Love Comes Knocking, Kathy Cakebread [top novels of all time txt] 📗

show him some ID and he accepts my name. Then after a disastrous date he mocked me in every way he could, and I just couldn’t take it anymore so I hit him!” Ben exclaimed.
He hoped his frank explanation of events would be enough to settle such a petty issue.
“Let me stop you there, he annoyed you in every way he could? When he kindly offered you a tissue to clean yourself up?” the officer snorted.
Ben felt powerless; whatever he said would just be upstaged by the waiter’s claims.
“It was the look on his face, it was sheer mocking! Surely you know the feeling!” Ben stressed.
The officer shook his head.
“Afraid not. Well we’ve got both your statements and considering this is your first offence and you don’t appear to be a violent person let this be a sharp warning to you.”
A blanket of relief engulfed Ben; he’d won!
“Will I have a criminal record?”
“No… but should you commit this offence again you may be officially charged with assault.”
“Don’t worry officer that won’t happen again!”
“Glad to hear it.”
Triumphant that he was a free man Ben left the interview room in delight. Meanwhile, the officer glanced over at the door, a bemused expression plastered on his face.
“Ben Dover!” he spoke duly, not quite believing the ridiculousness of the name.

The next morning Ben was roused from sleep by the sound of a sharp rapping on the door. Irritated that he’d been woken early on a Sunday he ignored the knocking. In answer to this act of ignorance, the rapping rose up a notch on the sound wave scale.
“Alright, alright I’m coming! Jesus what’s so urgent in this time of morning anyways?” Ben yelled.
Yanking the door open Ben was surprised to see an anxious looking Jose on the doorstep. Sweat lined his brow and perspiration swarmed on his forehead.
“Jose what ever is wrong?!” Ben cried.
“You better have a look at this.” He replied, shoving a newspaper in Ben’s face.
Taking the newspaper Ben’s eyes scanned frantically over the front page article.

BEN DOVER MUGGING RIOT the headline read, jumping like bullets straight through Ben’s eyes. His heart racing he read on.

Last night around the time of 12:30am a local waiter Cristiano Marko was mugged roughly by a man he claims announced his presence, as “Ben Dover”. The magnitude of events clearly tides in with the earlier incident in which the man in question, Ben Dover, punched the waiter in what he claimed was ‘self defenced’. Police are taking the uncalled for matter very seriously, in which the victims car, a red Larda was stolen.

Ben dropped the paper in disbelief. What the paper was claiming was totally and utterly ridiculous, he was in bed at the time the incident took place.
“Jose there’s no question that this is a pathetic matter.”
Jose stared uneasily at his friend.
“Ben, are you not taking any of this in? The police are going to come and question you again. You went on the date with Hayleigh last night didn’t you.”
Ben nodded solemnly. Jose rolled his eyes as if to say ‘I told you so’.
“Look don’t even start on the pep talk okay ‘cos I don’t want to know right now.”
“But Ben you know what taking in all those waifs and strangers does to you, you end up in a state like this! And there’s this waiter claiming it was you who mugged him! Why you would want a car like that I don’t know but that’s not the point.”
Frustrated Ben peered through the corridor leading to the stairs.
“When are the police gonna come knocking?”
“How about now?” Jose murmured, his gaze settling on the two officers scaling the stairs.

The whitewashed walls of the police interview room had started to become familiar territory for Ben as he sat facing two officers that looked like their frowns had been set in stone. Aggravation invaded him as the chief officer loitered in chat with his companion whilst setting up the tape recorder. Drumming his fingers against the table as a hint Ben was relieved to see the tape had started to roll.
“Interview started at 9:30am. With Mister Ben Dover. Accompanying officers are Mr Smith and Johnson.”
“So Ben where were you in the early hours of this morning?”
“In bed.” Ben replied simply.
“What were you doing in bed?”
There was an uncomfortable silence.
“You know what people usually do in bed…” he paused for effect.
“Sleeping.” He finished.
Officer Smith shuffled his notes.
“Yes of course. So do you have anyone to back up this alibi?”
Ben thought frantically, roving over his acquaintances in his head, in the end only one came to light.
“Barney can.”
“Well what’s Barney’s number, we need to be able to interview him.”
“Oh Barney wouldn’t like that.”
A frown erupted on Smith’s face.
“Look Ben do you want to get out of here or not? At this rate it looks like you’ll be punished for something you may or may not have done!”
“No seriously you wouldn’t get much sense out of Barney.” Ben insisted.
“Why not?”
“Because Barney’s a fish.” Ben said glumly.
Whilst Smith’s exasperation towards Ben’s attitude was hard to contain, Johnson found the sudden revelation quite amusing.
“Yes Dover I’m sure Barney would love to back you up but he can’t think past his next swim around the bowl right now, so I suggest that you pull your act together or face a cosy night down in the cells.” Smith said sternly.
“You know if you had a parrot you might have been able to use him as a witness in this case.” Johnson chuckled.
“Funny.” Ben mumbled under his breath.
“Carrying on. I’m sure you know by now of the serious event that took place at 12:30 this morning. The waiter in question Cristiano Marko was indeed assaulted by you earlier in the evening, in which you came to be questioned in this very here interview room, am I correct?”
“Yes sir.” Ben muttered.
“And am I therefore correct to assume that you later, severely annoyed with the turn of events waited out for Cristiano and mugged him, stealing in your conquest his Larda car?”
“No!” Ben insisted.
“I would never steal, my mum brought me up to be a good lad not a ruffian.” He continued.
As honest as he was being it was doubtful that the officers would believe his side of the story. How he got roped into this he didn’t know.
“Look officer are you sure the waiter heard the assailant correctly?”
“Yes of course, he recalls hearing the name Ben Dover.”
Imagining the event in his mind eye Ben realised something, something drastic.
“You say he said he was sure he heard my name? Well maybe he heard bend over. You can tell how similar they are, I get made a laughing stock out of it! Please for goodness sake, investigate it.”
A look of desperation filled Ben’s eyes as he looked at the officers for pity. Scratching his head in hope of stirring his grey matter officer Smith looked thoughtful.
“Now I think about it, it does sound that way…”
“Thank you!” Ben sighed.
“But… we can’t rely on that alone, we need evidence. Hopefully we can turn up the car, see if your fingerprints are on it.”
“But that will take ages!”
“Or we’ve got some CCTV footage, we can go over that see if the figure matches your physical description.”
“Perfect, then we can sort out this fiasco once and for all.” Ben said triumphantly.
Only it wasn’t that simple…

Slipping the CCTV footage into the video slot a musky, dark image appeared on the screen. Within that image came the profile of Cristiano making his way to his car, his keys jangling merrily at his side—then like a shadow of the night another profile slipped out of the darkness. Silence filled the interview room as the trio stared intently at the monitor.
“What the…” Smith muttered.
Visible for all to see was the physicality of the assailant. All six foot of him—encased in what could be only described as a mountain of hair – with the addition of specs.
“Well I guess what we’re looking for is a Cousin IT look-alike.” Johnson sniggered.
Ben banged his head on the table in defeat.
“This isn’t funny!” he whimpered.
“Hey wait a minute, Cristiano is slumped over the bonnet and is being body searched by Cousin IT here, do you think that could’ve been when he mistake the words bend over for Ben Dover?” Smith suggested.
“Yes! Yes! Yes!” Ben cried.
Switching off the video Smith turned to address Ben.
“Although we’ve seen footage of the incident, it doesn’t actually tell us anything we didn’t already know…”
“Except that someone is in dire need of a haircut.” Johnson added.
Smith turned to Johnson a satirical look on his face.
“Or maybe they were just in fancy dress.” He suggested.
“Well there’s that too of course.”
“Anyway, the video doesn’t prove anything conclusive- it could be anyone in that costume—including you. It does show however that at some point Cristiano was leaning over the bonnet. He may have been forced to having previously misinterpreted the hairy assailants order ‘Bend over’ as ‘Ben Dover’, returning for his revenge. Thus disobeying the assailants commands and being punished in return.”
A round of applause filled the room.
“Here, here.” Ben agreed.
Smith smiled weakly.
“It doesn’t mean you’re off the hook yet, we hopefully should uncover the stolen car soon and that should unearth some answers. Until then we’ve got nothing to hold you here any longer- no real substantial evidence.”
Ben’s face lit up.
“So I’m free to go?”
“For now. But if that car has got any of your fingerprints on it you’ll be back in this interview room quicker then you can say ‘Bobs your uncle’.”
“Or bend over and give me fifty!” Johnson added.
The look on Ben’s face was clearly far from comical.


5. The Hoover Demonstration

Hour’s later standing at the bar, Jose couldn’t quite work out what the dim expression on Ben’s face was there for. Notable for his chirpy, friendly service the customers were sure going to get a dodgy deal with his current snappy state.
“Ben you’ve practically got off Scot free with the police, what’s the problem?” Jose enquired.
Ben stayed put with his back facing Jose. He pretended to be filling a mug of already overflowing coffee.
“Not quite, they’ve got to find the car yet.”
“But your prints wont be on the car will they…”
“No.” Ben sniffed.
“So what’s the real problem?”
“Nothing.”
Intrigued by Ben’s evident huff Jose pried further.
“You’ll make the cream curdle.” Jose sniggered.
That did the trick. Ben spun round angrily forgetting that at that moment in time he was holding a steaming mug of coffee. Naturally, the contents went everywhere. Perfect.
“For pete’s sake!” Ben screamed; disrupting what was a fairly quiet afternoon.
Jose hurried over taking the spilt coffee from Ben’s hand.
“Hey Mary can you take over for a minute, Ben needs a quiet word.”
“Sure.” She replied.
Scurrying into the back office dragging a reluctant Ben with him Jose planned to sort this out once and for all.
“Ben, really what is the problem?”
“Nothing - like I said.” Ben sniffed.
“Look I know you, you’re never like this, all this business with the police and that disastrous date it’s messed you up! You