Boot

You'd have thought the police would have checked the boot before returning my stolen car to me.

That was my first thought when the officer phoned, my nagging doubt as I bussed across the city and now, as I step onto the concrete walkway leading to the station, it is the strobing panic that chokes my pulse.

I'd packed almost everything away and had just begun to peel away the gaffa tape holding the plastic sheeting down in the kitchen of the tiny, new build executive flat I'd called home for the past month when the phone went. My flight wasn't for another six hours – soon enough after to get out before the clampdown but not so soon as to be obvious – so I didn't hesitate before answering. Keep everything normal, that was the key.

“'ello, is that Mr Fox?” asked an unfamiliar northerner.

“Speaking.”

“PC Albright from Gaskill police station calling about the stolen car report you made this morning.”

“Oh hi... what can I do for you? Do you want me to come and make a statement? The other officer said something about that.”

The unhurried calm of my voice shocked me almost as much as the pig on the phone. Practice really does make perfect.

“No, no. Got some good news actually. There'll be no need for that, we've found it. I'll 'ave to speak to my sarge to make sure but there's no damage and no other reports so I can't see us taking the investigation any further.”

“Great.”

I should have said more but didn't trust myself not to scream. I craned over the designer taps, trying to get a look at the road, six floors below. It was empty, there was nothing going on.

“Yeah, mustn't have been flash enough for 'em eh? Don't take it personal. We just need to arrange for you to come down and collect it.”

“Great! When can I pick it up?”

“Well I'm on shift until seven. After that, it'll have to be tomorrow afternoon when the paperwork has gone through.”

I agreed to collect the car an hour from then. That would leave just under two hours - just long enough.

Playing the call over in my head as I walk up the steps, I strain to hear anything out of place. I tell myself that everything is fine. If  they knew, they wouldn't have called. It would have been balaclavas, guns and shouting. They wouldn't have tipped me off.

By the door is a smackhead, starch white, puckered and smoking, oblivious to my approach until I'm so close I smell him. He shuffles out of the way. Inside I join the queue. At the front some old guy is trying to explain about his neighbour's dog and the pig on the desk, fat little fuck, is doing his best to misunderstand.

Waiting, my mind does circuits: why was it picked up so quickly, why didn't it blow when they started it, why haven't they found it, why haven't they looked in the sodding boot, do I collect it or run, raise or fold, WHY HAVEN'T THEY LOOKED IN THE SODDING BOOT?

I knew the bar was too open to target but they wouldn't listen. And I never got why we had to report the car stolen. “Keep it whiter than white” Kev had said but what the fuck did that mean. Still, if they've driven it here, I can drive it away. And if I can drive it away, I can put it back where it belongs.

Without looking like I'm looking I try to see where the cameras are, try to keep my face away as best I can. The monitor behind the desk flicks between shots of the smackhead, the front of the queue and a wide shot showing me from behind.

The old guy gives up and after the girl in front, stroppy and indignant at the wait, has reported in for bail I'm next. I explain and Fatty makes a call for PC Albright to come to the front desk. More waiting – 45 minutes, an hour, an hour ten since the call – then Albright shows up with a small sheaf of paperwork, grinning beneath a bristly moustache.

“Guy? John Albright.”

He offers his hand and I take it. He takes me through a door that Fatty has to buzz open, waits for it to shut before he opens the internal door and then leads me down miles of polystyrene partitioned corridors.

“They make it like this so we can't escape too easily,” he jokes, “Just down 'ere now, couple of flights an' were almost there.”

The bottom of the stairwell is dank and sweaty. Seeing me grimace, Albright apologizes.

“Sorry about that, sir. There's an evidence cupboard at the bottom. It's the only place where we can keep that bloody skunk without sending the admin staff home with funny dreams.”

The cupboard is about seven feet high, dark grey metal like changing room lockers. From inside I hear Jim Royle's voice, “Pick up the phone! Buzz. Pick up the fucking phone! Buzz.”.

“Bag full of phones someone brought in last week. It all goes in there. Can't turn the bloody things off till forensic have looked over 'em. That one's been goin' non-stop. Wish my battery lasted half as long. Here we are, watch yourself.”

Squeezing past the cupboard, I see the back door, a surprisingly domestic half glass affair.

Albright fumbles with the lock, presses an intercom switch and then swears when it lets out an electronic fart.

“Sorry, sir. Won't be a minute, I'll have to go and tell 'em to let us out, buzzer's bust.”

Alone with the cupboard of ringtones, I press up against the glass, careful still to avoid the camera I saw as we reached the bottom step. There's no need. They'd have nicked me by now if there was anything up. I think I can see the car across the lot through the reinforced glass and next to it a transporter with a crane arm. I begin to relax and even smile when one of the phones in the cupboard blasts out 'Should I stay or should I go' – someone up there is taking the piss.

Albright comes through the door across the room and a bolt of panic pins me to the spot. Two more officers are with him. The other officers head off up the stairs without a word.  Panic over.

Outside, I start across the half empty lot but Albright pulls me back.

“Wouldn't do to have you grumbling about service so we've parked her right by the door for you. Just got to get you to sign these forms and then we're done.”

He rests the forms on the boot of the car and offers his pen. I sign, gently, and thank him.

“I'll go an get 'em to let you out. Take care,” he says and heads inside.

Sitting in the driver's seat, out of view, I allow myself a deep sigh. The skin on my back prickles with relief. As I put the key in the ignition I see the transporter in my wing mirror hoisting a clamped car vertically by its side. As I turn the key, I wonder if they did that with mi...

***


Three streets away, the smackhead straightened up and pulled out a phone. As he dialed flakes of ash swirled down around him.

“Kev? Sorted,” he said and then turned the phone off.