At the microphone, Trayner was burbling on about more good old days with good old John Kennington. This time it was Manchester, not Cardiff, from where Trayner had some very happy memories, and some not so great ones. “… and John here brings a Tom into the station. He was writing up a charge sheet, listing drunk and disorderly, abusive language, and-as the lady in question was stark bollock naked at the time…”
Kernan leaned in Thorndike’s direction. His eyes were gone and his breath enveloped Thorndike like a toxic cloud.
“Why don’t we just give him his watch, eh, and piss off home? Eh?” He guzzled some more brandy. “Unless there’s a cabaret-eh? Is there a cabaret?” He squinted at Thorndike, whose thin wrists stuck out of his starched cuffs like celery sticks. Prim and proper, he was like somebody’s bleeding maiden aunt, Kernan thought sourly. Never had really took to the man, but then Mike Kernan didn’t take to the human race in general.
“You not drinking?” he asked suspiciously. He reached for the brandy bottle and poured Thorndike a whopper. “Bill Otley’s with the same squad, did you know that? With Tennison-Vice Squad!”
Kernan laughed loudly, coinciding with the general laughter at something Commander Trayner had said. He pushed the glass across.
“Have a drink! This is going to be a long night!”
Thorndike hesitated, but finally took a sip. Keep on his good side. Never know when you might need him.
“… if you think I was pissed,” Trayner was saying, building up to the punchline, “wait until you see what’s inside the greenhouse!”
Not having a clue what the story was about, Kernan banged the table, joining in the laughter and applauding like a maniac, bellowing, “More!… More! More!”
Edward Parker-Jones tilted the boy’s head to the light and examined his face. Bruising around the forehead and left cheekbone. A diagonal gash extending from his ear down to his jawline. His lower lip was split and had dried into a crusty scab.
“What am I going to do with you, Martin?” Parker-Jones sighed. “Look at you! Have you eaten today? You haven’t, have you?” He ruffled the boy’s hair. “Do you want some soup? Cup of tea?”
Martin Fletcher twitched his thin shoulders in a shrug. He was reluctant to even open his mouth. The beating he’d taken from Jimmy Jackson the night before, down by the canal, had scared him to quivering silence, his gut churning as if he were riding a roller coaster, jumping at shadows. He’d spent the rest of the night curled up in a shop doorway, whimpering. Today he’d wandered the streets, a forlorn lost figure in a grimy windbreaker and jeans ripped open at the knees, his toes sticking through his sneakers.
The recreation and advice centre run by Parker-Jones was the only refuge he could think of. It was an oasis of warmth and comfort-a hot drink and a bite to eat-before slinking back to the streets for the night. But it wasn’t safe even here. That bullying swine Jackson sometimes showed his ugly, pockmarked face, on the prowl for some poor kid who owed him money, or a favor, or who Jackson just might want to beat the shit out of for the sheer fun of it.
Parker-Jones put his arm around Martin’s shoulder and led him through the reception area, where a few lads were idling the time away gazing listlessly over the notice board. Jobs, hostel accommodation, personal messages, dubious offers of help by phone.
“Go and sit down and I’ll get Ron to bring you something in.”
He had a deep, resonant voice that went with his neat appearance and confident personality. A tall man, broad in the chest, late thirties, Parker-Jones carried himself as someone of authority: an organizer, intelligent and decisive. His black hair, parted in the middle, flopped over his ears when he was in a hurry, giving him a rakish look that was somewhat at odds with his image of a solid rock in a shifting world.
“Did you call home?” he asked Martin. “You promised me you would at least call your mother. Do you want me to do it? Martin?”
Martin shook his head and wandered off into the TV lounge. Broken-down armchairs and two old sofas were grouped around the set, and there was a shelf of dog-eared paperbacks, some jigsaws, and board games. The walls were a sickly purple, with green woodwork. It was empty at this hour; between seven and eight was usually quiet, which was why Martin had dared take the risk.
On the way back to his office, Parker-Jones called out to a scruffy black kid with a hearing aid, wearing a back-to-front baseball cap, “Ron, get some hot soup for Martin Fletcher, would you?”
The black kid dropped the duster and metal wastebasket he was carrying and went over to the alcove where a copper urn with a brass tap bubbled and spat, steam jetting out of the top.
Otley came down the narrow wooden stairway from the street, the shoulders of his raincoat stained dark with drizzle. The advice centre was on his beat. It was situated just off Brewer Street in Soho, at the bottom of a cobbled alley that during the day was crowded with market traders, selling everything from fruit and veg to lampshades, toilet paper, and bootleg records and tapes. The doorway was directly opposite the neon-lit entrance to a strip club. Farther along, a couple of shops stayed open until past midnight, catering to the soft porn magazine and video trade.
Otley knew about the hard Swedish and German stuff in their back rooms, for selected clients only, but he let it ride. The perverts had to go somewhere. Better they got their jollies that way than molesting the young and vulnerable.
“Bit quiet tonight, isn’t it?” Otley said.
The three boys loitering at the notice board looked him up and down with sullen eyes. No one spoke. Hands in his raincoat pockets, Otley glanced around at the peeling mustard-colored walls with posters tacked up for rock concerts long gone. The carpet was a dank green, greasy and black with the tread of many feet. The wall opposite the reception counter was bare brick, steam pipes near the ceiling, huge Victorian radiators jutting out into the passage. To the left was the games room, which had a pool table and a football table with wooden players; to the right, past the office door, the fluted glass panels of the TV room. Otley thought he saw a rippling shadow move inside.
He said casually, “Any of you know Colin Jenkins? Nicknamed Connie?”
The door marked “E PARKER-JONES-PRIVATE” opened, and Parker-Jones came out. He spotted Otley at once and marched straight over.
“What do you want?” Dark eyes under thick black eyebrows staring hard. “If you are looking for a specific person, why don’t you ask me?”
Otley remained unruffled. He’d been stared at before.
“You know a lad called Colin Jenkins?”
“Yes. Red-haired, about your height. Nicknamed Connie.”
Otley nodded slowly. “Used Vera Reynolds’s place. I need to ask some of the boys about him.” Parker-Jones was about to say something, but Otley went on in a monotone, “He’s dead. He was on the game, wasn’t he?”
“Are you telling me or asking me?” Parker-Jones drew himself up to his full height. “Is this official? I’ve already discussed this with an Inspector…” He frowned and snapped his fingers. “Inspector Hall. I really don’t understand why you and your associates persist in coming in here…”
His indignation was wasted on Otley, who had strolled off in the general direction of the television lounge. Ron came from the corner alcove with a plastic cup of soup. Parker-Jones took it from him and hurried past Otley into the lounge, still complaining in his fruity, rather portentous voice.
“You people make my job and the social services work exceptionally difficult. I attempt to get these boys off the street, give them a place they can come to-and I am continually harassed, as are the boys.”
He held out the cup of soup. A tousled head poked up from behind an armchair. A nail-bitten hand reached out.
“They are not in my care, they come here of their own free will. They come here because this is one of the few places they can come to.” He sounded righteously outraged, as if he had been accused of something, his reputation besmirched.