Those officers in the big cities liked to think the had it easy out here in the wilds, but they still got their fair share of criminals, just not necessarily ones committing the same type of crimes, that’s all. The kids still got bored out here and found all sorts of ways to stave off their boredom, not always legal ones either. There was a fair amount of unemployment, especially on the estates, and the usual responses to poverty tended to happen as much here as anywhere else. The farms were always vulnerable, of course, to machinery, stock and livestock theft amongst other things, and you didn’t have to deal with any that sort of thing in the city.
The Desk Sergeant smiled to himself, thinking back to when he’d been a youngster on the beat and wondering how he would have managed if he’d been asked back then to round up a runaway pig or some geese. Not well, he imagined, but he’d got used to these things over the years.
“It has been an odd night, though,” he thought as he waited for the latest batch of offenders to march through the door. A couple of elderly chaps, who really should have been old enough to know better, had been causing a disturbance at the Oddfellows earlier on. This had led to them being sent off on their way with a caution. They’d got into a fight over their game of dominoes being disturbed by someone playing their music too loud, if he had heard it right. The run up towards Christmas always turned up its fair share of unusual incidents because even those who were normally the most sober of citizens might just decide to let their hair down for an evening.
The doors crashed open and one of those two missing Constables barged in with the latest drunk driver they’d nabbed on the bypass, and he was rather surprised to see it was young Carol, that pretty young nurse who, coincidentally, used to work in the Oddfellows. Sad - but, like he’d only just been thinking, all sorts seemed to go off the rails at this time of year. Behind her, the other young Officer came in, pushing old Stan the Gamekeeper and that young lad Chris Something-or-other ahead of him.
Now what was going on?
The lads had radioed in earlier saying that they were heading up to the Estate to follow up on something. Then they'd failed to respond when he’d been trying to get hold of them later on, just after Golightly had been assaulted.
“This one’s the D.W.I.” said the first Officer, indicating a dejected looking Carol, who reached out unsuccessfully to grasp Chris’s hand only to have her arm roughly pinned back to her side.
“And the others?” asked the Sergeant.
“Not sure yet,” he replied with a suspicious air “but something’s going on…”
“Have you arrested them?”
“Not yet!” The Officer gave the pair of them a steely stare.
“Right,” said the Sergeant checking how many cells he had free, “You’d better put her in The Box, and you two...” he shouted over at Stan and Chris, “Sit down over there. I’ll get round to you in a minute.”
They liked to rather grandly refer to it as “The Box” after a similar room that used to be on an old TV show, but really it was just a rather underused interview room in a tiny Police Station in a small town in the back of beyond. Nine times out of ten it was too full of junk to be used conveniently, but they’d had a bit of a clearout in time for the Christmas rush.
Chris did his best not to catch the Sergeant’s eye and sat meekly down before trying to exchange a supportive look with Carol before she was booked in and then led away.
“Now, where have you two been hiding?” said the Sergeant to his Officers, with the air of a man who really didn't want any more of their youthful nonsense tonight, “We’ve got a bit of a flap on and I couldn’t find either of you two anywhere…”
“The girl told us there was someone hurt in the woods,” said one, suddenly resembling a naughty schoolboy up before the headmaster.
“Him!” added the other one, pointing at Chris.
“He looks all right to me…” muttered the Sergeant.
“That’s what we thought…”
“I fixed him up…” Stan piped up helpfully, then wished he hadn’t when he saw the look all three Policemen gave him.
Further conversation was halted when old P.C. Golightly rather surprisingly barged through the doors manhandling a rather cold and annoyed looking bloke in a torn black leather jacket.
“Got ‘im, Sarge!” bellowed P.C. Golightly elatedly, trying to ignore the incredulous and open-mouthed looks that his colleagues were giving him. Behind him, another officer politely escorted Eve through the doors and sat her down on one of the row of plastic chairs where Stan and Chris were already sitting. She made a point of leaving an empty chair between herself and these unsavoury looking individuals, but they didn’t seem to notice.
Chris visibly paled when he realised it was Stu that had been brought in, and tried to turn and face away from him, turning up his collar as he did so, but he wasn’t quick enough to escape Stu’s piercing and furious gaze. P.C. Golightly immediately picked up on the look that passed between them.
“Do you know this gentleman, Sir?” he asked Chris pointedly. Chris quaked and twitchily shook his head briefly, but then one of the young Policemen noticed the hole in Stu’s jacket that was already spreading as he twisted and turned in Golightly’s grasp and something slotted into place in his mind.
“’Ere Sarge?” he said, producing an evidence bag from his pocket, “D’you reckon this might be from his jacket?’
“Where did you find that?” asked P.C. Golightly triumphantly, hoping it placed Stu at the scene of his earlier assault.
“Next to that bloke,” he replied, pointing at Chris as he tried his very best to blend in with the paintwork, “In Sixteen Acre Wood…”
P.C. Golightly’s face fell, “The woods, you say…?”
“Yeah! Miles away!” sneered Stu.
By now, P.C. Golightly really wasn’t in the mood for such arrogance. “Don’t let him go anywhere!” he shouted back over his shoulder as he bundled Stu through the doorway leading to The Box, only to get a further surprise when Stu received a perplexing stream of abuse from the girl who, until that moment, had been quietly sitting there.
“Don’t tell me you know him an’ all!” he said, as he shoved Stu through an open cell door whilst simultaneously trying to keep the crazy girl away from him. He slammed the cell door shut with Stu inside, turned round and stared at the girl with a look so forceful and full of rage that she very quickly decided her best bet was to shut up and sit back down.
“Right,” said P.C. Golightly purposefully, “Let’s try to get to the bottom of all this!”
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