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  ‘Did the car have a booster seat for him?’ Rosie grinned over her coffee mug.

  ‘I’m beginning to think police cars should be fitted with child seats. I mean, some of these criminals are so bloody young nowadays,’ Jayne replied.

  ‘I know, it’s getting scary. So what do you want to do if you’re not happy?’ Rosie asked.

  Jayne drained her cup, paused a moment and said, ‘I’ve asked to be considered for any opportunities that come up, anything to get me off the beat.’

  Rosie nodded not really sure what to say.

  ‘Well, consider yourself fortunate that you didn’t have to do what I had to do earlier today,’ she said.

  Jayne raised an eyebrow. ‘Go on,’ she urged.

  ‘I X-rayed a patient and found a Power Ranger stuck up his bottom.’

  ‘A toy?’ Jayne asked incredulously.

  Rosie stared at her sister. ‘Obviously.’

  ‘How did it get up there?’ Jayne asked.

  ‘He said it was an accident. He said he was doing some housework and sat down on a chair. The Power Ranger was on the chair, and up it shot.’

  Jayne looked perplexed. ‘So he was doing the housework naked?’

  ‘It would appear so.’

  Jayne winced. ‘That must have been really painful.’

  Rosie shook her head. ‘Well you would think so wouldn’t you? But I checked his medical records and it turns out that he’s a regular visitor to the local A&E Departments. Five times this year he’s turned up with something wedged up his backside. Over the last six months the NHS have dug half of Toys R Us out of his bum.’

  Jayne laughed. ‘Some toys are very rare and collectable,’ she paused and giggled. ‘Maybe he kept them up there for safe keeping. You know, like Samuel Pepys. Remember he buried his cheese to keep it safe during the Great Fire of London.’

  ‘He buried it in his garden,’ Rosie said, trying to introduce some historical accuracy to a conversation that was rapidly spinning out of control. ‘Anyway,’ she continued, ‘I doubt there’s a market for toys that have been hidden away where the sun doesn’t shine.’

  ‘So what do you do with them, once they’re out?’ Jayne enquired, clearly not giving up on the conversation.

  ‘We have them on display in the Hospital Lecture Hall, on a shelf with little plaques under them saying when they were removed.’ Rosie’s replied deadpan and stood up, breaking the moment. ‘Let’s have a look at the pot plants,’ she announced.

  Jayne rolled her eyes and followed her sister out of the restaurant.

  *

  Rosie leaned against the heavily laden trolley as Jayne opened the boot of her car. There were so many plants and shrubs stacked on the trolley that Jayne wondered if they would all fit in to Rosie’s garden.

  ‘We should have a night out. A meal and a club. We haven’t done that for ages,’ Jayne suggested.

  ‘I’m up for that,’ Rosie said as she began to transfer the plants to the boot of the car. ‘We can try that new club near the hospital. I’ll mention it to Alison next time I see her in the gym.’

  As Jayne stacked plants in the boot, Rosie cast her eye over the trolley. ‘Do you think I’ve forgotten anything?’ she asked. ‘We can always pop back in and get some more plants.’

  ‘Better not,’ Jayne replied. ‘I can feel a dizzy spell coming on. All those plants photosynthesizing is making me feel giddy.’

  Chapter 3.

  James hated parent’s evenings. There were two hundred and fifty pupils in year 8 and James taught - or at least attempted to teach - music to thirty of them.

  Once a week he laboured over the finer points of the history of music and the skills involved in mastering the Xylophone (or the metal Xylophone the name of which he could never remember) his efforts in the most part going unrewarded. The only real pleasure that he ever gleaned from these classes was when one of the children managed to hit himself in the face with the stick thing (another bit of musical paraphernalia that he could never remember the name of).

  As a result James reluctantly took his place at a desk in the corner of the school hall, smiled politely and greeted the parade of parents and children with as much enthusiasm as he could muster.

  At 5.30 that afternoon he was sat opposite Mr and Mrs Laker and their child Andre, trying to explain how Andre had ended up with a heavily bandaged hand after the lid of a piano had dropped onto it.

  ‘To be fair, I don’t think that Andre is really cut out for a musical career,’ James explained.

  Mr Laker exchanged glances with his wife.

  ‘Are you sure?’ Mr Laker asked. ‘Andre has always been so enthusiastic about music, he even made his own conductor’s baton in woodwork.’

  James stared back not quite sure how to respond.

  ‘We have all set our hearts on Andre becoming a concert pianist,’ Mr Laker added.

  James looked at Andre who was busy picking at the bandage on his hand and not paying too much attention to his Father’s pleading on his behalf.

  James sighed. ‘There’s no question that Andre is very enthusiastic, but he just shows absolutely no ability whatsoever.’ He paused, expecting an interruption that didn’t come, so he continued, ‘and to be honest, he’s a danger to himself and others in the music room.’

  All three adults looked at Andre’s bandaged hand.

  James leaned forward placing his arms on the desk as if he was about to share some highly confidential information. ‘Since Christmas he’s cut his finger trying to learn the guitar, requiring three stitches, poked himself in the eye with a drumstick, developed a septic boil on his neck from the violin, choked on an Oboe and most recently he had the incident with the piano lid.’ James paused, letting the catalogue of their son’s disasters sink in.

  ‘But everything was going so well,’ Mrs Laker said, ‘he had a musical part in the school play.’

  James sighed. ‘He was the drummer on a slave galleon, and even then he couldn’t keep time. If it had been a proper slave ship they would have zig zagged all over the ocean until they all died of scurvy. Keith Moon, he is not.’

  Mr and Mrs Laker sat in silence, staring at James who in turn stared back at them. Andre also sat in silence while picking at his bandage.

  James scanned the hall, looking beyond the Laker family. His attention was drawn to a poster on the wall inviting pupils and staff to the school play; a production of Brigadoon.

  ‘Bagpipes,’ James suddenly announced. ‘Andre,’ he said, turning to the disinterested 13 year old, ‘Would you like to learn the bagpipes?’

  Andre shrugged, offering no indication as to whether he found the allure of the bagpipes irresistible or not.

  ‘I’d say that’s a definite,’ Mr Laker said. ’I’ve rarely seen him so enthusiastic.’

  James breathed a sigh of relief, realising he could move the bewildered Laker family on. Standing up, James offered his hand to Mr Laker. ‘Thank you for coming in,’ he said, while shaking Mr Laker’s hand, ‘I’m pleased we managed to get that all sorted out. I’ll speak to Andre at next week’s music lesson and we’ll sort out his timetable.’

  Mr Laker mumbled his thanks, Mrs Laker smiled meekly whilst Andre produced a mobile phone from his pocket, ignoring James ushering them away from his desk.

  Sitting back on his chair, James wondered where he was going to find a set of bagpipes and someone to teach them in the next seven days.

  ‘Do we have a set of bagpipes at the school?’ The question cut through James’s thoughts as he turned to his left to face the questioner.

  ‘Evening Lucy,’ James said, addressing the teacher sitting at the desk to his left.

  ‘I didn’t know we taught bagpipes at the school,’ Lucy said, her sly grin reaching her eyes.

  James turned to his left to face the Spanish teacher. ‘We don’t,’ he said, ‘but I was struggling, and I didn’t think they were going to leave until I suggested another instrument their talentless offspring would fail miserably to
grasp.’

  Lucy left her desk and sat opposite James. ‘So, we don’t teach the bagpipes and yet you’ve offered him lessons?’ she asked, trying to work out James’s logic.

  ‘I thought I could borrow a set of dummy bagpipes from the school play and personally teach Andre how to play them,’ James’s explained.

  ‘So you can play the bagpipes?’

  ‘No but it doesn’t matter. Even the best bagpipe music sounds like a constipated elephant, so I’ll just tell Andre that he’s doing really well and after a couple of lessons he’ll injure himself and give up. Hopefully by then he, and more importantly his parents, will finally realise that he’s talentless and push him towards something that isn’t music.’

  Lucy grinned. ‘You’ve got it all worked out then.’

  ‘Well that’s the plan,’ James replied.

  Looking over Lucy’s shoulder, he could see the hall doors open and further sets of parents and pupils filter in. They all did that familiar scan around the rows of desks looking for the teachers that they wished to see. One particular pair began to make their way around the desks and head in the direction of James and Lucy. Not recognising the child as one of his pupils James said, ‘Looks like you’ve got visitors.’

  Lucy turned to face the body of the hall. ‘That’s one of mine,’ she said and moved back to her desk.

  ‘Must be easy for you,’ James stated in a matter of fact tone.

  ‘Why do you say that?’ She asked.

  ‘Language teachers. All you have to do is direct them to Google Translator and that’s your job done. I imagine your biggest problem would be if the web site crashed due to the number of pupils doing their homework. In fact, with all your spare time, do you fancy teaching Andre the bagpipes?’

  James was saved from Lucy’s reply by the arrival of her pupil and his parents.

  *

  It was raining again. Same dream, same heavy rain made worse by the strong winds. They were arguing. Amy couldn’t hear the words, but she instinctively knew what they were. She remembered every detail. And, just as happened every night, he slipped in the rain, stumbled and fell over the barrier. Every single night.

  Amy awoke with a start, her neck was sore from where she had slept awkwardly on the sofa and she winced as she sat up. The half empty bottle of wine on the coffee table explained her dry mouth and thumping headache.

  Getting unsteadily to her feet, Amy could see from the large station style clock on the wall that it was 9.10pm. James must have gone to the pub after the parents evening, so he could hardly complain if she had a drink at home.

  Amy wandered into the kitchen and headed for the fridge. There were two bottles of French beer in the door. She took one out, opened it and chugged the whole bottle. She plucked the remaining bottle from the fridge, pushing the door shut with her hip. She pushed some papers aside to place the bottle on the table. She remembered that, before she had started on the wine, she had been planning a trip for her special needs children to London Zoo. Deciding to get on with the itinerary, Amy pulled a chair out and sat down.

  *

  There was something different about the dream this time. The rain was still hammering down and the wind was still howling, but this time there was something else, a dreadful wailing sound, an unfamiliar soundtrack to a familiar dream.

  Amy rolled over in bed, not fully awake but aware that the terrible sound had followed her from the dream and into the real world. She swung her long legs off the bed and gingerly stood up. She couldn’t remember going to bed. In fact, she could not remember anything after finishing off the bottle of wine and trying to organise a trip to the zoo. At least she was wearing her usual night time attire; a long T shirt promoting a Bruce Springsteen World Tour. On a couple occasions recently she had gone to bed in her clothes, so she rationalised that things were improving.

  The wailing sound got louder as she opened the bedroom door and followed the tuneless dirge down the stairs and into the living room. The wailing stopped as soon as she walked into the room. James was slumped on the sofa with a tartan bag on his chest.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, ‘did I wake you?’

  Amy stared at her husband. ‘What is that?’ she mumbled pointing in his general direction.

  ‘Bagpipes,’ he said proudly.

  Amy was feeling the effects of too much alcohol and another nights’ disrupted sleep. She limited the large number of things that she wanted to say to one word.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘I’m going to start teaching the bagpipes,’ James announced, blowing into the pipes.

  ‘James,’ Amy said, ’If I hear those things again, I’ll be putting them somewhere uncomfortable and unpleasant.’

  James looked back at his wife, ‘Where, the Northern Line?’ he grinned.

  Amy glared back at him. James, recognising the look, decided it was time to go to bed.

  Chapter 4.

  Inspector Tom Williams tapped lightly on the Superintendent’s door and waited. He half hoped there would be no answer and he could slip quietly away, get on with his day and avoid his boss.

  Tom had been summoned and in his experience, this never meant good news. A summons was never for anything pleasant. You were summoned to appear before Headmasters, Judges and senior officers, whilst good news normally accompanied invitations such as parties, weddings and presentations.

  ‘Come in.’ A muffled voice from the other side of the door deflated Tom’s hopes that he could avoid the inevitable meeting, so he opened the door and stepped into the office with a sigh.

  Superintendent Philip Pitcher sat behind his desk, his uniform straining to keep his rugby honed physique in place.

  ‘Thanks for popping up, Tom, take a seat,’ he said, as if he had sent out an invite to a cheese and wine party.

  ‘You wanted to see me Sir?’ Tom said, mentally running through the likely reasons that he had been summoned; there had been a complaint against one of his officers; a grumble about the latest crime figures; or the worst case scenario - a community based project.

  Pitcher gestured for Tom to take a seat. ‘It was the Oneway inquest yesterday,’ he said.

  Tom paused for a moment trying to place the name. ‘The property developer?’ he asked. ‘Clive Oneway? The bloke who threw himself off the balcony of his apartment.’

  ‘It appears that the coroner does not necessarily agree. He recorded an open verdict and directed us to carry out a thorough investigation of the incident,’ Pitcher explained.

  Tom slumped back into his chair and sighed. ‘We asked around, spoke to the neighbours and found nothing to warrant any further investigations.’

  Pitcher flicked through the file on the desk in front of him. ‘The coroner picked up on the fact that no one had appeared to follow up the sighting of a woman who was seen entering Oneway’s apartment earlier that evening,’ he said, looking up at Tom.

  Tom reached out across the desk for the file. ‘May I, Sir?’ he said, gesturing at the file. Pitcher pushed the file across the desk.

  Tom cast his eye over the paperwork. ‘It doesn’t make any reference to the enquiries we did make, Sir.’

  ‘Look Tom,’ Pitcher said, ‘it’s not me you have to convince. But we do have to comply with the coroner’s direction, so get a couple of your team to look over the files again and at least make it look like we are going into this with an open mind.’

  ‘Even if all we do is go over the same ground we looked at six weeks ago, we haven’t got the manpower at the moment, Sir.’ Tom explained.

  Pitcher was bored now. He had passed the message on, delegated the responsibility for the enquiry to one of his officers, and wanted to move onto something different. ‘What about Inspector Barber?’ he asked.

  ‘Investigating sheep rustling at the city farm, Sir.’ Tom replied.

  ‘Inspector Mower?’

  ‘Looking into thefts from garden centres.’ Tom explained again.

  ‘What about Sergeant Ramrod?’

 
‘Investigating inappropriate behaviour in Public toilets.’ Tom sighed, tiring of having to explain why he did not have the available manpower.

  ‘There must be someone in your team who is available and capable of leading an investigation?’ Pitcher asked, exasperated that a simple request could have so many obstacles.

  ‘Not at the moment I’m afraid, Sir. We’ll just have to delay until we have the manpower,’ Tom said, trying to sound more disappointed than he actually felt.

  Pitcher sat back and looked up at the ceiling. ‘Of course, there is someone who I could draft in.’

  ‘Who’s that, Sir?’

  ‘DCI Montgomery.’

  ‘Who?’ Tom asked.

  ‘Monty Montgomery. I’m surprised you don’t know him,’ Pitcher said. ‘Thief taker extraordinaire, maverick detective. Bends the rules to get results, knows where the line is but never crosses it. Argues that the end justifies the means. Drinks to forget a backstory that we don’t know any details of, but he alludes to occasionally. Some say that he lost his grip on life when his wife ran off with the satellite TV man who came to install HD and from that moment on has only watched TV on standard definition…’

  ‘Poor bastard,’ Tom said, sympathising with the depths to which the man had fallen.

  ‘He won’t want your sympathy Tom, he just wants more villains nicked.’

  ‘I still can’t place him, Sir,’ Tom said. ‘Where is he now?’

  ‘On an intensive two year diversity training course. He was sent there after arresting a dwarf and handcuffing him into a child’s car seat while he went in pursuit of the rest of his gang.’

  ‘With all due respect, Sir, I’m not necessarily certain this man would be the best choice to conduct a sensitive suicide investigation.’

  ‘Nonsense Tom, he’ll be perfect. This could be Monty’s last case.’

  Tom slumped back in his chair. ‘He’ll need someone to work with.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what I’ll do. I’ll ring around and borrow some officers from elsewhere,’ Pitcher offered.