heads and eyes darting every which way, always on the look out for a window left open, a door left unlocked.
‘See you round too,’ Kelly whispered to herself. ‘If you last that long.’
King and Renita walked through an ancient railway arch built by the Victorians in the early years of steam trains. Although a road still ran through it, it was rarely used by traffic and endless fly-tipping had all but blocked it. The graffiti daubed on the dirty bricks made it clear the favoured football team in the area was West Ham, while other tags, both new and old, some crossed out and replaced with others, enhanced with threats of death and acts of sexual violence, suggested the arch lay on the border territory between at least two street gangs.
‘You sure about this?’ King asked.
‘Yeah,’ Renita reassured him. ‘I’ve been through here a few times. The wasteground’s on the other side and that’s where my friendly says she saw Swinton and the kids heading.’
‘OK,’ King went along with her, casually reading the graffitied messages of impending doom from one gang to another. ‘If you say so.’
As they exited the arch they immediately heard the sound of laughing children, but it still sounded distant. They skirted around the tall wild grass that hid their approach, heading towards the young voices that grew ever louder, until they heard the voice of a man mixing cheerfully with the others. King automatically held his hand up to stop Renita.
‘Hear that?’ he asked.
‘Yeah,’ she whispered. ‘Looks like the friendly was right.’
‘Come on.’ He led them off, moving slowly until they reached the end of their cover, the wasteground stretching out beyond their hiding place. He slid his hand into the tall sheaves of grass and moved them aside just enough to enable him to spy on the children. They were all between ten and eleven years old, he guessed, sitting and lying on the floor, using whatever they could as makeshift chairs and sofas. In the middle he could see the figure of Alan Swinton, a unattractive white man in his early thirties with unkempt greasy brown hair and thicker-than-normal spectacles. His thin arms and legs contrasted badly with his swollen pot belly and made him appear like some sort of hideous spider-type creature. It was if he was trying to make himself perfectly fit the public’s stereotypical idea of what a paedophile would look like.
‘Is that your man?’ King whispered to Renita, leaning away so she could take a look, as if they were big game hunters spying their quarry through the long golden grass of the savannah. She looked through the parted stalks and began to nod slowly.
‘Yeah,’ she confirmed. ‘That’s him. He certainly looks the part. What do you want to do?’
‘Give him enough rope,’ he told her. ‘You say he has no convictions, then let’s wait until we have him bang to rights.’
‘But they’re kids,’ she warned. ‘If we wait until it’s too late for him, it might be too late for them too.’
‘We won’t let it go too far,’ he assured her, ‘just enough so we can bury him.’
‘How far is too far with children?’ she asked, her voice thick with concern.
‘So what do you want to do?’
‘All we can do,’ she explained in her hoarse whisper. ‘Warn him off – let him know we’re watching him. Maybe let the kids’ parents know.’
‘So he walks away again?’ he complained. Renita just shrugged resignedly. ‘Fine,’ he gave in. ‘Have it your way.’
Without warning they burst from their hiding place and strode into the open ground, not worrying about the two or three more experienced children who took advantage of the others’ hesitation to jump to their feet and flee into the surrounding mess of rubble and trees. ‘Everyone stay where you are,’ he ordered, closing the distance quickly until he was in the middle of the group. ‘What you doing here?’ he asked the children, ignoring Swinton who sat wide-eyed and resigned on a stack of old cushions salvaged from God knows where, looking even more innocent and bewildered than the children around him.
The children shrugged, pulled faces and muttered a collective ‘Nothing’.
‘You know who these kids belong to?’ he asked Renita.
‘Yeah,’ she confirmed, scanning the frightened faces. ‘Most of them.’
‘OK,’ he nodded. ‘All right, you lot – disappear.’ The children looked at each other disbelievingly until King barked at them again, causing a small stampede of little feet. ‘I said, disappear.’
Swinton tried to join the exodus until King’s hand fell heavily on his shoulder. ‘Not you,’ he whispered menacingly before turning and shouting after the fleeing juveniles, ‘and stay away from this man,’ he warned them. ‘He shouldn’t be around children.’
‘Why, why, why did you say that,’ Swinton stuttered. ‘I, I haven’t done anything wrong.’
‘Haven’t done anything wrong?’ King mimicked him. ‘How old are you?’
‘Thirty-two,’ Swinton replied, his eyes flicking from King to Renita.
‘So what’s a thirty-two-year-old man doing hanging around with a bunch of kids?’ King asked calmly, leaning closer to the still sitting Swinton who just shrugged. King kicked him slightly in the foot to get his full attention. ‘I asked you a question.’
‘Take it easy, Sarge,’ Renita intervened. ‘He’s not worth it.’
‘No, he’s not,’ he agreed, ‘but I still want him to answer the question.’
‘I wasn’t doing anything,’ the scared-looking Swinton replied. ‘We were just talking.’
‘If you want to talk to someone, why don’t you talk to someone your own age?’ King questioned.
‘I don’t know,’ Swinton shrugged again. ‘I don’t like listening to the things they talk about.’
‘What things?’ King pushed.
‘You know,’ he looked at the floor. ‘Ugly things.’
‘You ever talk to any children about these ugly things?’ King asked softly.
‘No,’ Swinton insisted, his face a picture of indignation and embarrassment. ‘I’m not interested in that stuff. That’s all other people talk about, but I don’t care. The children don’t talk about it.’
‘So what do they talk about?’ King demanded, his voice full of suspicion and distrust.
‘Interesting things,’ Swinton answered, sounding more upbeat, as if the memory of childish conversations had lifted his spirits. ‘You know, like school and toys and computer games.’
‘And you like stuff like that, do you?’
‘Yeah,’ Swinton smiled nervously back.
‘School?’ King picked on one of the things Swinton had mentioned.
‘Sometimes,
