Danny Dempsey and the Unlikely Alliance (2 page)

M
r. and Mrs. Pearson arrived at their local police station at three o'clock that very same day. Mr. Pearson was limping, but this didn't prevent Mrs. Pearson from keeping a firm grip on his elbow as they approached the reception area, where a young Garda viewed their arrival. He'd been on the receiving end of this particular lady's rudeness on several previous occasions, and it hadn't ever served to improve his humour one iota. He wished that he was elsewhere right now. Tackling armed criminals with his bare hands would have been preferable to facing the lady now bearing down on him. He was thankful for the wire-mesh frontage which separated him from Mrs. Pearson, who was towing her unfortunate husband in her wake.

‘Come along, Dermot!' Mrs. Pearson barked, despite the fact that Mr. Pearson was almost airborne in her slipstream by this stage. ‘And for heavens sake, stop dithering. You're
always
dithering!'

‘Mrs. Pearson!' Garda Harrington murmured in a polite enough way, as she ground to a halt at Reception, releasing her spouse as she did so, whose momentum caused him to collide with her generous girth and bounce backwards in a heap on the floor. ‘To what do we owe the pleas--'

‘Now listen here, young man!' Mrs Pearson said, before Harrington could complete his question. ‘I want to speak to the Superintendent, and I want to speak to him now! I have a very serious complaint to make. Isn't that right, Dermot?' She turned just in time to see Mr. Pearson picking himself off the floor. ‘For heaven's sake, what on earth are you doing down there? Can't you do anything right?'

Harrington muttered something to himself.

‘What are you babbling about, young man?' Mrs. Pearson barked. ‘What's keeping you? Haven't I just told you who I wish to speak to? And be quick about it, if you please!'

Harrington sighed softly as he turned his back on her, rounded a corner into a corridor. He rapped on a door upon which the black lettering on the frosted glass portion of it proclaimed it to be the private domain of Superintendent Charles Clifford. Harrington stood there patiently, observing the ritual he'd observed on innumerable previous occasions.

*

His very first encounter with the Superintendent was about a month or so after he'd graduated. It was only on the second day after he'd been assigned to this particular Garda station, which he now knew every nook and cranny of, and he'd foolishly opened the door to the Superintendent's office immediately after rapping on it. He was both startled and embarrassed at what had met his eyes on that occasion.

Superintendent Charles Clifford, all six feet four inches of him, whom Harrington had never seen other than attired in the immaculate uniform of his illustrious standing, was dressed in yellow slacks, a colourful Hawaiian short-sleeved shirt, green trainers, and tartan stockings which reached up to his knees. He looked like a human rainbow.

He was concentrating so much on a putt he was about to make into a glass tumbler six or seven feet from where he crouched sizing up the shot, that he wasn't even aware Harrington had entered his office. He was muttering words of encouragement to himself, taking the putter back to guide the ball to its target, when Harrington cleared his throat by way of a gentle cough to announce his presence. Superintendent Clifford fluffed his attempt, striking the ball harder than he'd intended, resulting in it missing the tumbler by several inches and rebounding off the wall, shooting back across the carpet to land at Harrington's feet. Harrington trapped it neatly beneath the sole of his foot, then, red-faced, gently kicked it towards the Superintendent.

There was an ominous silence in the office for several seconds. Seconds during which Superintendent Clifford stared at Harrington in disbelief. And seconds which appeared to Harrington were never going to end. But they eventually did. ‘Who are you?' Superintendent Clifford asked when he'd overcome his surprise. ‘And do you always barge into people's offices without knocking?'

‘I did knock, sir,' Harrington replied apologetically. ‘You mustn't have heard me.'

‘Umm! Knocked, eh!' the Superintendent said. ‘Let's have a look at your knuckles.'

‘Knuckles, sir?' Harrington asked uncertainly, unsure if he'd heard correctly.

‘You do have some, don't you?'

‘Yes, sir, but - - -'

‘Over here, then!' the Superintendent ordered him. ‘We'll see if you're telling the truth, my boy.'

A bemused Harrington was then subjected to a thorough knuckle examination by means of a magnifying glass which his superior extracted from a drawer of his desk. After much hemming and hawing, the Superintendent satisfied himself the knuckles under scrutiny had indeed rapped on the door of his office.

‘Particles of corridor dust on them all right,' Superintendent Clifford finally confirmed, placing the magnifying glass back from where he'd taken it. ‘Altogether different from office dust. Two separate things entirely.'

Harrington immediately gave serious thought to the consideration that he had possibly chosen the wrong profession in which to further his career. If this was what years of police work did to someone in such a senior position in the force, the mental hazards involved hardly seemed worth the dedication he himself had been prepared to undergo to rise in the ranks.

Harrington was an extremely idealistic young man. His mission in life was to rid the world of criminality in all its shapes and forms, and he'd resolved to work long and hard to achieve this goal. But when he encountered Superintendent Clifford in his office that first day, doubts as to his future beset his brain. To say that the Superintendent had struck him as eccentric would have been putting it mildly. But he'd discovered over the course of time there was a lot more to the Superintendent than putting golf balls into glass tumblers.

Though he'd never actually seen it for himself, Harrington had been told by his colleagues that the Superintendent was also given to a spot of tennis-ball juggling behind the door of his private office to aid his concentration while struggling with the difficulties of some particularly confusing case. Harrington had been tempted from time to time to put his eye to the key-hole as he waited for the order to enter, but had refrained from doing so out of the respect in which he eventually came to hold the Superintendent after only a short while in the station.

Eccentric though he may be, his reputation as the foremost crime fighter in the country was not an empty one. Whether engaged in slotting golf balls into glass tumblers, or juggling, Superintendent Clifford was constantly planning the downfall of some particularly nasty pieces of work who had eluded the rigours of the law far too long for his liking.

On the occasion of Harrington's initial blunder that first embarrassing day, Superintendent Clifford, after satisfying himself that his underling had been truthful concerning knocking on his office door, sat the young man down in his own big swivel-chair behind his desk, instructing him to watch carefully as he himself once more took up his stance to putt the golf ball into the glass tumbler.

Harrington's cheeks were glowing a shade more than pink at this development, his mind was revolving at a tremendous rate, and he was wondering if this was really happening, or if he'd perhaps taken a wrong turn and stumbled into the ward of some patient in the mental health department of the station, a department which he wasn't even aware existed.

‘Watch my line!' the Superintendent commanded. ‘See if you can spot any difference in the way Tiger Woods addresses a putt in comparison to me.'

Harrington gulped. There were approximately thirty-four variations he'd already spotted between the Superintendent and the world famous American golfer he could have mentioned straight away, but he was wary on advising on all of them. Still of a mind he's wandered into a mental ward in error, he feared he might be set upon with a golf club should he list them one by one in alphabetical order. The way the Superintendent had his body contorted at the moment, he appeared in danger of toppling over.

‘I think perhaps you should place your feet just a shade further apart, sir,' Harrington offered. ‘It might give you a little more balance. And perhaps if you didn't crouch
quite
so low, you'd have more control over the putter.'

To Harrington's amazement, the Superintendent immediately took his advice on board, eased his feet apart, straightened himself into a more comfortable position, eyed the tumbler for ten seconds or so, then neatly slotted the golf ball inside it.

‘Good Heavens!' the Superintendent gasped. ‘I've been trying to do that for the last hour or so, and only managed it once.' He turned to Harrington, beaming from ear to ear at his success. ‘I'll have that Hennessy's guts for garters at the next inter-station outing.'

Harrington hadn't the faintest notion to whom the Superintendent was referring.

‘The smug nincompoop won't know what hit him,' the Superintendent continued conversationally, retrieving the golf ball and repeating the successful putt a second time. ‘Send him back to his station with the smile on the other side of his face for once.
And
without the trophy next time.' He beamed again, delighted with himself. ‘I must say you're a splendid addition to the force.' His eyebrows lifted and a look of concentration beset his face. ‘What did you say your name was again? Eh?'

*

Now, as Harrington waited for the command to enter the Superintendent's office, he could hear Mrs. Pearson impatiently pressing the bell outside, accompanied by her shrill chattering complaints regarding the disgraceful service which abounded everywhere these days. He also thought he caught something about people being murdered in their beds and the forces of law and order not caring less whether they were or not. Then Dermot's name was brought into her shrieking, being instructed to write to their local government representative the very second they got home. Harrington was considering if he should return to reception and politely request the lady to give over screeching quite so loudly, when the deep voice of Superintendent Clifford finally granted him permission to enter.

When he did so, the Superintendent was sitting behind his desk, resplendent in his uniform, studiously peering at some documents in front of him. His face was a mask of concentration, his normally generous, half-smiling mouth set in a frown. Harrington closed the door behind him and approached the desk, again patiently waiting for permission to state the cause of his business. He knew better than to disturb the Superintendent's train of thought before it had come into the station of its own accord. The Superintendent was muttering away to himself, evidently not too pleased about the contents of the documents he was studying. He gave a little grunt of displeasure before eventually raising his head to acknowledge Harrington's presence.

‘Awful business,' he informed him, as though Harrington knew what he was talking about. ‘Terrible altogether.'

‘I'm sure it is, sir,' Harrington said, having learned that the best response to practically all of the Superintendent's puzzling statements was to agree with them. He hesitated a moment, took a deep breath, then said, ‘There's a lady at reception who insists on seeing you personally, sir.' He took another deep breath. ‘It's Mrs. Pearson, sir.'

‘Again!' the Superintendent growled. ‘What's wrong with her this time? The slugs been criminally attacking her rose bushes? Eh? Or have some naughty five year-olds been talking too loudly passing her house or something?'

‘She didn't give me a chance to ask, sir,' Harrington told him. ‘She doesn't consider I'm important enough to deal with her complaint. As usual, sir,' he added, reminding the Superintendent that that was always the case where Mrs. Pearson and himself were concerned. ‘But she did say it was a very serious matter.'

‘I'm far too busy to see that awful woman now, Harrington,' the Superintendent said firmly. ‘Have Sergeant Neville deal with her.'

‘He's not here, sir. He's - -'

‘Did you try his office?'

‘No sir, - -'

‘There you are! He's your man. Keep knocking until you wake him up.'

‘He's gone out on a case, sir,' Harrington informed the Superintendent. ‘He left over an hour ago.'

‘An hour ago! Why wasn't I informed?' Then, without waiting for an answer, he continued, ‘Perhaps he sneaked back when you weren't looking. Eh? Have you considered that possibility, Harrington?'

‘He couldn't have, sir. I've had a call from him twenty minutes ago instructing me to send all available personnel in the station to surround the area the sighting occurred. Someone phoned in and claimed to have seen an alligator being taken for a walk by a boy very early this morning in the town centre. It was on a leash, sir, just like a dog. All forces have been deployed to capture the animal.'

Superintendent Clifford pursed his lips, then started tapping his huge fingers on his desk, the resulting sound resembling half a dozen horses galloping over a wooden racecourse. Mrs. Pearson's impatient demands could still be heard filtering in through the closed door.

‘Do you know what day this is, Harrington?' the Superintendent asked quietly, ceasing his finger tapping.

‘Friday, sir?' Harrington replied, wary that he was possibly being asked a trick question, given the Superintendent's sometimes odd little ways.

‘And what date is it, Harrington?'

‘Oh, no!' Harrington gasped, as the penny dropped. ‘Oh, no!'

‘Indeed. It's the first of April, isn't it, Harrington?'

‘Yes – yes, sir, it is.'

‘And every able-bodied officer apart from yourself has gone haring off on a wild alligator chase, no doubt with nets and guns and tranquilliser darts, and every squad car we have at our disposal. Would that be correct, Harrington?'