Alligator Playground by Alan Sillitoe Page B

away.
    He remembered that every December he went into the local cop shop and put a tenner in the orphans’ box. Perhaps they had figured who he was through the two-way mirror, and noted the plate of his car as he drove away, and had come to say thank you. Or maybe a burglar was outlined on the roof and they wanted to save his collection of incunabula. Having unloaded a multiple-barrelled battering ram from the car, they now set to work on the main door.
    ‘Yes?’
    ‘It’d be best if we came in, sir.’
    Unmannerly to make them stand in the drizzle, though the porch was dryish. On the other hand there were no neighbours to hear what they would take him away in irons for. He’d at least had the sense to get drunk enough not to worry about something like that.
    What a fullsized wicked thing to do, though. Was there no end to her vengeance? She had called at Reading and phoned a rent-a-cop firm, giving her credit card number (no, his, to rub in the salt)and told these two costumed berks to put him through this pathetic practical joke. They must have served their time at RADA because they were so good at it.
    He recalled a colleague at work being sent a policewoman. She had gone into his office with a clipboard as if to reprimand him for all the parking fines he’d flipped into the gutter, then started to get her kit off, a lovely full breasted young woman, who kissed him on the mouth and wished him a happy birthday, to Force Nine laughter from friends outside.
    ‘Quarrelled, did you?’ was the first question registered out of the confusion.
    Neither would sit, and Tom stood so as to be on the same level. Say as little as possible when the cops start talking to you. ‘We always do, there’s nothing unusual in that.’
    ‘Did you note the time when she left?’
    ‘I’ll need to call my lawyer.’
    ‘I’m sorry to say it’s nothing like that.’
    She had sprung something big on him here, by forcing him to tell the whole sorry yarn, the deadliest mantrap on the shelf, except it seemed she had driven into it herself. Or so they said. ‘I’m sorry to have to tell you this.’
    Killed by an old age pensioner. Well, he was sixty-five, the ancient fart. He was driving the wrong way down the M4, in a hurry to meet his Maker, and not too worried who he took with him, except that: ‘Oh, he’s not dead. Not a scratch. Got out and walked away. Ran down a bank when our car got close. God knows where he thought he was going.’
    The other laughed himself purple. ‘He walked away from two write-offs! Would you believe it?’
    ‘You’ll have to come and identify her, sir.’
    He didn’t want them to see his legs shaking, and sat down. ‘I can’t believe this. I’m not alive.’
    They performed this social service all day and every day, probablytheir only duty, with so many sudden calamities. A smile like mag-gots under the skin was close to their professional concern, which led him to wonder again whether they were dropouts from RADA, or old lags who’d been to acting classes given in jail by a super-annuated thespian. Why hadn’t she sent him a busty young policewoman instead? Well, she wouldn’t have done that, would she? The ginger-bearded copper gave him a poor sod look. ‘Do you think you’re going to want some counselling?’
    It had to be your birthday to get a policewoman. ‘Counselling? Certainly not.’
    Tom liked the edge of contempt in his voice at such a need. ‘Just thought I’d ask.’
    ‘Most do, these days,’ the other said sadly. ‘But I would keep off the bottle, sir. There’s lots to do.’
    A hangover had never gone so quickly, though the full drill of his willpower was called on to stop the shakes. Poor old Bakewell had missed this, just. He rubbed his face, but the picture of metal and gore remained, a way out he had never wanted or thought about. All his malice had been in the mind, and he had never considered this as a possible end to any of his marriages.
    The sun at the funeral was