DAYLIGHT RUBBERY – BUT WILL THERE BE POETIC JUSTICE?

Police are stepping up their investigation into a spate of attacks in the Froghill area after an incident in Traubert’s Heath yesterday afternoon.

Minnie Cooper, proprietor of Minnie’s Mini Mart in St. Herbert’s Road, was stocktaking behind the counter at around 5.30pm when the incident occurred.

“I heard a noise behind me,” said Ms. Cooper, “so I turned round, thinking it was a customer waiting to be served.

“Looking straight at me was a clown. I barely had time to register the fact before he raised his hat, smiled and then hit me on the head with a rubber chicken.

“Then he ran out the door laughing.”

 The 37-year-old shop owner was shocked but otherwise uninjured in the attack.

Police say they are looking for a man of around five feet six in height, dressed in a bowler hat, orange wig, white pancake make-up, ill-fitting clothes, size 23 shoes and carrying a candy-striped cane.

“We are treating this incident as significant,” said D.I. Alan ‘The Hammer’ Hardman, “and we are now convinced that it forms part of a related series of assaults.

“The use of the rubber chicken represents an alarming change in tactics and means that it’s no longer just desserts,” he said, “though of course we hope that’s what the perpetrator will get.

“His just desserts, I mean,” the Inspector added, somewhat awkwardly.

Discovered at the crime scene was a crumpled piece of paper, on which was written the following message, reproduced here with police permission:

“It was me all along, Mr. Hardman, with the pie and the trifle and the dick.

And if you want to know what made me do it, you’ll unscramble this riddle right quick.

My first is in gaze but never in look,

My second in Bible but nowhere in book.

My third, if you try, can be found inside ‘found’,

My fourth is in earth but never in ground.

My fifth is in ribs and in revel and rent,

My sixth in the time of year we call Lent.

My seventh you’ll find if you look into hell,

And my next one is hiding in there as well.

My last is in window, willow and wait,

The whole spells the name of the people I hate.”

Anyone with any ideas should contact Froghill Police on 0372 51111, as they have absolutely none of their own. Calls may be recorded and might even be taken seriously for once.