08. LIGHTS

P.C. Golightly had never been over fond of his name. It had been a disastrous one to have at school and it hadn’t served him much better when he’d joined the police force. “Go lightly on him, Constable” they’d said too many times, always thinking that they were the first to think of it, never stopping to think he’d probably heard it a million times before.

Still he’d had an unspectacular career in crime-fighting this past decade or so, and this little town really wasn’t the most difficult of places to police. He was still even able to ride around on his bike when the mood took him, although he wasn’t really supposed to. Still, the locals seemed to like it, so, once in a while he did it anyway, and the Sergeant tended to turn a blind eye. Anything that kept their lives more quiet seemed to be okay with him. He had various boxes in his “Community Policing” paperwork that needed filling, and a very traditional and visible “Bobby on the Beat” seemed to help him with that.

He was on foot tonight though. There was too much snow around for anything else really, and the younger lads had already nabbed the 4x4 to patrol the bypass and nick any speeders and drunk drivers they saw whizzing by.

Well, it kept them happy.

Then the phone had rung. Someone was reporting a prowler a few streets away from the station, and, because they couldn’t get the Fiesta to negotiate the ice rink that was the car park, he’d offered to stroll around and have a look.

There most likely hadn’t been anyone of course, probably just some drunk rattling the gates of the wrong house on his way home, but the old dear who’d rung in had needed a bit of reassurance and he was glad of something to do to avoid tackling another mountain of paperwork that had just appeared.

So he’d ventured out into the crisp, dark night, rather enjoying the quietness and thanking his lucky stars that he hadn’t been stationed at one of those inner city nicks. He knew from some of his colleagues how these weeks leading up to the annual festival of goodwill could turn out to be anything but when people got a few drinks inside them. Tales of fights, urine, vomit and worse had led him firmly to believe that he was just fine where he was, thank you very much, and not ready to chase any fast-track promotion. The younger lads kept going on about how boring it was around here, and he always told them that that was just fine with him. He’d seen plenty of ambitious young coppers over the years fall foul of the system, and if that was the price of ambition, then he was happy enough not having any.

He’d knocked on the old lady’s door and asked her what she’d seen and heard, and she’d been glad enough to see him and he’d calmed her down and told her he would have a bit of a look around. He’d gone all around the outside of her house, checked the windows, the doors and the drainpipes for any signs of recent villainy. He checked behind her bins, all around the shed and even shone his torch in the shrubs and bushes and was able to report back to her that he’d not seen anything.

She hadn’t seemed all that satisfied, really, when he told her this. He got the distinct impression that she fully expected he would call up the helicopter with its infra-red camera to make absolutely sure there was no-one out there. “That’s what happens when you watch too much TV!” he’d thought, but he’d managed to convince her that really wouldn’t be necessary and she reluctantly went off back to bed after he said he’d have a good look around the neighbourhood before he went back to the station.

He’d just about decided to give it up and radio in that he was on his way back, and started looking forward to a steaming mug of fresh tea, when he noticed the fresh set of large footprints leading up to that young Eve’s place.

Not for the first time that night, Stu’s footprints in the snow had given him away.

Normally he would have let things pass, but then the kitchen lights flashed on for a minute, then off again and then back on, which he thought was a little odd.

He decided he’d better check up on things.