Burning Bacon: Part One of The Dennis Bolam Chronicles

  Burning Bacon

  Naff Writer

  © Naff Writer 2015

  CONTENTS

  Chapter one

  Chapter two

  Chapter three

  Chapter four

  Chapter five

  Chapter six

  Chapter seven

  Chapter eight

  Chapter nine

  Chapter ten

  Chapter eleven

  Chapter twelve

  Dedication

  Thanks to Bob, Maud and Gus (I owe you a beer, Gus!) for beta reading, Mum for editing, and Shireen for proofreading – the drinks are on me!

  And thanks to Quality eBook Covers for the cover art.

  CHAPTER ONE

  Dennis Bolam swaggered into the station that morning, grinding his cigarette out with his foot as he went. On the ground in the car park. He was met by his sidekick, Grant London, a chirpy fellow with strawberry blond hair and a slightly naïve expression that belied his success with women.

  “Mornin’, Guv’nor!” trilled Grant. “The Super’s on the warpath already!”

  Dennis Bolam pulled his tie away from his neck, undoing the top button. It had been a heavy night on the ale the night before, plus he had ended up screwing a blousy blonde from the Gun and Ferret.

  “What’s the Super getting’ ’is knickers in a twist for now?” asked Dennis, querulously.

  Suddenly a uniformed woman policeman appeared at the door. “Hey, guys,” she said, coquettishly, leaning against the doorway in such a way that her bosom was pronounced. “Super wants to see you, like yesterday.”

  “All right, all right,” said Dennis, talking an inquisitive look down her blouse as he went past. She was called Sandra, and Grant had already had the pleasure but Dennis hadn’t been so lucky.

  In his office, Superintendent Lightfoot was waiting for them. He was drinking tea from a china cup in a saucer, and standing up in his smart uniform.

  “Come on you two, look lively,” he said, as Dennis Bolam and Grant London shuffled through. “I know it’s Monday morning but crime doesn’t just work a forty hour week.”

  “Yeah, yeah, yeah,” said Dennis, gruffly, perching on the corner of Superintendent Lightfoot’s desk, his thighs muscly and manly. “So give us the news, then. What case are we on this morning?”

  “Ah, this one’s not pretty, not pretty at all,” said Lightfoot. “You know the Flirty Parrot nightclub?”

  Grant London grinned. “Sure do, Sir. I go there meself some weekends. Not this weekend, though. I was, er, otherwise engaged!” He winked at Dennis.

  “Shaat up,” gnarled Dennis. “So what went down at the Flirty Parrot, Super?”

  “A rather nasty sexual assault,” said Lightfoot, openly. “Girl was attacked in the powder room just before the club shut. Left there crying out. Poor lass was bleeding from a head wound.”

  “Rape?” asked Dennis Bolam.

  “Sadly yes,” frowned Superintendent Lightfoot, regretfully. “I’ve got uniform down there looking through CCTV to see who was at the club. And I’ve got Molly on Facial Recognition.”

  “I’d recognise her facially!” chuckled Grant, impishly. “And a couple of other parts of her anatomy!”

  “I said, shaat up,” snarled Bolam. “There’s no time for jokes, we’ve got to move fast on this one.”

  Just then, Sandra, the woman policeman, appeared at the door. “Scuse me, gents,” she said, “we’ve just got a call in from Asid Javinda’s eight-til-late. He’s had racist graffiti daubed all over his metal security shutters. His own CCTV showed that it happened at about two-thirty on Sunday morning!”

  Dennis looked up, sharply. “Hang on a minute,” he said. “Isn’t Asid’s shop just about twenty minutes walk away from the Flirty Parrot?”

  “You should know,” said Grant, “after all, it is your local shop, which you pass on the way home from here if you’re on foot, as you do when you’ve been on the ale and don’t fancy alerting the fuzz to your DIU antics.”

  “Precisely,” said Dennis Bolam, swivelling round to point at Grant, “I’m thinking, the sort of people who might attack a young lady in the lavatories of a nightclub might be the same sort who’d do racist graffiti! The time frame is too much of a coincidence. What say you, Super?”

  Lightfoot pondered. “You could be right,” he said, musingly. “Could be that we might be able to get these two cases solved together, if we’re lucky!”

  Bolam jumped off the desk. “Right. We’re on the case. C’mon, Grant.” He lurched out of the door, purposefully.

  Grant looked back at Sandra and Superintendent Lightfoot as he followed Dennis out. He winked at them. “Not only that, but it gives him a chance to get one of his favourite Chicken Tikka slices from old Asid’s shop!”

  Grant, Sandra and Lightfoot all chuckled. Bolam was well known for loving chicken tikka slices, in fact he lived on them.

  But Bolam was more interested in solving crime that morning.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Dennis Bolam’s red Rover Finesse, which he had owned since 1989, came to a screeching halt outside Asid’s 8-til-8. Grant London began to speak but Bolam raised his hand in the air, his index finger indicating that Grant should be quiet. Motorhead’s classic track The Ace of Spades which Bolam had insisted on blasting out loudly finally came to a close and Bolam lowered his hand, because he had now finished listening to his favourite rock music and thus Grant was free to speak.

  “What was you sayin’?”

  “I said, don’t you think we ought to get down to the nightclub first and see what uniform have got for us? Or pay the girl who was assaulted a visit?” said Grant London mildly irritated at having had to wait and repeat himself.

  “No I don’t, Grant. You wanna put a uniform on and join them at the club go ahead but I’m startin’ ‘ere!” Dennis Bolam lit a cigarette and got out of his car, slamming the door shut behind him. “Beside’s, I’m hungry!”

  He stood and surveyed Asid’s corner shop. Grant London got out of the Rover and stood next to Bolam.

  “I don’t see anything, do you?” Said Grant looking at Dennis and then back at the store.

  “Of course I don’t, the Chief said the graffiti was on the shutters, didn’t he, and the shutters are up!” Bolam blew smoke out through his mouth hard and some came out of his nose too like some metaphorical gimmick for his tempestuous emotions. Grant London couldn’t help but notice it and he knew Dennis well by now.

  “I can see that Dennis, but you looked like you’d noticed something else?” quizzed Grant; clearly he was trying to pacify the stormy Bolam.

  “Just taking things in, you know. Gettin’ a feel for the crime scene.” Said Dennis.

  “It’s just vandalism, Dennis, it ain’t as important as the serious sexual assault, is it?”

  “A crime is a crime, Grant. It’s lettin’ the little things go that causes the bigger things. Imagine, if you will, a line of dominoes all stood up. Knock the first one over, and there it is, one domino after another knocking into the next one. Imagine those dominoes again, Grant, but now with the word ‘crime’ written on them. See what I mean? Come on, let’s go!”

  Grant understood Bolam’s euphemism and thought it was quite a clever one, as it clearly illustrated how if you let one crime go, the result then is just crime after crime and virtually unstoppable. Bolam’s domino metaphor worked: Grant London was now as anxious to catch the vandal as Dennis.

  Dennis threw his cigarette to the ground and stomped to the door of the shop. He banged into it: it was still locked. Grant who was following close behind almost walked into Denni
s as he came to a standstill. It was a bit of a slapstick moment. With both fists clenched, Bolam began thumping on the doors. “Open up!”

  From inside the shop and getting closer and closer could be heard the voice of Asid. “I’m coming, I’m coming, don’t get your knickers in a twist and don’t go breaking my door as well, that is the last thing I need! As if I don’t have enough to worry about already.” Asid opened the door and before it was fully open, Bolam was already inside. Grant London stepped into the shop and nodded a hello at Asid.

  “All the years I have been here and no problems and now suddenly this! I do not understand it, Detective Dennis!”

  Dennis Bolam was at one of the refrigerators and was looking at a Chicken Tikka slice. He closed the door and sidled to the counter, casually tossing the chicken tikka slice next to the cash register.

  “I need a pack of Rothmans and a bottle of J&B an’ all.” Said Dennis, pulling out his dog eared black wallet.

  “The shop is not really open, Mr. Dennis! I wanted to look like I was open and unperturbed and to hide the hateful words all over the shutters. My wife is very upset also.”

  Dennis tossed a £20 on the counter, walked around it and helped himself to a pack of Rothmans and a bottle of J&B whiskey. Back from around the counter, Dennis pointed at the Chicken Tikka slice. “Those chicken tikka slices, by a brand I have never heard of or seen outside of this store, are the best chicken Tikka slices I’ve ever had.” He picked the tikka slice up and bagged his bottle of whiskey and put the cigarettes in the inside pocket of his dark burgundy suit jacket.

  “No one’s feelin’ this more than me, Asid. Let’s see it.” said Dennis.

  Outside, Bolam and London watched as Asid pulled down the metal security shutters of his shop. “Who would want to do this to me, Mr Dennis?” said Asid in disbelief. “I have been here fifteen years and am part of the community!”

  The graffiti now fully visible, Grant London made a ‘tut’ sound and shook his head.

  Dennis Bolam, now eating his chicken tikka slice, raised the hand that held it and pointed at the words on the metal. In red spray paint, the graffiti said, “GO HOME P***S!” and “P***S GO HOME!” . The bit in stars is actually the letters A,K and I. It was written with the letters on Asid’s shutters but I don’t know if you can use that word in a novel.

  “I promise you Asid, that justice will be done. And when I find the slag that did this, it isn’t gonna be pretty!” Dennis lowered his hand then opened his bottle of whiskey and drank some.

  “Please, Detective Dennis,” begged Asid, his hands clutching the turban on his head. “By the beard of Allah, please no violence, I just want to know that it won’t happen again and to put my wife’s mind at rest!”

  Bolam lit a Rothmans cigarette. “You’re a good man Asid and you sell the best Chicken Tikka slices in town. Someone hurts you, your wife, or your business, they hurt me!” He ripped open the cellophane on his savoury snack and took a bite, gesturing at Asid as he did so. “Van Gogh here just fucked with the wrong corner shop!”

  “Mr Dennis, please!”

  But it was too late. Dennis Bolam stormed toward his Rover Finesse, opened the door and threw himself into it. Grant London smiled at the despairing Asid and walked to the car as well, getting casually into the passenger seat. Bolam wound down his window and with his cigarette hanging from his lips said, “I’ll be back later Asid, put that Asian Babes magazine to one side for me will ya?”

  And with that, Bolam floored the accelerator of his Rover and screeched away from Asids 8-til-8 with as much noise as when he had arrived.

  Asid, watched Bolam’s car disappear into the distance. “I knew I should not have called the police. Now everything is worse.”

  CHAPTER THREE

  Grant London insisted that the two detectives went to the Flirty Parrot nightclub to see what was happening there.

  “Okay, if we must,” said Bolam, lighting a Rothman, taking a swig of whisky and a bite of his Chicken tikka slice all at the same time.

  “You love those chicken tikka slices don’t you Guvnor,” observed Grant, pertinently.

  Bolam nodded, his mouth full of succulent marinaded chicken. “When you ain’t got a wife to go home to you have to feed yourself. Old Asid’s got me covered,” he declared, matter-of-factly.

  At the Flirty Parrot nightclub, Molly the WPC was doing facial recognition with the CCTV images.

  “Seen anything you fancy, Moll?” asked Grant London, flirtatiously. He smiled to himself as he remembered his moist encounter with Molly after the Christmas party. There was something about her he’d found quite arresting! He giggled with suppressed mirth at his own humour.

  “Ooh, don’t be so saucy,” tittered Molly. “Actually, look, this bloke with the ginger hair looks well furtive. I think he might of been down the corridor to the ladies loo too.”

  “Well, don’t just sit there,” demanded Bolam, loosening his tie and chomping on his second chicken tikka pasty. “Take your mitts off London’s bollocks and show us the screen that shows inside the ladies’ khazi.”

  Sure enough, the ginger haired lout could be seen walking in. Only ten minutes later he came out, zipping up his fly, dusting his hands together and wiping a blood stained knife with a pair of lacy black panties.

  “He’s our man,” confirmed Dennis Bolam, positively. “Didn’t the Super say there was blood from a severe cut in the girl’s thigh? And what’s the name of the girl?”

  “Her name is Kylie Potts,” said Molly, looking at Grant London hungrily.

  “Kylie Potts, Kylie Potts,” frowned Dennis. Grant and Molly could see the wheels of his incisive mind turning round as he explored the depths of his computer-like brain to see if he could find any more clues. Not for Dennis the police data base; he had all his information stored in his head. Yes, his methods were unorthodox but at the end of the day it was always Dennis Bolam who walked away with the satisfaction of a case solved.

  “I’m taking this back to HQ” said Dennis, decisively.

  Back at HQ, Dennis Bolam and Grant London barged straight in to see Superintendent Lightfoot. They found him standing in his smart uniform looking out of the window and drinking tea from a china cup with a saucer.

  “I’ve found the link, Sir,” said Dennis. Grant London was surprised and impressed by how Bolam did not seem at all excited by having made such progress in the case so early, but it didn’t really surprise him because Bolam was always so cool, calm and collected even under a lot of strain. He always had been and that was why he had such a strange but quite positive reputation at the station.

  “It’s Kylie Potts, sir,” said Dennis, “and I reckon I know who the ginger haired lad is. I’m going to go back to see Asid now.” Gingerly, he took what remained of his second chicken tikka pasty out of his pocket, and munched on it, ponderously.

  “But Bolam,” queried Superintendent Lightfoot, authoritatively, “you can’t just storm in. You’ve got to follow procedures. Rules are there for a reason.”

  “What rules?” said Dennis, challengingly.

  “Dennis, I’m warning you!” warned Lightfoot.

  “Rules, procedures!” puffed Dennis Bolam, derisively. “Trouble with you, Sir, you’ve spent too long behind a desk. You need to be out on the streets to understand the criminal mind.”

  He leapt off the desk and grabbed his keys and his battered red wallet, a present from his nephew which was why he still used it all the time even though it was past its best and he really could have done with a new one. Although it was leather so it had lasted a long time and sometimes he even remembered to put a bit of shoe polish on it.

  “Let’s go,” said Bolam to Grant.

  “Dennis, come back here!” shouted Superintendent Lightfoot, frustratedly. But Dennis was already heading for his Rover Finesse in the carpark, Grant London hot on his heels, but worrying about the amount of flaky pastry crumbs he was leaving in his wake.

  ***

  Back in the corn
er shop, Asid was thinking. He swept up the shop and thought a lot. He remembered a ginger haired boy who had been in the day before and was making remarks about turbans. Could he have been the racist dauber? And did he have any connection to Kylie Potts, the girl who’d been assaulted at the nightclub?

  He hoped his friend Dennis Bolam would come back soon. You could rely on Dennis. He might have the attitude of an impulsive Mexican bandit at times but you knew where you were with Detective Dennis.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  A red Rover Finesse sped dangerously along Crescent Drive almost clipping parked cars to the side of it. Inside, the driver, Detective Dennis Bolam took a swig of whiskey and offered some to his partner in detection, Grant London.

  “Bit early for me, Guv’.”

  “Please yourself!” and Bolam took another swig as the wing mirror of his Rover made contact with the wing mirror of a parked BMW. Just two more roads to navigate and the detectives would be back at Asids Eight-til-8 corner shop.

  Suddenly Bolam slammed on the brakes and the car came to a screaming standstill. Grant London had his hands on the dashboard. “What’s wrong?”

  “See that?” asked Bolam.

  “No, what?”

  Bolam put the car into reverse and then using the handbrake did a cool looking 180, spinning the car around so it faced the direction in which it had just come from. As the car had spun around the front of it scraped the side of the same BMW that had just been hit with the Rover’s wing mirror, leaving a mark all down its door. Grant London thought how good they must look spinning the car around and in such a tight space like that, like something from Starsky and Hutch or Kojak, but Bolam didn’t think about it, he was the real McCoy and not just a wannabe tough detective so he did it naturally. He really was like Starsky and Hutch.