23. Pop Princess

A Chapter by Peter Rogerson

An unexpected pause on the way to the police station with the prisoner in handcuffs

One thing that DC Amelia Pincher had kept up with during her few years as a police officer and then a detective constable had been the many courses including self defence, that were on offer from time to time., and one or two of those came in really handy as she reacted to the sudden movement of David Rozelle as he charged, blade in hand, towards her DI.

Within one or two easy moves, she had his arms in such a powerful grip before he got close enough to DI Glumpy to do more damage than slash his jacket, and had him handcuffed before he could wreak any more havoc. But as she looked at him it was clear that the expression on his face wasn’t one belonging to a sane man.

“I did say you needed help, and this is helping you,” she grated into his ears, “now David, take it easy or you might end up getting hurt yourself, and if you don’t mind I’ll take this.” This was the knife that seemed to have materialised out of thin air a moment earlier.

“I have to warn you that anything you say will be taken down and used in evidence against you,” she said, sadly, and as she continued with the form of words that had been set down for officers to follow, she knew that this man would probably never be seen as fit to plead. He was clearly a very dangerous being, but as mad as a box of frogs.

DI Glumpy looked confused. “What happened?” he asked, “who is this man, and why isn’t he behind bars for his own safety? That blade looks sharp to me, and if he’s not careful he might vut himself.”

PC Dedbeat grinned at him. “This is the serial killer we’ve all been looking for,” he said, “and constable Pincher here disabled him, arrested him, cuffed him, and that’s brought you up to date,” he concluded.

“But the killer… I have her… she’s in a cell,” stammered the DI, frowning as if he was trying to see his way through an impenetrable maze.

“I’ll report to you at the station when we have Mr Rozelle safely under lock and key,” Amelia said, and she turned to her prisoner, “I did tell you I’d do my best for you, and I’m afraid this is it,” she said sadly, “that knife of yours meant that there’s not much anyone can do to help you if you don’t want to help yourself, I’m afraid.”

He looked at her with true malevolence in his eyes. “You lot think you’re clever, don’t you?” he snarled, the sobbing David Rozelle suddenly morphing into a snarling savage brute with hatred rather than sadness in his eyes , “but you won’t have me like this for ever. That you won’t! And then, when the law sees sense and I am set free of these shackles,” here he rattled the handcuffs that he was wearing, “then you will see me in my glory! And I will pass amongst you, each and every one of you, and offer freedom to those who most need it, freedom from the burdens of their lives, freedom from life itself! And men and women will gather round me and kiss my feet, pour love and understanding into my hands, and thank me fervently for all that I’m doing for the human race!”

“What is the man saying?” asked the DI, “it doesn’t make sense to me, and after all, he’s a school teacher and supposedly very intelligent…”

“Bah!” snarled the prisoner, and Amelia jerked him by one arm and escorted him to her car. “I don’t like this,” she said quietly to him, “but then, I don’t suppose you really wanted to go down in history as a mass murderer, did you?”

“Bah!” he grunted again, the monosyllable a substitute for intelligent thought. But there was a glazed look in his eyes that may have been a substitute for real understanding, as if he’d arrived at a place and had no idea how he’d got there and why he had even wanted to travel that way.

The ride to the police station was going to be unusually slow.

On thie one day of the year Brumpton by early evening was a chaos of mostly young women who had gathered in far bigger numbers than the theatre in the town could possibly hold, where the famous and some insisted talented, young woman, Alice Pinkerton, was due to put on one of her famous concerts in which she paraded on a stage, singing powerfully whilst seemingly being almost naked, and nobody had the gall to protest at her somewhat erotic appearance. She’d done world tours and her latest song, “Kiss my honey bee” had been at the top of the charts for so long it was hard to remember a time when it wasn’t there.

All this meant that there was chaos in town as the youngsters from miles around had all descended on the town centre, waiting for a precious glimpse of their heroine as she arrived. The roads were virtually blocked and even coaches bringing fans had to stop or crawl along. And above everything the noise was deafening as sporadic outbreaks of cheering indicated that someone may or may not have noticed a treasured heroine on her way to perform

Coincidences are usually relatively rare in life, but this time it so happened that, on the High Street at the end of which was the borough theatre, two cars struggled through the crowds, narrowly avoiding mowing half of them down, and they were moving at snail’s pace parallel to each other so that the passengers in each could see who was in the other..

In one of the cars a smiling and rather lovely Alice Pinkerton looked out, vaguely, waving in a desultory sort of way at strangers in the crowds, when she spotted the man in handcuffs at the back of the other car.

“Stop!” she shrieked, “Now, driver, please!”

And her limousine pulled to a standstill while she wound the window down. She would loved to have opened the door and climbed out, but she had enough sense to realise that there were thousands of people out there and maybe not everyone loved her like she loved herself.

“That man in that car!” she shrieked, pointing at David because a consequence of her car stopping and the crowds surging in front of it was that the other car had to stop as well or all hell might have been let loose as fans were being mowed down..