George was in an extremely good mood; on the way to work he had stopped at the Post Office to collect a package he had been waiting for from Amazon. He got changed in the locker room in record time and could hardly wait for parade to be over so that he could carry his prize into the canteen where he carefully opened the heavy cardboard packaging.
After taking a sip of his coffee to calm his nerves he lifted the rare and currently out-of-print copy of a hardback book and examined the cover, the title proclaimed boldly "How To Become A Sex God", with the subtitle "The secrets of being irresistible to women" printed in tight lettering beneath it. The image of a broadly smiling man with an impossible mop of white hair and the author's name 'Morgan Wright' dominated the remaining space on the front cover.
George held his breath as he handled the book with reverence and slowly opened the front cover to see the chapter list. He chuckled as he read:
'Chapter One - You Need An English Accent'
At that moment his reverie was interrupted by the sound of his personal radio squawking into life and the control room assigning him to report a possible shed burglary. George acknowledged the call and collected his probationer on the way to the back yard where their car was waiting for them.
On the journey to the call, George’s probationer sat nervously fidgeting wondering why his driver seemed so distracted and didn’t appear to be trying to avoid the fallen branches in their path. He had no idea that George’s mind was on the book. The previous twenty-four hours had seen some of the heaviest storms seen in that part of the country for some years and the gale-force winds had left debris everywhere including the roads.
Eventually they arrived at the address they had been sent to and George mercifully began to pay attention to his surroundings. After being met at the door by the householder they asked him to explain what had happened. They were led through the house into the rear garden where a large garden shed stood at the far end with a large pile of neatly cut timber stacked next to it. Oddly, the shed had no roof.
“It’s unbelievable” exclaimed their informant, “these animals will steal anything these days.”
“Apparently your shed has been burgled, can you tell me what happened?” asked George.
“Well, last time I checked it was a couple of days ago and everything was fine, nothing missing or anything. I came out this morning and found it stolen, gone.”
“What has actually been taken from the shed sir?” asked George.
The man looked blankly at George “Why, the roof of course, can’t you see? They’ve broken into my garden and stolen the roof off my shed, what sort of person does that? To add insult to injury the left two huge wooden panels in my garden, made a right mess it did and it took me forever to cut it all up and pile it up there”.
George stepped closer to the neat stack of timber that the man was indicating and prodded it with his boot. He looked thoughtful for a moment then turned to the caller.
“Can you tell me, was the roof constructed from tongue and groove planking with a dark grey roofing felt covering it?”
“Yes officer, how did you know?”
“It’s my professional opinion sir, that there has been no offence committed here, in fact I think this is a clear case of storm damage. All that wood that you cut and gathered up still has the roofing felt attached to it, you’ve made a very impressive stack of spare timber out of your own roof that was torn off your shed during the storms.
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