How to Age Disgracefully

Prologue

Police Constable Penny Rogers had been right on the bumper of the minibus, siren wailing and lights flashing, for several miles before it finally pulled on to the hard shoulder of the motorway. Were they completely deaf and blind? As she approached the vehicle and saw the mismatched group of people staring down at her through the grimy windows, she realized that perhaps they actually were. At least half the passengers looked to be well over the age of seventy, and a few—bizarrely—under the age of five.

The minibus’s hydraulic door opened with a reluctant clunk and a shudder, revealing a red-faced and slightly sweaty middle-aged woman in the driver’s seat.

“Why did it take you so long to pull over?” asked Penny as she climbed on board, not bothering to disguise her irritation.

“So sorry, officer. I was looking for a service station for another urgent toilet break. You have no idea how many of those we need with this lot.” The woman jerked her head toward her passengers, who were all staring at Penny with an unnerving, silent intensity.

To add to the surreal nature of the scene, the three children were dressed as policemen. Were they taking the piss?

“It’s a miracle we get anywhere, to be honest,” continued the driver. “So initially when you started flashing all those lights and the traffic began moving out of our way, I thought maybe you were giving us a helpful escort. But then I realized that you couldn’t have known about the state of Kylie’s nappy, or Ruby’s weak bladder, and you were being rather insistent, so I thought it best to stop.”

“I don’t think you’re allowed to disclose sensitive and personal medical information like that without permission, Lydia. Or a warrant. Does she have a warrant?” said a small but fierce-looking lady who Penny presumed must be Ruby.

“I wasn’t speeding, was I?” continued the driver.

“No. In fact, if anything, you were driving dangerously slowly. But we’ve been asked to apprehend this vehicle. I believe someone in this minibus is wanted by the Met for questioning,” said Penny.

The color drained from the driver’s face, and she rubbed her hands along her thighs, creating faint sweat marks on her pale-blue jeans, before gripping her knees tightly and gulping.

“Oh gosh,” she said. “Is he pressing charges? I’d thought he might. I just snapped, you see. After twenty years of dismissive comments, criticisms or—even worse—being completely overlooked and ignored, I’d just had enough. Although I admit it was partly my own fault.”

“It was not your fault, Lydia,” chanted several of the passengers in unison, employing the weary tones of an oft-repeated mantra.

The driver ignored them, pulling a tissue from her sleeve and using it to mop away the beads of moisture which were breaking out on her forehead.

“That photo montage was the final straw—the one that broke the camel’s back, I guess you could say,” she said in a croak. “Are you going to arrest me? What on earth are the girls going to think? Their own mother, a common criminal…”

Penny looked down at the photocopied picture she was holding, then back at the driver, who was now weeping all over the faux-leather steering wheel, playing havoc with her eye makeup. She wondered what this most improbable felon could possibly have done, but she didn’t have the time, or the energy, to find out. She walked a few paces down the aisle, scanning the faces of the bus occupants on either side.

“Lydia, my dear,” said an extremely old man halfway down the row of passenger seats to the blubbing bus driver. “I don’t think they’re looking for you. It’s me they’re after. You know, it’s almost a relief after all these years. It had become an addiction, I think. But the stakes had to get higher and higher to create the same rush. I should have stuck to bingo, like an ordinary pensioner. I think the only way I was ever going to be able to stop was to get taken down. And now, it seems, that time has come. Bang to rights.”

The man started to get to his feet, holding his hands out in front of him, waiting for Penny to cuff him. In the seat next to him, an angelic-looking blond boy was fast asleep, his badly fitting policeman’s helmet falling down over his face. His arms were wrapped around an ancient, unrecognizable breed of dog. As if he could sense the drama unfolding around him, the boy opened his eyes and stared at Penny in horror.

“HIDE EVERYTHING! IT’S A FUCKING RAID!” he shouted, waking the dog whose bark, it transpired, was much bigger than one would expect. Penny took a few paces back in shock. The whole bus erupted into applause.

“Shut UP, Maggie Thatcher!” said an old lady at the back, who obviously had dementia and no idea who the current prime minister was, or that she wasn’t on this minibus.

“Bravo, Lucky! We knew you could do it!” said the man whose anticipated arrest had been interrupted. Then, spotting the expression on Penny’s face, he added, “Sorry. It’s just those are the first words we’ve ever heard him say, and he’s nearly five. Not an ideal choice of vocabulary, obviously. Better if he’d started with a ‘hello,’ or a ‘thank you,’ but hey-ho. You work with what you’re given.”

“What did he mean— hide everything ?” said Penny, rubbing her forehead where she could feel a tension headache brewing, exacerbated by the tequila slammers she’d drunk at last night’s pub quiz. Next time she’d leave the Met to do their own legwork.

“Who knows, dear girl. Lucky’s past is a bit of a black box. He’s the most inappropriately named child you can imagine,” said the old man. “Anyhow, he wasn’t referring to me. None of my ill-gotten gains are aboard the vehicle. Well, not many, at least.”

“Look,” said Penny, with a sigh. “I have no idea what you’ve been up to, and I’m quite honestly not sure that I want to know, but it’s not you I’m after. Or her,” she said, nodding at the still-weeping bus driver.

“Did Social Services send you?” said a voice from the back of the bus, a teenaged boy with a gorgeous baby—who, given the resemblance, must have been his little sister—on his lap. “I honestly had no choice, and I swear I’ll never, ever do it again.”

“If you’re here on behalf of the council, then tell them it’s not criminal damage, it’s art. They’re just a bunch of philistines who can’t tell the difference,” said the woman Penny thought was Ruby. She was almost entirely covered by a voluminous mound of multicolored knitting.

Penny’s temples throbbed harder. She could feel the headache building, pressing against her skull.

“Well, I’m not going in for questioning again,” said another old lady with electric blue hair that made her head look uncannily like a police siren. “How many times do I have to tell you lot, they all died of natural causes? I’m just extraordinarily unlucky with husbands.”

“Not as unlucky as them,” muttered the old man.

“WILL YOU ALL PLEASE STOP CONFESSING!” Penny shouted. She held up the photocopied picture in her hand and waved it at them all. “THIS is who I’m looking for.”

Everyone went silent. Almost as one, they turned and stared at the seat immediately behind the driver. The empty seat. Then, they all swiveled to look toward the open bus door, and the motorway beside them.

Penny turned, too. The traffic had slowed to a near crawl, as it always did when drivers spotted a patrol car. Did they think she wasn’t aware that they never usually drove so cautiously?

A car horn blared, long and angry, and it was obvious why.

Who would have imagined that anyone so old could leap over the central reservation quite so athletically?