would have been truly happy had her marriage turned out not to be to a jealous young man whose every thought was about her finding someone else to love.

But to go to beard the DI in his den? Might that not be one step too far? Did she have absolute irrefutable proof that she was as innocent as she knew herself to be? And could she convince the sort of man that the young police DC had suggested her boss might be of that simple truth?

Of course she could!

Brumpton was a small enough town and nowhere in it was particularly far from anywhere else, so it didn’t take her more than a few minutes to walk to the police station, then find her way to where a nerdy looking young officer was playing sudoku on his phone and getting it wrong.

“I want to see the Inspector,” she said, frowning.

“I’m afraid that’s not possible,” he told her, “you need an appointment because both the regular Inspector and the DI are not available to casual walk-ins, though if either of them was to catch a glimpse of your legs they might change their minds pronto!”

“Then you’ll have to inform the detective Inspector that he’d better change his mind or a whole heap of smelly dung might land on his shoulders from a great height!” said Tania firmly and without a hint of humour anywhere on her face.

The constable looked her up and down, or as far down as he could from his seat behind the Reception desk, and noted her smart appearance and particular her legs when he strained to see past he hem of her short skirt.

“Smelly dung, you say, ma’am,?” he asked, “and from a great height?”

“”Yes. From the height of the Chief Constable,” she added, “you know the very top of the local Police chain of command. And you can take my word for it, the dung is only getting more and more smelly the longer it takes for you to sort things out for me.”

“Oh dear,” he mumbled, and then he perked up. “Why, here he comes,” he whispered, “along the passage way from his secret den on the first floor…”

Tania looked in the direction of his gaze and saw a grumpy looking man in his early middle age. She nodded. Working as she did in a popular supermarket she had, she believed, become fairly expert at judging what she called types, and the man approaching her seemed to fit very nicely into a slot she reserved for self-important men who would benefit had the good Lord given them a few extra brain cells.

“You!” she barked at him pointing with a great deal more confidence than she felt, “I need a word with you!”

DI Glumpy looked her way, wondering what manner of person had the impudence to address him like that.

“You can’t mean me,” he responded, because that was what he truly believed because nobody, especially not this slip of a lass in a short skirt and with the most pleasant face topped by an extraordinarily attractive head of long and shiny light blonde hair.

“If you are the inspector who sent one of his minions to my place of employment to accuse me of murdering not one, nor two, but three innocent souls, then it is you I mean,” she told him, now with the bit between her teeth and convinced that she’d almost certainly have him wilting within minutes.

“Oh dear,” he muttered, “did she do that? Really? I never thought…” but he was at a loss as to how to work what he never thought. Of course he had thought she’d stir up some sort of nest, but it seemed this one was from a hornet’s nest and had quite a sting behind her pretty face.

“Maybe you could come to my office and explain to me what’s troubling you…” he said.

She thought for a very few seconds. “Is that where you sweet talk us ladies into admitting things we would never even dream of doing,” she said, “so no: there’s nothing to discuss. Just that I’m going to report the way I was accused by a young female police officer who informed me that it was all your idea, and I’ll report it to the Chief Constable…”

She could tell from the way a spasm in his neck started tormenting him that she’d hit the right mark. So,

“Via the Brumpton Gazette,” she added, “with pictures.”

That hit home. But what pictures? She’d Photoshop something or other that would make the Chief Constable look at least twice.

“Of course,” she concluded, “an apology and a personal assurance that this kind of thing will never happen again should suffice seeing as I understand how very busy you are. I mean, three dead bodies and nothing like a solution yet…”

Looking at him she discovered just how sweet the taste of retribution can be.

© Peter Rogerson 31.05.24