The Cardiff Grandma Chapter 23

April 8, 2006 - 1:16pm — lindakentartist

For earlier Chapters and an explanation of this dreadful story, see blog: The Cardiff Grandma. WARNING: This novel contains fake Welsh.
In the previous episode, the librarian covertly observes Wolfcastle inflate a ‘mobile phone booth’©…Now

‘What!?’

‘He… sort of… got carried away with it all sir and kind of …got swept along with the whole thing.’

‘The last thing I need right now is a dumb-ass loud-mouthed shit-for-brains dog handler deciding that he is the voice of the Cardiff police force live on the news channel!’ As he shouted, the veins on the Chief’s temples pulsated in time with his verbal emphasis. ‘Which news channel was it by the way?’

‘Channel 12 sir.’

‘Oh, that’s just great! Not only do we have a blabber-mouthed idiot blabbering to TV news crews, not only that, but they do it to those rank amateurs on ‘twelve’. Who was it anyway?’ he demanded.

‘A Constable Painting sir. Umm…’ there was a pause as the second person wondered just how they were going to say what they had to say next. ‘…Constable Landscape Painting sir.’

‘Are you taking the piss Jenkins?’

‘No sir, honest sir. Look!’ Jenkins offered the file for the Chief to see.

In truth, Jenkins wasn’t Jenkins’s name. However the Chief was generally bad at names and tended to call everyone Jenkins. It was a bad habit he’d picked during his time in the paramilitary wing of the Salvation Army. He had pick up many other bad habits while serving with that organization, most of which are too immoral to mention at this, or any other, time. Despite the Chief’s recently introduced linguistic blind-spot for names, it seemed unlikely that Constable Painting’s name was one that would slip his mind any time soon.

‘Bastard!’ the chief exclaimed in what could be said to be a mere minor clause. The next to last thing the Chief needed now was some jumped-up constable going and doing his job. The last thing he needed now was the same officer blabbing off to anyone with a TV crew in tow.

‘Right!’ he began, as he began pacing up and down behind his desk, ‘I need to sort this now. Get me … the Vice-chancellor on the speaking machine.’

‘The telephone sir?’

‘Yes, the fucking tellafoam, that’s what I said man!’

In truth Jenkins wasn’t a man either. The Chief had a similar mental blindspot for gender as he had for names, another throw back to his sordid past. The Chief continued with his instructions, ‘and then get that bloody moron ‘Painting’ here…NOW!’

Medium Chief Running Water was the Chief of police. It seemed only fitting really. In terms of names it was hard to find anyone better qualified. At the outset there was an initial challenge from an Inspector Raptor…but after© the incident with the pavement – him hitting it from a considerable height, at a not inconsiderable speed, late one night whilst out for a ramble at the top of the Whitewash multistory car park – after that, it really was a one horse race. Since Medium Chief Running Water could also ride a horse the job was his. The Vice-chancellor had seen to that. The Vice-chancellor had seen to many things in his time. Never in such a way as to leave any trace of a trace of his involvement. Never in such a way as to leave anything remotely provable. Never in such a way as to leave anything, or anyone, capable of standing up in a court of law.

The Vice-chancellor was a friend of many, an enemy of many more. He saw his role as that of a fixer, an arranger. He could arrange for things to happen, he could arrange for things not to happen too. Eight years ago he had arranged for Medium Chief Running Water to become the Chief of Police. However, he’d only done that once Medium Chief Running Water had arranged for a bank transfer of a large sum into a numbered Luxembourgian bank account.

Some people thought corruption a dirty word. But then what did some people know? After all some people thought soil was a dirty word. It was a dirt word, that was broadly true in a semi-synonymous sense, but dirty? Nonsense. Soil was what had made the nation what is was today. What it was today wasn’t generally mentioned very often by the likes of the Vice-chancellor. He liked to allude to it being a thriving, booming, positive state of the state. But all was not well. The empire of mud was beginning to crumble. It was only a matter of time. But corruption? A dirty word? Fucking ridiculous!

It stood to reason: there was only so much mining you could mine before things became problematic. Of sure, in the older days they had mined away for years and years and there had not been any major difficulties. But then that was different. That was deeper mining, dealing with firmer, more stable substances. Land mining tended to happen at a shallower level, much shallower.

It wasn’t that nobody had thought of the problems that now appeared, it was just that those who had thought of them were too busy hiring personal assistants to count the accountants they had counting all the money they were making from soil sales.

So there was a bit of subsidence now and then? What did it matter in the whole grand scheme of things? It wasn’t as if anyone was being inconvenienced or anything – certainly not anyone of any importance anyway. The Vice-chancellor knew the reality of it but he could dwell on such minor details. There were bigger issues on his mind. The Chinese were believed to be muscling in on the soil trade. He knew of their rug dealing; it wasn’t a threat to his empire and so he let it pass without interfering. It suited him to leave them alone regarding such matters. After all, he had no interest in the rug trade. But if it was true; if they were branching out into the dirt business he’d have to take steps. He wasn’t prepared to take such a move lying down. He couldn’t stand for such an encroachment.

If things weren’t dealt with soon there was likely to be an all out battle; a turf war. He was sure the Chinese were an honorable people, a people who he could do business with. Business for the Vice-chancellor tended to involve bribes, back-handers, threats, violence, threats of violence and, on occasions, violent threats of violence.

The Vice-Chancellor had decided to make contact with the leader of the local Chinese community – Mr Wong.

(But first, some coffee…and maybe a cake?).