I drove home and changed into jeans and a work jacket which I bought years ago but which now makes me look fashionable, especially since it’s faded to cream from a dark brown. As I dressed I thought about Charlotte and her lover as possibles for Edward Morgan’s murder. I saw the way Charlotte had held on to Lloyd outside her cottage. I didn’t let Charlotte’s tears put me off; they were genuine but that didn’t mean anything. Grief can be huge, but when it’s joined by remorse it gets even bigger.
I pulled my boots on and checked the medicine cabinet for Advil. None. I put my camera into a bag and went downstairs to the chemist to get some.
The chemist was actually a pharmacy and one day someone will tell me what the difference is. Like optician and optometrist. Alberto saw me coming out of the pharmacy and walked out of Fred’s towards me. We said hello and then he told me that someone had been asking after me.
‘A young kid,’ Alberto said. ’He asked if Billy Rucker ever came in here.’
‘What did he look like?’ I asked, thinking it might have been Dominic Lewes come to tell me to leave him alone.
‘Oh,’ Alberto said, ‘he was black, only about fourteen. All nerves and attitude. Said he needed to see you. I told him to call you but he said he had.’
‘Well, I dare say he’ll catch up with me. Thanks though, Alberto.’
‘Hey,’ he shrugged, ‘it’s nothing.’
He lit up a cigarette and I left him and walked to the car.
Another dirty table and another coffee that was surprisingly good in the cafe at the bottom of Calshot Street. This time it was daytime though and I was determined not to miss Dominic Lewes again. I wanted to get him out of the way so I could concentrate on Edward Morgan. I bought a copy of the Standard and read the back pages, my mind drifting away to gay MPs and their murdered brothers, young boys lying dead in damp basements and a woman who was tied up in intricate knots of pure misery, knots she may have tied for herself. And how unlikely it was that I’d be able to do anything about any of it. I was glad I had Dominic; something simple and easy to occupy me, nothing to do but wait and watch, and press a button.
Dominic walked up after forty minutes and stood on the other side of the street joining another lad of about the same age. I framed him and got full body shots and then close-ups of his face. He was wearing his MA1 and he looked cold, the zip right up to his chin. He leant against the window of a derelict kebab shop and then sat down on the window ledge and rubbed his hands together, before taking out a pack of cigarettes and lighting one. It seemed ironic that he was still too young to smoke. What would his mother say? I left one pound fifty on the table for the waitress who was looking my way but not indicating that she had any plans to come to the table.
Dominic didn’t see me as I walked past King’s Cross station and crossed the road up by St Pancras. I cut back down towards him and turned right into his road where my car was parked again. I put the bag in the boot, hoping that my camera would be safe in there for a few minutes. For some reason though, I had the feeling, which I get once in a while, that someone was watching me. I’d go back in half an hour and find either no Mazda, or a Mazda with no contents of any value inside and a broken quarter-light. I looked around, up and down the street. I didn’t see anyone but the feeling wouldn’t go away. I knew I was being irrational, that boots seldom got broken into in broad daylight, but I couldn’t help it. I turned the key in the lock again, took out my bag and slung it back over my shoulder. I walked down the street towards the Cross, glancing over my shoulder once or twice, feeling like an idiot.
‘Have you got the time, mate?’
I’d stopped in front of Dominic Lewes and the other lad. I was speaking to Dominic.
‘Yeah,’ Dominic replied, pushing up the sleeve of his jacket. ‘It’s ten to six.’ He showed me his watch at the same time as telling me what the time was and I wondered why people did that. Did he think I wouldn’t believe him?
‘Thanks,’ I said, turning to go. But then I stopped. ‘Hey. Haven’t I met you before?’
Dominic put both hands on the windowsill beneath him and looked at me, squinting for a second. I could tell he thought he recognized me. He shook his head.
‘I don’t think so, mate.’
‘Yes, we have.’ I put my bag down on the pavement. ‘It was right here!’ I sounded pleased with myself for remembering. ‘I bought you a sandwich, you didn’t have any money, remember?’
‘I’m not sure, mate, maybe.’ Dominic laughed.
‘It was a while ago. I’m really good with faces, though I can’t even remember names the next day.’ I smiled.
‘It’s Mikey.’
‘Yeah, that’s it.’ I pointed at him and shook my head. ‘You look different but I don’t know why.’
At this point a car drew up and the other boy walked over to it and got in without saying anything to the driver. The driver was looking the other way as if nothing was happening. A regular. The car – a big, shapeless Ford saloon – drew off and headed up the Pentonville Road towards the Angel.
Dominic looked me in the eyes and stood up from the ledge. His lips pursed very slightly. He opened his mouth and his tongue ran over his teeth, as he took a small step towards me.
‘I’ll suck you for twenty,’ he told me.
‘God,’ I said laughing, ‘no. Thanks. No. But I’ll buy you a sandwich and a cup of tea if you like, if you’re hungry?’
‘That’s all right, mate.’ Dominic paused. ‘No johnny. Just my mouth and your cock.’
Dominic’s eyes ran over my body and he stood even closer to me.
‘No, no. Really.’ I took a step back. ‘Thanks all the same. But what about that tea, hey? You look freezing.’
I rubbed my hands together briskly. I wanted Dominic to come with me because I wanted to persuade him to call his mother. I had last time and he’d done it, and she’d told me what it meant to her. He didn’t bother answering me this time though, he just turned his head to the side and sucked his cheeks in, letting out a mocking hmm as he did so. The conversation was over. He obviously didn’t need cups of tea any more, he was in control of his life now. He kept staring towards King’s Cross as though something incredible had just captured his attention, thereby telling me to get lost. Oh well, I thought, I’ve got the pictures. I looked at the side of Dominic’s face and neck and at his cropped hair, the colour of vanilla ice cream on a summer holiday.
‘Your roots need doing,’ I told him, picking up my bag. Then, ‘Call your mother.’
Dominic’s face changed for a second but he still didn’t look at me. I moved off.
I had been walking away from my car when I stopped to talk to Dominic, and I kept on going that way so as not to make him think I was looking for him. I was a little pissed off. I’d done my job and would get my money, but I hadn’t done everything I could have. I knew what a phone call would mean to Mrs Lewes. Maybe Bob Hoskins wasn’t such a prick after all.
There was an alley on the right which I could duck down, saving me from walking all the way round the block to my car. I turned into it, stepping over a comatose drunk with an empty bottle of Imperial sherry clasped to his chest like a baby. It was beginning to get dark now and the high walls either side of me intensified the gloom, as though a dimmer switch had been turned down a notch. I walked up the alley, inhaling a wave of stale piss, kicking aside a couple of old needles and an uneaten chocolate bar. In huge red letters on the wall somebody had spray painted the words ‘FUCK PIGS’. I had a sudden image of a disaffected youth committing bestiality with a Gloucester Old Spot. I smiled to myself and stuck my hands into my coat pockets.
The man stepped out in front of me when I was about five yards from the end of the alley, and he blocked the exit. He stood with his arms folded and one leg pointing further forward than the other. He looked straight at me with his head thrown back, dressed in biker boots, black Levis, a tight T-shirt and an expensive blazer jacket. One roll-up oh the sleeves. He looked at me with a disgusted menace, and when I checked my stride and stopped he took a step forward. I recognized him immediately; I really am good with faces. He was the guy who came to the door on Elm Drive when I’d gone looking for Dominic.
‘Who the fuck are you?’
He had unfolded his arms and was standing square in front of me. His voice was big, and it echoed off the alley walls with a metallic sound. I took my hands out of my pockets. I let my bag slide down my arm on to the ground beside me, keeping hold of the strap.
‘I said, who the fuck are you?’
He was angry but in control. Confident. I could tell immediately that tiying to bullshit this man wouldn’t get me very far. So I didn’t try. I didn’t say anything.
‘What you been taking pictures of my boys for? Why you been coming round? What you want?’
His boys.
‘I’m talking to you, tosser.’ A long finger stretched out towards me. ‘If you’re the Bill you’re dead.’
‘If I’m the Bill,’ I replied quietly, ‘you’re nicked.’
He didn’t like that.
‘Gimme your bag. Now. Give it here.’ He snapped his fingers.
I let go of the strap, keeping the bag behind me.
’Listen,’ I said, fanning out my hands, taking a couple of small steps forward. ‘I don’t want any trouble. I’m just working for someone who wants to know that their son is still alive, that’s all.’ I tried a smile.
‘You deaf, tosser? Are you? Well? I said…!’
I hit him with a straight right arm with a lot of shoulder behind it. Unfortunately he saw it; late but he saw it. He’d begun to twist left, taking a lot of the weight out but it still sent him spinning against the wall. Before I could hit him again he came out and charged at me, grabbing my lapels, but I managed to use his weight to take him past me and into the other wall. He still had my lapels and he butted me hard below my left ear, holding on tight to me. It hurt.
I couldn’t get an arm free to hit him so I rammed him hard up against the brickwork. And again. He was shaken and I did manage to get a hand free, but he lunged out at me with all that he had before I could swing at him. We both went sprawling, landing on the wet concrete side by side. We struggled, trying to get on top of each other. I heard fabric tearing. I thought that, even if he wins this fight, my opponent was going to have to lose another four hundred quid in Emporium. I managed to wedge my foot against a wall and, pushing hard, I got on top of him. His arms went up to my neck but I ignored them. I held him by his jacket and his T-shirt and I belted the shit out him, right after right after right, until his arms were on the floor beside him. I heard his nose break. I felt his top front teeth bite into my knuckles as they broke up and snapped out of the bone. I saw his eyes change their focus, from me, to his own pain, and then to something I couldn’t know.
When the man wasn’t moving any more and his head got heavy I stopped hitting him. I let him drop down to the floor. I pushed myself up from the ground and got to my feet, breathing hard, steadying myself against a head spin. Dominic’s pimp was lying back, almost conscious. I waited, getting my breath back. His focus returned and he lay there looking at me. Blinking. His neck and T-shirt were soaked in blood and I saw that the ripping sound I heard had been the top pocket of his jacket; it was hanging on by a couple of threads. I took a breath. Then, for some reason, I leant over to pull the pocket off. Just as I reached it his hand went up to stop me and he winced. I held the limp piece of fabric in my hands. He looked devastated. I hadn’t had to fight this guy at all, I should have just grabbed hold of his pocket and threatened to rip it off if he didn’t get out of my way.
I pulled the pocket off and stood over the guy looking down at him. I wanted to say something to him, something cool and final. But I couldn’t think of anything. Instead, something he had said to me came into my head. My boys.
I looked up the alley towards where Dominic was standing and I thought I saw another figure getting into a car. Another kid whose home had not been a home, who had come to find somewhere else to belong and had ended up belonging to this man here. A kid whose life was made up of so much shit that if you took it away from him he’d be lost, he wouldn’t know what the fuck was going on.
‘My boys.’
The pimp didn’t move anything except his eyelids, which fluttered like two half-dead moths pinned to a board. I took a step back. I steadied myself. I looked into his soft brown eyes for a second and the fluttering stopped as he met my gaze. An appeal burst into his eyes like hold-up men in a bank, but I ignored it. Then I repeatedly kicked the man with all those boys as hard as I could in the groin until his soft eyes clouded over and he blacked out.
I stepped over the wino again. He was still smooching with the angels. I hitched my bag up over my shoulder and walked out on to the Pentonville Road. Night had fallen quickly and it was almost dark now. Dominic was gone. I felt cold all of a sudden and I shivered. I crossed the road and walked back into the cafe. The waitress who had served me the last two times I had been there and had seen me with my camera, looked shocked to see me. She stepped back against the counter, holding her hands by her sides. It said it all. It wasn’t the blood on my face that she was surprised to see. It was me. Standing up. I threw the liberated pocket on to the counter.
‘Your boyfriend’ll want this,’ I said to her. ‘He’ll need his jacket stitching.’ The girl looked across at it and then quickly back at me. She narrowed her eyes. ‘Come to think of it,’ I added, ‘he might need his face stitching too.’ The girl’s mouth opened into a small Oh, and her eyes widened, but she didn’t say anything.