NATHANIEL’S STING
My brush with the police led me on to another interesting adventure. I was packing for my trip to France when a couple called at the door: a middle-aged man and a younger woman. He looked like a sales manager, or a low-level bureaucrat: his suit was a touch on the tight side. The woman had the earnest look of a learner, a trainee of some kind. She wore horn-rimmed glasses, and a black trouser suit, and she had pinned her fair hair up tight. I think she wanted to look serious, because she was not bad looking, with a tight, trim little backside and a blouse held taut by a nice little pair of bonanzas.
The man flashed an ID card and said they were market researchers, carrying out a crime survey for Thames Valley Police. He knew all about the rave at the livery stables. He also knew about three sets of brains being fried. Well, he skirted the subject delicately, but I guessed he was fishing. I tried probing him, but my probing bounced back: I guessed he was wearing contact lenses.
I ushered them into my drawingroom, because I dislike having people stand at the door, and waited for them to sit down, side by side on my sofa. I saw the woman stare with interest at my collection of water colours, massed in serried rows. One or two are worth nearly as much as the house. But burglars never bother me. Well, one tried once. The police found him hanging from the branch of a big oak in Langley Park. It took quite a lot of persuasion to make him walk there. I convinced him that cooking his brains slowly represented the really painful option.
‘It must have been a shock for local residents, sir.’ The man’s voice was oleaginous.
I shrugged. I had sorted the problem.
‘I would have walloped them.’ The woman spoke, and her voice was soft, and she looked at me quickly out of the corner of her eye. I felt something tingle within me. I had a feeling that whilst the man was plainly on business, she might be entertaining other thoughts. So I sent her a low-level love look. She dimpled quite charmingly Yet somehow her response seemed a trifle rehearsed. I tried again, and she pasted a second dimple into place, but it was a clone of a smile. I guess she had brought her horn-rimmed glasses as a shield. Perhaps they were standard police issue, for dealing with malefactors. One never knows in this world.
The man spoke again. ‘You were very brave to cut the power supply, sir.’
I eyed him a little sourly. He was trying to lead me somewhere. ‘I went to help a neighbour,’ I replied tartly, keeping my words brief. I always believe in saying as little as possible when coping with questions. The less said, the fewer lies told, and the less traps sprung.
‘The man behind the rave met a sudden end.’
Now he really was starting to probe, and we stared at each other for a moment. I could hear Mrs. Jones, my cleaning lady, tidying up in the kitchen, and it gave me an idea. I could see the man was hungry for knowledge. I imagined he was hoping to ask a great many questions. It seemed an ideal moment for morning coffee.
I was cordial in my invitation, and my visitors both looked grateful. I wondered how I could get the earnest young woman on her own. I made my excuses, and adjourned to the kitchen.
Mrs. Jones gave me a wicked smile as I reached for a small tin tucked away on top of my kitchen sideboard. Sometimes people bore me, and I want them out of the house. But they may not warrant killing looks, or even headache looks. So I keep some really powerful laxatives in a little tin. The recipe is a family secret, but I think it predates the Borgias. Half a teaspoon of my pale grey powder takes about twenty minutes to work through, and guarantees a powerful stomach ache, followed by a most complete defecation. Visitors either race to my lavatory, or shit in their pants as they drive off. They never return.
I spooned a little powder into my primrose mug – I have a natty little collection decorated with wild flower themes that makes it really easy to match powder and prey, and left Mrs. Jones to get on with brewing up coffee. She is a real treasure of a woman, and shares quite a number of my lesser secrets.
The man had slotted himself nicely into the frame by asking for milk and sugar. His earnest young companion wanted her coffee black. I never add anything to mine. Mrs. Jones brought a tray with three flowery mugs, and a plateful of little cakes. She makes them herself: they really quite, well if not divine, at least most malefactorial.
‘I think you met him again, sir, after that night?’ The man sipped at his coffee, and munched four of Mrs. Jones’ cakes in quick succession. I thought it really rather greedy of him, but I knew that we were now counting down.
I nodded tersely. ‘I did.’
The man’s eyes gleamed. ‘Some hard words, perhaps, sir?’
Cheeky bastard: now he was pushing his luck. I looked severe. ‘I told him to stay out of my way.’
‘Permanently, sir?’
The man and his earnest young companion were now both watching me closely. But I noticed that the man had begun to fidget, and then he turned a delicate shade of green, and a moment later he was up on his feet. I smiled charmingly, because I could read his mind, and ushered him quickly to the kitchen lavatory at the back of the house. Sometimes my grey powder works almost too well.
I found the young woman on her feet, admiring my pictures, when I returned to my drawingroom. I am proud of my collection, which includes some notable eighteenth century pastoral scenes, so I felt it only right to provide a few words of guidance. She looked impressed, and we stood quite close.
Unfortunately I then lurched: I must have slipped on the carpet. I bumped the young woman quite hard, and sent her glasses flying. It was an opportunity not to be missed; I knew I could rely on Mrs. Jones’ discretion.
I helped the young woman to her feet, and zapped her with a real humdinger of a love look, full strength and totally irresistible. She could not resist me, and I had stripped her within seconds. Her bonanzas were magic, really cute little melons, and her backside was shaped just right for malefactoring.
I gave her my best, and from the sounds she made she must have greatly enjoyed it. But I misjudged her companion. I had counted on him staying out of the way for at least half an hour, maybe longer. But perhaps someone had told him about my coffee. Perhaps they had provided an antidote. These things exist. Perhaps I was set up.
Anyway he came back very quietly, and it was really most embarassing. There I was, right in the middle of mounting his young companion, and he had a mobile in one hand and a camera in the other.
It was a fair cop: me on top of a blonde policewoman. The pictures must have been quite enchanting. The man came straight to the point.
‘Rape is a serious crime, sir.’
I glowered at him: I had been caught with my pants down.
The policewoman was now slipping back into her clothing. She had replaced her glasses, and she was smirking. I knew I had been taken for a most colossal ride.
‘We could put you away for several years, sir.’
I gave him my most killing of killing looks, but he waved it away. ‘I imagine all the guards would wear glasses.’
I sniffed. I knew when I was beaten.
‘We want your help, sir.’
We stared at each other. But now, suddenly, I realised that the game had changed: I always know a deal when I see one.
‘Sometimes major criminals are very hard to nail down.’
I smiled, and let out my breath in a long sigh of relief. So this was it. The police wanted its own special malefactor, to blow kingpin villains to blazes, without having to bother with any of the constraints a legal system might seek to impose. I suppose I could have refused, but it was very much easier to accede. I like England, and I am very fond of my house. Refusing could have run me into all sorts of bother – the police might have sought help from religion, and I am not fond of exorcisms.
So I nodded in agreement, but I was considerably less than pleased. The man’s request was a bore, and I suspected that it might also grow into a major tax on my income. Policemen are always demanding. But they can never mobilise the same kind of resources as angry men, or even angrier women.
‘What sort of retainer?’ It was a venture, though I had little hope.
He smiled, and shook his head. ‘Immunity, sir.’
They left ten minutes later, leaving me extremely annoyed, and wholly fit for stoking fires in the nether regions. I promised myself revenge, and revenge in the very future. I am a proud malefactor, and I hate to be bested. Fortunately Mrs. Jones had cleared up and left, for I could not have guaranteed her safety. I would have kicked a dog, had I but owned one. In fact I swore at my cat. But she comes from the same world as I do, and merely swore back. We understand each other.
My first assignment came the very next day.
‘I want you outside the Co-Op at two sharp.’ The man barked his instruction, all his cosy formality quite flown out of the window. ‘I’ll be waiting for you inside the store. Some villains have their eye on its cash collection.’
The Co-Op is a superstore, near the centre of Slough, abutting onto a junction where the Uxbridge-Windsor road crosses the A4, the old road from London to Bristol. It includes a branch of the Co-Op Bank in its own little unit. The entrance and exit are some way apart, and both link to dual carriageway main roads. A nice place for a heist.
I turned up dead on time. My man had changed into a set of paint-stained overalls, but he still looked like a sales manager. He had five tough looking men, also in overalls, with him. I assumed they were policemen. My fair cop was tucked away in the background, disguised as a shopper. She looked away when she saw me. I think she should have blushed.
He was quick with his briefing. ‘We expect two villains, with a third as a driver. The Secure System van always backs up to the bank, they usually stash all the cash away in about five minutes flat. We expect the villains to be armed. We’ll have cars on the London and Uxbridge roads.’
The five men in overalls all nodded tersely. They all had bulges under their shoulders. I could see my fair cop talking into a mobile. Nice cover for co-ordination.
Suddenly she tensed. ‘They’re here.’
The six men in overalls were already running. I followed at a safe distance. I reckoned I was purely providing a support function.
The scene outside the Co-Op was mayhem. Two men in black balaclavas and boilersuits were screaming at the Secure System driver and his back-up. The men in white overalls fanned out, and my man raised a loud-hailer. ‘Police, we are armed. Lay down your guns.’
The two boilersuited men spun round. A BMW with darkened windows revved up, and raced for the Co-Op entrance, narrowly missing an incoming car. I could see the entrance was already blocked by a big police Transit with blue flashing lights. The BMW tried to swing round, to head for the Co-Op exit, and smashed into a parked car. Suddenly all was still, except for some woman screaming.
I walked over to the men in white overalls. The two men in boilersuits were now bereft of their balaclavas. Both were young, perhaps in their mid-twenties; both were black, and very mean-looking. A couple of uniformed policemen came up, hauling a tough-looking young companion, also black. My man glanced at me significantly, and I did what I was there for. All three villains dropped like stones. A police doctor arrived five minutes later. He marvelled at three men dropping dead of heart seizures, all at the same moment. He took blood samples, and muttered something about all three being drugged up to their eyeballs.
My man held out his hand. I looked at him quickly. I could see that his eyes were unprotected. So I sent him to join the villains. I hate being moustrapped – and nobody tells me what to do. The fair cop was watching me with alarm wholly mixed with terror. I shot her a really powerful love look. The other men in white overalls seemed totally bewildered.
‘Come round, about bedtime,’ I whispered into her shellpink. She came, and stayed for all of a couple of days. I don’t think she ever wants to hear the word ‘sting’ again.