‘Absolutely,’ Withers grinned. ‘That’s why I’m here.’
‘It’s just the same in England.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Lots of places like that. Lots of dead towns and cities. Probably just about everywhere’s dead, apart from London.’
‘Ever been?’
‘To London?’ Gasparino shook his head. ‘Nah. Too big. Too many people. Too noisy. Too dirty. Too expensive. Not for me.’
They sat together in companionable silence for a while, listening to the sound of sporadic small-arms fire in the middle distance. After a while, Withers took a bottle of water from his pack, drank half of it and poured the rest over his head. ‘How’s it going with you Brits?’
Gasparino shrugged. ‘It’s going.’
Withers smacked him on the shoulder. ‘Chin up, my man. It’s another day closer to going home.’
Gasparino smiled. ‘Yes, indeed.’
‘Thing is,’ Withers stared into the middle distance, ‘as soon as you get home, you wanna get back.’
‘Tell me about it.’ The realization that he would miss all this – seriously miss it – was like a nervous ache in his stomach. Gasparino hoped that the baby would make that feeling go away, or at least give him something else to think about and make it more manageable.
Withers rubbed the heel of his left boot into the dirt. ‘I mean, this shit can be boring, but when it’s exciting, it’s really fucking exciting.’ He turned to Gasparino. ‘Know what I mean?’
‘I do.’
‘It’s a great fucking buzz.’
‘Yeah,’ Gasparino said almost wistfully.
Withers took a packet of Camel cigarettes from his jacket pocket, offering one to Gasparino, who refused.
Withers pulled a cigarette from the pack with his teeth, lit it and took a deep drag. ‘So,’ he said, exhaling the smoke through his nose, ‘will you be coming back?’
‘Me? Nope.’ Gasparino shook his head. ‘This really is my last time.’
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah.’
‘You’re not coming back?’
‘That is correct. I’m not coming back.’
Grinning, Withers sucked down another mouthful of smoke. ‘Wanna have a little bet on that?’
NINE
Men, couples, singles, groups – all welcome!
Carlyle read the sign and yawned. It was late and he was of the firm belief that he should have been in bed hours ago. Everton’s Gentleman’s Club was maybe a two-minute walk from his flat and he felt a strong temptation to keep on walking. Inside, the inevitable commotion had kicked up as the police went in and started asking people to prove their identities. Almost immediately, a couple of customers slipped out, middle-aged businessmen, eyes glued to the pavement, the looks on their faces suggesting a mixture of frustration and embarrassment. After watching them slink round the corner and disappear into the hustle and bustle of Kingsway, the inspector turned his gaze to the girl standing in the doorway. She was wearing a lime-green Puffa jacket over a white blouse, with the shortest skirt he had ever seen showing off her black suspenders to good effect, as well as the goosebumps on her thighs. In her Ferrari-red stilettos, she still only came up to his chin.
‘ID?’ he asked.
Shivering against the cold, she shook her head.
‘No papers?’
‘No understand,’ she lied lazily, making no effort to try and be convincing, in an accent that suggested she came from somewhere east of the Danube. Belatedly, he thought that maybe they should have brought a translator.
‘Where are you from?’ he said slowly, sounding like an English tourist abroad.
Wiping her nose on the sleeve of her jacket, she took a tentative step towards him, glancing quickly inside. ‘Caledonian Road.’
For fuck’s sake, Carlyle thought, why do I bother? He took a pile of flyers from her hand. ‘You go inside,’ he said slowly, gesturing with his thumb, ‘and get something that proves who you are. Passport, driver’s licence, something like that . . .’
Still shivering, she stood her ground.
‘Show it to one of the officers,’ Carlyle continued. And put some proper clothes on, he thought. ‘Now!’
Reluctantly, the girl finally went into the club. Even more reluctantly, Carlyle followed her. Inside, the place was almost empty. A couple of punters sat at their tables, drinking in silent amusement as the police went about their business. The sound system had been turned down to a respectable level and the house lights had been turned up, allowing him to appreciate the full splendour of Everton’s somewhat gothic decor.
Carlyle looked at the Harlequin Contour pattern wallpaper in brown and salmon pink and tutted. ‘Surely this kind of stuff went out of fashion in the 1970s,’ he quipped, gesturing at the wallpaper, to a small, pretty WPC standing by the bar.
‘I wouldn’t know, sir,’ the girl deadpanned. ‘I wasn’t born then.’
Ignoring the mischievous twinkle in the WPC’s eye, the inspector turned his attention to the matter in hand. It appeared that Sergeant Bishop had divided the staff into ‘talent’ and the rest. Along one wall, a group of gentlemen – oversized bouncers and undersized barmen – had been lined up while Bishop and a couple of the other WPCs went through their documents. On the other side of the room, a larger group of officers were slowly processing the strippers, none of whom were wearing more than a G-string and heels.
Trying not to make his gawping too obvious, Carlyle scanned the latter line, making random notes in his head as he did so. There were two black girls, two white and one Asian. All had effortlessly adopted the kind of generic bored-hostile look that Carlyle saw day in, day out from just about every member of the public that came into contact with the police.
When the Asian girl, who had the best, most natural-looking figure, caught Carlyle staring at her chest, he quickly looked away, feeling himself blush as he did so. His gaze turned to the far end of the room, where the small stage, lifted barely six inches off the ground, was empty.
‘Get on with it!’ shouted one of the punters, a stocky young guy in a suit, as he slammed an empty beer schooner down on the table.
Bishop stepped towards the guy’s table. ‘Shut it,’ he warned, ‘or you’ll be under arrest.’
A look of indignation flashed across the young man’s face. ‘For what?’ he said belligerently.
‘Oh, I’ll think of something,’ Bishop growled.
Carlyle smiled. He liked the sergeant’s style. Bishop was a relatively new arrival from some station out east; the Isle of Dogs’ loss would be Charing Cross’s gain. He wondered about asking Simpson to assign Bishop to work with him on a more regular basis. That decision, however, had already been made.
Not knowing when to stay schtum, the man was about to talk himself into a cell when there was an almighty commotion from the back of the stage. One of the officers, a young PC called Lea, came sprawling through a doorway, holding his nose as blood poured from it. ‘I’ve been hit!’ he groaned, stumbling over the edge of the stage and falling flat on his face. The laughter that rolled round the room was quickly followed by gasps of amazement as a raven-haired Amazon followed the hapless Lea through the door. Easily six foot tall, she was completely naked apart from a pair of incredibly high stilettoes.
Those look very classy, thought Carlyle, impressed. And she’s gone to town with the Philips Ladyshave. A true professional.
In her hand, the woman had some kind of cosh. With an angry flourish, she brandished it at Lea. ‘C’mon, you bastard!’ she screamed, in what seemed to Carlyle to be some kind of American accent. ‘Come and get another thrashing.’ Whimpering, Lea sought refuge under a nearby table.
Finally tearing his eyes away, Carlyle looked at his troops. Those that weren’t mesmerized were drooling. ‘Okay,’ he sighed, gesturing to Bishop, ‘that’s enough. Take them all in. We’ll sort this out at the station.’ Swivelling on his heel, he walked straight into a man in a baseball cap with a large video camera on his shoulder. ‘Who the fucking hell are you?’ he barked.