Part
22
There was an almighty thud as Whitney attempted to
force open the police station doors using Shadney's
Burberry buggy.
As
the child/thing burst into tears, Ryan rained invective
all over the entrance, accusing the inhabitants, fittings
and furniture of abuse, harassment and mental cruelty.
'Ma
bairn's trommitised. Dae somethin'!'
Sgt
Sturgeon, after mentally unleashing another Gattling
gun type blitzkrieg on the latest clients, sighed
so heavily that Jakey Rolling's witch's hat swayed
gently atop her grey mane.
'Can
I help you sir?' he asked, his teeth clenched into
a smile so tense he almost ground the upper and lower
sets into each other.
'Aye,
ye can help me,' barked Ryan as he swaggered purposefully
through the disjointed crowd, shouldering all before
him aside. 'Whit are ye gonny dae aboot this?'
He
indicated his bawling offspring. A collective shudder
rippled threw the crowd.
'Feed
it through the department's shredder,' popped immediately
into the sergeant's head. However, out came, 'What
appears to be the problem, sir?'
'Problem? Problem, is it? I'll tell ye whit the problem
is. The problem is youse!'
Jakey
Rolling eyed the animated young urchin up, down ,
sideways and diagonally. 'Excuse me, young man, but
I was here first….'
'Shut
it, ya freak! Ma bairn's been scarred fur life cos
o these eejits and thur megaphones and shoutin' and
that.'
'And
what is your point, sir?' Sgt Sturgeon was a picture
of calmness and composure. (But only because, inside,
mass murder on an apocalyptic scale raged unfettered
and rampant through his superego).
'Point?
Point, is it? I'll tell you whit the point is,' spluttered
Ryan. 'The point is…' There followed a prolonged silence,
during which the chemical particles and thought patterns
leaping around Ryan's brain juggled helplessly with
the electrical impulses engendered by his last statement
in a hectic attempt to construct some kind of logical
conclusion to the sentence spilling out his mouth
unchecked by the numbskull inspectorate wandering
aimlessly round the caverns of his mind. He couldn't
think of what to say next. A complete blank. Like
some numbskull minion had just tripped over a wordpower
cable and pulled the plug.
This
didn't often happen to Ryan. Usually when he was stuck
for words it was because he just couldn't be bothered
to finish what he was saying. For Ryan, talking was
what you were supposed to do to fill in the spaces
between action and sleep. Making sense wasn't really
necessary. It was the noise that counted. When the
mouth sounds stopped, telly could take over.
The
assembled throng swiveled and stared expectantly at
Ryan, eager to hear just what the point was. He stared,
transfixed by the bank of eyes trained on him, bristling
with sensitivity and unsure of who to shout at first.
And
then, Seraphema Fox-Mangler and Sylvester Rambling
flounced through the doors and marched straight up
to the sergeant's desk.
'I
wish to register a complaint about my neighbours,'
announced Sylvester authoritatively. 'They have tendrils.'
Next
week: Neebs
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