Stephen Fry - MOAB IS MY WASHPOT

I unlatched the door and was surprised to see that there was a man in my room.

‘It’s all right,’ I said as I entered. ‘If you can come back and clean later? I’ll leave the room free for you in about an hour.’

Another man appeared, stepping sideways out of the bathroom. Two men in my room. Both wearing grey suits.

‘Mr Bridges?’ said the first.

‘Yes.’

‘Mr Edward Bridges?’

‘That’s right…

God how stupid can a man be? It never for a minute crossed my mind, until they revealed themselves, that they were anything other than strangely dressed and gendered chambermaids.

‘We are police officers, sir. We have reason to believe that you may be using a stolen credit card, the property of a Mr Edward Bridges of Solihull.’

‘Ah,’ I said and smiled.

All at once a hundred thousand gallons of acid poison poured out of me and a hundred thousand pounds of lead fell from my shoulders.

‘Yes. Yes,’ I said. ‘I’m afraid that you are absolutely right.’

‘If you wouldn’t mind coming with us, sir? I am arresting you now and will shortly make a formal charge at the station.’

I was so happy, so blissfully, radiantly, wildly happy that if I could have sung I would have sung. If I could have danced I would have danced. I was free. At last I was free. I was going on a journey now where every decision would be taken for me, every thought would be thought for me and every day planned for me. I was going back to school.

I almost giggled at the excitement and televisual glamour of the handcuffs, one for my right wrist the other for the policeman’s left.

‘If you’ll just put your hand in my jacket pocket, sir, like so..

Of course, the hotel. The sight of a criminal youth being led away in handcuffs was no kind of happy advertisement for the Wiltshire Hotel, Swindon. Cuffed together then, each of us with a hand in his left pocket, the two of us, followed by the silent other who carried my suitcase, descended the stairs.

The two receptionists stood on tiptoe to watch me go. I gave them a small, sad, sweet smile as I left. And do you know what? One of them, the elder of the two, perhaps a mother herself, smiled back. One of warmest smiles I have ever been given.

I expected to be pushed into a waiting police car, but no, we walked on and soon I saw the reason why. Directly opposite the hotel doors, not thirty yards away, was a huge building with a blue sign.

WILTSHIRE CONSTABULARY

‘I hope I get special consideration,’ I said, ‘for being easy on the legwork.’

The policeman not attached to me smiled. I was smiling, everyone was smiling. It was a glorious day.

‘Special consideration for being such a prannett as to commit a crime within sight of a police station?’ said the policeman. ‘Special extra sentencing more like. We do like a challenge, you know.’

The most important consideration, the only consideration so far as I was concerned, was to keep my identity a secret. They could charge me as a John Doe, or whatever the British equivalent might be – not Fred Bloggs surely? – and I would be happy. But they must never find out my real name. There was no reason that they should, I argued. I had been travelling for some weeks now as Edward Bridges. How could they connect this non-person to Stephen Fry of Booton, Norfolk?

I sat in my little police cell and hummed a hum to myself. I imagined that once they had totted up all the depredations made on the Access card I would serve at least two years in prison. Two years in which I could do some serious writing, perhaps even apply to retake my A levels. I would emerge, newly qualified, write a postcard to my parents to let them know that everything was all right, and then start life again. Properly.

In the interview room, the same two officers, a detective constable and a detective sergeant, played that fiendish role game in which each of them adopts a different stance towards the accused. The version they played was Nice Cop and Even Nicer Cop, each competing with the other for the part of Even Nicer Cop. It is hard not to crumble under such a cunningly vicious approach.

‘I mean you’re a young lad, you’re well spoken,’ said Nice Cop.

Ah, that wonderful English euphemism, ‘well spoken’. I was well spoken, certainly, but not well spoken of.

‘You could only be the son of very understanding parents,’ said Even Nicer Cop. ‘They’ll be so worried.’

‘Maybe you’re on the missing child register,’ said Nice. ‘It would take us a bit of time, but we’d find out in the end.’

‘Try one of these,’ said Even Nicer, offering up a pack of Benson and Hedges. ‘Not quite so rough on the throat as those Embassys, I think you’ll find.’

‘It’s just that I’ve given my parents enough grief already,’ I said. ‘I’m eighteen now and I’d like to take responsibility for this on my own.

‘Now that,’ said Nice, ‘is very commendable. But let’s think it through for a moment. I reckon if you want to stop giving your parents grief, you’ll let us call them up straight away. That’s the way I see it.’

‘But you don’t know them!’ I said. ‘They’ll descend in a swoop with lawyers and things and I… I just couldn’t face it.’

‘Hey up, I reckon it’s time for a cup of tea,’ said Even Nicer. ‘Let me guess… white, two sugars? Am I right?’

‘Spot on. Thank you.’

Nice and I chewed the fat awhile.

‘See,’ said Nice. ‘If we don’t know your name it’s very hard for us to charge you. We know that you have dishonestly obtained a pecuniary advantage for yourself by using a stolen credit card, but for all we know, you are wanted for murder in Bedfordshire or rape in Yorkshire.’

‘Oh but I’m not!’

‘Technically,’ said Nice, ‘you have also been guilty of forgery. Every time you sign one of those credit card vouchers you forge a signature, isn’t that right?’

I nodded.

‘Well now you see, it’s more or less up to us. If we charge you for forgery, you’ll go to prison for at least five years.’

‘Five years!’

‘Woah, woah, woah… I said if. If, mind.’

I chewed my lower lip and pondered. There was a question that had been bugging me since my arrest. ‘I wonder if you mind me asking you something?’ I said.

‘Ask away, son.

‘Well, it’s just this. How did you find me?’

‘How did we find you?’

‘Yes. I mean, there you were in my hotel room. Was it the wristwatch, had you followed me from the jewellers?’

‘Wristwatch?’ Nice frowned and made a note.

Oops. They had known nothing about the Ingersoll.

‘What then?’

‘It was your shoes, son.

‘My shoes?’

‘When you checked into the hotel, the girl at reception, she noticed how your shoes were very tatty, see? “A tramp’s shoes” she called them. After you’d gone up to the room, she thinks to herself. “A young man like that, nice suit, but tatty shoes. Something not right, there.” So she calls up the credit card company and they tell her that the card you gave her when you checked in, that was a stolen card. So she rings us up, see? Simple really.’

‘And what was the first thing I went out and bought?’ I moaned, looking up at the ceiling like a rabbi at prayer. ‘A nice new pair of shoes.’

‘Smart girl. Always look at the shoes first,’ Nice said approvingly. ‘Didn’t Sherlock Holmes say that very thing once?’

The door opened and Even Nicer popped his head round, ‘Oh, Stephen, one thing I forgot to ask…’

‘Yes?’

‘Ah,’ said Even Nicer. ‘Aha! so it is Stephen, then? Stephen Fry.’

What a pratt, I mean, what a gibbon. Not since Gordon Jackson replied to the German guard’s English ‘Good luck’ with an instant ‘Thank you!’ as he and Dickie Attenborough climbed aboard the bus to freedom in The Great Escape has anyone been so irretrievably, unforgivably, slappably, dumb.