An appetite for mayhem
by Palbus
(1981 Words)
Prospect Lane was soundless. It was six pm when a loud scream echoed around the shop fronts until it subsided and died. Neil’s Bar was the only premises open, noisy and full of people intent on enjoying the start of the weekend. Events happening outside didn’t get noticed.
It was in a flimsy box. The sort that big chains use for takeaway fast-food. Junk food gets cold quick if not eaten straight away. This box lid sagged in the middle like a rain-drenched shop front canopy. In the centre of this depression was a mound; down which streams of oily liquid had run. Not fit now for human consumption, cold and ‘set’ in solidified fat.
Dave oozed out of Neil’s’ Bar and slithered towards home. It had been hot, very noisy and fun as excess alcohol had tanked the ‘usual crowd’. Friday night, the bar regulars arrived straight from work because their weekend had officially started. Dave always came and left on his own. Five thirty to ten thirty and he knew his limits. He had spouted rubbish for the past half hour, and he was embarrassing himself, so he left. As habit required, he would go to Pizza Express; drinking made him hungry. Passing the last house, he saw a soggy box sitting on a window sill. On the pavement, eyeing the box with relish, sat a large ginger cat. Dave, since a kid, loved feeding the family pets. He leant to retrieve the box for the cat. It was heavy so contained food, and it dripped red sauce which messed up the pavement.
‘Oh heck,’ he thought, ‘this could be a real messy business.’
Dave was just about to open the lid when a girl came towards him. He often saw her in Neil’s. She shouted to announce her presence which startled them both. As she cat walked up to the guy and that cat she thought to herself ‘Smile sweetly Jo, here’s a chance.’
‘Hello! Where you off to? I am a bit ‘pot-less’ now, but I will keep you company if you would like me to…’
‘I was just opening this box for my little friend here.’
‘That cat won’t want the contents of that box, but I’m peckish and need something to soak up the Vodka.’
‘That box has been here a while, its stone cold, and the cat still needs it more than you do.’
Dave ‘eyed’ his new companion and was keen for her to tag along with him.
The girl said ‘I know that cat, he is a sly unwelcome beggar. In eight years, he has wormed into three different homes. The day ‘his nibs’ goes hungry will never happen.’
‘Tell you what, let him have this, and we will go to Pizza Express and share.’
‘My idea of heaven!’ The girl said with a sly wink.
‘You can call me Dave.’
‘You can call me whatever you like if you’re sharing your pizza with me.’
‘Come on… you must have a name. What can I call you?’
‘You can call me Jo.’
‘Right Jo then let’s go!’
The box was forgotten, Dave never left the p ub with anyone and couldn’t believe his luck; he was leaving with an attractive female. He couldn’t take his eyes off her. He dropped the box on the pavement, and the lid slowly opened, more red sauce spewed from it and the cat saw that dinner had arrived. Dave and Jo walked obliviously away in a sort of swaying side to side fashion.
The cat eyed the box with undisguised greed and purred an exceedingly contented purr. His plan was to ‘disappear’ into the church gardens to enjoy this fabulous feast without sharing it! The food was set in congealed red gravy which lay thick and cloying at the bottom of the box. He sped down Prospect Lane and straight through the iron railings.
Detective John Irons eyed the box on the pavement with some expertise. Especially the large black stained area around it (which had alarmed a member of the public). It looked like blood to him, all his twenty-five years experience said so. He eyed his bag man and said:
‘DS Smith do a ‘Door to door’. Ask people if they noticed this box and if they saw anyone paying it any attention.’
‘Already done Guv, by uniform.’
‘Handy?’
‘This flat has been empty for eight weeks; flat six is away for the weekend. Number four is looking after their cat, and nine notices absolutely nothing. Shops down the Lane were all closed for the weekend, Bar at the end was open till late and reopens at eleven this morning. I will go and ask later if they saw anything.’
‘Good work, keep me posted.’
The mobile phone in John’s pocket rang urgently. ‘Irons!’
‘DS – Do the bar at eleven as planned, a dog walker just rang in about a suspicious find in the churchyard. Come with me for a few minutes.’
DCI John Irons and DS Smith arrived in the Minster Garden to find a distraught elderly gentleman sitting with his dog on an indescribable bit of pointless architecture.
‘Now then. What have you found exactly?’
’Not me exactly. Midnight here found it.’
‘What is it that Midnight came across?’
‘Well, a big cat, well cared for, nice looking animal if you like our feline friends.’
‘Where is the cat now Sir?’
‘I will show you, this way.’
The cat was dead, which all agreed was a great shame.
Next to the cat was a huge raw, half eaten, pork chop.
‘Leave it to us, Sir, we will dispose of him decently, DS Smith get boxes for the animal, and that chop, little beggar looks to have been poisoned, can’t be too careful.’
DS Smith placed everything in newly obtained evidence boxes.
‘Guv, It’s an unlicensed animal, but he’s a looker, should I try to find the owner?’
‘Ordinarily I would say no, but something’s niggling at me, don’t know what yet, but yes, see if you can, I will be at the ‘nick’, checking something.’
Irons, back behind his desk, pondered the strange morning. The phone rang with its usual degree of insistence.
‘Three owners you say… now there is a thing; I thought he looked well nourished… And you have spoken to two of them… Yep, I just have a feeling… force an entry there’s a good chap… bugger the rules, keep me informed.’
Ten minutes later the telephone rang very insistently again.
‘Irons! Okay I will get a pathologist, … the victim is female, 50 plus, impaled to a kitchen chair, the house otherwise empty, … kitchen knife, 12’ blade, an opened chops package and a packet of Neosorexa… what’s that? Oh, Rat Poison… well, well, well. Good job DS Smith, so pleased you followed your hunch up, stay on site.’
Now Detective Irons was really perplexed. The victim was murdered with a knife which was usually a man’s weapon. There was poison on the table which was more likely a woman’s weapon. The chop was in a box. Was the blood on the pavement human or porcine? The cat was poisoned eating the chop. How was the knife victim ever going to eat that chop when it was raw and sitting in a box down Prospect Lane? This whole case felt wrong.
‘Thanks for your report DS Smith.’ Said Irons. ‘How many other people are thought to be living here?’
‘Three bedrooms, the main room has women’s and men’s toiletries looks like a couple’s room. The other rooms have two single beds in each; one room is painted pink and the other blue so two boys and two girls. Six seems a good guess.’
‘AND what do the neighbours think of this guess?’
‘They believe that there are too many visitors and no one is certain how many people live there. One sarky git thought they numbered in hundreds.’
‘Interesting… do some more digging see if you can find a non-sarky account of the number of visitors here.’
‘Guv.’
‘AND find out if those kids were cared for or not.’
‘Guv.’
#
The bag man walked into the DCI’s Office at the ‘nick’.
‘Well! DS Smith.’ Said Irons. ‘What further have you discovered?’
‘There is a lot of activity observed at the address and rumoured it is drug related. The children appear to be well cared for but the neighbour’s report the children are not always the same kids. The dogs change to.’
‘We’re not asking the right questions. I had thoughts. What if the couple were planning to murder each other? ’
‘I had similar thoughts but why did that raw pork chop get left in a fast food box on a window sill? Perhaps the intended other victim was supposed to be the cat?’
‘Interesting… If we knew why the kids and the dogs kept changing that might give us a lead.’
The phone rang insistently.
‘Irons… Social Services, thanks for returning my call… Ah! I see, and the only registered child at that address is sixteen-year-old Joanne Blake, … she’s there now? Right, we’re on our way. Come on DS Smith I think we may have solved it.’
The house was enormous; they rang the doorbell, a Social Services employee answered.
‘DCI Irons and DS Smith here to speak to Joanne Blake.’
‘Come this way inspector.’
They entered a room. A somewhat tarty looking teenage girl was draped sideways across a large armchair.
‘Joanne Blake?’ The girl smiled and gave a somewhat flirty wink.
‘Well, what happened at your parent’s house then?’
‘Justice that’s what!’
‘You know your mum has been murdered?’
‘Yes, my dad did that.’
‘How do you know that?’
‘He texted me. I was looking for some trade in Neil’s Bar, got drunk but … I left the bar to save the cat, good job I did as I saved a new punter called Dave instead, sides Dave fed me, and we spent the night, a bit of pocket money. Social Services threw the book at me in the morning, then you rang!’
‘What about your brothers and sisters?’
‘I am an only child.’
‘So them other kids?’
‘Boarders and them bloody dogs as well. I didn’t like any of them and took them out and left them places they didn’t know.’
‘The dogs?’
‘Yeah, and them bloody kids, they were all little sods their parents couldn’t poke up with any longer, me dad got £100 a week for detaining them. We were like local social service. Dad flogged drugs as well, and mum turned a trick or two.’
‘You are better off in here then.’
‘No choice, me dad beat me to within an inch of my life and threw me out. Plus, I nicked weed off him, which he said was the final straw.’
‘Where is your Dad?’
The entity called Jo eyed them both and said
‘Out of harm’s way, don’t you worry, he won’t hurt anyone ever again, I hope he enjoyed his chop.’
‘Chop?’
‘Yeah, it had a ‘special’ coating, I cooked one special out of the packet. I kept it secret and gave it to dad as a treat. And I did one raw because you cannot imagine the mayhem caused when you have seven dogs and that bloody ginger ponce pays a visit!!’
‘So where is your Dad now?’
‘Dave showed me where to put him. Dave is motorway maintenance, M62, working near Drax at the moment. By the way, I am def pleading guilty to all this but loopy loo insane, it’s the drugs and the booze you know.’
‘You had better come with us now then.’
Jo laughed hysterically but meekly followed them out to the police car.
‘Shame about the cat, I do regret that, but then Dave was more use to me, and as bad as me mum was, me dad shouldn’t have killed her.’
