Disclaimer - Middle-Earth and all of its inhabitants belong to Professor Tolkien, I am merely borrowing them for a short while. Also note that the LDF is a blatant rip-off of the babelfish, a brilliant concept devised by the late great Douglas Adams.

A/N - Well it's taken me slightly more time to update than I though it would (unfortunately it is but a small update). This is mainly because, for some bizarre reason of which even I'm uncertain about, I've also started work on a Star Trek Mary-Sue story and a Ringu/Good Omens crossover. Hopefully though the next installment should be written soon. Thanks muchly to the people on the people who were kind enough to review the first chapter, the responses to which can be found at the bottom of the page. All constructive criticism, suggestions, flames and gratuitous praise are welcomed.

Gollum was feeling sorry for himself. There was nothing particularly surprising about this, self pity was after all Gollum's default emotional state. He was however wallowing in it even more than usual. After being pried away from his new Precious by the two large unpleasant men he had been taken to an ugly looking building and locked in a small, harshly lit cell. They had even taken away his favourite loin cloth, and forced him to wear an unflattering paper overall. The walls of the cell, which he was currently crouching in the corner of, were covered in the same obscure runic script as the ladies lavatory, much of it was accompanied by a selection of anatomically implausible yet oddly humourous illustration. 

After what seemed like an age, the iron door of the cell was opened by yet another uniformed man who was even bigger than the two who had brought him. He strode into the room and put a large hand on Gollums shoulder.  "All right then, come on?" he said in a gruff voice. Gollum cringed and decided that, on balance, it would probably be a good idea to cooperate. As he was led out of the cell and down a long beige corridor Gollum noticed that most of the humans appeared to be wearing the same distinctive black and white uniform and there didn't appear to be any Orc's wandering around. It was a truly strange and unusual place. He certainly hadn't been to this part of Mordor before.

After what seemed to an age of wondering down a never-ending series of hallways Gollum was finally brought to a small rather bare looking room and ushered into an orange plastic chair. The room appeared to be completely lacking all of the Dark Lords favoured instruments of torture. There was not a rack, thumbscrew, or red hot poker in site. Gollum began to wonder what terrors could be planned for him, and decided in advance to immediately blame whatever it was he had done on someone else. It was a policy that had served him well throughout his life thus far. The two uniformed men who had accosted him earlier entered.

"Right lets get started shall we," said one of them, a worn looking middle aged man with graying hair. The other a younger, taller, dark skinned man removed a contraption from a cupboard at the far end of the room and set it down on the table. Gollum looked on in terror as he proceeded to connect the thing to the wall with a long black stretch of wire. He had never seen a tape recorder before, and automatically presumed that it must do something rather nasty and painful to sensitive areas of the body. This assumption would in fact be broadly accurate if the device was being used say to play The Spice Girls Greatest Hits, fortunately however such an action would probably be classified as police brutality. He visibly winced as the younger man pressed the one of the buttons on the machine. Gollum was surprised and relieved to find that he wasn't actually experiencing any excruciating pain.

The older man cleared his throat. "Interview commencing at 20.45 hours. Officers present Sergeant Peters and Constable Ahmed. Now Mr. Gollum, not that that's your real name of course, it wasn't in any of the records, suppose that you tell us how exactly you came to be in the ladies toilets at Little Haston Bus Station at four o clock this afternoon."

"Filthy little thieves fault we was here. Yess took it from us didn't they," muttered Gollum.

One may wonder at this point how Gollum, whose native tongue was Westron could possibly communicate with the English speaking police officers. The answer is simple, yet at the same time highly convoluted. The plot contrivances that occur in areas where the narrative fabric between two universes has been breached are surrounded by strong Lexical Distortion Fields (LDF's). These fields create irreparable changes in the language centres of the brain of any being hapless enough to fall into the grip such a phenomena, allowing them to adopt the language that predominates the narrative universe they are flung into, be it English, Klingon, Net-Speak, or if you're really unlucky Fangirl Japanese. Many philosophers claim that the very existence of something as contrived as the LDF indicates the existence of a set of all-powerful, cruel and capricious beings who enjoy playing strange and often sadistic games with the unsuspecting inhabitants of the universes that they control. They're generally known as 'Authors'.

"Who took what from you?" said the older man, now identified as Sergeant Peters.

"They stole our preciouss from uss."

"Your 'precious'. What you mean someone ran off with your girlfriend?" said Sergeant Peters whose mind boggled at the thought of any woman being desperate enough to form a relationship with the 'person' sitting before him. "That still doesn't quite explain what you were doing in the ladies loo now does it?"

"My preciousss, the ring. The nassty cruel Hobbitsess took it from uss." hissed Gollum

"And who are these 'Hobbitses' when they're at home then? Were they the ones that told you to mug Mrs. Carpenter?"

"Baggins," said Gollum with venom.

"What?" said Sergeant Peters who was feeling rather irritated. It had been a hard day and dealing with Gollum, who was clearly not grounded in the same reality as everyone else, was the last thing he wanted to be doing. "Now look here, Mr. Gollum, or whoever you are, a woman's accusing you of indecent assault and attempted robbery. This goes to court and you'll be facing a long prison sentence. So I suggest you start talking to us pronto."

"Wait a minute Sarge, isn't the Bag Inn on Lewis Street the place where Steve Harris's lot are hanging around these days," said Constable Ahmed. "Hopkins was saying the other day that they'd been getting a bunch homeless nutters to do a few burglary's on some of the estates, haven't been able to get enough evidence to prosecute though."

"Was it the Harris boys who got you do it then, is that it?" said Sergeant Peters suddenly enthusiastic. He had been trying to get local crook Stephen Harris for something ever since he'd vandalised Peters car fourteen years ago. Sergeant Peters was a man who like to hold a grudge. "Look if you tell us, then the judge might be a bit more lenient in sentencing. In fact, if you're really cooperative then you might just get some community service."

Gollum was confused. He was being asked a host of strange questions by two humans in odd clothing who didn't particularly look like Barad Dur's usual minions of evil, and they hadn't even threatened him with any spikes yet. It was all in all perhaps not the best time for his slightly less corrupt alter ego, Smeagol, to assume temporary control of the body.

"Master was kind to me. He spared poor Smeagol's life," Smeagol whined in the most servile tone he could muster,"

"No, nassty Hobbit tied us up. Threatened to kill uss. Horrible creaturess," said Gollum momentarily regaining control of the body.

"But Master tried to help Smeagol he protected me from his friend," Interjected Smeagol

"He destroyed our preciousss" snapped Gollum.

Sergeant Peters sighed, the suspect clearly had more than one screw loose. From Gollums rambling all that he had been able to discern was that Gollum had had something he referred to only as The Precious taken from him, and was blaming this theft on a group of shadowy underworld figures known as 'The Hobbits'. He had also formed the vague impression that members of this Hobbits gang had forced the 'man' sitting in front of him to participate in some kind depraved rope bondage game. The horrific mental images generated by this particular misunderstanding were something that would haunt Peters nightmares for weeks to come.

"Look are you sure that you wouldn't like legal representation Mr. Gollum?" said Peters.

"We hates them we do, the tricksy little liars," rambled on Gollum, too caught up in his self indulgent denouncement of Hobbit kind to listen anything that Sergeant Peters was saying.

"Fair enough," said Sergeant Peters who was suddenly feeling slightly less hostile toward the wretched thing sitting across the table from him. They obviously held similar opinions about lawyers, and the lack of honesty and morals thereof. "How about you give us some details about 'The Hobbits' and me and Constable Ahmed here will put a good word in for you."

Gollum, who was for now in control of the body, tuned in once more to what Sergeant Peters was actually saying, sensed a chance to divert attention away from him and his misdeeds and onto those who he felt had wronged him. "What do you want to know about them?" he asked with surprising and, it has to be said, malicious clarity.

After another hour of questioning, Gollum had been led back to his cell to await a visit from a social worker named Doreen, and Sergeant Peters and Constable Ahmed knew that they were on the trail of two hairy midgets called Frodo and Sam, who were leading members of a gang of international jewellery smugglers known only as the Fellowship. They had also been repeatedly been assure by Mr. Gollum that he had been given a ring for his birthday and hadn't killed a person named Deagol for it, not that he had ever known anyone by the name of Deagol of course, if fact he categorically denied ever having heard the name before. The two policemen had however not taken much notice of these latter denials. After all the man was obviously mad, and had been mostly rambling incoherently by that stage.

"Nobody round here seems to have heard of that Fellowship Sarge," said Constable Ahmed as they sat in the Haston Police Station canteen.

"Well it's obvious when you think about it," said Sergeant Peters "Mr. Gollum, or whatever his real name is was talking about two brothers called Frodo and Sam Hobbits. Now Hobbits sounds like an East European name to me, so we can assume that the Harris Boys have got involved over their heads with this Fellowship from Russia or somewhere who are trying to muscle in over here. That Gollum bloke was probably just some poor git that they kidnapped on the continent and used to get that ring he was talking about. Anyway what did CID say when you told them?"

"Well they seemed dead pleased about it, they're getting onto The Met and Interpol about them. First time an international criminal organisation has been uncovered around here. Well unless you count the time that Gloria Brents's son came back from Australia and vandalised The Happy Star Take Away. Beats me though, why they's want to set up a base in Haston. It isn't really the best place deal in stolen diamonds is it."

"That's the thing though. Nobody would suspect any self respecting profession criminal to set themselves up around here, so it's inconspicuous isn't it," said Peters with the self assuredness of one who has spent over twenty years in the job and believes themselves to have seen it all.

"Inspector Burke said that he's going to let us work with CID on the case," said Ahmed with enthusiasm. This was understandable given that he had spent the first year and a half of his career alternating between traffic duty and giving the anti-drugs talk at Haston Village High School.

**********

One may wonder at this point what is happening in Middle-Earth following the horror that was The Plot Hole of Mount Doom.

Following the destruction of The One Ring of Power and collapse of Barad-Dur there had been much rejoicing amongst those gathered outside the black gates of Mordor. This rejoicing had however been short lived once it was discovered that certain people seemed to be...well missing. Frodo and Samwise, who had been waiting for death on the slopes of Oroduin, had suddenly vanished, and there was no sign of Gandalf who, born by Gwalir had gone in search of them. Now these disappearances could be explained away as the sad demise of those who had perished in order to save Middle-Earth from eternal darkness. Rather less easy to explain away was the sudden way in which Faramir and Eowyn vanished in full view of several witnesses from the gardens of Gondors Houses of Healing, nor the way in which Lord Elrond, on rising from his evening meal, had simply ceased to be there.

There was also the matter of those who had seemed to have appeared out of nowhere. A dozen beautiful Elf Princesses had suddenly materialised in Lothlorien. None knew which race of elves they belonged to, for neither Noldor, Vanyar, or Moriquendi had ever been known to have pink hair or eyes which changed from silver to violet to amber depending on ones mood. Several young Shield Maidens had also mysteriously appeared in Rohan. They were peculiar girls, rather inappropriately dressed, and sweet smelling for ones whose primary duty involves mucking out stables, serving bear and maintaining the vegetable plot.

It was all in all a strange and disturbing time for the inhabitants of Arda.             

TBC

Response to reviewers:

Annoying Took - Thanks. I've always wondered why there aren't many Gollum-falls-to-real-earth stories around, there's such potential for humour.

Eykar - Glad you liked it. Unfortunately Gollum didn't get to meet the sadistic mental health professional this chapter, but he certainly will in the next. Poor corrupt ex-Hobbit, he really doesn't deserve it.