DaDa Detective Agency Collection

Prologue-2

From the edge of the Common, Keef Bananas and his cronies looked on at the labyrinthine, though regimented, collection of murky grey lumps with not their first bewildered look of the morning. To be fair to Keef and his cronies, they were rarely up this early, six am and, were hardly ever down at the seaside, except for Keef who on occasions visited his aunt, the Duchess, in Frisian Tun.

Keef looked at the diagram Reggie Menthe had given him as part of his covert insider dealing, although the Evening News had published it a week or so ago and it was generally available to anyone not of a crony, chum, or even hideous naughty boy persuasion. Keef spun the plan in his hands. Looked this way, then that way, sideways and then decided that this, not that way, was best. ‘Oh f**k it, let’s just go and find it,’ he said, exasperated. This seemed like a plan to the cronies and it is this that marked Keef out as a leader; his ability to make decisions.

This remarkable characteristic was also on his Curriculum Vitae that the London Metropolitan Police force kept up to date for him, to save him worrying about administration. Keef was what they used to call in the olden days, a Prima-Donna villain and he had no time for paperwork. Despite Keef’s patent leadership qualities, administration was not a particular forte and rarely appeared on his radar. Interestingly, on the top of his Met CV, was a CV he had purloined when he was only seven, when just a lad in Ivver Green…

Prima-Donna

He means Hither Green in south London, but no-way was he going to be Uncle Josh, even if his aunt was a Duchess.

He means Hither Green in south London, but no-way was he going to be Uncle Josh, even if his aunt was a Duchess

… and that was when he commenced his life of crime. It was in fact, a 2CV, which is twice as good as a CV. A Citroen 2CV was a car that resembled an Anderson shelter on wheels and had the speed of my aged aunt on a bad day, having had a largely ineffective dose of Dio-calm. As a consequence of this remarkable decision of mastermind thievery and, the subsequent shortest ever known car chase in the history of the London Metropolitan Police, Keef’s CV had at the very top of the lengthy list, the remark, Not very bright. Now at twenty three years of age, and this is only my opinion, we are talking four out of ten on the intellectual scale, a bit like the weather, not at all brilliant and, coincidentally, he was a gangster with a foggy brainbox.

Not very bright‘Oi,’ a detached voice sounded from within the mist, threatening, and noticeably not intellectually challenged, more enquiring in a forceful but polite manner that is oft known in Britain as middle class assertive. ‘If you wouldn’t mind, pretty please.’

‘Shut it mush. You shouldn’t ‘ave put a f*****g tent in such a stupid position.’ Keef carried on, blindly leading his stumbling cronies in the fog, here and there, this and that way and, the first part of Keef’s master plan, stealth, went well and truly out of the window. Still, what they lacked in creeping, directional, and searching skills, they more than adequately compensated for in aggression and a remarkable grasp of the Queen’s Street English that would easily trump middle class assertive, when backed up with brute force.

.Eventually they found what they were looking for and Keef stood back before the Sherman tank and allowed himself to be bathed in shrouded crony adulation. He was good, he knew it, and this of course was frequently his downfall. That, and his harebrained ideas like, “Let’s nick a Sherman tank and shoot the bollocks off that tart Jack Austin and his missus”, both of whom, it transpired, had transgressed the unwritten law, even before you think that as a lady, Mrs Austin, would have no bollocks to be shot off.

I can tell you, as narrator, and as it was obviously not written down anywhere, the unwritten law in this instance was: “Don’t go upsetting Keef’s aunt, getting Poles in, or digging up his booty or weapons or dead bodies, or there will be f*****g trouble, comprendeh”. The law, which for the benefit of this book we can confirm, was not written, but was formulated at about the time Keef was watching a number of Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns, last week. Not that he would have anything to do with any shite Wop stuff, of course. (Wop is a technical literary term for an Italian or any such Italianate shite and, for the sake of middle class balance, shite is sometimes referred to as S H one T. See how the middle class English drop the ‘I’ and supplant it with the numeral One, and ‘E’ is dropped altogether as “shite” is Irish; foreign readers take note).

I can tell you, as narrator, and as it was obviously not written down anywhere, the unwritten law in this instance was: “Don’t go upsetting Keef’s aunt, getting Poles in, or digging up his booty or weapons or dead bodies, or there will be f*****g trouble, comprendeh”. The law, which for the benefit of this book we can confirm, was not written, but was formulated at about the time Keef was watching a number of Clint Eastwood spaghetti westerns, last week. Not that he would have anything to do with any shite Wop stuff, of course. (Wop is a technical literary term for an Italian or any such Italianate shite and, for the sake of middle class balance, shite is sometimes referred to as S H one T. See how the middle class English drop the ‘I’ and supplant it with the numeral One, and ‘E’ is dropped altogether as “shite” is Irish; foreign readers take note).

‘You got a baby then Keef?’ Brains asked.

‘What, I don’t got no baby, what made you say that?’

‘You done said someone half inched (pinched – stole) yer booties.’

pinched – stole

As narrator I can inform you that it was last week, Wednesday, that Keef mentioned he needed to collect some weaponry and cash from their hidden booty. Now you may begin to comprehend how long it takes for Brains to process information and, why he held the record for the longest interview by the police that involved only two words. I am reliably informed that the two words were “f**k off”. Ordinarily a solicitor would suggest using the words “No Comment” but Brains had just told his solicitor to f**k off, and he had.

As narrator I can inform you that it was last week, Wednesday, that Keef mentioned he needed to collect some weaponry and cash from their hidden booty. Now you may begin to comprehend how long it takes for Brains to process information and, why he held the record for the longest interview by the police that involved only two words. I am reliably informed that the two words were “f**k off”. Ordinarily a solicitor would suggest using the words “No Comment” but Brains had just told his solicitor to f**k off, and he had.

Keef flicked his fingers several times and eventually they clicked. ‘Shitlegs… the keys.’ Keef had moved on and held his hand out, (he’d finished flicking) whilst looking around generally, but in particular up to the turret and the flank of the tank, wondering where the door was.

Shitlegs patted his pockets, but he already knew, he didn’t don’t ‘ave no keys to no tank.

I believe this was how Mr Shitlegs expressed it in his thinking.

I believe this was how Mr Shitlegs expressed it in his thinking‘Maybe you don’t need no keys?’ Brains said by way of amelioration.

‘Brains, der, of course you need bloody keys.’ Keef replied, waving his arms expansively in the fog, to encompass all of the Banana cronies into his theory, such as it was.

Brains was the intellectual one of the cronies, he had half a GCSE in technical drawing, the actual part he had failed, some would argue the more practically necessary half, was in arse scratching and, he had a Library card. Well, you get the drift? Brains did contemplate asking if he could work with Reggie Menthe in the council, by way of a leg up, so to speak, to better himself, but Reggie, who also hailed from Ivver Green was having none of it. He blamed that bloody Sugar lump of a trouble and strife (wife) of his likely as not, Brains thought, wondering if he should send a saucy postcard home to his mum to let her know he was at the seaside. Then he remembered he was actually on the run from the law; that was close. The Banana Boys were, as previously pointed out, on the lamb, because they’d been baaa’d.

that was close‘Who are you and what do you want with my tank?’ Another polite, but assertively middle class voice from deep in the mist, distant, detached, and slightly effeminate, just the hint of a certain desperation for a trip to the toilet.

Keef turned to a man advancing out of the fog. He was a goofy middle-aged, middle-class, comfortably well off man in Michael Caine, toffee nose t**t glasses and pink corduroy trousers. A vision of comfortably well "orf i***t, emerging from the mist. The man had not changed into his American, Dad’s Army uniform yet, probably would do that after he had been to relieve himself, which would likely happen quite soon and directly into his pink trousers, shortly after the Banana Boys had relieved him of his tank.

I’m only guessing, but it is a reasonable assumption I feel.

I’m only guessing, but it is a reasonable assumption I feel.‘This your tank?’

‘Yes.’

‘Well, give us the f*****g keys.’

‘It don’t need no keys,’ the man said, with a vacant expression, seeming to examine grammatically what he had just said, but mostly the manner in which he had said it. He clearly felt uncomfortable and at this stage I would ordinarily recommend Dio-calm, it almost did the trick for my Aunt Delores who was at the time running down her stolen 2CV.

Dio-calm‘It don’t? Well bugger off then,’ and Keef nudged the chap in the now soiled pink corduroys and the current representative of middle class England went flying backwards and bumped his head on Shitlegs fist, whereupon, he settled down for a bit of a lie-in, except that was the German plan for the invasion of England, of course. Keef pointed out this very fact, irrelevantly, to the comatose, soon to become, former tank owner and, he and his chums, sorry cronies, were only interested in Der Day stuff, what was Gaylord.

‘Right then, where’s the door?’ Keef asked.

Brains tugged at his partial GCSE, in other words he scratched his bum in an intellectually ponderous manner as became his status as Brainiac Banana, and suggested they had to go in through the lid at the top. Keef clipped him around the ear.

Blimey, who’d be a baddy? Apart from you get to wear black hats.

Blimey, who’d be a baddy? Apart from you get to wear black hats‘What was that for?’

‘For being a bozo. Now, find the door.’

Brains clambered up onto the top of the tank and opened the lid, pointed and said, ‘This is the way in.’ He was clearly disgruntled.

Unfortunately, Keef and his cronies had quite poor inter-personal skills and were not, in the main, particularly brainy at reading and interpreting the manner and mode of inflection in a person’s speech.