Semtex, Strip-joints, and a Sabotaged Bra

With more than a passing reference to 70’s cop-show ‘The Professionals’, Agents Dozy and Boil investigate an explosives scam. Could the local lingerie factory be involved? Corset could…

A living work of reference for students of Fairly Recent Fashion, Dozy cut an awesome figure. Dark, soulful, incredibly bloodshot eyes gazed out from beneath a curly perm that had twice narrowly missed caution on a charge of assaulting passers by. His broad, masculine chest strained against a tightly fitting purple crimplene shirt, and like his colleague, he wore denims so flared that the slightest breeze to catch them generated a Severe Weather Warning over a distance spanning five counties. Although similarly dressed, Boil had opted for a more hair-o-dynamic short back and sides, and was prone to teasing the ladies by casually pulling at his trouser leg to reveal an alluring flash of beige nylon sock. Under the watchful gaze of their immediate superior Pigley, these men represented a crack team of undercover agents. These men represented… WD40.

“One of our agents has successfully managed to expose Dai N’mite, and the explosives operation he’s been running under cover of his lingerie factory, and it’s your job to protect her from his cronies until after the trial”, announced Pigley, “Gentlemen, I’d like you to meet Gloria… Gloria Snockers”.

Dozy stared at Gloria in open-mouthed admiration. He hadn’t felt this way in two whole weeks – this was a life-long love and he knew it. Un-blinkered by such emotion and a veteran of WD40 since the introductory feature film, Boil recognised the signs too. He immediately hurried off to make arrangements for Gloria’s imminent funeral.

Later that day…

Following a hot tip, Dozy and Boil sat in the cavernous gloom of the C.D. Strip Joint, feigning disinterest as a scantily clad woman gyrated around a pole. Boil shifted uncomfortably. “He’s not gonna show”, he said. Christ, these haemorrhoids were killing him.

“Of course he’s gonna show”, said Dozy reassuringly “We go back years, buddy. How often have we sat in seedy strip joints waiting for evil henchmen to show? They’ve always shown!” In truth he was worried – Gloria had been in the ladies room for four hours now, and he’d never known a girl spend much more than two and a half in there applying mascara before. Making his excuses, he left his seat in search of her.

Alone at the table, Boil reflected on his own recent successes with women, or rather, lack of them. Nobody seemed to take him seriously anymore. He was jolted from his thoughts by the sound of voices yelling behind him. “Freeze!”

He kicked over Dozy’s vacant seat as, brandishing his gun, he leapt on to the table and yelled dramatically “Everybody down!” A pause followed, pregnant with embarrassment, before the revellers once more took up the chant they were singing in celebration of one of their number “F’r Ee’s A Jolly Good Fellow…”

Mortified, he scurried off to the corridor, where he found Dozy cradling the dying body of Gloria in his arms. Gazing dreamily up at Dozy, she breathed her final words “Does this dress make me look fat?”

Dozy was a broken man, and in the days that followed, he hit the bottle with a vengeance. On the night that his consumption hit the dizzying heights of two grapefruit juices and half a shandy, the futility of it all began to hit him. Banging down his glass down on the bar, he vowed to find Gloria’s killer.

Pigley looked up in surprise as Dozy strode manfully into his office and asked tersely “What have forensics got?”

“Well, it doesn’t look good”, replied Pigley. “It would seem that Gloria’s bra was sabotaged, puncturing her implants. She died of silicone poisoning. Everything points to Dai N’mite and the ‘Low-Slung and Loaded’ lingerie factory. He’s left Phil McAminix in charge of the operation - we’ve long suspected he’s involved in the explosives scam too.”

Dozy and Boil raced from headquarters in a choking cloud of Brut 33 aftershave. They needed backup – they needed the real star of the show, a 1977 mk II Ford Capri. Pausing only at the pharmacy to pick up Boil’s haemorrhoid prescription, and twice at petrol stations to refill the thirsty car’s tank, they sped the quarter of a mile through teeming city streets to ‘Low-Slung and Loaded’.

McAminix was jumping down from the back of the trailer as they screeched into the car park, secure in the knowledge that the last of the damning evidence was on board and the factory was clean. He reached for his gun, but was thrown off guard by the stunning good looks of the Ford Capri. He was also slightly unbalanced by the sight of the furry dice hanging from the rear view mirror, and the sun-strip across the top of the windscreen, which bore the legend ‘SPECIAL AGENTS DO IT UNDERCOVER’

More defective than detective, Dozy leaned through the car window and aimed his gun at McAminix. His bullet wildly missed its target, but more by luck than judgement succeeded in bringing down the large fibreglass corset that decorated the front of the building, knocking McAminix to the floor.

Dozy leaped from the car and levelled his weapon at his prostrate target. He was joined by Boil, and somewhat belatedly by Pigley, who’d pursued the Capri in a Bristol city bus.

“You can’t do this, Dozy”, said Pigley urgently.

“Give me one good reason why not.” There was an edge of madness to Dozy’s voice.

“It’s in the script.”

“Oh well, if there’s cash in it”, said Dozy, replacing his gun in its holster. He linked arms in a buddy-like fashion with Boil, and they strolled back to the Capri. McAminix was hauled to his feet and bundled off in a squad car, subsequently spending time inside sewing mailbags and those odd little net umbrellas that keep the flies off food at posh barbecues.

Signalling the film crew to move out, the director picked up Dozy’s abandoned principles from the tarmac. He’d be needing them for next week’s episode, ‘Letter’s hope we’ve seen the last of this’, in which Boil faces a frantic race to clear his partner’s name after his suspension by his superiors on suspicion of cheating at ‘Scrabble’…