The Last Laugh Page 2

  She drank the last of her latte, gave the cat one more fuss with her hand, and got up to go for her shower. ‘There’s one thing for sure, Cleo. If I am promoted, I’ll make sure I’m a better bloody officer than Bighead Transome!’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  The cause of her concern sat at his desk on the second floor of the Great Yarmouth police station, writing a letter on his desktop computer, applying once again for re-grading to detective. He fancied himself in plain clothes, in fact he fancied himself full stop! He’d managed to put behind him the feeling of inferiority he’d had at Bramshill. He had his degree – the LLB, and that had got him fast tracked, but he knew that he was not a gifted scholar. The qualification for him had come from long days and nights of rote learning – hundreds and hundreds of hours spent pouring over his books, while his fellow students went out on the pull or boozing, able to learn and remember enough to get qualified without the slog he’d had to put in. Uni was one thing, Bramshill was something else again. At the police college the students were almost exclusively brilliant; the work was intense, unlike at Uni, and he had felt, and was, inferior. Once again he’d slogged away at the theory and managed to pass, but both he and his talented instructors, who’d seen it all, knew his limitations. One thing he would miss if he got accepted for detective would be his own office, he knew. If it were not for those bloody plants that Somerset kept bringing in, it would be exactly as he wanted it, the desk running parallel to the back wall, his own comfortable chair behind it, and two uncomfortable ones in front, to stop guests from overstaying their welcome. On his desk just the computer, the telephone, two correspondence trays, marked ‘In’ and ‘Out’ - he had never been one for ‘Pending’ - and his pager, all perfectly aligned in regimental order. To the right of the window stood a filing cabinet of the lockable type, with another of those damned plants on it. Two large one-inch Ordnance Survey maps - Sheets 126 and 137 - covering the area of Norfolk from Cromer in the North to Lowestoft in the South, and from Yarmouth in the East to beyond Norwich in the West, dominated the rear wall behind the desk.

  Wonderful – except for those plants. He had tried tipping tea and coffee into them, but they seemed to thrive on it, and he dared not use weed-killer. He still fancied the pants off Carole Somerset, but she seemed to hold him in contempt, and he could not for the life of him think why – he was obviously a much better ‘catch’ now that he was an inspector, for God’s sake!

  He tried to remember the names of some of the monstrosities she had brought in. One he knew was a shrimp plant – she called it a Belloperone Guttata, a name better suited to some kind of pizza. ‘Would that be with the mushrooms, Sir?’ The one on the floor near the door was Pteris Cretica, next to a damned great rubber plant that to his mind seemed to increase in size every night – a Ficus Elastica – he remembered that one because it sounded like something mind-boggling from the Kama Sutra. A huge cheese plant was living up to its Latin name in the corner, trying to take over the room – the Monstera Deliciosa. He could not for the life of him think what might be delicious about it.

  He re-read the letter, long ago saved on the computer, wondering what had been wrong with it to cause his rejection three times already, made a few minor alterations, which he hoped would make it more likely to succeed. The fact that his superiors did not consider him detective material would never occur to him.

  A very short, quick knock at the door preceded its opening, and the trim figure of Carole Somerset entered, smiling sweetly, but not, he thought, for him. She was taking the piss, he knew. He had a quick vision of her imagined naked body, arms held out towards him.

  He let out a low groan, which she took to be for the plant she was carrying in both hands, and her smile broadened. It had worked as she expected.

  ‘Lovely, isn’t it? You’ll have your work cut out remembering the name of this one - it’s a Schlumbergera Gaertneri.’

  ‘Do you really have to?’

  ‘You know the old saying, ‘Say it with flowers.’

  ‘Is that why you brought me the poison ivy?’

  ‘How else could I show my undying devotion and adulation?’

  ‘Are you open to suggestions?’

  ‘You don’t mean suggestions, you mean propositions. If you were still the same sweet constable I used to know, I might just be in the market.’

  She was not going to give in until he came down off his high horse. The lovable lad she knew must still be in there somewhere, but at the moment he was just too bloody big-headed. Handsome, yes, but he needed taking down a peg or two. He used to think before he spoke; now he made instant decisions and believed himself infallible. Oh, why the hell did the powers that be have to send him to Bramshill?

  He realised when he was on the losing end, and changed the subject, ‘That’s an ugly brute, as the actress said to the bishop.’

  ‘It’s lovely! What thanks is that for me buying you a present – looking my Rhipsalidopsis in the back teeth?’

  ‘Your what?’

  ‘Rhipsalidopsis gaertneri – but if that’s too difficult for a Bramshill man, you can call it a schlumbergera – it won’t be offended.’

  ‘I don’t like it – period.’

  ‘You’re lucky – I nearly bought you another monstera deliciosa.’

  ‘But you knew I already had one.’

  ‘Bragging again?’

  Transome shrugged and pointed to the Swiss Cheese plant, ‘I don’t know why you keep bringing the damned things. You know I can’t stand them.’

  ‘Oh, you love them really. It’s just that hard, hateful exterior that pretends not to.’

  ‘Well, it’s that hard, hateful exterior that’s telling you to get the…’

  She cut in with a little shriek of mock fright, ‘Your Pteris Cretica! It’s got leaf-blotch eelworm!’ She very dramatically picked off a slightly discoloured leaf, holding it out at arm’s length in mock horror. He got out of his chair, mock menacingly, and advanced on her, ‘Sgt Somerset…’

  She squeaked, ‘Oooh! But look – your Belloperone Guttata is having a baby.’

  She delicately cupped her hand under a new ‘shrimp’ on the plant.

  Transome looked as if he was going to blow a fuse, ‘Will you…’

  He was interrupted by the telephone ringing.

  ‘Grrr.’ He picked up the phone, ‘Norfolk Constabulary, Inspector Transome speaking.’ He listened and began to smile sarcastically, ‘Just one moment, Madam, we have an officer specially delegated to deal with cases of this kind.’ He held his hand over the mouthpiece, ‘One for you, Sergeant.’

  Carole stopped toying with the plants, crossed to the desk and took the receiver from him.

  ‘Sergeant Somerset. How can I help you?’ She listened, frowning in puzzlement, while he watched, amused. ‘Now, please calm down, Madam, and try to tell me, slowly and clearly, what happened.’ She listened again, trying now and then to get a word in, in vain.

  Transome watched Somerset smile slightly at what she was hearing on the phone. She nodded, ‘Yes, I’m still here, Madam. Now…’ She began speaking very firmly, ‘Madam! Have you opened the vacuum cleaner? You haven’t? Well, I suggest you do so straight away – your little Jimmy may still be alive in the bag. Yes, I really do. Yes, I’ll wait.’

  A long pause ensued. She covered the mouthpiece with her hand and gritted out, ‘Thank you… Sir.’

  Transome grinned, ‘You’re an animal lover, aren’t you?’

  ‘Maybe so, but it’s you who’s the bird fancier.’

  She took her hand off the mouthpiece, ‘Hello, yes. Oh, did it?’ She tried to control a fit of the giggles, ‘Yes, well, I’m sorry about the mess, but you know if you’d taken it outside, your budgie would have flown away, and then we’d have the Fire Brigade involved, too, wouldn’t we? Not at all, Madam, that’s what we’re here for. Oh, no, please – it’s not at all necessary to send a reward………..a pair of hand knitted earmuffs for the Inspector? Oh, yes, that might be a good
idea.’

  Transome pulled a face.

  ‘Thank you, and if I could make a suggestion, perhaps next time you ought not to use the vacuum cleaner to clean out the budgie’s cage while your little Jimmy is still inside it……Yes, goodbye’ She replaced the receiver, just managed to say, ‘Poor old girl.’ and burst out in peals of laughter.

  ‘Stupid old biddy, you mean.’

  ‘You’ll be senile one day.’

  He realised it was the nearest they had yet come to sharing a personal moment and decided to press his luck, ‘Well, I’m certainly not yet, so how about dinner and a show tonight?’

  ‘I know just what you want to show. Are you never going to give up? You know how long ago I burnt my bra.’

  ‘We had a good thing going once.’

  ‘Oh – you want to talk about once upon a time? Ah-hah! Okay! Here’s a fairy story for you then: once upon a time there was a sweet, naïve little police person, who loved an honest but ambitious constable of the opposite sex, and they looked forward happily to a life of cohabitation and combating crime together…and the pitter-patter of little guard-dogs’ feet…and then…one fateful day…someone up there,’ She pointed and looked upwards, ‘on the Home Office Mount Olympus, looked down and said, ‘There is the blue-uniformed male person we want! Tantata-tantatara! We’ll make him ‘Supercop’.’ So they took him from his pleasant, happy, ordinary little world, made him a Bramshill scholar, and sent him to college to become a male, chauvinist pig of the first water. So heed the Word, all ye who should believe – she never fancied him after he gave up his truncheon…Hallelujah!’

  ‘Flattery will get you nowhere.’

  ‘Oh, get…’

  ‘Basta! And in case you think otherwise, that’s Italian, and talking of spaghetti, there’s that new Wop chop shop just opened, where they tell me the pizza is out of this world – so what about it? It’ll do you good to have a break. Purely platonic arrangement, if you like.’

  ‘That’s about as likely as your rubber plant fruiting motor tyres – but I bet you’d use it as an excuse to do a Van der Walk on me with the bill.’

  ‘Now, honestly, would I?’

  He was interrupted by a sharp rapping on the door, and nodded to Carole to open it.

  A man in his forties, dressed in a well-cut double-breasted suit, with a military-style tie stood in the doorway. With him was a handsome blonde woman in her late thirties, wearing a worsted skirt and jacket, over a white, frilly blouse. She looked worried and insecure; the man just seemed angry.

  Carole Somerset was surprised that the front desk had sent them up without informing her, but asked pleasantly enough, ‘What can we do for you?’

  The man spoke sharply, ‘I’m a busy man, and I’ve had to take time off work for this.’ He looked over Carole’s shoulder, ‘Are you Handsome?’

  ‘Transome.’ gritted the Inspector, thinking, I’ll have that bugger on the desk!

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘Transome – the name is Transome.’

  ‘Oh, I’m sorry, the Sergeant on the desk…’

  ‘Yes, he would. You are Mr and Mrs Harsley, I take it? At least, he got that right. Come in and sit down.’

  Carole Somerset was regarding him warily; he’d not mentioned anything of this visit, nor why the couple was there.

  The man and woman walked in and over to the two chairs that Transome pulled out for them.

  Carole crossed to the filing cabinet, opened the top drawer, and pretended to be looking for something, but was listening intently.

  Transome pulled a report form from the top drawer of his desk and picked up a pen. ‘Now, a few particulars, if you don’t mind. The name is…’

  ‘Harsley, Ernest Harsley.’

  ‘And the address?’

  ‘Eighty-three, Old Town Terrace.’

  ‘The sergeant said his name was Billy, is that correct?’

  ‘Yes, that’s right, Inspector, but we ought to h…’

  ‘William!’ The woman cut in.

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘William. His name is William. We just call him Billy for short.’

  The father jumped in, ‘But not for long. He’s never there.’

  ‘But he answers to Billy, not William?’

  ‘Oh…yes, Billy.’

  Transome wrote again, ‘And he is…how old?’

  ‘Ten’

  ‘Eleven.’ They spoke together.

  Transome looked up, quietly waiting, tapping the end of his pen with his finger, trying, unsuccessfully, not to look annoyed. Carole stood with her back to them, grinning.

  The mother elucidated, ‘Eleven. He’ll be eleven next Monday.’

  Transome spoke as he wrote, ‘Ten years, eleven months. Is he an only child?’

  ‘Yes…we tried…but…’ Her voice died away as her husband looked at her disgustedly, shaking his head.

  ‘And when did you find out he’d gone?’

  ‘When I went to wake him this morning. I was letting him have a lie-in because the school has a teachers’ training day. His bed had not been slept in. He must have left the house just after I tucked him up last night.’

  ‘Did he take anything with him?’

  ‘Only some food and drink from the fridge…oh, and his old tranny…’

  Transome grimaced in query.

  ‘His transistor radio. He prefers that to these newfangled things – says it has a nicer bass.’

  ‘Clothes?’

  ‘Dark grey trousers, a dark blue shirt and a blue, long-sleeved pullover. Oh, and a brown jacket.’

  ‘No tie?’

  ‘He doesn’t like ties.’

  ‘What sort of boy is he – outgoing or a loner?’

  ‘Oh, he’s outgoing – he’ll talk to anyone, and he’s got a vivid imagination.’

  Mr Harsley nodded his head vigorously, ‘Hmmph! Too bloody vivid, if you ask me!’

  Transome ignored the interruption, ‘You brought a recent photograph?’

  ‘Oh…. yes.’ She shuffled the contents of her handbag and took out a photo, ‘It was taken at his Gran’s in Exeter last month…in her garden at the back. She’s got a swing for the children. He likes going there; she spoils him and…’

  Transome cut in, ‘Any likelihood he will head for there now?’

  ‘No…I shouldn’t think so…at least, he hasn’t in the past.’

  Transome called to Somerset, ‘Sergeant, have this photocopied straight away – a hundred copies.’

  Carole took the photograph and looked at it, ‘What a swee…’

  Transome spoke over her, ‘How many times has he run away?’

  The sergeant glared at him and left the room.

  The father chipped in, ‘Three times before. Twice this year, the little devil. Just wait till I get my hands on him. I’ll give h…’ His voice died away as he realised what an impression he was creating.

  Transome was interested suddenly, thinking he might have to get Social Services involved, ‘You punished him severely before?’

  The woman cut in, worriedly, ‘Oh, no, Inspector. He has a good home, and he is happy there. He has everything he could want: toys, clothes, computer…’

  Transome said it all, ‘Then why would he run away?’

  Their faces told different stories. The father tried to hide his embarrassment by pushing the fault onto Transome, ‘What are you doing about finding him? That’s what we pay you for!’

  ‘You said that he doesn’t go far. Is that correct?’

  ‘The first time, he was missing for two days. When he came home, he told us he had been in next-door’s garden shed the whole time. The second time was in the school holidays and he’d found a way into the gym. He stayed there for three days and came home when his food ran out. Last time he used the church in the next street and the vicar found him.’

  ‘So he never goes out of town?’

  ‘Not so far.’

  ‘I’ll have all my mobile units on the lookout
for your son, and all our available staff will be searching house to house. I will have his photograph and description in this evening’s newspaper and tomorrow’s daily, and on the Anglia news programmes. We will find him.’

  ‘Why don’t you organise a hunt outside the town? That’s what you do when a child is missing, isn’t it?’

  Transome was on a loser, and knew it, but hesitated, ‘If he had never run away before, or had gone beyond the town boundaries previously, I would agree, but at the moment it would be a misuse of resources, and think of the cost. With the cutbacks I know you must realise how tightly we are stretched. I’m sure you know, don’t you, that he will come home when he’s run out of food? You are quite sure that he went of his own volition, and was not snatched? That would be a horse of a different colour.’

  The two parents looked at one another and Mr Harsley grunted, ‘Yes.’

  ‘So you would agree that an all-out sweep across the county, using all our resources, would not be the best use of our manpower?’

  ‘I suppose so.’

  The inspector compromised, ‘Very well. For today we will stick to the Town. If he’s still missing tomorrow, we will drop everything and do a full sweep.’

  ‘Fair enough.’

 

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Billy finished the last of the Cola and stood upright. He walked a few paces, undid his zip and peed on the loose straw at the bottom of the stack, then picked up his plastic bag and skipped away, whistling tunelessly something that might have been ‘Boys and girls come out to play’.

  He stopped dead at the sight of the scarecrow, realised what it was and walked steadfastly towards it, stopping just in front of it.

  He viewed its face with disgust, ‘Ugh! You’re ‘orrible!’

  He felt the sleeve of the anorak the scarecrow was wearing and found that it was dry. He began to remove it from the figure, ‘Sorry, old ugly-face – I need it more than you do.’

  He took his jacket off and pulled the anorak on. He was about to put his jacket on the scarecrow when he suddenly changed his mind, ‘Oh, no. You’d just like that, wouldn’t you? So you could tell them all I’ve been here.’