Vehicle Check

By

Martin79

Rating: PG (contains some swearing)

Distribution: Would be brilliant but please ask first

Main Character: Sgt Sheelagh Murphy

Background: This story is set in March 2003

Disclaimer: All characters taken from Thames Television's 'The Bill' created by Geoff McQueen. All originals copyrighted to the author.

It must be the library book, thought Alan Harris, as the Police car flew over the hill at an alarming speed scaring him half to death as he walked along Dorrell Road. The vehicle veered over towards him and screeched as it scuffed its tyres on the kerb a couple of inches away from where he was walking. Alan could smell burnt rubber in the air and wondered what the problem could be as he inched closer to it and the occupants remained motionless. It can't be the library book he thought as he remembered taking it back last Tuesday when he went out for the weekly shop but then again you could never tell with these 'Harry Potter' ones. As he borrowed it that day he recalled a young lad of fifteen being ever so upset and moaning about someone as ancient as he taking the novel despite the fact he thought himself to still be quite young in his early fifties. No it couldn't be the library book so perhaps the tax disc instead but then that was updated last month he began to recall as he quickened his step past the car expecting the officers inside to march out and arrest him for some petty crime. Perhaps it was the TV license. He thought it was up soon and made up his mind to check properly when he got home, if he ever did that is, and he knew all too well what went on in the modern Police force. Too much crime drama on TV these days he mused and it could make a chap paranoid with tales of fit-ups and brutal Police beatings. Alan pulled up the collar of his long black coat, brushing his dark grey hair down into it, tipped his plaid flat cap down so it rested on the top of his strong rimmed glasses and rushed past. Not being able to resist a quick look back he glanced at the driver who was bent double over the wheel. He was a thin bald-headed man who looked quite ill and was now being attended to by a colleague. The second man was much thinner, shiftier looking and his greasy hair could do with a good wash, Alan thought. Another idea stuck him suddenly, what if they hadn't pulled over to apprehend him? What if the driver had been shot? The gunman might still be around. Alan sped up and dashed down the first available exit away from the main road.

"Urrggh I think I'm dyin' Reggiebabe!" cried out PC Des Taviner as he rested his head against the battered steering wheel of the Area Car and clutched his aching stomach with his arms. His partner, PC Reg Hollis, was searching his pockets for something and didn't reply.

"Me gut's up and down like a rollercoaster and all you can do is play pocket billiards! Thanks a bunch!" Des continued.

"I'm looking for my pills, I left 'em in 'ere somewhere. You still shouldn't 'ave come over the hill like that. What if another car 'ad been in the way? We could've 'ad a POLAC and all because you 'ad a dodgy Madras for dinner," Reg replied paying little attention to his colleague and continued emptying his pockets out.

"Never 'ad a Madras last night"

"Well it must be something," Reg replied fishing a silver tin out of the glove box and taking out a set of pills encased in silver plastic. He carefully popped out two and handed them to Des.

"Probably that Shepherds Pie I 'ad in court yesterday, I reckon the salad must've been cooked for longer. What's this, candy 'earts?" Des moaned starring at the two pastel coloured pills in his hand.

"Stomach tablets, you have to chew then swallow. They are actually quite refreshing. Personally I swear by 'em whenever I 'ave a touch of Delhi Belly."

Des slowly moved his arms away from his stomach and threw the tablets into his mouth and gulped them down quickly.

"Tch-tch I might 'ave to bring you in for supplying now, Reg, what with your little stash there. Just say no remember!" Des chuckled after a couple of minutes.

"There's nothing wrong with being prepared, Des. Dougie Sadler was it?" Reg replied.

"What?"

" It was Dougie Sadler wasn't it? In court yesterday? The burglar that gave Tony Stamp a black eye during that Brean Lane job."

"Yeah that's 'im. Nasty little git. He was in the canteen eyein' me up, almost clumped 'im one too. Why can't they 'ave their own canteen or just 'ave some bread an' water flung into the cells," ranted Des rubbing his stomach.

"Tch Des, the prisoners have rights too, innocent until proven guilty, remember that?" Reg replied.

"Some of 'em are just guilty, I know that and you know that but its just convincing a load of insane, overpaid judges and juries, that would rather be watching their daily soaps than be in court, of it. They should just 'and power over to us."

"Like in Nazi Germany you mean?"

"Yeah like…no it's just that a once a coppers word stood for something y'know. Now it's the opposite and we 'ave to be 200% sure of the evidence, I mean watertight, or they think we're fitting the blert up," Des continued. Realising that his stomach pains had passed he started the car back up and started to drive off with a broad smile on his face.

"Ah, that's magic. Reggiebabe you're a lifesaver. Don't know what I'd do without you" he turned his head around to see an empty seat and pulled up sharp. Looking around he saw his partner on a patch of grass outside, the other side of the pavement, digging something out of a bunch of weeds.

"Oi! Empty 'ead!" he shouted out of the window. "Get back in 'ere now!"

Reg dashed back towards the car and, carrying an object with him quickly opened the door and sat back down. Des looked at the object on his partner's lap; a yellow car number-plate with the letters 'W172 SXE' emblazoned on the front.

"What is that and why 'ave you brought it into my nice clean car?" asked Des with with a heavy sigh and hint of sarcasm.

"Found it by the side of the road and thought I might as well do a check on it" Reg answered in a haughty tone, trying to defend himself and his actions.

"I 'ate to disappoint you, Reg but I think the thieves are long gone by now. Call it in if you must and then chuck the bleedin' thing out the window."

"Look it'll take five minutes to check on the computer once we get back. You never know it might lead to an unsolved crime and if it does then this is valuable evidence. Forensics aren't going to be pleased when I tell 'em I chucked it back will they."

" Well as long as it doesn't cut into my valuable drinking time I'm 'appy" relented Des.

"Hey, back to what we were on about earlier, you think they really serve porridge to the prisoners?"

"Interesting you should say that really, " began Reg. " The relationship between the food porridge and the colloquial term 'doing porridge', meaning to serve a prison sentence, actually stems from an 1830's term relating to stodgy prison food, yeah. Of course another explanation could be that when a prisoner…"

Des regretted he ever started up the topic as so often he did with Reg. Looking at his watch he noticed that they were nearly at the end of the shift and stamped his foot down hard on the accelerator to get back to the station quickly and ensure the maximum free time.

Another member of the relief who was glad to see the end of the shift was CAD Sergeant Sheelagh Murphy. She enjoyed helping the various callers with their problems, some even said her soothing Irish tones helped to calm them during their crisis, but being stuck inside on a hot day was hardly her idea of fun. Reassuring a Mrs Norris of Metal Lane that her cat would come home eventually, she signed off, rested her headset on the desk and started tidying her papers away. The last thing she wanted to see was Reg Hollis blundering in through the door with a couple of minutes to go.

" What is it, Reg? I'm shutting up shop," she asked without looking up.

"One last job please, Sarge, I just need a vehicle check" Reg replied with his usual cheeriness.

Sheelagh sighed, wiped her hair away from her eyes and retyped her ID back into the computer.

"Right, name and make?" she asked.

" Don't know" came the short, sharp reply.

"OK, colour then?"

"Don't know that either I'm afraid" he replied, sounding slightly embarrassed.

"So what have you got, PC Hollis, a steering wheel?" she replied sounding quite irate, the atmosphere was quite stifling in the CAD room.

"Just this really" Reg added calmly. He set the number-plate, which he was carrying under his arm, down on the desk, scattering the papers.

"That's it, one number-plate? I think the thieves have the edge on you there, Reg."

"I know, Sarge, that's already been pointed out. It's just that there might be something in it though, it could lead to an unsolved crime and there are millions of them out there waiting for a piece of evidence, no matter how small, to provide a breakthrough. I remember a case a few years back in which a drink can, left at the scene of the crime, led to the arrest of a triple murderer" said Reg enthusiastically

"I'm sure Lord Lucan's quaking in his boots, Reg. Not with this evidence though, it's a taxi. Registered to Canley Cabs and vanished into the wide blue yonder last month. Sergeant Boyden dealt with it at the time," Sheelagh read out the screen with an air of disbelief in her voice but yet she was intrigued by it.

"Ah well, guess that's one for the X-Files then, thanks anyway, Sarge" Reg added, still quite cheerfully, as he left the room with the plate. Sheelagh uttered a pleasantry back, re-tidied away her papers and left the room as the next shift entered with the story still sticking in her mind.

The tale of the vanishing taxi still hadn't left her consciousness as she sat at home that evening, starring blankly at the television set broadcasting another bland soap opera, with a glass of wine in her hand while Patrick washed the dishes free from traces of that night's Spaghetti Bolognaise. So many questions filled Sheelagh's mind. How could a whole car just disappear into thin air? Wasn't anyone around at the time and if so what did they see? It could just have been stolen but then why didn't the report read 'stolen' instead of 'disappeared'? Her concentration only broke when she felt a slight tickle on her leg and looking down she viewed a row of two-penny pieces placed along it.

"Is that enough to cover your thought's?"

Sheelagh's stern face broke into a sweet smile and a small giggle as she turned around to see Patrick's cheeky grin starring back at her.

" If you really want to know you'll certainly get your money's worth. It's a case at work and…" she laughed and started to explain.

"It's always a case at work, in fact I can't remember a time when it wasn't a case at work and something completely mundane like what colour to paint the walls? C'mon share, it's not like this is entertaining. That blonde girl's always mooning over somebody," he said soothingly and pointing at the television.

"I think Kerry's in love with Terry. He likes Pamela but she fancies Tom who I think is with Ellie, or Gary, I'm not too sure," replied Sheelagh.

"Oh right, I thought it was Kerry torn between Tony and Peter."

"No, Peter left ages ago. It's strange, they killed him off after only a few months," Sheelagh mused.

"Right, in that big fire was it? Or that mass cult suicide thing?" Patrick asked.

"I don't know, I've not really been paying much attention to it."

"Oh, ok then. Anyway real rough and tough police work has to be better than this. C'mon Sherlock Murphy here might even be able to help," Patrick replied with a smile, turning to face Sheelagh and looking deep in her eyes as if begging for some escape from the boredom of his day.

"Sherlock Murphy?" she replied with a huge grin waiting for the inevitable wisecrack or old joke to come flowing from his lips.

" Yup, Sherlock Murphy. Only last week I solved the mystery of the missing biscuits from the break room at work." He paused before breaking into a wide grin. "I never could resist chocolate digestives."

Sheelagh giggled, put her wineglass down and turned around to face him to start her story.

"Right, just as the shift was ending today Reg Hollis brought an old number-plate into the CAD room.

"New clampdown on parking?" he replied with a straight face.

"Patrick, be serious. We checked it out on the PNC and it didn't exist. Disappeared the file said. How could a vehicle just vanish into thin air like that? It's just stupid!" she continued with a newly stern tone in her voice.

"Hey it wasn't old sexy was it?" Patrick said after a brief pause.

"Patrick! I knew you wouldn't take this seriously!" Sheelagh turned away from him, rattled at his apparent insincerity. Patrick was fun to be around and she loved that side of him but sometimes she felt he could be a little more earnest.

"No, no I'm being serious. Sexy was a genuine number-plate, we called it that because the last three letters were S, X and E. I think it began with a W or something. Old Joe McNulty used to drive it." Patrick explained plainly.

Sheelagh turned back with a smile, of course 'Canley Cabs' Patrick's work, why didn't I think of that before, she mused. At last there was a link!

"I'll always remember it until the day I die. One of the weirdest things I've ever heard, and I've been privy to a lot of weird things, usually from drunks rolling out of the clubs at 3am," he started to explain. "Old Joe had a call, anyone of us could've taken it really, from…er…Mettle Lane I think it was, or Steerman Road, I can't remember. Anyway he picked up this bloke and took him out to that decrepit old Police station, training place thing just outside of Sun Hill. While the chap was inside doing something or other, very dodgy in the first place I mean why would he want to go there of all places especially when it was deserted, Joe went round the back to take a leak. Bit of a boozer too was old Joe so we never fully believed his account, some even said he was busy taking a nip from this ancient hip flask he used to carry about, or the supply of beer he kept hidden under his seat. Anyway when he came back round, the chap apparently told him to wait twenty minutes, the cab had vanished."

"So why wasn't it reported stolen" Sheelagh asked, even more intrigued now that the story had been fleshed out for her. She wasn't going to get this one out of her head in a hurry.

"That would be down to the wonderful representative from the Sun Hill Constabulary. Joe claimed it had disappeared, he said he never heard a thing, and his punter was furious. Jacko Green had to pick both of them up and take them home free of charge, fair made our governor's blood boil it did. Food for thought."

"Is Joe still down at Canley Cabs? Right first thing I want to do is interview him again. I'll have to find the original case notes in the morning and speak to Matt Boyden too, then…" began Sheelagh rattling off her list of things to do.

"Woah, slight hitch there I'm afraid. Joe went to live with his sister in Australia and I don't think the long arm of the law will reach that far, not for an old soak and a disappearing taxi anyway. The whole thing knocked him sideways, so it did, and he decided to call it a day. This sister had been pestering him to come over for years; the bloke was pushing 75 as it was. Got quite a sum of loot too from the firm – and still wouldn't stand a round come the leaving do," Patrick explained further.

"I'm not leaving it here, there must be an answer somewhere. Cabs don't just vanish into thin air," she said determinedly, crossing her arms.

"I think I'd better hit the hay now, good night, darling," Patrick got up and gave Sheelagh a kiss on the lips. "And keep a good eye on that tonight," he grinned, indicating towards his stationary cab outside in the driveway.

"Don't worry I'll keep it safe from the fairies," Sheelagh replied with a sweet little smile.

As she sat alone in the dimly lit front room, sipping her wine, Sheelagh's mind sifted all the facts and put them back together to uncover an even more puzzling mystery than she first thought. Could the car really have disappeared? Sheelagh was quite a fan of mystery stories, the best ones really got under her skin and gnawed away at her subconscious for days. She had always been intrigued by the unexplained and loved using her sharp mind to unravel the puzzles that were thrown up. Mystery books were her favourites, she rarely had the time for TV detectives, and she used to read many of them during her breaks when she worked as a nurse. The policemen that visited the hospital occasionally used to tell the fascinated young medic such wonderful tales of what criminals would get up to when pulling off a robbery and how they eventually got caught. Nothing could replace real life mysteries though and Sheelagh remembered all too well the countrywide search of Ireland in 1983 for the kidnapped racehorse Shergar. Aged 21 she led many groups combing the woods and countryside for the missing equine and hoped that she could find the key to the whole thing, to crack the case. A distant relative of hers, Superintendent James Murphy headed the search and taught her lot about Police work. Part of the reason she joined up was to put her mind to all these enigma's and to save the public before they ended up on her ward with a gunshot wound or some such violent injury. Initially she had relished her first CID secondment and loved seeing a reported crime through from start to finish but she soon found it to be colder than uniform work and sometimes quite dull especially if it required trawling through papers. A much harder edge to her might have seen a DS Murphy residing in Sun Hill CID but Sheelagh missed interacting with the public on a daily basis and solving some of the smaller, but still as pressing, issues. Seeing that the victims were well cared for brought her a genuine warmth, which sometimes annoyed the suits who wanted her to get on with things and into the pub on time, and kept her in uniform. Sheelagh was determined to solve the puzzle and a flow chart was already developing in her mind as to how to go about it.