Fish Bones and Scaredy Cats
May 23, 2007 by inspectorgadget
Le Café du Marche near the Corn Exchange does not advertise its alleyway. I can understand that. I’m standing in it. The remains of Monkfish medallions with mushrooms and coulis are arranged around my feet. The soles of my boots claim to be acid, oil and slip resistant but they are having trouble negotiating the mixture of Chateau La Chartreuse Sauternes and cooking oil which now surrounds me.
Ernest and Julio Gallo are not welcome inside.
A crouching silent fur ball stares at me from on top of a peeling air-conditioning unit. Here is the architect of the Monkfish’s fall from dustbin to concrete. The owner is circumspect. Do I know what it costs to eat here? His customers do not take kindly to fuss and bother. How long will we take?
I ask him instead if the cat belongs to him. Why? He smirks. Is he a suspect? I laugh. That is a good one. I like that. The cat runs away at the sound of my laugh.
I look around at our home for the next ten hours. Heroin addicts choose strange places to die. Now it is a potential crime scene but the people who need to do whatever it is they do at crime scenes are wrapped in duvets and will remain so, until they are good and ready to face the day.
The excuses for non-attendance are well rehearsed and frankly, lacking in imagination. I don’t like this place.
It’s full of fish bones and scaredy cats.
Shame you couldn’t just wait for collection day. As long as it hasn’t gone fortnightly where you are.
sweet white Bordeaux ? so last year and all, Gadget you WANT to be found out don’t you ?
I take it you won’t be eating in that restaurant off duty? Personally, monkfish is very overrated.
Ten hours is a long time to wait wading in fish bones and pompous kitchen staff.
What, you couldn’t get someone out of their beds for a dead body. On our overtime rate we would be able to afford breakfast at the swanky restaurant once we’d finish with the scene!
mp3 here !
As to the above, thinking equally cryptically, you could ask a SPECIAL to do the standing about for you!
A long time ago I rented a room from an old veterinarian who had had his share of being out of his bed at anti social hours. A phone call for assistance would often go one of two ways. A, “Well if the animal is not going to die over night there is little point in me coming out and charging you loads for the privilege when you can bring the animal to the surgery in the morning” or B, Well if the animal is going to die, there is little I can do for it and you would not want me charging you loads for a lost cause. Either way he only got out of bed for people with very large bank accounts, and of course charged them loads for the privilege!
It never fails to fill me with amazement. Our ’support’ services don’t seem to believe me when i tell them that crime happens outside of office ours.
Don’t get me started on the Mental health act and Social services…..
Stinky, I get paid very well for being called out of my bed of a night but what some ‘Police Officers’ don’t seem to believe is that we have already put in a 8 - 10 hour shift before some Sgt/Insp decides to call us out of our pits at the slightest sight of blood and we have every right question the necessity for the call out as it impacts on the staff available the following day.
For Inspector Gadgets example though I would have thought attending the scene of death that was not caused by natural causes was a no-brainer, but I suppose some forces work in different ways or some SOCOs are lazier than others
“…our home for the next ten hours.”
I am sure what you mean is, home to a couple of tired PCs for ten hours, while you make sure to send a couple of emails thanking them for their efforts before you toddle off home… on time. Me, bitter? Never.
[...] Fish Bones and Scaredy Cats Le Café du Marche near the Corn Exchange does not advertise its alleyway. I can understand that. I’m standing in it. […] [...]
Noddy - well spotted!
Bloggs - some of the posts are about when I was a PC/Sgt
Hm, fine, that’s ok then… sniff.
How weird, that area was my regular haunt when I lived there, I know exactly where you mean, still about up there quite often on the odd weekend when Im seeing friends & getting my regular fix of pollution (nothing else i hasten to add!)
Is it in the dead centre of town?
Sorry folks - the name of the restaurant and the location are a collection of made up/ copied ones from all over. The incidents I write about are bits and pieces of real ones put together, some as old as four years. The closest you will ever get to id’ing Ruralshire is the pics I put up tho other day, which were ‘clocked’ within a few hours and had to come down again!
& there was me thinking you’d just changed the name of the restaurant & the location slightly! Sounds scarily similar to somewhere I know
We once had a arson/burglary thing where forensics were tasked. At around midnight they came… and went. The poor bewildered response came on the radio and conveyed this and your counterpart went bonkers. “He said he can’t do anything, it’s dark” the con conveyed. “DARK? Ask him what colour the sky was when he left the house. Tell him to come back and not to leave till I’VE spoken to him”. Forensics have their own battery lights you know, but they guy was on call from home and would need to have gone to the office to get them. Poor lamb.
Personally, I wondered how this all came about. I am in the air conditioning industry and maybe just dont get it. I enjoyed visiting though!! Have a great weekend!