Fortune Cookies

FORTUNE COOKIES

Police called to settle a fracas at Amsterdam's Schippol Airport
yesterday uncovered a trail of systematic company malpractice and
serial stupidity that has sent tremors through the retail trade and set
alarms bells ringing in the City of London.

Law officers were called to the international air terminal when Crass
Parkinson-Slaw (35) wrestled executive colleague, Dan Mules, (52) to
the ground following what frightened witnesses described as "an heated
discussion" about travel arrangements. The editor of The Oxford
Dictionary of Grammar approved the quote for syntactical correctness
and gave a witness statement in support of Mr Parkinson-Slaw which has
since been rejected by his counsel as "not very helpful".

While the combatants, both from London, were sedated in the airport's
holding cells, calls to their company revealed a complicated plot,
allegedly leading to the grizzly murder of a middle manager in a
failing electrical installation company.

Mules, who has now been charged with five counts of threatening
behaviour, one of grievous bodily harm, possession of dynamite, wearing
a dodgy suit and attempting to convey Amsterdam fortune cookies across
international boundaries, gave investigators a full account of a plan
to lure satellite installer, Garry Laytham to a strip club in London's
West End where a hit squad would "deal with him". Later, when asked to
plead, Mules said "No comment. Talk to my MD... er, on second thoughts,
don't call him. Just no comment".

Laytham was being held in a safe house in northern England as the evil
plot emerged from the hot airless cell where Dutch police put the
arrested pair under intense questioning. In an internationally
co-ordinated operation, Metropolitan Police officers, some carrying
assault rifles, raided the offices of MiraBiliS (MBS) and the The
Capricorn Club clip joint, both premises just off London's Tottenham
Court Road, and took away boxes of files which Company Secretary,
Michael J. Kine, aka Micky Kine, Smith Kine Beecham, and Shagger, said
he thought had been lost or carefully mislaid ages ago.

His uncontrolled gibbering and free flow of detailed information as the
officers applied pressure to a point near the base of his neck led to
the interrogation in Paddington Police Station's high security cells of
Henry Victor, following his arrest while handing over a large sum of
cash at the door of the Capricorn. Henry-Victor-one-five told police
little but at least implicated a known confrere, "Noddy" Leckie, who
escaped a police interview by sleeping in.

The dispute between the growing number of police prisoners being held
in Amsterdam and London and Laytham's company, Qui Theque, was
apparently over the installation of new satellite receivers in the
paint department at a popular national chain of DIY retail outlets.
Quay Tec got it all wrong and sent highly-trained painters and
decorators.

Laytham was apparently blameless, but his Chairman and Financial
Director, both found dead on a Midlands golf course with three and four
irons respectively sunk into their skulls, were clearly responsible for
serious failings.

It was difficult for the greying MBS MD, Stanley Gradgrind, to allay
the fears of detectives about the sand in his trouser turn-ups as the
two bodies were recovered from a bunker on the eighth hole of the Happy
Trails Golf Course, Oxon. He told them straight off that Keith had put
him up to it and said the spade was still in his garage. The
smooth-talking Welshman, Taffy "KD" Davids, was later carried from his
Nottinghamshire home in a straight-jacket.

Jeff Clark-Kent, 47, W1 bon viveur and salesman extraordinaire, was
cornered in a Soho telephone kiosk, making a seven-figure offer for
Scunthorpe United. Nineteen people will appear at Bow Street
Magistrates Court tomorrow charged with a textbook full of
offences.