Mrs Smith & Mr Jones

With Mr Smith ‘working abroad’ for several years.

Mr Jones often popped over to see Mrs Smith to provide company to her and her small children.

Not that I knew this when I took the disturbance in private premises call to her fourteenth floor des res at just after midnight. Thankfully the intercom and the door lock were broken, so we didn’t have to wait ten minutes for the person who called us to bother to answer the intercom. Nor did I have to wake anyone else in the block up.

The local authority had done their best with the lift and the light was still bright enough for us to be able to avoid standing in the unexplained puddle. Creaking upwards I thought back to the days when I tried to work out what the text of the call would actually turn out to be in reality. In this instance we had been given ‘female assaulted’. Which can mean just about anything.

Our loud knock was answered by a very irate and vertically challenged gentleman; wearing a shirt, tie, dress shoes and underpants. I was glad I hadn’t tried to guess the circumstances of this one. Leaving Mr Jones to tell his sorry tale to my colleague, I wandered in to the living room.

My highly trained eye took in the two children sat in front of Walt’s latest video blockbuster and the general tidiness of the room. Apart that is from the ironing board. Upon this was a pair of smart trousers. At least they had been smart before they had received an iron shaped scorch mark on the crotch area. Using my highly trained nose I guessed it was quite a recent addition.

Still defiantly holding the iron, a very stout Mrs Smith gave me her version of the tale. It seemed that Mr Jones had popped round on his way home from work to provide Mrs Smith with some company. In his haste to provide this company he had ripped a turn-up in his trousers. This he had done by trying to kick them off when they had inexplicably dropped to his ankles.

The damage had only been noticed after the ‘companionship’ had ended. Unwilling to return home to Mrs Jones with a flappy trouser leg, he had insisted that Mrs Smith break out the Wonder Web and the iron. This had caused some resentment. When Mr Jones then questioned Mrs Smith’s pressing prowess and offered some guidance, the friction had increased. At which point Mrs Smith had turned the iron up to the maximum and held it down on the crotch area of the trousers. With the hostility raised to fever pitch, Mr Jones had attempted to save his trousers by trying to pull Mrs Smith’s arm away.

“What happened then?” I asked.

“I kneed him in the balls.”

“Okay, then what?”

“He screamed and it woke the kids up, so I called you. After I had finished what I was doing.”

“At what point were you assaulted?” I asked, remembering the original call.

“He grabbed my arm.”

“Oh. Does it hurt?”

“Not anymore.” She replied, with a satisfied smile.