David sucked air through his teeth, finishing off with a popping sound.
“Okey dokey. Will you call down and ask Brenda to take over the induction for me”? David said with a boyish smile on his face. “She’s better at 'em than me anyway”, he winked. “After that, I'm all yours”.
Shirley left to tell Brenda the great news. (They all hated inductions).
“And bring us both a coffee on your way back, will you”? David called after her.
A few minutes later, Shirley came back and handed a steaming cup of coffee to David, who blew into the cup a few times before taking his first sip.
“Arrrgh, wrong one. No sugar”. He swapped mugs with Shirley and took another sip, “Ahhhh, that’s better.”
Settling himself back into his chair, David said, “So then, my trusty little side kick, what conundrum have you got for me today”?
David relished a challenge.
“Bit of a tricky one, unfortunately. Someone has made a rather nasty allegation, but I’m pretty sure it is just an allegation, as it’s against a rather sweet old man”. Shirley drank some of her coffee and unwrapped a small pack of biscuits, handing one to her boss before tucking herself back into her chair.
“Do you know Joe Sadsoul”? Shirley asked before taking a sip of her coffee.
“Isn't he the old chap who watches out for the kids when they come home from school? The one who used to fly spitfires during the war”?
“Mmmm, that’s the one”, she said.
“Is he still doing that, watching out for the kids”? David asked with a smile.
“Yes, just about”, said Shirley. There was a serious tone to her voice.
David mirrored her concern and leaned forward in his chair. “Hang about. Who on Earth would make an allegation against Joe Sadsoul, and for what”?
Then the penny dropped. It didn’t take long for David to put two and two together and realise the horrid nature of the allegation that was being brought before him. But by whom?
Shirley lifted her eyebrows and shrugged.
“Oh, you’ve got to be joking!” David exclaimed and sat fully upright in his chair. “Gimme two guesses,” he said, as he forcibly placed his nearly empty coffee cup on the desk. “It's either Sally Sour, or its Sally Sour. Am I right? Or am I right”? He said with an eye roll.
“Well, yes and no. It is indeed Sally Sour who has brought the allegation to light, but it’s a lady by the name of Tracey Furnella who has apparently made the allegation”.
“And remind me Shirley, why exactly does Sour work for the council”?
“Budget cuts, I’m afraid. After all of these compensation claims, we’ve had to cut back on front-line services. The best we could do in the Home Help department was to use volunteers and she was the first one”.
“That figures,” said David with slight sigh. “Okay, what have we got? Give me all the details”. David ran his hand through his hair and rested it under his chin.
“First off, according to this letter, Tracey Furnella seems to think a young boy who spends a lot of time with the old man is in danger. She says he shouldn’t be round there so much…”
David interrupted “Is she known to us – the mother of this young boy? Benefits and such like”?
“No”, Shirley said, shaking her head. “The boy’s mother hasn’t claimed a penny in our area”.
“That’s a good start”.
Shirley nodded and continued. “Sour, stroke Tracey Furnella, have got it in their heads that Joe watches out for the kids for ulterior motives. Yes, I know. It sounds ridiculous”.
“Go on”, David urged.
“And here’s the really ugly bit. Sour says that she has been given a signed letter by Ms Furnella, who made the actual complaint”.
She then handed the two-page document over to David. It read
“Dear persons at the Council,
“I regret to inform you that one of our neighbours has been showing characteristics of a sinister nature. Although I have no hard proof, after my daughter spending time in this person’s house, she has developed extreme anxiety, including wetting the bed and coming out in rashes. This person lives at number 74 Shepherd Road and he sits outside his house in his chair every day, leering at the children as they make their way home from school. I understand that this will have to be a police matter, though I would appreciate if you could keep my daughter out of it as she has been through enough already”.
David turned the page to see the signature of Tracey Furnella on a totally separate page. Shirley had a look on her face as if to say “How the hell do we ignore that”! But to her surprise, David just laughed.
“Have you ever seen anything quite so pathetic”, he said. “I mean, just look at it. The signature doesn’t even relate to what's said on the previous page. If it did, it would be at the bottom of the first page. Sour could have gotten that from anywhere or told her anything to get it. Do we know this Tracey Furnella, by the way”?
Shirley went on to explain that Tracey was a single mother, who had been on benefits all her life.
“I’ve already checked. She applied for a crisis loan recently - a pair of new glasses for her daughter. Seems she hasn’t paid it back, nor has she paid back the one from before that”.
“I remember that one now. We had the world and his wife in that week applying for ‘crisis loans’, didn’t we! Funny how everyone had a crisis when U2 decided to put on a concert, isn’t it”, smirked David. “Seriously though, Shirley, as pathetic as it is, we’re still between a rock and a hard place on this one and you know what we’re supposed to do, don’t you”?
“Oh David, please. Not the police”, Shirley said in a desperate voice.
“Don’t worry! I’d rather lose my job before I did that”.
David knew full well the implications that this could have. On one hand, it would be putting an old war hero through the indignities of being arrested and having his name ruined, regardless of the outcome. On the other hand, he had the prospect of Sour going to the newspapers with the allegations. If she told them the Council insisted in sitting on its hands when she had given incontrovertible evidence of an old man doing unsavory things to children, it would soon explode. It was the papers that scared David the most. He was only too well aware of how the press loved a good old witch-hunt.
Ordinary people were fed up to the back teeth with the system protecting the identities of pedophiles. If they even got a whiff of where one might be living, the end result could be a real tragedy and it was always those who were innocent who suffered most of all. The papers would crucify the council – and especially David and Shirley – but if they went to the police and got it wrong by blaming an innocent man, they would be hung out to dry, as a means to appease the masses. In short, they were damned if they did and they damned if they didn’t.
Sally Sour felt triumphant. She was amazed at how angry Shirley appeared to be with Joe, (even though it was Sally that Shirley was angry with) and how easily everything was falling into place. She did have one moment’s worry about it getting out of control but she reassured herself that God would take care of everything. After all, she ran her own church and that would put God on her side. If one could actually ask God her opinion on the matter, she would say that the woman was unknown to him, due to a lack of genuine righteousness.
David stood and stretched his back. “It’s nearly quitting time, so there’s not much more we can do today. I suggest we keep this one to ourselves and see what we can come up with in the morning”.
The next morning dawned bright and sweet. Neither David, nor Shirley had been able to sleep much the night before, as the case weighed heavy on their minds. Yet David came into the office whistling and with a spring in step, while a rather tired and yawning Shirley followed soon after.
“Glad to someone got a good night's sleep,” Shirley said through another yawn whilst making her way to the coffee machine.
“Hardly slept a wink, actually, but I must say,
I feel much better than you look,”
David said in a teasing way. With a hot cup of coffee in hand, he made his way back toward his office and Shirley followed. “I think I may just have a solution to the Joe Sadsoul case! It came to me when I was eating my cornflakes. Guess my mind was still working on it while I was busy not sleeping”.
While Shirley settled herself in to one of the chairs facing the desk, David started laying out his all-angles-covered master plan.
“Okay. First, we need to send a letter to Joe asking him if he would mind watching out for the kids from his front room window. We’d do it very apologetically, of course. We’ll say it’s down to health and safety reasons seeing that everyone’s going on about that these days. It’s not brilliant, but it will buy us some time to get to the bottom of what Sour has against him.
In the meantime, we’ll have a chat with Tracey Furnella to check the validity of this letter - and I think we both know what the answer to that one will be. If she no longer sees Joe in his chair outside the house, Sour will think something is getting under way, and that will stop her going to the papers. Once we get the truth from Tracey Furnella, we can send another apologetic letter to Joe saying that the council has had a change of heart and that it’s not a problem after all”.
“That sounds good, but what about Sour?” Shirley enquired.
“That one’s easy,” he said reassuringly. “Because she is a volunteer, we tell her that the council cutbacks mean we can no longer afford the insurance for unwaged volunteers, so she’ll have to give up her post. Regrettably of course,” he added with a smile. “It doesn’t make real sense, but what is there in politics that does make sense these days”?
“I’d like to lock her up and throw away the key”, Shirley said as she sipped her coffee.
“You and me both, but it will be her word against Tracey’s, so there’s no way it would stand up in court. Besides, pressing charges could only aggravate the situation. We’ll keep the letter on file and only use it against her if we have to. There’s no point throwing away our ace card at this stage”.
“David”?
“Yes Shirley”?
“Have I ever told you how amazing you are”?
“Not nearly enough”, he said with cheeky grin.
Shirley stood up to leave. “Oh, and before I start typing these letters, I’ve got something for you”. Shirley handed him a packet of twelve thirteen-amp fuses.
David looked puzzled. “Uhh, thank you Shirley. How did you know I wanted fuses – let’s say as opposed to a new Ferrari”?
“It’s for the six kettles we have sitting in the corner. You’re not the world’s unluckiest person when it comes to buying kettles. We’ve been having power surges. Kelly Fincham’s had the same problem down in HR,” said Shirley, as she went out through the office door.
“Blooming fuses! Why didn’t I think of that?” David asked himself, shaking his head.
Joe wasn’t angry about the letter but more upset than anything. He quietly wondered what the world was coming to. "All I want to do is make sure the kids get home from school safely and now I’m not allowed to do that because the council deems it to be unsafe,” he scoffed. Joe reasoned with himself that he would only have done his job for another two weeks anyway. Charlie was moving up to the bigger school next term and perhaps the universe wanted him to retire early.
He put his disappointment in humanity away in the shed with his fold up chair and left them both there. He looked back and thought of all the children's faces he had come to know over the years and how he had seen so many of them grow up. He made up his mind to pop round and see Betty later, but before that he’d make himself a salmon sandwich and drink a glass of celebratory whisky to mark his ‘retirement.
“You don’t have to worry about coming straight home today. If you want to hang about with your friends for a bit that’s fine by me,” said Tracey.
“Thanks, mum,” Nettie said enthusiastically with a smile on her face that almost went from ear to ear.
“Just make sure you’re home by four thirty”.
Nettie gave her mum a big hug and said, “Don’t worry, I won’t be late”.
Charlie was waiting for Nettie out front. They had fallen into the habit of walking to and from school together.
“Hurry up, Nets, we’re going to be late,” Charlie smiled, while Nettie was putting the last of her books in her bag. Together, they hurried to catch up with the rest of the Three C crew and made their way to school.
As it was, Charlie ended up leaving school early that particular day. Angela had picked him up before his last class so they could go to the hospital to see Joe. He had been rushed there late the night before with a bad bout of food poisoning.
Joe was as white as a sheet when the pair popped into his room, but he still managed a great big smile for them both and sat up in the bed. The last time he’d felt this bad was just after he returned from the POW camp after the war. Everyone was so happy to see him alive, though thin as a stick, and Betty had given him a tin of salmon to help ‘fatten him up’. But after months of being starved and underfed in the German camp, Betty's salmon ended up being too rich for Joe’s stomach to handle and he’d become very sick as a result.
“Joe!” Charlie exclaimed, as he ran straight to Joe’s side and gave him a big hug. Joe did his best to return the gesture and gave Angela a wink as she walked toward the bed.
“He’ll be in for another few days, I think,” the nurse told Angela, as she came to check on Joe. “Are you his daughter”?
“Niece”, replied Angela with her fingers crossed.
“You can stay until visiting hours are up at eight o’clock”.
“Thank you”, replied Angela. “And thanks for taking such good care of my favorite uncle”. She winked at Joe as she said this.
“Are you coming with us, Nets”? Carl asked Nettie. She was sitting on the grass bank next to the steps leading out of the school.
“No. I’m going to sit here for a bit, but thanks Carl”, Nettie replied with a content smile on her face.
“Okay, we’ll see you tomorrow then”, Carl replied, as he turned to make his way down Daisy Lane with his friend, Chris.
For the first time ever, Nettie didn’t have to belt home and she was going to savour every minute of it.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
NETTIE WANDERS OFF
“Be careful what you ask for because you might just get it.” ~ Tracey Furnella
Mrs Dot was the last one to leave the school that day, not relishing the thought of the large pile of books she had to mark that evening.
“Shouldn’t you be on your way home, Nettie”? Mrs Dot asked with genuine concern.
“No, it’s alright Mrs Dot. I don't have to be home until 4.30”.
Tracey Furnella was feeling pleased with herself. She was sitting in her front room watching one of the children’s television programmes that Nettie always loved. She had always moaned about these programmes in the past, calling them ‘silly childish nonsense’. It had never dawned on her that the makers of the programmes inserted a fair amount of adult humour into the shows and she found herself now quite enjoying this particular programme. Tracey made a mental note that she wanted sit down and watch the telly with Nettie every now and again from here on.
As the last programme finished, the announcement for the six o’clock news came on and Tracey suddenly realised that Nettie still wasn't home yet. Her initial reaction was one of anger. “For Christ’s sake! Give ‘em an inch and they take a blooming mile”, she ranted and lit a menthol cigarette.
As she went to grab her coat, she could feel the anger of the old days rearing its ugly head again as she felt herself slipping back into the ‘old Tracey’. She then remembered the words Joe had said to her at Nettie’s party, that if she ever got really angry with Nettie - before she did anything - she should count to 10 and then make the decision about what she was going to do. Tracey was furious, but she decided to give it
a go. By the time she counted to four the anger had gone. She was amazed. Such a simple little technique, but it worked. She calmed herself down and thought through the situation, deciding upon an approach of firm but fair punishment and explaining how worried she was. It was the first time that Tracey had realised how nice it was to be nice.
Tracey made her way down Daisy Lane, but there weren’t any children playing there and there was no sign of Nettie either. Tracey figured Nettie must have gone into the allotments. Lots of children liked to mess about at the allotments. They weren’t supposed to, but they still did it. She had a look at the allotments but she couldn’t see anything. Tracey went up and down calling for Nettie but to no avail. The day's light was starting to fade and the street lamps were starting to flicker on. Tracey never realised that she'd actually been out for three hours and she had looked everywhere. The only places left were at home, at Charlie’s or at Joe’s.
The Game of Shepherd and Dawse Page 14