Hell and Highwater
an excerpt

[The story so far: Peter, dressed as a woman and going under the name Paula, and his friend Angela, are spending eternity in the Ninth Circle of Hell. They have taken it on themselves to free their colleague Foskill from the local police station, where he is being held on a baseless charge of being a street dealer in cheese sandwiches for which Peter is entirely responsible. The police are planning to force a confession out of Foskill by making him watch Wife Swap on telly.]

The front entrance of the police station seemed a fairly difficult approach, with a wire gate and a smallish wooden door protected by an entryphone, several cameras, and two men in kevlar helmets carrying machine guns. Breaking in by this door seemed impossible.
"I don't think we can get in that way," Paula advised.
"Let's see if there's a back door."
From Gummer Way they turned right at the familiar corner onto Kinnock Drive. There was a flat-pack furniture shop and then a level crossing. The railway ran behind the police station.
"They won't be expecting an attack from the tracks," observed Paula.
"If the shooting starts, wave your arms about and tell them you're an unarmed electrician."
"Will that help?"
"No."
The railway ran through a few trees and behind the police station.
"Can you climb trees?"
"Not very well."
"Try that tree, there. That doesn't look too difficult."
"How do I go up it?"
"Trial and error. Put a foot on the lowest bough, then try to climb from there."
Paula and Angela clambered erratically up the lowest branches and reached a spot from which they could see into the rear windows of the police station.
"Miaou!" said a familiar voice a couple of feet above their heads.
"Sheba!" they both said together. "What are you doing here?"
Sheba jumped silently to a lower branch, where Angela could reach her.
"Did you come to see the birds?"
There were no more birds in this tree than any other, so Angela guessed that Sheba had some other reason for being here.
"Perhaps it's just the warmest tree for miles around," Paula suggested.
For a while they sat and watched through the windows.
"Where do you think Foskill is?" asked Angela.
"The cell block is down there. I think it's that bit."
They could see a couple of figures through a window, but not clearly enough to make out who they were. They watched Sheba carefully to see if she showed any sign of recognising anyone, but she didn't. Sheba sat quietly, occasionally looking hungrily at a bird.
"I could take Sheba to see Foskill," said Paula. "I have a bit of a conscience about telling them Foskill gave me the cheese sandwich, to be honest."
"Go ahead," said Angela, "I'll wait here."
Paula picked Sheba up and held her over her shoulder. She carried Sheba gently round the block and rang the entryphone at the police station. Buster was at the desk. He didn't recognise Paula.
"What can we do for you?"
"Foskill is here, isn't he? You're holding him for some reason."
"Yes."
"I brought his cat. I thought he might like to see his cat."
Sheba, lying limply across Paula's shoulder, looked around and then relaxed.
"You'd better come with me, then."
Paula followed Buster down the familiar stairs. Buster unlocked a cell and announced, "Visitor for you, Foskill," before ushering Paula and Sheba into it.
Foskill was looking quite ill, despite having been in the cell for only a few hours. He lifted his cat off Paula's shoulders and dropped her into his lap.
"Thank you."
"I saw her in the office. I knew she would be pleased to see you."
"She was a stray, of course. I adopted her when she was tiny. She was really weak: I didn't expect her to grow to this size."
"She's happy and well looked after," said Paula. Paula was surprised that Foskill didn't seem to recognise her, and she pondered whether or not to reveal her other identity to him. On balance it did not seem a particularly good idea.
"I don't know what to ask you. How are you feeling?"
"Pretty miserable, I suppose, but a lot better for knowing Sheba is all right."
"Anything I can tell your friends?"
"Tell them that in an attempt to make me confess, they're going to make me watch Wife Swap."
"And will you?"
"I don't have anything to confess, really. They think I lead a double life, at the same time a software manager for a leading company and a street dealer in cheese sandwiches."
"Can they prove it?"
"I don't think so. It isn't true, even if they do."
It was difficult to imagine Foskill leading a double life. Indeed, Foskill himself occasionally wondered whether he led even a single life.
The cell door opened again and Buster came in. "Time for your favourite television programme," he said to Foskill smugly, and to Paula, "You and the cat will have to go home now."

In the association room Foskill sat in one of the wooden chairs. The television was already running, showing some nonsensical advertisement about mobile phones playing hide and seek. Surely by now the television companies had worked out that the audience had worked out that the more diverse and innovative the advertisements were, the more homogeneous and mediocre were the cheap Chinese imported goods that they were presenting?
"And now," said the announcer in a tone of voice that falsely implied that what he was about to say would be interesting, "shy, retiring librarian Norma from Surbiton changes places with an Iranian terrorist based in Leicester who writes rubbish poetry and converts meerschaum pipes into grenade launchers for a living, in Wife Sw-"
A stone crashed against the plate glass window, shattering it. Smashed plate glass fell onto the tables and chairs in the association room, missing Foskill by less than a metre. With another loud bang, a second stone came through the opening and smashed the screen of the television set into a million shards, and the set dissolved into crackling yellow flames and thick smoke.
"Gosh! Only just in time!" Foskill exclaimed, jumping out of the broken window onto the railway line outside. Smoke poured out of the upstairs window. In the confusion Buster could be heard coughing and trying to yell for an assault rifle. A huge police dog, rather better trained for its role in an emergency than your average DCSO, shot out of a side door to try to seize Foskill in its slavering jaws. Sheba, a case-hardened stray only recently domesticated, sensing an unprecedented opportunity for a fight, jumped down from the window and overtook the dog. She stood her ground in front of it, arching her back, raising her fur, spitting and yowling. The dog stopped in its tracks, yapping furiously but impotently. For an instant there was a stand-off. Then Sheba took a step towards it, silently threatening to scratch its nose. The dog thought better of it, conceded defeat and ran off, whimpering, back into the side door.
When the noise died down and the smoke had cleared, Angela, still in the tree, realised she could no longer see Foskill or Sheba. The stocking that she had used so effectively as a slingshot was now stretched and laddered, so she took the other one off to match and waited until Paula arrived.
"Good marksmanship," Paula called up into the tree.
"I got tired of doing good by stealth."
"Where did you learn to do that?"
"Art classes. Long story."
"Was anyone hurt?"
"In the art classes?"
"No, just now."
"Nobody. Just some injured pride and a bitter and resentful dog."
"Where are Foskill and Sheba?"
"I don't know. They just sort of vanished in the confusion. I hope they can keep their heads down until the hoo-hah subsides."
"Knowing Foskill he'll be back at work tomorrow and all our efforts will have been in vain."
"In vain?" Angela was taken aback. "Paula, look here, of course it isn't in vain." She clambered breathlessly down the tree to join Paula on the ground. "Oof! Where is your pride? For a moment - ugh - we actually made a difference. Ouch! They were going to try to force a confession," Angela reached ground zero and rubbed her hands together to shake the dirt off them, "out of a man that we both know is innocent. We did something to right an injustice. We helped a friend in need. For an instant we stood out from an indifferent crowd. Of course they'll repair the window, they'll replace the television, they'll carry on forcing confessions out of innocent people, they'll carry on showing excruciating rubbish and calling it television programmes, they'll probably go after Foskill and they'll quite likely come after us as well. But just because they can restore the status quo doesn't mean at our effort was worthless. Whatever happens next, we did not expend that effort in vain."
"Miaou!"
Sheba was sitting on a low fence that separated a garden from the copse and the railway line. For a cat who had just driven away a police dog five times her size, she looked astonishingly peaceable.
"You're back!" Angela smiled at Sheba. "Is that your garden?"
They saw Foskill's face at the window.
Paula realised the obvious. "Those houses are Mandelson Drive, aren't they? That's why Sheba knows about these trees. If Foskill stays at home, he's lasagna, pretty much. The demons may not have much evidence against him as a cheesemonger, but escaping from lawful custody is a different matter altogether."