“Come on Les, it’s well gone 8 o’clock. Time to be moving on,”
The voice came from a tall, uniformed policeman who was bending over a seemingly formless pile of rags, polythene bags and newspapers that some non-civic-minded hooligan might thoughtlessly have strewn over a park bench.
The pile of rags stirred.
“Wha’ssup? ‘Smy bench, find yer own,” a gravelly voice came from under last week’s newspapers.
“Up now, Les. You know the score. And don’t forget to put those bottles in the bin.” The policeman pointed at the two empty cider bottles underneath the bench.
“I ain’t no litterbug. You knows that,” Les said, surfacing from the various layers of insulation that he had wrapped around himself. It might be April but there was still a real nip in the air and he was feeling it more each year. He grabbed the papers and started stuffing them inside his clothing.
“Yeah, I know, Les, but I’m sticking my neck out letting you stay here as it is. My sergeant finds out and he’ll have me checking parked cars for expired licences till Doomsday.”
