Bedfordshire Clanger Calamity

by steve higgs

  His own bark of excitement was echoed by one from Hans just a few yards behind. Rex turned his head to steal a quick look. His little friend was running for all he was worth. The bandage on his foot was half off now, and as Rex turned his head back to the front, he thought he saw it fly off into the weeds. They had reached the edge of the concreted area and were now on overgrown scrubland. The weeds and brambles, which must have grown rampant through the summer, were now dying back. They slowed Rex down more than Hans who was able to go under most of them while Rex was forced to go over.

  Ahead of them, Francis was running in a blind panic. From the jaws of victory, he was somehow not only snatching defeat, but he was also going to get mauled by the dog and then arrested. He needed the machete. With that he could at least defend himself against the enormous hound. There hadn’t been time to grab it though. At least, that was how it seemed at the time, but now he had to question if he had simply panicked. Maybe he should have taken the machete and killed the dog right there and then. It would have dealt with the issue. Then he could have vented his frustration at the old man and left without anyone knowing.

  His scrambled brain had forgotten the police would have caught him trying to leave, but as his laboured breath threatened to overwhelm him, a glimmer of hope appeared.

  There was a river ahead!

  It wasn’t a big one, but it was big enough. The dogs wouldn’t be able to follow, and if they did, he could already see the far bank was too steep for them to clamber up. He was just going to have to jump for it and hope for the best.

  He stole a glance over his shoulder, then wished he hadn’t for both the giant German Shepherd and the daft sausage dog came bursting through the undergrowth ten yards behind him. Could he make it to the river before they brought him down?

  Rex bared his teeth; this was it! He was two bounds away from leaping and could think of nothing other than bringing down his target, just like they taught him back at police dog school. Hans was barking something, but Rex’s head was too filled with adrenalin to make out what it was. It sounded like he was trying to get Rex to stop.

  Francis closed to within a yard of the river and leapt.

  Behind him, Hans, who couldn’t make Rex hear his message, ran directly between the larger dog’s feet, tangling them deliberately to bring him down.

  While Rex crashed to the dirt, colliding painfully with the ground, and rolling multiple times, Francis had a brief moment to savour victory. Then his eyes widened as he sailed out over the water and saw what was beneath him.

  ‘What the heck, Hans!’ barked Rex, trying to get back to his feet so he could follow the man. He couldn’t believe it, he just couldn’t. He was just about to leap when the dachshund tripped him. It had to be on purpose. Shoving off again to get to the water’s edge so he could see the man and choose where to jump in, he stopped and let his jaw drop.

  Between heavy panting, Hans managed to say, ‘I couldn’t come up with another way to stop you. I know this area. My human likes to walk along the river. There’s a path on the other side.’

  Three yards beneath them, the limp form of Francis lay half in and half out of the water. Protruding from his back, where it had penetrated his chest, but also through his neck, one arm, and both legs, were the rusted spikes of several old shopping trolleys. He was impaled and very, very dead.

  Constable Marin arrived a few seconds later, whistling for the dogs in that ridiculous way that humans do. The dogs were still staring down into the murky water which made it easy for the police officer to find the man she wanted to question. When he leapt from his red Mondeo and ran from them, it was obvious that he had something he needed to hide. When the duct tape clad man appeared from the boot, chasing, and catching him became an imperative. That imperative was gone now.

  A crashing sound behind her heralded the arrival of her partner Patterson just as she was lifting her lapel radio to call dispatch: this was going to take some additional people and resources.

  Evidence

  Sitting on the bonnet of the police car, Albert replayed the recording. Back at the café, a young trainee baker named Colin had shown Albert how to use his phone to make a recording. It was far simpler than he expected, and the lad had then produced a set of headphones and demonstrated how to connect them to be used as a microphone. In essence, Albert had created a wiretap to capture everything Francis said. He played it back for Victor and Constable Marin now with a satisfied smile.

  When it got to the part where Francis confessed to the murder of Joel Clement and swore that Kate Harris had no involvement, Albert asked, ‘Could you please pass this information on to Detective Sergeant Craig. I am sure he will find it pertinent.’

  The young female officer had to show Albert how to transfer the file to her phone, but once she had it, the message that Kate Harris was indeed innocent, quickly passed up the line.

  When she returned from the river’s edge, she’d brought Rex and Hans with her. The dachshund was limping again, the wound on his foot open and bleeding once more, but he seemed to care not one jot. Rex had a cut to his right ear, another to a front paw and a small piece of glass embedded in his right flank. He winced in a high-pitched way when Albert found the source of the blood and pulled it free, but it wasn’t deep enough to require treatment. He gave it a lick until it stopped bleeding.

  Patterson had volunteered to go down to the body and confirm he was really dead and not somehow clinging grimly to life. Now back on the bank, and soaked from the thighs down, he waited for the coroner’s team to arrive.

  Victor was out of the duct tape and cable ties, careful use of the razor-sharp machete setting him free, but now they were bound in a different way – bound to answer questions and fill in all the blanks the police had.

  An hour after Francis crashed through the roller door, ran away, and leapt to his death, a chief inspector from Bedford arrived. He introduced himself as Chief Inspector Andy Carter, a short Caribbean man in his early fifties with a receding hairline. By the time he arrived, a team of crime scene guys were doing things to the Mondeo, photographers were taking pictures of the scene and chaps in wetsuits were in the river with the body.

  Albert and Victor were the centre of attention, as were the two dogs, but only because the chief inspector wanted to know what on Earth had been going on. Albert played the recording for him, the chief inspector listening quietly to that and to everything both men had to tell him. When they ran out of things to say, he wriggled his lips around a bit, totting up the factors in his head before asking, ‘So what is this all about then?’

  Albert and Victor both shrugged and the dogs would have done too if such a gesture meant anything to them.

  ‘He called you a high-value target,’ Chief Inspector Carter reminded Albert. ‘What does that mean?’

  Albert shrugged again. ‘I really wish I knew. Killing Joel Clement appears to be a planned and deliberate crime, but possibly one which came about after he was kidnapped, and they discovered he couldn’t bake. When he failed to do what they wanted, they came for Victor. Why anyone would be targeted for being able to bake a clanger, I have no idea.’

  ‘This is bizarre,’ the chief inspector commented while shaking his head.

  Albert could think of no better word.

  Cups of tea were delivered, and cheese sandwiches when they pointed out lunch had been and gone while they assisted the police in their enquiries. Statements were taken and the police had their contact numbers if they needed to get hold of either man again. Finally, they were free to go, but by then, hours had passed, the whole day slipping away in a boring manner which they were both fine by after the terrible excitement of ambush and kidnap.

  Neither dog had a collar, so Albert improvised with a cable tie which served as a kind of macabre memento of their ordeal. Hans was bandaged again, a cop producing a first aid kit but advising the dog really needed to see a vet to be treated properly. Victor carried him anyway; it wasn’t as if he weighed all that much.r />
  On their way to the café, Victor asked how soon Kate might be released.

  ‘If the police drop the charges? Straight away, I should think. If they accept the case against her has fallen apart, she isn’t convicted, so they have no right or reason to hold her.’

  Victor nodded. ‘That makes her the new owner of the Clanger Café. I doubt that will fill her with joy given the circumstances by which she comes by it, but it is good news for the staff and the business. I think we shall have to organise a swift homecoming; I think the staff need it as much as she does.’

  Albert nodded along. His adventure here was done. What the staff at the café might do and what might happen to the café in the future was not his business. In truth, he felt a little melancholy about it, but he wasn’t about to take a job to become a part of their journey or buy a house nearby so he could see if they now flourished.

  However, his belief that he was done, and his plan to shake Victor’s hand at the café and carry on his way, went out the window when April appeared in the street ahead of them.

  April

  She was getting out of a car thirty yards ahead of them and was in her suit again. Joining her was a middle-aged man, also wearing a suit, but one that was very much more expensive-looking and screamed legal professional at a high volume.

  Victor’s stride faltered, but only for a second, after which it began to quicken. April spotted him and smiled a cruel smile as she pushed her way through the café door to get inside.

  Victor rushed ahead, getting to the door ten seconds ahead of Albert and Rex. Rex pulled his human along when he saw where they were going. He’d had a busy day, and the café was a place he’d been given food twice already. It was getting close to dinner time, but he would happily fill in with a snack now.

  Albert didn’t need any more drama today, but he couldn’t leave Biggleswade without seeing this through. With a reluctant sigh, he pushed his way through the door in time to hear Victor’s cry echo out from the back offices.

  ‘Unfair dismissal! Are you insane?’

  Albert looked at Meredith, who was still working the front counter but now with a young woman he’d seen before, the one he thought was April’s grandniece, Shannon. A quick glance at her name badge revealed that to be the case, but his focus was on the voices drifting through to the customer area yet again.

  April’s angry retort could be heard by everyone in the café; customer and staff alike. ‘You see what I have had to put up with? The working conditions here are intolerable!’

  Without asking permission to do so, Albert lifted the loose piece of counter. ‘Hey, you can’t come back here,’ said Shannon, stepping up to stand in his way.

  Albert paused to give her a hard stare. It was one he got to practice and perfect through a long police career plus fatherhood. ‘I think, young miss, that you ought to come with me. This concerns you more than most.’ Without waiting for her response, he stepped around her and let Rex lead him into the back of the building.

  In the accountant’s office in the rear of the building, the lawyer was laying out copies of preliminary paperwork. The firm would now have to mount a defence against his client, he explained. Albert stepped up to the door just as Victor tried to explain that April hadn’t even been dismissed.

  ‘There’s no one here who can dismiss her,’ he complained. ‘She decided to take over and was trying to boss everyone around as if she owned the place.’

  ‘Have you heard of constructive dismissal?’ the lawyer asked. ‘There is more than sufficient evidence to demonstrate that my client was treated unfairly and subjected to treatment likely to force her to resign her post.’

  April shot Victor an evil grin and wagged a finger at him. ‘When I get finished here, I will own the place.’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  The response to her claim came from behind Albert but he didn’t need to turn around to know that Kate Harris was standing there: April’s slacked-jawed expression told him.

  ‘What are you doing here?’ April stammered. ‘You’re supposed to be in jail. Why aren’t you in jail?’

  Albert took a step to his right, coming farther into the room which allowed Kate to enter properly and, in turn, reveal DS Craig standing behind her.

  The detective gave Albert a stiff nod before addressing April’s question. ‘Miss Harris has been released and all charges against her dropped. I believe she is now the rightful owner of this business.’

  ‘Ha!’ shouted April. ‘You can just arrest her again right now for embezzlement. I was going to let this drop, but now you force my hand. She’s been fiddling the books for months, taking money here and there and covering it up with bad accounting.’

  Kate shook her head as her cheeks coloured. ‘You don’t want to do this, April.’

  April wore the smile of a shark coming up beneath a helpless bather as she relished the kill. ‘Oh, but I do, Kate Homewrecker-Criminal Lowlife-Scumbag-Gold Digging-Embezzler Harris. I’ve got you now and you won’t get away with it this time.’

  Albert decided it was time to speak. ‘I believe, April, that you have missed one or two critical factors.’

  All eyes swung his way as he took control of the room. ‘To begin with, if Kate is the business owner, she cannot commit embezzlement because it is her money.’ April’s smile froze in place and slowly fell away. ‘That’s fairly pertinent, one might say. More interesting though is that Kate didn’t take the money. Did you Kate?’ Albert asked, looking her way. ‘Someone else did and you were covering for them until they could put it back.’

  His final sentence was a statement, but it wasn’t aimed at Kate. Nor were his eyes, which were locked on someone else’s.

  A tear fell, and the person looked down at the floor. ‘I needed it just to feed the baby,’ Shannon cried.

  April looked shocked. ‘No!’ she said. ‘No, it can’t be you. It must be Kate.’

  ‘Why?’ asked Victor. ‘Because if it is Shannon and Kate has been covering for her, it makes her the good guy in this mess.’

  ‘And what does that make you, April?’ asked Kate, a vicious glare piercing the older woman to the spot.

  April’s head was so bright red it appeared to be glowing from within. Her anger was at an incandescent level but got even worse when her lawyer picked up his paperwork again. ‘You have deceived me Mrs Saunders. There is no case here at all.’

  ‘They forced me out!’ she bellowed.

  He snapped his briefcase shut with the papers inside and picked it up. Pausing before he moved to exit the room, he said, ‘I’m sure I would have done the same.’

  A beat of silence passed after the lawyer swept around April and out through the staff gathered to listen in the corridor outside. Then with a weary sigh, Kate said, ‘April, you’re fired.’

  April showed her gritted teeth, her breaths heaving in and out as she seethed with rage. Albert waited for her next torrent of abuse but instead she snatched up her handbag and wheeled toward the door. ‘Shannon, get your coat. You don’t work here anymore. We’ll not lower ourselves to their standard.’

  Shannon’s head, which had been shamefully facing the floor, snapped up to look first at her great-aunt and then at Kate. ‘Am I fired, Miss Harris?’ she begged to know.

  Kate shook her head. ‘No, Shannon. We’ll talk about the money in the morning and see if we can’t find you a role that pays a little more money. Maybe you might like to be the firm’s new accountant trainee.’

  April glared at everyone once more, a look that ought to have turned them all to stone if they lived in ancient Greece, but she left without another word and when the door slammed in its frame, a spontaneous cheer rang out.

  A line came to Albert’s mind: Ding dong the witch is dead. He kept it to himself though, and when people began to file out, he gave Rex’s improvised lead and collar a tug. Kate and Victor were hugging in the office, tears of joy falling from the new café owner’s face as relief, joy, and sadness mingled and overwhel
med her.

  A nudge to his arm turned out to be from Detective Sergeant Craig. He was facing Albert and holding out his hand to shake. ‘Well done, Mr Smith.’

  Albert knew this was the exact moment to rub the detective’s face in how wrong he’d been. However, Albert wouldn’t gain anything by doing so and that made it a petty act for a petty man. He gripped DS Craig’s hand tightly instead, and said simply, ‘Thank you.’

  ‘How did you know she was innocent?’ Craig asked, his forehead creased with curiosity as he waited for the answer.

  Albert gave him a half shrug. ‘It was in her eyes when you came to arrest her.’

  If the statement surprised the detective, he showed no sign. He nodded his understanding, let go of Albert’s hand, and left the office, presumably heading for the door.

  Seeing Victor and Kate were still babbling about all that had happened in the last few days, Albert followed the detective from the room and wound his way back into the café at the front of the building. He intended to let himself out and quietly walk away but Rex’s lead tugged in the wrong direction and he looked down to find his dog rubbing noses with the little dachshund.

  ‘It was good to make a friend,’ Rex admitted to Hans. ‘I rarely see other dogs and most of them are smaller than me and tend to bark in defence.’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Hans. ‘I guess I can see how that might happen.’ All his own false bravado had been because the larger dog intimidated him. ‘You’re going now?’

  ‘Looks that way. My human and me don’t live anywhere permanent now. Every few days, we move on to a new place. It’s good fun because everywhere we go, something is happening.’

  ‘That does sound fun,’ Hans agreed. ‘If you’re ever back this way …’

  ‘I’ll be sure to drop by,’ promised Rex.

  Behind the small dog, Kate appeared with Victor just behind her. ‘Albert were you just going to leave? I haven’t had a chance to thank you yet.’