Melvin saw the hooded youth as he grabbed the handbag from the woman, the woman screamed and gave a token fight for her bag but it was a wasted gesture, he had snatched it from her in the middle of the street and was now making off weaving his way down through the uninterested crowds.
‘Someone stop him’ she wailed
And Melvin gave chase, because that was the type of guy he was.
He raced off shouting over his shoulder
‘I’ll get him lady.’
He pursued the snatcher on down the main street and into the side roads aware of some commotion at his back. He had to try to run harder.
This wasn’t good for him he thought what about my heart. The sweat was running down his face now.
It was a wet and the streets and pavements were slippery. He slowed a little. He couldn’t keep up this pace he was getting too old for this malarkey
He still had the thief in his sights; he was about twenty yards in front of him, he darted up an alleyway and Melvin followed.
The noises behind him were becoming fainter now less people around. He glanced over his shoulder, and sure enough there was only him in pursuit.
He ran on dodging the rubbish bins and skirting the puddles. He sure hoped it was worth it.
Am I mad he thought what if there is nothing in the bag worth stealing? Thoughts of a bag full of cosmetics and rubbish, rifled through his brain.
He was catching up with the thief now closing the gap.
He shouted at him to stop and put a huge drive into the last few yards.
At that the thief turned and saw him catching up.
‘Here Get off’ he yelled and threw the bag at Melvin knocking him into the wall and causing him to loose balance.
At that the thief was off
Melvin stopped, He stooped over breathing hard and groaning to himself at the pain all that effort had caused him. Trying to ignore the stitch in his side.
He slowly recovered himself and looked around. There was no one else with him. He opened the bag and rummaged through the contents taking out the credit cards and cash. He then threw the purse and bag onto the sodden ground in an attempt to make it look like the thief had thrown the lot away.
Then picking the items up made his way back to the woman to return what was left of the bag.
She was still standing on the pavement where the whole incident had started from this time a policeman was with her taking a statement.
‘Here’s your bag, sorry there doesn’t seem to be much left in it’
The woman turned to Melvin and expressed her thanks and immediately looked into her bag to see what was missing.
‘My money, my credit cards and my phone’ she stated ‘all gone’
Phone? thought Melvin I didn’t see a phone.
‘Well the guy must have emptied it before he threw it away’ he said
‘Well I’ll be off now’ he paused momentarily for the customary thanks and just caught sight of the hooded yob that he had been chasing closing in on his left side.
‘What the…’
‘Excuse me sir’ the man was now taking down his hood and at the same time revealing an ID badge from his jacket pocket.
‘Detective Constable Barry Black, CID I believe that you have something of the lady’s in your pocket’
And to prove his point the constable pulled out her phone and showed Melvin the photo of him searching through her bag.
It had been a set up
Barry continued speaking, ‘we’ve been after you for months now, a very clever trick to pretend to come to the lady’s rescue, get her bag and then relieve her of the contents’ ‘This is PC Wilma McLean’
Then continuing to read, a gob smacked Melvin, His rights. Led him into a waiting police car.
© Norma Allan 2005
posted by quine @ 11:42 pm
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