He unlocked his own vehicle. It’d do the trick for the time being. No one ever looked at it.
Dean sat down, and flipped through his sheaf of electoral roll printout. Time for one more, then he’d call it a day.
The park would be closing soon. The sign at the wrought-iron gates advertised that they would be locked at nightfall in winter. Another half an hour. The white-gold sun was slipping behind the empty trees, and long dark shadows were running out across the grass like ploughed furrows. There was a slight autumnal haze, a softness in the light, and a smell of leaves decaying.
People were walking dogs. A few kids were playing, most of them on their way home from school, laden with knapsacks. A golden retriever chased energetically across the grass, hunting down a frisbee. Its owner shouted the dog’s name. Leaves fluttered as it snatched up the red plastic disk and turned with it in its mouth.
Mr Dine sat on the top of the War Memorial, basking in the last of the sun. He was secure. No one could see him up there. He was out of sight to anyone passing by on the ground, and to anyone looking on from a distance. Besides, no one would expect a person to be up there. The Council had never bothered fencing the War Memorial with railings, because it was patently unclimbable.
He’d crashed, predictably, then switched to recovery mode. A warm glow that wasn’t the sunlight suffused him. He could hear the distant, constant hum of traffic.
The upload had restarted about an hour earlier. Not an alert, just a routine data review. He sat listening to its melodious chunter. Key link-strands had not yet been clarified and restored to satisfaction. There was still some concern, expressed via the upload, that the Principal’s status might yet be compromised and unsafe. A possibility of damage. Mr Dine was to monitor this carefully in the coming hours.
Mr Dine opened his hand and looked at the livid burn the adversarial object had left on the flesh of his palm. The wound was repairing, but it had gone through to the bone in places.
‘You’re joking! And?’ asked Gwen.
‘Well,’ said James, ‘he went off down Brunswick Way like he had an Exocet up his jacksie, and Jack and I went after him. This is the third time in one afternoon, bear in mind. I was not in the mood for another sprint. Anyway, he gets past me and Jack rugby tackles him on a traffic island.’
‘Go on.’
‘He’s only a Jehovah’s Witness, isn’t he?’
‘No!’ Gwen exclaimed with a snort. ‘Not really?’
‘I swear. He starts trying to club Jack off him with a rolled up copy of The Watchtower.’
‘What did you do?’ Gwen asked, raising her wine glass.
‘We apologised,’ James grinned.
‘But he’d run. Why had he run?’
‘Apparently, two of his colleagues had been duffed up by youths in that area recently, and he thought we were out to get him.’
‘Poor bugger.’
‘Yeah. To make things worse, Jack sends him on his way with a cheery “Next time I see Jehovah, I’ll put in a good word for you”.’
The waiter brought the bill over. Gwen waved it to her.
‘I’ll do that,’ said James.
‘I invited you out, remember. My treat.’
She gave the waiter her card. ‘Did Jack really say that?’
James nodded. He sipped the last of his wine and laughed to himself. ‘He’s a menace.’
‘So, you never got him, then?’
‘No, we didn’t,’ James said, sitting forward again and shaking his head. ‘We’re back on it tomorrow. Jack’s quite fired up now, a matter of principle, I think.’
‘Captain Jack always gets his man,’ said Gwen.
‘Well, Captain Jack was off his stroke this afternoon. Zero for three. First the oik casing houses, then the window cleaner who thought we were wanting words about a pliant hausfrau he’d dallied with. Then, the Jehovah’s Witness.’ James counted them out on his fingers. ‘We were up and down Pontcanna all afternoon like a fiddler’s elbow.’
‘I thought that was in and out?’
‘You’re right. What’s up and down?’
‘A whore’s drawers?’
‘Thank you. I haven’t run so far in years. My calves are like toffee apples.’
‘What, crispy and sweet?’ Gwen asked, smiling to the waiter as she punched her PIN into the reader he offered her.
‘No, baked hard and round and… OK, not toffee apples. Either way, I’m totally exhausted.’
‘Not totally, I hope,’ she winked. She took her card and the tear-off strip from the waiter. ‘Thanks.’
‘Not totally, I suppose,’ James said. ‘Well, you paid for all this, and very nice it was too, but weren’t we supposed to be talking?’
‘We were talking.’
‘I told you all about running around Pontcanna like a nong. We didn’t talk about… talky stuff.’
‘The night’s still young,’ she said.
James helped her on with her coat. They thanked the girl working the restaurant’s front of house, and went out into the clear, chilly night. Fairy-light stars and an elegantly simple waxing moon stood out in the glassy blackness over the Bay.
‘I paid extra for that,’ Gwen said.
They walked along the Quay, hand in hand. The restaurants and bars were throbbing with music and bodies.
‘You wanted to consult me, I believe,’ James said.
‘Yes, I did.’
‘Consult away.’
Gwen leant on the railing. The oxide tang of the water was sharp.
‘Rhys and I have been together for a long time. We’re like socks that get rolled up together and dumped in the wash, week in, week out, just because we match. Never mind the holes that need darning.’
‘But you match?’
She nodded. ‘Always have. Never mind the holes. You can live with holes. That’s why God made shoes. To hide the holes in your socks.’
‘Can I ask, at this point, what shoes are representing in this elaborate analogy?’
Gwen chuckled. ‘Bugger only knows. Daily life? I didn’t really think that one through.’
James looked pensive. ‘And — just so I’m clear, you understand — are you saying you only wash your socks once a week?’
She cuffed him on the sleeve. ‘I’m being serious.’
‘So am I,’ James replied earnestly. ‘Living with a woman who only washes her socks once a week, that could have long-term consequences.’
She looked up at him. ‘Long-term? This is my point, you see? There’s only one reason I’m even considering breaking Rhys’s heart, and that’s us. You and me. It’s not a road I’m even going to think of going down unless there’s you and me at the end of it.’
‘I see. I thought you were tired of him?’
‘I don’t know what I am, as far as Rhys goes. Settled. Inert. Static. I’m being selfish, I know. I bloody know that, but I also know I want more. However, I don’t want to hurt him over nothing. I’d only do it if it was truly important.’
‘Right.’
‘And for all I know, this may just be a bit of fun to you. A laugh. A fling. That’s fine. I’d understand. But that’s why I have to consult you. I’d like to know where you stand.’
‘OK,’ James said. There was a pause.
‘No rush, no pressure.’
‘OK.’
‘In your own time,’ she added.
‘Right.’
‘Bearing in mind I paid for dinner and this whole romantic seaview.’
He looked very solemn. ‘So… whether you dump Rhys or not depends on whether I see a future for us? Or not?’
‘In a nutshell,’ she said.
‘You like to put people on the spot?’
‘It’s in my nature as a policewoman.’
‘Gwen,’ he said softly. ‘We’ve had a great time, this week. Despite everything.’
‘We have.’
‘I don’t know how to say this,’ he began.