Take the Next Road on your Left (5)

Years ago when I was 8 I wanted some sweets. I wanted sweets that badly I went to my mother’s purse and took out 10p. I waltzed down to the shops and bought some chews and practically ate the lot walking home. When I got in my mother leathered me.
I was an arsehole, of sorts; a bastard even – within the context of my company profile. I’d worked with plenty of nice guys, but that, basically, encapsulates their careers in sales. Sure I was a cunt; but I was no thief.
The initial shock of what I was being accused dissipated sharply as all those abstract pieces that had been scrambling around in my head since the accident, began to slot their jagged little edges together. That would explain the presence of all the emergency vehicles, the guns etc. Nevertheless I played along. Finally I was finding an exit from this miasma of incoherence.
“What robbery? I was on my way to a sales meeting. Haven’t you checked out my ID? I carry enough”
“Documents are faked all the time son” Colour Code sneered.
I knew it – eventually one of the twats would patronise me.
“What did you think we were bringing you in for?”
“Knocking that girl over”
“We’d have got to that eventually”
“Look - call the Excelsior Hotel – ask for Hardman, Mr Hardman. He’s chairman of the company. We’re having a sales conference in town. He’ll vouch for me”
“A salesman eh? What are you selling us now?” he continued and then motioned toward Crew Cut who left the room.
“The truth”
“Oh it’s the truth that gets sold these days is it?”
Colour Code paused and exhaled deeply like an actor about to deliver a riveting monologue. He snapped the sound recorder off. I winced.
“My granny died last year”
“She did?” Where the hell was he going now?
“Died of a broken heart”
“I suppose…I’ve heard it can happen” I lied. The only fucker I knew of went out that way was Anthony’s mate in that Shakespeare play but I couldn’t think of his name.
“You killed her”
Oh no, I thought, I’ve been left with the psycho cop with a grudge.
“I’m sorry but I’ve never met you before never mind your…”
“Not you directly, but your kind” he interrupted me; the tone underpinning the notion that I shouldn’t make a habit of doing so.
What kind was I?
“Are you okay mate?” I balanced the risk of speaking against offering the nutter an empathetic voice - this was getting scary.
“Salesmen – that’s who. Scum of the earth. Sold her a new roof. Bludgeoned her into taking all her savings out. I warned her…I said Gran just say no, or call me. I’ll sort them out. She felt obliged she said to me later crying her eyes out. Botch job of course. First sign of rain bloody leaks all over the house. Courts awarded her the money but the firm had gone into liquidation. Never saw a penny of it. Two weeks she lasted. You know the last thing she said?”
I nervously shook my head.
“She said it to me – the last person she spoke to was me, but I was her favourite. She said ‘Colin, you know what I regret most?’
‘No Gran’ I says
‘I thanked them’
She thanked the parasitic sods. That was my inheritance”
I swallowed a billiard ball; yet here was my chance to get on his side.
“You got them didn’t you?”
“Too fucking right; traced the guy to Spain”
“Extradition”
He laughed, a hollow laugh, filled with acidity
“I watched him for days. He used to use a little bar in a fishing village along the coast from Cadiz. I befriended him, one night, got him pissed and kicked ten bells of shit out of him”
“Didn’t kill him then?”
“What do you think I am? I’m a copper not a murderer”
Crew Cut returned. I couldn’t believe my relief at seeing him.
“He’s a salesman all right. Name – Charlie Lucri”
Colour Code Colin leered at me. Why did that moron remind him I was a salesman?
“What sort of stupid appellation is that?”
Well, I thought, he’s had the dictionary out at least once in his life.
“It’s not my real name”
“You Italian or Welsh?” Colin said, quite openly with malice as if the only thing he hated more than salesmen were Italian salesmen from Swansea.
“No, I’m Irish”
“Bollocks”
“My real name is Charles O’Flaherty”
“Another bloody mouthful”
“I changed it – when I became successful” I murmured as if I were in a confessional box and had owned up to a lifetime engaged in paedophilia. “I was getting nowhere as Mr O’Flaherty. Clients wouldn’t take me seriously”
“We’re Irish” said Crew Cut, screwing his face up like a Shar Pei to feign indignation with each crease knitted in violence. “We’re not ashamed of it”
They were about as Irish as John Bull; then it came to me.
“Enobarbus” I blurted out, remembering but not thinking.
“I suppose that’s your middle name smart boy?”
“Not really…I…” Go on, Charlie my son try explaining the reasoning on that one to these.
Crew Cut O’Connor pulled Colin O’Gorman to one side and they whispered together as if this were an extended pause during an exercise in mental torture.
“What were you doing there?” Colin snarled.
“I was lost”
“Didn’t I see a Sat-Nav in your car?”
“That bitch – it was her that got me in this mess”
“Doesn’t have a Tom Tom then Thomas” Colour Code quipped to his pal.
“Maybe it’s a Shirley Whirley Phil” Crew Cut crowed, drawing a circle in the air with his pudgy right fore finger
“Well,” Colin turned toward Crew Cut “officer Windsor, I think our little hamster has convinced us that we can let him off the tread-wheel”
“Correct Officer Tudor” he answered.
“I’m free to go then” I cried, surprising myself at how raucous I’d become now that vindication was tilting its pretty head my way.
“We still need a statement” DCI Windsor said, holding out his two arms as if he were co-ordinating a crowd control exercise.
“For the accident” DCI Tudor eluded.
“Now?” I asked
“Let’s have a coffee first” the English Kings suggested in unison.