Bumping Uglies

Chapter Twenty Three

Sam Gerart shuffled his weight in the padded armchair and grunted. He seemed to have withered since the last time I saw him. His once tall and hard body had slackened and hunched. Indeed, it seemed to me that he had visibly aged between the time it took him to open his front door, and to trudge down the hall to his lounge.

Sam had been a serving officer on the West Midlands Serious Crime Squad from the 1960s with my father. Though he had done his fair share of door-kicking and villain-lamping, he was kept on the straight and narrow by his Christianity. He had never planted evidence or forced a confession.

That made him and my Dad something of an exception in what was a notoriously bent outfit, even by the lax standards of the day.

Now retired, Sam still had a few friends who remained on the Force who liked and respected both him and my father. By extension, I was able to exploit this relationship from time-to-time to get a heads-up about what was going on with the boys in blue.

Since my father's death, Sam had taken a paternal interest in my well-being and had even managed to keep me out of trouble on a couple of occasions.

He continued to wriggle in the chair opposite, trying to get comfortable. Sitting was not really Sam's style, and I got the impression that retirement was not lying well with him at all.

"Satchmo, it's good to see you son." A smile broke out across his wrinkled face and his eyes twinkled.

"You too, Sam. How you keeping?" I replied.

"Terrible. Son, I'm going to get right to it. What the Hell have you got yourself into now?"

I avoided his gaze, instead looking at the walls and the various framed certificates and commendations that told of a life in uniform.

"I only ask because one of my old mates let me know that his team had received a request to provide your file, and current address, to the Super. As you remember, we agreed to keep that piece of information quiet after the last time you tried to play Poirot." Sam prodded a gnarled finger at my leg which still bore the scar of a bullet wound.

"And did he?" I asked. "Provide the file, that is."

"It turns out that my mate managed to get down to archives first and, wouldn't you know it, your file has been temporarily mislaid. Probably misfiled. You know how bad clerical can be sometimes," Sam said, his tone deadpan.

"Shocking..." I muttered, relieved. "How long do you think it will take to find the file again?"

"Oh..." Sam scratched an itch deep within an eyebrow that was so grey and bushy that it resembled the tangle of barbed wire atop the fence around a breaker's yard, "No more than a week I would think. It really depends upon how hard people look for it and how insistent the requests become."

"Thanks, Sam," I said, puffing out my cheeks with a long exhale.

"Whatever for, son? Now, is there anything you would like to tell me? Perhaps why one of the most senior police officers in the Black Country has taken a sudden personal interest in finding you. Yes, that would be a nice place to start."

I couldn't do that. The shame of my involvement would stain the memory of my father and I couldn't face Sam's disappointment either. I stared at the tops of my shoes in silence, hoping for a way out.

"I see," Sam sighed. "In that case, I beg you to be careful. If a Super is acting on external pressures, they must be pretty powerful to make him move like this."

"OK Sam, thanks again," I rose to leave before I cracked.

"I won't get up," Sam grunted from his armchair.