Summary of characters: 

Porter is a police inspector starting investigating himself, but not voluntarily ... 

Klaus Budde, 49, lives currently in Spain, trying to survive as an IT contractor. The industry is not really screaming for 49 old grumpy old men - so he reverts to writing from time to time.

LATE AFTERNOON 5:30 PM, SOUTHAMPTON HEDGE END, SAINSBURY SUPERMARKET.

Porter was out shopping when he spotted this battleship cruising around the car park. A big white Cadillac. Porter was impressed. His British envy - the one wrapped in screaming kindness - started punching little holes into his forehead. Who on earth is driving in it? Ordinary law abiding citizens? Of course not! Must be some scumbag of pimp, a bank robber, showing off his wrongful acquired riches in public. How stupid. Porter rubbed his shortsighted eyes. No, this was a woman carefully maneuvering into a marked space. She was blonde. Right, criminals preferred blondes. Porter smiled. She couldn't get out. This country isn't made for Cadillac's, darling. While the blonde to Porter's disappointment managed herself to squeeze into the open, he jotted down the car's registration number. A police officer never is off duty. He new he was heading for a case: A white Cadillac, white leather seats? A blonde with a white fur coat? Cocaine would be the matching crime! Porters mind started racing mad imagining hot pursuits and daring shoot outs when he bumped into the security guard at the entrance of the supermarket. Sorry, he muttered, punishment for daydreams, and hurried behind the vegetables. He new the security guard would follow him secretly. They always suspected him of shoplifting.

However, Porter had other things to worry about. Beef! This very morning he had made a dramatic decision. No more beef. Porter was to become a veggie. Until now he hadn't wasted a thought about Vegetarians. Maybe MI5 had, because they didn’t like anybody or anything being different. Anyway matters had become quite complicated. Something was going on - and nothing a police officer could do much about. The something had even a name: Bovine Spongiform Encephalopathy. Maybe he could arrest the Minister of Agriculture. All these cows were dying. Soon people would too and Mc Donald's would have to acquire a chain of undertakers.

Apart from the suspicious eyes of MI5 it wasn’t safe to endeavor the path of vegetarians either. Vegetables were contaminated with DDT and Dioxins and affecting sperm counts. Yes sperm counts. Your kids could end up with a bunch of missing chromosomes and your only consolation would be that the community of disabled people was growing. So what! Kids or veggies?

Porter had to decide where to start. He sailed around the vegetable department until he got hungry. He didn't know what to choose. A nice steak would do. Don't be silly; he said to the security guard who came strolling round the corner, a man's decision is a man's decision! The security guard looked embarrassed. Porter was tempted to make him pick his carrots. Instead he turned around and grabbed a couple of items he later found out were broccoli, zucchini and cherry tomatoes. He already felt sick. A man's decision - what a nonsense.

Leaving the supermarket he noticed the Cadillac again. There his case was going to disappear. Quickly he jumped into the car and followed Blondie in her white monster. Truly he had no reason for this. It was more the 'avoiding dinner pursuit'. It started raining and he closed up.

So far, so good. You hardly can oversee a Cadillac. Porter imagined buying one himself. No way. They would examine his overdrawn accounts and the cherry tomatoes for hints. They would suspend him with full pay. The questioning of his neighbors would unveil that he occasional did urinate in his garden and that his cars engine leaked enough oil to get prospectors interested. The press would sneak in and discover the woman's dress in his wardrobe. Innocently, when he had bought the house fifteen years ago it had been hanging there. Who would believe him? POLICE INSPECTORS AMBITION TO BECOME A DRAG QUEEN would make a nice headline.

Suddenly the Cadillac stopped. Why did noble cars never attract noble people, why only scum bags and blondes? The blonde now came rushing towards Porter.
You are not following me, Sir, are you?
No darling, Porter said in return, only admiring your transport. Nice car indeed. The blonde waived her mobile phone.
I'll call the cops if you keep following me. You'll be prosecuted for harassment, even sexual harassment I would say. Porter showed his badge in return. And you might be prosecuted for assaulting a police officer with a mobile phone. Can I have your name please?
Pergola Dumpster, said the blonde smiling.
Porter went silent in surprise. Pergola Dumpster? He repeated stupidly. The blonde nodded: Pergola Dumpster, write it down in to your bloody notebook.

Porter made his excuses and retreated. His career as a Vegetarian didn't start too well. Vegetarian Constable Inspectors never mess around with darling daughters of Chief Constables.

Porter’s eyes tried to pierce through the ever-stronger growing rain. He sighed. What is the punishment for chasing big white Cadillac's? A vegetable dinner.

NEXT MORNING, POPTTERS HOME, 19 SOMERSET AVENUE. 7:45 am.

Porter woke up. He opened his eyes. Sunshine invaded the room. He stared at the ceiling trying to remember this vegetable dream. Carrots. Something with carrots. He'd been in court. He was told to identify a culprit. But he could not see anything but carrots. You'll be carroted for life he had heard an angry Judge screaming.

Now he was awake and the sunshine busted into the room. Porter tried to forget the dream but then he remembered the dinner he'd fabricated last night. What a brave thing to do. Veggies for dinner. Exclusively, solely, only entirely veggies! He had - somehow - enjoyed it. Especially the cherry tomatoes when they exploded in the microwave.

And now he would have to face cereals. Another challenge! He lit a fag. Give up steaks, give up ham & eggs, give up smoking. Why not stop living altogether. He should dig a big hole in the garden and bury the cereals in it. The 300 page vegetarian life guide as well -(even though it came from the library). The book said that eating good stuff, meaning vegetables, would not only prolong life, but also shift your mind to the better. Could there be a better mind as the one of a police officer? All Porter new was that Pergola Dumpster already had shifted his mind. She was nice and cute and sharp and - give me a break a voice said, stop thinking about Pergola Dumpster, you silly butt. She'll never ever fancy a big fat red faced cop like you, would she?

Porter got up and struggled down to the kitchen. He opened the fridge. Two eggs and a rather dry slice of bacon smiled at him. Better a dry smile from a bacon than a dreamed kiss from an untouchable blonde.

The phone made a noise. Porter picked it up, Pergola, he asked? The boss shouted angry words at him: I've got to report you for being constantly late if you choose to further arriving constantly late.
Come on, Porter replied, I haven't had my cereals yet.
Then you better have them while driving. We've got a murder case. The boss continued shouting. I'll see you right away. The Chief Constable is not a happy man today. Then he rang off.
But I'll be splashing my milk, Porter said into the dead phone. Carefully he put it back onto the receiver. The boss could be dreadful at times.

Porter was always late of course. It was his privilege grown solid in many years and the casual attempts of the boss to change this did no god to anybody. A murder case, well, that was different. Porter hurried to cramp himself behind the steering wheel. Dammed! He climbed out again. He had forgotten to put the stove out, the answer phone on, the empty milk bottles out and to brush his teeth. Pergola Dumpster wouldn't fancy him in a million light years if he kept forgetting to brush his teeth...

BITTERNE ROAD 8:55 AM, STILL SAME DAY.

Porter’s office was only two miles away but he almost needed an hour to get there. One of mankind's deepest mysteries is rush hour. Bitterne Road was packed solid. You could step outside and have a coffee with one of the poor chaps whose dwellings happened to be next to the road. Yes, and Porter would have another reason for not coming early. The next reason was his car's overheating engine. It simply didn't like jams. There he was now and had no other entertainment than his cluttering radiator. Even a magnetic flashlight wouldn't have helped. But he hadn't one. Every police inspector in the rest of the universe owned one, nicely stored away in the glove compartment. They could hurl it out on the roof and drive like maniacs. Porter would have loved to drive like a maniac, especially at rush hour. He could use all pavements, greens and pedestrian tunnels and scream at everyone in his way. He knew it; in his heart he was a punk. But he couldn't be one, because Police Headquarters refused to buy magnetic flashlights. Budgets cuts. Instead they had invested millions into an IBM mainframe. The IBM mainframe was supposed to match fingerprints. When they switched it on they discovered that it could do a trillion calculations in a second, but it was unable to match fingerprints. The ever so friendly suits from IBM gave hastily assurances: only an unexpected very minor bug - and promised to fix it. Headquarters would have had rather unexpectedly their bugs back - which of course they couldn't. Someone had cashed in a huge commission and evaporated to Brazil. Or was it Colombia? However, the dooming consequence was that Porter couldn't have a flashlight that led to the unavoidable fact that he always would be inexcusable late.

The radiator's noises urged Porter to shut the engine down, but the overheated engine wouldn't start again. So, his only consolation was the murder case. Someone was dead, really dead - great! The last eight months Porter had chased car thieves of the age of six or seven. They had overrun a couple of pedestrians and some of them had died in the consequence. You could argue about weather this were murder cases. The boy’s excuse was that they couldn't look over the bonnet. Manufacturers liability! The parents screamed. The kids screamed too. They wanted to go home and due to the lack of proper legislation they indeed were given back to their parents. Then they continued to nick cars and knock everything over in their way. Porter picked them up, waived his forefinger at them and he knew, this circus would continue until they eventually would have reached the not less tender age of fourteen. Then they would be dumped into so called SIPYO's, Secure Institutions for Persistent Young Offenders, in other words, they finally would be jailed, yap! But now six and seven year old did what fourteen years old had done before. Porter didn't know an answer to this - maybe it should be made a legal requirement to register pregnancies with the next police station.

What if BSE had infected the human brain already decades ago and then we had passed it on to cattle? Kids had become abductors, murderers, rapists and bank robbers. Porter seriously hoped the time of cloning would arrive rather sooner than later. We simply could outclone crime than and police inspectors could ask for more holidays.

POLICE HEADQUARTERS, SOUTHAMPTON, ABOVE BAR, 10:30AM.

All parking lots except the ones marked: 'Vegetable Inspector Carrot Mc Hampton', or so - had parking meters erected on front of them - as if to symbolize memorials to a fading male superiority. Porter’s favorite parking lot was occupied. He circled round until he could dash into an empty space. His agreement with Billy the traffic warden would save him from further troubles. For a couple of pints at the nearby Alexandra Billy would feed the parking meter or stuff his ticket book. This worked fine. As time progressed, unfortunately, Billy had become more and more thirsty. The summer had been very hot and Billy started to complain about a sore throat. The cure apparently was a scotch here and there to compensate for all the dust Billy had to swallow. Additionally, all this walking made him hungry and the Alexandra served a wonderful chili con carne. Billy liked chili con carne, the bucket loads. Now Porters convenient parking had become a liability. Something had to be done. With a helpless 'Oomph' he got out of the car and fled into headquarters when he spotted Billy duck walking in a distance. He scratched a tick mark into his memory 'Kill Billy'. Something had to be done very soon indeed before Billy would start asking for roller skates.

Thank you, Porter said to the elevator, when they reached 10th floor. He was grateful the old thing still did its duty. One day it would stop working and probably kill someone (preferably Billy) and Porter thought, if he treated the elevator with a bit of respect, he wouldn't be the someone to be killed. Then he entered the office where he found his boss closely bent over some paper work. The boss didn't say a word. All his concentration was focused on a bunch of tiny documents. When Porter reached the desk the documents turned out to be scratch cards. The boss hoped to win 50.000 pounds and Porter hoped he would, because then the boss had promised to retire and hopefully then - Porter would be the boss.

Any luck? Porter asked.
The boss shook his head and continued scratching.
What's about the murder case then?
Murder case? The boss tried to remember - ah! Well, there isn't any. I only wanted you to show up. He consulted his watch. You gained 20 minutes. That's not good enough. We certainly have to improve on that.

PERGOLA DUMPSTERS HOME; HUNTINGTON AVE; CHANDLERS FORD.8: 30 PM.
Pergola stopped the Cadillac on the drive way in front of her home with a demonstrative squeak. The big car rocked for a moment like a cradle with a baby in it. She gave the attached garage a dismissive look while she trotted around the back of the Cadillac. The garage obviously has been build for Minis, Cortinas and Reliants. Cadillac's were beyond any British garage builder's imagination. She got out of the car and entered the house throwing handbag, car keys and the white fur coat in any direction. Then she sunk herself in one of the white leather sofas. Pergola loved white. White was the color of the innocent. Maybe because she wasn't. She grabbed the white telephone and dialed a number.
It's me she yodeled.
What's up? A quarrelsome male voice answered.
She told him the encounter she'd had with Porter.
Hmm, the voice said.
Does this mean anything? She asked.
Don't know, the voice said. We'd better get rid of the Caddy.
No, Pergola protested. It's my darling. She thumped her feet on the white carpet.
The voice new he had to skid the cow off the ice now.
I'll buy you another fur.
Don't be silly, Pergola said. The Caddy or nothing. Now we got the attention makes it even more suspicious, if we dump it.
Well, the voice said. But don't bump into any more constable inspectors.
I've got an idea.
You've got an idea? The voice said in disbelief.
What if I indeed bumped into Porter? Get some information. Is he hanging out somewhere?
The voice went silent for a moment. Could be dangerous, he said.
Could be fun, Pergola prompted.
Ok, give it a shot, the voice said resigned. He knew he couldn't stop her. Try the Alexandra.
You are a darling, Pergola yodeled.
Yes, yes, the voice answered and rang off.
Pergola went into the white kitchen in order to feed her white Angora.
Hi pus, she said. These guys always think I'm a bimbo.
Miao, said the cat.
No, I'm not. And now I'm going to stir things up. Big fun, I guess. The Blonde and the Beast. He probably hasn't seen a girl for decades! She laughed. He will be mine in seconds and then he'll spill the beans and make us rich.
She continued to explain a detailed plan to the cat, which jumped on her food and listened to her mistress at the same time. You know, all cats are multitasking. The detailed plan so far contained nothing more as how to prepare female parts to the extend that they could make male eyes pop out. The cat stopped eating and turned her head: Careful, you're dealing with a police inspector. They are trained to smell a rat from a mile or so. I only smell rats from 2 yards away or nearly two yards. Not bad for an old degenerated pussy, isn’t it?

Pergola only understood "miao". Hey, don't you like your food, silly cat? It's the most expensive one I could get hold of. The cat sat down and licked her paws. Nice food indeed, she said. Maybe you invite this inspector of yours for dinner, which might work better than some extracted nipples. Pergola sight, these cats are so ignorant today. A 3-pound cat dinner and she only eat half of it.

If both of them had only known better the contents of the nice colored printed tin, they wouldn't have touched it. The huge cull of BSE infected cattle had given the animal food producers some good profit margins. Of course the carcasses should have been burned but the incinerators couldn't cope. How delighted the managers of the incinerators were when some discrete gentlemen helped them confronting the tidal wave of dead cow bodies they were now drowning in. Well, some smart journalists wondered about the efficiency of some small incinerators and speculated that maybe the dead meat was exported to Africa - giving some smart managers of small incinerators additional ideas - but after some head scratching they said: "Well, we are doing night shifts. It's our national duty, isn't it?" The smart journalists couldn't argue about that. The headlines next morning therefore changed to: "Millions of dead cows are polluting the clear British skies!" With that the manager of small incinerators could live. The producers of effective air filters had their say now and affordable advertising the same time. Nobody raised the question though why air filters in cigarettes didn't reduce any cancer rates. Where air filters in incinerators better? Did they really reduce any bad stuff? Probably they did, but the remaining particles probably killed as good as the filtered ones.

If Pergola and her Angora only had known, the story might have been different but the price of colored printed cat food tins as well.
Pergola added some ice and some more Martini to her jar and went outside into the garden. She landed her nice bottom on a white plastic garden chair and put her feet on a white plastic table. The cat followed her and jumped on her laps. Pergola offered her some Martini, but the cat declined politely. Both looked over a small piece of loan that was square, simple and easy to maintain. A barbecue grill was standing in a corner unused for years. The people who had occupied the house before had left it from the people who had occupied it before them and probably it had already stood there before the house existed. Some charcoal, bathing in rainwater, made an unsuccessful plea for immediate ignition and Pergola wanted to through it away. But then, somebody might come for barbecue one day. Pergola thought about the conversation she had with Fred, her boy friend. He was tall and blonde, handsome and kind of rich. Pergola liked his expensive toys. The source of his riches was a little bit frightening though. It had been hard work to extract some information from him, but eventually he admitted that there wasn't a rich uncle at all. Instead Fred kept bad company. Some of these guys looked quite smart and decent. They had businessmen like acumen – maybe a too strong one, and when one of them accidentally dropped a nine-millimeter wahteveritwas gun, it became evident even for Pergola, that Fred was dealing with something slightly more sinister than a rich uncle. It took a while until she could come to terms with the fact that she as the daughter of a chief constable inspector was part of the Southampton drug cartel. She was thrilled while Fred tried to play everything down. No, he wasn't dealing with drugs, no way, he only provided a service and then it dropped like ripe tomatoes from Pergola’s eyes. The sound studio Fred was working for! Pergola found out he owned it and further down some months when she bumped into the office she found Fred chatting with a sympathetic tax inspector. The tax inspector padded Fred's shoulder. Don't be worried about us young friend, with a quarter of a million in the red we wouldn't bother you for the foreseeable time. Anyway, you must have extremely patient investors. Do they ever expect a return? Fred tried to look depressed. I'll manage, he said to the departing tax inspector and when he was gone he burst into uncontrollable laughter.

UNSUCSESSFUL HUNT IN HAREFIELD SHRUBBS.

Kevin stumbled through the undergrowth. Not far behind him he could hear the gang in hot pursuit. They shouted angry words at him. Seemingly they had lost him. Stupid fags. They were better trained and on a plain street they would have caught him in no time. Harefield Shrubs was different. It wasn't really a wood; it wasn't a park, maybe a sort of city planners don't know. Big oak trees mixed with hedges and all sorts of shrubs, water pools and secret garbage dumps. An ideal place for hiding or holding out a nuclear war.

Exhausted Kevin flung himself into an earth hole. Being the only fat boy in your class makes you easy prey for would be bullies. But the guys behind him were not would be bullies. They were professionals. If you had the misfortune of bumping into them you paid road tax. If you owned a successful business like Kevin did with his hamster breeding, you paid income tax. You had to be three foot taller and ten years older than Mickey, their leader, or being able to demonstrate pretty nice martial arts to escape them. You're exempted they would say to anybody beyond their reach and turn around. In Kevin's case it meant choosing between his savings and hospitalization. Now he'd picked a third option: running. As he stared through the treetops he could hear his pursuers furiously trampling around.

Hello, Fatty", Mickey screamed, "Show up or we kick your ass in". Silence. "You can't hide for ever, can you?" Silence. "You know, when we catch up with you, you'll regret this!" Silence. For a while Mickey continued making exotic suggestions, then he gave up, calling his lads and then they were gone.

Kevin remained flat in his earth hole for another hour. This wasn't an easy exercise at all. He imagined life in the army could be like this. Kevin wished he could feed his hamsters with a magic potion. They would inflate a hundred times and finish off Mickey and his gang. Mickey was 2 years older than Kevin and very tall. You could take him for a 15 or 16 -year old. Kevin had a bit more horizontal volume though and could use his weight to run Mickey down but that wouldn't help much. The deputies Pete and Ray would instantly jump on him. They were real Karate Kids and never took prisoners. Mickey rarely involved himself in a fight. He was a pampered mothers darling and without his deputies he would be lost. If only something could be done. Kevin remembered poor Leslie who was found hanging in the loft last year. It was thought he couldn't cope with the pressure of the curriculum test. Kevin was tempted to tell his parents then. But instead he went straight to Mickey’s desk and called him a murderer. His bravery had cost him a broken arm and a doubled tax and his second desertion now asked for real action or else. Yes, what else? This earth hole wasn't so bad after all. He could build a roof of leaves on top of it and live from beetles and wild berries and would slim down the same time. The first rain would change it into a swimming pool though. What else then? Maybe he could involve this neighbor of his, Mr. Porter, some kind of cop. It wasn't very honorable to resort to parents and teachers and it was a deadly sin to go to the cops. But Kevin just couldn't think of anything else. Finally Kevin struggled out of the earth hole. The kids would look at him as a traitor of course. Better a traitor than hanging down from the top of a loft or paying for other kids video games. Anyway, he felt hungry? Kevin looked down at him. His mother would clap her hands bang over her head and scream: Do you know, what a new school uniform costs? Yes he knew, five and a half hamsters.

PORTERS HOME, SOME OTHER DAY IN THE MORNING.

Porter looked at this wardrobe with nothing hanging in it but a woman's dress. The people who had occupied the house before had left it from the people who had occupied it before them and probably it had already hanging there before the house existed. Porter imagined the builders looking up to a dress hanging in the middle of the air scratching their heads. They called for the architect who thought he was the victim of a prank. Who was this, he shouted, ready for the dreading words: you are sacked! The builders swore by the Queens beard it had been hanging there, apparently with nothing to hang on. It was a complete mystery. The architect looked at the plans. It was exactly hanging near the outer wall of the upper bedroom. Ignore it, he said to the builders. The commissioner of Hampshire County Council who ordered this housing estate would stop the next payment and order an investigation if there was any delay. A woman's dress wouldn't be a very good excuse. So they built the house around the dress and kept their mouths shut. Porter liked his home and if it were only for the mysterious dress. It was old, built in the fifties to a council home quality standard that never existed. It had rusty iron framed windows but he called them my French air conditioning. The secluded garden hadn't been maintained since - you're right - the time of Richard III where they just had started to import modern words from France, like "jardin". When they finally managed to translate it, it was 1950 and still - was believed to be a peace of grass and called loan. Porter’s loan was growing wild and looked like the Serengeti after a rainfall. Three apple trees in it meant that the house had three owners from new and Porter was the fourth - but he wasn't in the business of planting trees. From his kitchen, which looked out to the front garden, Porter could see the nearby Housing Estate, called Little Manhattan. It represented a continued threat to the quiet Somerset Avenue with its neat single houses and its suburban peace. The time where people used to leave their front doors open had been gone for good but the Somerset Estate still had a glow of it. People were trusting and if you passed by you got invited for whatever just bubbled on the stove. Some, like old Crimsby, paid that old-fashioned attitude with his life. Some kid from the other side of Somerset Avenue had bashed his head in with a frying pan. All he could steal then were 5 pounds that were subsequently invested in sweets.