Ethelbert's Sunday Morning

by Marcus Freestone

more would be enough. He applied himself anew with a vigour normally found only among thirty year old Polish virgins.

  "I hope I never see another toilet as long as I live," he thought, before realising that this would make life rather difficult, not to say...

  Eventually he had the toilet requisittttt. With more care than a nun drowning gerbils, he let them fall into a polythene bag and sealed it against further contamination, tampering or communist subterfuge.

  Emerging blinkingly and sarcastically into the vibrant sunshine, Peter Talbot took in a lungfull of air - his other lung was busy with the crossword.

  "All done, sir?" inquired Sergeant Johnson.

  Inspector Talbot nodded.

  They headed off in search of their unmarked car as a junior officer pulled up his trousers and removed the barrier of police tape that had prevented members of the public from entering the convenience and interrupting Talbot's work by pissing on his head.

  The crossed the road, which was futile as the road wasn't catholic, and got into the car. Inspector Talbot held up the polythene bag for inspection. Turning on the heater full blast he dried out the contents. In the unrelenting heat, Johnson fanned himself with a small orphan.

  Talbot reached into his inside pocket and produced a packet of rizzlas. Johnson watched with his usual level of distaste as his superior dug the tobacco from the dog-ends with a match and began to roll up. Opening the sunroof, he lit the urine flavoured cigarette and inhaled deeply.

  "Right, now we'll go and investigate that murder."

  Johnson sighed with relief and replaced the orphan in the glove compartment. As he accelerated away the car was filled with the smell of burning urine. Talbot coughed, spraying the windscreen with phlegm. Johnson turned on the wipers but they made no difference.

  "Stop at the station on the way," said Talbot, "there's something I have to do first."

  Talbot sat at his desk picking his teeth. He reached for the phone and dialled.

  "Hello, can you deliver today? Good." he looked down at the brochure on his desk. "Yes, I'll have one molar and three incisors."

  He hung up and smiled. Tomorrow he would pick his nose, providing the new brochure from California had arrived. He opened a desk drawer and stroked his beard - it purred gently. He dropped in some food and a fresh batch of straw and closed the drawer.

  Glancing up at the ceiling, he wondered why flies always went around light bulbs in a triangular flight path.

  "Can't you see it's round, you've got enough eyes," he shouted at the geometrically challenged insect. "What can they be teaching them in borstal these days?"

  A knock at the door interrupted his thoughts as surely as Sian Lloyd always tells us it's going to rain.

  "Come in."

  "I'm sorry, sir, it's this murder," said Johnson.

  "Another!" exclaimed Talbot. "How many's that now?"

  "One."

  "One! And it's only November - damn this hell-hole of a town!"

  "It's July, sir."

  "Never mind that, what about this murder?"

  "It's a man. He's been blinded, decapitated, set on fire, harpooned and eviscerated. Probably a domestic."

  "Well done, Sergeant, we'll make a Constable of you yet. Come and help me tie my shoelaces."

  "I can't, the door won't open."

  "Use the handle."

  Johnson opened the door.

  "That was fun, I'll do that next time. Are you ready?"

  "In a minute, I've got to hear the results."

  He switched on the radio.

  And as they approach the finish line it's Nicholas Parson's Indigestion Remedy in the lead having just overtaken a horse. Not far behind in this congested smorgasboard of horses are Where Have All The Flowers Gone, Cartesian Dualism, Newton's Gay Laboratory Assistant, Frozen Caravan Gas Bottle, Peter Mandleson's Lucky Moustache Comb and Portugese Arse paper. Labour Election Promise was, of course, a non-starter.

  Talbot switched off the radio.

  "Any luck, sir?"

  "No," he sighed, "my money was on Ronnie O'Sullivan."

  "So, what was the cause of death?"

  Johnson looked down at the man lying on the living room carpet, the samurai swords still in embedded in his legs and the pneumatic drill in his back.

  "Hard to say, he could have tripped over a rug."

  "Right, I'm going upstairs."

  "Why, sir, forensic have already done the whole house?"

  "I know, I just want to get away from this fucking corpse."

  He left the room and ascended the stairs fourteen at a time.

  "This sort of case chills me to the core of my apple," he muttered.

  After a difficult few minutes wedged in the airing cupboard, Talbot finally found the toilet.

  "That's a relief," he sighed, taking out his tobacco.

  Ten minutes later, Johnson handcuffed the dead man's wife and lead her out of the front door.

  "But how did you know it was me?" she asked.

  "Well," said Johnson, "if I go into the whole exposition routine then this will cease to be a short story, won't it?"

  He lead her down the path, nodding to Talbot who was leaning on the gate post smoking a cigarette.

  "Jesus," said the woman, "what's that smell?"

  LIKE FATHER

  “Piss off mum, I'm thirteen not three.” I slammed the door in her face and returned to my laptop. School's for gypos and mental cases.

  Lighting another spliff, I logged onto facebook. The best thing about finding out last year that I had a half-brother was that he can get proper strong dope really cheap - and he got me this Macbook for forty quid. Gettin' phones and money and shit off people is piss easy but you gotta be clever to get someone's laptop without them seein' you. Unless you get a gun and that's too much hassle. Look at all the trouble dad got for shootin' those people; I ain't doin' time, no way.

  “Tea's ready, come and eat your greens.”

  “I'm not eating no veg, mum. I've had fruit pastels, some of them's green.”

  “Wait till Trevor gets home.”

  “Fuck him, he ain't my real dad. He touches me I'll call the pigs.”

  Ha, Smithy's goin' to see Take That tonight – what a twat!

  What's Phil up to? New tatoo, cool.

  And what about Jenny? Lieing bitch, I never done that.

  New message.

  What the fuck? Who's that from? I don't know them. An anonymous tip off? Surely it can't be true.

  Then I seen it. The post from a few hours ago. The photo of my dad standing outside the prison gates giving the thumbs up. That parole board must have been more gullable than Tracey Watkins. I wonder if mum knows, she hasn't said? I 'spose he'll come here eventually. I wonder if he'll bring me a decent present?

  'Course he doesn't know me at all now. I didn't have dreads and a wicked diamond studded earring when I was two. He never got me nothing.

  What do you want Trev? And don't ever come in without knocking again you dirty perv.

  “Turn that racket down, please.”

  “It's not a racket, it's Public Enemy – I'm doin' you a favour and bringin' you the noize.”

  “We've just had a call from the police. Your father has been released.”

  “Yeah, I know, so what?”

  “So we'd better leave in case he shows up here.”

  “Don't be such a wimp.” I reached into my school bag and took out my best knife. “If he kicks off I'll just cut him a bit, no worries.”

  “Margaret, what's all that commotion?”

  Oh good, cardigan man has fucked off.

  “Oi, who the... oh, hello, dad.”

  INTO THE CAVE

  I was the first to pass the test and go through the cave entrance, the rest of our party were held up. The interior of the cave was dimly lit and there appeared to be a few indigenous occupants. In the corner was a rectangular structure covered in thin grass with 6 holes around the edge and some small, multicoloured spherical objects roamin
g around on the surface. Some natives were gathered around it and pointing at a small pile of flat, shiny, silver objects on the edge of the rectangle. This appeared to be part of some primitive ritual.

  I threaded my way through, careful not to disturb the ritual or brush against any of the plumage emenating from some of the natives; some form of local head dress no doubt.

  I handed over three gold coins to a highway robber in exchange for a beaker of black liquid and found a space on the ledge next to the cave wall. Subterranean as it was, I still wasn't expecting quite so much liquid to be running down the walls of the cave; it made the distinct lack of oxygen even more pronounced.

  After several days waiting for my companions, I was forced to remove myself to small, even damper, sub-cave for three quarters of a minute to perform a necessary biological function. Upon my return to the ledge I found my section now mysteriously occupied by an unknown party of orange-faced creatures who really didn't belong in this type of cave. One of them was sitting on my jacket, the ignorant bitch.

  I retrieved my jacket and tied it around my waist, for to wear it around my torso would mean instant death from heat exhaustion. Eventually, after parting with a distressingly large number of further gold coins for very little psychopharmacological benefit, my companions arrived. Three of them were suitably short for such an environment, but one was far too tall and in danger of decapitation from the roof of the cave. I had to force a path through the natives to allow the short ones access to the rear of the cave.

  By this time conversation among the increasingly restless natives was becoming almost impossible, so we retreated to the far end of the cave near a small passageway that provided the only clear air in the place, along with a mysterious door that promised so much freedom yet failed to deliver. It's