Fast Fiction: Police File
Why are the police talking to this chap who looks 35 but is 71? Richard Mallinson tells a murky tale.
'Don't be fooled,' he said, 'I'm older than I look.'
'Well,' I said, 'you look about 35.'
'Yes, thanks to surgery.'
‘Tell me how old you really are.'
'Can't you guess?'
'Let's say about 55.'
'Wrong, I'm 71.' Then he said, 'There was a woman I loved once but she told me she preferred older men.'
After a pause I said, 'There's irony for you.'
'Irony?' he muttered. 'Yes, I suppose you could call it that.'
He sipped his orange juice and opened a book.
'What are you reading?'
'Finnegans Wake.'
'Can you understand it?'
'No, but I like the sound of the words . . . being an actor, I've always cared for the sound of words . . . listen -' and he read out some gobbledygook.
I laughed.
After a while I asked, 'Is there anything else?'
I was trying to be friendly, you see, or at least not unfriendly, but I sensed that young wpc Mendip, at my side, wanted me to take a tougher line.
'Yes, there is,' he said, 'may I smoke my pipe?'
I smiled and said, 'Of course you may, if it helps.'
'At my age,' he murmured, 'anything helps.'
In the car wpc Mendip said, 'The kid glove treatment didn't really work, did it guv -shouldn't we have taken a tougher line?'
I glanced sideways at her, then looked straight ahead and drove carefully.
