freed from her predicament. She does move about three or so inches in my direction, but that’s about as far as it goes.
‘Aaaaargggh!’ Henrietta screeches, forcing me to stop pulling before I detach her arms from their sockets.
‘It’s no good!’ I shout. ‘She’s stuck fast!’
‘Oh, bloody hell!’ I hear the cry come back at me. There’s a few moments of silence before the barista responds again. ‘That’s it! I’m getting the police!’
‘No! No!’ Henrietta wails. ‘Not the police!’
‘Good grief, it’s fine!’ I tell her. ‘There’s nothing wrong with them. They’re here to help us!’
She shakes her head vociferously. ‘No! They’re part of the organisation! The deep state! They’re part of the machine!’
‘The same machine that faked the moon landings?’
‘Yes!’
‘Bloody hell. Where do you get all this nonsense from?’
‘YouTube!’
‘Oh, of bloody course, YouTube.’
‘Yes! Yes! The truth is all there . . . all you have to do is go and look for it!’ Poor old Henrietta is raving now. But that might be because all the blood has gone to her head, since she’s stuck fast in a toilet window.
‘Look for it, eh?’ I respond, half-heartedly.
‘Yes! You don’t have to be a sheep, Andy! You just have to have your eyes opened to the way the world really is!’
‘By going on YouTube?’
‘Yes!’
‘The place with all the videos of cats flushing toilets?’
‘Yes! I mean . . . I mean no!’
‘And people unboxing their new Star Wars dollies?’
‘What?’
‘And drunk people falling down holes?’
‘Pardon?’
‘And “Baby Shark”. Do do do do doo do.’
‘What are you saying?’
‘I’m saying that you think I should look for the truth about the way the world is run somewhere I can also find videos of people jumping naked into piles of horse poo, and eating fifty hot dogs? Possibly at the same time? That’s where the truth is, is it?’
‘Yes . . . yes, that’s right!’
My brow furrows as another thought occurs. ‘Hang on a minute . . . if you think the Internet is evil, and that’s how this organisation is tracking you . . . why are you on bloody YouTube in the first place?’
‘I’m not! Not any more! I left it behind once I saw what I needed to see! They showed me all I needed to be shown! I saw the only videos I really needed to!’
‘Charlie Bit Me and “Gangnam Style”?’
‘What?’
Sadly, I don’t have time to continue this line of thought, because one of the coppers has just appeared at the fire exit door, his mouth surrounded by crumbs of chocolate muffin.
‘What seems to be the trouble here?’ he asks me, still chewing.
Henrietta immediately goes bug-eyed and starts to wag her finger at the copper like it’s a malfunctioning windscreen wiper.
‘No! Don’t let him near me!’ she cries in an imperious voice. ‘He wants to hand me over to his evil superiors, probably for some lengthy probing! I saw it! I saw it all on YouTube!’
I give the copper a look that speaks volumes.
He returns the look with one of confusion. ‘What’s she on about? I’ve never been on YouTube.’
I sigh and rub my eyes. ‘That, mate, is something you should be eternally grateful for.’
Henrietta is freed from her predicament about an hour later, with the assistance of both coppers, two carloads of their colleagues and the local fire brigade.
There’s barely enough room in the small courtyard at the back of Heirloom Coffee to fit everyone.
And all through the rescue mission, Henrietta continues to insist that they are all part of some grand conspiracy against her . . . and the people of this country. The only conspiracy I can detect, though, is about getting one person to pay for all the coffees and muffins that are consumed during the rescue process – and I’ll give you three guesses who ends up being on the receiving end of it.
The first copper I spoke to – he of the chocolate muffin – sidles over to me, as the barista and I stand there watching a burly fireman slowly lift Henrietta down from the toilet window, which has been widened by the removal of the wooden framework and several bricks.
Funnily enough, Henrietta seems somewhat less perturbed at the intervention of the emergency services now, given that she’s being assisted to the ground by a handsome fireman.
There’s a joke here somewhere about her possibly not being quite so bothered about a potential probing after all . . . but I’m not going to dwell on it, as I’m tired, hungry and ever so slightly fed up.
‘How do you