Chapter 3 (or 2, depending on your viewpoint)
Is within the replies of this thread.

It is entitled: How To Get A Head In Clacton.

In which Clint Spark gets his big break, and then makes a discovery!
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Fri 29 Aug 2008, 12:50, 8 replies, latest was 16 years ago)

How To Get A Head In Clacton
Clint Spark was a man.

He was a man with a notepad. He was a man with a Dictaphone. He was a man who, for two bits, would’ve put on a Fedora and stuffed a card with the word ‘Press’ on it in to the band.

Clint Spark was a reporter. A very, very bad reporter.

He walked with what he imagined to be a confident, go-getting, successful newshound gait (which in fact only accentuated his gangly, awkward strides even further) along the front in Clacton. Fresh from his blistering expose of the Council’s policy on road markings, he had been sent to cover what he feverishly thought would be the story that would make his career.

A murder! In Clacton! On his patch!

Desperate for the scoop, he quickened his pace, still deftly avoiding the cracks in the pavement before him. The walk took him all the way along the front towards Frinton, and after 20 minutes he was flustered, sweaty and annoyed. Why wouldn’t they let him take the office car? After all, it had only been a little scratch the last time around.

He was still mulling this over when he saw, in the distance, the none-too-familiar sight of flashing police lights. A lot of police lights.

Time slowed for Clint. At least, he was called Clint now. Born Percival Sidebottom, his start in life hadn’t been all that promising. Tall, gangly and pale, topped with a shock of rusty blonde hair, and his limbs had the appearance that they had been attached with no real care. His milky blue eyes looked out of a face whose features seemed just very slightly too big for it. On the sides of his head sat two large ears, giving his head the same sort of shadow that is cast by the FA Cup.

And yet for all this, Percival Sidebottom had the heart of a hopeless optimist, an endless romantic. His school days had been filled with flushings and bullyings, demands for lunch money and orders to complete homework. He’d done well, moved on to college, and ultimately to University where he had blazed a trail of doomed relationships and an unhealthy obsession with World Of Warcraft.

So he’d left University, changed his name to something he felt was dashing and exciting, and set out in to the big, wide world.

And all those roads lead to here – Clacton-On-Sea and a job at the Clacton Echo. The very place in which he’d started out. Where, he often asked himself, are all those other people now? The flushers? The bullies? Well, from what he’d heard they were working up in the city, no doubt earning fortunes and drowning themselves in wine and women – but were they happy?

In all probability, he considered, yes. They probably were.

But this... This might be the story that would make him. A ‘brutal’ murder, the Editor had described it as. ‘Like nothing Clacton has ever seen before!’ Clint set his jaw, got out his red and black notebook, clicked his pen in to life, and approached the scene.

“Oh, Christ.” said the Sergeant, seeing Clint approaching “It’s the press.”

The other officers on scene stopped in their tracks. They looked up to see Clint marching towards them, not seeing the Police tape blocking the path. There was a brief struggle as he got himself caught up in it, performing a little hopping dance as he tried to rid himself of the clingy film, until he eventually got away, trailing the tape behind him from one of his shoes.

“Officer!” he cried, waving his notebook in the air and ensuring his press pass was on display, “Officer! What happened here?”

“No comment.” Said the Sergeant, looking at Clint with thinly-veiled hatred. “We’ll release a statement later today.”

“Ah.” Thought Clint. “He’s playing hardball.” He adopted a tough stance. Hard-boiled. “Word on the street is you’ve got a brutal murder on your hands.”

The Sergeant took a deep breath. There had been a time, he thought, when he’d enjoyed being a copper. He’d been in the Met. He’d loved the thrill of the chase, catching the criminals and sending them to the slammer. He’d enjoyed delivering a swift kick to the kidneys that they’d never be able to prove. The only problem he ever had was that one of the little scrotes had been able to prove it. And that was how it came to pass that he had been unceremoniously booted out of the Met in to this rotten Constabulary in a tired-out seaside town.

All in all, he thought, he was lucky to still be a copper. If he hadn’t seen the Chief Superintendent behaving very strangely indeed with a pair of cleaners that weren’t his wife, he feared he may have been kicked out of the force altogether.

That said, at least then he wouldn’t be dealing with this little prick. He breathed out.

“Listen, son. I don’t know where you heard that, and I don’t know why you’d go around shouting about it. There’s some sensitive people in this neighbourhood, son, and they don’t want to hear your crowing. Now, we’ll release a statement later today.”

Clint opened his mouth to retort, but at that second a trolley bearing the unmistakeable figure of a human body under a blanket was wheeled behind the Sergeant. A breeze came in the air, and flapped the blanket free, revealing two cold, grey feet.

“Aha!” Cried Clint “There is a body! Cut to the chase, Sergeant, what’s going on here?” Cut to the chase? He liked that.

‘Cut to the chase?’ thought the Sergeant ‘idiot’. “All right, all right,” he said, raising his hands in mock-defeat “I’ll give you this. We found the body of a girl in the dumpster behind the arcade this morning. We don’t know who she is yet, no ID on her. All we know, or we think we know, is that she’s been dead at least three days. Only problem is, IDing her is going to be... tricky.”

“Tricky? How so?” Incisive questioning, thought Clint. That’s journalism.

The Sergeant eyed him up. “You really want to know?”

“Yes please!” A little too eager there, Clint old boy, just ease off a little. He coughed. “I mean, er, the people have a right to know!
The Sergeant sighed. “OK. The body we found, aside from having no form of ID, had been decapitated.”

Clints pencil stopped half a millimetre short of his paper. “What did you say?”

“I said: the body has been decapitated. We’re pretty confident that’s what killed her.” He added, with a wry smile.

“Can I quote you on that?”

“No. Now, get lost before I arrest you.”

As Clint bustled away, the Sergeant looked after him, in case he tried to trace over his steps and get behind the cordon. He shook his head sadly, and popped out of existence.

~~

Clint was in a world of his own. He was hurrying back along the front, desperate to turn the story in before the deadline for tomorrow’s paper. This was going to be an exclusive! This was definitely going to be the story that made him! He was going all the way to the top. He was thinking about which of the more respected broadsheets he should accept offers of employment from (Not the Torygraph for sure. Maybe The Times, or The Independent. Yes, that suits), when he realised he was getting slightly in front of himself.

He had his copy sorted. He just wanted a leader. He needed his Head (haha, he thought) Line.

”PSYCHO KILLER LOOSE IN CLACTON” was, he felt, a bit too reactionary.

”CLACTON RESIDENTS FEAR FOR PROPERTY PRICES AFTER BRUTAL MURDER”... well, it wasn’t the Mail.

”CLACTON GIRLS HEAD-ING FOR DISASTER” didn’t feel appropriate.

”GIRL DECAPITATED, POLICE STYMIED” seemed closer, somehow.

”ARCADE KILLING BAFFLES CLACTON COPS” Yes. That was the one!

As he came along the sea path to the pier, he was assailed by a thuggish group of seagulls. They flew around his head, squawking and beating him with their wings.

“Sod off, you gits!” he shouted, arms flailing in the air “I’m not a tourist!”

The gulls flew away with an air of menace about them. Clint drew has hands in to the shape of a shotgun, sighted along it, and caught a gull in his view. As he was about to pull his imaginary trigger, the gull made a sharp change of direction. Clints vision was now filled with the picturesque Clacton Pier, its six flagpoles each bearing the Union Jack fluttering in the breeze.

Except one.

Perched on top of the very central flagpole was a head. The head of a young girl, her hair dancing on the wind.

~~

It had started out as such a good day for Clint. Nice weather, a Big Story, and dreams of Pulitzer Prizes.

And now he found himself clinging grimly to the side wall of the piers main building, making the slow climb to the roof so he could retrieve the head. It had seemed like such a good idea at the time – not only would he get the scoop but he would also be named a hero for finding the key piece of evidence in an otherwise horribly flawed police investigation.

He had, however, forgotten about his complete and abject fear of heights.

He risked a look over his shoulder and saw the sea crashing in to the front what seemed like a hundred miles below. Shuddering, he returned to the task at hand. Arm over arm, leg over leg, he dragged himself up the wall, eventually hauling himself on to the roof. He staggered along to the middle, and looked up at the flagpole. A great pool of sticky blood had formed at its base, and had left fat, red streaks the length of the pole. Looking up, he could see the sinews sticking out of the bottom of the severed neck.

Clint swallowed the rising bile.
Gripping the pole, he began to shimmy up it. The blood, while sticky, made the going very hard indeed, and he slipped back on a few occasions. Wrapping his thighs around the pole he wiped each hand individually on his coat, grabbed hold of the pole, and made one last attempt. He reached the pinnacle in a few short seconds and, keeping the grip with his thighs, he reached up and grasped the base of the neck.

Gently, he worked it free. The head came off the pole with a hideous sucking noise and he, Clint Spark, finally held the head of the girl in his hands. Strange, he thought, she was rather pretty – proving in an instant that men will never not think about sex.

While he was staring, the girls eyes snapped open. The eyes flicked left and right. The mouth opened:

“Drop me in the sea, you arsehole,” said Jennifer Spry “and there’ll be all Hell to pay.”

“HOLYMOTHEROFGODWHATTHEFUCKJUSTHAPPENEDTHERE?” said Clint, just before his eyes rolled in to the back of his head. He passed out and, with great grace and fluidity, fell from the roof of Clacton Pier.

All Jennifer could think of to say was “Fuck.”
( Devil_In_Tights the *real* DiT!, Fri 29 Aug 2008, 12:50, Reply)

Fantastic!
One point...
They'd never call it a "dumpster" in Clacton...

Really, really good though!
( Cawl, Fri 29 Aug 2008, 12:55, Reply)

excellent
....

excellent!
( Vipros. clever got me this far, then tricky got me in, Fri 29 Aug 2008, 12:59, Reply)

What
a fucking brilliant story!
( K2k6 has a proper job these days, Fri 29 Aug 2008, 13:13, Reply)

Awesome!
Really funny and well-written.
( Boss Keloid Got your mother's maiden name tattooed on my arm, Fri 29 Aug 2008, 13:18, Reply)

I really like the style of this
Excellent character depiction with a twist AT THE END.

And this paragraph is just unadulterated filth:

Gripping the pole, he began to shimmy up it. The blood, while sticky, made the going very hard indeed, and he slipped back on a few occasions. Wrapping his thighs around the pole he wiped each hand individually on his coat, grabbed hold of the pole, and made one last attempt. He reached the pinnacle in a few short seconds and, keeping a grip with his thighs, he reached up and grasped the base of the neck.

This is knicker-fizzingly good stuff - KEEP IT UP Sir!
( Tourette's ( . )( . ) has a monkey hair in her fried egg, Fri 29 Aug 2008, 13:43, Reply)

*claps*
Another masterful chapter :)

Small thing is watch how you mark peoples thoughts you have a mixture of ",' and nothing. But that's just me being a fuddy grammar badger :)
( TGB checking Off Topic is still shit at, Fri 29 Aug 2008, 13:54, Reply)

This reads like a British
Sin City to me. Not the ones that have been filmed so far, but a culmination of Frank Miller's graphic novels that I stupidly read all in one day and now have fused together in my head.
( fuck shit up the best you never had, Fri 29 Aug 2008, 21:29, Reply)