I Was First to Spot Him in the Act

The challenge was what to charge the lunatic with

Photo by Annie Trevaskis on Unsplash

It’s 1999, I’m on duty in a living room with twelve cats, talking to an old dear about her noisy neighbours. She needs a sympathetic ear, so I’m nodding away, with the occasional, “Uh-huh, oh dear,” and “Achoo. Achoo. Achoo!” I’m allergic to cats.

Something catches my eye, a grey hoodie outside, walking nonchalantly by, then it stops and bends down beside my marked police car. I’m up on my feet and at the window like Usain Bolt. I see the hoodie messing with the front tyre. I rap hard on the window. The hoodie looks up, it’s a teenage boy. He sees me, gets to his feet, and runs.

By the time I get to the door, he’s gone.

For about a year, someone had been deflating the tyres on our police vehicles. It happened when we were on a call or picking up a fish supper from the chippy. There was no pattern. There was never any damage; the culprit expelled the air by pressing on the valve. It would have been a lot more inconvenient if he’d used a knife to slash the tyre.

We hoped it might be a phase, a passing fancy. An idiot with a gripe, but it kept happening, week after week, month after month. We issued every vehicle with a foot pump because there’s nothing that says ‘crime-fighting force’ like a copper…