4. Allo Allo
As the police car pulled up outside the station Ben suddenly felt very self-conscious. He’d never had so much as a speed ticket in his life and now he had been arrested for assault. The handcuffs felt heavy and imprisoning on his wrists, the air claustrophobic and suffocating. His eyes scanned the exterior of the modern police station with its multi million-dollar security.
With barbed wire mounted on 10-foot walls there wasn’t much hope of a prisoner escaping from here. As the policeman opened the door for him he shuffled out his weight making it difficult to get up properly. He took a good look around at the car park; it was virtually empty the police wagons out protecting the streets from hooligans like him. The car park was bright with light as floodlights directed the way. No one would be joyriding a police car in a hurry!
With a smirk imprinted on his lips he felt a bit of resilience come back. If he was going to go down, it wasn’t without a fight. As he followed the footsteps of the chief officer, he felt his heart pacing in rhythm with the beat of his feet, pounding faster and faster as his eyes fixed on the heavy metal gate. The gate led into the heart of the police station, a station that some would call the beginning passage to hell. As he was led through the gate into a tunnel of locks and more gates Ben tried to calm himself down, singing happy songs in his head. As he gave his details to the receptionist he waited patiently to be taken into the interview room. Led into the police station, Ben’s details were taken before he was taken to the interview room.
The interviewer checked over Ben, his eyes curious. “Haven’t seen you around here before.”
“Well I don’t tend to commit crimes often.” Ben replied sarcastically. “I see. What are you in for?”
“Hitting a waiter out of self defence, I don’t even know why I’m here it wasn’t even that serious!” “Speak poorly of your case again and we’ll detain you for breach of rules held here.”
Ben sighed, his face sucked into a deep look of depression.
“Interview starting at 21:02 hours.” The police officer said, as he pressed the record tape on the player. “Right if you go from start to finish and tell us your account of today’s events please.”
“Well I was meeting this girl Hayleigh for a date, I met her and then we went up to the podium to get a seat but the waiter serving me…. He seemed to think I was telling him to bend over!” Ben explained.
“Were you?”
The lines on Ben’s face tightened. Why did he always end up having to defend his own perfectly reasonable actions!?
“No of course not, my name is Ben Dover!” “I see…” the officer sniggered slightly.
“Oh yeah that’s it laugh, it isn’t that bad!”
“No of course not.” He replied, trying hard to keep a straight face. “Okay anyway what happened after that?”
“Well I tried for half an hour to book a seat with him thinking every time I was telling him to bend over and finally I show him some ID and he accepts my name. Then after a disastrous date he mocked me in every way he could, and I just couldn’t take it anymore so I hit him!” Ben exclaimed.
He hoped his frank explanation of events would be enough to settle such a petty issue.
“Let me stop you there, he annoyed you in every way he could? When he kindly offered you a tissue to clean yourself up?” the officer snorted.
Ben felt powerless; whatever he said would just be upstaged by the waiter’s claims.
“It was the look on his face, it was sheer mocking! Surely you know the feeling!” Ben stressed. The officer shook his head.
“Afraid not. Well we’ve got both your statements and considering this is your first offence and you don’t appear to be a violent person let this be a sharp warning to you.”
A blanket of relief engulfed Ben; he’d won! “Will I have a criminal record?”
“No… but should you commit this offence again you may be officially charged with assault.” “Don’t worry officer that won’t happen again!”
“Glad to hear it.”
Triumphant that he was a free man Ben left the interview room in delight. Meanwhile, the officer glanced over at the door, a bemused expression plastered on his face.
“Ben Dover!” he spoke duly, not quite believing the ridiculousness of the name.
The next morning Ben was roused from sleep by the sound of a sharp rapping on the door. Irritated that he’d been woken early on a Sunday he ignored the knocking. In answer to this act of ignorance, the rapping rose up a notch on the sound wave scale.
“Alright, alright I’m coming! Jesus what’s so urgent in this time of morning anyways?” Ben yelled.
Yanking the door open Ben was surprised to see an anxious looking Jose on the doorstep. Sweat lined his brow and perspiration swarmed on his forehead.
“Jose what ever is wrong?!” Ben cried.
“You better have a look at this.” He replied, shoving a newspaper in Ben’s face. Taking the newspaper Ben’s eyes scanned frantically over the front page article.
BEN DOVER MUGGING RIOT the headline read, jumping like bullets straight through Ben’s eyes. His heart racing he read on.
Last night around the time of 12:30am a local waiter Cristiano Marko was mugged roughly by a man he claims announced his presence, as “Ben Dover”. The magnitude of events clearly tides in with the earlier incident in which the man in question, Ben Dover, punched the waiter in what he claimed was ‘self defence’. Police are taking the uncalled for matter very seriously, in which the victims car, a red Larda was stolen.
Ben dropped the paper in disbelief. What the paper was claiming was totally and utterly ridiculous, he was in bed at the time the incident took place.
“Jose there’s no question that this is a pathetic matter.” Jose stared uneasily at his friend.
“Ben, are you not taking any of this in? The police are going to come and question you again. You went on the date with Hayleigh last night didn’t you.”
Ben nodded solemnly. Jose rolled his eyes as if to say ‘I told you so’.
“Look don’t even start on the pep talk okay ‘cos I don’t want to know right now.”
“But Ben you know what taking in all those waifs and strangers does to you, you end up in a state like this! And there’s this waiter claiming it was you who mugged him! Why you would want a car like that I don’t know but that’s not the point.”
Frustrated Ben peered through the corridor leading to the stairs. “When are the police gonna come knocking?”
“How about now?” Jose murmured, his gaze settling on the two officers scaling the stairs.
The whitewashed walls of the police interview room had started to become familiar territory for Ben as he sat facing two officers that looked like their frowns had been set in stone. Aggravation invaded him as the chief officer loitered in chat with his companion whilst setting up the tape recorder. Drumming his fingers against the table as a hint Ben was relieved to see the tape had started to roll.
“Interview started at 9:30am. With Mister Ben Dover. Accompanying officers are Mr Smith and Johnson.”
“So Ben where were you in the early hours of this morning?” “In bed.” Ben replied simply.
“What were you doing in bed?” There was an uncomfortable silence.
“You know what people usually do in bed…” he paused for effect. “Sleeping.” He finished.
Officer Smith shuffled his notes.
“Yes of course. So do you have anyone to back up this alibi?”
Ben thought frantically, roving over his acquaintances in his head, in the end only one came to light. “Barney can.”
“Well what’s Barney’s number, we need to be able to interview him.” “Oh Barney wouldn’t like that.”
A frown erupted on Smith’s face.
“Look Ben do you want to get out of here or not? At this rate it looks like you’ll be punished for something you may or may not have done!”
“No seriously you wouldn’t get much sense out of Barney.” Ben insisted. “Why not?”
“Because Barney’s a fish.” Ben said glumly.
Whilst Smith’s exasperation towards Ben’s attitude was hard to contain, Johnson found the sudden revelation quite amusing.
“Yes Dover I’m sure Barney would love to back you up but he can’t think past his next swim around the bowl right now, so I suggest that you pull your act together or face a cosy night down in the cells.” Smith said sternly.
“You know if you had a parrot you might have been able to use him as a witness in this case.” Johnson chuckled.
“Funny.” Ben mumbled under his breath.
“Carrying on. I’m sure you know by now of the serious event that took place at 12:30 this morning. The waiter in question Cristiano Marko was indeed assaulted by you earlier in the evening, in which you came to be questioned in this very here interview room, am I correct?”
“Yes sir.” Ben muttered.
“And am I therefore correct to assume that you later, severely annoyed with the turn of events waited out for Cristiano and mugged him, stealing in your conquest his Larda car?”
“No!” Ben insisted.
“I would never steal, my mum brought me up to be a good lad not a ruffian.” He continued.
As honest as he was being it was doubtful that the officers would believe his side of the story. How he got roped into this he didn’t know.
“Look officer are you sure the waiter heard the assailant correctly?” “Yes of course, he recalls hearing the name Ben Dover.”
Imagining the event in his mind eye Ben realised something, something drastic.
“You say he said he was sure he heard my name? Well maybe he heard bend over. You can tell how similar they are, I get made a laughing stock out of it! Please for goodness sake, investigate it.”
A look of desperation filled Ben’s eyes as he looked at the officers for pity. Scratching his head in hope of stirring his grey matter officer Smith looked thoughtful.
“Now I think about it, it does sound that way…” “Thank you!” Ben sighed.
“But… we can’t rely on that alone, we need evidence. Hopefully we can turn up the car, see if your fingerprints are on it.”
“But that will take ages!”
“Or we’ve got some CCTV footage, we can go over that see if the figure matches your physical description.”
“Perfect, then we can sort out this fiasco once and for all.” Ben said triumphantly. Only it wasn’t that simple…
Slipping the CCTV footage into the video slot a musky, dark image appeared on the screen. Within that image came the profile of Cristiano making his way to his car, his keys jangling merrily at his side— then like a shadow of the night another profile slipped out of the darkness. Silence filled the interview room as the trio stared intently at the monitor.
“What the…” Smith muttered.
Visible for all to see was the physicality of the assailant. All six foot of him—encased in what could be only described as a mountain of hair – with the addition of specs.
“Well I guess what we’re looking for is a Cousin IT look-alike.” Johnson sniggered. Ben banged his head on the table in defeat.
“This isn’t funny!” he whimpered.
“Hey wait a minute, Cristiano is slumped over the bonnet and is being body searched by Cousin IT here, do you think that could’ve been when he mistake the words bend over for Ben Dover?” Smith suggested.
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Ben cried.
Switching off the video Smith turned to address Ben.
“Although we’ve seen footage of the incident, it doesn’t actually tell us anything we didn’t already know…”
“Except that someone is in dire need of a haircut.” Johnson added. Smith turned to Johnson a satirical look on his face.
“Or maybe they were just in fancy dress.” He suggested. “Well there’s that too of course.”
“Anyway, the video doesn’t prove anything conclusive- it could be anyone in that costume—including you. It does show however that at some point Cristiano was leaning over the bonnet. He may have been forced to having previously misinterpreted the hairy assailants order ‘Bend over’ as ‘Ben Dover’, returning for his revenge. Thus disobeying the assailants commands and being punished in return.”
A round of applause filled the room. “Here, here.” Ben agreed.
Smith smiled weakly.
“It doesn’t mean you’re off the hook yet, we hopefully should uncover the stolen car soon and that should unearth some answers. Until then we’ve got nothing to hold you here any longer- no real substantial evidence.”
Ben’s face lit up. “So I’m free to go?”
“For now. But if that car has got any of your fingerprints on it you’ll be back in this interview room quicker then you can say ‘Bobs your uncle’.”
“Or bend over and give me fifty!” Johnson added. The look on Ben’s face was clearly far from comical.