24. The Bishop’s Booze

A Chapter by Peter Rogerson

Two scenes not involving the Reverend Barney Pickle.

Superintendent Philip William was feeling what he used to call gippy. His stomach seemed to be heaving with what he assumed were undigested remnants of his breakfast (cereals followed by a bacon sandwich and two large cups of tea) and his biggest fear was that he was likely to regurgitate the lot over the very Reverend Pyke, Bishop of Brumpton and quite a wide district.

He was a wise superintendent and knew that it was the elevated status of that same Bishop that had unnerved him as he went to one of the bleak interview rooms in order to discuss the influence of alcohol on a man’s ability to drive in a straight line, or something like that.

The Very Reverend Pyke was a force to reckon with, and what’s more he had virtually impaled the two Scumbag wretches on the rather attractive mascot that decorated the bonnet of his car. It was a serious offence and might quite easily have led to one or both of the horrible young layabouts being killed, and if that had happened the Bishop would have more than him to answer to.

He paused outside the interview room and tried to decide whether there was any way he could save the holy man from having to admit his sins in a magistrate’s court, under very public scrutiny.

This was all wrong. The Bishop was an educated man and knew full well that the odd glass of brandy might impair his reaction to teenagers messing about. But one glass, surely, would be forgivable. And if the man had imbibed more than one then it would be best if he forgot to mention it.

He pushed the door open and strode in, trying to give no clue as to the state of his stomach.

Inside the rather drab interview room Constable Dedbeat was engaged in a joking conversation with the Bishop and who, from the nature of the conversation had been discussing the wayward nature of the two Scumbags.

“Well, Jessop,” he smiled at the Bishop, although he didn’t feel anything like being at all cheery, “you’ve come to visit me at work, I see.”

“Ah, Philip,” greeted the Bishop with a last rather nervous glance of the constable, “it seems that your machinery has registered that I’d had rather more brandy than I recalled enjoying. Maybe there was a little something left from the communion service that I held earlier? It’s sometimes not easy to associate our Lord’s precious blood with something as mundane as mere booze…”

Superintendent Williams nodded doubtfully. He had known the Bishop for years and was well aware of that portly man’s capacity for all things earthly, including the wine he used to pass round the faithful in churches across the district, and that the man believed that, being at the top of the local parade of clergymen, he should move from church to church in majesty, moving from communion service to communion service and sharing the worship as head of the church in the county. So when it came to communion wine he may have unwittingly imbibed more than he thought he had imbibed.

“Ah, the urchins,” began the Bishop when it was clear to him that some kind of explanation might be called for, “leaping and joshing on the road where my limousine wanted to be and almost head-butting my gorgeous paint-work. And the language they came out with! Words the like of which our Lord would never approve.”

“You mean bad language was hurtled at you by the wretches, Jossop?”

“As I just said, Philip, and so loud! And you of all people are probably aware how I react to loud voices, as if they had the roots in the vocal chords ot Satan himself, in Hell! Do you remember the time oh, way back, when we had a noisy confrontation with a wild creature from the council estate, and I was able to calm him down by explaining to him the very agonies awaiting sinners in an afterlife in which their undead flesh is washed over eternally by the fiercest of fires?”

The Superintendent nodded, and smiled. “I do, Jossop, I remember it so well, and how I bought you a bottle of scotch to gratitude.”

“Ah, that bottle of good scotch. I remember it quite well, Philip, and I also remember how you helped me drink it before you drove home, before midnight as I recall.”

The reference to his driving home with a stomach full of good whisky didn't pass unnoticed by Superintendent Williams.

“Ah so,” he murmured, “and it's my opinion, Glossop, that the breathalyser piece of nonsense that the constable expected you to breathe into was one of a faulty batch that ought to be returned to the manufacturers, And constable, “he turned to PC Dedbeat, “you will be careful who you mention it to, won’t you? We don’t want it going round the county that there might be something wrong with breathalyser results, do we?”

Constable Dedbeat nodded and smiled. He knew which side his bread was buttered on.

Meanwhile, in Brumpton hospital Jed Scumbag was feeling restless. He was already feeling well enough for any tricks that might cross his mind, whilst his brother, Gozza, had a headache and wanted to do nothing more lively than sleep.

Jed, though, had his eye on nurse Amy Jones every time she breezed into the small side ward where he and his brother were recovering from their accident with the Bishop's car. And that eye he had on the nurse was filled with a mixture of admiration and the need to communicate with her bosom. And more than that, maybe see if she'd like to go out with him, maybe for a drink or several despite his age being under eighteen, or maybe the pictures, that sort of thing where he might be close enough to her for... well, his mind went over the top as he thought about being alone with nurse Amy Jones and her bra.

“You know nurse, I mean chick, I bet every bloke you walk past fancies you like I do,” he said to her with what was meant to be a handsomely becoming grin but was actually anything but.

“You mind your tongue, young fellow,” she said, rather sharply for so sweet a nurse. His eyes roamed over her chest as she took his pulse and checked his blood pressure before deciding he might as well be discharged first thing tomorrow because there didn’t seem t be anything wrong with him and she'd let the doctor know during his rounds at tea time.

“You are a corker, though,” he murmured, “and there ain’t any birds anything like as good on the eye as you are near where I live.”

“And I don't suppose there any fanciable young blokes either,” she replied rather pointedly, though it took him some time to associate the words with himself.

“But, nurse, do you fancy a bit of you know what?” he asked, “look around this half dead ward, even my bruv's asleep and that bloke over there always is, so you could sort of spend a few moments under these here sheets with me...”

“My husband might object,” she told him, “and I might just be getting comfortable under, as you put it, your sheets, when he comes to call for me. You'll know him when you see him. He's the policeman with three stripes on his epaulette...”

“Oh,” he replied, and turned away.

He had no respect for policemen and couldn't understand exactly why pretty nurses should want to have anything to do with any of them.

“I tell you what,” she forced a smile onto her face and indicated Nathaniel Cockswain in the bed opposite his, “how would you like to get some sleep, like that snoring gentleman?”

“Better than lying here awake and bored,” he replied, “and having a nurse who's as pretty as anything turning you down,” he added.

“You think so?” she asked, “because every time I go to see how he is I expect it to end up with me sending him to the morgue... How would you like that if you changed places with him?”