Sawyer the Lawyer

Ifield gave me the results of the pub quiz question on which local Chinese chippy did the best fried fish. Of the twelve teams taking part nine teams chose the Crispy Cod and the other three the Happy Chippy. Christ knows what the fish is like at the other four Chinese chippies but it doesn’t even bear thinking about. At least it’s saved me the trouble of visiting them.

Sawyer the Lawyer


Divorce – Conveyancing – Probate – Insurance – Mortgage – Malpractice – Fraud – Wills – Litigation – Personal Injury – Rent and Debt Collection

Bookmark to:

“Will you do me a favour?” she said, all coy.

“If I can,” I said, a bit guarded.

I’d called Maria as promised and we’d already agreed a date.

“Will you wear your uniform?” she asked.

I wasn’t expecting something out of left field like this so it took me a second or two to form a reply to this bizarre request. Fortunately she’d overlooked something that I didn’t. “You’re forgetting that I’m a plain clothes policeman,” I said. “Plain clothes policemen don’t have a uniform.”

“You do!” she accused. “You have your dress uniform, for ceremonial occasions and funerals. And don’t say you don’t because my flatmate used to go out with a plain clothes policeman.”

She had me there but I saw a way out of it. “You didn’t let me finish,” I lied. “I was going to say plain clothes policemen don’t have a uniform, only a dress uniform for ceremonial occasions and funerals.”

“Will you wear it then?”

“It’s at the dry cleaners. We had a ceremonial occasion last week and I spilled some wine on it.”

“We’ll wait till you get it back then. I promise you it will be worth the wait. Uniforms really turn me on.”

That clinched it. The bit of sex we’d already had was top drawer so if she’s the sort that likes her lovers to dress up and I’m dressed up as a copper I could be looking at something exceptional here. “Wilco,” I said. “Over and out.”

The venue for our date is in the nurse’s hostel where she lives. They’re not supposed to have visitors but she lives on the ground floor and it’s quite an easy matter to get in through the window, lots of the nurses have their boyfriends round she said.

The minute I put the phone down I started to worry. The first of my worries was where could I get hold of a policeman’s uniform? My second is what if someone I know sees me in it, especially a policeman. I visualise the headlines in the local paper ‘Local Solicitor Gets Twelve Months For Impersonating A Police Officer’.
The matter will require a lot of thought and right now I’m not at all sure if I’ll be able to go through with it.

Sawyer the Lawyer

Bookmark to:

At 9 pm Maria and I were sat in my car outside a block of flats on the edge of town. Maria had already expressed surprise that my police car is a green Mini Cooper in British racing green and not something Rover-like in white with blue and orange stripes down the side but I patiently explained to her that as a plain clothes detective I naturally needed a plain clothes car. She also wanted to know why I was on my own, as she’d expected me to have a partner like in the cop shows on the telly. I told her this wasn’t the telly, this was the real world.

We’d been sat there for quarter of hour when Maria yawned and said it was boring. I told her that 99 per cent of police work is boring, especially surveillance work, which is what I’d told her I was doing – in fact watching the flat of a notorious white slaver, who we had been tipped off might be making a move tonight. If he did we were to trail him. He hadn’t made a move yet (nor was he very likely to) but then I made mine.
“Would you like to get in the back?”

“In the back? What for?”

“We look suspicious just sat here in the front seat. If we sit in the back like a courting couple that would be normal behaviour.”

She saw the sense in this and we got in the back. Not the ideal place for what I had in mind but certainly better than nothing. I put my arm round her and drew her close. “This is what a courting couple would do,” I assured her.

“They’d probably do this as well,” she said, and got hold of my cock.

I didn’t need any further invitation and about two minutes later we were having sex. But we’d only just started when there was a loud tapping on the window. We hadn’t been doing it for long enough for steamy windows and I looked out to see a uniformed policeman looking in. He signalled to me to lower the window.

“Can’t you two find somewhere a bit more private if you’re going to do that sort of thing?” said Plod.

“Sorry officer,” I said. “Of course.”

“Well do it then. And bleedin’ smartish before I nick you!”

I breathed a huge sigh of relief and we got back in the front. Maria was non-plussed and wanted to know why I didn’t tell him I was a plain clothes detective on the trail of a notorious white slaver.

Yes, he would have been impressed with that I’m sure, I thought, but said: “Because it would have blown my cover.” This didn’t make much sense but it sounded very plain-clothes detective-like and she accepted it without question.

“Take me home now,” she said, “I’m tired and I have to be up at five tomorrow.”

“Haven’t we got some unfinished business to attend to first?” I said.

But it was clear from her expression that the moment has passed, as they say in romantic novels. I drove her to the nurse’s hostel where she lives, kissed her goodnight. She asked me to give her a call, soon. I intend to; what I had with her in the back of the Mini Cooper was very nice, but nowhere near £26.50s worth, so I want some more of it.

Sawyer the Lawyer

Bookmark to:

“Did you know the Chinese invented gunpowder?” said Ifield.

“I bet they didn’t invent fish frying,” I said. I’d asked Ifield if he knew if any of the local Chinese chippies did an edible fried fish. “Anyway, what’s the Chinese inventing gunpowder got to do with it?”

“I was just saying. It’s just something I know.”

Ifield doesn’t know a great deal so he can hardly be blamed for speaking out when he does know something, so I just said, a little sarcastically: “Is the answer to the question ‘Is there is a local Chinese chippy who do an edible fried fish?’ another thing you know, by any chance?”

He thought for a moment then said: “That’s hardly likely to come up as a question in a pub quiz, is it?”

“And the Chinese’s invention of gunpowder did?”

“No.”

“Then why are you going on about it?”

“I’m not. It’s just that it’s my turn to set the questions for our pub quiz this week and that’s one of he questions I’ve picked – ‘Who invented gunpowder?’ I bet nobody gets it, I thought it was Guy Fawkes.” (I did say he doesn’t know much, didn’t I).

I wasn’t going pursue the matter any further, as advice on the comparative merits of fried fish from somebody who thinks Guy Fawkes invented gunpowder is bound to be suspect at the very least, but then an idea struck me. “You could set it as one of the questions.”

“What?”

“For your pub quiz. ‘Which local Chinese chippy does decent fried fish?”

“It’s quite obvious you’ve never had to set pub questions, Sawyer.” said Ifield, with the beginnings of a superior smirk on his face.

“I’m sorry?”

“Well in order to set a question I have to know the answer, don’t I.”

I thought for a moment. “Put the Crispy Cod. Or any of the other Chinese Chippies; it doesn’t matter. The object of the exercise is to get a consensus of opinion. The chippy that gets the most votes is obviously the best.”

He refused and made the point that the question setting must be scrupulously fair and the integrity of the question-setter beyond reproach, but his opposition magically disappeared after I’d bought him a couple of pints in the Red Fox at lunchtime and he agreed to do it. It should be well worth it as it will save me trawling round the other four Chinese chippies.

Sawyer the Lawyer

Bookmark to: