Horse's Arse by Charlie Owen Page A

dreamed of his retirement, which he had only postponed until a
cushier, better paid job in civvy street turned up. His interest in his job
amounted to a big fat zero, and he delegated pretty much everything to his
deputy, Inspector Hilary Bott. She was a different proposition altogether, and
in Psychos eyes epitomised everything that was wrong with the job. For a start
she was a woman, hopelessly over-promoted and looking to make a name for
herself. Hilary Bott was an extraordinarily unattractive woman in her late
forties. She was chubbily overweight with pasty, blotchy white skin and teeth
resembling polished plywood tombstones. She cut her mousy blond hair herself
with a manly side parting and consequently bore an uncanny resemblance to Rosa
Klebb of From Russia With Love fame. She had the sex appeal of a pile of
damp towels. She had been sent to Horse's Arse on promotion, having spent the
absolute minimum of time on operational duties, and with a brief from the
hierarchy to throw her not inconsiderable weight around. Hard enough to do with
a few years under your belt, but virtually impossible if you hadn't a clue how
police officers operated on a day to day basis, especially at Horse's Arse.
        She'd
got off to a shocking start during her first week when she'd rebuked Sergeant
Tucker, a grizzled thirty-year veteran, who'd failed to rise from a chair and
show due deference to her rank. He'd put an arm round her shoulders and said
firmly, 'Listen, darling, as long as you've got a hole in your arse, I'm only
ever going to regard you as a fucking nuisance.' She'd reported him to Gillard
who'd promised to deal with him and then promptly put the incident from his
mind. He had far more important things to do, like arranging his retirement
cruise. Tucker continued to make her life a misery, constantly referring to her
as 'Cupcake' whenever he saw her. She vowed to get her revenge on the horrible
old bastard. Unfortunately she hadn't a clue how to.
        Psycho
had taken an instant dislike to her. She had an emasculated husband tucked away
at home, but Psycho was convinced that was merely a cover for her true sexual
preference. 'She's got to be a fucking lesbian. How could anyone fuck anything
that ugly?' he regularly asked. Even Bovril had to admit that she was on a list
of five women he could never shag. She was third behind Golda Meir and Piggy's
wife. Psycho had begun to wage a psychological war against her, starting by
defacing the stream of pompous memos emanating from her office and graduating
to circulating a totally bogus one demanding that all male officers expose
their genitals to her instead of saluting when they met her on the rare
occasions she was out patrolling the ground. Psycho had also noticed the
similarity with Rosa Klebb of SPECTRE and produced some surprisingly
professional 'Wanted' posters of Klebb with Bott's head superimposed which had
appeared around the nick. Klebb's memorable and sinister words 'He seems fit
enough' soon began to appear added to all her memos, real and bogus, and became
a catch phrase amongst officers at the nick who would greet each other with it.
So popular did it become that Gillard had begun to try to slip it into any
conversation he had with her as a bit of a personal challenge.
        For
the last two mornings, Psycho had crept into her office using the spare key
from Enquiries, and had a huge, smelly crap in her toilet, which he didn't
flush. Bott had nearly vomited on entering the room yesterday. She'd rushed
into Gillard's office and dragged him back to show him.
        'Jesus
Christ, Hilary,' Gillard had said, his eyes watering, you'd better see a
doctor. That thing's got veins in it.'
        'I
didn't do it, you fucking cretin,' she screeched. 'Those bastards downstairs
did it. If you don't sort this out, I'm going to take it up with the Chief
Constable,' and she stormed out of the office. The outcome had been a
collector's item of a memo from Gillard, reminding