3 Jan 2007

STOLEN GOOD

She’d wanted one of the tee-shirts for a while. Each time we walked through the store she’d say, ‘I want one of those, do you think they’d give me one or sell me one?’
The time before this she’d asked first at a counter on the ground floor and had been told to go to customer services on the top floor where they’d said, ‘sorry, but they’re only for display purposes.’
She was disappointed, so this time as I looked at sale items and she saw one of the tee-shirts on the floor at the feet of a mannequin she said, ‘I must have it,’ and picked it up.
She carried it around as we thought what to do: go legit or steal it. Eventually we decided theft was the course of action most likely to secure the prize.
‘Yeh, ok,’ I said, ‘but how we going to do it?’
‘Hmm,’ she said, thinking. ‘I know, give me the bag.’
I gave her the bag was an orange bag for life from Sainsbury’s, and she went back over to where the mannequin was.
‘What did you do?’ I said when, after a short while, she came over as I looked at long socks.
I put the tee-shirt on the floor took my coat off put it on top of the tee-shirt put the bag down next to them pretended to try something on then picked up my coat with the tee-shirt and put them in the bag.’
‘Clever,’ I said.
We walked around the men’s department making sure we weren’t being followed before making our way down to the middle floor pausing briefly to let the woman behind pass us on the stairs.
At the checkout on ground where we shopped in the food hall we were cool. Privately I planned how I’d take the rap if necessary...

BOY

The police employed me to escort a prisoner arrested on suspicion of murdering three women each of whom was killed by a single knife wound to the right side below their navel.
When I got in the car I realised the accused was a young boy wearing a nappy. He crawled off the lap, but remained handcuffed to, a woman, an ex-girlfriend who, the last time I’d seen had sneered when I reminded her of my middle name, sat the far side by the window.
The boy climbed on to my lap and I noticed his nappy was dirty and bulging. This was bad enough but as he made himself comfortable he heaved pushing out a shit that ran out of the nappy and on to my trousers.
I scooped up what I could with my right hand and threw it out the window as we went round a roundabout. A motorbike behind us skidded on the deposit, parted company with its rider who fell on to the road in pieces.
When we arrived at the building I went inside, found a shower and washed the shit, which seemed to have spread, off of me and my clothes but I was too late to prevent the young boy from being tried and executed, for a crime he had no memory of committing.