dark beige

By Detective Jack Polanski (64)

12.30pm: Come on guys, if you're gonna kill me on my last day of police duty, you've only got five and a half hours to do it. OK, I'm well aware that's not very long, but for Chrissakes I've been here since 8 a.m already, so you had your chance.

Typical no-good stoner criminals; you probably only got up half an hour ago, leaving me sitting here all morning waiting to die.

It's been very quiet today; I would say "too quiet" with an omenous sense of foreboding but I don't want to push my luck. Nevertheless, there was only one call out this morning and it was to a domestic dispute that turned out to be some college kids making too much noise. Those faggots couldn't even accidentally shoot their way out of a paper bag!

So the clock is ticking - I knock off at 6 for a drinks party but you never know if some wise ass might pull out the cake and sparkling wine at quarter past five. That's not even five hours away!

I always kind of expected my last day at work to involve some kind of cat and mouse game of death with a sophisticated but sadistic criminal who taunts me and my hotheaded young partner (who never actually materialised) with clues that seem to suggest he wants us to catch him, only to eventually recognise that he was leading us up the garden path all along, with a trail of death leading tragically to my beautiful and innocent young daughter (who again never materialised, more's the pity).

But instead I'm just sitting here, playing sudoku. And I'm not even very good. Not because I'm haunted by the demons of the past or my latent alcoholism (do I even have to say if they ever materialised?); just because I'm quite stupid.

Aah, fuck it. Maybe I'll go fishing next week, go and visit my sister in Florida. Retirement might not be so bad. Yeah, infact it's gonna be a--

RRIIIIIING!

Hello? What? An armed man you say? With a baby? A highly distressed emotional state? Shit, it ain't Shakespeare but that'll do.

I'm on the case!