I just like to hear about the things they learn,’ Swinton tried to explain.
‘Fucking bullshit,’ King almost shouted into his face, making Renita take a step closer.
‘Sarge,’ she tried to leash him.
‘You’re trying to find out about their friends, aren’t you?’ King accused him. ‘So you can find out who the vulnerable ones are, right? So you can, what – follow them and pick them off? Just like you did the others?’
‘No. No,’ Swinton denied it all, twisting uncomfortably on his makeshift seat, his face contorted in confusion and fear. ‘I, I don’t do that. I wouldn’t do that. The children are my friends.’
‘This is getting us nowhere,’ Renita intervened, trying to calm King, even resting a hand on his forearm.
‘OK,’ he nodded slowly, looking down on the fearful Swinton. ‘Get the fuck out of here.’ Swinton looked to Renita for confirmation he was free to go. She motioned with her chin and he scrambled to his feet. ‘And if I ever see you hanging around children again, I’ll kick your door in and take your computer – give it to our experts and see what they can find on it. Would you like that?’
‘No,’ Swinton argued naïvely. ‘I need my computer – to play my games on. It’s, it’s all I have.’
‘Get out of my sight,’ King told him as if he was nothing. Swinton stood in front of him, straightening his spectacles and wiping his sweaty palms on the stomach of his shirt before tentatively walking away, only stopping once he was a safer distance away, turning back towards them to speak.
‘I know what you think of me,’ he called. ‘But I didn’t do anything wrong. You, you shouldn’t talk to me like that.’
‘Walk away,’ Renita warned him before King could react. ‘Just walk away.’ He looked at them with a mix of disappointment and fear before disappearing into the long, straw-like grass, the reeds closing behind him in the breeze as if he’d never been there.
‘Fucking paedophile,’ King accused him once he was gone. ‘We should have waited till he did something. Could have nicked him and turned his flat over. There’s probably enough shit on his computer to send him down for years.’
‘We couldn’t wait until he touched one of them,’ she reminded him. ‘We would have been slaughtered once people found out.’
‘Maybe we were a little too honest in our approach,’ King tested her.
‘Easy,’ she warned him. ‘You can’t gild the lily when it comes to kids. They have a nasty habit of contradicting you.’
‘I guess,’ he nodded.
Renita looked for a long time in the direction Swinton had walked. ‘If you’re that sure we’ll find evidence in his flat maybe we should nick him and search it. Or we could always try and get a search warrant.’
‘No,’ King shook his head slowly. ‘Too risky. We’d never get a search warrant and if we do a Section 18 and find nothing we’ll look like idiots. I’m not having someone like Swinton make a fool of me. No forensics, remember? And the victims can’t identify him.’
‘OK, Sarge,’ Renita said. ‘Then how do we stop him?’
‘I don’t know,’ he admitted. ‘Maybe for this once, we’ll have to bend a few rules. For the sake of the children, if nothing else. And stop calling me Sarge all the time. Driving me bloody mad.’
‘I thought you wanted us to,’ she reminded him.
‘The others maybe,’ he told her, ‘but not you. Doesn’t sound right coming from you for some reason. Just call me Jack, will you?’
‘OK,’ she nodded once, a little unsure, following his eyes as they continued to stare at the space where Swinton had disappeared into the long grass. ‘Let it go,’ she encouraged him. ‘Swinton will come again.’
‘Creepy little bastard, wasn’t he,’ King answered, his eyes still not moving.
‘Maybe,’ she only partly agreed. ‘But looks can sometimes be deceiving. Maybe he’s just a little simple or maybe he’d just rather hang out with the kids than the adults on the estate. At least they have some semblance of innocence. He probably couldn’t handle the adults. They’d rip him up for arse paper.’
‘So what you saying?’ He finally looked at her. ‘That he’s just lonely or something?’
‘We all need human contact,’ she reminded him. ‘Maybe talking to the kids is the only way he can get any?’
‘Human contact?’ King scoffed. ‘I know what kind of contact he’s after and when he gets it I’ll be there to nail the little freak to the floor. Come on,’ he told her, the bile still in the tone of his voice, the thought of Swinton like an oil slick in his mind. ‘Let’s get the fuck out of here.’
King and Renita stood with a small group of off-duty uniformed cops in the Trafalgar pub enjoying a drink at the end of another long day as they discussed the early success of the Unit while the others listened admiringly. Renita did most of the talking and teasing as King played along, increasingly distracted by the growing pain in his shoulder and back that spread and flourished in his head. He left his half-drunk pint on the bar, made his excuses and headed to the toilet where he found an empty cubicle and locked himself inside. He wasn’t due to take any buprenorphine for a few more hours, but decided to tackle the pain before it got out of hand – exceeding his daily dose of the drug again. His GP had told him he should be thinking about coming off the opioid, reducing his dosage slowly, but things seemed to be going the other way. He popped two from the tinfoil and plastic capsules and hid them in the palm of his hand, assuring himself he’d come off the pills as soon as work became less hectic and he had time to try an alternative.
He left the sanctuary of the cubicle and headed back to the bar where it was apparent he’d hardly been missed as he recovered his drink and subtly transferred the drugs from his palm to his mouth, quickly washing them down with the warming, flattening beer, unaware he was being watched by intelligent, experienced eyes from the other side of the bar.
Frank Marino drained his drink and weaved his way through the revellers until he stood next to King – appearing almost surprised to see him. ‘Jack,’ he nodded.
‘Frank,’ King nodded back.
‘I was just getting them in,’ Marino told him. ‘Can I get you one?’
‘I’m good, thanks,’ he replied. ‘I’m in a round.’
Marino looked at Renita and the others. ‘Of course,’ he said, while checking they were too occupied with their own conversation to hear his. ‘Same old faces, eh?’ he suddenly asked, catching King unawares.
‘Sorry?’ he asked.
‘This lot talking to Renita,’ Marino smiled. ‘I don’t come here often, but whenever I do they seem to be in here.’
‘Everyone has their way of winding down,’ King defended them.
‘Winding down or drinking to forget?’ Marino questioned. King just
