Sabato, 05 Giugno, 2004 | Posted by Detective Stevens at 13:12

Over the last few days we've had a young buck tagging along with us. Name is Vernon. Early 20's. Thought he'd just tag along almost as work experience. Head office thought they'd throw him our way for a week or so.

It's wonderful in this business to see enthusiasm on the face, to see the look in the eyes when you apprehend someone for a crime, and you never forget the heave of the lunch when you see your first dead body.

After a couple of years you become hardened to it all. The lunch stays down and looking over a murder scene has proven to be quite thirsty work. Well any way, it's one way of forgetting what you have just seen and getting the smell out of your nostrils.

This one we looked at today, was particularly bad. The deceased was a male in his late 30's. First shot in the head, then run over by what looked like a large heavy vehicle. His guts had burst through his stomach, his head had been crushed. The smell was awful. He'd obviously been there a couple of days and it seemed that the local stray dogs and cats had feasted on his leftovers.

Vernon had come along. We're not allowed to bring people like Vernon, but he had insisted and it was a long way back to the station, so I gave in. I saw the look on his face. Everyone has seen thousands of deaths on television. Every cop show has at least one, but nothing prepares you for it. The scariest reality show on earth. You could see the blood draining from Vernon's face. I walked over to hold him up and take him back to the car.

As I approached the stench hit me. I was prepared for it, unfortunately Vernon wasn't. Up it came, a Big Mac, large fries and a large Coke. Thankfully he hadn't take the upsize offer, or it would have continued for some time longer. It lay all before him. If you reached down, you could have pieced the whole thing together and saved it for dinner.

I didn't mentioned that to Vernon. Didn't think it was appropriate at the time.

At teh end of his week I sat down with him. I thought it had been a good week. He seemed to like it. I had enjoyed the mentoring experience and thought I had done everything to show him the good side of the job. I thought I had been a good role model. I had hoped that something had been learnt by the young fellow that would hold him in good stead no matter what career path he was to take with the force.

So I asked him the question, "Well, Vernon, what do you want to do as a career?" I had hoped it would be Detective, or Senior Sargent, or something where he could put what I had taught him into practice.

He looked at me and said, "I want to be a DJ." I must have looked stunned, because he felt he had to elaborate just in case I didn't know what he meant. "A DJ, a Disk Jockey, music, dance, you know?"