26. Smashing

The conclusion

Tania was hardly in what might be called a good mood.

A young officer had come to her cell and merely murmured, “right, you can go now,”

And it was said so mater-of-factly without him giving any due consideration why that she had spent an entire night in a police station cell, together with all the discomfort that implies. And now the young pipsqueak had told her that she could go and could collect her personal belongings at the reception desk on her way out.

No explanation. No sympathy, just a bald statement, the sort made at the supermarket when the place had run out of, say, tomatoes, and a customer definitely needed some for whatever recipe he or she was preparing.

“I demand to see the Inspector,” she grated in the sort of voice she rarely resorted to because she was basically a cheerful young woman who had some time for most people, even the rude ones she encountered at work, though clearly not the powerful ones who made obvious mistakes.

“He’s gone home, sick,” informed the officer, “It was the super who told me to get you and stuff.”

“What stuff?” she demanded.

“Your personal stuff. Lipstick and the like. You know. The super might tell you more if he catches you.”

“I rarely use lipstick. So why do you think I’ve had to spend a night in this stinking cell?” asked Tania, still sounding far from happy.

“I dunno. You’d best ask the super,” muttered the constable, and he smiled at her, “this way, then, and there’s a couple of awkward steps round the corner, so don’t trip.”

She let him lead her, knowing that whatever she felt about the situation she’d been in, it had little to do with the young man who had been sent to fetch her. But she was determined to have a few words with his superintendent, if that’s who he meant by super.

The reception area was busy enough and she recognised at least one of the voices from a queue at the desk as belonging to fellow prisoners who had spent a great part of the night moaning to one and all about how unfair everything was. It seemed that they’d been arrested during a concert in which a well known pop star had performed her heart out

“Wait here, miss,” suggested the constable, and he said one or two things to the officer on reception, who beckoned her over.

“Your things,” he muttered sliding a tray towards her. There werm’t so many items on it because she rarely carried any loose thongs with her, but her watch was there, a present from Kevin early in their relationship, before things had been soiled by unnecessary jealousy on his part, and a divorce.

“Where’s the Super then?” she asked, “I was told that he would tell me stuff. That’s what the constable here told me. He’d tell me stuff.”

“I’ll call him,” replied the desk officer, and he lifted the phone from its cradle and murmured something into it.

“He’s on his way,” he assured Tania, who now that she was close to the main entrance didn’t want much more than to get out of the place and into the open air. But she waited anyway, and as good as his word to the reception officer a smartly uniformed and rather suave middle aged man strode round a corner and towards her.

“Ah, you wanted to see me, Miss Beaufort?” he asked with the suggestion of a smile interfering with his usual severe expression.

“Yes,” she said, “I want to know why.”

“Pardon?” he asked, “why what?”

She shook her head in assumed disbelief. “Why was I incarcerated in what struck me listening to my fellow inmates as a junkie’s paradise,” she asked, keeping her voice level, “especially as I proved to the Detective Inspector, who really ought to watch his manners, exactly why it should be the man who was attacking me rather than myself under lock and key.”

“He had his reasons,” assured the Superintendent with blandnk goodness for thatt assurance oozing from his voice.

“Well, I’ll see about…” she started when a voice from the door that led to the big wide world outside called “Tania! They’ve found you! Thank goodness for that!”

It was her ex-husband, Kevin, and she spun round to face him.

”Kev,” she spluttered, “What are you doing here?”

“It’s you. You went missing and I was worried… I phoned the cops and the hospital and all,” he told her.

“Missing? What do you mean?” she asked, close to be being puzzled.

“When you never came home… we might not still be a couple but I am bothered about you,” he told her.

And to her that seemed to put everything that had happened into a new and rather wonderful perspective.

”I got arrested,” she said, “for some reason they thought that I just might be a serial killer on the rampage so in case I was they locked me up over night, and even took my watch off me. Look: I’ve just got it back.”

“The Inspector was under pressure…” put in the Superintendent.

“And my wife wasn’t?” demanded Kevin, then he turned to Tania, “I haven’y half missed you, ducks,” he said, “I hope this doesn’t sound daft, but how about us getting married…?”

“Again?” she asked, “when you thought I fancied the bloke next door?

“I’ll not be so daft again,” he muttered, “honest, I won’t.”

“I tell you what,” she said, “we’ll have a trial marriage to see if things work out, and if they don’t, well, we are divorced anyway and that might make things easier if you go off on one of your jealous binges…”

“It’s because I love you,” he sighed, “so much. Come on, let’s get out of this dump and go out for a meal. Steak and kidney pie and chips at the Groomsman’s?

She smiled at him. “Sounds lovely,” she said, “come on and I’ll tell you the very little bit I know.”

And the two of them walked out of the police station, hand in hand, closer than they’d been for ages.

The DI saw them as he arrived, and sucked down below the level of his dashboard because he just didn’t want Tania to see him. And ended up smashing his car into the Superintendent's limousine.

Oh dear.

THE END

© Peter Rogerson 14.06.24