I vaguely remembered it now. Hadn’t he been in some sort of disciplinary meeting at work that hadn’t gone well…? Yes! That was it! When he had been told that his appeal had failed, Gordon, in the words of the caller, had gone ‘bat-shit crazy’. Of all the shits, I’m not sure why bat shit is the craziest, but, based on seeing this gentleman in flagrante, clearly it was. He had already thrown a bin through the glass wall of the manager’s office, and when we arrived he had been in the process of clearing every single desk in the room with his feet before kicking over every workstation, sending papers and telephones flying. I remembered Gordon all too well. The name didn’t really suit the stocky man who was now standing in front of me – and it certainly didn’t suit the madman that we had fought on that day. In the end, it had taken three of us to overpower him, and even then it had been a case of dragging him out of the office still kicking and screaming.
“I know it probably doesn’t matter to you, but what I had actually said was: ‘glorious tits’ – not ‘Gloria’s tits’,” he added reflectively, “but either way, in the end I don’t think that really mattered to HR.”
As he stood up to his full height, still clutching the shovel in his big hands, I quietly slipped off the handbrake ready to accelerate away if he made any sudden moves.
“What’s the spade for, Gordon?” I asked tentatively. I decided to confront him here and now as the last thing I wanted was for him to go on a violent rampage around the streets of Sandford on Christmas morning.
“To clean up the squirrel you ran over,” he replied buoyantly. “Can’t leave that thing in the road for the kiddies to see!”
“Ah, yes, of course! Very public-spirited of you!” I breathed a sigh of relief.
“Well, Happy Christmas, Officer. I hope it’s a quiet one!”
I thanked him, returned his seasonal greetings and then slowly drove away. I was relieved that my head wasn’t going to be cleaved in two – at least not today, anyway – and not by Gordon. He’d said the Q word too, but, after being spared my life, that didn’t really bother me. It’s one of those old police myths: if someone says it’s going to be a quiet shift usually all hell breaks loose. I’ve never really believed in it myself, and was confident that the criminals of the town would give their illegal activities a rest for the remainder of the day. However, I had barely pulled out of the cul-de-sac when Comms were on the radio to say that they had an urgent job for me. Maybe there really was a Q-word curse!
A hysterical woman had rung in to report that something had been thrown through her window as part of a revenge attack. She had refused to say what the object was, but would show it to an officer on attendance. How bizarre! My mind raced as I thought of what it could possibly be: a brick, a paving slab, a tree branch, a toaster?
Five minutes later and I was looking at a small pool of diarrhoea on an upstairs windowsill.
“You mean to tell me that you think some unknown person has let himself into your back garden and, for want of a better word, thrown a sloppy poo all the way up to your bedroom; in through the small opening at the top of the window and it’s now landed on the inside sill?”
“Exactly that!”
Mrs Schrödinger, the householder, told me she had discovered this heinous act when opening the curtains this morning. I checked the inside of the curtain material and on the window itself but there were no signs of any other dubious ‘matter’ on either; or anywhere else in the pristine bedroom.
“This may be a long shot, Mrs Schrödinger, but do you have a cat?”
She nodded.
“Can I suggest that this may not be the evil doings of a madman intent on revenge, but rather the evil doings of a feline with a bad belly?”
“I know what you’re intimating, Officer, but you’re wrong. My cat would not debase himself! No, this is a revenge attack because of Samuel’s thieving.”
From the flush that had slowly crept up her neck and had now reached her lined cheeks, it was clear that the elderly lady was genuinely alarmed by the morning’s events.
“Look, I think I’d better talk to Samuel to try and get to the bottom of this.”
I was then led downstairs and into the conservatory where a large ginger tomcat was reclining on a rattan chair. He surveyed me nonchalantly through slitted green eyes, as though I was some kind of trained helper monkey there to attend his every whim.
“There you go!” declared the woman with a flourish.
After such an introduction, I felt I had to make some sort of effort to look interested in her pet. As I approached the animal our eyes locked, and I sensed this cat was setting me a challenge: ‘stroke my belly, but only I know the exact number I want – anymore and I’ll cut you!’. I thought better of it and resumed my position.
“Lovely cat, Mrs Schrödinger, but it’s Samuel I need to see.”
“That, dear boy, IS Samuel.”
“The thief?”
“The very same!” she confirmed, drawing my attention to a large pile of items which overflowed from several boxes in the corner. I knelt down and began pulling some of them out. I had soon amassed quite a collection: a gardening glove, a pair of pink silk knickers, a single slipper, a face flannel, a baby’s small cloth dinosaur, running shorts and a cuddly toy. Didn’t he do well!
The very amiable – if not a little highly strung – Mrs Schrödinger told me how Samuel seemed to take the role of hunter-gatherer that one step further. Whilst some cats leave a gift of a dead mouse or bird on their owner’s doorstep, Samuel, she confided, frequently returned home with a variety of items that he had pilfered from houses in the surrounding neighbourhood. In fact, I recognised some of the items as having been reported stolen under mysterious circumstances. I was looking at a box full of unsolved crimes… and it appeared that I had also found the culprit.
Luckily for Samuel, we’ve come a long way since the Middle Ages: in those dark times all manner of creatures, from pigs to caterpillars, were put on trial for a variety of offences ranging from murder to obscenity. And these were anything but kangaroo courts as the trials were conducted with gravitas, with evidence being heard on both sides and witnesses called. In many cases, the animals were even granted a form of legal aid, with a lawyer being appointed at the taxpayer’s expense. Records show a pig hanged for murder, sparrows prosecuted for chirruping in church, a cockerel burnt at the stake for laying an egg and rats charged with criminal damage. The rodents, however, failed to attend their trial, which left their embarrassed barrister having to make his apologies to the judge. A donkey was even charged with being complicit in acts of bestiality, but, fortunately, the local priest was willing to be a good character witness and stated that it was: ‘the best ass he’d ever had’. As a result, Eeyore was let off with a warning.
I thought it best not to go into the detail of these animal trials with Mrs Schrödinger. Instead I informed her that I wouldn’t be taking Samuel into custody just yet, but that he shouldn’t go anywhere in case I needed to speak to him later. She gave me a look that told me she wasn’t entirely sure whether I was being serious or not and I returned that look with one that gave nothing away.
“I try and return things if I can work out where they’ve come from, but for most of the items I haven’t got a clue,” she explained in mitigation, her fingers worrying at one of the pleats on her navy tartan skirt as she spoke. “Maybe I should put a little camera on his collar to find out where he’s been?”
“I’m not sure that’s such a good idea,” I countered.
I had heard about a few experiments where a camera had been attached to a cat and, unfortunately, most had ended in disaster. It had revealed how much time cats spend just sitting on window ledges and staring into people’s houses… and that’s where the problems started.
When one set of footage was reviewed it showed that Mrs X from number 22 was more than a little friendly with Mr Y from number 23, and that Mr Z, who lived in the bungalow around the corner, now had a new girlfriend who was inflatab
le… After such sordid revelations the project was shut down for good.
They should have learnt from the CIA who had tried to use cats for spying during the Cold War; after all, who would suspect that as you held your discreet meeting in the park with your spymaster, the innocuous cat strolling nearby was actually recording your every word? Over $25 million was spent on project Acoustic Kitty; devising and implanting a battery and microphone inside a cat and turning his tail into an antenna. Unfortunately, they couldn’t control his road sense, and on his very first mission he was run over by a taxi on his way to the job. The entire programme was then hastily abandoned. Yet the search to harness the power of the cat continues – but to date, no one seems to have had any success. Our feline friends just continue to do exactly what they want, when they want and where they want and usually showing you their asshole in the process.
I informed Mrs Schrödinger that I would be taking Samuel’s haul back to the police station where I could go through it in detail and try to identify where it had all come from. In the meantime, I told her, I wouldn’t crime the windowsill poop as a revenge attack as I still believed Samuel to be the culprit. I advised her that she was now free to clean the mess up as I wouldn’t be taking samples for analysis and DNA testing. These CSI programmes really do have a lot to answer for!
I also told her to have a word with Samuel about drugs. Well, if the owner won’t talk to their cat about catnip, who will?
“Give your pussy a little tickle from me,” I called back to her as I got into the car, and then, realising what I had said, quickly shut the door and sped off before she had a chance to answer.
I arrived back at the station with an armful of stolen booty and began reviewing all the unsolved thefts from the last six months to see if I could marry them up with my goods. Gradually, one by one and case by case, I was able to link missing items to the exhibits laid out before me. After three or four hours, the majority of the items were accounted for. It was now my turn to play Santa as I rang each of the victims, apologising for disturbing them on Christmas Day, to give them the glad tidings.
It felt good to be able to finish the year on a high note. I allowed myself to bask in the moment as it’s not every day in this job that you get to make lots of people happy – that’s usually the job of the oldest profession in the world, although there may be some competition to retain that accolade: it seems that criminals come first – if being a crook can be called a profession, and prostitutes come a close second. Crime has been with us since Adam and Eve, and even God didn’t have the solution to it (although perhaps he ought to have put the apple on a higher branch so that it was harder to reach).
Gwen came in to see me just as I was finishing up. I told her that there was one particular used toy whose owner I hadn’t been able to find. Before I could elaborate any further, she informed me that she would take it to the church playgroup when it reopened after the holidays, as they were always grateful for toys.
“They call them pre-loved nowadays – not used,” she added.
“To be honest, I don’t think they’ll want this,” I began to explain but it was too late as Gwen had already delved into the box and was fishing it out.
“Oh my good God!” she exclaimed, quickly throwing it back in again. “You never told me it was a used adult toy!”
“Pre-loved, Gwen,” I corrected her as she quickly ran to the toilet to wash her hands. “It’s a pre-loved toy.”
I then headed back to see Mrs Schrödinger to update her on the investigation and to tell her that, despite her protestations, I was still convinced that there was a more reasonable explanation to the mystery of the liquid poop than a revenge attack. When I arrived, I informed her that I had reunited most of the stolen belongings with their rightful owners before once again enquiring about her feline’s health. Mrs Schrödinger, however, remained insistent that the mess she had found on the bedroom windowsill had been hurled there by some criminal, and wasn’t down to her animal. All the while, Mr Schrödinger had stood behind his wife, rolling his eyes in an exaggerated fashion and emphatically shaking his head as she vehemently asserted her claim. There was no more I could say to convince or appease her, so I bid her goodbye. As her husband led me through the kitchen I noticed something on the Aga.
“It looks like those vigilantes have a pretty impressive throw,” I remarked to him.
“Margot!” he bellowed through to the lounge, “That bloody cat of yours has done a shit in the frying pan!”
“And a Merry Christmas to you, Mr Schrödinger!” I smiled cheerfully before letting myself out of the back door.
Police, Arrests & Suspects Page 28