Triumph

Triumph

Parking his Triumph 650 Saint on the centre stand Colin looked towards the man laying face down on the grass verge; his feet hanging over the kerb and his arms stretched above his head. At first sight, a casual passer-by might have thought the man to be simply asleep, but Colin had been sent to investigate a fatal road accident. Besides, who would want to sleep beside a road in the pouring rain? Lifting his goggles onto the peak of his corker helmet and pulling off a long gauntlet, Colin checked for a pulse at the neck; there was none and the skin was cold. Thankfully the traffic was light and road reasonably wide at the scene. He wouldn’t be disturbed.

The call from the sergeant had come as Colin was taking his refs in Lyndhurst where he’d just stopped by to do some reports; and to get out of the rain - corned beef sandwiches were always a favourite.
“Sorry mate, there’s been an accident on the Lyndhurst Road near Christchurch…we just had a call from Dorset. Two of their guys are on the scene but it’s a Hampshire job.”
“Anyone else around?”
“No, they’re all busy - here you go.” Colin took the scribbled note and looked up out of the window at the miserable Saturday afternoon; it had rained since early on and he’d hoped he wouldn’t have to go out again as everything was still damp from his ride through the Forest earlier. Carefully wrapping the remaining two sandwiches back in the greaseproof paper in which they’d been wrapped that morning by Penny, he got ready to leave. Ten years in the Hampshire Force had been good for Colin and Penny. The money was poor - and had been getting steadily worse, but he liked the people and the work; and on days like this, Penny was his only reason.

The Dorset traffic car was waiting at the scene; sitting in their white Rover P6 about fifty feet from the body were two policemen unknown to Colin. The driver, a doleful man with long dark sideburns matching his long sombre face, wound the window half way down as Colin approached.
“His bike’s over there.” He nodded nonchalantly back to the verge behind the P6 where, another thirty feet or so back, Colin could just see the handlebars of the crashed motorbike in the long grass.
“What happened then?” Peering into the black leather upholstered interior, Colin saw an indifferent passenger looking directly ahead - one muddy leather boot on the transmission tunnel, elbow resting on the raised knee and an un-tipped cigarette held close to his face. The distinctive Senior Service packet was perched, open, on the dashboard.
“Dunno. Looks like he just came off - perhaps he got rain in his goggles or something.”
“Perhaps he hit the County sign?” Looking back along the road at the back of the new ‘Welcome to Hampshire’ sign, Colin smiled to himself at his own little joke before thinking again with his usual bitterness about the recent changes in the County line that had forced him out of his country Police House in the village Hurn to live on the outskirts of Southampton. The Local Government Act of 1972 hadn’t done him any favours. The driver smiled,
“No, he definitely came off on your side.” The passenger continued to look away from Colin and drew hard on the cigarette. Colin tried to engage him, noticing as he did another two packets of cigarettes, Woodbines, in the middle of the empty rear seat.
“So no witnesses then?” Still no response from the passenger but the driver was more willing.
“Nothing, we were just passing and we saw him lying there. The bikes cold so I guess he’s been there a while. Anyway, we’re off now.”
“Before you go, do you think you could call up the ambulance for me? That body’s got to be moved.”
“Moved?”