I’ve been thinking about Ken, we used to have the same sorting office. I wondered what happened to him. I read somewhere that he had been badly injured and then no more, certainly nothing about how he was injured and if he recovered, he had just disappeared. Makes you wonder if he died, if he were murdered or worse.
But everyone loves a postman, sometimes we deliver demands for payment, nobody complains much. But nobody would kill a postman. Or would they?
But everyone loves a postman, so why do some of them have big ferocious dogs that could bite yer ‘ed orf. I’ve been bitten twice and I’ve had to have tetanus shots.
I’m crossing the green now, to get to the other side just like the chicken. I feel a sharp pain on the back of my head, I’m falling...
“That’s unusual, we can both say almost the same thing. I say as a pathologist: The cause of death was probably a blow to the back of the head with a heavy round object. You say as Superintendent: The cause of death was probably a blow to the back of the head with a baseball bat.”
“But we’ll get the body back to the lab, and I’ll phone you in about two hours with the result of our investigations.”
“But don’t mention the word postman to the press. They’ll ignore it, postmen are such good guys, everybody loves them, nobody in their right mind would want to murder a postman. No, no, no! It couldn’t happen like that. Put the story deep inside, just a sentence or two, don’t mention the words kill or murder.”
“But this man is dead, even I can see that he has been murdered. I’ve seen three dead postmen in the last two years. And there are more I’m sure. I mean more in other parts of the country.”
That’s how it started. I told every one on the team to keep shtum, say nothing. And that is what we got, just that he was a postman doing his round as usual, with no special circumstances. Other than that he was not the only one. The more we looked the more murdered postmen we found. Across the country loads of dead posties and nothing more.
Rather odd. The media started to show interest, but still no more info. I had to put the investigation onto the back burner and leave it. Six months later DS Phillips found it – there was a correlation with the visits of a certain well-known politician making regular meet-the-people trips all over the country.
Almost everywhere that the politician went a dead postman had been found. A full investigation – very discrete – showed that the politician had had time to commit murders while on early morning jogging runs.
The politician was the Prime Minister. What to do? I lifted my phone to my ear and heard a voice I had not heard for several years. “Fant! Good morning!” “Hello Mr Fant, Sir! Middleby here. I need your help here and yes, it’s one of those cases. I can’t explain on the phone.”
Mr Fant arrived in less than an hour. “I see. Are you certain that it’s the Prime Minister, not one of his assistants?”
“No, Sir. It is either the prime Minister or his chief assistant or both of them. However we have enough evidence to book them. However there is a problem…”
“Let me guess, Middleby: the public will have difficulty with the Prime Minister killing one of the nation’s beloved postmen. So what are you going to do?”
“Arrange a trap, Sir.”
“Just what I would have recommended.”
I’m crossing the car park now. I hear a loud bang and feel a sharp pain on my shoulder, I’m falling...
We were sitting in unmarked cars, the hidden cameras were rolling, and we saw a man, the Prime Minister, running up to the postman from behind. The Prime Minister raised a baseball bat above his head, there was a large bang, the baseball bat came down on the postman’s shoulder and the postman and the Prime Minister collapsed.
The Prime Minister and his assistant, who was not far away, were arrested.
The Prime Minister protested, “Why did you shoot at me? There’s gonna be trouble, I can tell you.”
“We saw you, the cameras recorded you, and just an hour ago we discovered what was kept in a lock-up garage on the outskirts of Harpenage as rented by your assistant. I’ll tell you what: two tea-chests full of blood-stained baseball bats; and guess whose DNA is on those bats?”
“What about asking about the poor postman?”
“I think he has a broken collar bone, but he’s not too bad. The Prime Minister was shot in the thigh.” The doctor arranged for two ambulances.
This is the time in the inquiry, when you, Mr Fant, telephones the King.”
“Superintendent Middleby, that’s your rank now, and well-deserved I must say. I have been watching you through the years, from the time you were a detective sergeant till now. I kept you out of Big City and made sure that you had the right experience, and kept you away from the wise guys in the Big City Police Force. I have to tell you that you are old enough and ugly enough to phone the king yourself.”
“Hello, King here. Mr, I mean Superintendent Middleby. Yes, Mr Fant has told me a lot about you. Go ahead!” I told him about the Prime Minister’s and his assistant’s hobby: murdering postmen. I said that there would be news announcements on the TV.
At six in the evening it was announced that three men had been detained for attempted murder.
“Three men, Middleby?”
“Yes, including you with your service revolver. You shot the Prime Minister. I’m gonna have to arrest you, Sir.”
Mr Fant laughed and handed over his gun.
At nine in the evening it was announced that two men had been detained for murder and Mr Fant for attempted murder.
At eight in the morning it was announced that the Prime Minister had been arrested for murdering almost a hundred postmen; Mr Fant who had shot the Prime Minister had been released.