Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 138, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 821 & 822, September/October 2011

Work Experience by Simon Brett

In addition to authoring three popular series of mystery novels — those starring Charles Paris, Mrs. Pargeter, and the residents of Fethering — Simon Brett has written many plays and several series for TV and radio. His TV sitcom After Henry is now available on DVD, and his character Charles Paris can be found on Britain’s Radio 4 in plays adapted from some of the Brett novels. Readers won’t want to miss the latest Brett novel in print in the U.S., Bones Under the Beach Hut.

It should have been a straightforward job. Louis had cased the joint. Milton was set up as the getaway driver. The actual burglary was to be done by Hopper, who’s the best lock-man in West London, and me, Chico. And everything would have been fine if Hopper hadn’t insisted on bringing his young nephew Terence along.

Seems it’s something they’re very keen on at schools these days. “Work Experience,” they call it. Usually the kids go along with their parents to get a taste of the workaday world, but with Terence’s dad in Parkhurst for the foreseeable, that was never going to work out, was it?

Apparently the boy done some Work Experience with his mum, who does location catering for television programmes. Terence had helped — or more likely hindered — her for a week when she was cooking for the crew on one of them reality shows — you know, hidden cameras, members of the public looking stupid. Called Danger: Men at Work. Title doesn’t mean anything to me. I’m not into telly. Anyway, that Work Experience must’ve been a waste of time. Location catering isn’t going to be much use to the boy. Never going to be a career for a grown man, is it?

So Hopper, who’s always had a strong sense of family, said Terence should come along with him on this job.

Terence is at that kind of awkward age, all elbows and Adam’s apple. He wears T-shirts with meaningless slogans on them, hoodies, and, dangling off his thin backside, garments which have never quite decided whether they are shorts or trousers. And he has, like permanently grafted on his head, a baseball cap, which he’ll wear at any angle other than the natural one with the peak in front.

Hopper didn’t mention the idea of bringing Terence along until right at the end of the planning meeting. He must have known none of us would have liked the idea, and hoped to shuffle it in unnoticed when we was all getting ready to leave.

Up until that point everything had gone very smoothly. Although I say it myself, that was mostly down to me. I’d picked up the information about the place, and I’d given Louis some very good suggestions before he checked it out. I was flattered that during the planning meeting more than one of the others referred to it as “Chico’s job.” I hadn’t been with the gang as long as the rest, and it gave me the feeling they were beginning to accept — even respect — me.

I’d heard about the place from a mate of mine down the Red Cow. Blob, he’s called. And I must say, when he told me, my first reaction — like anyone’s would have been — is that the job was a total nonstarter. I mean, one thing you learn pretty early in this line of work is to keep clear of the Filth. I’ve nothing against coppers individually — I’m sure a lot of them are kind to animals and good to their mums — but as a general rule I have made it my business to avoid them. So when Blob says that the flat he’s recommending is right over a police station... well, I thought he was about ready for the old Care in the Community.

Next he come up with some proverb about the best place to hide being nearest the light, which still sounded well dodgy to me, but I kept listening. And I’m glad I did, because the more detail he gave me, the more I knew the job was a real peach. Soft, juicy, ripe for plucking.

Fact is, this police station was a redbrick Victorian block, built for times when the old cash flow wasn’t so strapped. Offices downstairs, second storey all police courts and meeting rooms. That floor hadn’t been used for some time, and during another cost-cutting round in the 1970s, some bright spark had had the idea of turning it into a residence (known waggishly round the station as “Evening Hall”) and flogging it off.

This was duly done and the flat was bought by some geezer who was an expert in antiques. Specialised in gold and silver coins, and, according to Blob, the place was full of them. Owner spent a lot of time abroad, buying from other dealers. And this was the sweet bit... place had no burglar alarms, no grilles on the windows, nothing. Geezer reckoned being sat on top of a cop shop was security enough. Apparently felt so confident the stuff’d never get nicked that he hadn’t even insured it. (Which, incidentally, is not something I’d recommend. Reason I can sleep easy at night doing the work I do is that I know in most cases anything I purloin will be covered on the old insurance. So really what I commit is victimless crimes... though, strangely, some of the people whose stuff I take don’t see it that way. Nor, for some reason, do the insurance companies. Or the police. Odd, that.)

Anyway, like I said, Louis cased the joint. We always work that way — get a place looked at by someone who’s not going to be involved in the actual thieving. Louis’s good for that kind of work. Seeing him for the first time, it’d never occur to you that he’d ever broken the law in his life. And certainly not that he’s the brains behind our outfit. We don’t have a leader as such, but Louis is the one we all refer to, check stuff out with. You’d never know it, though. He looks like a retired schoolteacher, all thick glasses and shapeless corduroy. And he’s got this bumbling way about him. No one’s surprised when he takes wrong turnings and walks into places he shouldn’t.

That’s how he played it when he was casing the police station. Told us all about it at the planning meeting. “It was my intention,” he says, “to make a cursory preliminary examination of the exterior, and to that end I wandered about in the manner of a superannuated gentleman whose mental faculties were challenged by the task of finding the main entrance.”

(Another thing about Louis, he does tend to use a lot of long words. Rest of us don’t always understand all of them, but most of us usually get his gist.)

“My scrutiny confirmed our most optimistic expectations. Though the police station itself is guarded by a plethora of CCTV cameras and other security devices, there is nothing to monitor who enters or leaves the first-floor flat”

“Except,” objected Milton, who, despite the contrary impression given by his looks, reckons he’s quite quick on the old logic, “surely anyone who gets up to the first-floor entrance is going to have to go through the police station’s surveillance system? Unless you’re suggesting we use a helicopter.”

Louis holds up a hand to quieten him, like Milton was some kid talking out of turn. The way he done it suggested the old boy really must have been a schoolteacher at some point, before he saw the light and come over to our side.

“What you say is correct. And any attempt to gain access to the upstairs flat by its main entrance would be extremely hazardous.”

“You suggesting we smash in through the windows, then?”

“Milton, Milton, if you have a fault, it is that you tend to be too precipitous. You want everything to happen immediately. Which, while an excellent and desirable quality in a getaway driver, is an instinct which must at times be curbed during normal social intercourse.”

“Er...?” says Milton, who’s never been as good at getting Louis’s gist as the rest of us.

“What I am asking is that you allow me to make my report in my own style. And at my own pace.” This was said in a way that must have made a good few fourth-formers cower over the years. It certainly had the effect of shutting Milton up.

“Having ascertained the security situation on the exterior of the building,” Louis went on, at his own pace, “I then decided I should extend my investigation to the interior. Not wishing to raise suspicions, I developed the already-assumed persona of a somewhat confused elderly gentleman. My cover story was to be that, while entrusted with the care of my grandson’s gerbil, I had inadvertently allowed it to escape through my open back door, and I was hoping to enlist the assistance of the police to secure the rodent’s recapture.

“When I entered the building, I discovered that there was a queue of other complainants and the desk sergeant was preoccupied by a large lady, bearing a more than passing resemblance to Boadicea, who was insisting that, unless her neighbour could be persuaded to clip his leylandii, blood would flow.

“After some minutes of sitting waiting, I rose and, with a mumbled explanation about ‘prostate trouble,’ asked a passing WPC to be pointed towards the gentlemen’s lavatory.

“I was directed through a door into a central area where, serendipitously, the male and female conveniences turned out to be placed either side of a substantial staircase. The space was occupied only by a few filing cabinets and some broken-down chairs. It wasn’t anyone’s office, just a glory-hole on the way to the police cells and the station’s back entrance.

“Anyway, at the top of the staircase I could see a wall not included in the building’s original design, into which was set another door. This, I felt certain, must give access to the flat upstairs. Exaggerating my assumed decrepitude — just in case anyone should come in and see me — I climbed the stairs, which were dusty with disuse, as was the small strip of landing in front of the wall. And the good news is that the lock on the door up there is of such simplicity that it would take someone of Hopper’s talents a matter of seconds to open it with his bare fingernails.”

Our lock-man accepted the compliment with a modest smile. Louis also smiled and placed his hands flat on the table to indicate that his report was finished. Milton was still cowed by the schoolmasterly reprimand he had received, so I was the one who asked the obvious question. “You’re saying we should make our way into the flat from inside the police station?”

“You have a very acute understanding, Chico. That is exactly what I meant.”

We were all silent for a moment. Then I showed I was prepared to ask another obvious question. “But won’t the Filth notice? I mean, look at us. Say it’s just Hopper and me does the job. The only way we two would look right in a cop shop is with handcuffs on.”

“Dressed like that, you would indeed, Chico. But were you to don the habiliments of a member of Her Majesty’s constabulary, you would present a much less incongruous picture.”

Okay, I’d never heard the word “habiliments” in my life before, but I was still getting Louis’s gist. “You mean we dress up as coppers?”

“Indubitably.”

Hopper and me exchanged looks. One thing neither of us likes doing is committing more than one crime at a time. A burglary of gold and silver coins is one thing, but doing it while “impersonating a police officer”... well, that’s dead iffy.

“What about me?” asks Milton. “Won’t people smell a rat when they see two coppers legging it into the getaway car?”

“No, they won’t,” Louis purred. “They will think it the most natural thing in the world.”

“How’dya mean?”

“Milton, Milton, what could be more natural than for two police officers to get into the back of a Panda car driven by another police officer?”

“You’re saying I’m going to be in fancy dress and all?”

“Yes, Milton.”

“And I’m going to hot-wire a police Panda?”

“Yes, Milton.”

There was another silence. Long one, this time. Then I says, “Come on, Louis, tell us how it’s going to work.”

So he told us. We asked a lot of questions, we pulled the plan apart, tested it for weaknesses. And at the end, not for the first time, we all agreed that Louis was a blooming genius.

It was then that Hopper shuffled in the idea of his nephew Terence coming along for Work Experience.

I thought teenagers was meant to be silent. Grumpy, always going off to their bedrooms in a huff, shutting the world out with their iPods, never giving their parents or any other adults the time of day. Well, that evening, soon as Terence, escorted by his uncle Hopper, joined Milton and me in the car on the way to the job, it was clear he didn’t fit the moody teenage stereotype. Blab, blab, blab all the time with him. I tell you, spend half an hour with that boy and you’ll come away with permanently bent ears.

Another drawback of Terence was his aftershave. Smelt like a blooming spice-rack, ponged out the whole car.

We didn’t involve him till the day of the job. Louis said less the boy knew the better, and I was with him on that. But blimey, if we’d answered all the questions he chucked at us, he’d soon’ve known more about the job than we did.

He wanted to know where we was going, he wanted to know why the three of us was dressed as coppers, he wanted to know if we was armed... coo, he didn’t half go on.

Eventually, Hopper told him to put a sock in it, with the additional sanction that, if he didn’t, Terence would get a mouthful of his uncle’s sock, with foot and boot attached.

But that only kept him quiet for a few minutes, then he was off on the natter again. But at least he had taken on board that we didn’t want to talk about the job. So he decided to delight us with reminiscences of his previous Work Experience instead. You know, this week he’d done with his mum on the old location catering.

So Terence burbles on about that for a bit. I hardly listen. Don’t care for the television much myself... well, except for the sport, obviously.

Mind you, young Terence’s got a ready audience in Milton. Every moment he’s not out on a job Milton spends glued to the telly. He knows all about all the shows, so he’s dead impressed that Terence has met all the people on this reality show his mum was catering for, Danger: Men at Work.

“Ooh,” Milton says, “I loved the one where they filmed in the fast-food restaurant. That waitress didn’t know they’d got the hidden cameras on her, did she? What a prat she looked. Do you know, Terence, if people have ever asked them to stop filming?”

“No,” the boy replies. “They all love it. Being on telly, showing what good sports they are, everyone likes that.”

Like I say, I’ve never seen the show, so none of this means much to me. But Milton got very excited when Terence shows him this printed pass he’d been given so that he’s allowed on the set or the location or whatever they call it. Pass is printed with Danger: Men at Work in big letters.

Anyway, the two of them are going on ninety-nine to the dozen, and we’re getting close to the police station what is our destination. So I tell Milton to stop the car, because now it really is time to tell Terence what his role is going to be in the evening’s proceedings.

And we have found a proper job for him, not just answering phones and photocopying, which I gather is what most kids on Work Experience do. Louis’s idea, needless to say. He come up with it soon as he heard from Hopper how old Terence was. He says, “Perfect. This could not be more serendipitous.” He likes that word. Blowed if I know exactly what it means, but I get the gist. Means on the good side of bad, anyway.

Louis’s planned for us to do the job at eleven o’clock. He says that’s the time the police are most stretched. There’s a lot of ugly stuff goes down when the kids, who’ve been binge-drinking all evening, get turfed out of the pubs. So every cop who can be spared is on the streets, trying to stop the paralytic youngsters from topping each other. Which means there’s less of the Filth in the station and those that are there tend to be preoccupied with emergencies.

It was one such emergency that Louis had planned to use as our cover. And Terence’s Work Experience would involve him being the centre of that emergency. He took his instructions like a lamb, I must say. Gabby he may have been, but the boy was up for anything. I mean, I daresay some kids his age might have objected to being covered with tomato ketchup and minestrone soup. Not Terence. He agreed without a murmur.

Now perhaps I should explain about the tomato ketchup and minestrone soup. With the ketchup you’re probably ahead of me — yes, it was meant to look like blood. But for the purposes of Louis’s plan, Terence didn’t just have to look as if he was injured, but like he’d thrown up over himself as well.

We done a bit of experimentation before we plumped for the minestrone. Back in the old days I remember best thing to use to look like puke was called Sandwich Spread. But could we find it on the shelves down Tesco’s? Could we hell. Then Hopper remembered something that’d been served up at his school dinners called Macedoine of Vegetables. He said one kid threw up in the playground after eating it, and you couldn’t tell the difference between what he’d thrown up and what they’d just all eaten. But with Macedoine of Vegetables we also drew a blank down Tesco’s. What’s happening to all our fine old traditional British foods? Louis even tried going a bit upmarket to Waitrose, but again no dice.

So it was a can of minestrone soup we ended up with. And to make Terence not only look but smell like he’d thrown up, Louis give us this idea of sprinkling the boy with parmesan cheese. Always niffs a bit of vomit, the old Parmesan. And, thank God, it was a stronger smell than the boy’s aftershave.

When we was just round the corner from the police station, Milton stopped the car (one he’d hot-wired earlier in Ladbroke Grove — we were only going to use the thing for this part of the- job, then abandon it). And we set about making Terence look like he was a kid who’d overdone the old booze and got into a fight. Wasn’t difficult. Boy was so scruffy to start with, he didn’t need much extra. Just the tomato ketchup as if it had gushed from his nose, minestrone soup down his front, and he was done.

Hopper and I splashed a bit of the same on our uniforms, to look like we’d been struggling with him, then we took our leave of Milton. His job was to go round the back of the station and hot-wire one of the Pandas ready for the getaway.

As we emerge from the car, Terence reaches into the pocket on his hoodie and pulls out a camcorder. Expensive bit of kit, no bigger than a paperback book.

“What’s that for?” asks Hopper.

“You don’t mind if I film what we’re doing, do you? You know, so’s I’ve got a record.”

“You film us,” says Hopper, “and the only record you’ll have is a criminal one. Will you get it into your thick head, Terence, that in this line of business the last thing you want is a record of what you’re doing. Because that could easily become evidence, and we don’t want to make the Law’s job easy for them, do we?”

The boy looked a bit crestfallen, but he didn’t argue and put the camcorder back into his pocket.

It’s at this point that Hopper and me give Terence his instructions and each of us grab him by one arm.

Now I reckoned, if there was a dangerous bit of the plan, we were going to hit it in the police station’s reception area. Louis’s view was that that time of night we’d have no problems. There’d only be a desk sergeant on duty and chances were they’d be busy with some other emergency. All we had to do was make it from the main entrance to the door leading to the staircase area, and our trou-bles’d be over.

We weren’t worried about the old CCTV. Hopper and I pulled the peaks of our police hats down, and we made Terence, for once in his life, wear his baseball cap the right way round. So his ugly mug was pretty well hidden and all.

Soon as we round the corner and can actually see the police station, we slot into acting mode. Terence goes back to full-on struggling and a bit of sozzled mumbling, while me and Hopper make with a few remarks like “That’s enough of that, young man” and “You’ll feel differently after a night in the cells,” for the benefit of any passing witnesses. We’ve agreed that, once we’re actually inside the police station, we’ll stay schtum. Don’t want to draw attention to ourselves, do we?

When we get through the door, we think it’s all going to be kushti. There’s a rowdy shout-off going on between three drunks and the desk sergeant, who’s far too busy with them to notice our little threesome. So we beetle across to the other door.

Get a bit of a shock when, just before we reach it, blooming thing opens. And out comes this well dishy WPC. She takes in the situation immediately and, wrinkling her dainty little nose at the niff of Terence, says, “Looks like he’s going to have a night sobering up in the cells.”

Which is good. Means our cover has worked. Even a genuine cop thinks we’re the real deal.

“God, he smells disgusting,” she observes.

And it’s a pity she says that. Because what none of us had taken into account in our planning for the job is the vanity of youth. Boy like Terence is very sensitive about how he smells — that’s why he soaks himself in that disgusting aftershave. And he can’t bear the thought of this dishy WPC thinking he’s niffy. So he does a knee-jerk reaction and says — forgetting that he’s meant to be smashed out of his skull — he says in perfect, polite English, “Oh, it’s not me that smells, it’s the Parmesan.”

Well, the WPC looks rather suspicious at that, and, though we’re through the door before she has time to say anything else, Hopper and me recognise that this has got the job off to a bad start. Always going to be a risk bringing a Work Experience kid along with us.

Anyway, this isn’t the moment to tear the boy off a strip. Through the door, up the stairs, and, as Louis had promised, Hopper opens the door easy as if he’d had his own house key.

We’re inside the flat’s sitting room, and no one’s seen us except for the WPC. We listen for sounds of pursuit, but there’s nothing. We breathe sighs of relief, we’ve got away with it. I still don’t say anything to Terence, but his uncle gives him a quick dressing-down. Then we get out our torches and concentrate on the loot.

Bloody hell, Blob’s information was good. Everywhere our torch beams go, there’s gold and silver coins. Glass-fronted display cases all over the walls and on every other surface. We get out the nylon bags we’ve brought for the purpose and start filling them up with the clinking stuff. We’re not greedy, but there doesn’t seem much point in leaving any of them behind.

When all the display cases are empty, we do a quick shufti round the rest of the flat, but there’s nothing. All the collection was in that one room. Not that we’re complaining, mind. The haul we’ve got, once it’s been converted into readies by a specialist friend of mine on Westbourne Grove, will keep the lot of us in clover for a good few years.

I look through a window down to the parking lot at the back of the station. I flick my torch on and off with the prearranged signal. Headlights flash on one of the Pandas. Milton’s got our getaway car ready. Job very nearly done.

Then the phone in the flat rings.

Hopper and I stand still as statues, as if the handset could, like, see us if we moved. We grin at each other sheepishly and relax. The phone rings on and on.

And then — bloody hell — Terence only goes and answers it, doesn’t he?

“Hello,” he says.

Hopper’s across the room in nanoseconds. He’s snatched the receiver from the boy’s hand and ended the call. And he just stands there, looking at his nephew and shaking all over, at first too furious for his mouth to form words. Finally, he manages to say, “Why the hell did you answer it?”

“I thought it might be important,” the boy replies limply. “My mates at school who’ve done Work Experience say most of it’s answering phones.” His uncle just glares at him. “And photocopying,” adds Terence.

I’m in no mood to hang around. What should have been a straightforward job is now becoming a dead complicated — not to say dangerous — one. “Come on, move!” I say. And me and Hopper are out the door to the staircase. We don’t say a thing more to Terence. He’s got himself into this mess. He can get himself out of it.

But he’s not the only one in a mess. Soon as we emerge onto the staircase, we can’t help noticing that the area down the bottom of it is full of the Filth. And we’re standing there clutching nylon bags full of gold and silver coins. If you’re ever wanting to explain the meaning of the expression “caught red-handed,” you could do worse than describe the situation we was in at that moment. And all thanks to trying to give young Terence some Work Experience.

The dishy WPC’s there. I reckoned she alerted the others. And there’s a very senior-looking cop — at least a chief superintendent, I reckon — standing there holding a mobile phone. I’d put money on the fact it was him who just dialled the number of the flat.

“So,” he says, all silky-like. “Caught red-handed.” Proving the point that I just made.

Neither Hopper nor me can think of anything very bright to say by way of comeback to this, so we just stand there, totting up the likely sentence for combined Burglary and Impersonating a Police Officer. We’ve both got a bit of previous, so the tariff could be pretty harsh.

There ensues what I think Louis would describe as “an impasse.” We don’t move any farther down the stairs, the Filth don’t come up to get us. A Mexican standoff without the guns. Hopper and me have a nasty feeling we know how it’s going to end, though. The chances of us getting past the massed cops and out to Milton’s Panda are about as strong as those of a Premier League footballer speaking English.

Given the direness of our situation, we’d both forgotten about Terence. Then we hear the door behind us open and there he is.

He’s got his camcorder up to his eye, like he’s filming everything. Round his neck he’s wearing the identity pass he was bragging to Milton about in the car.

And Terence says to the cops, “Good evening, ladies and gentlemen.” They look at him dead suspicious. They aren’t about to go soft on him because of his youth. They reckon he’s as much a part of the gang as Hopper and me. And he’s going to go down the same way we are.

But then Terence says, “You’ll be glad to know that your station has been selected to appear on Danger: Men at Work!”

The reaction to this is really amazing. The Filth’s faces, which a minute before were all stem and forbidding, suddenly break out into grins. Laughter even. All of them want to show what good sports they are. They can take a joke.

“Yes,” Terence goes on, “you don’t know it, but what you’re doing is at this moment being beamed by hidden cameras to the viewing public of Great Britain. You have been the victims of a Danger: Men at Work setup. I and my colleagues...” he gestured to me and Hopper “...are in fact actors... But I don’t think you can deny that you were about to arrest them, can you?”

Filth shuffle their feet a bit at this, and the chief superintendent geezer admits that yes, the thought had crossed his mind. Then he roars with laughter, still desperate to show what a good sport he is.

“And now,” Terence continues, “our hidden cameras will catch your reactions as my colleagues and I go through to the parking lot, where another actor is waiting in a hot-wired police Panda car!”

They think this is even funnier. Terence has been walking down the stairs as he speaks, and we’ve been moving ahead of him, so we’re all three at floor level by now. Carefully Terence puts his camcorder down on the newel post of the staircase, so that it’s facing right at the Chief Superintendent. The Chief Superintendent looks directly into the lens and beams like his daughter’s got married on the day he won the lottery.

“Gangway, please,” says Terence, and the Filth obediently move to give us a route out to the parking lot.

How long they stay grinning at the nonexistent cameras we don’t know, because as soon as the three of us are in Milton’s Panda, he puts his foot down and we’re out of there.

Everything else went smooth as you like. We met up with Louis, got the coins converted into legal tender, and went our separate ways. In my case, that meant taking the missus to the Seychelles for six months.

For the first time ever we split the loot five ways rather than four. Reckoned Terence deserved his share. Granted, he was the one who got us into a very nasty hole. But we couldn’t help being impressed by the way he got us out of it. None of it’s wasted, you know, Work Experience.