Sarge Is in Charge: An Inspector Horace Mystery

By Philip Jones

In this heartwarming narrative, a remarkable police dog named Sarge enters the lives of Inspector Horace and his family, quickly earning his stripes as the bravest canine the Force has ever witnessed. Journey through the pages to discover how Sarge melds into his new family and impeccably balances his police duties.

Initially, Inspector Horace’s wife, Violet, views Sarge with a touch of scepticism, seeing him as a bit of an intruder. Yet, like their teenage daughter Florence, she soon finds herself warming up to the gallant dog. Florence swiftly bonds with Sarge, finding comfort in the thought that he will seamlessly transition between his domestic life and the noble duty of safeguarding her father.

As the tale unfolds, readers will find themselves engrossed in the captivating bond between Sarge and Inspector Horace, especially during their vigilant street patrols that prove to be a labyrinth in the shroud of night. The perils of their vocation soon come to light when Sarge leads the charge against a criminal gang, implicated in a spree of designer item thefts. The narrative takes a chilling turn when murder enters the fray, revealing a sinister depth to the gang’s operations far beyond what was initially perceived.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Austin Macauley Publishers
• Release date: Feb 2, 2024
• ISBN: 9781035842612

Philip Jones

The author, Philip Jones, was born and lives in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England. After having worked in various administrative and financial roles, Philip returns to full-time education, obtaining a first-class BA Honours degree in English from University Centre Shrewsbury in 2019, followed by a Master of Research (MRes) in Storytelling from the University of Chester in 2020. This is Philip’s third book with Austin Macauley Publishers. His debut book was The Lion Hotel, a detective-themed play; and his second, Jack the Ripper?, an adventure about a time-travelling detective.

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About the Author

The author, Philip Jones, was born and lives in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, England.

After having worked in various administrative and financial roles, Philip returns to full-time education, obtaining a first-class BA Honours degree in English from University Centre Shrewsbury in 2019, followed by a Master of Research (MRes) in Storytelling from the University of Chester in 2020.

This is Philip’s third book with Austin Macauley Publishers. His debut book was The Lion Hotel, a detective-themed play; and his second, Jack the Ripper?, an adventure about a time-travelling detective.

Dedication

This work of fiction is dedicated to all those brave police dogs and handlers

out there.

Copyright Information ©

Philip Jones 2024

The right of Philip Jones to be identified as author of this work has been asserted by the author in accordance with sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without the prior permission of the publishers.

Any person who commits any unauthorised act in relation to this publication may be liable to criminal prosecution and civil claims for damages.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

ISBN 9781035842605 (Paperback)

ISBN 9781035842612 (ePub e-book)

www.austinmacauley.co.uk

First Published 2024

Austin Macauley Publishers Ltd®

1 Canada Square

Canary Wharf

London

E14 5AA

Acknowledgement

I would like to acknowledge the ongoing support of my family, who are my everyday inspiration.

Preface

This is the heart-warming tale of a police dog named Sarge, who wins over everyone with his bravery. Not just Inspector Horace, who he protects in the line of duty, but a daughter who values him as a pet, a wife who was cautious of him at first, and the whole of the police force, who recognise him during an award ceremony.

Tasked initially with tracking down a substance that a criminal gang have been using to commit designer theft, Sarge soon finds himself an invaluable member of the team in terms of the skills he is able to demonstrate to his master.

Worried about her father, after it is revealed that Sarge will be wearing full body armour, daughter Florence tries to ensure that Sarge is trained to a level beyond which police training took him. A daughter is not for taking any chances where her father is concerned.

However, neither Sarge’s time at Inspector Horace’s home, nor his time working for the police force, is without its trials and tribulations. At first, Sarge is hardly welcomed by Inspector Horace’s wife, Violet, who sees him initially as something of a nuisance and a threat, despite him immediately forming a bond with their daughter Florence. Then there are the misunderstandings on the streets during night patrols, when Sarge becomes confused about just what he is supposed to be tracking. This is not to mention the criminals who later seem intent on injuring him.

However, Sarge’s dedication to duty will always be that he never gives up, despite what life or any mission throws at him. He will always maintain the mindset that he should react in no way other than to go above and beyond the call of duty and not just nature.

Melissa, one of the hostesses from the club on the police’s radar, becomes something of a plaything for her boss’s twisted mind, as the designer shoe and luxury watch thefts continue to take place. There is, however, more to informant Melissa than meets the eye, as Inspector Horace’s investigation becomes about more than just the reported thefts. Could a gangland murder, or three, also have taken place?

It has to be said that Sarge’s story highlights just how confusing today’s world can be for humans, let alone dogs. This is as Inspector Horace, in an attempt to see justice done, tries to make sense of just what the motives of the gang members in question actually are and just what they have all been up to. At the same time, it is Florence’s intention to help Sarge juggle the task of being both a police dog and a family pet.

Chapter 1

A Surprise Visitor

Inspector Horace makes it home with his non-human companion. It might have been wise to have prepared his family for their first meeting with the animal, except he only found out himself this morning that his new assistant was to be a dog. His chief inspector is not that good at giving anyone notice, even the incompetent officers.

It is then a while before Inspector Horace can coax the beast out of the car, which now has a cage fitted. In his early opinion, the dog is showing all the signs of having been trained about as well as any of the officers he seems to end up working alongside. Or rather, two paces ahead of. It seems that age has nothing to do with speed.

He eventually makes it to the front door of his rather grand home. The Doric columns portray him as having made it to the position of Inspector, if no further. With his companion under relative control, Inspector Horace still nearly ends up skidding on the gravel; quite the opposite of how the family’s wheelie bin behaves on such a surface. He then promptly lets himself in, before the neighbours either side can catch sight of the dog. Curtain twitchers, he has decided.

Wanting to surprise his family, and like a detective on surveillance, Inspector Horace signals for his dog not to make a sound. If he had, it would have been a rather loud bark. Once heard, it is apparently something to always be scared of.

So, already, it is mission accomplished, as Inspector Horace makes his way inside his house, seemingly unheard and unseen. Florence, his teenage daughter, has been listening to Spotify in her bedroom, which is now at the back of the house. His wife, Violet, is in the kitchen, freshly preparing a lasagne for evening meal. It will make a change not to eat it warmed up. This seems to happen every shift that does not finish on time. How crime is ever going to fit in with his wife’s plans, he has no idea.

As soon as Florence realises that her father is back, she rushes downstairs, being careful not to run. Although, thankfully, her feet are not inside those rather awkward slippers her auntie bought her for Christmas. Only Florence knows what happened to them. And that was before they had a dog to tear them to shreds. Except to say that they depicted bunny rabbits and Florence decided that it would be cooler in every way not to wear them. Some of her uncomfortable shoes, even the comfortable ones, have suffered the same fate.

Inspector Horace is now questioning his daughter on how quickly she worked out that her father had returned. His first thought was that he might have lost some of his detective skills, with age having crept up on him sooner than the government had planned for him. He needn’t worry, though, the explanation is that his tech-savvy daughter has come up with a rather clever app. Florence remarks that it is too complicated to explain to her father, or anyone else of his age, but basically it alerts a daughter to when a father has returned home, whether or not a daughter has been moved to the back bedroom.

Moments later, Inspector Horace’s wife and previous faithful companion, appears, despite the kitchen noises always masking any sounds of conversation. The whole situation puzzles Florence for two reasons: one, her father has, for some reason, brought a large dog home; and two, how did her mother know that either of them had made it as far as the hallway? Florence normally considers her feet the equivalent of a gun’s silencer, although don’t tell Auntie; and to her knowledge, there is no CCTV inside the house.

Then comes the loud bark, which is no doubt part of the dog’s police training, and the sign of a good communicator, according to the chief inspector. Nobody, after all, knows what the silent ones are thinking. However, no one can apparently control the volume of the bark, or how many times it could potentially be delivered within a short space of time. Thankfully, it is just the once on this occasion.

Not put off, and with a smile on her face as broad as a bean, Florence then proceeds to question her father about the new intruder. Her mother was also about to ask the same question, although not while displaying anything even close to a smile.

A large black and tan dog, seemingly in uniform, now makes his way past both Florence and her mother and into the living room, while steered by the strong arm of the law. That’s Inspector Horace, its unlikely guardian. A wife and daughter follow, but not necessarily in that order. It is hard to determine amid all the chaos.

The order they entered the living room is about as clear to ascertain as whether the dog is a German shepherd or Alsatian. Nobody is quite sure, and even less certain. That might be because they are the same thing. Anyway, the dog has made himself very much at home and seems to be more of a homely dog than anyone might have thought possible.

Florence is in hysterics when she spots ‘Sarge’ written on one side of the dog’s coat. She had been more concerned earlier with the dog’s big brown eyes, which seemed to be staring straight through her. Anyway, apart from its gold lettering, the protective coat the dog is wearing is predominantly black, the colours that the police seem to use now. Anybody would think that they were trying to make themselves invisible at night. That isn’t as funny as it gets, though—the other side of the coat has written on it: ‘Is In Charge’. So, when the two sides are correctly put together, the coat’s lettering reads: ‘Sarge Is In Charge’. Florence is thrilled to have solved the equivalent of her father’s cryptic crossword.

It doesn’t matter which way Florence looks at the dog’s coat either, the words read together are just as funny. Her father is a detective inspector, not a sergeant, so Inspector Horace cannot be in charge, and who has been brave enough to suggest that the dog might be in charge of any police officer, let alone her father?

Florence’s father is not pleased that his daughter finds everything so amusing. Even less so when Florence questions him about whether he has been demoted and the dog might now be the one in charge. It is as much as Florence can do to suppress her laughter as she says it, and so ends up spitting on the carpet and apologising for her footballer-like behaviour.

There is now, after all, a salivary blob on the living room carpet that her father tries so hard to protect. Not only that, a piece of bubble gum mixed in. Whoops! Florence discretely gathers it up in a tissue but can think of worse things it might have been.

Inspector Horace insists that the name on the dog’s coat is obviously someone’s idea of a joke and that the only important thing is that Sarge will prove to be extremely useful to him. Better than any uniformed officer, he is quite sure.

Perhaps having been too long in the job, Inspector Horace is also of the mind that the best detectives all get put on the murder cases, which seems a waste to the uninitiated when the person is already dead and there is no evidence of the perpetrator having ever shown any intentions of being a serial killer.

Florence now questions in fun what Sarge will do, apart from eat a hearty meal of chicken, beef or well-cooked pork each day, go for a walk twice a day for forty-five minutes, if he’s lucky, and sleep all the hours in-between, if luckier still.

A father explains it is his understanding that Sarge, a traditional breed for police work, is something of a special dog. One that has been trained as an attentive guard dog, highly skilled surveillance and tracker dog, sniffer dog of various substances, and most importantly, a protector of police officers of all ranks. He is also a cadaver dog and so trained to detect the scent of decomposing human remains and blood. This ability to distinguish between whether someone is alive or dead could have helped with many a murder case.

What this all means is that whatever Inspector Horace requires Sarge for, his new companion should be more than up to the job. Not only that, for a wife’s reassurance, all police dogs, after puppy training in someone’s home first, undergo a basic thirteen-week police training course at the Dog Unit with their handlers before passing out, as it is termed. Not that Inspector Horace has been a part of that process or had any specialist police dog training. But then, he might have missed to see the email.

Florence, rather surprisingly, knows something about cadaver dogs because she is able say how they train the dogs using the organs and bodies of pigs, which she is not entirely comfortable with, being a practising vegan. The training proves effective primarily because pigs are not chemically or biologically dissimilar from humans in that they decompose at similar rates due to their similar-sized blood cells and cell lifespans which are the same.

A daughter, in a way, is pleased that Sarge has that extra level of training under his belt or collar, although would much prefer that he had undergone an extra week’s training on how to protect her father, than on sniffing out those who are already dead.

Violet seems pleased that the dog she simply refers to as ‘The Four Legs’ might, in the end, earn its keep, in terms of having some idea as to how to keep her husband, Florence’s father, safe. Also, given the fact that her husband should get paid extra for the out-of-hours dog walking and grooming, they should not be too much out of pocket.

Florence has to earn her keep too with the many household chores her mother manages to find for her to do. Some can be quite embarrassing, such as cleaning the front room window from inside and appearing to wave at everyone. Perhaps now she can be given the more pleasant task of walking Sarge, if that is allowed.

It is then with that in mind, Florence just has one more thing to ask her father. This concerns whether it is wise for a police dog to have its name so predominantly displayed on its coat. A criminal could, after all, potentially call out the name and then take charge of the dog. Her father considers this a good point to make but can reassure his daughter that the coat the dog is wearing currently will not be the same one he will wear on any of their missions together.

Florence, pleased with her father’s explanation, next insists that they remove Sarge’s coat and collar to make him more comfortable, as surely, he should not be wearing either indoors. Florence also remarks that Sarge is most definitely a male dog.

Apparently, Florence’s father was just about to remove the dog’s clothing, now that, like him, Sarge is off duty. A father does, however, insist that Sarge is not treated like he is anything other than a police dog.

Immediately, Florence points out how cruel that thinking would be, and suggests that Sarge would simply need to learn how to switch between being a police dog and a pet. Adding that if the police have not trained Sarge for that, then she will have to take it upon herself to do so and teach their new housemate how to love as well as to attack.

This meets with the response that Florence must not interfere with Sarge’s ongoing training because he is not actually a pet. Florence just smiles. This usually means that she has no intention of obeying her father or anyone over something she is so passionate about.

Violet now seems worried that the animal might have been trained to kill and is inside their home. The nervous way she asks her husband the question gives away a mother’s anxiety. These are not the feelings of their daughter, though. Florence is as brave as her father and quite capable of taking care of herself. A couple of boys who limped home last week know that all too well. To comfort her mother about the dog, Florence can reassure her that dogs were the first animals to be domesticated.

Inspector Horace can say with certainty to everyone, except the criminals in advance, that his dog is trained to simply hold onto the arms or sleeves of the villains, albeit with his teeth, until he can catch up with them. Sarge may, however, need to actually bite them in certain circumstances where there is no sleeve to hold onto or a lack of cooperation. That should not include either next door neighbour because Sarge will have only learned the scent of adrenaline that the criminals give off during a chase.

Florence is still convinced that her father has been given something of an early retirement gift, and does not hold back in saying so. Her father reacts by making it clear that his division have done no such thing and that Sarge will, in time, and under his strict direction, become an asset to the police force. He is of the belief that in the future they may see officers employed for their brawn, rather than their intelligence, and that the dogs will become the intelligent side of policing. Dogs would be cheaper, after all. Violet points out that this would depend on how much they eat.

Now with something still to remove from the boot of his car, Inspector Horace entrusts Florence with Sarge. Florence accepts her role with pleasure, having always wanted a dog. Although, she was expecting to choose the breed herself. In the meantime, Violet returns to the kitchen with seemingly little more to say on the subject.

Florence admires Sarge. His keen, big, brown, dark and expressive eyes. His muscular body with its thick, short and lustrous coat. The intense almost impatient expression or stare that he is keeping up as if ready or poised for action.

Apparently, German shepherds can be light or dark in colour. Florence can see that her father’s dog has been blessed with a light shade. There is no doubting that he is a pedigree, either.

Inspector Horace returns from his car with a large suitcase. Bigger than even his wife takes on holiday. That, after all, needs to have room for several pairs of shoes, even when it is a beach holiday.

Viewing the size of the suitcase with surprise, Florence questions, in all seriousness, how much one dog should need to eat. She is finding it hard to imagine that the police will have provided many days of food supply, presumably dog food, for Sarge. Not with the divisional budget cuts her father, according to her mother, talks about in his sleep.

Florence is informed by her father, who is adopting his cartoon face, that the suitcase doesn’t contain Sarge’s Scooby snacks, but houses his body armour. Florence reacts with concern and wonders how dangerous her father’s missions are going to be. She would love it, if possible, if he could return home and not end up ‘wasted’, as the Americans term it.

A selfless Inspector Horace insists that, as police property, the dog has to be protected, first and foremost. Particularly as his training will have taken up a large chunk of police budget.

Florence is more worried about protecting her father, despite how much she loves animals. Violet returns to the hallway and is looking as concerned as Florence at the level of protection afforded the dog.

This all means that Inspector Horace now has to spend the next ten minutes convincing his wife and daughter that he is quite capable of taking care of himself after years of policing experience, if not training. To attend training courses, you have to know how to view the emails on your computer that alert you to them.

Florence bolts upstairs to her bedroom crying, until she thinks about it. If she can help her father train Sarge for police work too, then both of them stand a better chance of survival. Florence therefore returns to start the dog’s advanced training.

On her return, Inspector Horace reminds his daughter not to treat Sarge as a pet but the working dog that he is. He says that they must not, in any way, soften him up and that Sarge needs to stay entirely