Extract
Love Murder and other Mishaps
Chapter 1 - Flying Nuns
Detective Sergeant Ceri Fowler’s slim arms tremble as she swings a sledgehammer at the garish yellow door on the second floor walkway of a squalid high rise block of flats. Detective Constable Horatio Harris and three other officers sway backwards to avoid the metal head before it crashes through the centre of the door.
‘You missed the lock, ma’am,’ mutters Horatio. He moves behind her to help free the sledgehammer. Cindy, a brown Rottweiler behind the door, wakes and barks loudly, further shattering the peace of the lovely summer’s evening.
Ceri braces her foot against the peeling yellow paint on the door and pulls with all her strength to free the sledgehammer. It explodes from the door, showering the walkway with splinters of wood. Ceri flies backwards and slams Horatio against the faded and frost damaged brickwork of the walkway wall. The sledgehammer handle crushes his groin against the wall.
‘Argh!’ screams Horatio as he slides slowly down the wall clutching his groin. He lies groaning on the weathered concrete path. His black jeans and grey T-shirt blend in with the discoloured browns and greys of the walkway bricks and concrete.
‘I’m so sorry!’ Ceri stammers. She crouches next to Horatio. ‘Where does it hurt?’ she asks. She reaches towards his groin. Detective Constable Thatcher picks up the discarded sledgehammer.
‘Don’t touch me!’ screams Horatio, fighting back tears. He kicks out at Ceri.
Startled, Ceri stumbles backwards and stands suddenly to regain her balance as Youngman peers over her shoulder at Horatio. The back of her head crashes into Youngman’s face. A stunned Ceri trips over Horatio’s outstretched leg and falls against the walkway wall. She feels a sharp numbing pain in her shoulder. She has knocked the sledgehammer head off the wall where Thatcher was balancing it, his hands around the handle.
‘Don’t let go!’ screams Ceri. Thatcher instinctively tightens his grip. The weight of the sledgehammer drags him roughly over the walkway wall. Ceri screams even louder, but much too late. ‘Let go!’
Thatcher does a brief impression of the Norse god of thunder Thor flying through the air with his mighty hammer Mjolnir. He lands with a loud bang on the vinyl tan roof of Youngman’s lovingly restored Arizona-Gold Ford Mk 3.0 Capri. The newly crumpled roof is wrapped around Thatcher’s back. His wide open eyes stare vacantly at the sky. His head hangs over the bonnet. His feet dangle through the shattered tailgate window.
A disbelieving Ceri and Constable Hopscotch stare over the walkway wall. Mjolnir rests in a massive dent on the Capri’s bonnet. Water leaks onto the tarmac from a smashed radiator. Speckles of orange brick dust fall onto the bonnet from the bricks damaged by Mjolnir as it scraped down the wall. Thatcher’s jacket is scuffed and scarred from being dragged over the wall. Two buttons are missing and one dangles by a thread. Like Ceri’s once promising career.
A dazed Detective Constable Youngman sits on the walkway concrete floor, his back against the wall, oblivious to the damage to his beloved car. He presses a silk handkerchief against his injured nose to stop the blood pouring from it damaging his trademark Italian grey suit, pink shirt, and red silk tie. Horatio lies on the walkway floor curled in a ball, sobbing silently.
‘You should have let Horatio break the door down!’ snaps Youngman. ‘You’re always trying to prove you’re better than the men! But you’re not!’
Ceri is in shock and close to tears. She’d been desperate, as always, to prove she was as good as the men and was promoted on merit rather than to improve the police’s diversity statistics. As a little girl she’d dreamed of being a female Sherlock Holmes. She wonders how her dreams led her to this.
Her clothes hide her once bubbly personality and her figure. A blue top hangs loosely over her trembling shoulders. A belt gathers oversized brown cargo pants tightly around her waist. Her unkempt blonde hair resembles a disused wasps’ nest.
Inside the flat the occupants strain to make sense of the noises outside over Cindy’s barking. A lederhosen clad Wilbur Mercer lays on a bed, his back on a red quilt cover, his head on a white pillow. His unbuttoned white shirt and lederhosen frame an oversized belly.
‘It must be my husband. Get dressed. Quickly!’ Angel Martin stammers. She kneels astride Wilbur, dressed in a black mini-skirted nun’s habit, long stockings, stilettos, and a shoulder length headdress with a white headband. ‘Thank god I changed the locks,’ she adds.
Ceri is still staring at Thatcher spread-eagled on the wrecked Ford Capri. Thatcher flaps a hand in the vague direction of the walkway. ‘I’m OK!’ he utters then passes out.
The Duke of Wellington, on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo, said he didn’t know what effect his soldiers had on the enemy, but they sure as hell frightened him. Ceri had a similar effect on her team. Constable Hopscotch, desperate to escape before Ceri injures him, rushes off shouting, ‘I’ll look after Thatcher.’
‘Ambulance and police please,’ says Youngman into his phone he holds to his ear. He sits with his back against the walkway wall. His other hand presses his blood stained handkerchief to his nose.
‘We are the police,’ wheezes Horatio.
‘Really?’ replies a sarcastic Youngman. ‘I want to report an assault!’ he shouts at the emergency services operator.
‘I'll never fit through there,’ stutters Wilbur. He stands on a toilet seat peering out of a small open window at the rear of the flat. His belly rests on the window ledge. Despite the warmth of the evening he shakes with fear.
‘You fit through or my husband will fit you for a coffin!’ shouts Angel. She presses her hands against Wilbur’s back.
‘We're on the second floor, you stupid bitch.’
‘Climb down the drainpipe,’ sneers Angel, pointing at the rusted black drainpipe at the side of the window.
Ceri shakes herself from her stupor and dangles her warrant card through the hole in the door. ‘This is the police. Open the door please,’ she shouts. Her plea is drowned by Cindy’s frenzied barking. Cindy clamps her strong jaws around Ceri’s warrant card.
‘The dog’s eaten my warrant card!’ yells Ceri. She pulls her hand back and counts her fingers. She is relieved they are all still there.
‘At least you can still have children,’ moans Horatio, curled in a ball and clutching his groin.
‘I wonder if Thatcher can?’ asks Youngman. His nose has stopped bleeding and he’s finished his call. ‘An ambulance is on its way,’ he says then stands and turns to look over the wall. Ceri pushes herself between Youngman and the wall, desperate to stop him seeing his wrecked Capri.
‘Constable Hopscotch is looking after Thatcher,’ Ceri says. She points at the door. ‘We still have a raid to complete and arrests to make. Kick the door down!’ orders Ceri.
‘No way!’ says Youngman. He points at his shiny brown leather shoes. ‘These are brand new!’
‘Kick it!’ orders Ceri, gesticulating at the door.
‘They're Italian leather.’
‘Kick it!’ orders Ceri. Youngman petulantly taps the door with his foot. Ceri glares at him.
‘If you want a career in the police force, kick it down!’ Ceri screams.
‘You think any of us will have a career after this?’ asks Youngman. He angrily kicks out at the door. His right foot crashes through the sledgehammer hole. He loses his balance and falls across the walkway, wrenching his ankle. ‘Ow!’ he screams.
‘Argh!’ screams Youngman as Cindy sinks her teeth into his shoe.
‘Don't worry it'll make the leather more supple,’ says Ceri.
Cindy pulls Youngman’s leg through the hole, scraping the back of his Armani jacket along the rough concrete of the walkway. Ceri figures if she saves Youngman he may forgive her about his car. She lifts his shoulders off the walkway floor and, adrenalin pumping, launches herself away from the door like an Olympic sprinter.
Cindy doesn’t like the taste of the shoe and releases it. Youngman’s foot bursts through the door, showering the walkway with more splinters of wood and yellow paint. Ceri smashes Youngman’s head into the walkway wall.
Ceri lays him gently on the concrete floor and grimaces as she checks his head. ‘I’m so sorry. I’m really so sorry,’ she mutters. Youngman is unconscious but breathing. Ceri’s only consolation is she won’t have to tell him about his car.
‘It’s a hell of a long way down,’ whimpers Wilbur. He is wedged in the bathroom window. His hands are wrapped around the rusted black drainpipe.
‘Pretend you're a man,’ says Angel. She pushes him, but to no effect. ‘And start a diet.’
Ceri has run out of police officers to injure. Youngman is unconscious. Horatio is curled in a ball on the walkway. Thatcher lies across the dented Capri roof being given mouth to mouth resuscitation by Hopscotch. She pulls a gun from Youngman’s jacket pocket. ‘I’ll shoot the lock off,’ she mumbles.
‘You’re not trained to fire it,’ screams Horatio.
‘Don’t worry I can’t miss at this range,’ replies Ceri. She rests the gun barrel against the lock.
Horatio desperately searches for reasons to stop Ceri firing the gun. ’You'll wake everybody up,’ he shouts.
A dreadlocked sleepy eyed neighbour in a dressing gown steps into the walkway. Ceri turns towards him. The gun points at him. He quickly retreats back into his flat.
‘We don’t need to worry about that,’ says Ceri. She points the gun at the lock. Horatio curls tighter into his ball and covers his ears with his hands. Ceri screws her face and shuts her eyes. She fires the gun. There is a loud bang. The bullet misses the lock. Cindy howls in pain.
‘He’s shot Cindy,’ cries Angel.
‘Stuff the dog what about me?’ shouts Wilbur.
‘You bastard, you men are all the same,’ says Angel. She pushes hard against Wilbur’s back. He falls out of the window, clutching the drainpipe. It comes away from the wall and he tumbles towards the ground. His white shirt snags on the window frame catch and he’s suspended in mid-air. His ankles rest against the bathroom window of the flat below.
Wilbur’s shirt tears and he falls. He screams, ‘HELP MEEeeeeeeee!’ There is a loud thud as he lands in a half full refuse skip.
Angel rushes into the hall where Cindy lays. ‘Baby, Mummy’s here,’ she says. She bends down and cuddles her. ‘It’ll be all right, darling.’ The bullet missed Cindy. She was frightened by the noise. The battered and bruised yellow door swings open. It was unlocked but no one had thought to check.
‘I'm a police officer. I have a warrant to search these premises,’ mumbles Ceri. ‘Sorry about the dog!’
A demonic nun releases Cindy and storms towards Ceri, bellowing, ‘I'll kill you.’
Ceri backs away and steps on the unconscious Youngman. She falls backwards. Angel can’t see Horatio’s head, hidden by the shadows from the setting sun, peek around the bottom of the door frame. She trips over his head and steps on Youngman’s leg. Her momentum carries her over the walkway wall. Ceri sitting on Youngman reaches upwards and grabs a black stiletto in each hand. Angel balances precariously on top of the walkway wall.
Thatcher is having a nightmare where he has fallen off a second floor walkway onto a car roof and Hopscotch is kissing him. He wakes to discover Hopscotch giving him mouth to mouth resuscitation. He pushes him away in disgust. He sees a large breasted nun suspended in mid-air above him. Her breasts pop out of her dress. He wonders if he has died and gone to heaven.
Angel disappears over the walkway wall. Ceri holds a stiletto in each hand. Thatcher see’s the nun launch herself to be with him. Her headdress flutters behind her. He realises the nun is about to squash him to a pulp. He wonders if he has died and gone to hell. He and Angel scream loudly.
Angel lands face down on Thatcher in a parody of a lover’s embrace. The Capri’s roof is completely flattened. The front and side windows shatter. Thatcher’s screams are silenced as Angel wraps her arms around his neck and smothers his face with her breasts.
The scene is illuminated by a blue flashing light from an arriving ambulance, and lights in the blocks of flats. The gunshot has woken the majority of the residents. Hopscotch tries to pull a terrified Angel off Thatcher. She plants a vicious right cross on Hopscotch’s chin. He falls unconscious onto the tarmac.
Ceri peers over the walkway wall. Two ambulance men are trying to persuade a screaming Angel to release Thatcher so he can breathe. Ceri slumps into a sitting position, her back against the walkway wall. Thankfully Youngman, although unconscious, is breathing normally.
‘Today could have gone better, ma’am,’ mutters Horatio. He is unsure whether his groin or head hurts most.
Cindy licks Ceri’s hand. Ceri takes Youngman’s scuffed shoe off and gives it to Cindy. ‘Sorry,’ she says. She strokes Cindy’s head then wanders into the flat, struggling to digest the calamitous events of the evening. She checks the rooms are empty. She absentmindedly admires the beautiful displays of flowers in the lounge and bedroom.
Ceri sees Wilbur’s torn white shirt hanging from the catch of an open window in the bathroom. She looks out of the window in alarm. An arm waves weakly at her from the skip below.
‘Detective Sergeant Fowler here,’ says Ceri into her police radio. ‘How many people can you fit into an ambulance?’