2.

I’d been frequenting the White Lion for about six months before I asked for credit. I’d been buying weed from a cheerful guy who told me his name was Cleon - I have no reason to think he was lying about that. Our eyes would meet in the bar and then he would leave. After a couple of minutes I would follow and meet him in the alley behind the pub. All very cloak and dagger. But I was a good customer, buying a few ounces every week, sometimes twice. I was also getting myself seen around the place. There couldn’t be a CCTV camera in Brixton that hadn’t recorded my shuffling gait and downcast expression countless times. The bloke on the corner handing out free copies of the Standard would even nod in greeting although I never accepted a paper. London is a city of strangers - I’m not the first to make that observation. People come and go on a daily basis. I suppose the newspaper vendor was pleased to see familiar faces. Gave him a sense of stability or something. Whatever.

Having established myself as a local presence around the pubs and the market and what-have-you - the jobcentre was an especial haunt of mine; as well as my fortnightly signing on time I would pop in to have a play on their machines. “Job-seeking” they call it. You push a few buttons and nothing comes out. It’s the world’s worst casino, gambling with people’s lives.

But I’m not here to make political points, however woolly.

Like I said, I got myself settled in. Not exactly the life and soul of the community but I was a recognisable figure. A case of playing the long game.

At last I decided it was time to take things to the next level. I ducked into the alley and met Cleon’s toothy grin (guess how those gold caps were paid for!) with an expression of concern and regret.

“I can’t afford it,” I told him, watching his smile falter. “Too many bills this week, man. Fuckin’ gas, fuckin’ electric. They was gonna cut me off.”

“Sucks, man,” Cleon was a picture of sympathy. I noticed he kept his hands in the pockets of his Puffa jacket. He wasn’t likely to take out a little polythene parcel. I became more pleading and more insistent.

“Come on, man; you know I’m good for it, man. Didn’t you say I was like one of your best customers?”

“Because you always pay up front and you don’t piss me off asking for credit.”

The smile was completely gone by this point. I turned on the waterworks.

“I gotta have it. I’m stressin’ out. Bailiffs been round, doin’ my head in.”

Cleon advised me through clenched gold caps to keep my voice down. He didn’t want the whole of Brixton to know his business. Who was he kidding? Everyone knew Cleon and the exact nature of his business. He could have stood on a box in the marketplace and sold his wares via the medium of loudhailer and nobody would have been surprised.

“Just this once. I get money through tomorrow. Day after at the latest. Go on; you know I’m good for it.”

Cleon gave me a cold appraisal. I sniffed noisily and wetly for good measure.

And then his entire attitude seemed to soften and he gave me a look like a father relenting. Yes, Petunia, you shall have a pony.

He pulled out his fist and put it in the palm of my hand. But he didn’t let go. He pulled me towards him so we were nose-to-nose.

“On the house,” he said. “Free and gratis and for nothing. You get me?”

I looked into his big brown eyes. I got him. There was no such thing as free, gratis and for nothing. I would have to pay for my hit some other way.

“Meet me here in the morning. Eight thirty and you better not fuckin’ be late.”

He shoved me away. I clasped my hands around the tiny bag of ‘wacky baccy’ and bowed my head in gratitude. I backed out of the alley, all obsequious and relieved. Until I was out of his sight. I pocketed the bag and scurried back to my basement bedsit.

I had lied, of course, about the power company cutting me off and the bailiffs dropping by for tea and scones. But it all helped to engender the right image.

I let myself in and flicked on the bare bulb that hung in the centre of the room. I edged around the unmade bed and ransacked the cupboard for a couple of slices of bread. I found a couple that were dry and hard like asbestos mats but perhaps a couple of minutes in the toaster would render them edible. While they were charring, I emptied my pockets.

The brown. The hash. The skunk. The - It can be difficult to keep up with the correct terminology. I know the criminal underworld likes to keep Plod guessing. It’s also a good way to flush out the imposters, the plants, the narks, the grasses - and again we’re into specialist terminology.

I crouched at the cupboard under the sink and pulled out a metal cashbox. I unlocked the box and withdrew an Evidence envelope. I scrawled the time, date and location of my ‘purchase’ on the envelope, put the cannabis inside and locked the thing up again. At the end of the month, I would deliver the contents to a cop shop across the river, where it would all be signed and accounted for.

It was while making these monthly excursions that I felt most exposed and most vulnerable. If any of the faces from Brixton saw me playing postman like this, I would be rumbled.

But so far, so good. I was settled in. No one, apart from my contact over the river, knew who I really was and what I was up to.

And now the time had come to take things up a notch. I’d made a good start, getting myself indebted to Cleon. Rather than giving me credit, he seemed to have something else in mind.

I hoped he didn’t want to bum me.

Not that I’m not into that. I just didn’t fancy him. Perhaps in another life, in other circumstances... No; it was pointless to think like that. While I was undercover there was to be nothing of that nature. I barely touched myself, truth be told.

I wanted the false me to be as unlike the real me as possible. I wanted nothing in common with the false me. And if that meant masquerading as straight, so be it. It would never come to anything - Who would want to fuck a spotty, smelly scruff-bag like me?

I was operating under the name of Kevin Tonkinson. Those who spoke to me called me ‘Tonk’. I didn’t foster friendships and they’d be lucky to get more than a civil grunt from me as I hurried past, my head bowed, my shoulders hunched.

The toaster began to emit black smoke, deciding to cremate the bread rather than eject it into space. I pinched the charred remains and removed them from the gaping maws of the machine, swearing and repeating ‘Ow, ow’ as I transferred the burnt offerings from worktop to sink.

So much for supper.

I got into bed, which involved little more than pulling an unzipped sleeping bag over me. I was too wired up to sleep. The morning meeting with Cleon was playing on my mind.

After six months of settling in, something different was about to happen at last!

***

The White Lion and more pertinently the alley behind it were only five minutes’ walk from my meagre accommodation. But I made sure I was ten minutes late. It wouldn’t do to appear too keen or well-organised. Cleon was there, running a short fuse.

“I told you not to fuck me about,” he snapped in a stage whisper.

Did he? I had no memory of that.

“Well, I’m here now,” I pointed out. He couldn’t argue with the facts.

“Tell you the truth, I didn’t think you’d be here until gone nine,” he flashed his gilded smile. “If at all.”

“I said I would so I - here I am.”

“Right. Come on, then.”

He ambled off along the alley. A dirty van was parked on the kerb.

“Get in.”

I headed for the back doors.

“In the front! You muppet.” He sucked his pirate teeth and shook his head. I could tell he was beginning to regret our arrangement even before he’d revealed what that arrangement actually was.

I climbed onto the long vinyl-covered seat, opting to sit by the window rather than cosying up to him as he drove.

“Well, belt up then,” he snarled, exasperated.

I fumbled the hasp of the seatbelt into the catch and then arranged the belt across the front of my denim jacket.

Cleon pulled away. The van rattled and rumbled, farting toxic fumes into the South London morning.

“We don’t want the filth flagging us down just ‘cause you can’t be bothered to put your fuckin’ seat belt on.”

I nodded. Yes, of course. Silly of me.

We drove out of Brixton proper and towards an industrial estate you wouldn’t know was there. Judging by the general air of desertion, it was clear that nobody did know about it. Cleon brought the van to a shuddering halt in front of a low-rise unit. He hopped out and unfastened the padlock that secured the metal shutters across the entrance.

“Come on then,” he yelled back at me. “Sitting in there like the fuckin’ Prince of Wales or summink.”

I guessed from this he wanted my assistance with the shutters. I undid the seatbelt and climbed down from the cab.

“We haven’t got all fuckin’ day,” he pointed out. “I’ve got to sign on at twelve.”

With the shutters raised, the unit yawned like a rather angular cave. Cleon fetched a torch from the van. A proper motorist’s torch with a handle. He led me into the darkness.

The air was dry and vaguely metallic. As the beam of light played in front of us, I got an idea why. The space was lined with metal shelves, row upon row, bolted together like a giant’s Meccano set and laden with cardboard boxes all uniform in size and shape. Not the ideal spot for a bit of compensatory bumming, I realised. Perhaps then his intention was to murder me here.

All for one little bag of skunk?

I doubted that very much.

At the far end of this room was an area divided off by MDF walls as office space. Cleon unlocked the door to this office with a key from his pocket and reached around the door frame to slap on the light switch.

The office looked positively cosy compared to the rest of the place. There was a desk and a plastic chair. There was a laptop and a stack of box files but most noticeable about the room were the banks of machines all stacked high, connected to each other by a snakes’ orgy of cables. Red and green lights glowed and flickered.

“Your blank discs go in these,” Cleon patted the top of the nearest bank. “Your masters go in these ones over here.” He indicated the other pile.

I nodded as if it all made perfect sense. In reality, it took me a little longer to cotton on what was happening.

“All you got to do is keep the blanks topped up and clearly labelled. Don’t want some old dear down the market ending up in a tizzy ‘cause she’s bought German scat porn when she wanted Tinker-fuckin’-bell for her granddaughter. Not that I give a shit, but that kind of mistake can draw the attention of the law. Trading standards, you get me? So, keep the blanks topped up. When they’re done, you take ‘em out and you label ‘em with this marker pen. Then you put them in these little plastic wallets over here, then you boxes ‘em up and you puts the boxes on the shelves out there.”

“And then what?”

“Then you keep doing it until I come back for you. What happens to them out there is none of your fuckin’ beeswax, you get me?”

I nodded.

“And don’t fuck it up. Get this right and this could be a nice little earner for you. But not a word to the jobcentre, eh?” He laughed, delighted with himself.

“Mum’s the fuckin’ word,” I assured him. He stopped laughing.

“Right, well, I’ve got things to do. I’ll be back this afternoon. Tell you what. You could put one on, if you like, and crack one off. Perk of the job. Just don’t take all day about it.”

Laughing again, he picked up the torch and headed across the storage area towards daylight and the van.

I heard the shutters rumble and clang and, faintly, the van chugging and belching away.

So. Now I was involved in DVD piracy.

It was progress, I supposed. A step in one kind of direction.

***

I soon got the hang of the machines and, opting for the lesser of two evils, made sure to copy more cartoons than porn films. It was piracy of the dullest kind. No Spanish Main, no wooden legs and eye patches, and no swordplay. But just as illegal. I would have to find out where these copies were headed and tip off my contact.

Cleon returned with a box of fried chicken, which he presented to me as a late lunch. He surveyed my output and nodded, impressed. He picked a freshly-formatted disc from a pile.

“You have neat writing,” he conceded. “I like to see a man taking pride in his work.”

The little office fell silent save for the sounds of me devouring salty chips. I thought I’d better play the part of ravening scrounger, despite there being too much grease and too much salt and not enough nutritional content. Cleon appeared to be mulling something over. He waited for me to finish and then perched a buttock on the edge of the desk.

“I’ve been thinking,” he began, confirming my suspicions. “How would you like to come on board? You’ve obviously got a flair for this line of work. Cash in hand. Minimum wage, if you insist; why the hell not? And it frees me up to...do other things. What do you say?”

“You’re offering me a job?”

“I’m offering you a job. But don’t worry; it’s not a job-you-have-to-sign-off-the-dole kind of job. In fact, you can’t even mention it to anybody.”

“So...”

“I’m saying you’ll have money in your pocket. You’ll be able to buy more weed than you can handle. Harder stuff too if you want it.”

I let him see my face light up. He had said the magic word. I jumped up from my seat and pumped his hand vigorously. He grimaced to find my greasy fingers closed around his. He squeezed my hand tight and pulled my face closer to his.

“One thing clear: you tell nobody. Nobody must know where you go every day. Nobody must know what you’re doing. Or,” his lip curled to reveal a gold-tipped canine, “nobody will be able to find you. Well, not all of you. Not in the same place. You get me?”

I cast my eyes downwards and nodded abjectly.

He released my aching hand and slapped my upper arm.

“Welcome on board!” he grinned. “Good job you said yes. I didn’t fancy killing anybody today.”

He was laughing but I couldn’t read his expression; I couldn’t see if he was joking.

***

And so I spent the next few weeks working for Cleon. He really went to town on covering our tracks. Every morning he would send me a text message with the name of a tube station. I would then travel to that station, where his van would be waiting to pick me up and take me, via a circuitous route to the industrial estate. Either he was overly paranoid about us being followed or he just enjoyed playing at secret agents.

I found the work mindless in the extreme. After a fortnight I pestered him to provide a radio. A few days later he produced one, brand new but obviously a knock-off - if the SNOY logo was anything to go by.

But at least I had Radio 4 for company. Cleon questioned my choice of station, offering to retune so I could hear some ‘banging tunes’. I said I just liked the voices; they were company for me.

That much was true, at least.

I was dying to know where Cleon went and what he got up to after he dropped me off every morning. I resolved to do something about finding out.

I pointed out that the following day I was required to go and sign on, releasing him from giving me a lift. I offered to make up the time but he dismissed this with a magnanimous wave. He said I was so far ahead with the DVDs, they couldn’t shift ‘em fast enough. They could afford to let me take the whole day.

Such benevolent employers! Whoever they were!

The following day I set out to sign on. I was only faking it but it remained a degrading experience, no matter how friendly and customer-service pleasant the staff in that place pretended to be.

“Any changes in your circumstances, Mister Tonkinson?” My personal paper-pusher asked with all the warmth and spontaneity of a robotic parrot.

“No,” I said, trying to sound apologetic.

“And how’s your job-searching going on?”

The answer to this lay in the little booklet I had to fill in each fortnight, detailing jobs I had applied for and steps I was taking. The clerk barely skim-read it before adding her initials to the last entry I’d made and handing me back the booklet. I signed the chit - it was easier each time to remember to use my pseudonym; how I had had to practice that new signature! The clerk didn’t look at it.

“Thank you, Mister Tonkinson.”

I was dismissed.

At the main entrance, several valiant job-seekers were lingering, sharing cigarettes before they went to do their duty. I looked them up and down for fashion tips, taking in the way they held themselves, their expressions. These were the long-term unemployed, those to whom society had denied admittance, by one means or another, and who were now vilified by that society.

But I don’t wish to be political, I keep saying.

One thing about Cleon: at least he was providing purpose in what he thought was my life. And that was more than the increasingly cut-back welfare services were doing for these people.

And it was my job to bring him down and those for whom he was working. We live in a crazy world. Of course, what Cleon and his bosses were doing was illegal, immoral and all the rest of it, but I could see how easily someone like the man I was claiming to be could become involved in dark deeds and nefarious purposes. There really was no alternative.

I took two tube trains over the river and into deepest Ealing to deliver my real fortnightly report to my contact. I say ‘contact’ - I never saw them. I would hand over a notebook, sealed in a cashbox, locked with a padlock, and wrapped in padded envelopes. I would then send a text message with the combination to the padlock so that my contact could access the notebook. It all may seem extraordinary but there was no other way to protect my cover. The understanding was I was to keep doing what I was doing until I received new instructions. I was sure that with my new-found employment in DVD piracy, I would receive some kind of word this time.

I spent the rest of the day making the most of my tube ticket. I wondered around the National Gallery until my legs ached, sat on a bench in Regent’s Park, and ‘enjoyed’ an unhappy meal from a fast food franchise. I would have dearly loved to visit a bar on Old Compton Street or pop into the Royal Opera House to see their latest Turandot, but I had to stay in character. It was depressing. I wondered how long it would be before I could enjoy those pleasures again.

It was dark before I got back to the bedsit. Someone had been ill all over the communal bathroom. I went directly to bed rather than tackle its terrors.

It is not great being unwashed.

***

A month passed, including two more trips to the ‘dole hole’ and two more drop-offs at the cop shop in Ealing. Nothing changed. No word was forthcoming. No instructions. Nothing.

What should I do? Continue in this illegal drudgery?

I decided to try to coax some information from Cleon who, apart from the paper-pusher at the dole hole and the few shop assistants with whom I exchanged ‘thank yous’ along with cash for goods, was the only person I spoke to.

He remained tight-lipped and evasive. He liked to imply that he was involved in something big and dangerous, but the emphasis was on letting me know how out-of-the-loop I was. I was a tiny cog in a large machine and the way to make me know my place was to keep me in the dark about what the rest of the machine was up to.

But then something happened.

***

One afternoon Cleon picked me up. We were almost back at Brixton when he announced he needed a piss. Apologising and swearing he pulled the van over to the kerb.

“Get in the driver’s seat,” he winced. “In case a traffic warden’s on the prowl. You can fuckin’ drive, can’t you?”

“Of course I can fuckin’ drive,” I told him. This was not the truth. I’d had a few lessons when I was seventeen but hadn’t taken to it. But the chances of a traffic warden happening to come around that very corner at that very moment were remote. I hitched myself over to his seat - it was still warm - while he waddled, stooped and holding his crotch, into the nearest pub.

He seemed to be taking his time.

Perhaps he’d been distracted by someone he knew. Perhaps the landlord had taken exception to him using the place as a public convenience and had insisted he purchase a drink... Perhaps...

My idle contemplations were interrupted when I caught sight of a couple of uniforms in the wing mirror.

They came to the window and gestured for me to lower it.

“This your vehicle, sir?” sneered one.

“Um, ah,” was all I could manage.

“This is not your vehicle, is it, sir?”

“Well, um, not exactly...”

“Licence and registration, sir.”

“Well, it’s - you see - it’s a friend’s; he...”

The copper who hadn’t spoken reached in and snatched the ignition key.

“Step out of the vehicle, sir.”

I complied. The second copper was unlocking the back doors. He sucked in his breath with a whistle. The van, of course, was loaded with my handiwork.

“Oh dear oh dear,” the first copper said when he realised what he was dealing with. “Looks like you’re fucking nicked, sir.”