And now here he was, back in the morning of that second dayonce again, complete with hangover just as he had been before. But this time heknew what was coming.
Friday the 13th had lived up to its reputation for him thefirst time round. In Universe 2.0 it would be Gideon Summerfield’s turn to bethe unlucky recipient of a horror show.
Things would doubtless play out exactly as they had beforebut with one notable change. This time, Kent’s responses to everything would bedifferent. He had nothing to fear and he was not going to be intimidated. Asfor his pièce de résistance, he wasn’t quite sure if he was going to be able topull it off, but he was going to give it a damned good try.
“He can shove it up his arse,” said Kent out loud as hewiped his mouth after brushing his teeth. What an overused expression that was.He must have heard dozens of variants of it over the years from hundreds ofpeople. His early attempts to learn the guitar had created such a hideousracket that he remembered his father threatening to “stick that guitar wherethe sun doesn’t shine” if he didn’t stop playing it one Sunday morning.
It was an empty, lazy expression. To Kent’s knowledge, no onehad ever inserted any sort of object into anyone else’s arse, at least not inanger. In most cases it would be completely impractical anyway. He was prettysure that even the most well-utilised porn stars’ anuses would not be able to accommodatea full-sized guitar.
He was aware of the existence of certain toys designedpurely for that purpose, but that was a different matter. People did that sortof thing for pleasure, not that it was an area that Kent had any experience of.On the one occasion he had suggested exploring that side of things with Debs,it had been made crystal-clear that not only were such practices off the menu, butalso they were never to be mentioned again.
But today Kent was to strike a blow for all those millionsof people who had ever uttered their empty threats to shove something up someoneelse’s rear end. Today, it was really going to happen. It wasn’t going to beeasy, but he had the element of surprise on his side.
Dressed and ready for action, Kent headed over to the cabinwhere he had eaten the previous night. He had gone back over the details of theday with a fine-tooth comb and was ready for everything Summerfield had tothrow at him.
Kent remembered that it had seemed as if the man had had apersonality transplant overnight. The easygoing, jovial persona of the nightbefore had been replaced by a cold, austere and disapproving stance.
The criticism had started right from the moment Kent hadwalked into the breakfast hall. Arriving there now, he was all ready for hisfirst encounter with Summerfield. He was really going to enjoy this.
Hung-over as he was, he was all ready to load up on the breakfastbuffet. The training centre was heavily into healthy eating, with whole andnatural foods dominating the selection. The walls were adorned with posters, proudlyproclaiming the organic and free-range nature of all the food. Thankfully,despite all this rabbit food, Kent had been extremely relieved to see that therewas also a hot buffet.
Kent couldn’t give a toss about whether his eggs were free-rangeor not, he just wanted a fry-up, washed down with plenty of coffee and orangejuice. He remembered from his first visit that the sausages and bacon were excellent,from hand-reared pigs on a nearby farm, and made a beeline straight for them.
He piled his plate high, forming a pyramid of pork products alongsidehis fried eggs and baked beans. There wasn’t any black pudding but he hadn’tbeen expecting any. Kent had noticed over the years that the likelihood of blackpudding appearing on a breakfast buffet decreased the further south he was inthe country.
Next he headed to the juice machine. Ignoring the locallyproduced organic smoothies on offer, he grabbed one of the ridiculously smallglasses and stuck it under the tap of the juice dispenser.
The glasses were barely more than thimbles so he stoodthere, filled it up and downed it about four times, before moving on to thetoast machine.
There was a selection of breads on offer but it didn’t includeany white bread. Reluctantly, he picked up two slices of wholemeal, whichseemed to be the only sort which didn’t have seeds or bits in it. He put themonto the conveyor belt and watched them disappear slowly inside the machine,hoping that they would not emerge either anaemic or burnt. Kent had not had alot of luck with these machines over the years, even setting off a fire alarmon one occasion.
It was at this point that Summerfield approached him, justas he had before. The commissioner was dressed immaculately, with no sign ofany ill effects from the previous night’s drinking. His appearance was in sharpcontrast to Kent who was looking scruffy and unshaven.
Summerfield was wearing his trademark red and white stripedshirt with a thin yellow tie and a light grey suit. His hair was immaculatelyswept back, moulded together by what looked like about half a jar of gel. Thelook was completed as ever by his red-rimmed designer glasses. He clearly spenta lot of time and money on his appearance.
He was carrying a tray on which he had a glass of fruitsmoothie and two bowls. One of these contained some sort of muesli which lookedto Kent as if it had just been gathered up from the forest floor. The secondbowl was filled with a mix of fruits, topped with organic yogurt.
Summerfield looked disapprovingly down at the mountain ofdead pig on Kent’s plate.
“You know, one of the key things that’s needed in the modernpolice force is fit and healthy officers,” he began, as he picked up two slicesof organic multigrain bread and put them into the toaster. “Do you really thinkthat’s the sort of food that’s going to help you keep in shape?”
As he spoke,
