“How can I help?” asked Jack

“It’s too complicated to speak on the phone. Is it is Ok to come down we could discuss it sometime?”

“Very well I look forward to seeing you as and when”.

“Ok Jack, I will ring you from home and pop down and we can speak, bye”.

The call was ended.

PART SIX

JACK THE HAT RECALLED

He was proceeding nicely with his book, to quote a phrase from his long so long ago days of walking the beat in East London, at the regulation pace.

How he now wished all those years ago when just after joining the police when he had been brought face to face with a new instrument, which was to prove the main tool in his new life in the police.

A Remington typewriter, they were tall, heavy and black in colour. One also required black or blue carbon papers, as everything was required either in duplicate or occasionally triplicate.

A copious supply of scrap paper torn into small pieces used to go between the sheets to be typed amending the many mistakes. Finally and worse, three mistakes and the Sergeants insisted the whole page had to be retyped.

It went without saying of course most of this work was done in each officers own time after or before their normal tour of duty.

During the many recent hours he had spent, sitting, recalling, contemplating and almost as many typing, if only those years ago he had been able to learn the skill of touch-typing how much simpler life would be now.

There had of course been no time to learn how to touch type so it had been the first finger of each hand from those days until now.

Writing a book of his own was proving interesting, recalling incidents, embellishing others but always having at hand the fantasy.  Occasionally he became despondent thinking of his first comments to Anne as to the difficulties of publishing a book.

It now came home to him even more, in the behind the scenes private world and solace of his office, study call it what you may. The reality had now struck home.

He had found himself actually talking to himself, “No one or practically no one will ever read what I am writing”.

 He was consoled by the words his father had said when he was a small boy.

It was each Saturday afternoon at 5pm; the radio announcer had read the weekly soccer results. Father had checked these against the selected same numbers of what was known as, the perm. They being, the selected numbers to make up the plan of any eight from ten teams to finish with a drawn game.

They always failed to click so that the £75,000 as it was known in those days which if won, would change working families lives forever, it never happened.

When mother had commented every week it was a waste of time and money his father had replied immediately, again, every week the four magic but elusive words “Have a little faith”.

Regretfully mother had proved to be the prophet in the family for the £75,000 or anything like was never won.

Thinking of his current project and now looking at the screen of what he was currently typing he became more despondent.

 Speaking with other budding authors practically all had failed to find someone prepared to publish their book.

The few that had now complained of waiting two years to see the results of their labour after all in their eyes it was the best book ever written and published in the public domain.

Their long awaited anticipation being rewarded with only 10% of the selling price of the book whilst the seller in the shop received a massive 50% simply for displaying the masterpiece on the shelf.

 In the worst-case scenario if the masterpiece did not sell as the seller had them on sale and return the shopkeeper suffered no loss.

Perhaps he thought, the worst report he had received was of those who have been advised suggested to or conned into promoting their books free as an ebook on the Internet, which was guaranteed to bring massive numbers of readers.

Books that no one was interested in suddenly became popular and all who had tried the system reported many hundreds of down loads but for no recompense.

Since the free days they had anxiously been waiting for the downloads with payment.

Nothing had happened either for three months when they had attempted the promotion once again, either with a new book or the same book and once again received yet more massive downloads, followed by no sales.

Convincing them their books were good and many thousands wished to read them but only for free, the vast cost of £2 being a bridge too far.

He would also attempt to avoid the mistakes of those who had become a local bore or worse, a nuisance by discussing their book or books in depth with the locals who weren’t actually interested them or their books and so since the first encounter had avoided the budding authors like the black death plague.

Those few that were interested, with smiling faces, and wet lips showing their appetite to read the latest wonder even offering to call and pick up a copy.

They suddenly suffered a dropped expression when asked for £2 to read as the down load people paid or a deposit of £5 for a book, which had cost £10 to print and bind pending the return of the book in good order.

 The poor author having explained his books loaned free were often returned torn or covered in jam or even blood.

 The enthusiasm of the pending reader now faded and they never called for the book they had seemed so anxious to read.

These thoughts caused him to pause and to ponder if it was worthwhile continuing.

His solace was interrupted by almighty providence with the doorbell sounding.

“Jack” came Anne’s voice “Mr Woodcock is here to see you I will send him through”.

“Ah yes very well”, he rose from his seat then walked to the door and opened it to greet his guest with right hand outstretched ready for the handshake.

“Hello Jack, how nice to see you, thank you for seeing me unannounced”, as he gave the handshake, which Jack recognised as that of the brotherhood of the Free and accepted Masons.

Not returning the Masonic handgrip Jack replied, “It is good to see you again Christian, but what can I do for you?”

“Well Jack, you will no doubt be surprised when you hear of my mission, I hope you will give my proposition your full consideration”.

“It is beginning to sound very ominous but I am all ears,” laughed Jack, which caused Woodcock to feel a little despondent as Jack the Hat was not known for hilarious laughter.

“Well Jack if you will bear with me, here is the burden of my song”.

“Go-ahead Christian, time is something I have plenty of these days”, which caused a ray of hope for the author of the mission about to be imparted.

“Well Jack, my mission is to seek your help, not only my request but that of the Chief HMI and the Home Secretary himself”.

He saw Jack’s face turn to a grimace but thought he would endeavour to persevere and so continued.

“Over recent weeks Jack, five uniformed police constables have been found dead whilst on duty.”

“Two from Cheshire here, who were found dead in their police car, the other three, were serving in the Manchester, Wrexham and Shropshire areas.”

“The officers were not connected or known to each other.  They were all found. Just dead”.

 “No signs of violence, all had post mortems the results of which were identical, natural causes, known medically as some adult sudden death syndrome.”

“The only suspicious thing appears to be that they were all young, fit and well and just simply died.”

“I came upon the information accidentally whilst making my recent force inspections.”

Jack sat impassively, looking through the window, anyone else would have thought he was rather ignorant and ignoring the story of which such a senior police officer was imparting.