Bill and the UFO28

‘Stop,’ Sergeant Cook slammed his hand down on the dashboard as if L-testing Inspector Murphy’s proficiency at emergency stops. Cook couldn’t say any more because of the cough from the back of his throat, which temporarily asphyxiated him, as if he was trying to spit out Boulder County.

Inspector Murphy had problems of his own. He hit the brakes so sharply that his knees jumped and hit the dashboard and his lit fag fell out of the half-full filings of the grey-black soot smelling lungs of the car- butt ashtray, and rolled around his feet and rubberised matting like a centipede disco light. His head jerked from one side to another, as if he had reverse whiplash, cutting across his collarbones, and his eyes rolled before fixing on the tenement blocks around Nairn Street for signs of mass murder, looting, pigeon baiting, or at the exotic blooms of longer legs and shorter skirts that Summer sunshine with every extra degree seemed to, paradoxically, take an inch off and add two inches on. Any hotter, he squirmed in his front seat, and he’d need to arrest those youngsters for stilt walking naked.

A green and gold double-decker 64 Auchenshuggle bus with a grinding of brakes and revving of engine almost nudged the Panda car towards the scrap heap, and just as quickly reversed backwards, so that it could get past the police car. The bus driver didn’t bother looking at the traffic on Dumbarton road. Obviously a Glasgow driver, with no respect for the law, he looked straight in the window of the Panda, shook his balding head like a loose coconut on the edge, making sure that the occupants knew, that he knew, whatever it was they were supposed to know and, whatever it was, they were still wankers.

‘Are you alright?’ Inspector Murphy gave his passenger a quick once over.

‘Nah, I think I’m dying. That guy over there signalled for us to stop.’ Cook pointed across the road to the bus-stop just off the white stuccos that had faded to a genteel grey flaking of The Regent cinema.

‘That’s alright then.’ Inspector Murphy checked his left then his right rear view mirrors, for deranged Auchenshugglers, but before he could pull away there was bang on the window.

Inspector Murphy didn’t usually swear, but there were exceptions to every rule. He took an ice- age to wind down his window. ‘Gerry Kerr.’ There was a note of resignation in the Inspector’s acknowledgement that did not bode well.

God the architect of all souls had done his best with the kind of teeth no NHS dentist would look at. Gerry’s best mate, Devlin the fanny-licker, had tackled them with mole grip pliers, but had given it up as a bad job. They were like the Leaning Tower, only smaller. ‘Cool your jets,’ there was the echo of a whistle through the gaps to let the words out. He’d on a Republican black beret pulled down at a rakish angle meant to suggest picture-postcard Che Guvera without the donkey.

Inspector Murphy killed the engine and didn’t bother with establishing conversational niceties. ‘What?’

‘Oh, it’s like that is it?’ Gerry took a step backwards, nearly getting hit by a red Ford Escort, which swerved past him like the cape of a toreador.

‘Jesus,’ said Sergeant Cook, shaking his head.

‘No, but quite close.’ Even whiplash couldn’t stop Inspector Murphy shaking his head in dismay. He made the formal introductions with a nod.

‘Gerry-Sergeant Cook.’

‘Sergeant Cook-Gerry.’

‘What can I do for you Gerry?’ Inspector Murphy’s voice took on the pragmatic kind of whittled down tone that only over twenty years police service could give a voice.

‘I want to report a theft.’ Gerry sucked on his bottom lip, his hand shooting up to cover his mouth in case anyone was listening, or lip reading, or both.

‘What kind of theft?’ Inspector Murphy patted his stomach, with both hands searching for his notebook in his uniform as if he’d eaten it and not put it in one of the two adjacent pockets. Then he started patting himself down for a pen.

Sergeant Cook, who had been watching and come to know some of Inspector Murphy's ways, handed him his pen without saying a word. The walkie-talkie spilled out news of a possible burglary in Wells Street. ‘We’ve really got to go.’ He looked at Gerry and his head moved slightly toward radio, as if explaining things to a child.

‘Hang on. Hang on. Cool yer jets’ Gerry grabbed at the car roof to keep himself balanced. He peered through the side window at Sergeant Cook. ‘I’ve lived life for that long I sometimes forget that I’m dying until I look at you.’

Gerry cackled as Sergeant Cook’s bulk jumped out of his front seat passenger side, like a fish suddenly finding itself in a bowl full of fresh air, and grabbed at the door handle. Only Inspector Murphy’s smack on his slacked ever- pressed thigh stopped him jumping out of the car with his hardwood truncheon.

‘What is it?’ Inspector Murphy carefully cracked open and folded the pages in his notebook and looked Gerry in the eye, in order to establish some kind of normality, and licked the pen nib because he was used to using pencils. He shook the furrows from his head and re-established eye contact.

‘It’s like this Inspector Murphy.’ Gerry Kerr put his hand again as a gum shield. ‘I want to report a theft.’

‘Theft.’ Inspector Murphy wrote in black biro and underlined it.

‘The last time I got took to hospital I tried to shout: “You’ve got the wrong stomach,” but they’d a tube down my throat.’ I wanted someone to rescue me, but the only bastards I could see were white coated doctors and nurses wearing Jackboots. I didn’t ask for my stomach to get pumped. That’s like stealing. I want those people arrested. Gartnavel General.’ Gerry Kerr took his hand away from his mouth to point to the sunset beyond the plots of Dumbarton Road and waved them in that direction with a few palsied jerks of the hand he’d taken from the car roof. ‘Thieves. Robbers.’

‘We’ll just go and have a word with them.’ Inspector Murphy gave him a half-smile and wound his window up. He put the siren on as they sped away.