A Right Old Carve-Up

After battling through Brighton’s Saturday evening traffic, Phil was relieved to find that there were plenty of spaces in the trader’s car park. He guided his white Citroen Berlingo van into a space next to a row of expansive blue and white marquees.

He was delivering seven sides of venison, eight shoulders of lamb and three whole pig carcasses. They were for the carvery section of the Old Steine Regency Fayre. Taking place on The Level, the large municipal park just behind the gothic St Peter’s Church in the centre of town.

After searching for some time, Phil found the tent signposted ‘Meat Deliveries’. He opened the flaps, looked inside, and saw that the tent contained three huge walk-in refrigerators and a large steel catering table stacked with plates, trays and a box containing an assortment of cooking knives.

Phil returned to his delivery van. He opened the rear doors and stacked the packages of chilled meat on to his sack trolley. He wheeled them the short distance to the tent. As instructed, he positioned the lamb, venison and pig carcasses on the shelves of the first fridge. Then closed the weighty steel door.

Suddenly, he heard an urgent yelling and the sounds of a struggle. It sounded like it was coming from the tent next door. The altercation became louder and more intense.

Phil left the meat delivery tent and peeked through the flaps of the tent where the noise was coming from. In the darkness, he could see a man lying on the ground clutching his chest and stomach, groaning in agony. Standing over him, grasping an evil-looking commando style knife was a thick set man wearing a black hoodie. He also wore black tracksuit trousers and black trainers. On his hands, he appeared to be sporting blue nitrile surgical gloves.

Phil let a shocked gasp escape. The hooded head snapped around and looked straight at him. With a speed that belied his bulk, the man sprinted at Phil and grabbed him. He pulled Phil inside the tent.

Caught unawares, Phil stumbled and fell. Before he knew it the big man was straddling him. As the man raised the knife in his right hand, Phil caught it with his left. Phil was tall and wiry, but strong. He grabbed the handle of the knife, but his opponent had the upper hand. The knife was slowly inching towards Phil’s face. For what seemed like a surreal eternity, they seemed to be in a stalemate.

Phil was beginning to see his life flash before his eyes. The left sleeve of his attacker’s hoodie had ridden up in the struggle. Phil caught sight of a tattoo on his assailant’s forearm. He could swear it was a crocodile.

All of a sudden, Phil’s survival instincts snapped into action. He brought his right knee up swiftly and caught the knifeman full in the groin. Bullseye! The man bellowed in pain and rolled off Phil.

As he lay on the ground, Phil righted himself and kicked out at the man’s face. The guy howled again as Phil’s Timberland boot smashed into his nose. Phil could almost feel the crack of bone and cartilage.

The man staggered to his feet and ran out of the tent, dropping the knife.

Phil leapt to his feet. He glanced down at the victim lying on the ground. There was a lot of blood, and he didn’t appear to be breathing.

Phil raced out of the tent. He could just see the back of the attacker as he was swallowed up by the festival crowd of foppishly costumed visitors, jugglers, acrobats and olde worlde food vendors.

A high, blood-curdling shriek sliced the air. Two young women that looked like they’d just walked off the set of ‘Pride and Prejudice’ were staring at him wide-eyed in horror. He looked down at his white T-shirt and saw that it was covered in blood. Was it his?

The screaming was growing louder. More voices joined the cacophony.

Phil panicked. Without thinking, he sprinted towards his van. Then, realising he couldn’t use it to escape, he ran out of the parking lot.

He careered across Ditchling Road, weaving in and out between braking vehicles. Drivers sounded their horns and swore at him as he lurched in front of them.

Reaching the pavement, Phil sped down Oxford Street. He ran as fast as he could, past pubs, shops and fast-food joints. Early evening revellers gave him frightened looks and backed away. He thought his lungs would burst. He had no plan but to run. Fast.

He charged across the busy London Road, upsetting dozens of irate drivers again. In the back of his mind, Phil realised that he had to stay on the back streets. Away from people. Hopefully.

Phil sprinted down Anne Street, barely noticing the impressive, eighteenth-century Church of Saint Bartholomew. He then bowled left down New England Street.

Stopping to catch his breath, the thought occurred to him that he had to find somewhere to hide. Quick.

He spotted the open side gate of a 1930’s style council house. Number thirty-eight. He charged through the opening, hoping there was nobody in the garden. There wasn’t. He clocked an ancient wooden shed at the end of the garden.

Phil looked through the window of the shed. Nobody was in it. Good. He tried the door, but it was padlocked.

In desperation, he looked behind the shed. Luckily, there was a small gap between shed and fence into which he could crawl without being seen.

As he crouched behind the shed, Phil tried to make himself as comfortable as possible in the cramped space. He realised that he’d been slashed across the chest. The wound was nasty and painful. But not life threatening.

From somewhere, he heard the familiar theme tune for the South Coast Evening News. It appeared to be coming from the house on the other side of the back fence. It was loud enough for him to hear. Maybe the occupants were hard of hearing.

‘An undercover police officer has been stabbed in Brighton. It happened at The Regency Fayre, taking place on The Level. Detective Inspector Tony McFarlane was found unconscious and unresponsive by paramedics, suffering from a serious knife wound. Police sources say he’s currently fighting for his life at the Royal Sussex County Hospital.’

‘The police have analysed the fingerprints on the knife, and they say they’re looking for Filip Kowalski, 32, of Shoreham-By-Sea. Police also say not to approach this person as he’s extremely dangerous and could be armed.’

Phil thought he must have been behind the shed now for about three hours. It was pitch black. He checked his watch. Eleven o’clock. He was starting to get extremely uncomfortable. He put his head out from behind the shed to have a look around. In the house, at the other end of the garden, the light in what appeared to be the kitchen was on. He could see a middle-aged red-haired woman talking to a uniformed figure.

He heard the back gate or the back door close. He couldn’t tell which. Boots were crunching around on the gravel. He was sure he could see the flicker of torch beams as well. The footsteps approached the shed. He could swear that there were at least two of them.

Suddenly, a peaked-capped head looked behind the shed. Phil found himself face to face with a policeman who was white and appeared to be about his age.

Phil jumped up, banging his head on the eve of the shed roof. He sprinted across the lawn, heading for the garden gate. He could see three cops; two male, one female.

He felt a hand grab hold of his T-shirt and establish a grip. He turned round with his elbow extended and felt it crunch into someone’s cheekbone. He heard a cry of pain which sounded female. The hand released his T-shirt.

Then Phil was falling. He landed heavily on the gravel of the patio and felt a large body fall on top of him. His hands were roughly dragged behind his back as the wind left his solar plexus.

 He was pulled brutally to his feet and a large hand spun him round. He found himself face to face with a tall, heavily-built black policeman.

‘Filip Kowalski. I’m arresting you for the attempted murder of DI Tony McFarlane AND the assault of an arresting police officer. You do not have to say anything but, if you do, anything you say may be taken down and given in evidence. Do you understand?’

Phil looked around nervously. The female officer was lying on the lawn being tended to by the other male officer.

They shoved him roughly into the back seat of the police car. They narrowly missed banging his head on the roof of the car. He could tell they wanted to, though.

As the police car set off, Phil shouted, ‘I didn’t do anything. I just witnessed it. The guy that did it was wearing all black. He tried to kill me too. I was just trying to stop him stabbing me. He had a crocodile tattoo on his left arm’.

‘Yeah right’, sneered the white male officer who was sat next to him in the back, ‘Who the hell has a tattoo of a crocodile?’.

After what seemed like forever, they pulled up in the car park of Hollingbury Custody Centre. On the outskirts of Brighton.

As Phil was shoved up against the front desk, the sixty-something, silver-haired male custody sergeant shot him a look of pure vitriol.

He was frogmarched down the corridor and a cell door was unlocked. Phil was forced inside, and his handcuffs were removed. The cell door clanged shut. A couple of seconds later, the hatch slid open:

‘You’re staying in there until we can find a solicitor for you’

Phil slumped down disconsolately on the hard bed.

Across town, in an intensive care ward at the Royal Sussex County Hospital, a couple of police detectives were gathered by the bed of DI MacFarlane. Under sedation as he fought for his life.

They both looked up as they heard a distressed groan. MacFarlane groggily opened his eyes. He asked for some water.

The police officer nearest to the bed said, ‘How are you doing Tony? We’ve caught the toe rag that stabbed you. He’s banged up at Hollingbury nick.’

‘Turnbull?’

‘Turnbull? What?’

‘DI Terry Turnbull stabbed me. I found out he was on the take. From a drugs gang. He was bent. He needed me gone’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Of course I’m sure.’

Half an hour later, an armed response unit screeched up to an expansive Victorian semi on Glendale Road, off Old Shoreham Road.

The officers smashed down the front door just as a portly figure was disappearing out of the back door. He reached the fence at the end of the garden and scrambled over. He disappeared from sight.

The pursuing officers caught up and dropped down on the other side of the fence. By the kerb, they saw a motorcyclist switching on his bike’s ignition. He then started to put on his helmet. The rider barely had time to look up as Turnbull floored him with a meaty left hook.

Both rider and motorbike fell in a heap. Turnbull righted the bike, jumped on and sped off up Glendale Road. The officers ran back and jumped into their pursuit vehicle.

They spotted Turnbull speeding west on Old Shoreham Road. In a hail of angry car horns, he weaved in and out of oncoming traffic. The pursuit cops were gaining on Turnbull as he ran a red light at the junction with Upper Drive and swerved left.

After about four hundred yards, Turnbull abruptly turned left into a large trading estate. The pursuing police vehicle clocked him at seventy-three miles per hour.

Just then, an eighteen-wheel HGV was reversing into Turnbull’s path. He knew it was too late for him to swerve to avoid it.

He tried to steer the bike between the four-foot gap between the lorry’s cargo space and the tarmac. Turnbull almost succeeded but his head hit the underside.

The officers in the pursuit vehicle looked on open mouthed as a bowling ball-sized object rocketed through the air. As if it had been propelled by Wayne Rooney’s boot. It arced over some bushes and disappeared from sight.

The pursuing officers jumped out of their car and ran to where they thought it had landed.

Turnbull’s head sat skewered on the spike of a rusty iron fence. Uncannily, the fence spike had entered through his neck and exited neatly through his mouth.

As the first officer on the scene gaped in astonishment at the jowly, brutish features, the ironic thought occurred to him that Turnbull resembled nothing so much as hog on a spit roast.

The second officer on the scene was busy throwing up all over the base of a nearby oak tree.

Four miles away, at Hollingbury Custody Centre, Phil’s cell door clanged open.

‘You’re free to go, son’, advised the custody sergeant, ‘Sling your hook.’.

'Brighton looks like a town that is constantly helping the police with their enquiries.' - Keith Waterhouse