‘Thanks.’
‘No problem.’ Sitting down, Umar tore open the wrapper on his Mars Bar and took a large bite.
You could have got me one, Carlyle thought resentfully.
‘Did you hear?’ Umar laughed through a mouthful of chocolate. ‘Jazz got off.’
‘Huh?’ Carlyle’s frown grew deeper. The fate of Maradona Wilson was not something that had been keeping him awake at night. ‘How did he manage that? The little bugger was caught trying to sell crack to a copper.’
‘Apparently,’ Umar offered, taking another bite, ‘he would have lost his specially modified home if he had been jailed.’
Stop talking with your mouth full. Carlyle crushed the cup in his hand. ‘My heart bleeds.’
‘As well as suffering from achondroplasia.’
‘Suffering from what?’
‘Dwarfism,’ Umar explained.
‘As well as being a short arse, Jazz has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia and depression.’
‘I bet he has.’
‘The judge gave him an eighteen-month supervision order with six months of drug rehabilitation.’
Carlyle tutted. ‘What a joke.’
‘These things happen,’ said Umar philosophically. ‘At least it wasn’t our arrest.’ Popping the last of the Mars Bar into his mouth, he scrunched up the empty wrapper and dropped it on to the table.
‘Did you come down here for something in particular?’ Carlyle’s eyes narrowed. ‘Or did you just want to remind me of the vagaries of the legal system?’
Umar leaned across the table. ‘Christina’s been offered a job,’ he said.
‘That’s nice.’
‘As a trainee radio reporter.’
‘But she’s a stripper,’ Carlyle blurted out. Seeing the look on Umar’s face, he tried a cheeky smile. ‘I mean, isn’t becoming a journalist a bit of a step down?’
‘Christina’s done lots of things,’ Umar replied, somewhat defensively to Carlyle’s mind. ‘And she did a media course at City University before Ella was born.’
‘Good for her,’ Carlyle said charmlessly.
‘This could be a career for her.’
‘Hm.’
Umar let his gaze flicker away. ‘And she wants me to become a house husband.’
‘Excuse me?’
‘She wants me to pack it in here and look after Ella, full-time.’
What? After I’ve just fought tooth and nail to keep you in a bloody job? ‘How would that work?’
‘I dunno,’ Umar shrugged. ‘The way these things normally work, I suppose. It would be cheaper than childcare and better for Ella.’
‘Take it from me, sunshine, you’re not exactly house-husband material.’
A hurt look crossed Umar’s face. ‘And you would know this how?’
‘Wouldn’t you go bonkers?’ the inspector asked, changing tack.
‘Dunno.’
‘Jesus,’ Carlyle sighed, getting to his feet, ‘you don’t know much, do you?’ He shook his head in a mixture of disappointment and disbelief. How the hell should he handle this? He would need to ask Helen. In the meantime, he should just focus on not saying anything stupid. ‘I need to get something to eat.’ He pointed at the crumpled paper wrapper lying on the table. ‘Fancy another Mars Bar?’
With her finger poised over the mouse, Emma Denton took one last look at her ‘final’ report into group grooming on the screen of her computer before sending it to her boss at the CPS. Grimacing, she had to admit that the time, effort and money spent on the investigation had not yielded anything like the results she had been hoping for. Calvin Safi had surprised her with his refusal to co-operate, despite the fact that he was facing an extremely lengthy jail sentence. The white guy, Metcalf, had been only too happy to talk; sadly, he knew nothing about any wider grooming network. Denton considered her options. Maybe she should interrogate Safi again? Or maybe she should just cut her losses and move on? After all, it wasn’t as if there weren’t plenty of other cases on her desk right now.
Gripped by an unfamiliar indecision, the prosecutor stared at the glass sitting next to the keyboard, in front of a half-empty bottle. Reaching out with her free hand, she lifted the glass to her lips, breathing in the fruity aroma of the eighteen-year-old single malt. The Japanese whisky cost £110 a bottle; expensive, but worth it. Taking a slow sip, a new thought popped into her head. Carole Simpson’s policeman – maybe she could use him to investigate further. Put the inspector on the case and see if they could break this thing open. Moving the mouse, she placed the cursor over the ‘delete’ button, right-clicked and watched the report disappear into cyberspace. Pulling up her contacts list, she found the entry for ‘Carlyle’ and reached for the phone.
What was she going to do now? Allie Simmons sullenly watched the dwindling stream of people heading along Praed Street. In her pockets, she had the princely sum of three pounds and seventeen pence. Allie might have gotten an ‘F’ in her maths GCSE last summer, but even she knew that her wasn’t going to get her very far on that.
As she hovered on the kerbside, a car pulled up. The driver, a young white guy with a cigarette dangling from his lips, wound down the window and blew a stream of smoke towards her.
‘Looking for directions?’
A gust of icy wind tore down the street. Shivering, Allie said nothing.
‘Need a place to stay?’ the man persisted. The back door of the vehicle clicked open. ‘C’mon,’ he smiled, ‘get in.’