A Bad Case of Forgetfulness - Part 2

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With his tall, slightly stooped back to his colleagues Ransack tried desperately to think. His head was filling up with a building pressure. He could feel it everywhere, a pounding of confusion which let him know that time was moving on and he was expected to do something about it. Even from behind he looked bemused. .

"...SIR... sir... SIR... Sir...” The words floated in and around his consciousness like dreamsmoke, finally registering in some far recess and leading him out into reality.

“Er... Yes.... What is it...What?... Who called me?” asked Ransack, turning around looking physically disorientated. He steadied himself on the bedroom dresser. His legs seemed quite unsure of their function.

“Sir, it's just Davies has spoken with forensics and they're waiting on us.... we need to get cracking.”

"Yes... Cracking... ? … W'eve got to crack on with it!" said Ransack to The Man Who Wasn't Davies. "God! It's just sometimes these things cease you up, makes you forget such banalities  for a moment - no matter who you are! It's a sick world and it's getting sicker... What in the hell kind of monster would do something like this?!"

For a moment all three men slid their eyes back across to the atrocity laying in the far corner of the room. Ransack was right, it was a sick world, though not that he cared  for any of that right now. All that interested him was seconds worth of wriggling space, and he would make a play for them using whatever means it took.

Cutting short his meditation on the despicable scum of modern life Ransack quietly slipped out the room, his head lowered but his eyes struck forward looking at hands and feet and badges; his ears open to catch names or other snippets of information which would maybe help him piece together just what his next move should be. As he drifted about the crime scene he felt dizzy and non-existent, like he wasn't really there – rather trapped in some nightmarish drunken state, where things not only looked unfamiliar but  bizarre too. Seeing nothing but scary looking forensic collectors, pottering about measuring things or sealing off  passages, ransack returned to the safety of power, making his way back over towards his team  who were now waiting for him outside the bedroom. Ransack's head started pounding again. It felt like his airways were  being constricted. He clawed two fingers down over his tie and tugged it loose a couple of drops.

"Er, Davies,” asked ransack, “ you say those men, the foreign six, are waiting on me? Us?"
"You mean the 'forensics', Sir. Yes,” said a young fair haired detective with a pigbutton nose, “we've haggled forty five minutes outta them and then must give the place over. Because of the mess they don't want anymore than two of us and a flasher entering either of the primary scenes. The secondary scene, which encompasses the rest of the house, the back yard, and of course the main exit and front yard, same story: 45 minutes."

Ransack let out a long puff of air and tried to make it look like he was thinking. He was, kinda, but not on the crime rather on what were primary and secondary scenes, was 45 minutes long or short for such things, where does he get a photographer from? Is one of his team the photographer? Who will record anything else? How and where should it be recorded? Can he take things? Move things? Bag things? Where are bags? In short: what the fuck was he supposed to do? One thing he did know is that he was not a seemingly successful detective for no reason. Already he could feel his mind  processing his current predicament in a detective-kinda way, taking in and analysing all that was going on... calculating sly ways to extract information, and using a system of logical subtraction to conclude the unknown. That gave him a reassuring self-confidence. He at least felt he was a man of ability, and  not one who had sucked, fisted or stabbed his way to the top.

As such thoughts went through Ransack's mind he started to believe that this was far from a hopeless situation, that he was smart enough to get through it. Already, just through words and acts, he had sussed out so much.  He even knew the name of one of his subordinates and was pretty sure he'd soon discover who the other  was. And even if he didn't, so what!? There was no doubting that he had enough authority to get away with forgetting a name. And it was that authority, that privilege of power, which would  maybe save his bacon.

With a sudden loud clap of the hands Inspector Ransack got everyones attention: “Ok boys, forty five minutes... let's be 'aving yous then! Davies you grab a photographer and follow me, and you , er... er....”
“Jenkins, sir?”
“Yes, exactly! Jenkins, you'll work through the secondary scene alone until the photographer can join you. If you've any questions, save them for over coffee and biscuits... now's not the time! We need to get moving, get prooving, get what we Got and Get the fuck out!”

Ransack was impassioned. It was a great speech. Only not a speech that should ever come from the mouth of a renowned Detective Inspector heading up a murder investigation. It was b-movie talk, or even worse, dialogue like you'll only ever read in fifth rate internet fiction. Luckily for Ransack he remained blissfully unaware, moving off at a pace that he hoped would drag Davies into action with him...

14 comments:

  1. Holmesean deduction ahead? I think Ransack may have skipped his Weetbix this morning.

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  2. Hiya Joe, as I mentionned below i'm replying to your last comment here.

    Yes, this ones in that same WFJ feel and the house and street are also reminiscent. In the first draft the house was even numbered 42, but I changed it as it eventually moves quite a bit away from that.

    The idea of mixing characters comes from a very old idea I had, and one I still think about, of writing a book using one original main character and everyone else lifted from other authors works and brought back to life. It's done in a serious way so as it works as an original novel but also as a little game for literary boffs to spot the characters and try and decipher who each one is. Some would be very obvious and others would maybe just be a fleeting description, a head looking out a shop doorway, or someone going by on a bicycle. But every character would come from another book and all would be brought back to life in a new work. But that still isn't the very first idea I had of a similar nature. The original ORIGINS of that idea goes back to me as a teenager sat in front of the TV thinking: wouldn't it be great if all the programs were mixed so as to make a sprawling world out of them. For example, if in Eastenders when there's a storyline involving the police it's the same constables and detectives from The Bill who turn up... when someone goes to hospital it is the Casualty team who treats them... someone dies, the Vicar of Dibley buries them... The kids go to school at Grange Hill, etc. And that runs constant throughout all the programs, so you could then be watching The Bill on a thursday evening and in the background Nick Cotton is dragged in on a drug or murder charge. So that's the very original thought I ever had in that direction, for all the TV soaps and dramas to interact and create a world much more interesting and complex. Also the novelty aspect of having peoples favourite programs and characters mixed. (Ok, I lknow it's very problematic and not feasible because of the all the different rival channels involved and rights and advertising, etc etc, but it was a fourteen year old Shane's idea, andjust showing how it's stayed with me and will now materialize into the characters and places from Bubblegum all interacting in that exact same way. So it's a nice little history.

    The screwdriver story i promised isn't half as interesting but does come from around the same time... just that idea never evolved, just maybe got a little more adventurous on bored nights home alone! haha X

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  3. Hiya Gurney, yeah Ransack's certainly left home without something... though I'm not sure it's only his Weet-a-bix he missed out on... X

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  4. Shane .. Thank you .. its my birthday today although I have not told anyone until now. a new post is a great pressie :)..and a great crack.. cracking post.. hic.. as always hic.. think I will read again when sober and re comment xx

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  5. Hiya Ruth, happy 39th!!!! You don't look a day older! Don't get too drunk... and don't stay too sober. A happy medium like I've never managed to find!

    Enjoy your day and remind your husband <hat a lucky bastard he is! XXXXX

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  6. I always wondered as well why there weren’t more crossovers among TV programs, particularly the soaps. You can imagine what an amazing rating winner it would be. Say a Christmas special: East Enders meets Coronation Street. I’d love to have seen a stand off between Hilda Ogden and Dot Cotton.

    I also had this idea that you could do something subtle like have references to names that only those in the know would know – I was thinking that since the actor who played Ashley Longworth Jr, the son of a Baldwin Sister’s youthful beau in The Waltons went on to play Commander Ryker in Star Trek: the Next Generation then Ryker was in fact a descendant of Ashley.He could have been given 'Ashley' as his middle name or something.

    It’s funny because you get a lot of crossovers in comic books, even from company to company – DC’s Superman versus Marvel’s Spiderman.

    sucked, fisted or stabbed his way to the top

    is Very ambiguous…

    Ransack sounds so 60s English. Very Ortonesque.

    RIP Amy Winehouse.

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  7. Joe, I've just had someone call and tell me of Winehouse's death and I'm in absolute shock... I can't believe it. I'm sad sad sad. X

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  8. Of course they're saying 'overdose'

    And she died alone...

    Back to Black

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  9. This was a lovely post. I really like what you're doing with these things having the stories and the letters and all of it kind of tied together but not really bound to each other, you know.
    Also, I heard about Amy Winehouse today when I was at work and it completely gutted me. I felt like, maybe naively, that she was going to finally make it. Each time she'd stage a come-back and stumble it was just routine, like she had something up her sleeve. I really believed deep down that she'd make it through. But, alas, she didn't. Now that I'm almost entirely sober I'm starting to see drugs as sort of a youth genocide and it tears me up every day. I still have friends dropping like flies for nothing more than a cheap high.
    I'm going to talk to my programmer friend about what is possible relating to a writers community and then I'm going to try and get something started. Hopefully, then we can start to all come together, and open a window for all those people who can't find the front door.

    The Kingdom Comes,
    D R .

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  10. Joe, I'm sure that if it does turn out to be 'overdose' that there'll be huge quantities of alcohol (and possibly tranquilizers)found in her blood. But no-one listens... no matter who I tell or how well I express it, people are just not willing to accept it.

    Yes it really says something, to have all that success and money and to die alone without a single soul around to try to help. And of course it's probably not just bad luck: most people who die alone were also living alone.

    We'll know more tomorrow I suppose. X

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  11. y'know, the comment section is almost as fascinating as the story! I loved "clawed two fingers down over his tie". I could truly see it.

    I'm starting to get into this! Carry on.....:)

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  12. Hiya Jim, hope you're having a nice weekend. I secretly enjoy the comment section too, and around the various places I write, word for word I write five times more in the comment section than in the posts themselves.

    My favourite line was one that I changed after posting (so people who read via email will never see it). It's:

    "Er, Davies,” asked Ransack, “you say those men, the foreign six, are waiting on me? Us?"
    "You mean the 'forensics', Sir. Yes,”

    (It's the 'foreign six' joke that got added as an after thought.) X

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  13. i love your comments section too, love learning little backstories and insights into your posts. and the idea for the book mixing famous characters from other books, i love it. i also seem to love typing love here tonight.
    and 'foreign six' had me laffin. :)

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  14. Hiya All,

    New post (part 3) will follow tomorrow. It will not be the final part ... there may be anything up to ten installments of this story.

    Hope everyone's well and we'll see each other here over the next couple of days, Shane. X

    (Dusty and id, I owe you both a reply but am running a little behind, so forgive me...)

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If you're here to write something malicious I thank you in advance for wasting your precious time on me. X