The Horse Botherer

A weary Police Cadet tramped along the muddy track leading out of the Tunnel of Trees, past the farmer's field, towards Hatley Village. The bus had pulled in early, and Ken’s parents would be thrilled with an early return but the teenage boy could only drag his feet and think of a hot bath.

“Excuse me, Officer. I don’t suppose you have any sherbet lemons?”

“I thought you ate apples and hay?” said Ken.

“Hey!”

“Yes, hay.”

“No, I was expressing my shock at the stereotype.”

“You’re a horse. You do eat hay.” Ken wondered if perhaps he should have slept on the bus.

“And you’re a Youth Cadet.”

“So, you assume all young people eat sherbet lemons? That’s stereotyping.”

“But do you?” laughed the horse.

“Of course.”

“How was camping?”

“It was good. We had fun.”

“What’s your name?”

“Ken.”

“Nice to meet you, Cadet Ken. I’m Ned.”

Two weeks of gruelling cadet training had been overkill for the young Hatley Police Cadets. Serious crime was unheard of in the tranquil village and even Colliery Row managed to contain their meat raffles, tapped electric, raffled meat and dropped cigarette ends. A career in local law enforcement was highly unlikely.

Recently, a lot of the ‘Dark Side’ had been signed up for the new work-experience program at WOPPA, monitoring the skies and warding off visiting conspiracy theorists. Now, with almost everyone employed, the locals of Hatley were too busy working, to get into trouble.

It was only in the summer, the local police relied on the cadets to help out. On an evening, the chief and his three officers worked shifts together to keep an eye on drunken campers spilling out of The Ivy House and the cadets worked the day shift preventing sticky-fingered children from stealing toys in the corner shop.

Ken had dreamt of being a police officer since he was very young and was made for the job. Nearing the end of his training, nobody got past this highly-trained investigator and his army of animal friends.

“You’re nicked, Young Man,” said Ken, his voice still breaking and his hand slapping down firmly on the thief’s shoulder. “Thanks to my eight-legged pal.”

“You’re a bloody idiot,” said the spider. “I haven’t got a clue what you’re saying.”

Ken’s enthusiasm led to automatic acceptance into the Police Academy at sixteen but the animals weren’t recruited. Explaining this would be difficult anyhow because although Ken could understand animals, only Ned could understand him. Most critters thought the Stand-Up was a moron.

“I would like to thank you both for your contribution this year,” said Ken to the animals of Hatley Woods. “You’ve helped me on my journey to being a Police Officer.”

“What’s he saying?” said a woodlouse. "He's all foreign, and that."

“I dunno,” said a sparrow. “I’m hungry. Are you free for lunch?”

“Behave,” snapped Ken. “That sparrow is going to eat you, Woodlouse. Don’t fall for his trap.”

“What’s he saying?” said the woodlouse again.

“I dunno,” said the sparrow again. “He’s a bloody idiot.” And then the sparrow ate the woodlouse.

Several years later, Ken met Dee Dee Nichol after Ned whacked her in the face with his tail at the council’s wine and cheese party. Dee Dee was out of Ken’s league and his human friends reminded him of this during the wedding ceremony.

Everyone howled at Ken’s brother Keith recalling anecdotes during the best man’s speech, but the star of the show was Ken’s other best friend, Ned. He was ‘Best Horse’, and Ken reluctantly translated the story about their first ‘lads’ holiday’ to the Lake District.

Four years on and tragedy struck.

“Sorry for your loss,” everyone said to Ken and Keith, as they stepped out of the crematorium. The superintendent told Ken to take some time off work, but he refused - Hatley was at risk of becoming a crime haven unless the Ramsgate Gang were brought down.

Dee Dee prepared the buffet at The Ivy House wake. She said, in her half-American, half-English accent, that, under the circumstances, the pigs in blankets should be called ‘corpses in carpets’. Brian Swift scolded her in a northern accent, so Dee Dee left Ken to enjoy time with his 'offensive friends'.

Two days after the funeral, there was a loud crash at Ken’s door. He pulled tight the cord on his Jedi bathrobe and picked up the heavy, lead Angel from the fireplace. He covered his eyes as the camera flashes blinded him and the bathrobe fell open causing the crowd of journalists to cover their eyes too. Ken only remembers the yells of ‘Ramsgate’, ‘nutjob’, ‘depression’ and ‘resignation’ as he dropped the angel and returned to the sofa.

Confused and still mourning the death of his parents, Ken rested his head on his hands. Overwhelming emotion sent tears streaming through his fingers, down onto the Angel statue.

The following day, the newspapers broke the story that the Ramsgate Gang had been framed for crimes they had not committed. Kenneth Roger Andrew Patterson, the local copper who claimed to speak to animals, was a bent copper.

Ken was stitched-up, forced to resign and had flashed the world on the front cover of almost every tabloid at the tender age of thirty-two.

A bewildered Ken stuffed the last of his possessions into the back of Keith’s van. Dee Dee had thrown him out just after his parents had died and only a day after losing his job. Keith tried to help, but Ken’s overthinking was out of control and the two fell out. Ken’s self-pity gave way to intense self-loathing until Ned suggested they buy a newspaper because he had seen something important in it.

Sitting down in Ned's field, Ken read the article out loud. His absurd claims that he could communicate with animals had been an early sign of worsening mental health problems and a red flag that the local Psychiatric Wellbeing Department had overlooked. The article blamed the death of his parents for Ken’s meltdown and his spiral into severe depression.

“Stop with the reflection, already,” said Ned. “Look closer at the photos!”.

One photograph of Dee Dee stood out. She was sitting in the back of the limousine with the superintendent. Ned flicked a tick, which hopped up and down on the picture, right next to the door where the embossed crest of the WOPPA organisation was clear to see. Ned brayed and Ken framed the newspaper cutting. Then, he packed it into a bag with his belongings.

After further investigation, Ken uncovered the superintendent’s excessive gambling debts - mainly from backroom poker games set up by the Ramsgate Gang. A quiet word with the captain resulted in a payoff for his silence that bought a small patch of land at the back of Hatley Woods. Ken was going off-grid. Haunted Hatley was safe from the Ramsgate Gang and his animal friends would protect him from a new enemy.

Ken settled into his new life, designing and decorating one of the old bunkers on his land. He fitted a sturdy door at the entrance, covering it with moss and ferns to hide from intruders.

On an evening, he began taking long walks to The Fawcett Street Inn, a pub just around the corner from WOPPA. He took up a seat next to the flourishing pot plant at the end of the bar, ordered a drink and, over time, got to know the bar staff.

A short while later, after a tip-off from the manager, Ken braved the crowds one Friday evening. At around seven, the office lads from WOPPA rocked up for Happy Hour and one of them eyeballed Ken’s purple flared trousers as soon as he entered.

“Look at the clip of Mister Mustard Seed, over there,” said a bleach-haired young man in a light-blue shirt with rolled-up sleeves.

Ken nodded at the cheeky upstart, before ordering a beer for himself and one for the cheeky upstart.

“Come on, Boys,” said the upstart. “Let’s have a drink with Mustard Face. I bet he’s got some mental craic. Aren’t you The Horse Botherer? Crackers Ken?”

“Oh, some call me that,” said Ken, trying to sound old and wise. “But the starlings know the truth. How about I tell you what they say?”

“I’ve got all the time in the world, ya plonker,” mocked the office worker. “Get us another drink then, Mate.”

Several beers later, the WOPPA staff were tipsy and heading off, but the upstart enjoyed listening to Ken’s slurred stories of socialising with squirrels and hedgehogs. As the night progressed, the upstart abandoned his mates and began to talk about work. In particular, he spoke of how often the management would leave important documentation lying around for all to see.

“Spoilers all ower,” he said, slurring. “You’d not believe what I knar.”

“I bet,” said Ken. “I could never imagine.”

“It’s crap what they did to you, mind.”

And that was it. The upstart told how WOPPA had bailed the superintendent out by paying off his gambling debts and in return, Ken’s superintendent was ordered to discredit his star officer by questioning his sanity. It was a WOPPA order - straight from the top.

Over the following weeks, the flourishing pot plant stopped flourishing and began to wilt. The upstart, who, despite his bravado was quite lonely, began to turn up every night for a drink with his wacko pal. On the day the pot plant died and a worm in the soil checked into rehab, the upstart blurted out the password to log into the WOPPA mainframe.

POTENTIALS84

Thanking the upstart for his time, Ken finally drank one of his beers, informing the young man that he had a tapeworm growing inside. Ken’s friend, Ned, had asked the worm to leave.

The tapeworm had a real conscience and hated being so inconsiderate as to have moved in without asking. Unfortunately, that conscience had acted as the upstart’s conscience too, and once the tapeworm left, via the toilet, the upstart was arrested for premeditated horse slaughter.

Once recovered from a further bereavement, Ken used the password to hack

WOPPA’s mainframe and ordered an airstrike that destroyed six yachts raced by billionaires.

WOPPA had their funding stopped and the organisation was shut down. The Horse Botherer had gotten his revenge...