Uncle Paul´s Cain 03 Page

By Paul Cummings

The Burglary 11/11/99

It was late and Cain was tired. The big Toyota Land Cruiser Colorado was ambling slowly down the country lanes towards his house. Rain was hammering down, making visibility very poor. Cain was very glad to have the car’s permanent four wheel drive. The Land Cruiser swung round the final bend, past his small decoy house, where he pretended to live, and came in sight of the big isolated house. Cain experienced a strange feeling. Immediately he braked and killed the lights. Patiently he watched the house in the darkness with the wipers swishing across giving him an instant of clear screen before the wall of water covered the windscreen again. It came again. A flash of light from upstairs in the house. Cain lived alone and certainly wasn’t expecting anyone to be home. He was still nearly two hundred metres from the house, so it was unlikely he had been seen in the pouring rain. In fact, anyone but Cain would probably not have noticed the short flash of light from the house. Studying martial arts since he was five years old and spending the last fourteen years in the SAS, the last eight in the regular SAS, had heightened Cain’s senses.

He drove slowly forward, towards the house. He knew the route well, so was able to drive without lights. He stopped about a hundred metres from the house. The darkness and heavy rain would ensure that the car was invisible to the house. He pulled the 9mm SIG automatic pistol from door pocket it lived in whilst he was driving and slipped it into his rear waist holster. He grabbed his long leather coat from the passenger seat and got out. Carefully he locked the Land Cruiser. There was only one obvious road in and out. Cain had ensured that his car blocked this. The sensible thing to do would be to call the police, or even call the base, but the house was surrounded by woods. If anyone got into them they would be impossible to find. Cautiously he approached the house.

Outside the house was a large van. It was backed up to the front door and had its rear doors open. The outer front porch door to the house was broken. It looked like a sledgehammer had been used to effect entry. Cain smiled for the first time. Anyone using a sledgehammer was not a very good intruder; this showed that it was not the PIRA, which was always a threat in his job. In the porch Cain took off his coat and laid it aside. The front door had also been battered open. Cain listened. There were no sounds from downstairs. The garage door had not been broken, so they hadn’t gone in there. Relaxing, Cain used haragei, a sort of bujutsu inspired sixth sense to probe the house. There were three people upstairs, none down.

Cain slowly climbed the stairs. He knew his muddy boots would be leaving a trail behind him adding to the crimes of those upstairs. Carefully Cain stepped over the sixth step, which had a creak that he hadn’t had time to fix yet. At the top, he could hear three voices in the sitting room. They appeared to be arguing over how best to get his large screen television down the stairs.

Cain pushed the sitting room door open, flicked the light on and stepped in. The three intruders were big men in dark clothing wearing gloves, but not masks. They turned to him and froze.

"Good evening gentlemen. Perhaps you’d be so good as to lay down on the floor and put your hands behind your heads?" Cain asked gently. In answer the first man stepped towards Cain and started raising his hands. Cain stepped into him. His foot flew up. The intruder bellowed in agony and crumpled. Sliding forwards, Cain’s open hand caught the second man under the chin. It took the man’s head back with enough force to smash the window behind. In one movement, Cain bent scooped the man’s legs and threw the body through the broken window.

A punch snapped the third man’s head back, giving Cain the instant he needed. He grabbed the man’s hand, pulled and turned. The intruder dropped instantly to his knees, as if someone had kicked his feet from under him. Cain looked into his eyes and locked the technique fully. The intruder’s wrist broke. Cain turned and twisted again. The long scream continued as the man’s elbow and then shoulder dislocated. Finally Cain stamped hard down dislocating the man’s kneecap.

Turning, Cain sprang to the first man, who was writhing in agony, clutching at his groin. Cain kicked him in the face, breaking his nose and spraying out blood onto the floor. Grabbing one of the man’s wrists, he twisted it, forcing the intruder into more agony, which drew him up from the floor. Cain threw the man through the sitting room door. He cleared the banister outside and crashed into the wall. Dropping down, the intruder crashed heavily down the stairs.

The one man remaining upstairs had passed out from the pain, so Cain left him and went downstairs. At the bottom, the crumpled heap was unconscious, which was just as well as his femur had broken and was sticking bloodily out through his trousers. Outside the final intruder lay still.

Cain put his coat on, returned to the car and brought it down to the house, parking round the back as usual. Next he called the duty officer at Stirling Lines. Briefly he explained what had happened. The duty officer would take care of calling the cavalry. Finally, he hung the big coat up to dry, removed his boots and went to the kitchen to make some tea.

The police arrived just as Cain poured his tea out. A big rain coated detective led the rush into Cain’s house to be greeted by Cain with a large mug of tea.

"Evening gentlemen." Cain gestured to the intruder at the bottom of his stairs. "I’d appreciate it if you could move this one outside as he appears to be leaking all over my floor." Just then a uniformed officer came in from outside and spoke to the detective.

"Sir, the one outside’s in a bad way; his legs both look broken and he’s unconscious." The detective looked hard at Cain.

"He owes me for the window upstairs he broke. There’s another one upstairs too. Now, would anyone like a cup of tea?" Detective Inspector Wilson had been in the force for over twenty years, nothing fazed him. The call had come through from the SAS duty officer, which meant that the man in front of him was SAS. He sent an officer upstairs to check whilst he sent another to escort the ambulance crew in, who were now approaching the house. Finally he took Cain to one side.

"Right," began Wilson sharply. "We’ll start with your weapon. Hand it over."

"Which one would you like?" Wilson gave Cain the look he reserved for the most stupid criminals he met who tried to be clever. It rolled right over Cain without effect.

"The one you used on those men outside." Cain smiled, finished his tea and put the mug down. He held up his open hands. "Don’t be funny with me young man. Hand it over." Cain reached behind him and drew out his SIG.

"You can take this, but you’ll find it has not been fired today and is licensed to me to carry at all times." Wilson noted that Cain made no effort to avoid getting fingerprints all over the gun as he pulled it out and handed it butt first to him. "Jones." A younger and altogether smaller detective stepped around Wilson and held an open polythene bag under the pistol. Cain dropped it into the bag, which was quickly sealed. "Now you can tell me what went on here tonight?" When they had finished, Cain was taken to the station whilst the forensics teams went over his house.

At Hereford Police Station, Cain slept in one of the cells whilst DI Wilson and DC Jones gathered information and went over his statement.

"Sir, this is ridiculous. This statement doesn’t make sense. Nobody charges in on three burglars, batters them unconscious then sits down and makes a cup of tea." Wilson looked up from his papers, over his spectacles. The SAS duty officer had woken the commanding officer, who had woken the Chief Constable, who had woken the Superintendent, who had called in and let his feelings be known. All in all this was a serious storm brewing. Neither the Chief nor the Super liked being woken up at night. And the Super certainly didn’t like being woken up by the Chief and told to get and sort it. Wilson wanted as much as possible sorted out before the Super arrived in the morning.

"Oh, he did it alright. More or less how he said too, at least we’ll never find out the discrepancies. I suspect the stupid bastards that tried to break into his house will probably keep completely quiet about everything too. Especially when they find out who he is. Read this and then go and release him." He handed a file to Jones and lit a cigarette. The file had been provided by the SAS as background information on Cain. "Now what we have is three seriously injured, large, well known burglars, with a fondness for physical violence found at the defendant’s home. Against that we have a highly decorated SAS officer, who, by the way, has won the Victoria Cross serving his country. He was also carrying a pistol, which he didn’t draw, as, in his words, it would have been more dangerous for the intruders. Do you think I could possibly charge him with anything? Can you imagine the outcry? ‘SAS war hero charged over defending his home from violent thugs’. The Chief does not like publicity like that." Wilson stubbed out his cigarette and lit another. He had been meaning to quit, but the potential storm brewing here was not helping him.

"Right, what do we know: Major Cain has been in the SAS for eight years and is an expert in martial arts. So he’s certainly capable of all he’s claimed. Plus, of course, I am not having a damn war hero clogging up my cells without a smoking gun and twenty nuns witnessing that he did it. The Chief Constable will not take kindly to having SAS officers locked up in the cells." Wilson stubbed out another cigarette and immediately lit yet another. "Now what are we going to tell the Super when he arrives?"

At four Jones called the hospital and found out that one of the men was in intensive care whilst the other two were serious but stable. At five Wilson had Cain woken up for another chat. When Wilson entered the interview room he was tired, fed up and felt like sleeping for a week. He was not happy to see Cain sitting erect, smiling and looking fresh as a daisy.

"Right Mr Cain, we’ll start from the top again."

"Listen, you know by now that none of the intruders have any bullet holes in them. Pretty soon you’ll also know that my pistol has not been fired recently. That means that you have one householder who disturbs three burglars and is forced to defend himself. You are not stupid; you know that this will not look good if it gets out. I’m not stupid either; publicity would not help my career. This means that we both know that this is going to be lost somewhere, so if you want to talk to me any more, we can do it in your canteen, where you are buying." Cain folded his arms and looked up at Wilson.

"I could have you taken down to the cells and the rubber hoses brought out," Wilson replied angrily.

"Come on. Let’s go eat. It’s night time and this station does not have enough officers in to accomplish your wild dreams." Cain smiled. Wilson laughed, he couldn’t help it.

"Okay, but can you please not look so composed. It’s supposed to intimidate people when they’re brought into a police station." Cain laughed at this.

"Sorry, Inspector, I’ll do my best."

"Thank you Major. Now lets see if we can harden our arteries a bit in the canteen."

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