Junk Mail

Chapter Twenty Five - The End

"That's probably Andrew Davis's car," Ben said to the officers. "And it looks like it's crashed into a tree so you've just lost him again. I'd like to see what the newspapers have to say about the police department when I tell them about you tomorrow."

Ben hoped that Pepe el was okay. He had tried calling his friend but had received no answer and then the police had kept holding him back every time he'd tried to run to his car. Ben was quite annoyed with the police force. The officers he'd had the displeasure of meeting couldn't be trusted with someone's life, and Ben wondered how they'd gotten to be in the police force in the first place.

"This is a private investigation," one of the police officers said nervously. "The public and media can't know about it at this moment, so you can't go and tell anyone and everyone what happened today."

Ben sighed as they walked towards Davis's car. Ben was worried about Pepe el, and the police were worried about saving face. He wondered where Pepe el had wandered off to. Was he mad about Ben not turning up on time and letting Andrew Davis escape once again? Ben did have a valid reason this time though so Pepe el couldn't blame him. Anyhow, whatever happened now and whether Andrew Davis got away or not, Ben was just happy that he was on speaking terms with his best friend again.

Sure Christmas was technically over but that didn't mean that the both of them couldn't stuff themselves with Ara's Christmas dinner... unless Pepe el had eaten it all by himself. Ben didn't know what they'd do but he was going to find out soon.

"Pepe el?" Ben called out. "Pepe, are you there?"

"Pepe el?" one of the officers muttered. "That's a bit of a strange name isn't it?"

"What's your name?" Ben asked.

"Douglas Winchester," the man answered.

"Well, Dougie," Ben said, mimicking the officer's tone of voice. "That's a bit of a strange name isn't it? But do you know what's even stranger? The fact that I'm doing your job for you. Shouldn't you be searching as well?"

Officer Douglas nodded and went out to talk to the second group of officers that had arrived at the parking lot. Douglas said that Ben couldn't approach the car without the officers checking to see if Andrew Davis was still inside it. The officers felt that Davis was a dangerous man and that ordinary members of the public like Ben were not equipped to deal with dangerous men.

"Just stay back and we'll go and check," Douglas said. "Maybe try calling your friend again."

But Ben didn't have to try calling Pepe el again, because at that moment one of the officers found the smashed up phone. They quickly put it in to an evidence bag and began logging what they had found. Ben wasn't dealing with things as systematically as they were however, and began reacting emotionally. It was Pepe el's phone! But what was it doing on the floor and where the hell was Pepe el?

Ben was beginning to get extremely worried. Pepe el had sounded out of breath when he had been on the phone with Ben, as though he had been running... from Andrew Davis, possibly? Ben suddenly reconsidered whether Andrew Davis truly was a sane and harmless man at all. Ben had never expected Davis to steal money from people through illegal means, but Andrew Davis had done exactly that. What else was he capable of?

Ben didn't have to wait much longer to find out because the officers found out exactly what Andrew Davis was capable of when they went to check the front of the car. Pepe el's body had slid fallen forward and his head was resting in an odd position on the front part of the car. There was blood on his body and his face was covered.

Ben was getting bored of the police taking their sweet time, so he decided to go and find out what they were looking so intently at. Several officers told Ben that he couldn't go forward and that he needed to stay at least twenty metres away as they did their job. They tried to usher Ben away from the scene of the crime but at that point Ben just knew something was wrong. He pushed past the officers and then came to a halt.