Ian put his arm in the air to attract the attention of that most joyous of sights, the afternoon tea trolley. He was lying on a luxurious recliner by the pool hiding under a parasol, keeping one hundred percent of himself in the shade as if he had vampire blood coursing through his veins and the slightest ray of sunshine to hit him would have him hissing in pain before going up in a puff of smoke. It was probably classed as far too hot for tea. It was a solid thirty three Celsius so it was well on its way to a hundred Fahrenheit pretty soon.
However no matter the temperature a cup of tea was essential, and besides you couldn’t adequately wash down three slices of cake with a glass of water. Louisa was lying next to him, engrossed in another romantic novel of swash buckling derring do. She was tanning nicely, the factor 6 sun cream had been applied liberally and was a good step down from the initial factor 25 she had started with two weeks ago. It was early November and they were both lying by the poolside of the Crocodile Island resort in Luxor, Egypt. The resort was, as the name suggests on an island out in the river Nile, however the Crocodile bit was false, which was a relief. It had a number of bungalows spread liberally across the island, where they also grew their fruit and vegetables and tried to be as organic and kind to the world as possible. In the last two weeks they had visited the Valley of Kings, taken a balloon ride at sunrise, sailed down the Nile on a Verucca…sorry, Felucca and just relaxed by the pool and chilled out. Ian looked out over the pool and south down the river Nile to the distant bridge that spanned its width as the waiter deposited his tea and cakes next to him on the table to his right, briefly blocking Ian’s view but quickly moving on to the rest of the sun worshippers. Ian picked up his tea and took a sip, allowing his mind to wander and take stock of the last six weeks.
The aftermath of Jane’s suicide had proved quite an experience. He had been interviewed by the Police Complaints Commission, Chief Superintendant Bishop, his own direct boss and various other committees. The news of the suicide had been front page news for over a week as the details seeped out into the public domain. Meeting after meeting he had repeated his story like a shamanic mantra, over and over again. He had taken full responsibility for his actions, openly admitting letting PC Lisa McGeorge take Jane Lawson’s handcuffs off. In the end they all wrote the same thing which was it was a mistake but that his other actions relating to the case such as saving the eight year old girl and at least initially managing to bring Jane to justice without incident was commendable. He had requested some time off. Initially he was going to take holiday leave but after being given a psyche evaluation he was signed off work for two months for stress related fatigue.
However before going on leave he was approached by various newspapers for his inside story on the events leading up to her death. They were camped outside his house for days. He ended up having a couple of his colleagues posted outside to prevent intrusion. He initially said no, but the offers kept escalating until he ended up getting a call from Max Clifford who had helped many a star tell their story. Max offered to sort everything out from a contractual point of view and get him the best deal he could. After another week of phone calls phone calls and more phone calls Ian handed in his notice with the police and accepted an offer of £500,000 for his story from The Sun newspaper who were going to dramatise his recollections over a two week period. It had been easy money. He had sat down for two, four hour sessions with the reporter. They recorded everything and allowed Ian to freewheel through the story in the first session before asking more specific questions during the second session. As part of the contract he had been allowed to read the whole transcript and also agree to the content of the first week’s stories and photos that would be run. The Sun had done its usual and overly dramatised some elements but he had been advised that it was going to happen as they had to sell newspapers. Actually his main priority was to see that Jane Lawson wasn’t vilified too much and that the whole essence and ingredients of how she ended up doing the killings was fully conveyed. In the end the whole thing turned out nicely and he was offered additional guest appearances etc which he stated he would do when he got back from Egypt.
He’d had a great leaving party from the police. Most of them understood where he was coming from and so there was no animosity towards him. He was certainly going out on a high, and the drunken revelry that ensued was immense. He had forgotten most of it when he woke up on his sofa at 7 a.m. still fully clothed the stench of alcohol and the huge headache testimony to his imbibing largesse the night before. McGeorge had been promoted due to her part in the whole case, where she had exceeded her duties a number of times but was commended for them from all and sundry, and she still had nice boobs!! She’d admitted at Ian’s leaving do that she would miss him but maybe not all the childish jokes and double entendres that flowed out on a daily basis.
So here he was lying on a sun lounger, just relaxing when his wife Louisa sat up and said ‘I have some news’. Ian looked her in the face; she looked concerned, which was never good.
She paused for a minute then blurted out ‘I was going to wait until tonight but I can’t…I’m pregnant’.
The words hung in the air, Ian absorbed them slowly before a beaming smile flashed across his face and he just started laughing. He roughly kissed his wife on both cheeks and then her stomach before childishly dive bombing into the swimming pool and letting out a shout of happiness. He triumphantly stood up and raised his arms aloft ‘Get in there you beauty’ He looked to the clear blue sky, closed his eyes and thought, what a superb way to end a story, I should write a book about this, surely its easy, any idiot could do it…….
THE END
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