Free Confessions of a Police Constable by Matt Delito

recently finished an 18-hour shift, had six hours’ sleep, and gone straight in for another 14 hours. Some of the skippers were completely unstoppable; bloody superheroes, the lot of them. The clock he was referring to is the force target of getting prisoners to custody within an hour of arrest.
    â€˜But yeah, knock yourself out,’ he added. ‘Keep me posted.’
    â€˜Thanks, sarge,’ I said.
    â€˜Out,’ he replied, and vanished from the spare channel.
    I walked to the back of the police van.
    â€˜What’s your name, mate?’ I said.
    â€˜It’s Case Jacobs,’ he said.
    â€˜Case?’ I replied. ‘Unusual name, where’s that from?’
    â€˜It’s spelled K-E-E-S,’ he said. ‘I’m from Belgium.’
    â€˜Nice to meet you, Kees,’ I said. ‘Normally, we’d have taken you straight to a police station, but I propose we go talk to the bicycle shop owner first. Is that okay by you?’
    â€˜Of course,’ he said.
    â€˜Good,’ I said, closing the back doors on the caged Transit van, before throwing the keys to the Astra to Kim and climbing into the van through the side door.
    Simon and Kim drove the vehicles to the bike shop, whilst I had a quick chat with Kees in the back of the Transit van.
    â€˜So, what happened, then?’
    â€˜I went into the bike shop to buy a new lock, as my last one was cut in half by the thieves, and I saw my bike there! I told the shop owner, but he said it wasn’t my bike and that I couldn’t have it back. So I took it.’
    â€˜How can you know it’s your bike?’ I asked.
    â€˜Look at it!’ he laughed. ‘Have you ever seen a bike like that? I fixed it up myself. There’s no way that’s not my bike. I changed the seat, and I can tell you every detail of every part of that bike.’
    Then began a monologue about the various bits and pieces he had used to make it ‘the perfect bike’.
    â€˜It has Shimano XTR components all around, even the chain,’ he said, ‘but I blasted off the markings so thieves wouldn’t see them,’ he said.
    I took a closer look at the bike; true enough, every part was gleaming from having been sandblasted, and no markings were visible anywhere.
    â€˜That puts us in a bit of a weird situation, though,’ I said. ‘You say you’ve done it so thieves won’t know that the bike is valuable, right?’
    Kees replied with a nod.
    â€˜But that’s a pretty common thing for thieves to do as well, so owners won’t recognise their own bikes …’
    We arrived at the bike shop.
    â€˜Hang on here for a second,’ I told Kees. ‘I’m just going to have a chat with the owner.’ I turned to Kim, who’d just finished calling in an update about our situation. ‘Wanna keep our friend company?’ I asked.
    â€˜Yeah, sure,’ she said, and walked to the back of the van, opening one of the doors to give our prisoner some fresh air.
    I walked into the bike shop. The owner was there, looking none too pleased.
    â€˜Took you fucking long enough,’ he said.
    â€˜True,’ I said. ‘But we caught the guy.’
    The shopkeeper did a double take, then leaned forward and looked at the van. He couldn’t see into it.
    â€˜Seriously?’
    â€˜Yeah, we spotted him as he was cycling along, so we stopped him.’
    â€˜Wow, that’s great!’
    â€˜One little thing, though: he says the bike is his.’
    â€˜Yeah, he told me the same,’ the shopkeeper said. ‘But no … no way. Some kid brought it in the other day to get a flat tyre fixed.’
    â€˜In your opinion,’ I said, ‘is that a valuable bike?’
    â€˜It’s a funny one, actually,’ the shopkeeper said. ‘It’s a pretty standard Cannondale. They’re popular bikes, but it’s a mid-range bike, not usually particularly expensive. This