Bill and the UFO 31

The Panda car radio crackled out that there was some sort of disturbance on Dumbarton Road, across from the Town Hall. Inspector Murphy made a grab for the car-radio, and squeezed the side-bar down. ‘We’re almost there. Over.’

By the time he’d let go of the button, the answer came crackling back: ‘Over where? Over?’

‘She’s just takin’ the piss. It’s probably some dignitary dropped his silver Parker pen.’ Sergeant Cook took his eyes off the traffic on Dumbarton Road for a second to see how Inspector Murphy was taking it. He didn’t like not getting the last word or not being in control.

‘We’re outside the Town Hall now. Over.’ Inspector Murphy smiled one of his inscrutable smiles that wasn’t really a smile.

Sergeant Cook having been his partner for a number of years, and having been in the uniformed branch for a longer period, had been trained to work out early set signs of self-satisfaction and Inspector Murphy was a classic case of decline. Soon he’d start chuckling to himself and waving out of the window to nobody in particular. It was a good thing he was retiring. He swung the car into the right and pulled the car into the layby outside The Clydebank Post. The Town Hall was on the other side of the road, beside the library. There hadn’t been many riots or disturbances outside Clydebank library in recent years. Having the library there seemed to put a force field of sssshhhh and fingers to the lips that so even cars and buses tip-toed passed. The Clydebank Post office, however, was just outside its radius of influence. Cook reached behind him for his hat which sat on the back seat.

Inspector Murphy was waiting on the pavement, pinching and hitching the waistband of his trousers up, something Cook rarely had to do. A woman was pressed against the plate-glass window watching them. ‘It will be her that called.’

‘You’re the detective.’ Cook put on his hat, then took it off again to wipe the sweat from his forehead, before just carrying it.

They pushed through the door into the office just as the woman on the other side was pulling the door open almost bumping into each other.

‘Sorry. Sorry.’ The woman filled the embarrassing silence.

‘And you are?’ Inspector Murphy looked around him. Even allowing for the size of the woman’s breasts which were almost poking into him and needed a room of their own, the place looked smaller than he’d thought. He’d thought that a newspaper office would be filled with soft- capped- go-getters and femme-fatales sitting on the edge of desks smoking cigarettes through long elegant cigarette-holders and dictating notes to some flunky. He expected, in short, Spencer Tracey to wander out from behind one of the screens that divided the room up, to make it look even smaller, and Kathereen Hepburn, but all he got was some fat dame looking up at him and blinking rapidly.

‘I’m the receptionist here.’ She felt her cheeks flush as if she’d told a lie. Police and men in uniform, in general, did that to her. ‘It was me that called you.’

‘So what happened?’ Sergeant Cook pushed slightly in front of Inspector Murphy and licked his lips.

Inspector Murphy shook his head. It was the wrong thing to say, but Cook never seemed to learn, and was typical of him. Questions should have followed a set sequence, a leading from why she had made the phone call, when she made it, who else was there, to what exactly she had seen and had anybody else seen or heard the same thing. Done properly, with a fat anxious red-cheeked woman like the one in front of him, Murphy was pretty sure he could make her say that she had seen a red monkey wearing a green coat. The trick was not to let the red monkey appear by using a blunder-bus like the question Cook has asked.

‘There was a riot outside.’ The receptionist couldn’t get the words out quickly enough. ‘Shouting. Screaming. I thought the windaes were going to come in. There was a young girl there. I thought they were goin’ to rape her or something, because she punched one of the hooligans. I should know. We get them all the time down here, wanting to know if they’re in this week’s Courtroom News and asking if we wanted a picture. Then a dog started barking and jumping up and I think somebody might have pulled out a knife and then they must have heard the sirens, because they all ran away.’ Caroline was as out of breath when she finished and her cheeks so red that she had to take deep breaths as if she’d given chase on foot. She could feel the sweat running down in between her breasts and hitting her stomach, which reminded her that, although there wasn’t time to think about such things, she’d missed lunch and was starving.

‘Which way did they go Madame?’

‘The canal. They ran up towards the canal. That’s when I phoned you.’

‘Good work,’ said Sergeant Cook.

‘Why didn’t you phone earlier?’ Inspector Murphy imagined her holding the phone watching the kids outside and waiting for a juicy bit to happen before she committed herself to the call.

‘What’d you mean. You think I’m some sort of ventriloquist, that can predict what’s going to happen and,’ the receptionist’s voice went up an octave, ‘then I should phone you before I know myself what’s happening?’

‘I don’t think you mean ventriloquist,’ grinned Inspector Murphy.

The receptionist put her hands on her hips and pushed her breasts out as if she was a turkey jousting with a baster. ‘So can you tell me what I’m going to say next?’

‘No. I just mean…’

‘He means we’re glad you called.’ Sergeant Cook coughed. ‘We’re very glad.’ He took a step closer to the receptionist. Her eyes were an extraordinary blue colour when she was angry. ‘Is there anything else you can tell us?’

‘No.’ She smirked, with a little step sideways past Inspector Murphy, so that they she was looking into Sergeant Cook’s deep-set hazel eyes. ‘I don’t think so.’

‘What about your name? Don’t you think you should tell us that?’ Inspector Murphy had seen it all, but if the fat woman and fat man wanted to play lovey-dovey they were better doing it off the meter.

The phone started ringing in one of the desks near the back of the office. ‘Can I get that?’ she asked Inspector Murphy.

‘Yes,’ said Sergeant Cook.

‘No.’ said Inspector Murphy.

The receptionist looked from one to another. She moved towards the barrier that separated the outside of the office from the public area, then the phone stopped, leaving a space where she could only hear her breathing. ‘Sorry,’ she said. She always felt as if she was apologising and she wished she hadn’t bothered calling the police in the first place. ‘It was just the phone.’

‘Quite,’ said Inspector Murphy.

‘Don’t worry about it,’ said Sergeant Cook. ‘Is there anything. Anything at all. Any small thing.’ Cook held his thumb and forefinger up and closed them in front of her face like a vice, so that she knew what a small thing was. ‘Any small thing that could help us. That would be great.’ He turned to Inspector Murphy. ‘Wouldn’t it Inspector?’

Inspector scratched at his forehead. ‘Yesss,’ he finally admitted.

‘Well, there was one thing.’

‘Yes?’ said Cook like a ventriloquist echoing Murphy’s thoughts.

‘One of the kids. A strange looking one…’

‘They’re all strange looking at that age,’ said Inspector Murphy.

‘Well, the strangest looking one.’

‘That would be Bill,’ said Cook.

‘He mentioned going to see his uncle.’

'Jesus, he’s part of that paedo-ring. We better get going. We better get going.’ Inspector Murphy had turned towards the door.

Caroline shouted at his back, ‘don’t you want to know my name and get my number?’

‘I’m sure Sergeant Cook will be glad to get those details.’ Inspector Murphy was pushing through the door, rehearsing the message that he’d need to send to dispatch.