Second Chances Box Set

by Jason Ayres

  At last the audience found its voice. “What?” said Dan Bradley.

  “You must be joking,” said another D.I. from the Witney branch.

  “I am not joking,” said Summerfield. “I know all about the boozy lunches, the fake mileage claims and all the rest of it. There will be no bonus this year and that’s that. It’s not up for debate.”

  The bonus was not an inconsequential sum. Kent’s normally amounted to about one and a half times a month’s salary, enough to pay for a decent holiday. The others would be similarly affected and a murmuring of discontent was spreading around the room. The mood of the audience was turning ugly and it was time to make a stand.

  Kent stood up, and simply said, “No.”

  “I beg your pardon,” replied Summerfield, astounded that anyone would have the audacity to challenge his authority.

  “I said no,” repeated Kent. “We’ve sat here listening to your bullshit for the last hour and we’ve heard enough. You’ve belittled us, insulted us and accused us of all sorts. If that wasn’t bad enough, now you’re hitting us in the pocket, while you stand there in your flash suit with your expensive laptop telling us there’s no money.”

  “Sit down, Kent,” said Summerfield, angrily. “Or you’ll be the first one out of the door.”

  “I will not sit down!” retorted Kent. “You know what? You can stick your job. In fact you can stick it where the sun doesn’t shine.”

  He grabbed his Brontosaurus from the desk and rushed across the room directly towards Summerfield. The man was completely taken by surprise and when Kent cannoned into him, he went down like a sack of spuds. The man may have been younger and fitter than Kent but you could never underestimate the element of surprise or the sheer power of eighteen stone of good, old-fashioned British beef.

  “What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” yelled Summerfield, followed by “Get this lunatic off me” directed squarely towards the delegates.

  But none of the other D.I.s moved. They just watched on, transfixed by the unfolding scene. They had no intention of helping this insidious little man. One or two even began to cheer Kent on, thinking he was about to beat the fellow up.

  “Go on, my son,” he heard Dan Bradley shout. “The bastard deserves it.”

  Kent had no intention of beating him up; he had something far better in mind. As Summerfield attempted to wriggle away from under him, Kent grabbed his trousers and to his delight they slid off easily, revealing a pair of pink Calvin Klein boxer shorts.

  Kent reached for those, too. As Summerfield began to realise what was happening he screamed out, “For fuck’s sake, help! This nutter’s trying to rape me.”

  One or two of the audience made some reluctant and tentative steps towards them whilst others started to laugh in disbelief at the bizarre spectacle in front of them. With his boxers now round his knees and his private parts dangling for all to see, Summerfield was well and truly exposed. Kent was delighted to see that the man had an extremely small penis, but it was the other side he was interested in.

  He flipped the still protesting Summerfield over, spread his cheeks, grabbed his Brontosaurus and inserted the head straight into the commissioner’s rectum, provoking a howl of anguish.

  At last, two of the audience members decided that things had gone far enough, grabbed hold of Kent and dragged him away. But they were too late. He had done what he had set out to do.

  Summerfield pulled the offending article out of himself, jumped up and pulled up his boxers. He was sweating profusely, red in the face, and extremely angry. His glasses had come off in the melee and he couldn’t see his trousers.

  “You fucking wanker!” he screamed at Kent. “I’ll see you never work in the police again! What’s more, you’ll go to prison for this!” Then he stormed out of the room, still minus his trousers. As he left, the audience, still bemused and shocked by what they had witnessed, burst into a spontaneous round of applause. Kent looked round at their faces and saw respect and admiration. Whatever happened for the rest of the day, to be able to see that, as well as the look on Summerfield’s face, was absolutely awesome.

  “That was absolutely amazing,” said Dan Bradley, slapping him on the back. “I can’t believe you actually had the guts to do that.”

  Praise was being heaped on him from all around. He hadn’t been quite sure what reaction he would get from the others but this was far better than anything he could have expected. It just went to show how hated Gideon Summerfield was by all of them.

  Nonetheless, he had no idea what the backlash to his actions might be and he didn’t fancy hanging around to face any potential retaliation from Summerfield. What he had done amounted to sexual assault, even though nobody in the room full of police officers had made any attempt to arrest him. However, Somerfield could have friends in high places and might be sending for the cavalry right now.

  Making his farewells, he left the conference room to a standing ovation, walked straight to his car, got in and drove.

  He couldn’t risk going home, it would be better to just disappear for the day. The sun was shining in the clear blue sky and it looked like it was going to be a beautiful day. As he reached the main road at the end of the lane that led to Greenland’s, he saw a sign that read ‘Bournemouth 30’.

  That was good enough for him. He would go and spend a nice day by the seaside, book into a hotel and enjoy some quality time on his own.

  He reached into his coat pocket and threw his mobile phone out of the window. He wouldn’t need it where he was going. Happy and contented, he put the radio on to catch the end of Ken Bruce on Radio 2 and cruised on down the A35 towards his day in the sun.

  Friday I’m In Love

  July 1994

  It was Thursday teatime and Kent was walking into the town centre, mentally preparing himself for his fourth trip back through time.

  The angel had been delighted with Kent’s performance on the previous day, so much so that he had been barely able to stop laughing on his return to the rooftop.

  “I can quite honestly say, in all my years of doing this, nobody has ever done anything quite like that before,” he had said, promptly bursting into hysterics.

  He had been pleased by the angel’s reaction. He might have powers beyond Kent’s comprehension, but it showed that it had a sense of humour. He was glad that it hadn’t been disapproving; it made him feel more justified in his actions. Whoever or whatever the angel was, it certainly seemed to have plenty of human characteristics.

  Now, twenty-four hours after his return, Kent was eagerly looking forward to his next trip. His successful act of revenge against Summerfield had spurred him on to go back and sort out another injustice.

  He was aware that he was running out of days to play with and was going to have to start getting selective about what he was going to do. He had seriously considered going back to 1998. That was the year he had been hounded out of London’s Metropolitan Police after the sexual harassment charge that had been pinned on him by P.C. Leanne Palmer.

  The two of them had been up for promotion to sergeant. Kent knew that he had been by far the better candidate. At that time he was an enthusiastic young officer, a far cry from the jaded and inefficient D.I. he later became. Competent, keen and fit, he seemingly had a bright future in front of him.

  By contrast, Leanne was lazy, vain and unreliable. She frequently turned up late for work, and when she got there preferred polishing her nails to doing her paperwork. When she did turn up, she spent most of the time acting like a diva. She worked out regularly and had a body that attracted plenty of admiring glances from the men in the office. Her fiery red hair and come-to-bed eyes meant there wasn’t much she couldn’t get away with.

  Kent was no exception. Still naïve and impressionable, he lacked the life experience to see her act for what it was. At the time he had recently broken up from a two-year relationship with a girl he had planned to marry. Those plans had spectacularly bitten the dust when he found out she had
been sleeping with Glen behind his back. Under the circumstances, he was easy prey for what Leanne had planned for him.

  The night before the interviews for the promotion, Leanne had unexpectedly asked him out for a drink. From the outset she flirted outrageously with him and it wasn’t long before he was willingly lured back to her flat with the promise of some serious fun between the sheets.

  Everything had gone well until shortly after they had got into the bedroom and started fumbling at each other’s clothes. As soon as he had achieved the not inconsiderable feat of unbuttoning her bra with one hand, all hell had broken loose. Inexplicably she had started screaming, then shouting at him to get off her. Then her flatmate, whose existence Kent had been completely unaware of until that moment, had rushed in accusing him of rape.

  He had been really shaken by the incident, convinced he had done nothing wrong. It was as if someone had flicked a light switch in her head, turning her from a passionate seductress into a banshee screaming blue murder in an instant. He had left hurriedly, muttering feeble apologies and fearing repercussions which were not long in coming.

  The next day he had turned up at the station as usual, still shaken and feeling completely unprepared for his interview. Of Leanne, there was no sign but Kent was in a state of near panic all morning, fearing the worst. His feelings were well-justified. When he was called into the panel he soon discovered that it wasn’t the promotion that was to be discussed. It was a disciplinary hearing.

  She had filed a written complaint against him, backed up with a statement from her flatmate. In short, Superintendent Charlton who was chairing the panel told him that his application for the sergeant’s job was being withdrawn. Furthermore, Leanne had agreed not to press charges provided that Kent agreed to be transferred to another force. He was left with no choice but to comply and that was the end of his promising career with the Met.

  The incident haunted him for a long time afterwards. Years later, he achieved closure of a sort when it came to light that Charlton had been implicated in a major corruption scandal. And who should be exposed alongside him in an exclusive tabloid sting? None other than Leanne herself, now risen to the rank of Detective Chief Inspector, a rank to which Kent had aspired, but never reached. She was subsequently exposed as having had a long-running affair with Charlton. The two were held up publicly, shamed and forced to resign from the force. Both later faced criminal charges.

  It had been a highly satisfactory outcome for Kent, but had done nothing to undo that early stain on his career. His punishment had been exile to the sticks and an unspoken ceiling placed on his career once he reached the level of D.I.

  Sorely tempted to go back and sort Leanne and Charlton out, just as he had Summerfield, Kent had toyed with various options in his head. But the more he thought about it, the more he came to the conclusion that it just wasn’t feasible.

  What could he realistically do differently back then that would make him feel any better? He certainly had no desire to live the evening of the rape accusation over again. He was sure she would act no differently, whatever he did. She and Charlton had clearly planned the whole thing in advance and they were both popular in the station. Doubtless the flatmate had been in on it, too. The whole thing was best left in the past.

  Having made the decision to leave well alone, instead he turned his attention to his so-called friend, Glen. What a bad choice of best friend he had turned out to be. His long history of betrayal truly deserved some punishment. He had pinpointed the perfect day on which to do it, one which would enable him to combine two things he wanted to do in the past into one trip.

  It was going to be a little more challenging than his previous two trips. He was going a lot further back in time on this occasion. The events of the Summerfield day, just a few months ago, had still been relatively fresh in his mind. As for the day of the robbery on the betting shop, he had been able to check up on the details he needed for that day. It was all documented in his crime reports or on the internet.

  Going back to the 1990s to deal with events in his personal life was different. There was no documentation he could call on, no social media, not even as much as a faded photograph. He was going to have to rely completely on his memories and he had no idea how reliable they would be after such a long time. He had heard people say that memories became unreliable over time, that they degraded in the same way as old film.

  He knew from watching reruns of old sitcoms on Gold that the mind could play tricks. Sometimes he saw episodes of much-loved shows he had seen many times when he was younger, but when he watched them again, the dialogue and plot differed from what he remembered.

  False memories could be implanted, too. There was a story which his parents and various other family members had delighted in embarrassing him with ad nauseam over the years. It involved an incident in a kitchen and bathroom showroom when he was about two years old. He had been toilet-training at the time and he had supposedly pulled his trousers down and urinated in one of the showroom toilets.

  This story had been told to him so many times that he could remember the event in great detail, right down to the colour of the porcelain. But in reality he knew he couldn’t have remembered it. He couldn’t remember anything that had happened before he was about five years old, so this memory couldn’t be real. It had been implanted by the constant retelling from older relatives who related the tale with glee at every opportunity while he was growing up, especially if he had any friends or a new girlfriend around.

  So memories could not be 100% trusted. There was very little concrete that he could rely on about the day. All he knew for certain was that he needed to go back to the Friday in July after his class had finished their A Levels. It had become a tradition for the school to hold a ball in a marquee on the school field to celebrate the end of the exams.

  One thing he was pretty certain of was that the theme was superheroes and villains and that he had gone as Batman. He could not recall any details about the evening but that was hardly surprising. He was pretty sure he had gone to the ball alone and left alone. Evenings like those didn’t exactly lend themselves to laying down long-term memories. He remembered Glen and Kay being there together, but nothing else. He didn’t remember anything about them leaving together, but they must have done as Kay had told him they had in the pub.

  In Universe 2.0 he planned to rectify the situation. He had no intention of going to the ball unaccompanied this time. Quite how he was going to engineer things to his advantage he hadn’t been able to work out yet. He was just going to have to play it by ear when he got there.

  His day in 1994 began back in his childhood bedroom, a room that was almost unrecognisable from the last time he had seen it in 1984.

  The Return of the Jedi wallpaper was gone, removed by Kent himself when he was sixteen, having taken it upon himself to decorate his room. He had been going through a bit of teenage depression at the time and had come up with the idea of painting it all black. When he mentioned this to his mother, she had absolutely refused to allow it. In the end he settled for plain white, adorning almost every spare inch with posters of iconic album covers.

  From The Smiths to Nirvana, the walls were a tribute to his teenage life. The rest of the room fitted in with the musical theme. Records and CDs were everywhere, along with his stereo system and his pride and joy of the time, his guitar.

  Kent got up from the double bed he now had. He had managed to persuade his mum and dad to let him have it as a compromise if he promised not to paint his room black. As yet he had not come remotely close to persuading a willing female to join him in it. It would be another two years until that happened, at least in his original timeline. Perhaps that might be different in Universe 2.0. Kay had gone home with Glen on the night of the ball. If it had not been for his subterfuge, she might have been going home with him. Perhaps this time she would.

  He got up and instinctively went for the guitar, a traditional, wooden acoustic model. He still owned it in 2018
but it had been sadly neglected, languishing in the loft for years. Perhaps he ought to get it back down and dust it off when he got back to his own time.

  He picked it up now and tried to play a chord. It sounded terrible, but then it always had in his hands. Deciding it would probably be best left in the loft, he reluctantly put it down and looked at the clock. It was already half past eleven. It was not unusual for him to get up this late during his teenage years on days when he didn’t need to be in school. On this day, he knew that he didn’t, at least not until the evening.

  During that final term there had been no need for them to attend lessons once the A Levels had started. Kent’s last exam had been some days earlier so effectively he had already left, other than this final ball which always took place on the Friday after the final exams.

  On the window sill, Kent spotted his ticket for the ball:

  Year 13 Leavers

  Superhero Masked Ball

  Friday 8th July 1994 – 7pm-11pm

  Below were listed some of the attractions of the evening, which included a disco and a barbecue. Also highlighted in capitals at the bottom were the words STRICTLY NO ALCOHOL.

  Good luck with that, then, thought Kent, triggering a memory about the amount of illicit booze that had been smuggled in. He didn’t remember the teachers being that strict at enforcing the alcohol ban. He was only seventeen but the majority of the kids attending had already turned eighteen. He guessed the school were obliged to put that on there for appearance’s sake. Then if any of the teenagers got drunk, went home and threw up, they could absolve themselves of responsibility.

  Next to the ticket was his wallet. Made of black leather, he remembered it well. His parents had given it him for his sixteenth birthday and it had lasted a good few years. He opened it up to find three ten-pound notes inside. That was a reasonable sum, especially in 1994, and he was sure he could put it to good use.