Horse's Arse (10 page)

    'Listen,
Lisa,' he began hesitantly, 'I'd like to do something different next time we
get together.'

    'Oh
yes?' she said naughtily.

    He
laughed. 'No, not like that. I'd like to spend some time with you. You know, go
out for a drink or a meal or something like that. Anything really, just spend
some time together, get to know each other properly. Do you want to do that?
Could you get away in the evenings?'

    She
didn't reply immediately, but looked at him, searching his face.

    'I'm
sorry, I shouldn't have asked you that. I'm getting ahead of myself,' he said
apologetically. He began to get dressed and she retrieved her dressing gown.

    'Are
you being serious?' she said finally.

    'Forget
it, it doesn't matter. I was out of order.' Bovril fastened his belt.

    'It
does. I just need to know that you're not taking me for a ride. I know I'm not
the first girl you've had. For all I know you may be off to visit another one
now. But yes, I'd like to do that as well. I can get away in the evenings.'

    Bovril
paused. 'I can't explain how or why I feel the way I do about you. I only know
that I want more. Much, much more.'

    'Alan
spends most of his evenings getting drunk with his mates at the snooker club,'
she said. 'Tell me when and I'll be ready.'

    'Deal,'
said Bovril. 'I really want to see you again, and away from here.'

    'OK.'
She smiled, straightening his jacket and clip-on tie. 'Call me soon.'

    He
held her close and whispered, 'I will, I promise.'

    They
walked in silence to the kitchen door, which she opened slightly so she could
peek out. 'Seems all clear.'

    He
kissed her on the forehead. 'Soon,' he said and began to walk down the path.

    'David,'
she called quietly. He turned back and raised his eyebrows questioningly.
'Nothing,' she said hesitantly. 'Just take care, OK?'

    'I
will, I promise,' he said again, before turning and hurrying away down the
path.

    Psycho
Sean was one of the last of the Relief to leave the nick. Straight after Muster
he had raced up to the third floor and the corridor occupied by the
sub-divisional commander and his deputy. The main man, Chief Inspector Pat
Gillard, was a coiffured, bone idle, permatanned old fart who wanted a quiet
life and dreamed of his retirement, which he had only postponed until a
cushier, better paid job in civvy street turned up. His interest in his job
amounted to a big fat zero, and he delegated pretty much everything to his
deputy, Inspector Hilary Bott. She was a different proposition altogether, and
in Psychos eyes epitomised everything that was wrong with the job. For a start
she was a woman, hopelessly over-promoted and looking to make a name for
herself. Hilary Bott was an extraordinarily unattractive woman in her late
forties. She was chubbily overweight with pasty, blotchy white skin and teeth
resembling polished plywood tombstones. She cut her mousy blond hair herself
with a manly side parting and consequently bore an uncanny resemblance to Rosa
Klebb of
From Russia With Love
fame. She had the sex appeal of a pile of
damp towels. She had been sent to Horse's Arse on promotion, having spent the
absolute minimum of time on operational duties, and with a brief from the
hierarchy to throw her not inconsiderable weight around. Hard enough to do with
a few years under your belt, but virtually impossible if you hadn't a clue how
police officers operated on a day to day basis, especially at Horse's Arse.

    She'd
got off to a shocking start during her first week when she'd rebuked Sergeant
Tucker, a grizzled thirty-year veteran, who'd failed to rise from a chair and
show due deference to her rank. He'd put an arm round her shoulders and said
firmly, 'Listen, darling, as long as you've got a hole in your arse, I'm only
ever going to regard you as a fucking nuisance.' She'd reported him to Gillard
who'd promised to deal with him and then promptly put the incident from his
mind. He had far more important things to do, like arranging his retirement
cruise. Tucker continued to make her life a misery, constantly referring to her
as 'Cupcake' whenever he saw her. She vowed to get her revenge on the horrible
old bastard. Unfortunately she hadn't a clue how to.

    Psycho
had taken an instant dislike to her. She had an emasculated husband tucked away
at home, but Psycho was convinced that was merely a cover for her true sexual
preference. 'She's got to be a fucking lesbian. How could anyone fuck anything
that ugly?' he regularly asked. Even Bovril had to admit that she was on a list
of five women he could never shag. She was third behind Golda Meir and Piggy's
wife. Psycho had begun to wage a psychological war against her, starting by
defacing the stream of pompous memos emanating from her office and graduating
to circulating a totally bogus one demanding that all male officers expose
their genitals to her instead of saluting when they met her on the rare
occasions she was out patrolling the ground. Psycho had also noticed the
similarity with Rosa Klebb of SPECTRE and produced some surprisingly
professional 'Wanted' posters of Klebb with Bott's head superimposed which had
appeared around the nick. Klebb's memorable and sinister words 'He seems fit
enough' soon began to appear added to all her memos, real and bogus, and became
a catch phrase amongst officers at the nick who would greet each other with it.
So popular did it become that Gillard had begun to try to slip it into any
conversation he had with her as a bit of a personal challenge.

    For
the last two mornings, Psycho had crept into her office using the spare key
from Enquiries, and had a huge, smelly crap in her toilet, which he didn't
flush. Bott had nearly vomited on entering the room yesterday. She'd rushed
into Gillard's office and dragged him back to show him.

    'Jesus
Christ, Hilary,' Gillard had said, his eyes watering, you'd better see a
doctor. That thing's got veins in it.'

    'I
didn't do it, you fucking cretin,' she screeched. 'Those bastards downstairs
did it. If you don't sort this out, I'm going to take it up with the Chief
Constable,' and she stormed out of the office. The outcome had been a
collector's item of a memo from Gillard, reminding all officers that senior
officers' toilets were for their exclusive use only - except in an emergency
when care should be taken to ensure that they were flushed thoroughly.

    Having
fouled her toilet for the second morning running, Psycho hurried back
downstairs and put the spare key back in the enquiry office safe.

    'I
hope you washed your hands,' said the Blister, hardly glancing up from the magazine
she was reading. She'd seen it all before. Psycho cackled insanely and ran out
to the back yard to get his car and be as far from the scene of the crime as he
could be when the shit hit the fan, quite literally.

    The
Blister continued to read until she heard the front doors to the enquiry office
open. She looked up to see Rosie, one of the local tramps, peering balefully
through the reinforced glass window that separated the public area from the
office itself. Rosie was about sixty, completely bald and toothless, wearing
four layers of clothing and accompanied by her ever-present shopping bag on
wheels. She was also hugely incontinent and generally had an exclusion zone of
several feet around her that only the unwary dared to violate. She'd spent last
night in a shop doorway and was particularly ripe this morning. The Blister
detected the smell through the glass and wrinkled her nose.

    'Morning,
Rosie, what can I do for you?' she asked without getting up.

    'Any
chance of a cup of tea? I'm fucking freezing,' gummed the old woman. She knew
the Blister was a bit of a soft touch, unlike most of the male officers who
generally hurled abuse at her before hoofing her out of the nick on the end of
a boot.

    'Yeah,
sure, but outside, OK?' said the Blister, getting to her feet and going into
the telephone room where all the tea-making stuff was kept. Rosie obediently
shuffled out on to the steps at the front of the nick and settled down. By the
time the Blister brought out a polystyrene cup of tea to her, she had pissed
herself again and a stream of urine ran gently down the steps on to the
pavement. The smell was overpowering and Blister gasped as she handed over the
cup.

    'Jesus
Christ, will you control yourself, Rosie. Drink that up and get on your way,
preferably to have a bath somewhere.' She hurried back to her magazine, but
looked up again a few minutes later when she heard the doors open and saw Rosie
standing at the glass.

    'More
tea,' the woman demanded, holding her cup out.

    'Bollocks.
On your way, Rosie.'

    'More
tea or I'll shit myself here.' Blister knew bloody well that the horrible old
witch was perfectly capable of carrying out her threat and capitulated
immediately.

    'OK,
OK, go on, outside, I'll bring you another one,' she said urgently, grabbing
the cup under the glass partition. Rosie shuffled away as before.

    Half
an hour later, six cups of tea had passed straight through Rosie's decrepit
insides and now ran down the steps in a torrent. The front of the nick was awash,
the stench overpowering. Blister was beginning to panic as she realised that
shortly she would have no option but to actually take hold of Rosie in order to
get rid of her.

    'Time
you were on your way, Rosie,' she called unconvincingly from inside the front
doors, holding her nose against the smell.

    'Fuck
off,' muttered Rosie, getting to her feet, hoisting her filthy, tattered skirts
and shitting against the wall. Blister gagged and hurried back to her office.
She'd pretend she knew nothing about Rosie, despite the smell, which was now
infiltrating the nick. She tried to engross herself in her magazine, but was
disturbed by the sound of a man shouting and swearing outside. An irate Chief
Inspector Gillard then barged in through the front doors. He had decided on an
early start to spend as much time as he could without Bott to annoy him, and as
he hurried along the pavement had failed to notice either the liquid or the
smell coming from the front steps of the nick. At the sight of a toothless old
hag emptying her bowels on the upper steps, he had reeled and then lost his
footing altogether, falling back into an ever-increasing puddle of piss. He was
drenched, and, even worse, some of it had splashed into his hair. Now he stood
dripping in the front office, glaring at the Blister with the veins in his
temples standing out.

    'What
the fuck is that old bitch doing on my front steps?' he roared.

    'What
old bitch?' said the Blister innocently, getting to her feet.

    'The
one that's pissed and shit all over them, you stupid cow. What the fuck's the
matter with you, have you no sense of smell?'

    'Sorry,
guv, I've got a shocking cold. Is there someone out there then?'

    'Jesus
fucking Christ,' screamed Gillard hysterically, 'look at the fucking state of
me. Get rid of the old bitch now.' He squelched to the doors giving access to
the nick and waited for the Blister to use the buzzer. She was craning her neck
trying to see the scat she knew nothing about outside. 'Door,' bellowed
Gillard.

    'Sorry,
guv,' she said, reaching below the desk to the buzzer. The door opened and
Gillard stamped across the corridor to the stairs, leaving a trail of wet
footprints behind him. Blister considered her options, which were not good. She
didn't fancy ignoring Gillard's pretty concise instructions, but the thought of
manhandling Rosie off the steps was not appealing. The smell that had followed
Gillard in was worse than ever, and she was going to have to do something about
it.

    Salvation
arrived in the form of Sergeant Tucker, who had also arrived early for duty as
court sergeant and now materialised from the nether regions of the nick. He stood
ramrod straight, as befitted a former Guards drill instructor, and wrinkled his
nose as he looked suspiciously at the Blister.

    'What
the fuck is that?' he asked.

    'Some
old scat's pissed all over the steps apparently. Gillard went arse over tit in
it.'

    'Have
they now?' he barked, and marched out into the front office and opened the
front doors. He took a step back as the full horror assaulted his senses.

    'God's
teeth,' he yelled, before marching back into the nick, propping open the internal
doors, and disappearing down the corridor. The Blister watched with mounting
anticipation. He reappeared a few moments later, dragging a firehose, which he
carried out into the front office. Opening the front doors, he released the
hose valve and directed the powerful jet of water at the source of the problem.
The jet hit Rosie in the side of the head, flinging her like a rag doll down
the steps.