A Complete Fiasco

by P. F. Ford

  ‘What did you do then?’

  ‘I went round to see Sophia to ask her what the hell was going on. That’s when she told me about the phone call she’d had in the beginning. We also realised that for him to know so much about us he must have someone watching us. He even said he would know if I had been round to see her.’

  ‘So where’s Sophia now?’

  ‘I haven’t got a clue. When I left her last night we agreed we’d not see each other for a few days so that if we are being watched it will look as though we’re doing as we’ve been told. In the meantime, we were going to try to figure out what we could do about it.’

  ‘All this bloody time,’ said Jones, his annoyance crystal clear, ‘you and Ms Ingliss have been talking to the man we’re watching?’

  Now Alfie was bristling with anger.

  ‘Just watch it with the attitude, will you?’ he snapped at Jones. ‘I just told you I didn’t know it was the same guy. I don’t think even Sophia knows who he really is. She believes he used a fake identity to get into this country. She knows who he was, but not who he is now.’

  ‘Let’s all calm down, shall we?’ Slater was playing peace-maker again. ‘What we need to figure out is why he’s come here when he’s on the run, and why he’s been in touch with Sophia.’

  ‘I can’t tell you exactly what they’ve said, but I know she’s not happy he’s here. She feels threatened by him, and he’s obviously threatened me, so presumably he must regard me as some sort of threat to him. She did tell me he always regarded her as some sort of possession. Maybe he still does.’

  ‘Right,’ said Jones, decisively. ‘Let’s look at the possible scenarios. One: Slick Tony has come to re-possess his woman. Two: he’s come to do harm her, and maybe harm you as well. Three: she’s been in league with him all along, and she plans to leave with him.’

  ‘Well, I can tell you that number three is complete bollocks!’ snapped Alfie. ‘There is no way-’

  ‘I appreciate how you feel about Ms Inlgiss,’ interrupted Jones, ‘but to do my job I have to be objective, even if it does hurt your feelings.’

  ‘You’re barking up the wrong tree if you think she’d willingly associate with him,’ Alfie repeated. ‘If he’s come to do anything it’s most likely number one: re-possess her.’

  ‘Look, Alfie,’ said Slater, sounding irritated at last, ‘you’re probably right, but we have to consider all possibilities, no matter how unlikely we think they are. I’ve met Sophia, and I also know how much she means to you. Whichever scenario is correct, she’s in danger, and so are you. When a guy like Slick Tony makes a gun at you it’s not just a warning. It’s a threat!’

  There was a brief silence as this harsh truth sank in and Alfie realised whatever was going to happen next, Sophia was in danger.

  ‘So, what do we do now?’ he asked.

  ‘You stay here, out of harm’s way,’ warned Jones.

  ‘It’s okay, Alfie.’ Slater clapped him on the shoulder. ‘We’ll find out where she is, and we’ll make sure she comes to no harm.’ He looked at his watch. ‘But we need to get a move on.’

  Chapter Eleven

  As soon as the two detectives had driven off, Alfie rang Sophia’s doorbell. The door opened just a crack and Sophia’s niece, Jelena, peered out.

  ‘You are alone?’ she asked, suspiciously.

  ‘Yes,’ he said.

  ‘Police gone?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you can come in.’

  She swung the door open to let him in.

  ‘Sorry I sent police,’ she said. ‘I knew Sophia not with you, but could not think what to tell. So I say she with you.’ Her normal happy, smiley face had been replaced with a frown. She looked desperately worried.

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Alfie. ‘Don’t worry about that. They just want to ask her some questions about her ex-husband.’

  ‘I worry for Aunt Sophia,’ she said. ‘She act strange all week, and now vanish. Something big problem for sure.’

  Alfie could see Jelena was worried sick, so he quickly explained the situation. When he had finished, she looked horrified.

  ‘This bad,’ she muttered. ‘Even more worse than bad.’

  Alfie was beginning to get a bad feeling about this whole situation too.

  ‘Jelena, what do you know that I need to know?’

  ‘Come,’ she said. ‘We need check.’

  He followed her into Sophia’s bedroom. She ran straight to the bedside cabinet and pulled open a small drawer at the bottom, carefully lifting out a box. She slid the lid off and let out an anguished groan.

  ‘Oh no, Sophia,’ she said. ‘What have you done?’

  ‘What? What has she done?’ asked Alfie.

  ‘She keep gun in box. It gone, she gone. Is bad!’

  ‘A gun? She has a gun? What does she need a gun for?’

  She looked at him as though he were a simpleton.

  ‘Why you think she need gun?’

  She had a point. There were doubtless enemies from Sophia’s past who would love to find her. Jelena had proved only recently that a new identity couldn’t stop a really determined hunter. Of course, she had been looking for Sophia for all the right reasons. Now Slick Tony had proved she could also be found for the wrong reasons.

  ‘But if she keeps the gun here to defend herself, where is it?’

  ‘Sometime, you very clever,’ said Jelena, giving him that idiot look again. ‘But other time you not clever at all.’

  ‘Yeah, but why would she take it with her? I mean, where would she be going that she needed a g-’

  As he spoke he began to realise what Jelena was suggesting.

  ‘This man. This Tony. He make threaten you, yes?’ Jelena stared at him.

  ‘Well, yeah,’ he said. ‘But I’m sure it was just empty threats.’

  ‘You have to understand. Sophia know this man. She know he mean what he say. She feel she have to stop him.’

  ‘You mean she’ll kill him?’

  She shrugged her shoulders.

  ‘If need, yes.’

  ‘But this is crazy. What if he kills her? And anyway the police are just about to catch him. There’s no need for-’

  ‘Police will not catch,’ she interrupted. ‘Sophia know this. And he make threaten you. She rather die than let him hurt you.’

  Alfie’s mouth dropped open as he realised what Jelena was suggesting.

  ‘You mean she’s going to take this guy on because he threatened me?’

  She sighed.

  ‘I tell you enough time she love you. Maybe now you believe me.’

  ‘But she doesn’t need to do this. We’ve got to stop her,’ said Alfie, desperately.

  ‘You know where he is?’

  ‘Yes,’ he said. ‘Yes I do, or at least I know where she’s going...’

  Chapter Twelve

  It was 2am. Behind number 38 The Valleys, dressed all in black, Alfie Bowman moved stealthily through the trees towards the six-foot fence that bordered the back garden. The much smaller Jelena crept along just behind him.

  As he reached the fence, Alfie cursed as he realised scaling it wasn’t going to be quite as easy as he had first thought. He hadn’t allowed for the trellis on top of the fence, which made it almost eight feet high in total.

  There was a short whispered conversation, and then he sank down to his knees. Jelena swung a leg over his shoulder and shuffled into position.

  ‘Okay,’ she whispered.

  Holding her feet to steady his passenger, Alfie slowly and carefully began to stand. Fortunately, she was small and slender like Sophia, so she seemed to weigh hardly anything perched upon his shoulders. He stood taller and taller, until he was just about three quarters of the way to being upright.

  ‘What can you see?’ he hissed.

  ‘Two people about to be arrested,’ hissed a man’s voice from behind them. ‘Just stay right where you are.’

  Alfie froze, his nose just far enough away from the f
ence to keep Jelena’s knees from grazing it. Although she wasn’t heavy, stopping in this position wasn’t doing Alfie’s dodgy back any good, and he knew he couldn’t stay where he was, he had to move. He began to rise higher again.

  ‘I said stay still,’ the voice hissed, right in his ear this time. He stopped again just to keep the owner of the voice happy, but he wasn’t sure how much longer he could hold this position.

  ‘Turn around,’ commanded the voice.

  Very much aware of Jelena’s safety, Alfie carefully turned around, using this as an opportunity to stand up straight and remove the strain from his aching back. A sergeant and two police constables were facing them.

  ‘And what do we have here?’ asked the sergeant. ‘Practising for when the circus comes into town, are we?’

  ‘Err, I can explain,’ began Alfie, ‘but can I put the young lady down first?’

  ‘By all means put the young lady down, but you can save your explanations until later. Right now I don’t want to hear it. I just want you out of the way.’

  Gratefully, Alfie lowered Jelena back to the ground.

  ‘As I was saying,’ he said, struggling back to his feet. ‘I can explain.’

  ‘Yes, I’m sure you can,’ said the sergeant, wearily, ‘and you’ll have plenty of time to do exactly that. But, as I was saying, right now we have something rather more important to attend to.’ He looked at the two constables. ‘Lock these two in the back of the van. We’ll deal with them later.’

  ‘Hang on a minute!’ said Alfie, ‘You can’t do that. I need to speak to DS Slater. Or DI Jones. They both know who I am.’

  ‘I must congratulate you on the quality of your friends, but it makes no difference. I can assure you they’re both very busy right now and they don’t have time to chat. Now, if you’d just go with the two constables, you and your young lady friend can get comfortable in the back of our van.’

  Despite Alfie’s protests, they were quickly led away and, as promised, found themselves locked in the back of a police van. Jelena hadn’t said a single word since they had been so rudely interrupted, but her face told Alfie everything he needed to know as they were marched across to the waiting van. It wasn’t until they had been locked away and the two officers had gone that she actually volunteered her opinion.

  ‘Is cockup bad, yes?’

  Despite her sometimes tenuous grasp of grammar, as summaries go, Alfie thought it was pretty much spot on.

  However, all was not lost. Such was their rush to sweep Alfie and Jelena out of the way, the police officers had omitted to search either of them. Alfie still had his mobile phone in his pocket. If they wouldn’t take them to Slater, he would just have to call him. There was just one little problem.

  ‘Bugger! I’ve got no signal,’ he muttered.

  Jelena rummaged around in her own pockets and finally produced her own mobile phone. She studied it for a moment.

  ‘Have signal,’ she said, handing it to Alfie. ‘Here. Make call.’

  Alfie tapped in Slater’s number and held the phone to his ear. He could hear it ringing, and for a moment he thought all their problems were about to be solved, but then it went to voicemail. Alfie sighed and cut the connection.

  ‘Bum,’ he said, desperately. ‘It’s gone straight to bloody voicemail.’

  ‘So, leave message,’ said Jelena, rolling her eyes.

  ‘Ah! Yeah. Right,’ said Alfie, sheepishly. ‘I suppose that’s better than nothing.’

  He dialled the number again. This time he left a message asking Slater to call back straight away on this number. He surely couldn’t be away from his phone for long with such a major operation going down right now.

  Slater looked at his phone. He made a habit of doing it because there were lots of black-spots around Tinton where there was no signal. No one seemed to know why, it’s just how it was, but it meant it was easy to miss calls. Right enough, he noticed he had a voicemail. He looked at the number. It wasn’t one he recognised so he decided it could wait. It was probably just some stupid spam message about accident insurance. He was too busy to fart around right now. He put the phone back down and looked at his watch.

  They’d drawn a complete blank looking for Sophia Ingliss. They had everyone out looking, but, so far, she had managed to evade them. He wasn’t really surprised. He’d read her file. She knew a lot more about this sort of lark than all of them put together. If she really wanted to stay out of sight, she certainly knew how, and there wasn’t much any of them could do about it.

  The fact was, they couldn’t afford to spend any more time looking for her. It was nearly time to get back to the surveillance team. He had a bad feeling about this job. It just seemed to have disaster written all over it.

  It had been an hour since Alfie had left Slater his voicemail message, and he was wondering how much longer it would be before he called back. Jelena was managing to look remarkably calm, but he knew she was as worried about Sophia as he was. What if she shot Slick Tony? What if she actually killed him? They had to stop her somehow, and surely Dave Slater had to be their best hope.

  Not for the first time, it was Jelena who proved to be the clearer thinker of the two.

  ‘He not call back,’ she explained. ‘He know your number, not know mine. Would you answer call from not known number if you busy?’

  ‘What about a text?’

  ‘Can try,’ she agreed. ‘Better tell him she have gun.’

  And so Alfie sent the short message: Sophia may have gun. He thought it was probably the weirdest text he’d ever sent.

  Chapter Thirteen

  It was 4am. PC Steve Biddeford groaned as he struggled to wake up. He was as stiff as a board and he ached everywhere. Thank goodness this operation would soon be over. Sleeping on a camp bed was the worst idea ever. He rather wished he’d just stayed awake. Even his aches seemed to ache.

  They had agreed to grab four hours sleep each while they could. Richie Weir had been first, sleeping from 8pm until midnight. Having to keep watch in the same room meant Biddeford now understood exactly why Weir was single. When he was awake, Weir was the most uncouth slob Biddeford had ever met. To his utter amazement, the man was just as bad when he was asleep, punctuating his snores with a continual stream of loud farts. There had to be something medically wrong with him, surely? To top it all off, Biddeford had been subjected to a tirade of foul language when he’d woken Weir at midnight as agreed.

  It suddenly dawned on him that Weir was supposed to wake him, but it had been the alarm on his mobile phone that had roused him. So where the hell was Weir? A sound not unlike a pig snuffling for truffles told Biddeford what he suspected. Bloody Weir, he was asleep when he should be on watch. He struggled to his feet, his rage barely in check.

  ‘If you want to ruin your own career that’s fine,’ muttered Biddeford, ‘but you’re not taking me down with you.’ Weir was stretched out on his back on the floor. Biddeford kicked him hard. ‘Wake up, you lazy bugger,’ he roared. There was a grunt from the floor, but that wasn’t enough for Biddeford so he kicked Weir again. This seemed to do the trick.

  ‘Whathebloody’ellsupwiyounow?’ groaned Weir sleepily.

  ‘You bloody, lazy, useless git,’ spat Biddeford. ‘You’re supposed to be watching the damned house. What if he’s done a runner?’ When he’d first joined the police force, Biddeford had been a non-swearer. The frustrations of policing had soon fixed that but, even so, he wasn’t one for frequent profanity. However, working with Weir was giving his patience a severe test.

  ‘Oh don’t panic,’ yawned Weir. ‘It’ll be fine. I told you before, he’s probably not there anyway.’ He climbed slowly to his feet and stretched. ‘If it’ll make you happy, just whizz through the recordings. I bet you nothin’s happened.’

  Frantically, Biddeford sat at the table, did a fast rewind and then set the recordings running at speed. After twenty minutes he was happy that nothing had happened at the front of the house. Then he did the same thing with th
e recording from the back. He knew straight away that something wasn’t right, but it took a couple of minutes to work out what it was. He clutched his head in his hands as if in agony.

  ‘Oh bugger!’

  Weir jerked his head, looking surprised that Biddeford had sworn. He ran over to the monitor.

  ‘What?’ he said. ‘What is it?’

  Biddeford pointed to the screen.

  ‘Look,’ he said.

  Weir studied the screen, and then shrugged.

  ‘But there’s nothing happenin’,’ he said. ‘It looks like a nice day.’

  ‘And you think that’s a good thing, do you?’ said Biddeford, turning to face him.

  ‘But there’s no one doin’ a runner or anything, so what’s the problem?’

  ‘And if you look out of the window now,’ said Biddeford slowly, ‘is it a nice day?’

  Weir looked out through the window.

  ‘Can’t see, can I? It’s dark.’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘Am I missing something?’

  ‘Watch carefully,’ said Biddeford, much more patiently than he felt.

  He switched back to the live feed from the camera behind the house. It showed a beautiful sunny day. Then he pointed to the monitor showing the camera from the front of the house.

  ‘See,’ he said. ‘It’s dark out the front, and it’s a sunny day out the back.’

  ‘Oh crap!’ said Weir.

  There was a noise from downstairs.

  ‘It’s only me,’ shouted Slater as he came in the back door. He looked around the kitchen. At least they had kept it clean and tidy in here. Hopefully Mrs Thatcher wouldn’t find anything to complain about when she got her house back later today. He made his way up the stairs and into the surveillance room.

  ‘Everything alright?’ he asked as he entered the room. He could see the answer as soon as he saw their faces. His phone pinged to announce the arrival of a text message, but he ignored it. Whatever was up with these guys, it looked as though it was important. He heaved a heavy sigh.