Toni’s Blog

As Stan stared at the policemen his face was a white mask, the small muscles in his jaw working furiously as he clenched his teeth together.  Outside the panda car was waiting, another policeman leaning carelessly against it.

“Get your coat, Mr. Harris,” the policeman said wearily.  “We’ll finish this off down the station.  There’s a lot of enquiries to make and we’re still waiting to hear if the caretaker will recover.”

“Look, I was nowhere near that warehouse, and I didn’t beat up that old man!” Stan told him for the umpteenth time.  “I was here - at home.”

“Maybe you were,” the policeman replied.  “But your wife can’t verify that.  If she was out till midnight and the robbery was just after eleven - that gives you time to do the job and get home.  Which means you haven’t got an alibi.”

Stan glared at him, his eyes cold.

“Once a crook always a crook, that’s what you Old Bill think, isn’t it?” he asked angrily.  “What do I have to do to prove I’m going straight.  Ask my wife.  She knows.”

“Let’s go, shall we?”  The policeman turned and walked to the door of the living room, waiting for Stan to follow.

I couldn’t believe this was happening...it was like a dream that was rapidly turning into a nightmare.

“Zoe...” Stan turned to me.  “Do something, love, please. Find a way..”

His eyes were begging me to help him, to somehow convince the police he had nothing to do with the break-in at the warehouse.  But if I did I’d have to admit that on the night of the robbery I was with my lover...

Through the window I watched Stan walk towards the panda car.  The silence in the flat closed around me and I began to shake.  As the car moved away from the kerb tears started to trickle from my eyes and when it turned the corner I was sobbing hard.

Until I’d seen the defeated look in Stan’s eyes a few minutes before all I’d wanted was to be with Tony.  To leave my marriage a long way behind and be with the man I loved.  Now I wasn’t so sure.

Something about the way Stan had looked to me for support had struck a chord deep inside me, and my feelings and desire for the future didn’t seem so positive any more.

What a mess.  And it was all of my own making.  If I hadn’t rushed into marriage...  If I’d been more sure of my feelings for Stan...

Yet my romance with Stan had been a little strange from the start...

I worked in a small glass factory and Stan had been taken on soon after coming out of prison.  He’d got on with his job in a quiet efficient way and had become very popular with everyone - especially me.  I’d been attracted to him from the start, and when he’d shyly asked me for a date I was thrilled.

I think I’d gone on that first date partly out of curiosity.  Stan hadn’t been at all reluctant to talk about his time in prison, in fact it was almost as though he was desperate for me to know the truth about him.

He’d got into trouble a couple of times when he was a kid.  Nothing very serious, just petty offences like stealing hubcaps and fighting.  After leaving school Stan had managed to stay out of trouble until he was nineteen, then there’d been a big row at home and his father had thrown him out.

For a few weeks he’d wandered around from one friend to another, begging a bed where he could.  After a while he found a grotty bedsitter but fate was waiting to deal Stan another nasty blow.  He lost his job.

That was about the time he developed the huge chip on his shoulder, it was also round about then he met the two guys who offered him a chance of earning quick money.  The way Stan saw it society owed him something and if he couldn’t get it by working honestly, he’d have to find another way.

With the other two guys he’d broken into a factory, beaten up the night watchman and stolen the payroll from the safe.  The other two already had records and were picked up within days.  It didn’t take much to persuade them to name Stan as the third person and eventually Stan was sentenced to twelve months in prison.

I’d listened to his story not quite sure how to take it, or how it made me feel about Stan.  He seemed so ordinary and nice it was hard to believe he was a criminal.

“What happened then?” I’d asked.

“Funnily enough prison straightened me out,” he said easily.  “I got time off for good behaviour and I came out determined to go straight.  The welfare people found me this job and my flat, and I can absolutely promise you I’m not about to go back to prison, Zoe.  When you’ve had your freedom taken away. you realise how precious it is.  I’m not going to give it up again.”

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