A cautionary Christmas tale

Emerging from the pub at 2am on Christmas Day, the air struck the man’s face cool and hard, making him instantly stand up straight. It had been a long night, laughing, joking, drinking, playing stupid games, but now it was time to go. Warily, he looked up and down the street as he fumbled in the deep pockets of his overcoat for his car keys. All was well.

Fifty yards away in the old, unmarked and artfully shabby Ford Focus, police constable Mike Pritchard slid a little further down in his seat as he watched the scene unfold. Other revellers were leaving now – the publican had clearly had enough and called time – but this was his man. He’d already dropped his keys once and appeared to be unable to locate his car in what was quite a small car park. Now he was holding the keys high above his head and slowly turning around in a circle. And there it was: a pair of illuminated sidelights from that weird looking BMW in the corner. Except his mark was now looking the other way. Would he even notice?

And what was that BMW anyway? It looked like someone had started building it, intent on it becoming one of those hulking great high rise off-roader things, but lost heart on the ground floor and just slapped a roof on what had already been done. It was ugly, profligate and pointless. At least after tonight no one would be driving it for a while.