پاسگاه پلیس

Chapter fifteen

The Police Station

‘Feeling better now’ asked a voice.

I opened my eyes and looked around me. I didn’t know where I was. I was lying on something hard and there was a bright light on my eyes.

‘Where am I’ I asked.

Then I realised where I was. I recognised the grey walls, the hard furniture and the bright electric lights. I was in the police station again.

‘Feeling better now’ the voice repeated.

I looked at the policeman who was talking to me.

‘Yes,’ I said very slowly, ‘but my head feels as if it is breaking in half.’

‘You’re lucky to be alive,’ said the policeman. ‘A police car found you lying in the middle of the road on Golden Drive. You would have been hit by passing cars - and probably killed, if the police car hadn’t found you.’

I thought for a moment. I wasn’t sure how much the police knew. I didn’t want to tell the police anything they did not already know.

‘Yes, I was lucky,’ I said. ‘By the way, what was a police car doing on Golden Drive?’

‘Oh,’ said the policeman, ‘there was a big fight at a nightclub called Las Cabanas. We had a telephone call to say that there was a madman in the club. The madman was breaking up all the furniture.

A police car was sent to the nightclub, but the madman escaped before the police arrived. The police car was returning when it found you lying in the middle of the road. You were very lucky. The car nearly ran right over you.’

I smiled.

‘I don’t feel very lucky,’ I replied. ‘In fact, I feel terrible.’

‘Never mind,’ said the policeman. ‘Can you walk?’

I stood up and walked a few steps. My head hurt, but otherwise I felt all right.

‘Yes,’ I said, ‘I can walk.’

‘Good,’ the policeman said, ‘let’s walk along the corridor, then, and have a talk with a friend of yours.’

We went along the corridor. The policeman stopped at a door and knocked. There was a shout from inside the room and the policeman opened the door. I walked into the room and the policeman followed. He shut the door and stood in front of it.

There was only one desk in the room and behind the desk was a man. He was bald. It was my ‘old friend’, Sergeant Murphy.

‘Hello, Sergeant Murphy,’ I said, trying to smile. ‘How are you feeling tonight?’

Sergeant Murphy didn’t smile back at me.

‘Are you trying to be funny’ he asked. ‘It isn’t night, it’s morning. You’ve been unconscious all night.’

‘Oh,’ I said.

‘Now,’ said Sergeant Murphy, ‘let’s begin. I want you to tell me why you were lying, unconscious, in the middle of Golden Drive at half past twelve last night. You were a danger to the traffic.’

‘I thought that the traffic was a danger to me,’ I replied. But the sergeant didn’t even smile.

‘I’m waiting for you to tell me what happened,’ said the sergeant.

‘Nothing much happened,’ I began, ‘I spent part of the evening at Las Cabanas and left just before midnight. I walked back to my car. Just as I was about to get into the car, someone hit me over the head. That’s the last I remember.

‘This policeman,’ and I pointed to the one standing by the door, ‘told me that I had been found in the middle of the road. Someone must have put me there.’

Sergeant Murphy smiled.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘someone who wanted to kill you put you in the middle of the road. Someone was hoping that a car would hit you and kill you.’

I smiled back at the sergeant.

‘Can you think of anyone who would want to kill you’ the sergeant asked me.

‘Oh, yes,’ I replied, ‘hundreds of people would like to kill me, including a few policemen.’