by Denis Byrne
Superintendent Charles Clifford, all six feet four inches of him, whom Harrington had never seen other than attired in the immaculate uniform of his illustrious standing, was dressed in yellow slacks, a colourful Hawaiian short-sleeved shirt, green trainers, and tartan stockings which reached up to his knees. He looked like a human rainbow.
He was concentrating so much on a putt he was about to make into a glass tumbler six or seven feet from where he crouched sizing up the shot, that he wasn’t even aware Harrington had entered his office. He was muttering words of encouragement to himself, taking the putter back to guide the ball to its target, when Harrington cleared his throat by way of a gentle cough to announce his presence. Superintendent Clifford fluffed his attempt, striking the ball harder than he’d intended, resulting in it missing the tumbler by several inches and rebounding off the wall, shooting back across the carpet to land at Harrington’s feet. Harrington trapped it neatly beneath the sole of his foot, then, red-faced, gently kicked it towards the Superintendent.
There was an ominous silence in the office for several seconds. Seconds during which Superintendent Clifford stared at Harrington in disbelief. And seconds which appeared to Harrington were never going to end. But they eventually did. ‘Who are you?’ Superintendent Clifford asked when he’d overcome his surprise. ‘And do you always barge into people’s offices without knocking?’
‘I did knock, sir,’ Harrington replied apologetically. ‘You mustn’t have heard me.’
‘Umm! Knocked, eh!’ the Superintendent said. ‘Let’s have a look at your knuckles.’
‘Knuckles, sir?’ Harrington asked uncertainly, unsure if he’d heard correctly.
‘You do have some, don’t you?’
‘Yes, sir, but - - -’
‘Over here, then!’ the Superintendent ordered him. ‘We’ll see if you’re telling the truth, my boy.’
A bemused Harrington was then subjected to a thorough knuckle examination by means of a magnifying glass which his superior extracted from a drawer of his desk. After much hemming and hawing, the Superintendent satisfied himself the knuckles under scrutiny had indeed rapped on the door of his office.
‘Particles of corridor dust on them all right,’ Superintendent Clifford finally confirmed, placing the magnifying glass back from where he’d taken it. ‘Altogether different from office dust. Two separate things entirely.’
Harrington immediately gave serious thought to the consideration that he had possibly chosen the wrong profession in which to further his career. If this was what years of police work did to someone in such a senior position in the force, the mental hazards involved hardly seemed worth the dedication he himself had been prepared to undergo to rise in the ranks.
Harrington was an extremely idealistic young man. His mission in life was to rid the world of criminality in all its shapes and forms, and he’d resolved to work long and hard to achieve this goal. But when he encountered Superintendent Clifford in his office that first day, doubts as to his future beset his brain. To say that the Superintendent had struck him as eccentric would have been putting it mildly. But he’d discovered over the course of time there was a lot more to the Superintendent than putting golf balls into glass tumblers.
Though he’d never actually seen it for himself, Harrington had been told by his colleagues that the Superintendent was also given to a spot of tennis-ball juggling behind the door of his private office to aid his concentration while struggling with the difficulties of some particularly confusing case. Harrington had been tempted from time to time to put his eye to the key-hole as he waited for the order to enter, but had refrained from doing so out of the respect in which he eventually came to hold the Superintendent after only a short while in the station.
Eccentric though he may be, his reputation as the foremost crime fighter in the country was not an empty one. Whether engaged in slotting golf balls into glass tumblers, or juggling, Superintendent Clifford was constantly planning the downfall of some particularly nasty pieces of work who had eluded the rigours of the law far too long for his liking.
On the occasion of Harrington’s initial blunder that first embarrassing day, Superintendent Clifford, after satisfying himself that his underling had been truthful concerning knocking on his office door, sat the young man down in his own big swivel-chair behind his desk, instructing him to watch carefully as he himself once more took up his stance to putt the golf ball into the glass tumbler.
Harrington’s cheeks were glowing a shade more than pink at this development, his mind was revolving at a tremendous rate, and he was wondering if this was really happening, or if he’d perhaps taken a wrong turn and stumbled into the ward of some patient in the mental health department of the station, a department which he wasn’t even aware existed.
‘Watch my line!’ the Superintendent commanded. ‘See if you can spot any difference in the way Tiger Woods addresses a putt in comparison to me.’
Harrington gulped. There were approximately thirty-four variations he’d already spotted between the Superintendent and the world famous American golfer he could have mentioned straight away, but he was wary on advising on all of them. Still of a mind he’s wandered into a mental ward in error, he feared he might be set upon with a golf club should he list them one by one in alphabetical order. The way the Superintendent had his body contorted at the moment, he appeared in danger of toppling over.
‘I think perhaps you should place your feet just a shade further apart, sir,’ Harrington offered. ‘It might give you a little more balance. And perhaps if you didn’t crouch quite so low, you’d have more control over the putter.’
To Harrington’s amazement, the Superintendent immediately took his advice on board, eased his feet apart, straightened himself into a more comfortable position, eyed the tumbler for ten seconds or so, then neatly slotted the golf ball inside it.
‘Good Heavens!’ the Superintendent gasped. ‘I’ve been trying to do that for the last hour or so, and only managed it once.’ He turned to Harrington, beaming from ear to ear at his success. ‘I’ll have that Hennessy’s guts for garters at the next inter-station outing.’
Harrington hadn’t the faintest notion to whom the Superintendent was referring.
‘The smug nincompoop won’t know what hit him,’ the Superintendent continued conversationally, retrieving the golf ball and repeating the successful putt a second time. ‘Send him back to his station with the smile on the other side of his face for once. And without the trophy next time.’ He beamed again, delighted with himself. ‘I must say you’re a splendid addition to the force.’ His eyebrows lifted and a look of concentration beset his face. ‘What did you say your name was again? Eh?’
*
Now, as Harrington waited for the command to enter the Superintendent’s office, he could hear Mrs. Pearson impatiently pressing the bell outside, accompanied by her shrill chattering complaints regarding the disgraceful service which abounded everywhere these days. He also thought he caught something about people being murdered in their beds and the forces of law and order not caring less whether they were or not. Then Dermot’s name was brought into her shrieking, being instructed to write to their local government representative the very second they got home. Harrington was considering if he should return to reception and politely request the lady to give over screeching quite so loudly, when the deep voice of Superintendent Clifford finally granted him permission to enter.
When he did so, the Superintendent was sitting behind his desk, resplendent in his uniform, studiously peering at some documents in front of him. His face was a mask of concentration, his normally generous, half-smiling mouth set in a frown. Harrington closed the door behind him and approached the desk, again patiently waiting for permission to state the cause of his business. He knew better than to disturb the Superintendent’s train of thought before it had come into the station of its own accord. The Superintendent was muttering away to himself, evidently not too pleased about the contents of the do
cuments he was studying. He gave a little grunt of displeasure before eventually raising his head to acknowledge Harrington’s presence.
‘Awful business,’ he informed him, as though Harrington knew what he was talking about. ‘Terrible altogether.’
‘I’m sure it is, sir,’ Harrington said, having learned that the best response to practically all of the Superintendent’s puzzling statements was to agree with them. He hesitated a moment, took a deep breath, then said, ‘There’s a lady at reception who insists on seeing you personally, sir.’ He took another deep breath. ‘It’s Mrs. Pearson, sir.’
‘Again!’ the Superintendent growled. ‘What’s wrong with her this time? The slugs been criminally attacking her rose bushes? Eh? Or have some naughty five year-olds been talking too loudly passing her house or something?’
‘She didn’t give me a chance to ask, sir,’ Harrington told him. ‘She doesn’t consider I’m important enough to deal with her complaint. As usual, sir,’ he added, reminding the Superintendent that that was always the case where Mrs. Pearson and himself were concerned. ‘But she did say it was a very serious matter.’
‘I’m far too busy to see that awful woman now, Harrington,’ the Superintendent said firmly. ‘Have Sergeant Neville deal with her.’
‘He’s not here, sir. He’s - -’
‘Did you try his office?’
‘No sir, - -’
‘There you are! He’s your man. Keep knocking until you wake him up.’
‘He’s gone out on a case, sir,’ Harrington informed the Superintendent. ‘He left over an hour ago.’
‘An hour ago! Why wasn’t I informed?’ Then, without waiting for an answer, he continued, ‘Perhaps he sneaked back when you weren’t looking. Eh? Have you considered that possibility, Harrington?’
‘He couldn’t have, sir. I’ve had a call from him twenty minutes ago instructing me to send all available personnel in the station to surround the area the sighting occurred. Someone phoned in and claimed to have seen an alligator being taken for a walk by a boy very early this morning in the town centre. It was on a leash, sir, just like a dog. All forces have been deployed to capture the animal.’
Superintendent Clifford pursed his lips, then started tapping his huge fingers on his desk, the resulting sound resembling half a dozen horses galloping over a wooden racecourse. Mrs. Pearson’s impatient demands could still be heard filtering in through the closed door.
‘Do you know what day this is, Harrington?’ the Superintendent asked quietly, ceasing his finger tapping.
‘Friday, sir?’ Harrington replied, wary that he was possibly being asked a trick question, given the Superintendent’s sometimes odd little ways.
‘And what date is it, Harrington?’
‘Oh, no!’ Harrington gasped, as the penny dropped. ‘Oh, no!’
‘Indeed. It’s the first of April, isn’t it, Harrington?’
‘Yes – yes, sir, it is.’
‘And every able-bodied officer apart from yourself has gone haring off on a wild alligator chase, no doubt with nets and guns and tranquilliser darts, and every squad car we have at our disposal. Would that be correct, Harrington?’
Harrington nodded. Superintendent Clifford could be extremely precise and to the point when the occasion called for it. At times like this, nobody would believe he had an eccentric bone in his body. When it was necessary, he could sum up a situation and rapidly arrive at the correct answer before most people could understand the question. That, Harrington thought to himself, was why he was a Superintendent.
‘And now,’ Superintendent Clifford continued, ‘we have that preposterous Mrs. Pearson causing a commotion at the reception desk, and nobody here except one of us to listen to her idiotic complaints. Tell her I’m not in my office. You deal with her.’
‘But, sir,’ Harrington protested, determined not to tell a lie even if it meant upsetting the Superintendent. ‘You are in your office, and she thinks dealing with me is beneath her. I--’
Before he could continue, the Superintendent arose smartly from behind his desk and skipped out into the corridor. ‘I’m not in it any more, Harrington, am I?’ he asked softly, careful to keep his voice low enough to avoid it carrying outside to the reception area. ‘So you won’t be telling her anything that isn’t perfectly true.’ He looked at Harrington to see how that grabbed him. ‘After all, it wouldn’t do for the forces of law and order to be telling porkies to the public, now would it?’ Seeing Harrington’s hesitation, he pointed a finger out towards from where the impatient complaining was continuing. ‘Off you go, now,’ the Superintendent ordered, ‘and tell her my office is presently unoccupied.’ He smiled as Harrington set off biting his lip. ‘And may I wish you the best of luck with the dear lady.’
Superintendent Clifford remained exactly where he was until he heard Harrington explain to Mrs Pearson of his vacant office, then, deciding enough time had elapsed to confirm the truthfulness of the statement, he went back inside, gently closing the door behind him.
CHAPTER THREE
Immediately the Superintendent had seated himself behind his desk, he reached for the phone and punched in a number. While he waited, he pondered on the top secret documents he’d received not half an hour ago by special courier from the Chief Commissioner. They were still lying on his desk, and he eyed them with concern. The information they contained was extremely disturbing. He wondered how long it would be before the papers got hold of it. Then all hell would break loose.
‘Hello,’ he said into the receiver when the mobile number he’d called was answered. ‘It’s the Super here, Danny. I’ve an emergency on my hands. I need your help.’ He listened for a while, stroking his chin as he did so, then gave a smile of satisfaction. ‘Good lad,’ he finally said. ‘I knew I could rely on you. I’ll fill you in on the details later.’ He listened again. ‘The usual location. I’ll bring my fishing rod to make it look authentic. But will you for heaven’s sake make Charlie turn himself into a toad or something. Half my men are out looking for him as we speak.’
*
Outside at reception, Harrington was doing his utmost to convince Mrs. Pearson he was perfectly capable of dealing with her complaint.
‘But you’re a mere junior officer!’ she said cuttingly, as though people of such rank were beneath contempt. ‘Nothing more than a glorified messenger boy! You couldn’t even begin to understand the trauma I’ve been subjected to!’
‘I’ll try, Mrs Pearson,’ Harrington said wearily, desperately attempting not to lose his temper. ‘Now, if you’ll just give me the details, I’m sure you’ll discover I’m not quite as stupid as I may look.’
‘I should certainly hope not!’ Mrs Pearson shrilled in at him. She settled her elbows on the ledge directly in front of the wire-mesh grille, peering through it with narrowed eyes. ‘Now listen carefully, young man, and make sure you note every detail correctly.’
Harrington bent down over his notepad, biro poised to record whatever supposed disaster Mrs. Pearson was about to inform him about. He shifted his position slightly to avoid her glaring into his eyes, but to no avail. Mrs. Pearson immediately moved exactly as Harrington had done, staring directly into his face as though into a mirror.
‘Dermot!’ Mrs. Pearson suddenly shrieked, startling both her husband and Harrington at one and the same time. ‘Come over here this instance and verify my statement! I don’t want any misunderstanding to arise in the future should this minion take down an entirely different version of events.’
Mr. Pearson, who’d been pretending to read the various notices pinned to a board on the wall, muttered something under his breath.
‘What was that?’ Mrs. Pearson demanded loudly.
‘Nothing, dear. Just clearing my throat.’
‘Well, kindly place your hand over your mouth then!’ Mrs Pearson barked. ‘I don’t want to pick up any of your germs, thank you very much.’ She turned back towards Harrington, as her husband came over to join her. ‘I couldn�
�t say for certain whether it was a crocodile or an alligator that put me in danger of my life this morning, but it most certainly was one or the other. I want something done about it, young man, and I want it done immediately!’
Harrington’s eyes opened wide in amazement. He realised what day the Superintendent had informed him it was, but still - -. Mrs. Pearson didn’t at all strike him as the type who went in for practical jokes, whatever day of the year it might be. And there’d been an earlier report of the very same nature. He stared back at Mrs. Pearson, his mouth now almost as wide as his startled eyes.
‘What’s the matter with you, young man?’ Mrs. Person said. ‘You haven’t written down a single thing I’ve told you yet!’
Harrington did his best to pull himself together, bending to address his biro to his notepad in as efficient a display as he possibly could to show he was in control of his emotions, as any good guardian of law and order should be at all times. ‘Would you mind telling me where you saw the – the beast, Mrs. Pearson? And at exactly what time? Was it near the centre of town?’
‘What on earth are you blabbering about?’ Mrs. Pearson retorted sarcastically. ‘And what in the name of heavens would I be doing there at half-past six this morning?’
‘I see,’ Harrington replied, carefully noting the time of the alleged sighting. ‘Half-past six this morning. And where might you have been at that time, Mrs. Pearson?’
‘Why, taking in the early morning milk, of course! You don’t expect I was gallivanting in the middle of town in my night clothes, do you?’
Harrington baulked at the image of such a sight. He was sure it would give him nightmares for months afterwards. As far as he was concerned, seeing the alligator, or whatever it was, would have been preferable than being forced to watch Mrs. Pearson cavort around publicly in her nightdress.