Farrel's Last Case

Farrel looked around at each member of the squad in turn, for some sign of progress. DS George Preston, his ‘loyal sidekick’ as he thought of him perhaps two or three years his senior and some five inches shorter but more heavily built. He was a highly confident officer who commanded respect from the rest of the group. If Farrel needed to delegate an important job to anyone or share a confidence it would be to George he turned. Now as he looked at him, Preston briefly shook his head, “Nothing guv,” he said. Farrel turned towards DC Alan Perkins, a reliable man if ever there was one who always looked on the brighter side of things but never missed a trick in a serious situation. He too shook his head, “No guv,” he answered disappointedly. DC Dick Johnson had heard nothing reliable and neither had sour-faced DC Peter Rowles. This lack of information irked Farrel and his face showed it. “Shut that bloody window,” he snapped suddenly and angrily raising his voice as a road drill suddenly started its loud clanging chatter in the car park three floors below and immediately under the open squad office window. “How the hell can anyone think properly with that racket going on outside?” Someone rushed to close it but it made little difference inside the office. Farrel rolled his eyes towards the ceiling and mouthed a silent obscenity. “Has anyone heard anything?” he asked again impatiently and with a growing tone of annoyance. There was a negative sound in the murmuring within the squad members. Of course they had all heard rumours but nothing substantial and they knew that the DCI only wanted something real to go on and not ‘silly bloody fairy stories’ as he so often put it. “I’ve heard” he announced in a somewhat bitter, superior tone “from pretty good authority, that little Tommy won’t be wasting any more of our time. Sadly, he seems to have found out something that he shouldn’t have and the story goes that he’s been dropped off somewhere between Dover and Calais and told to swim home, so to speak.” “Didn’t know he could swim guv,” the bright cockney voice of DC Perkins piped up. At five foot nine, he was the shortest man in the squad but he overcame this disadvantage by being a bit of a clown at times. “He couldn’t,” Farrel confirmed, “leastwise not tied to something heavy. Mind you, that’s only what I heard. It seems a far-fetched to me and at present. It’s only hearsay and I hope it’s not correct but all the same, someone has heard it. So gentlemen,” he said as he looked around the office at the others, “it’s up to us to find out whether he is alive or not and in addition, and very importantly, what he knew that would make someone desperate enough to give him impromptu swimming lessons if they did in fact do that. Let’s get to it then. Look in all those dirty, slimy places that you know so well, turn over a few stones and find out what the maggots living under them know. I have no doubt that something big is happening in this neck of the woods or is about to happen. So let’s find out what it is and do it to them before they do it to us, as someone, somewhere, once said.” The officers all shuffled from the room except DC Copley. Farrel turned and went into his office, a small area in the corner of the main detective office. Its temporary walls were some six feet high, over which Farrel could see when he stood up, the lower half was of painted white plasterboard, and the upper portion frosted glass. The door was similarly constructed and now stood open. He sat down in the chair behind his cluttered desk, sighed, and put his hands, palms down, onto the scattered papers on it. Then looked up to see Copley framed in the open doorway. “Yes?” he asked curtly. “I’m sorry if I wasted your time sir,” the young DC adopted an apologetic approach, “but that was the story I heard from a guy in the pub last night.” Farrel sighed and rolled his eyes skywards – it was a habit of his and manifested itself when he was in a bad mood. “What did he look like?” he asked the question almost as if expecting a stupid reply. “Thin faced, about five feet seven, very slim build, balding, had a smallish moustache, and wore a dark suit. He said he knows you.” Farrel thought for a moment and grimaced. “Scar left eyebrow?” “Yes, a big one.” “He knows me alright. I’ve felt his collar on numerous occasions. It was I that gave him the scar, and ever since, he’s been looking to put one over on me. He tells a bloody good story, but don’t ever believe a word he says. If he tells you it’s five o’clock on Friday 23rd check your watch and calendar before you believe him. Did you give him any money?” “Good grief sir. No sir.” “Well, perhaps you’re not as stupid as I was beginning to think you are,” Farrel responded in his curt, unkindly manner. “Thank you sir. I’m sorry, sir.” Farrel sighed and looked at the young officer. “Look son,” he said more softly, perhaps remembering his earlier less confident days in the service, “this job’s not easy. In fact, it’s bloody soul destroying. Not, I may add,” he continued with a hint of bitterness creeping in, “for those sitting in plush offices pushing paper and men around and making pronouncements to the press. Down here you have to use your initiative and intuition and work your butt off.” “Yes sir. I realise that.” “You’ve a lot to learn son.” Farrel lectured, “At the moment you’re thinking lots of bad and negative things about me I know, but let me reassure you, I’m really the embodiment of sweetness and light although of course I wouldn’t expect my ex-wife to confirm that. I have tremendous respect for all the men in the squad. They won’t admit it but in truth, they love me like a brother and after a while you’ll find that I’m even nicer than your favourite uncle.” He paused and looked down with another sigh at the piles of paper work on his desk, most of it needing urgent attention and he with so little time to do it, and sighed yet again. After a moment or two, he looked up and raised his eyebrows as if surprised to see Copley still standing there. “Well then. Don’t just stand there, son. Sod off and get some work done; we’re looking to catch some villains today and maybe even a killer.”