Rimbauer extinguished his cigarette and slipped into the shadows that ran down the side of the filthy council hovel he had been watching for the last hour. He was in a grim, sink hole estate in some northern backwater, Rimbauer wasn’t sure which, it didn’t matter to him. They all looked the same anyway, and he hadn’t bothered to ask the driver who had brought him from London to this wretched place. He’d been watching the row of houses since eleven that evening, and now that the midnight hour had arrived he’d decided to act. He was sure she was upstairs.
Rimbauer had been called to Scotland Yard the previous day. The grizzled Chief Inspector had offered him a chair and a cigarette.
“Good to see you again Rimbauer,” the Chief Inspector growled as Rimbauer sat down. He sounded as if seeing Rimbauer was anything but ‘good’. Rimbauer wasn’t surprised, the police had always been on the same side as him but he suspected they didn’t like having to cover up the carnage he often left in his wake.
“I suppose you want to know why I called you in?” Rimbauer nodded and inhaled deeply on his Woodbine. “It’s that missing kid, Rimbauer. The northern one, you know, the one with the Croydon Facelift and cold sore as big as your fist that’s been all over the news.”
“What, Chardonnay Michaels?” Rimbauer had been following the case, and like teachers across the country had been speculating wildly on the outcome. Rimbauer had originally put £50 on her being dead by now and was appalled to realise that if he was at Scotland Yard and the C.I. was talking about her he’d probably lost his bet. Shit.
“Yeah, that’s her,” grunted the Chief Inspector, “Chardonnay, Sharon, Shannon, Shazia…some shit like that, who the fuck cares. Anyway, we’re sure she’s alive, and what’s more we’re pretty certain she’s still on the estate, within a mile of her own home.”
“Interesting,” Rimbauer took another drag and raised an eyebrow, “why don’t you go and get her then?”
The Chief Inspector sighed and poured out two glasses of scotch. “It’s not that simple Rimbauer, it’s the people up there, the residents of the estate, the family, the whole lot of them. They’re not talking straight with us, we’re facing three generations of people who are naturally suspicious of the police and never break ranks to talk to us, three generations Rimbauer! Why, up there that’ s about 25 years! Every time we’ve asked them about Chardonnay’s disappearance we’ve been met with a heart-warming community spirit of misinformation.”
Rimbauer shrugged, “so why aren’t they talking to you, I’ve seen them all blinking on the news, walking on their knuckles and talking about how much they miss the kid, surely their famed British working class community spirit would have made them realise they need to talk to you?”
“Far from it Rimbauer, it’s been a disaster. The mother says the kid’s been abducted, the stepfather , who’s about to take his GCSEs, says that she might have gone out for fags for him but he can’t remember, the 2nd cousin told The Sun that the mum’s a ‘slag and a bitch and anyway that Chardonnay’s a little slut anyway’, a relative of uncertain lineage barked at us for an hour and the mother’s oldest daughter led us down the garden path with various ‘sightings’ and then gave up and has since been offering blowjobs to our officers for £5 a pop. We’ve informed her Head of Year and social worker. In short Rimbauer, with most of them lying their scabby fucking arses off to us and the press we’re fucked, we just can’t get to our suspect.”
“And who is your suspect?” Rimbauer was hooked now, this sounded intriguing. Could it be that Chardonnay hadn’t even been kidnapped? Could the rest of the troop of baboons which called itself a family were all in this together? Had the pathetic photos of them licking each others’ faces in shows of affection in all the tabloids been a scheme to supplement their giros with money sent in by a compassionate public? Was that mother really only in her early 30s? Christ, look at the fucking state of her, Rimbauer wouldn’t touch her with a shitty stick he thought to himself, wouldn’t even wank over her saggy tits, which was his favourite thing to do apart from watching gardening programs. What if the suspect was innocent? What if the kid was dead after all and body parts were littered all over the squalid flat? Well at least he’d win his bet. Christ he hoped she was dead.
“The suspect’s her uncle-cousin-step fathery sort of thing.” The C.I replied. “Here’s his address…go get that girl back Rimbauer!” He slid the address on a card across the desk. Rimbauer got up to leave.
“One more thing, why are you sending me?”
“You’re an educationalist Rimbauer” the Chief Inspector gave a slight smile. “They know how to keep us cops at bay, they’ve got a lifetime’s experience of us and they don’t fear us. But you Rimbauer, you’re our best weapon against them. They have no experience of teachers worth a grain of salt, you can read, spell your own name and have the power to teach them to do the same. They won’t stand a chance, they don’t know what do with educators, you’ll throw them completely. The fact that you know more than 200 words from the English language alone might be enough to unsettle, if not hospitalise them. Now go on, kid, go get ‘em.” The Chief Inspector stood and slowly saluted. Rimbauer nodded grimly. The plan made sense. He left the office and headed out to the waiting car.
Rimbauer slowly pushed the unlocked back door open, pulling his sidearm from his shoulder holster and peering into the gloom. He assumed he was in the kitchen. A brand new cooker stood unused in the corner, along with various other white goods supplied by the social. Pizza boxes and crisp packets covered the floor, which he carefully stepped over to avoid making a sound. He stopped and listened. He could hear muffled voices upstairs; feral, animal grunting. He recognised this as the patois spoken on the estate, one sounded like an adult male, the other, a young female. He’d found his target. He stepped quietly into the front room, and staggered backwards immediately as if punched. Christ, the walls were covered in photographs of morbidly obese simpletons and babies the size of pygmy hippos. This must be the occupant’s family. A wave of nausea hit Rimbauer as he saw a collection of porcelain and resin-cast figurines of chubby Victorian toddlers on the mantelpiece and he threw up behind the sofa. Jesus, he’d not witnessed such bad taste since one of the mothers at his own school got her own son to tell Rimbauer she fancied him. The memory made him vomit again. Rimbauer shook himself, he had to get a grip, get the job done and get out. The smell of bad food, bad drains and athlete’s foot made him gag again. He cocked his weapon, took a breath, and began to ascend the stairs.
To be continued…
