CHAPTER 2
I pulled on the lycra again after lunch, and rode the five miles to the station, where I punched in the code on the keypad and locked the bike up in the yard.

The early man buzzed me through to Custody and after I had changed I took the parish notices from him. Two prisoners only, thankfully, neither of them special needs or vulnerable, though one was apparently keen to show how much of a twat he could be. He was in for robbery, the other for, of all things, flashing at a dogging spot. I mean, what was the point? Go back there at night and they’d welcome him like a brother, and return the favour. Daylight hours it was real dog walking, and the gentle residents of Faygate did not take kindly to their dogs being offered the wrong species of genitalia to sniff.

The robber was a cocky one, a punch and rummage type rather than a grabber and runner, but he had lucked out in trying it on in front of a couple or three bikers, and the opportunity for them to give someone deserving a kicking was too good to resist. Fortunately for him, a beat copper and a PCSO were close enough to intervene before their violence got too creative.

Just another afternoon in Crawley. I signed everything over, and did the rounds. I’m your friendly Custody Sergeant, I am here to make sure you are treated correctly, not softly you little shit, do those bruises hurt? He tried to put the brave face up to me, but the pain was getting to him.

“Mate, got any painkillers?”

“Nope, and I am not and never will be your mate”

I asked the support staff to give the FMO a ring, just to be sure, and then went to see Mr Trouser Maggot. He was crying, and I wondered what demons were riding him to make him do something so bloody stupid. I made a mental note to turn the cell monitor on, and offered him a cuppa.

“When’s it happening, then?”

“What?”

“My kicking”

I laughed. “A few years out of date, butt, see the camera up there? Recording, it is now. I see you haven’t asked for any intimation”

“Any what?”

“Telling someone you are here”

“Oh god, no, I can’t do that”

“Well, better sooner and on your terms rather than through the local press. They hang around next door in the Madge Court”

“Am I going to court?”

“Let us wait and see what the CPS say, OK? They may just spring for a caution, all right?”

Remorse, a wonderful thing, but why do it in the first place? At least my hangover was wearing off, so I could talk to him without snarling. In the end, what had he done? There were no children involved, he had simply dangled his worm in front of the wrong fish. Surely a better and more effective action for the woman would have been to point, laugh and call her friends over. Like a penis, but a lot smaller, and he would have slunk off.

Then again, sexual offences didn’t usually stay at the same level. Like porn addicts, they wanted more each time, so perhaps today’s sad little fisherman might be tomorrow’s Buffalo Bill. I didn’t really think so, but it wasn’t my decision. Give him a cuppa, see that the Doc had seen Mike not so Tyson, and sort out the custody records.

These were the hours I wondered about my alcoholism, with no urge to drink at all while at work, just that need to cosh my brain before bed, before the nightmares found their way in.

Jim Atkins was the Inspector for the late relief, and he stopped by for a s40 review on the robber. I let him in, and handed him the record to book it in afterwards. It was all on computer, now, but the wigs preferred a manual record, and I agreed wholeheartedly; so many things can go wrong with the shitty systems we are given. I mean, they’re cheap, but expensive. We get bought crap for the price of quality, and all the other budgets suffer.

I got through the evening, avoiding the canteen on Jim’s advice, as it was a roast dinner, and he knew me very, very well. We got the usual Crawley vermin in through the evening, two of whom had been sprayed and one bitten by a police dog, and one of whom had tried to punch PC Kirsty ‘Ruth’ Ellis, who is a tiny blonde nothing with a very hard baton and the talent to use it. Silly boy. The FMO was busy that night, and the mugshots were likely to involve a lot of red-eyed squinting as the spray wore off.

Ted was my own relief, and after doing my own parish notices I slipped off to change and ride home, leaving the Tesco all nighter alone as I had a litre and a half or so of wine at home for the night.

I managed to avoid the junk food on the way home, and the routine was as usual. Laptop on, cycle kit off, a quick shower for work’s sake and then trawl the mails. Another one from Ginny.

“What the fuck do you mean congenital? You’re not admitting you’re really Belgian, are you?”

That made me giggle, and then I thought more, and if anyone could understand me it would be my friendly local dyke Amazon and terror of Brighton cabbies. I had marched with her a few times in the Pride, in uniform with the blessing of the Sussex plod HQ, and as a clearly great hairy butch thing, I was very popular with a certain number of marchers, one of whom, that first time, dubbed me “Queen of the Bears” in an oddly clever transatlantic/gay pun. Ginny was tickled, well, pink, and had to explain repeatedly that I was not gay.

That s one thing I have learned in twelve years on the job, that lies are best kept small and close to the truth. All of that was true, and I was certainly not interested in gay men.

I replied to Ginny, smiling for once, “So I take mayo on my chips now and again, is that a crime? Memo to self: check Condimental Offences (Fried Tubers) Act 1542 when next in work”

Back she came. “Bugger it, I knew you were old…..Adam, am worried. What is up?”

“Can’t talk about it just now, sorry. Anyway, am off to bed, was hard day”

I wasn’t, of course, I just wanted to end that conversation, so moved my status to ‘appear offline’ and signed out of the forum. I dug out a French language film, one of the Pagnol Provence ones, and after five minutes pulled it out and stuck my well-worn home recording of ‘Second Serve’ into the bedroom telly and took my wine to bed.

I woke once again, at one thirty, and realised there was someone not only on the bed, but holding me. I started to twist free, and Ginny just said “Shhhhhhh”

“What are you doing here?”

“You gave me a spare key years ago, remember? And you’re pissed. Why are you pissed on a Tuesday night? And from the looks of your bin, it’s every night, isn’t it? Look, mate, you don’t have to tell me now, you’re too pissed to think straight, and I’m not riding all the way back home at nearly two in the morning, so let’s do this in the morning. Now budge over in the bed, I’m getting in, and no funny business, OK?”

“ Don’t fancy gay women” I mumbled.

Small, and close to the truth.

I woke once more, as she shook me out of sleep as I turned down Penrhiw, and she muttered “Bad dream, love, you’re not alone” and I went back to sleep in her arms.

She brought me tea in bed, and I realised she had turned the alarm off and the only thing to wake me was bladder pressure. I automatically took the cup to drink while peeing, and she grabbed it back with a “for fuck’s sake!”

She conjured up some scrambled eggs on toast, which was odd, because my larder held neither bread nor eggs, nor milk for the tea, come to think of it. She caught my look.

“So I rode to the corner shop, and your point is? Look, Adam, what is up with you? None of us have seen you for months, I come up here and you’re part way through what seems to be the binge of a lifetime. There’s nothing but crap and booze in your kitchen, bottles and cans and wine boxes in your bin, and yes, I have looked in both bins. I get in and you’re in bed with more booze and some shit film playing to your closed eyes, and you’re having fucking nuclear grade nightmares, and…and you look like shit. How much do you weigh, exactly?”

“Don’t know”

“Don’t fucking care, more like. What is going on? Are you trying to kill yourself?”

My face must have made some sort of twitch, because all she said was “Oh” and wrapped me up like a child.

“Are you talking to anyone, love? This is still that shit from Swansea, isn’t it?”

I nodded. Small, close to the truth. We ate quietly, her dark eyes sharp on my face for any clue, and she rang n to her work with some story about a sick relative.

“Adam, answer me this: do you have a next of kin listed at work? Fucking thought not, fits the pattern. Well, you can forget it. What was it going to be? Fuck up Southern Railways for a day, and a driver for life? Off a motorway bridge? Pills? Cutting? You don’t have a car, which is a blessing given what your blood-alcohol level must be like, so that’s not an option. This looks like slow suicide by lifestyle. Are you riding at all? Audax, touring, escape the zombocalypse practice, anything at all?”

“I ride to work…”

“Fucking big deal, mate, five miles twice a day, that’s bugger all and you know it. So I am going to ask again: are you talking to anyone? You said it yourself, this isn’t just the PTSD, there’s more. You been having goat sex again? You know you have a contract at national level for sheep, don’t you?”

So typical of Virginia, bounce from serious enquiry to bad joke, from subject to subject, and hope something fell out of the tree she was shaking. She would have done well on CID, but as she was a crypto-anarchistic libertarian of her own specific and very personal sect, I doubted she would accept the gig. Small, close to the truth.

“Adam, answer me this truthfully, please, sub rosa? Are you gay? I haven’t seen you with a woman since that wife of yours fucked off with that estate agent tosser. What’s worse is we haven’t seen you for months. Oh fuck it, you leave me no choice if you won’t talk. It’s the soft pillows.”

“If you’re going to quote Python, it’s ‘cushions’ “

“Nope, pillows go on beds. I snore, so get some earplugs.”

She moved in that morning.