A Frightful Happening At The Local Fayre.

Hmmm... I think it's a spoof to advertise Freddy's hotdogs, onions and red sauce. Mulloxed-up, I think that would look very convincing as a fatal poking.

I used to be in the Frodsham division of St John Ambulance Brigade, and, for the purposes of a first-aid demonstration at a local church fête, I once had to stumble out onto the fairground with fake blood spewing out all over me. The running commentary, which was entirely coincidentally being made by my best mate's dad, went something like this: "Oh, no!" (he has a pronounced Scottish accent, if this helps you picture it) "There's Jonny Stackpool ..... looks like he's been severely wounded by a chainsaw! I hope the first aiders will be able to help him! I hope he'll be okay!"

Of course, they were, and I was ... but not before several commonsensically challenged, silver-haired octogenarian ladies keeled over in shock, and really did have to be treated by my faux-blood-besmirched colleagues.

BACK TO THE STORY...........

Realizing this isn’t the time to crack the ‘ex-tractor fan’ joke you instead stare up at the towering detective, his hair (coconut shy from the front, wack the rat from the back) is wispy and twinkles against the flashing lights of the under 10’s mobile disco competition. He looks serious.

“Merda” Cries cock of the school Dangerous Daz.

“Yes a murder, and everyone of you…” he does his pointy thing again, ”… is a key witness”

The crowd mumble amongst themselves as Detective John Spay drapes one of Mrs Murphy’s handmade throws over the corpse, the site is bleak, but not for the first time. Two years previously a young black lady died at the same event, shortly after visiting the Kindergarten Kreative Kookery stand.

The Detective blew his whistle in an attempt to regain some kind of order to the now hysterical crowd.

“Right” he shouts “Everyone stay way they are. Im going to ask you all a few questions. Starting…” he points “…with you”.

A silence falls over crowd only to be broken briefly by a subdued, regional "fucking hell."

You stare at the crowd, searching for the source of the profanity, a sea of wax-capped beards stare back, pipes hanging precariously from parted lips. The quiet is spreading now, the brass band sputters to a halt midway through its rendition of Tangerine Dreams Street Hawk theme and you hear an amplified acoustic guitar crash to the floor as the news reaches the Houghton Weavers personal practise tent.

Unable to keep your eyes from the grisly scene you turn your gaze back to the sprawled corpse, taking in more details this time you note with a strange sense of detachment the similarity between your muddied rouge gum boots and the now slowing flow of cruor from the torn jugular.

A muttered whispering starts amongst the crowd spreading back all the way to the Territorial Army stall the babbling grows in volume until a clearly irritated man clearing his throat sounds loud over the buzzing throng.

As one the group turns and stares at the source of the interruption, a visibly annoyed Detective Spay.

You take in his features for the first time.

He’s a short man, slightly paunchy wearing a baggy brown suit and an ancient bowler hat, in his left hand is a large golfing umbrella which he is holding aloft in the manner of a conductor. Confident he has everyone’s attention and waving his umbrella animatedly he begins to speak…

"Please form a queue," he says, "We must take your names and addresses in case we need to contact you later."

"Bloody where?" This from somewhere deep in the crowd.

The detective casts his eyes about for a suitable spot. They alight on a faded striped-canvas awning. His arm swings up to point the way, causing his ill-fitting coat to bunch at the shoulder.

"There. By the hot dog stand", he announces.

He dismounts his forearm from the now familiar pointing position.

The entirety of the generic Lancastrian village mope across to the hot dog stand like lambs to the slaughter, each and every one of them looking as guilty as the next. As the smell of saturated dried onions gets stronger, the heads hang lower, and what started out a old teachers/potato farmers/pedophiles reunion for all the family is rapidly taking a turn for the worse.

Detective Spay casts his eyes over the now perfectly formed line, even Dangerous Daz's mate, Rebellious Ray, conforms into line, which is now beginning to resemble that of a confession booth in Sussex.

"You" he calls, isolating Mrs. Murphy with an outstretched finger

"*CLICK* Yeeessss *CLICK*" she whimpers through her larynx simulator.

"Who are you, and where are you from" booms the voice in a BlindDate-esque manner.

"*CLICK Arrmm..Armmm *CLICK*"

As Mrs Murphy is deep in thought Detective Spay casts his gaze about for his next victim.

"I shall come to you later Marm" he adds "Now, did any of you..." he blaps while extending a digit "..see anything strange today"

"Nothing strange so far, unless you count the corpse that is", I think to myself. Other than that, it was a drearily ordinary day at the fayre. Not that the mureder was turning out to be any the less dreary than the usual goings on. Subsitute an ill-favored goat for Detective Spay and everything would be back to normal.

But this business of the corpse was, if nothing else, a change from eating ice lollies in the drizzling rain, the dismal smell of wet wool, and the forced and drunken gaiety I was innured to. I decided to have a closer look at the dead thing. I decided to sidle my way up for a closer look.

Sidling was one of my specialties. I was good at it, being of the proper age and size for really effective, unobtrusive sidling. Soon I was within closer view of the corpse where it lay on the ground, like a dropping. Two tired-looking policemen were standing about, pretending to protect it, or examine it for clues, or something policelike of that nature, but in reality just trying to keep warm. They were easy marks for an accomplished sidler. I sidled ever nearer.

The pool of blood caught my eye first. But it was like any pool of blood, clotting on the grass. Next my eyes noted the glassy stare, so much like a sheep's head in the butcher's case that I nearly laughed.
Then I noticed something that made by blood run icy cold with the strongest fear I had ever felt up to that moment, stronger even than when da slipped off his belt. I noticed that the corpse's had been flicked repeatedly by someone's finger shortly before it died.

Bugger all! EAR, it's EAR had been flicked. Repeatedly. Aw, nuts.

Its ear. Not it's ear. For the love of god. There goes my lucrative career as a proofreader. If you need me I'll be down the pub.

Fuck it. It looked OK to me. (Don't think I'm taking sides with you, you...British spy, you.)

The crowd flincched at the sudden shift in tenses, they looked around uneasily, unsure as to whether or not they were peripheral charcters in a third-person construct, or the prime players in their own private Bickerstaffe. They wonder / ed how they are / were going to get out of this one, as the tale takes / took a turn for the "difficult"

a rather simple case for one who could fully comprehend the fluffy-terror that is tennitus.

such a person there is not here this evening and a third person would tell you, as i, that an innocent will swing for this..

Trying to blank out the unfamiliar voice with its missing capitals and inability to spell tinnitus, you turn on your heel (yes, you’re ‘you’ again, mysteriously) and stumble hastily over the tussocks and churned mud towards Detective Spay, desperate to tell him about the clue you’ve spotted.

As you get near him you see he’s still pointing – at people, or objects, or possibly abstract concepts to which he has whimsically imputed a geographical position. Sometimes he points with an umbrella, sometimes with a finger, sometimes with a conductor’s baton requisitioned from the brass band, sometimes with a battery-operated object the purpose of which you are too young to understand. You don’t care.

‘Please, sir!’ you gasp.

He turns, and looks up at you impatiently.

You’re frightened, but you manage to keep talking. ‘I’ve just … seen something … I think it might … be important…’

Then you fall silent. Because you’ve realised something.

In the third instalment of this story, Detective Spay was described as ‘towering’.

But by the end of the fourth instalment he had become ‘a short man’.

And now, when he looks at you, he has to look ‘up’ – even though you are a small child.

In the course of a few minutes, Detective Spay has lost two-thirds of his height.

Why, he’s no bigger now than … your sibling.

And – if someone had an almost uncontrollable urge to flick other people’s ears – what would that person do with his or her fingers if there happened to be no ears within reach?

Your brain reels. Your flesh crawls.

But you can’t keep the answer out of your mind: they might … point.

The final strains of a naive but sibilant "Rocky" theme (stoically, the brass band has struck up again, either through panic or sheer bloody-northern-mindedness) blurs into a crescendo of unearthly, vacillating grey-white noise, from over beyond t'Skeltons' field.

All look up. Even Alderman Pusey. Spewing from the Red Arrows' ha-ha-look-at-us-we-can-get-any-girl-we-like-whoah!-watch-what-you're-doing-there-Alpha-Niner-almost-had-my-frickin-venturi-off-you-idiot-Noooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!

Group-Captain Belmer grinned stoically at the head-up display of his cockpit and sent the plane into a fearsome barrel roll before he terrified faces of the fairgoers.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world....

...a man was thinking about what might be going on the other side of the world.

Little knowing....

that somewhere else.....

perhaps half a globe away...

. . . exactly the same thing . . .

...extemporaneously...

...was being rehearsed by...

...a troupe of blind mimes...

"Ouch! watch out!" he mimed ... to his oblivious colleagues

flailing and cursing like a ballerina in a minefield . . . .

during a command performance in memory of Lady Di...

..Meanwhile, on the other side of the world......