to you—“Dungeons and Dragons at some point?”
“That’s useful to know.”
“It’s old news!” The queue moves forward in lockstep again as Eddie from Phone Support gets into place with a cup holder for the black gang downstairs.
“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to sound patronizing, I really meant it may be useful—are you on the facial Chris called?”
You nod.
“Good, I thought so. Look, all I know is that it has something to do with the Tiger Investments account. Chris said to be on the lookout for gamers because we’ll need them, God only knows why. Come to think of it, maybe that’s why your name came up.”
“Looking for gamers?”
The queue ratchets forward again, bringing her to the front. She smiles patronizingly. “Look, terribly sorry, must fly. See you in half an hour?”
You force a brittle smile in return. You’ve got a feeling you’re going to need that caffeine.
JACK: Revenge of the Mummy Lobe
You have been in police cells precisely twice in your life—there was that total disaster when you were fifteen, then going back even earlier there was that time when you were a wee thing and Gav and Nick got you to moon the Lord Mayor when he was up for opening the new drop-in centre. Gav and Nick could run faster than you, which is why—you now realize, with perfect twenty/twenty hindsight—they suckered you in. Both times you were too young to really figure out how bad the situation was. It’s somewhat less obvious to you how you ended up being booked into an Amsterdam cop shop at zero dark o’clock last night, largely because you were too addled on skunk and strong Continental beer to know which way was up—but by morning you have made up your mind that despite their laid-back reputation, Dutch police cells are no more fun than English ones. Especially with a hang-over.
If you hadn’t been arrested, you’d have ended up spending Friday and Saturday nights in a cramped room at the Bulldog—a hosteller’s inn notorious for its remarkably low prices and dubious furnishings. Instead, you spend the night in a cell with a foam mattress, a light bulb, and a stainless steel sink-and-toilet combination by way of furniture. It’s actually bigger than the room at the Bulldog, and the stains on the mattress are probably not much worse, but there’s no soap, no Internet, and no munchies to distract you from obsessively worrying about your miserable fate. Because, you know, you’re doomed. This is the second time you’ve been arrested in your entire life, and your stress levels are so high that were a bunch of black-robed inquisitors to file chanting into your cell and lead you down a stony tunnel lined with manacled skeletons to a cavern furnished with an electric chair, it would come as a relief. You don’t have a clue what to expect, so when the door rattles and opens, you nearly jump out of your skin.
“Mr. Reed. Please come with me.” It’s a different cop, built like a rugby jock, and looking extremely bored.
“Um, where?”
You must look confused, because he speaks very slowly and loudly, as if to a half-witted foreigner: “Step out of the cell and proceed to the end of the corridor, until I tell you to stop.”
“But my—” You glance down at your feet, then shrug. They took your shoes, your belt, your jacket, and your mobie, then made you sign a form: And now some rules-obsessed part of your hindbrain is yammering up a fuss about going out without your shoes on. It’s probably the same lobe of your brain that makes sure your fly’s zipped up and your nose wiped—the mummy lobe. “Okay.” You force yourself to take a slippery sock-footed step forward, then another. Your head throbs in time to your heartbeat, and your mouth tastes of dead rodents. Now you notice it, the mummy lobe is nattering at you about brushing your teeth…
There’s an office room with a desk in it, and a Politie sergeant, and a bunch of indiscreet cameras in luminous yellow enclosures labelled EVIDENCE in English and Dutch. (They must get a lot of tourists here.) Not to mention a shoe-box containing your mobile, your jacket, your belt, and your shoes. “Mr. Reed. Please sit down.”
You sit.
“Did you, on the evening of the twentieth, throw any items at the window of the antique shop at 308 Prinsengracht?”
You frown, trying to remember. The mummy lobe is about to say “I don’t think so, but I might be wrong” but you catch it in time, and what comes out is a strangled “No!”
The cop nods to himself and makes a note on his tablet. “Did you take the armchair that the owners of 306 Prinsengracht had placed by the side of the road for a municipal waste pick-up and move it so that it was outside the antique shop at 308 Prinsengracht?”
That’s an easier one. You don’t remember anything about the armchair before you woke up in it. “No.”
Another squiggle on the tablet. The cop frowns. “Do you remember anything about last night? Anything at all?”
At this point the mummy lobe makes a bid for freedom and control over your larynx, and instead of saying “Where’s my lawyer?” you hear yourself saying, “No, not until I woke up in that chair. I was in the Arendsnest earlier in the evening and we had a bit to drink, then we moved on, and things got vague. Then I woke up chained to the street sign.”
“When you say ‘we,’ who were you drinking with?”
“I was with Mitch and Budgie. Tom couldn’t make it, he was on paternity leave—”
“Alright.” The cop makes another mark on his tablet, then pushes it aside and gives you a Look. You quail: Your balls try to climb into your throat. “Mr. Reed. You appear to have been the victim of a prank that got out of hand. Your DNA was not found on the stone that broke the shop window, or on the window itself, and camera footage shows three other persons carrying you and the chair before handcuffing you to the street furniture. So you are not suspected of vandalism or theft. However, let me be clear with you: That level of drunkenness is a public order offence, and I believe we have sufficient evidence to obtain a conviction. Because it’s a minor charge and you are a non-resident EU citizen, if you agree to plead guilty to
That’s pretty harsh for the Amsterdam Politie, but you’d heard they were having a crack-down: just your bad luck to be caught in it. “What are the consequences if I plead guilty?” you ask.
“As this is an administrative offence, there will be no subsequent proceedings or criminal record if you agree to the fine.” He looks bored. “It’s your decision.”
The offer, it’s a no-brainer. Pay 250 and that’s the end of it—it’s not as if they’re going to put you on a sex offender’s register or send you to prison or something. The alternative is to face the uncharted waters of finding a lawyer and going to court, where they’ll probably find you guilty as charged and send the black-robed chanting inquisitors to lead you down a stony tunnel lined with manacled skeletons to a cavern furnished with an electric chair, just for wasting their time. “And face it,” the mummy lobe reminds you, “you
You nod, then wince as your forehead reminds you about the hangover. “Do you take PayPal?”
“Of course.” The cop gestures at the box on the table. “You will receive an email with instructions for pleading guilty.” He pauses. “You should remember that failing to plead by email and not attending a court session are much more serious offences than public drunkenness, and the Scottish police will prosecute you on our
