Abacus

I’ll try to help you,” he said sarcastically. “Amongst other things, you broke into an elderly lady’s house in Summer Hill and stole her late husband’s war medals.”
    Randall leant back into his seat as the prisoner remained silent. He reached into his jacket pocket, got the medals out and carefully arranged them out on the desk ensuring they were evenly spaced. “Greg, have a really good look at those, it may help you to, you know, jog your memory.” There was nothing. An impatient Randall stood up from his seat, walked around the desk and stood directly behind him. Sensing the intrusion of his personal space, the prisoner stiffened in his seat as his neck slowly sunk into his shoulders.
    Randall rested his hand on his shoulder as the prisoner cringed in expectation of a backhander, but instead, Randall slowly massaged him. “Come on, Greg, surely you can remember those,” he whispered calmly into his ear. His hands moved higher as he began lightly stroking the back of his head. The prisoner was now totally on edge as he clutched the edge of the desk.
    Randall knew from experience that the threat of a beating was often more compelling than the beating itself. Sensing the time was right Randall looked at Hobbs and raised his eyebrows, in a signal for Hobbs to take centre stage in his pantomime. “What do you make of Greg’s memory loss, Detective?” Randall asked.
    The prisoner looked up at Hobbs who was now undoing his tie and rolling up his sleeves. “I’m sure I can help him out with that, Sarge.”
    With Randall’s gentle massage and murmurings, and now the prospect of a severe beating from the giant Hobbs, Butler finally cracked. “Al l right, all right, I pinched them, it was me,” he blurted out. “I need help. I’ve got a bad habit. I don’t know what I’m doing half the time.”
    Randall’s voice too k on a compassionate tone. “Well, Greg, if that’s the case, we understand totally, don’t we, Detective?” Randall asked, glancing at Hobbs on return to his seat.
    “S ure do,” Hobbs replied on cue.
    I t was now back to Randall. “What you really need is help and understanding. There has probably been things that have happened in your life which have led you down this path, is that right?”
    “Y es, that’s right, totally right. I’ve had a bad upbringing and all,” he said, desperately looking for excuses.
    “We ll, my boy,” Randall said, leaning across the desk and sliding a blank piece of paper in front of him. “The best way for you to move forward is to admit your wrongdoings and seek help. I’m giving you this opportunity, so here’s the paper. Now write the Greg Butler story.” Randall pulled the pen from behind his ear and slid it across the desk on top of the paper. The prisoner picked up the pen and looked up at his tormentors before he wrote. As he scribbled, Randall read from across his desk, and occasionally looked up approvingly at Hobbs.
    Having finished writing his account , the prisoner signed at the bottom of the page and pushed it across the table to Randall who countersigned it. “Now doesn’t that feel better, Greg? Like you have lifted a weight off your shoulders.” The prisoner nodded.
    Randall got to his feet and passed the confession onto Hobbs who was putting his tie back on and rolling his sleeves back down. As he neared the prisoner, he swung his big right fist, which collected the prisoner in the ribs and sent him flying sideways off his chair and onto the carpeted floor.
    The prisoner moaned in pain, facing up at the ceiling. Randall carefully picked up a chair, placed it over the prisoner, and gently pinned his shoulders under two legs of it. He then calmly sat on the seat backwards, and pushed down on the legs firmly, so they now burrowed deep into him. The prisoner writhed in pain and let out a loud scream.
    “Sssshhhh,” Randall warned as he leant over the backrest and looked straight down at him. “Greg, I don’t listen to the bullshit and hard luck stories from grubs like you. Take them to your grave.” He leant across and picked up a medal from the desk and banged it on the forehead of the prisoner as he spoke. “Greg, you stole these medals so you could shoot hammer up your arm, and in the process have upset a terribly old war widow. The truth is, Greg, when you do die, no one is going to give a fuck. You would have double-crossed any semblance of a friend you may have had. Members of your family are probably sick of