‘Excuse me, mate.’
The man froze. He looked up and Magnus was reminded of the expression on the face of a cat interrupted in the act of dispatching a kill. He stepped closer and saw that the man’s hand was not on the girl’s arm, as he had supposed, but at the base of her throat. The girl’s eyes were slits, open and unseeing.
‘Like to watch, do you?’ the man asked.
He was older than Magnus had thought, a craggy business-suited fifty, his white shirt unfastened at the neck.
‘Only if both parties know what they’re doing.’
‘How fucking politically correct of you.’ The man coughed again, his throat grating, metal on un-oiled metal, but the girl did not wake up. ‘Don’t worry,’ the man said, ‘she knows what she’s doing, this is the way she likes it.’ His voice was low and so assured that Magnus almost hesitated, but then the man said, ‘You can have next go if you want. She won’t mind.’
‘You’re a fucking rapist.’ Magnus took another step towards him.
‘Piss off, son. You don’t know who you’re dealing with.’
The man’s arm must have been growing tired with the strain of holding the girl up, or perhaps he wanted to use her as a shield, because he let her fall against him, her face on his shoulder, his arms clasped around the small of her back. The girl’s short skirt had ridden up and Magnus saw that her tights were shredded around her thighs, her underwear pushed to one side. She was wearing high-heeled yellow sandals and had painted her nails the same sunny colour.
Magnus said, ‘Put her down and walk away.’
‘So you can finish what I started?’
He had been wrong to think the man was sober, Magnus realised. He was drunk enough to have lost his inhibitions and lucid enough to carry through.
‘So I don’t kick your fucking head in.’
‘Like someone did to you?’ The man had shouldered the girl’s weight again. He walked slowly towards Magnus, keeping as close to the far wall as possible. ‘Don’t worry. We’re out of here.’
‘Where are you taking her?’
‘A nice warm bed.’ The man’s voice took on an apologetic tone. ‘You were right to interrupt us. We’d been drinking. Things got out of hand. You know how it can be when you drink too much. Don’t worry, she’s safe with me.’
The man smiled. He was level with Magnus now, the girl still wrapped in his arms. It was easier to take the stranger at his word and let them go.
‘Okay.’ Magnus let out a deep breath and leaned against the wall of the alley, allowing the man a clear exit. Close to, the man’s suit looked expensive, his shoes well polished beneath their scuffs. The girl’s skirt and top might have been her best, but even Magnus’s untutored eye could tell that they were chain store rather than designer. He said, ‘Will you look after her?’
‘Don’t you worry.’ The man grinned. Teeth shone white in his brick-red face. ‘I’ll see she gets what she needs.’
It was not easy to hit the man while the girl was still in his arms but Magnus managed it. He ducked to the right and slammed his fist into the stranger’s cheek. The man crashed against the alley wall, still holding the girl close. Magnus grabbed her under her arms and they struggled together for a while, the girl between them like a rag doll. Magnus thought he could feel her waking. Perhaps her assailant felt it too because he let go suddenly, sending Magnus sprawling with the girl on top of him. It should have been enough, but Magnus pushed her to one side and stuck out a leg that sent the man sprawling. Then Magnus was on him, driving his fist into the man’s face, one, two, three… he lost count of the punches in the rhythm of violence.
Magnus’s hand had begun to hurt and he would have stopped soon of his own accord, but he was distracted by an unwelcome early-morning noise, harsh and mechanical, punctuated by regular, high-pitched beeping. He looked towards the source of the sound and saw a refuse van reversing into the alley flanked by bin men. Magnus heaved himself to his feet and gave the man a boot in the ribs. It was a good job well done. The girl had dragged herself to the side of the alley and was cowering against the wall, her hands over her face as if she could not bear to look at the world any longer.
‘It’s okay,’ Magnus said. ‘You’re safe.’ He sent his foot into the man’s side again. The body moved with the impact of his kick, but the man did not make a sound and Magnus found that the silence pleased him. The bin men were running towards him, but they halted a foot or two away, as if scared to come any closer. They were big men, made bigger by their overalls and fluorescent jackets, but they looked hollow-eyed; deathly in the early dawn light.
‘Call the police,’ one of them said.
‘Yes.’ Magnus nodded. He was winded and his words came out in gasps. ‘Call the police.’
He would have liked to have kicked the man again, but two of the bin men screwed up their courage and grabbed hold of him. One of them punched Magnus in the belly. ‘Fucking rapist,’ the bin man said. Then he punched Magnus again.
Four
Magnus sat on his bunk, staring at the small screen of the TV in the corner of his cell, watching a chef with a face as soft and smiling as the Pilsbury Doughman put a pastry lid on the fish pie he was making. On the bunk below, Pete moaned in his sleep. Magnus turned up the sound.
‘Ask your fishmonger to dispose of the heads if you’re squeamish,’ the dough-faced chef said. ‘But traditionally these form part of the decoration.’ He started to insert dead-eyed fish heads into the pastry. ‘This is why it’s called Stargazey Pie.’
Magnus switched channel. A petite, blonde woman dressed in pastels was walking through an abandoned room. Whoever had lived there had not been house-proud. They had left in a hurry and remnants of their belongings were scattered around the space in dusty piles.
‘Marcus paid £292,000 at auction for this derelict Victorian townhouse,’ the woman said, stepping over a sleeping bag lying rumpled on the floor like the skin of some giant serpent. ‘But with a bit of TLC the property has the potential to realise much more than that. Marcus, what are your plans?’
A sallow-faced man with large bags under his eyes stared nervously into the camera. He hesitated and then his words tumbled forth.
‘I fix it up nice, nice fixtures and fittings, nice wallpaper, nice carpets, then I rent it out to young working people who want a nice place to stay.’
‘That sounds nice,’ said the blonde woman.
Magnus switched channel again. A good-looking girl with a wide smile and café au lait skin was displaying a set of exchangeable screwdriver heads.
‘… you need never be scrabbling around to find the right size of screwdriver,’ the woman said. ‘Because the perfect tool for all varieties of screw is right here in this little box.’
She laughed in a way Magnus might have found appealing had he not been locked in a cell in Pentonville for the last two days.
He changed the channel again and saw an exterior shot of a hospital somewhere in India. The scene shifted to the hospital’s interior, then to a full ward and then to a small child gleaming with sweat. A doctor with a cotton mask stretched across her mouth and nose placed a hand on the child’s forehead. The doctor’s hands were encased in thin plastic gloves. To avoid infection, Magnus supposed, but it seemed terrible to deny the sick child the consoling touch of flesh.
The child was critically ill, the voiceover said, and although it came from a poor family, poverty was not to blame. This was a virus that affected rich and poor.