The securing officer of a murder scene is the unfortunate git who stumbles across the mess, often into it, without any kind of warning. The initial call out can be anything, from young kids smoking cigarettes around the back of a building to a neighbourly dispute, only for the despatched officers to arrive and find ears and teeth all over the place. The securing officer who called this crime scene was unfortunately meeker than most. He hadn't joined the police fantasizing of drug busts and gangland shootouts but rather yearning to do the paperwork and wear the tit-shaped hat. Ransack, Davies and Jenkins found him sitting out in the front yard, his arms clasped tightly around his knees, and rocking to and fro on the heel of his buttocks... humming.
“Mmmm mmmm mmm mmmm MMMMMMM Mmmmm mmm mmMMMMM...” and he went on, just like that, his brain even more lost than the Detective Inspector Ransacks.
As it was Jenkins who was still leading the party of three it was his form that moved in and towered over the securing officer. With the little light there was blocked out, the distraught officer withdrew even further inside of himself, and with his eyes shot through with an unspeakable horror his hums then turned to whimpers. Jenkins squatted down besides him.
“Constable... Constable,” he said softly, “now we understand this is a difficult time for you, that you've seen things which you weren't prepared for, but we need to take a quick statement from you... just a few questions, nothing more, and then we'll get you seen to properly and hopefully off home. Ok? Do You Hear Me? CONSTABLE!!?”
“MmmMMMMmmMMmmmMMMMmmMMmm.....”
With the above as a response Jenkins suddenly gripped the officer by either side of his shoulders, steadied him and twisted him around so as they were both in each others faces. “Now Constable, you're gonna have to get a fucking grip of yerself... this is serious business! You can crack up afterwards, but right now we've got the fucking world ticking down on us and we need to take your statement before we can get on! Now what's your fucking name?”
The traumatised PC let out a series of noises like he was crying the wrong way. He was obviously trying to say something but no matter how hard he tried only incomprehensible drivvel came out. It also happened that the more he panicked the harder and faster his rocking became, until Jenkins was shaking too, vibrating away like he was holding onto a jack hammer. If it was not for the following words, from a new voice on the scene, Jenkins would very likely have tried to slap him into reality.
“His name's Jameson, PC Alan Jameson,” it said. “I'm PC Sanderson and was with him when he came across the scene. It was actually me who called it... not that I've seen it... but I did call it! He's been like that since it happened... well, it took just over three minutes of silence first and then he lost it.”
As the PC Sanderson spoke Inspector Ransack slyly eyed Jenkins and Davies to see what they were doing. Both had whipped out their notepads and were scribbling things down – though it didn't look much like writing. Ransack patted around his pockets, found his own notepad and a pen attached, and started scribbling down nonsense too. Just to make sure he could still write if he wanted to, that he hadn't forgotten that art, he wrote the word 'bumrub' and then crossed it out. And then he did something that even surprised him: he flipped over to a new page, and the moment he put pen to paper his mouth opened and he instinctively asked:
“And why was you here, Constable? What were the details of your initial call out?”
PC Sanderson now turned to Ransack. He began by pulling a face like there was not much to tell and then proceeded to tell it in the most drawn out manner possible...
“It was an anonymous caller, a woman, and for some reason she thought her friend may have been hurt or assaulted in her property. The call was traced to the phone box just around the corner on Perkins Avenue. The only other info we received along with the address was that the caller sounded 'toothless drunk' and so we thought we was gonna arrive and end up in the middle of one of these alcoholic domestics with both parties accusing each other of every kind of perverted crime under the sun.... You know the kind, Sir, her screaming and bawling rape and sodomy and when asked if she wants to bring official charges against her
significant other she looks through you all blurry and you know the previous accusation is already forgotten. The next thing you're warning the man that if he tugs at your uniform once more he'll be spending the night in the cells and he answers by telling you that she sucked so and so's cock and that's why he walloped her. Then she's laughing and bouncing off him, saying “But I walloped ya back... good an proper, ya lousy maggot! I gave jist as good as I got! I ain't scared of no two bit shitheap like you... I've 'ad worse... you ain't nothing, Jack!” And then he's gone and smacked himself square in the nose and through a mouthful of black blood he's screaming: “No bitch has ever hurt me! I can take much more than any whore can ever give!!! 'Ere, ya see these fists? Ya see this one, it's knocked seventeen people sober... the best fucking rehab there is! The other... I save that one for me enemies!” And then she's showing you what she thinks is a secret, sexy smile, but actually it's a mouthful of missing teeth and those that are left are stained shit-brown and each one points to a different hour of the day and you hope she doesn't cough or they'll end up all over you. Then her smile has gone and her whole posture has sunken a foot and she's scowling through the demons of drink, and suddenly she's on her man again. And all the while it's a miracle he's still standing because since he stopped showing you his bloated grazed and cut fists he's been swaying around like one of those 'wibbly-wobbly toys' with his eyes nine tenths closed, and if he can see anything it's the faintest blur of light through singed eyelashes. And then the wind from her missed punch brings him around like it it was full of smelling salts, and he's wild drunk again and it starts all over... back to how she hasn't washed her cunt in years and if ever she did manage to prise her knickers off the stench would kill all the wildlife within a ten mile radius. And then her skirts hitched up and the filthiest pair of knickers bar none are whipped down and she's saying “You'll never get none of it, so dream on ya old fucka!!” And though it smells something rank nothing actually dies. And then they both need a drink, so suddenly they're working in cahoots, acting all piss-drunk lovey-dovey... waving us away, saying they've overdone it with the drink, and they're sorry for wasting our time but they'll just get on to bed and suffer the hell of it in the morning... You know, Sir, a drunken dispute where the most you'll ever get is a 'drunk and disorderly' charge and a car full of stink. Well, that's what we imagined we'd be arriving to. And when we got here, the door was open and sure as hell it smelt like we'd imagined, but it wasn't messy at all – as you know. Then as as I looked around in the front room PC Jameson went down the hall, and not even 30 seconds later he was back, staggering so wildly I thought he'd been shot or stabbed. I steadied him and led him outside and when I tried to re-enter, to see what was inside, he gripped a hold of me so tightly and with such fear shot through his eyes that I never did dare return and look at what he'd seen... and I couldn't really, not even if I'd have wanted to, because it was just then that he lowered himself to the ground and started up with his incessant shaking and humming. And That's when I called it, Sir... nothing much to it.”
By the finale of the Uniform's incredibly detailed monologue all eyes were on Ransack, waiting for his next question... Only it never came. Instead, as one member of the Metropilatn Police rocked to and fro on his haunches... humming, another had ceased up completely, stood there in freeze-frame, his pen on paper and a huge blue ink splodge breaking out across the page...
(to be cont'd....)
