down onto the War Memorial steps in the middle of the yard, Calum licking at the fresh but stinging notches on his knuckles. Before long, a soft snore issued from Dean’s puckered, spittle-slathered mouth. Dead to the world, he’d tilted back against the orderly lists of heroic names inscribed on brass plaques around the base of the Memorial’s obelisk.
‘Dean!… fuck’s sake!’ Calum nudged him with his elbow. ‘Gi’ us a fucking smoke!’
Dean muttered in response, and slapped at his right hip pocket.
Calum rummaged in there and found a single crooked joint. It was half-smoked already and bent at a right angle. He straightened it out, stuck it between his lips and dug deeper into his friend’s pocket, finding and discarding all kinds of crumby, sticky, manky crap, before retrieving a lighter.
And only then did he become aware that someone was standing in front of him.
Calum glanced up, vision blurring as his eyes tried to focus through the late-night gloom. The newcomer blotted out all light from the single lamp, casting a deep shadow over the lads. But he wasn’t completely in silhouette. Calum could distinguish dark clothing and the bland, bespectacled features of someone he thought he’d spotted a couple of times in the bars earlier.
‘Good evening,’ the newcomer said.
‘Who the fuck are you supposed to be?’ Calum sniggered. ‘Clark fucking Kent?’
‘I’ve got a message for your boss.’
‘Who the fuck are you?’
‘Here are my credentials.’ The newcomer jammed a black-gloved hand into his overcoat pocket, but when he brought it out again, it held a wadded rag, which, as he leaned down, he squashed against Calum’s face, using his other hand to clamp the back of Calum’s head, allowing no room at all for manoeuvre.
The young hoodlum tried to struggle, but what remained of his strength and awareness deserted him remarkably quickly.
‘Now, don’t breathe too deeply,’ the man said, lowering him to the ground. ‘I need you conscious again very soon. And you –’ He turned to Dean, who, more through some basic animal instinct than anything else, was trying to shake himself awake. The newcomer reached for something he’d laid against the steps. It was half a pool cue, the slimmer end neatly sawn off. ‘You can have a longer snooze.’
He swung it single-handed. It clattered against the corner of Dean’s skull, sending him half spinning into oblivion, but not entirely.
Dean dropped panting onto his hands and knees, blood spiralling down from his right temple, which suddenly felt as though it had turned to sponge.
‘You, you fuck …’ Dean stammered. ‘You fuck … ’
‘Thick-skulled, eh? Probably should’ve expected that.’
The next blow came two-handed, down and then up, golf club style. THWACK!
Dean twirled over onto his back, head clanging like a bell, hands hanging flipper-like at his sides – in which prone, helpless posture the newcomer kicked him a couple of good ones in the face. But still, somehow, Dean – probably because he was insulated against real pain by his own inebriation – clung to consciousness.
‘You not … not …’ he gurgled bloodily.
‘Thicker than average, eh?’ The newcomer sounded impressed. ‘OK …’
He re-wadded the rag he’d used on Calum, took a small bottle from his coat pocket, unscrewed the cap and tilted it over.
‘… not know … who … we are?’
‘Of course I do.’ The newcomer knelt alongside him. ‘That’s the whole point.’
He crammed the foul-smelling, chemical-soaked pad onto Dean’s broken nose and mangled mouth, and held it there for as long as he needed to.
Heck skidded to a halt in the car park behind a line of Brixton shops, his tyres screeching so loud it sent several scrawny pigeons flapping from the surrounding rooftops. He jumped from his silver Megane and trotted up the outside steps to the concrete balcony serving a row of cheap and nasty flats on the upper floor. He hammered on the door to number 3.
Half a minute passed before a dull, muffled voice asked, ‘Yeah … who is it?’
‘Detective Sergeant Heckenburg. Open up.’
‘Erm … what do you, erm … what do you want?’
‘Do you want me to shout it at the top of my voice? Because I will.’
‘Erm … hang on.’
‘Never mind “hang on”,’ Heck growled. ‘Open this soddin’, piggin’ door, or I’ll kick it down.’
A chain rattled as it was removed, and the door opened. Penny Flint’s younger brother, Tyler, stood there. He was weedy, pale and with a badly spotted face, particularly around the mouth. He had a mess of dyed-orange hair, and a single earring dangling from an infected lobe. He wore pyjama trousers, dinosaur-feet slippers and a ragged jersey that was three times too large.
‘Thought it’d be you,’ he said dully.
‘Well, obviously.’ Heck shouldered his way inside. ‘No one else knows she’s here. Yet.’
The colour scheme inside the flat was grey, grey and grey, with perhaps a hint of lime-green, which had faded almost to grey. The place was a tip: bare, damp-looking walls, tatty and disordered furniture, dirty crockery and empty beer bottles on a side table. It was cold for an April morning, so the electric fire was on full blast. It was too much really, but it didn’t bother Penny Flint, who was slumped in an armchair and smoking an unfiltered cigarette, focused intently on morning TV, where Jeremy Kyle was putting a bunch of people just like her through their paces. She wore a thin dressing gown, while her long brown hair hung in ratty strands. The ashtray on her armrest was crammed with dog-ends.
In the corner, Alfie, her six-month-old son, lay snug in a rabbit romper suit, burbling to himself in his carry-cot. The baby was the only dab of real colour in the room, aside from Tyler Flint’s ludicrous fake hair. Having checked outside that Heck hadn’t been followed, Tyler had closed and locked the door again and now hovered in the background.
‘Don’t stare at me like that, Heck,’ Penny said without looking round. ‘You’re making me nervous.’
‘Nervous?’ Heck retorted. ‘You’re lucky I’m not dragging you down to Brixton cop-shop by your knicker-elastic.’
She turned a face on him that had once been pretty but was now haggard.
‘I’m not wearing knickers at the moment, Heck. I can’t stand the pain they cause me. Or maybe I didn’t make that clear enough the last time we spoke.’
If that was true, she was pretty scantily clad, her gown
