DCI Cobley Crime File
Detective Chief Inspector Tom Cobley struggled to keep his eyelids open. The suffocatingly airless room was sending him off. His chin quivered above his chest. He was about to submit to sleep when he was saved by the urgent ringing of his telephone.
‘Intruder at a remote cottage outside Widdecombe,’ his faithful sergeant Peter Gurney ejaculated. ‘They’re still there.’
Suddenly awake, the DCI barked, ‘Call for back-up. Tell them I’m on my way.’
‘It’s three elderly spinster sisters named Whiddon live here,’ Sgt Gurney read from his notebook when the DCI arrived at Bear Cottage, a cozy home on the edge of peaceful woods. ‘They went out for a walk after breakfast.’ He hesitated finding his writing hard to decipher. When he had worked out the scribble he went on, ‘They came back and they noticed someone had been at their porridge things.’
‘It could’ve been foxes?’ DCI Cobley never took anything at face value.
‘No sir. Then there’s the broken chair in the living room,’ Sgt Gurney sulked, ‘Foxes didn’t do that.’
The inspector grimaced; he never liked to be contradicted. Sgt Gurney continued. ‘They found the bed’s been slept in.’
‘What about the intruder, is he still here?’ the DCI itched for action. He had an armed unit standing by outside.
‘No sir, long since gone, I’m afraid.’
DCI Gurney sighed. ‘Get me a cup of tea and a biscuit. Chocolate if they have one. Then get forensics and SOCO here. I want this place turned upside down.’
Words: Richard Rooney
Illustration: A.I.
Flash Fiction 250
Flash Fiction 250 