Hospital Corners , livre ebook

Andrews UK - William Stafford

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90 pages

English

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Description

When a film crew descends on Dedley to resurrect an old soap opera for the big screen, the team at Serious go undercover to catch a murderer. One member short, the detectives find themselves in the spotlight for the wrong reasons. Brough and Miller are back for this fast-moving and funny investigation, their sixth but not their last.

Sujets

Humour

Informations

Publié par	Andrews UK
Date de parution	21 juin 2016
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9781785380457
Langue	English

Informations légales : prix de location à la page 0,0150€. Cette information est donnée uniquement à titre indicatif conformément à la législation en vigueur.

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Title Page
HOSPITAL CORNERS
A Brough and Miller investigation

William Stafford

Publisher Information
Published in 2014 by
Andrews UK Limited
www.andrewsuk.com
The right of William Stafford to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1998
Copyright © 2014 William Stafford
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser. Any person who does so may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.
All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

Dedication
For Jamie

1
Detective Sergeant Melanie Miller wished they would go away. She wished she could get out of bed and go and stretch her legs. She was in such a bad mood even a cup of coffee from the temperamental vending machine in the corridor would be welcome. Perhaps the steaming brown liquid would kill her off once and for all and she wouldn’t have to put up with the incessant questions of Detective Constable Pattimore who kept asking her where Brough was.
“I don’t fucking know; how many more times?” she said through gritted teeth. At the other side of her bed, Detective Inspector Benny Stevens chuckled.
“Here, Mel; does this remind you of when you was in hospital six months back?”
Miller sent the moustachioed throwback a withering glare. “And what about me lying here in a paper gown with tubes strapped to my arm could possibly remind me of that?”
Stevens laughed. “What was it again, Mel? What was it you was diagnosed with after all that puking and passing out?”
“You know damned well,” said Miller. “Jason,” she appealed to Pattimore, “get this wanker away from me before he winds up in a hospital bed for real.”
“Let me see... ” Stevens tapped his chin, “What did the doctor call it? Ah, yes!”
“I’m warning you,” Miller cast around for something to chuck.
“Beaver fever!” Stevens clapped in delight. “I’d never heard of it before. Although it does sound like the kind of mucky film I’d watch. Sex-crazed lezzas going at it, like knives - like scissors, I suppose!”
Miller and Pattimore exchanged long-suffering glances. Six months down the line and Stevens was still cracking the same jokes and being his obnoxious, unimaginative self.
“Can’t you take him out and drown him?” Miller pleaded.
“Love to,” said Pattimore, “but the boss wants us to stay put while they do the next set-up.”
The boss in this instance was not the head of Dedley’s Serious Crimes Division, the formidable, and foul-mouthed Chief Inspector Karen Wheeler, but the assistant director who was trying, via fraught negotiations with the lighting boys, to get the set adequately and artistically lit for the master shot, in which the protagonist Doctor Kilmore would march through the ward with urgent strides before being cornered by the cantankerous but lovable Matron with some grievance or other. The detectives weren’t party to the complete script. They were present in their official capacity but no one must know, and so they’d been recruited as extras
“It’s the perfect cover,” so said Superintendent Ball.
Chief Inspector Wheeler had voiced a different view. “Pile of old wank,” she’d said in the briefing. “I’m already one man down and you’ve got most of my team playing dress-up and sitting around on their arses all day. I should fucking cocoa.”
The case was centred on the filming of HOSPITAL CORNERS - once a popular, Dedley-based television soap, it was now being revived as a film and anticipation was running high. Already there’d been one mysterious disappearance: the writer had gone AWOL, taking the final draft of the script with him. Foul play was suspected and so Superintendent Ball, one of the show’s most ardent devotees, had commandeered the force’s crack detective squad to infiltrate the shoot - against Chief Inspector Wheeler’s wishes.
“It’ll be a change for them,” he said, “They deserve an easier time of it after all that unpleasantness at the gay bar.”
Wheeler snarled. Their previous case had been a nasty one - there was no arguing against that - but her detectives weren’t pussies. She would have eaten them up and shat them out long before now if they were.
“It’s quiet,” Ball had continued. “Town’s in shock. No one’s doing any more murders, so I say let the team do something that isn’t so... Serious.”
He’d walked off, smirking before the diminutive Wheeler could fetch a stepladder so she could knock his block off.
The assistant director appeared at the foot of Miller’s bed, muttering into a walkie-talkie that crackled and squeaked, although it wasn’t clear if it was these noises or the irate voice at the other end that was making him wince.
“No, Dabney, love. Oscar’s not here yet. Customs have still got him at Birmingham International. Yes, I thought he’d given up all that too. Are we not to believe a word Oi Magazine says?”
Miller chewed her bottom lip. The one good thing about this job was the star of the film, Hollywood bad boy Oscar Buzz. To think: she’d be in the same room as him for a lot of the time, breathing the same air. Perhaps he’d come over and take her pulse - Miller thought about asking the A.D. if that could be written in - Buzz would find Miller’s heart beating ninety to the dozen.
A runner approached the A.D. and said they were ready. All they needed was the leading man.
“Can you believe it?” the A.D. looked at the detectives with a pained smile, “Haven’t shot the first take yet and we’re already behind schedule.”
He flitted away and then flitted back again.
“Don’t eat the fucking grapes,” he sneered at Stevens. “Continuity. You know?”
Stevens spat out a pip and clenched his fist. The A.D. hurried away.
“It’s so boring,” said Pattimore. “Give me a nice juicy stakeout any day of the week.”
“I think it’s exciting,” said Miller, hoping they didn’t make her look so ill she’d put Oscar Buzz off the first time he saw her. “The magic of the movies!”
“So tell me, Miller: how do you get Beaver Fever again? Something about a dirty toilet, isn’t it?”
“Piss off,” said Miller.
“Your old boyfriend not wash himself - was that it? Bet he used to come home overed in all sorts, working in that cemetery.”
“Why haven’t you pissed off yet?”
Stevens nodded after the A.D. “Got to stay put. Conty-wossname, isn’t it? How is... Gary, is it?”
“Jerry,” Pattimore corrected him, earning himself a dirty look from Miller in the process.
“Don’t know, don’t care,” said Miller. She shifted uncomfortably. “Think I’m getting bedsores already.”
“Beaver Fever... ” Stevens reflected. “You couldn’t make it up.”
“Just die,” said Miller. “The proper name for it is giardiasis. You’d think you’d know that, being a fucking parasite yourself.”
A bell rang. It was the end of the day and nothing had been shot. The banks of lights were turned off and the working lights, dimmer by far, came on. Gaffers and dolly grips and all those other people you see listed at the end of films busied around, shutting the set down for the night. Within minutes they were out of there. Miller swung her legs out of the bed and padded barefoot towards wardrobe, walking backwards so that Stevens couldn’t catch a glimpse of her backside.
“I’m sure you could have kept your knickers on, Mel,” Pattimore gallantly held out his raincoat to cover her. “Seeing as how they were only going to film you from the front.”
“Don’t question my method!” Miller laughed. She went into the caravan to get dressed.
“Fuck this for a game of doctors,” said Stevens, “I’m going to the pub. Coming?”
“Get them in,” said Pattimore. “I’ll make sure Mel gets to her car.”
“She’s a fucking copper,” said Stevens. “Let her take care of herself.”
But Pattimore stayed put. Sucking grape seeds from his teeth, Stevens left him to it and drove off in his ancient Ford Capri.
Miller emerged from the caravan, thrusting one arm and then the other into the sleeves of her mackintosh. “He’s right you know; I am a fucking copper.”
“Mel... ”
“Don’t! Jason, just don’t!”
Pattimore followed Miller across the car park, which was little more than a patch of waste ground cordoned off for the duration of the filming.
“Don’t what?” he affected innocence.
“Don’t fucking ask me if I’ve heard from him. I haven’t heard from him.”
“Well, you would say that, wouldn’t you? Did he tell you to say that?”
“No, he didn’t because I HAVEN’T FUCKING HEARD FROM HIM.”
She stabbed the car door with its key. Pattimore backed away.
“Sorry, Mel,” he grimaced. “But do you - ”
“No, I don’t know where he is. Leave it, Jason; he’ll be in touch when he wants to be. I’m as much in the dark as you are.”
She wrenched open the door and threw her bag onto the backseat. “Do you want a lift?”
“I’m meeting Benny in the Cowshed. Come with us?”
“No fucking thank you.” She started the engine.
“Mel... ” Pattimore held the door open. Apart from his hunger for word about his ex-boyfriend, he was also concerned about Miller. She was a lot more irritable lately and was certainly swearing a lot more than she used to - and that couldn’t just be Wheeler’s influence.
“What?”
“Let’s blow Stevens off.”
“Ugh!”
“I mean, he’s in the Cowshed; we’ll go somewhere else. Have a bottle of wine or three. Have a laugh.”
Miller tho