Bobby pressed hard with his shoulder and kept Joe trapped between him and the trolley whilst he fumbled around with his handcuffs. He managed to get one side of the cuffs attached to the shopping trolley, then made a swift jerking motion into the body of his suspect before locking an arm into the other side of the handcuffs.
Sadly for Bobby, he had got the wrong arm, and was now attached to the shopping trolley.
Once again, Joe saw a chance to make a break for it, but Bobby reacted quickly to the escape attempt and swung the trolley around, taking out Joe’s legs, who landed heavily inside it, upside down and unable to move.
Bobby, relieved the drama was over, gave a friendly nod to the watching public, and limping slightly, pushed Joe towards the exit, reading him his rights as he did so.
Sharon, one of two shelf stackers who had come back from their break and seen the incident, began to clap as Bobby passed her and her colleague as he left the building.
The short, dumpy woman looked up to her tall and skinny workmate, Vic, mouth opened wide and completely impressed by the justice she had just seen the one and only Bobby Saint bring to the crazy burger bun shopper.
‘One day, Vic, I wanna be just like him.’
‘There goes a real hero, Sharon,’ replied Vic, ‘maybe a little beyond our potential?’
Sharon looked to the floor, disheartened. Was this forty eight year old, obese mother-of-three ever going to get her lucky break?
‘Unless…’ continued Vic, eyeing a poster on the wall of the store.
Sharon looked up at the recruitment poster.
‘Community support officers wanted,’ said Sharon, reading out aloud, as she couldn’t do it quietly.
She looked up at Vic, and Vic looked down at her and returned the gaze. Were their days of boring, unsatisfying labour coming to an end?
2
The City Hall media room was full of reporters, cameras and flashes, television cameras, microphones and long and short cables.
Mayor of London Terence Thatcher, a fairly old but sprightly man, was at the front of the room facing back at the journalists, stood behind a microphone mounted on a desk, forcing a smile and doing his best to hide his dislike towards the hacks, the multi-faced snakes of gutter journalism that they were.
Sitting next to the mayor was Bobby, in full police uniform with stars and stripes and medals hanging off his chest and shoulder like a police-flavoured Christmas tree. He didn’t feel comfortable wearing all the decoration, he was just an officer of the law in his own eyes, but the mayor urged him to present himself like this whenever in front of the cameras.
The mayor had big plans for Bobby.
Mayor Thatcher waved his hands at the crowd before him, requesting silence, as the hacks were giggling at the revised plans for public toilets in the capital city. Recently, all public loos were made into unisex facilities, so as not to offend or make transsexuals feel awkward when needing to do their business when out and about in public. It was all a little awkward at first, what with women not wanting to share with dirty men, and men not being able to pee whenever a woman stood too close.
The final straw was when women in men’s bodies didn’t want to be using a bog near real women, who were potentially gay and disliked women who felt like men as of course there was competition amongst them as to who didn’t need men the most.
The solution had been settled upon, where there would be two types of toilet buildings for the public. One would be for those who carried a penis and one or two or however many testicles in their underwear, the other, a vagina. This would likely cause uproar at some point and would have to be readdressed once again, but for now, the mayor had lost enough sleep on the issue.
‘Quiet, please,’ he said, ‘one more question.’
A few of the journalists jumped up, desperate for the attention of the mayor, but he was drawn to a pretty lady who stood at the back of the room.
‘Yes, young lady?’ he said.
Maggie, thirty five years old and an awful journalist, referred to her notepad before clearing her throat then looking accusingly in the direction of the mayor.
‘Sir, you and officer Saint,’ she said, gesturing to Bobby, ‘have announced a great improvement in levels of prosecutions this year. Have you any evidence of this?’
The crowd of reporters loved it when Maggie got a chance to speak; she was so dumb it was incredible. How on earth did she get the job she had? Clearly she had someone in a position of power looking out for her.
Bobby shook his head, and the mayor looked disappointed at the young reporter’s effort at journalism. The crowd stifled their laughter and the mayor answered Maggie.
‘Well, yes, the evidence would be the number of criminals behind bars,’ said the mayor, as straight-faced as he could be.
‘Convenient,’ said Maggie. ‘And also, rumour has it that officer Saint will be getting promoted to top job in the police force. Some would say that you are giving him the role because he is your friend.’
Bobby was shocked at the insinuation, especially coming from Maggie like that. Mayor Terrence Thatcher was a new breed of mayor who had wormed his way into controlling both the metropolitan and city of London police force by hard work, backhanders and schmoozing, so deserved a little more credit than that (not too much more though).
‘No decision has been made as to who will be leading the force; the announcement will be made in a few days, as previously stated,’ said the mayor, turning to Bobby and giving a nod of appreciation.
‘What I will say,’ he continued, ‘is that yes, I have known Bobby Saint for many years. And in that time, he has behaved responsibly, and acted in the best interest of everybody around him at all times. Even, I believe, on his wedding day, when he married you, Mrs Saint.’
Bobby shifted awkwardly in his seat.
A male reporter, Barry Porter, jumped up from his seat and called out a question to Bobby without an invitation.
‘Officer Saint,’ he said, ‘how can we trust you to control the city, when you can’t control your wife?’
More laughter erupted from the crowd and Maggie shuffled backwards, out of view from her husband, who sat embarrassed at the front of the media room.
Bobby looked up to the mayor, who shrugged his shoulders and grinned sheepishly.
‘I think we can call it a day, don’t you?’ said Bobby, before standing and preparing to leave.
Suddenly, the doors at the back of the room crashed open.
Harriet Plebb MP, wearing a revealing dress, strutted to the front of the room like a model on a catwalk, pausing after every few steps and illuminated by flashing cameras. She was followed towards the mayor and Bobby by a serious-looking man in a suit, Edwin Plebb, her husband and human rights lawyer.
The mayor gestured for Bobby to sit back down, and then sat down beside him, as Harriet sat on the table in front of them and ignored them both as she crossed her legs in a manner that would have made Sharon Stone’s character in Basic Instinct proud.
Edwin stood to the side of the room, remaining calm, serious and calculated the whole time.
‘Well, hello darlings,’ said Harriet, loudly to the crowd in front of her.
She folded her arms across her chest, squeezing her ample breasts together and pretended to shiver, causing a gentle ripple across her assets.
‘It’s cold in here,’ she said, before leaning back on the table. ‘As you all know, I am running for Prime Minister, so I thought I would pop in…’
‘Nearly pop out, you mean,’ said the reporter, Barry Porter, under his breath whilst struggling to tear his eyes away from her cleavage.