The Book of Tragic Short Stories Part Three

Beating the Fuzz

“The sun watches what I do, but the moon knows all my secrets.”

J M Wonderland.

Phil had just quit his job. He was over the moon but had a lot on his chest. He felt harshly treated but had already put his plan into action. He met up with his oldest mate Rick for a beer and a chat. Rick and Phil met in school and they both joined the Army at sixteen. It was an amazing experience, but both left at twenty-one. They were stationed overseas in Cyprus and Germany and when they were eventually back in civvies, Rick moved into cyber security and Phil joined the police. Phil jumped from relationship to relationship, but Rick settled down and had children, but the relationship ended badly. He wasn’t the greatest husband and let his career take over his life, something he now massively regrets.

When the two friends got to the pub, Rick was intrigued to find out what had happened and why Phil had left the police. The men had known each other for over thirty years and had shared a lot. Rick had bent Phil’s ear for a long time over his marriage breakdown and his struggles with depression. Now it was Phil’s turn to rant and rave about his problems. Rick started the conversation with, “I can see you’re a bit edgy Phil, what was it that annoyed you so much?”

“God, it was just the whole thing. The workload was overwhelming, but it was my colleagues that pushed me over the edge. They watched my every move. Everyday it was like Groundhog Day, the same boring people, the same conversations. They seemed content with running their lives down, it was so frustrating. 

I could guess the daily conversation; I considered blowing my head off!

“Morning, hi, morning.”

“Yes, it is a lovely day, it’s going to get hotter around lunchtime.”

“Oh, hello. New top? It’s lovely, where did you get it from?”

“Oh wow, is that the time. Right, I’d best be off. See you tomorrow. 

Bye now, have a lovely evening, yes you take care also.”

“Morning, it’s not as warm today.”

“Oh, morning, traffic was a bit heavy today.”

“Hello. What have you got there? Is that something nice for your lunch.”

“Morning, how was your evening?”

“Well, I didn’t do a lot really, I just had dinner and watched some TV.”

“Is it that time already? Doesn’t it fly by. See you later.”

“Yes, bye then, take care. Have a nice evening. See you tomorrow.”

Phil spoke in a sarcastic tone and stressed that the rubbish continued for ever and a day. The same conversations, the same head nods, the same annoying habits. The gallons of tea and coffee. 

The monotonous greetings and goodbyes. Without the job in common, none of these people would socialise with each other. Day in day out, the same faces, the same routine, it’s enough to drive you potty.

Rick replied,

“What’s the alternative? Ignoring one another? Grunting? High fives?”

“I don’t know Rick, but I was ecstatic when I knew I was never going back to that grey, dismal, depressing, crap hole ever again.” Phil said with an aggressive tone. 

“Drink up Phil, it’s your round. Less talking more drinking. I thought police officers loved a drink.”

Phil thought out loud, “I don’t even think they recognised my genius. Dumb idiots. God, I hated some of them, I really hated them. Anyway, I’m not in the police anymore, it’s just me and my band.”

Rick laughed and said,

“Phil, in tough times we grow the most. By the way, the barman recognises your genius, superstar, see if he can pour the cleverest man in the room two pints.”

Phil replied,

“Okay, same again? When I get back, I’m going to tell you about the two most moronic ones, Hopscotch and Bailey. It was the final straw; I couldn’t cope anymore.”

Phil came back with two pints of beer and some dry roasted peanuts. The old, tired pub was quiet, and it still had the stale smell of tobacco from years ago. He said, “listen to this”. 

Phil took a huge sip of beer.

“Some people get given a label unfairly, when others earn their label.”

“Hopscotch was a lanky ginger woman, she was a sycophant, trying to make friends with the decision makers. Throughout her career she told lies and gossiped to get her way. She stood in the background when situations kicked off and rarely lifted a finger to help. To say she was unpopular was an understatement. Her personal life was a disaster; she couldn’t keep a friend.”

Rick interrupted, “She sounds fun! Is she pretty?”

Phil laughed, took another gulp of cold beer, and continued,

“No, the criminals had dubbed her horse face, which unsurprisingly she wasn’t a fan of. She was in her forties and a single mother from Crawley. The only thing going for her was her teenage daughter.”

“Then there was Bailey, he was a sergeant. He pursued promotion due to the fact that he was unable to communicate with the public with any authority. Bailey was well known as the office cat, he only left the office if he had to, which wasn’t very often. Bailey was also single with a couple of children; his high-flying wife had outgrown his childish ways. He was also known as the clown.”

“Anyway, it was a Wednesday afternoon and both Hopscotch and Bailey were sat in their office whilst the rest of the team were out dealing with various jobs. They were enjoying their eighteenth cup of tea of the day and suddenly there was a call on the radio from control, 

“2444 Hopscotch, PC Hopscotch, over”.

“Hopscotch panicked as she didn’t want to leave the office, but she eventually answered,”

“PC Hopscotch, currently doing paperwork”.

“Control continued, PC Hopscotch, please attend 12 Dorset Close. Domestic in progress. Can I show you towards?”

“Hopscotch began to shake and looked over to Bailey for an out, but he was just looking down at his computer, tapping away pretending not to notice.

Hopscotch replied, “Control, are there any other units available?”

Control said, “No one is available, I’ll show you towards.”

Hopscotch began to panic, “Sarge, please come with me, I can’t do it on my own, it’s a domestic.”

Rick interrupted, 

“Well, it is a domestic, two people should attend.”

Phil continued,

“Bailey was stuttering and trying to think of excuses but realised he had to put his PPE kit on and attend this domestic with Hopscotch. It dawned on him that if he didn’t, questions would be asked about his decision making. Horse face and the clown just wanted to finish their careers quietly and get their pensions. They had long forgotten their oath.”

“From the initial call, they got to the address in a shocking twenty-five minutes. 

When they knocked, a lady answered the door. Her name was Jo and she claimed that she knew nothing about any domestic. They then knocked at the neighbours at number 11, where the original call came from.”

Rick interrupted, 

“Blimey Phil, is this a long story?”

“It’s a lot shorter if you stop interrupting me, Rick. Anyway, there was no answer. They decided that they should leave, and they put it down to a malicious neighbour trying to cause trouble. 

Whilst driving back to the office for another cup of tea, another call came out over the radio. This time it was for an ‘assault in progress’ at number 11 Dorset Close. Control told Hopscotch to return to the address.

When they pulled up on the road, this time it was different. The doors at number 11 and 12 were open and screaming could be heard from number 11. 

They looked at each other with utter fear and short stepped it over to number 11. Bailey nervously entered the property, he kept shouting,

“Hello, hello, it’s the police, what’s going on?”

“As they made it to the living room they could see and hear a commotion going on in the garden. Both hesitantly went outside and tried to break up the wrestling going on between Jo and Smith from number 11. Bailey had Smith and Hopscotch had Jo. Jo overpowered Hopscotch’s weak hold, broke free and walked back to her house at number 12. 

Hopscotch stayed at number 11 with Smith and Bailey. Smith told them that Jo banged at his door after police drove off and as soon as he opened the front door, she attacked him, calling him a grass.

Bailey asked him if he had any injuries and Smith said Jo had pushed him several times, so Smith punched her to defend himself. 

Hopscotch went back to number 11 and could see a bruise developing on Jo’s left eye. Hopscotch went back to number 12, and they arrested Smith for ABH. He was booked into custody and placed in a cell whilst other officers attended number 11 to get a statement from Jo. 

Jo wasn’t interested, but the two officers were persistent and talked their way in. Jo broke down in tears and became hysterical, they tried to calm her but had to call an ambulance. Whilst they were waiting, Jo began to talk about her husband and how they had a huge row. They asked where the husband was, Jo screamed and said he was in the bathroom. The two officers went up to see what was going on. The officer opened the bathroom door to find a man slumped in the bath, stabbed to death.”

“Jo had killed her husband, and Hopscotch and Bailey had arrested the man who called the police. A magnificent own goal even for them. They were already a laughingstock. They ended up suspended from duty, under investigation.”

Rick finished off his second pint, which ended in a large burp. He said,

“Bloody hell, I remember seeing that murder on the news, it never mentioned the cock up.”

“Well, it wouldn’t, the police would keep that under wraps, to save embarrassment. I just couldn’t tolerate it anymore, if the public could see how lazy some of them are, they’d be uproar. That’s just one of many stories; I could write a book!

I had to leave for my own sanity.” Replied Phil.

“I don’t blame you. Another pint? Come on Phil, keep up. I fancy a proper session today.”

Phil picked up his glass and downed the rest of his drink whilst Rick was at the bar. Phil looked in his bag to check the stuff he had smuggled out of the police station was still there. He wanted to tell his oldest mate but wasn’t sure how he would react. 

Rick returned with a couple of pints and two shots of Jägermeister. Without a word both men looked at each other, picked up their shots and downed them. 

Rick said, “So tell me, how did you leave? Did you have a big row?”

Phil replied, “There was no argument, I had plenty of annual leave in the bank, so I tapped the sergeant an email, saying that I was leaving and not coming back.”

Rick asked, “Was that it? It doesn’t sound very dramatic. Didn’t you want to make a stand?”

Phil said, “Yes, I did, but I also knew there were some items in the evidence room that could be quite useful. You can’t wait for the perfect moment, you take the moment and make it perfect, Zoey Sayward said that my ex liked her. 

So anyway, I went down to the pub and had a few drinks whilst waiting for the morons from my office to go home. I then went back into the police station; there were other officers working but I just avoided them. I went into the evidence room with my hood up and took this.”

Phil lifted up a brown leather holdall, which had been placed under his seat. He held it with one hand and tapped it with the other, like he’d just won a prize. 

Rick smiled but looked a bit confused, he asked, “So, what is it? What on earth have you nicked?”

Phil moved the glasses to the side and put the brown leather holdall on the table. He looked down and unzipped the top. Rick looked around the pub to make sure there was no one too close and stood up, learning over the bag. With both hands he opened it up to get a good look. He stared at the contents for around five seconds and then sat down, he puffed his cheeks out and looked at Phil. 

Phil zipped the bag up and placed it back under his chair. He looked over and Rick had turned white. Rick took a massive gulp of beer and said,

“Bloody hell mate, if that’s real then you’re looking at twenty years inside. What the hell are you going to do with it?”

Phil was calm and spoke with authority, he replied, “You and I are going to sell it. I’ve met some people through my job, and I’ve made a few connections. Tonight, we’re gonna sell it and make £200k. I need your help though Rick.”

“Wow, that’s a lot of money Phil. How are we going to do it? Where do we need to go? What am I going to do?”

Phil replied, “I need you to act as my security. I’ve got a crossbow in the motor. Everything should go fine, but it’s best to be prepared. The two guys are meeting us here at 10pm. They’re going to have a drink at the bar and when they leave, we’re going to follow them. My car is closest to the door, so you can hang back a little and grab the crossbow. I’ll make the transaction.”

Rick grabbed his pint and took a sip, “These guys, are they serious Phil? Will they have guns?”

“I suspect they will have Rick. But trust me, try and relax and within an hour we will be loaded. They know we’re ex-squaddies, so they know we can handle ourselves.”

Both men sat back in silence and even though they were drinking they were staying sober enough. They spoke about what they were going to do with their share of the money. Rick wanted to buy Crypto currency, but Phil quickly talked him out of wasting his money on that scam, he told him it’s basically a Ponzi scheme. 

They spoke about different cars they could buy, holidays they could go on and Phil joked about getting his teeth done in Turkey. It might have been the drink talking but Rick said,

“I’ve got an idea, it’s been on my mind for a while. How about we go into the property conversion business? We can make one bedrooms into two and two bedrooms into three.”

Phil responded, “I don’t know anything about the building trade, how would we do that?

“Well Phil, we make a bedroom out of the kitchen.”

A confused Phil asked “Okay, where would the kitchen go?”

A smug Rick said, “That’s the beauty of this idea, people in the city eat out or get takeaways, they don’t need a kitchen. Imagine it?”

An unimpressed Phil said, “No, I don’t think that would work. What is wrong with you? You can’t have a house without a kitchen, that’s crazy, even bedsits have kitchens.”

A laughing Rick replied, “ Well it was just an idea, keep your knickers on.”

Before they knew it, it was 10pm. 

Five minutes later the pub front door was opened, two men walked in. They were medium build and looked fairly smart, they were in their thirties. Phil looked over at Rick and gave him a subtle nod. They never made eye contact with the two men, but they followed them outside around ten minutes later. 

Rick went to the car as planned and quietly grabbed the crossbow and hid it behind his back. He was careful because if the strangers saw it, they might think they were being robbed. Phil walked over to the men, they had a brief chat and exchanged bags. Both parties had a quick glance at the transaction and Phil turned and walked back to his car. The other two men got in their Range Rover and left the car park, hardly a word was spoken. 

Phil and Rick looked into the bag, then looked at each other and began to laugh. They had just made £200k and it all went to plan. No violence, no shootings and no police getting in the way. It was perfect. They agreed that Rick was going to hold onto the money for at least a month. He trusted Rick and knew neither of them would ever let anything get in between them. Phil thought that when the police realised that the evidence had disappeared, it wouldn’t be long before his house would be raided and searched. Phil had to use his own ID pass card to gain entry to the seized property room, so quite rightly he would be suspect number one. 

However, Phil was a clever lad and just before he had sent his resignation email to his sergeant, he had sent an email to HR to apologise for losing his ID card and requesting another. He knew that sending the email after 4pm would be a safe bet that it wouldn’t be read until the next day. Then after he came back and entered the property room, he hid his ID card in the locker room. Whilst there he took out a few of his belongings which he needed to keep safe and away from prying eyes. If his colleagues had got to them first, he would have been in bother. 

Phil had sowed doubt into the investigation and without CCTV, forensics, an admission, witnesses, money or the stolen seized items, there would be no evidence of him being involved. The only person that could give him up would be Rick, and he trusted his life with Rick. 

Around a week later, as expected, Phil received an early morning knock from the police. They had obtained a warrant and searched his house from top to bottom, without success. Phil also knew that there would be surveillance watching his every move. He kept up his daily routines, Rick stayed out of the way and after a few weeks they had moved on to another suspect. Patience is key when it comes to the police, funding is tight and new crimes come in to investigate and take preference. 

Around a month later Phil and Rick met up to split the money 60/40, in favour of Phil. They discussed the investigation and how they should be careful when spending the money. If Phil started to drive around in a Lamborghini, it might raise one of two eyebrows. 

Whilst life carried on as normal, Phil played a few gigs with his band and Rick continued to go to work. They met up to play golf and arranged to go on holiday to Barbados for two weeks, all inclusive. They had plans to invest some of their money on a Golf Course. 

Whilst out in Barbados they hired a car so they could view a couple of investment opportunities. They had smuggled some money into the country, so they were ready to make some serious commitments. 

By the time they had got back to the UK, they had invested around £100k between them on a Golf Centre with driving range and gym. They had a friend on the island called Justin who was going to oversee the business. 

Life was good for the two friends, more than what could be said about Hopscotch and Bailey. They were both found guilty of gross misconduct and were given the boot. It was in the newspapers and made them unemployable. Hopscotch had nothing in her life after her daughter left home and Bailey had a sister that financially supported him.

The only problem on the horizon for the two long term best friends was a woman called Amy. Amy was a beautiful lady who breezed into Phil’s life for a second time. They met years ago, but this time she was single. Whilst Phil was going for a jog around the park, he noticed a woman having a picnic with two children. He recognised her at once; his heart rate went through the roof. Suddenly and instantly, he was transported back to when they were young. Her hair was long and tied up, she looked like Natalie Portman. 

Phil stopped to catch his breath and just watched quietly from a distance, whilst they laughed and ate together. He didn’t want to disturb but had to speak to her; he didn’t want to lose her again. Phil cautiously approached and said,

“Hi Amy, how are you? It’s been such a long time, you haven’t changed one bit.”

Amy looked up and was shocked to see Phil, she said, “Oh my! Phil, how are you? It’s been ages, I’m good thanks, these are my kids. Why don’t you sit down and join us.”

They spoke for ages, the children entertained themselves in the adventure playground and Amy and Phil got reacquainted. It was perfect, they just clicked, the timing was perfect, and they both knew that this was the start of something new, something that could have happened years ago. 

They were talking about what they had been up to for all those years and all the funny times from their past. That moment was precious and ended with a kiss goodbye. As Amy got in her car, they looked into each other’s eyes and she said, “You will call me, won’t you? The last time I saw you Phil, was when you were Rick’s best man at my wedding.”

The End.