King of the Streets - Part One

 

 	chapter one
AT FIRST GLANCE SHE was a nice old lady, but when you got to give her another look you saw right away that she was weird.  Something about her walk, perhaps?  The way she nodded her head from side to side or kept glancing back at the passing cars?  There was nothing immediately wrong about the way she was dressed.  Cal could see colours on these new closed circuit screens, still hadn't quite got used to it; rust colour to her print skirt, maroon cardigan hanging from her shoulders, draped.  Looking closer he could make out strong leather shoes, hair permed and reminiscent of the forties, stiff with setting lotion, tight little kiss curls framing the upper part of her face.  No, he was remembering his grandmother.  The screens did that to you sometimes, gave a fairly good outline and somehow forced your imagination to fill in the details.
 	When you watched them night after night you could pick out the characters who were going to put on a show.  It was like they had to signal it somehow, not take the world entirely by surprise.  Geoff, Cal's friend and colleague, would say 'Here's one.  God knows what he's gonna do, but he's gonna do something.'  And Cal would walk over to wherever Geoff was standing and they would watch the screen together.  And usually Geoff was right.  Nine times out of ten the guy would break into a car, or start a fight, or he would look around, wait for a gap in the traffic, then hop over a wall to break into a house or shop.
 	There were several of those on every shift.  The other CCTV operators talked about it sometimes.  And before he'd started this job, when he was still on surveillance in Northern Ireland, Cal would often spot a trouble-maker on the street before the guy even knew he was going to cause trouble.
 	Different areas you got different characters, of course.  What he could see on this screen, the one with the old lady who was gonna do something but hadn't got round to doing it yet, was the Bar end of Micklegate.  Most of York's inner city was covered now, together with the inner ring road and the city's major arteries.  Micklegate was a  busy shopping area during the day, but at night the pimps brought out their protégées to prowl the bars and clubs, and the local (and not so local) kerb crawlers came out in droves.  From time to time local residents would cause a fuss, and sometimes the street would erupt in violence.  But usually the police turned a blind eye and pocketed some of the profits, and the smoke went up the chimney just like it had been doing since the world began.  The cameras had only gone up here during the last months and some of the local councillors, like the average resident, couldn't understand that; they thought a notorious area like this should have had cameras installed before the residential districts and the outer ring road, but they were out of touch with modern policing methods and excluded from the complicated system of payoffs and bribes and corruption.
 	This time of the evening, though, was the dead zone.  The late shops were  putting up their shutters, and the clubs and bars were waiting for their staff to arrive.  The day was  closing down, and the night hadn't yet got underway.  People who walked across Cal's and Geoff's screens, like the old lady who nodded her head from side to side, they could be from the day or the night, it wasn't always possible to tell.  Or they could be nothing to do with the area at all.  They might be just passing through.
 	Cal and Geoff were also excluded from the payoffs and bribes and corruption.  But they were not excluded from the real world, and were ever capable of turning it to their advantage.  They understood free enterprise, what it meant, and how to make it work.  Both of them had grown into maturity during the eighties.  They'd been educated, learned how to add up.
 	'What's she up to?' Geoff asked.  He was leaning against the wall, an unlit cigarette dangling from his bottom lip.
 	'The old biddy?' replied Cal.  'I don't know.  She stopped there a couple of minutes ago.  Hasn't moved since.  Maybe trying to turn a trick?'
  	Geoff snorted.  He lit his lighter, but didn't light the cigarette.  'That's Angie's spot.  If she's still there an hour from now we're gonna see a fight.'
  	'Here we go,' said Cal.  'She's on the move.'  He watched as the old lady moved off the pavement on to the road, pulled up her skirt and squatted.  A car stopped and honked its horn.  Several pedestrians turned to watch the scene.  The old lady gave the car driver a two-fingered salute.  'Jesus,' said Cal.
  	'She's taking a leak,' said Geoff.
 	'And then some,' said Cal.  'She's doing a full-scale crap in the middle of the road.'
  	'Shall I call Mr Plod?'
  	'You'd better.  Somebody might decide to run her over.'
   	Geoff picked up the handset and spoke into it.  'Got an elderly female defecating in the middle of Micklegate,' he said.  'Just inside the Bar, holding up traffic.'  He put the handset down and looked over at Cal.  'You know what Micklegate means?' he asked.
 	'There's nothing I can possibly say that'll stop you telling me?'
  	'Great Street,' said Geoff, who studied local history, mainly for the benefit of others.  He knew the churches and ancient buildings, and sometime in the past had worked as a guide for visitors to the city.  'There was a Roman Temple of Mithras there,' he said.  'Just about where she's doing her business.'
 	Cal shook his head.  'I know you're trying to tell me something,' he said,  'but the inner meaning isn't getting through.'
 	'Women weren't allowed into the Mithraic religion,' Geoff explained.  'Not into any part of it.  So what I reckon is, she's just getting her own back.'
  	'A little late, though, Geoff, don't you think?  Like around two thousand years.'
  	'This is women, for you,' said Geoff.  'They can hold a grudge for ever.  Two thousand years, that's nothing to them.  Five thousand years, ten thousand, it doesn't make no difference, if you've done them down one time, even if it was a mistake, one of these days they're gonna come back and crap on you.'
 	Cal stopped listening and watched the screen as a police car pulled up next to the old lady and a young constable got out.  There was no sound system attached to the screens, but Cal imagined he could read the young constable's lips doing a parody of Mr Plod.  He got the same two-fingered salute as the motorist before him, and went scuttling back to his radio to order up a roll of toilet paper and a WPC.
	*
EVENTUALLY THEY BUNDLED HER into the squad car and took her off to the torture chamber, and a kind of aura descended over the street.  Geoff unpacked his portable editing equipment and set it up on a spare table at the back of the control room.  There were two quick money spinners, and over the course of the last months Cal and Geoff had milked both of them for as much as they could get.  The first was their compilations of porno clips, which essentially consisted of drunken couples, and the occasional foursome on speed, going for gold in shop doorways.  They hadn't a clue they were being watched, thought the whole world was tucked up in bed, and they would go at each other like professional athletes.  Cal had a contact who would pay up to a grand for one tape, cash in hand, no questions asked.  And without a lot of sweat being involved Geoff could splice together a new tape every month.  Four or five weeks later these tapes would turn up in the sex shops and the markets, sometimes with sound effects added, and fancy titles like: The Meat Eaters.
 	The other quick money spinner was to get a couple of good shots of a guy in a posh car doing the kerb-crawl routine, a shot of the car registration number and a close-up of the guy's face.  Then another shot of the broad's ass as she disappeared into the passenger seat.  It was a really strange thing, but if you took that video round to the guy's office the next day and waited ten minutes while he looked at it, he'd very probably come out and give you money.  Nine times out of ten you wouldn't have to threaten to show it to his wife, no unpleasantnesses like that at all, he'd just reach for his wallet and raise his eyebrows, like you'd done a job for him instead of on him.
 	Money was coming easily these days.  And it would continue to flow as long as they didn't get greedy.  Cal and Geoff had been around and understood the pitfalls.  Neither of them would put the operation in jeopardy for the sake of a quick profit.  Anything that looked at all  dodgy, they'd avoid.
  	While Cal looked idly at the screen a white Porsche Carrera Targa crawled along the street.  It was still too early for crawlers, none of the girls were out yet.  Could be the guy was desperate, playing at being the early bird, make sure he got a good worm.  Or he didn't know the routine of the street.  Or, and this was more likely than the other possibilities, the car was from out of town and the driver was lost.  Beautiful vehicle, though, not the kind of car you'd easily miss, sprayed white or cream and tended with real love and affection.  Shortly after it had gone through the Bar and disappeared from view a small figure ran across Micklegate, moving fast, from a doorway near Scruffy Murphy's to Bar Lane on the other side.  Cal couldn't make out if it was a child or a small adult.  He didn't do anything about it, just made a mental note to watch out for any movement around the entrance to Bar Lane.  Something might be brewing, though it didn't feel like it at all.  Since the old lady had taken her crap the street had gone to sleep.
  	'Jesus,' said Geoff from his table at the back of the room.  'I know her.  Used to.'
  	'Who's that?' asked Cal, getting to his feet and walking over to Geoff's screen.  There was a frozen image of a woman's face and a cock.  The cock seemed to be trying to get into the woman's head via her ear, and the woman didn't seem to be too keen on the idea.  'So?'
  	'So I used to know her,' Geoff said.  'When I was in the force.  Must be ten years back, she lived in Fulford.  She was a fucking virgin, wouldn't let me get anywhere near her.  I tried for weeks, spent a teenage fortune on her.  Got nowhere.  I'd take her to the pictures, and it'd be raining and she'd be wearing one of those plastic macs, buttoned up to the neck, and a plastic scarf, rain hood, whatever they're called.  And she'd keep it all on in the pictures.  On the back row.  I'd be trying to undo this wet plastic coat, get one button loose and my hand inside, groping round her chest.  Underneath he'd have a cardigan, all buttoned up, then a blouse, and underneath that something else, a vest, I suppose, or a T-shirt.  And then the bra.
 	'I'd have my hand in up to the wrist and still not manage to make contact with any skin.  I'd come out howling.  You know, inside myself I'd be so frustrated I'd be howling.  And then I'd walk her home, all the way from town to Fulford, and she'd invite me in, and we'd have a cup of tea with her mother and her father.  Then she'd come out with me  and I'd go on the outside of the gate and she'd still be inside the gate, with the gate closed, and I'd have another last try.  It was impossible.  Worst days of my life.
  	'And now look at her, she's got a cock growing out of her ear.'
 	'What's she called?' asked Cal.
  	'Joan,' said Geoff, as he released the freeze frame.  The girl's head turned quickly towards the offending cock, her mouth opened and she caught it swiftly between her teeth.  For a reason he would never understand, Geoff had an image of the choir stalls in the Methodist Chapel of his boyhood.  He raised his eyes to Cal.  'People change don't they?' he said.
  	Cal smiled, nodded at the picture on the monitor.  'She might be thinking about you,' he said.
 *
THE WHITE CARRERA WAS back, and not crawling this time.  It slewed to a halt in the middle of Micklegate and both doors flew open.
  	'Nice car,' Geoff said.  'Pity about the driver.'
  	'And his friend,' added Cal.  The two occupants of the car were on the road, and moving quickly across it in the direction of Bar Lane on the other side.  They were like TV Gladiators.  They didn't have the gear, but they each had the build, enormous shoulders and barrel chests.  The first one, the driver, was blond, short but well developed, and fit.  He moved like a cat, and took in the whole street at a glance, aware of everything that was happening.  He wore a pair of World Gym training bottoms with white loafers and a Gorilla Wear T-shirt.  The other one looked dumb; he was taller and dark haired with a permanent smile on his face.  He didn't move so easily, there seemed to be something wrong with his right leg, and Cal had the impression of someone who moved half his muscles across the road, then went back for the other half.  He wore a Gorilla Wear shirt with short sleeves and a hat to match, and his striped baggy bottoms finished about four inches above his trainers.
 	'We're talking athletes here,' Geoff said.  'Shall I call in The Man?'  He reached for the phone.
  	Geoff had a really sick way of laughing, something he did with the back of his throat.  He did it now, and Cal glanced over at him to see what it looked like.  Couldn't tell though, because he had to snap his head back to the screen in case he missed anything.  The two hulks reached the other side of the road, and the tall dark one came alive and shot off down the narrow lane.  The short blond one ran back to the car and began manæuvring it towards the lane.
  	Cal switched cameras so he could follow the tall dark one.  He'd already outrun the range of the second camera, and Cal switched to a third to catch up with the guy.  He was half-way along Toft Green, chasing a much smaller figure and rapidly gaining on it.
	There was something wrong with the hulk's right leg.  It appeared to be permanently bent at the knee, so that he only ever came down on the toe of that foot.  The spastic leg was shorter than the other one and this gave the impression that he was forever about to topple head over heels.  But he didn't fall, he moved surprisingly fast, and though his gait was somehow comical, there was a grim determination about him that made you forget about laughing.
	When he drew level with the smaller figure, who Cal now recognized as the boy who had crossed Micklegate earlier, the hulk reached out and pushed.  The kid sprawled forward on his face.  He was moving as fast as his legs would carry him, and the force of the fall could have broken his neck.  It opened his face and ripped his shirt off his shoulders.  The hulk's momentum had taken him a few metres past the kid, and he walked back as the smaller figure was trying to raise himself from the ground.  The hulk stamped him, only once but hard on the lower back.  The kid's neck snapped back and Cal and Geoff clearly saw the youngster's mouth come open in a scream of pain.
  	'Jesus,' said Geoff.
  	The white Carrera arrived then, and the tall dark hulk, still with that stupid smile on his face, picked up the kid.  He lifted the boy with no apparent effort, and half-carried, half-dragged him to the Carrera.  He opened the door quickly and seemed to fold the body of the kid in two before throwing it into the back.  Then he climbed in himself and closed the door.
 	Cal still had the presence of mind to zoom the camera in on the car's registration number.  It had designer plates, and for a moment before it accelerated away  the rear plate filled the monitor screen.  It read: FRANC  0.
  	The two operators looked at their screens for several seconds after the car had disappeared from view.  Then Geoff said, 'Should I call the police, Cal?'
  	Cal shook his head slowly from side to side.  'I get the feeling this is going to make us very rich,' he said.
 	Geoff looked puzzled.  'I don't see how.'
 € 	Cal pushed his chair back and stood.  'I don't know how either,' he said.  'Just an instinct.  Better cut it out of the tape.'

 	chapter two
GOING TO SEE JANET with butterflies in your stomach.  Geordie had heard the expression before.  Celia said it when the postman came, but he'd heard it before that, maybe right back to the time he was in the children's home.  It was one thing to hear people say they had butterflies in their stomach, another thing altogether to actually have them in your own stomach.  They didn't just flutter about in there, they affected your whole body, so everything was jumping around, like at a rave.
 	Geordie stopped at a shop window and adjusted his look.  Pulled the hem of his shirt down at the back so it lined up with the hem at the front.  Straightened the line between his left trouser leg and the top of his left trainer.  Finally took off his Kangol cashmere and placed it back on his head like it had been born there.  He nodded at his reflection and the reflection gave Geordie the nod.
 	When he got to Janet's flat it would be all right.  It wasn't as if she didn't like him.  She had seemed to like him.  Only actually going up to the door and knocking on it, waiting for her to answer, that wasn't how he'd planned it.  How he  had planned it was to get her on the telephone, so she wouldn't be able to see his eyes, put on like a real laid-back voice and have his stereo playing in the background.  That way he'd have been able to feel it out, hear if she sounded pleased or not, before he actually asked her if she wanted to do something with him.  See a movie.  Go to a pizza joint.  Or just sit around and play some sounds together.
 	But plans don't always work out.  Geordie's plan hadn't worked out right from the beginning, because Janet didn't have a telephone.  When that fact had eventually taken root in his brain, Geordie decided to write her a letter.  And after two days he had produced a letter and even bought one of those envelopes from the post office that already have the stamp on.  Trouble with letters, was, you post them and wait for ever to get a reply.  If you don't get a reply you never really know for sure if the letter was delivered at the other end.  The other thing you don't know, is you don't know what Janet looks like when she reads it, if she's smiling and pleased about getting it, or if she doesn't remember who you are, and maybe even thinks it's a letter delivered to the wrong address.  And - and this is what finally clinched it and made him tear the letter up - there was no real way of knowing if all the words in the letter were spelt right.  Well, apart from spending another two days with a dictionary, checking them all out.
 	So now it was Plan C, arriving at the door to her flat with no telephone conversation already in the bag, no letter sent and answered, no actual invitation.  Like, what might probably happen is she's got a boyfriend, and they're in there together, really wanting to be alone.  And Geordie's out on the step knocking on the door.  Janet and her boyfriend, who's probably eighteen foot tall, and maybe twenty-five, twenty-six years old, a guy who shaves every day, they're having a quiet night together because they haven't seen each other for about a month.  The last thing they want is some creepy kid to come knocking at the door.
 	So it's rat-a-tat-tat, and Janet looks at her boyfriend, and he looks back at her with a question mark on his face, and she says, 'I don't know.  I'm not expecting anyone.'  And the boyfriend gets a jealous leer over his face and pours a can of spinach down his throat.  He goes to the door and lifts Geordie off his feet with one hand, breaks him in pieces and throws the pieces away.
 	Geordie briefly considers Plan D, which involves waiting outside her flat in the freezing cold until Janet comes out, and then accidentally bumping into her.  Like he was just passing.
  	But he doesn't want to do it like that.  And not because it's freezing cold, the wind sharp enough to cut your face to ribbons.  He wants to be up front, like Sam.  He wants to do it like he thinks Sam would do it.  And he wants to be able to tell the story afterwards, after it's actually worked.  Like other people do, tell stories. He wants to be able to tell Sam, and Celia, and Marie.  He wants to be able to tell everyone he knows how he got it together.  How he thought about Janet for weeks and weeks, and then how he thought he might meet up with her again accidentally, and how that didn't happen.  And how he forgot about her, or thought he forgot about her, and then he'd wake up in the morning, or maybe he'd be on a job, surveillance, or something like that, really concentrating, and she'd just pop up in his head.  And he hadn't forgotten about her at all.  And how she came into his dreams.  Well, maybe he wouldn't tell everybody everything. He'd tell Sam about the dreams, one day.  One day.  But it would be a straight-up story he'd have to tell.  Nothing about skulking around her flat waiting for her to come out.  In the story Geordie would tell he'd stride up to the door like a man.  And if that was gonna be the story, it would have to be the reality too.
 	Geordie couldn't tell a lie convincingly.  Sometimes you had to do it, but whenever he did it he got found out immediately.  He'd tell the lie, and Sam, or Celia, or whoever it was he'd told the lie to, they'd look at him and shake their head.  They just knew.  It must be something in his voice, in the tones he used.  Whatever it was, it meant he had to tell the truth most of the time, otherwise people wouldn't take him seriously.
	 It was a handicap on the job, not being able to lie convincingly.  When you were a private eye you had to tell the occasional porkie.  Like Sam had these different calling cards in his wallet, saying he was an insurance investigator, or a builder's salesman, or a telephone engineer.  All kinds of things, he had about ten or twenty different cards.  And he'd pull one out and hand it to somebody and they'd take it and look at him and there wouldn't be a hint of a question in their eyes.  That was Sam.  If Geordie was faced with the same person, and he handed them the same card, they'd immediately tell him to get lost.  Sam said it was to do with confidence, that it would get better as he got older.  But Geordie wasn't convinced.  Sure, Sam was usually right, and Geordie hoped he was right about this, and that eventually he'd be able to tell a good straight lie.  But he didn't really believe it.  Maybe he had a genetic defect, like what you get if your mother smokes before you're born.
 *
WHEN SHE CAME TO the door there was too much to take in all at once, and Geordie felt himself reeling backwards.  Not physically, he didn't actually move at all, but metaphorically - as Celia would have put it in one of Geordie's English lessons - metaphorically he was lifted up off his feet and placed down again on the other side of the road.
 	First of all there was the door opening and Janet appearing there.  Like the barrier that kept her in and him out was suddenly gone.  He was face to face, looking right at her with his mouth open.  There was all that.  Then there was the smell of cats, which Geordie wasn't used to, because Sam didn't have a cat, and Geordie only had Barney, who was a dog, and came with a completely different smell.  Then there was the music, must've been coming from a tape deck or CD player, and it was the voice of one of The Beatles, Geordie recognized it because Sam played it some times.  And that got another part of his brain engaged.  The part that wasn't dealing with the reeling backwards and the metaphors and the smell of cats, and the amazing fact that this was Janet standing in front of him with a kind of recognition spreading over her face.  The guy - the Beatles guy - was singing: 'Do You Want to Dance', and he was at that bit that goes: Do Ya, Do Ya, Do Ya, Do Ya, over and over again, like the thing might be stuck, except you know it isn't and he's actually building it up to a kind of climax.
 	And then he was there, at the climax, and Geordie was metaphorically transferred back from across the street to Janet's doorstep, and the smell of cats was just a kind of catty smell, nothing he couldn't cope with.  And Janet had said something to him that he hadn't heard, and now she was shifting from one foot to the other and looking at him like he might have come out without all his faculties.  So he had to say, 'Is that John McCartney?  The one singing?'  And as soon as he said it he realized that it was the wrong name, he knew the guy's real name, but he couldn't remember what it was.  It was on the tip of his tongue.  The one from Liverpool.  Really famous.
 	Janet tossed her head, and Geordie knew he'd blown it.  'John Lennon,' she said.  'McCartney was called Paul.'
 	'Yeah.  I mean John Lennon.  Not McCartney.'  He looked her straight in the eye.  'Slip of the tongue.'
 	The twinkle was back in Janet's eye.  Maybe he hadn't blown it after all.  'We were going to have a biscuit,' she said.  'Orchid's been learning to dance.'  Geordie didn't know how to respond to any of the things she'd said.  He looked at her and tried to think of something profound. The whistle of a kettle came from a room behind Janet. 'I was going to make a drink,' she said.  'If you've got time.'
 	'Yes,' he said, as profoundly as possible for such a short word.  'Oh.  Time?  Yes, tea, or coffee.  Yes.  Please.'  He followed her into the interior mystery of her flat.  And she drew him through into the room where the sounds of the singer and the whistle of the kettle and the cats were all located.
 	Really strong sweet smell of cats.  If Barney was in here he'd just howl.  There was a black cat on the arm of a sofa, and a black and white one threading its way between Janet's legs.  A gas fire made the room very warm.  Geordie was sweating within seconds, wondering if he should take his coat off, or just stand there and drip.
 	'There's some hooks over there,' Janet said.  'Back of the door.'
 	'Oh, yes,' said Geordie.  'Hooks?'
 	'For your coat,' Janet said, busying herself with the kettle and a couple of brightly patterned mugs.  Geordie didn't reply.  He slipped his coat off and hung it on one of the hooks, over one of Janet's woollen jackets.  So his coat enfolded her coat, which was nice to think about.  Kind of symbolic.
 	He sat on the sofa, at the other end, away from the black cat.  'That's Orchid,' said Janet.  'Say Hello, Orchid.  This is Geordie, who saved your life.  The other one's Venus.'
 	'Hello,' said Geordie self-consciously.  Neither of the cats acknowledged him.  Orchid - the black one on the arm of the sofa - looked up at the wall above the fireplace, where Janet had hung a large poster of John Lennon.  The cat looked at the poster for several seconds, then glanced over at Geordie for a moment, as if to make a comparison.  Without giving away a thing it then slipped off the sofa and left the room.
	 Janet handed Geordie a mug of coffee and sat down on the sofa next to him.  She half turned towards him and gave him the smile which, if nothing else happened, would keep him happy for several months to come.  And then she said,  'Well?  You haven't said why you're here.  Is there something I can do?'
 	Geordie had practised this bit.  He knew exactly how to say it.  He took a sip of the hot coffee and put the mug down at his feet.  'I was thinking about that time when the psycho put your cat in the river.'
 	'Orchid,' she said.  'She's never really got over it.  I've never been able to get her into a cat carrier since.  It affected her mind.'
 	'I'm not surprised,' said Geordie.  'She nearly drowned.'
 	'She would have done if it hadn't been for you,' Janet told him.  'Me too.  We might have drowned together.'
 	'I dunno about that,' Geordie said.  'But since then I've been thinking about you.  Sometimes.  Know what I mean?  Like, I'll be walking along the street, and I don't know what I'm thinking about, and then I see I'm thinking about you.'
 	'Yeah.'  Janet gave him another brilliant smile.  'I sometimes think about all that.  I remember you looked really funny walking along the street.  Well, the two of us, really, both dripping wet, and you said we were "wetter'n a frogs drawers".'
 	Geordie smiled at the memory.  'And there's this problem,' he said.  'Like if you're a professional, like me and Sam being investigators, then you're not supposed to get emotionally involved with the clients.  'Cause that's not professional.  It's bad for the job.  Only, well, you're not - I mean, even at the time, you weren't the client.  You just somehow got involved in it all through the psycho.'
 	'Trust me to pick the wrong guy,' Janet said.  Venus suddenly leapt on to her lap and she began stroking the cat with both hands.  'I don't know how many times that's happened.  You see a guy in the street and he's really sexy and handsome, and then as soon as you get to know him you find he's just a pile of shit.'
 	'You're not, like, into men, then?'
 	'Not if I can help it,' she said.  'I fall from time to time.  But when I'm on top of myself I give them as wide a berth as possible.  When it's just me and the cats, and I've got my neighbours upstairs, Trudie and Margaret, that's enough for me. As soon as men get involved everything goes to the wall.  They always want everything their own way.'
 	'Oh,' said Geordie, unable to keep the disappointment out of his voice.  'Shit.'
 	'Something wrong?'
 	'I remember when we got back here,' he said,  'after we'd got the cat out of the beck.  You went up to get a bath, and when you came down you had a white blouse on, and white jeans, and white trainers, and you had a little white handbag, leather, with a long strap, and we went out again and walked into town.'  He looked over at her, and she looked up from Venus, and Geordie locked on to her eyes.  'You looked great,' he said.  'I remember walking tall 'cause you was there next to me.  People thinking you was with me.'
 	Janet shook her head.  'But I was,' she said.  'We were together.'
 	'No, you don't get it,' Geordie said.  'I mean really together.  People might have thought we were really together, like lovers.'
 	'Lovers!'  Janet's voice went through another octave and Venus left her lap and the room in one movement.  She giggled.  'Oh, my God,' she said.  Then she giggled again.
 	'You think it's a joke?'
 	'No,' she said, reaching out and stroking the back of his hand.  She laughed again, tried to stifle it, but didn't entirely manage.  'It's not a joke.  It's just a surprise.  That's why it's funny.  I'm not laughing at you.  I like you.  I think you're funny.'
 	'I'm really glad I came,' Geordie said to Venus who had reappeared in the doorway.
 	Janet turned Geordie's hand over and took it between both of hers.  'Listen,' she said,  'I didn't mean it like that.  I thought you were funny right from the start.  When you said that about us being wetter'n a frog's drawers, I thought it then.  I thought you were nice, and funny, and somehow cozy.  I've had it with good-looking sexy guys, like I said.  You don't know where you are with them.  When I was really young I wouldn't have given someone like you a second look, but I'm more mature now.'
 	'You've escaped the penal colony of adolescence,' Geordie told her.
 	'The what?'
 	'I read it in a book.'
 	'When you came today I didn't know what you'd come for,' Janet said, laughing.  'I couldn't work it out.  But you came to ask me out, didn't you?  On a date?'
 	'Yeah,' said Geordie.  'Didn't I say?'
 	She squeezed his hand.  'I accept,' she said.  'I'd like to go out with you.  I bet it'll be great fun.'
 	Geordie looked at her face again, returned her smile.  'Shall we do it now?' he said.  'I mean we could go to a movie, or have a drink.'  He patted his pocket, make sure his wallet was there.  'I've got money,' he said.  'Could stretch to a pizza if you're hungry.'

	 chapter three
JEANIE SCOTT HAD AN eleven-year-old daughter called Karen, an estranged ex-husband called Cal - the more estranged he was the better Jeanie liked it - and a new boyfriend recently arrived from over the water in Ireland.  She also had another husband who was no longer of this world, except as dust.  She had scattered that dust from the window of a train somewhere between Glasgow and York sixteen years earlier.
 	She saw her life in compartments, and although she was the main player in all those separate compartments, the only one she really recognized was the one she was playing now.  The girl, the child at home in Glasgow, was a distant memory.  Her life with her first husband was at the same time a promise and a betrayal.  It could have taken her into magical realms, but ended in death.  The time with Cal, her second husband, was a mistake, except for the birth of her daughter.  And her present life contained an Irish lover.
 	Another first, that.  Michael, the Irish boyfriend.  There'd been several Englishmen since she'd finally got rid of Cal, one German (one-night stand with Wolfram), and an absolutely huge Canadian.
 	She smiled to herself, thinking about Michael last night.  If all else failed they could always land jobs as contortionists.  An Irishman who knew the Kama Sutra, now there was a combination.
 	Eleven-year-old Karen upstairs in her room was playing Eternal's 'Good Thing', kindly sharing it with her mother and everyone else in the street.  There was absolutely no point in shouting up the stairs, no human voice could get through that racket.  The child had inherited the sensitivity of her father.
 	Jeanie climbed the stairs and opened Karen's bedroom door.  Karen hit the volume button and mouthed 'I'm sorry', opening her eyes wide to prove she hadn't done it on purpose, just simply forgotten again.
 	Jeanie walked back down the stairs and found Cal in the kitchen.  He'd always done that.  Walked in without knocking, like he owned the place, which he certainly did not, or like he lived there, which he was never going to do again.
	 'Hi,' he said.  With a smile.
 	Jeanie had forgotten he was expected.  Saturday morning, time for his visit with Karen.  Karen had obviously forgotten as well, lost in her bubbly music.  'How are you?' she asked.  No point in saying anything about him walking into the house without an invite.  Anything Jeanie had ever said to him he'd ignored.  Well, he'd smiled and said he'd change, towards the end he'd even got down on his knees and begged, but he hadn't changed.  It was like he was forged out of iron.  There were no parts of him that had any flexibility.  That's what made him so reliable.  He had always been reliable.  Impossible, but reliable.  Like God.
	 'I'm frozen,' he said.  'The wind's really bitter.'  Jeanie looked at his face.  His nose was red and his cheeks and chin were pinched.  'Is she ready?'
 	Jeanie shook her head.  'Playing records,' she said.  'I'll tell her, but she's not even dressed yet.  D'you want a cuppa?'
 	Cal said he'd have coffee and proceeded to fill the kettle himself, just like it was his kitchen.  Jeanie sighed and walked upstairs to tell Karen he was here.
 	When she returned to the kitchen the kettle was singing and Cal had taken two cups and saucers from the cupboard.  He was returning to the table with milk from the fridge.  'What's new?' he asked.
 	He took a real interest in Jeanie's love life, more, she thought, than he had when they had lived together.  Perhaps he got off on it, hearing her talk about her boyfriends?  Jeanie didn't mind.  If that's all it took she was happy to oblige.  'Michael,' she told him.  'From Belfast.  The body of a god, and he seems to know more about women's bodies than I do.'
 	'Really,' said Cal.  'Did he find the G-spot?'
 	Jeanie nodded.  'G-and-H-I-J, and K, and L, and M.'
 	'Christ,' said Cal.  'It does exist, then?  I thought it was just a rumour.'  He spooned powdered coffee into both cups and poured boiling water from the kettle.  'Did you know where it was?'
 	Jeanie shook her head.  'Only vaguely.  Until last night.  I know where it is now.'
 	'You'd better draw me a diagram,' said Cal.  'In case I ever need it.  If I had to find it myself I'd start off mid-afternoon, go right through the night and still be late for work the next day.'
 	Jeanie laughed and shook her head.  Cal would never spend that much time on sex.
 *
What CAL HAD FOUND when he was married to Jeanie was that she was boring.  Especially after Karen was born.  At that time all the other women in the world had seemed really interesting and inviting.  Then, after Jeanie had kicked him out, and after the divorce, when he was living alone, Jeanie had begun to seem like a very attractive proposition, and all the other women in the world seemed like they wouldn't be worth the effort.
 	So he'd hit on a plan.  He wouldn't be pushy, but he'd go see Karen at least once a week, sometimes twice.  And during those visits he'd be the kind of soft guy that he thought Jeanie liked.  He'd make the drinks and clear away the cups and saucers when they'd finished.  And he'd talk sex to Jeanie.  And show an interest in what she was doing, who she was seeing.  And at some point, sooner or later - he'd know when the time was right - she'd realize what a good thing she was missing and ask him to move back in.
 	And there was one extra clause in Cal's plan.  If none of that worked, with the help of the video tape in his pocket, he would probably end up having so much money that Jeanie would be begging him to come home.  Just like he had begged her not to throw him out.
 	In Karen's room, while Karen was in the bathroom taking the obligatory thirty minutes to get herself ready, Cal lifted the cover off a small box chair and tucked the video tape inside.  Then he made sure the cover was securely back in place.
 	Cal's partner, Geoff, had checked the registration of the Carrera, and found that the owner was Franco Tampon, a heavy operator, suspected at one time or another of every crime in the book.
	 'My vote is, we leave him alone,' Geoff had said.  'Throw the tape away and forget the whole thing.'
 	'But what I think,' Cal had countered,  'is that the reason he's never been prosecuted is because he's rich enough to buy himself off.  Look, Geoff, we've got video evidence of a kid being abducted.  That's got to be worth money.  And we know the guy's got plenty of that.  His car's worth more than my house.'
 	'I don't know, Cal.  I don't like it.'
 	The beginning of Geoff's capitulation.  He wanted someone to take over, show him all the advantages, smooth away all the possible wrinkles.  Cal of the silver tongue had always been capable of that.
	Especially with Geoff.  Though there was a part of Geoff Cal had never seen.  When Geoff had been in the police force, during the miners' strike, Geoff had suddenly packed it all in.  He was part of a special duty, ordered to break up a picket line.  And he just handed the sergeant his helmet and walked away.  Went home and had some Weetabix.  That's how he came out of the force.  Finished the Weetabix, put his warrant card in an envelope, popped it in the post and never went back.
 	Cal shook his head.  Never could read people.  They always had a way of surprising you.  But if they played Franco Tampon right they'd both be rich.  He'd be able to get on the phone to the guy:  'Hey, Franco, send me a new Merc.'
 	And Franco at the other end of the line:  'Mercy.'
 	But the copy of the tape hidden here in Karen's room was good insurance.  Franco Tampon was heavy duty.  His boys wouldn't think twice about doing over Cal's room and Geoff's house.  Anything to get their hands on the evidence.  But they'd never think of looking for it in Jeanie's house.
 *
HE CAME DOWN THE stairs two at a time, whistling that 'Making Whoopee' song that Jeanie's father used to sing.  Karen came down after him, one at a time, like a little lady.  And she couldn't whistle to save her life.
 	Cal opened the door for her, and then, with a wave to Jeanie, he ushered his daughter to his car at the kerb.
 	He seems lighter, Jeanie thought to herself.  Like somehow, in the time he was here, he took a load off.

 							chapter four
WHENEVER HE WAS TALKING about it later Sam would say the whole thing started when he met the woman from Scottish Widows.  But it wasn't like that at all.  The whole thing started much earlier in the day.  Sam and the woman from Scottish Widows came later.
 	But it's strange how your mind changes events round like that.  If your memory had its way all the events of your life would be rearranged.  Sam had married when he was young, and his wife, Donna, had presented him with a daughter called Bronte.  When Bronte was two years old both she and Donna were mowed down by a hit-and-run driver and Sam drank himself into oblivion.  When he looked back on his life now it seemed to Sam that he had always been an alcoholic, that his wife and daughter had been a blessed interlude in a continuous drunk.
	 He cut off the train of thought.  It was true that he was an alcoholic, but he was dry, had been dry for eleven months, one week, four days and seven hours.  And before that, that lapse, the time before that he had been dry for nearly ten months.  This time he'd cracked it, a day at a time.  That was the way, one day at a time.  Today he hadn't had a drink, hadn't even thought about having a drink, and he wasn't going to have a drink, not at lunch, not during the afternoon and not throughout the course of the evening.
 	Tomorrow?  Well, who's making plans?  Let's live today to its full.  Tomorrow we'll deal with when it gets here.  But Sam didn't think he'd drink tomorrow.  Apart from ruining your life, booze ruined your looks.  The only way to remain a Gene Hackman look-alike was to stay away from the juice.
 *
'WHAT'S HAPPENED TO YOU?' Sam asked Geordie.  'You walk around for months on end with a baseball cap on your head, usually the wrong way round, so when you're going you look as though you're coming.  Then all of a sudden the cap disappears and you start combing your hair.  What is that stuff?  Brylcreem?'
 	'Brylcreem?' said Geordie.  'This is planet Earth, Sam.  Jesus, get real, will you.  The end of the century's coming round.  I listen to you, it's like nineteen forty or something.  Brylcreem?  I might use a touch of gel from time to time, 'cause my hair's sometimes got more bounce than sense.'
 	'OK,' Sam said.  'What about the hat, Air Jordan, or whatever it was, Boston fuckin' Braves, I can't remember?'
 	'What is this?' said Geordie.  'It wasn't Boston Braves, that was a T-shirt, it was Air Jordan in homage to. . .'
 	'. . .Michael Jordan, I know that,' said Sam.  'I just asked what happened to it.'
	 'It's upstairs,' Geordie said.  'It's having a rest.  And I'm having a rest from it.  It's like a trial separation, we're seeing if we can live without each other.'
 	Sam laughed.  'I see.   Janet doesn't like it.'
 	'You're fuckin' unbearable sometimes,' Geordie told him.
 	Sam walked to the shelf and took down a plate.  He tapped himself on the head with it.  'You're right,' he said.  'I'm sorry.  You want, I'll smash the plate over my head.'
 	'I'd rather have a pay rise,' said Geordie.
 	Sam put the plate down.  'You using emotional blackmail to screw money out of me?'
 	'Looks like it,' said Geordie.  'Did it work?'
	 'Only on this occasion,' said Sam.  'It won't work again.  All future pay rises will have to be tied to increased productivity.'
	 They were in Sam's flat, which consisted of the ground floor of the house.  Geordie's flat took up the first floor, but Geordie spent most of his time in Sam's room.  The only other occupant of the building was Barney, Geordie's dog of no particular breed.  Barney slept in Geordie's room most of the time, but sometimes in Sam's, where he anyway spent most of his waking life.
 	It was morning.  Outside the wind was howling.  Rain was not so much coming down as being hurled in horizontal sheets against the windows and doors.  Officially darkness was over, but they had the lights on.
 	Geordie had put the Basement Tapes on, and the man was singing 'Tears of Rage'.  They'd finished eating and were part way through the washing up when Geordie said, 'Janet told me a joke.  But I didn't get it.'
 	Sam didn't turn to face him, he finished drying a plate and put it away in the cupboard.  'Did you laugh?' he asked.
 	'Yeah,' Geordie said.  'I laughed in the right place.  We both laughed.  Had a good laugh, together.'
 	Sam glanced back at him, a smile on his face.  'Come on, then.  Let's hear it.'
 	Geordie frowned, making sure he'd got the thing straight in his head, then he said:  'If women ruled the world there'd be no wars; just intense negotiations every twenty-eight days.'  He paused, then made a laughing sound,  'Ha ha,' and shrugged his shoulders.
 	Sam turned and put the drying cloth down.  He put his arm around Geordie's shoulder and walked with him to the table.
 	'You gonna explain it?' Geordie asked.
 	'Yeah,' Sam said.  He sat opposite Geordie and collected his thoughts.
 	 'What's it about?' Geordie asked, impatient to get to it.
 	'If women ruled the world there'd be no wars; just intense negotiations every twenty-eight days?'
 	'Yeah,' said Geordie.  'I know the joke.  I know how it goes.  It was me just told it to you.'
	 'But you don't know why it's funny?'
	 Geordie rubbed at an imaginary spot on a glass tumbler.  'Not hilarious, no,' he said.
	 'But you know about menstruation?'
 	 'Oh, yeah, like that period thing?'
	 'You know what it is?  What actually happens?'
	 'Yeah, bleeding innit?  They have to wear them things, you know, like on the telly, absorbent things.'  He thought for a few moments.  'Towels, innit?'
 	Sam paused over the sink.  He wanted to ask Geordie to quit saying 'innit' after every sentence, but told himself to stick to the point.  'What I'm trying to establish here,' he said,  'is if you know what is actually happening during a woman's period.'
 	'I've jus' told you,' said Geordie.  'It's bleeding.'
	 'OK,' said Sam.  'Go on.'
 	'Well, it must come from the stomach or somewhere,' Geordie guessed.  'The womb, it's to do with getting pregnant.'
 	'You don't know, do you?  That's OK, nothing wrong with that.  But for your age group it's probably essential information.  What happens is that female mammals produce eggs.'
 	'Hang on,' said Geordie.  'Female mammals?'
 	'Women,' Sam said. 'Women produce eggs once a month. If the egg is fertilized, then she becomes pregnant and the egg eventually becomes a baby. But if the egg is not fertilized. . .'
 	'. . .Like by screwing?' said Geordie.
	 'Yeah, like by screwing,' Sam agreed.  'If the egg isn't fertilized it's rejected by the body.  It disintegrates and is excreted via the vagina.  That's what you call bleeding.  It's not really bleeding, but it looks like that.'
 	'So the towel is just to clean it up?'
 	'Yeah, kind of.  Does all that make sense?'
	 'Yeah,' said Geordie, still unsure.  'But it doesn't explain the joke.'
 	'Around the time they have the period,' Sam continued,  'some women get  pre-menstrual tension, PMT.'
 	'Yeah, I've heard that.  PMT.  What was the other thing?'
 	'Pre-menstrual tension.  PMT is the same, just a shortened version.'
	 'That's when they get antsy, innit?' Geordie said.
 	'You know all this, don't you?' said Sam.
 	'Yeah, I know all this.  Sam, what I don't know is why the fuckin' joke is meant to be funny.  I can hear what you're saying, but it's not making it any clearer.'
 	'OK, try it this way.  Because women have babies, people think they're more nurturing than men.  It might not be the case.  There're lots of women these days wouldn't agree with that.  Men as well, they don't see why women should be labelled one way, and men another.  But traditionally women have been regarded as more nurturing.  So people think that men are more violent, more warlike, and women are gentler.'
 	'The gentler sex,' said Geordie.
 	'Yeah, but you shouldn't say that any more.  That women are the gentler sex.  They get upset if you say that.'
	 'But it's all right to think it?' Geordie asked.
 	'No, you shouldn't think it either,' said Sam.  'Except for the purposes of the joke.  "If women ruled the world, there'd be no wars."  That's the first part of the joke, OK.  You understand the first part?'
 	'Almost,' said Geordie.  'It's not politically correct, but traditionally if women ruled the world there'd be no wars.'
 	'Yeah,' said Sam.  'But there'd be "intense negotiations every twenty-eight days."  Because of the PMT.  You understand?'
 	'No,' said Geordie, what's twenty-eight days got to do with it?'
 	'That's a month,' Sam said.  'Twenty-eight days is a month.  That's when they get antsy, so there wouldn't be any wars, but everybody would get a row once a month.'
 	'Oh,' Geordie said.
 	'You understand it?'
 	'Yeah,' said Geordie.  'It's not even funny.'
 	'No,' said Sam.  'It's not particularly funny.'
 	'And it's not even true.  According to you, if women ruled the world, there'd probably be just as many wars as always.'
 	'I dunno,' Sam said.  'What do I know?'
 	'Nothing,' said Geordie.  'Absolutely nothing, innit?'
 	Sam pushed his chair back and stood.  'Why'd you have to say "innit" after every sentence?  It's not even a word.'
 	'Christ,' said Geordie.  'He's getting antsy.  Must be the time of the month.'
 *
CELIA WAS ALREADY IN the office when Sam arrived.  She was sixty-nine years old and had recently taken to eastern European jewellery in a big way.  This morning she was sporting a huge silver ring which obliterated most of her hand.  'Good morning, Sam,' she said.  'I've opened the post.  It's on your desk.'
 	'Anything interesting?'
 	'Not really.  A couple of cheques.'  She walked over to the window and looked out over St Helen's Square.  'It's brightening up a little.  Didn't think you were coming.'
 	'Sorry,' Sam said, poking through the mail on his desk.  'Got held up with Geordie.  Had to explain menstruation to him.'
	 'Oh, my goodness,' said Celia, who never failed to be amazed at Sam's frankness.  'How on earth did you explain that?  I could never explain it satisfactorily even to myself.'
 	'It wasn't a philosophical discussion, Celia.  Just the bare facts.'
 	'Even so,' she said.  'Sometimes I think it would be nice to be young again.  But when I think about things like that I'm quite happy with what I've got.'
 	'Yeah,' said Sam.  'The past always looks better than it was; it's only pleasant because it isn't here.  Anyway, you're not old, Celia.  Bet I'll be a hell of a lot older'n you when I'm your age.'
 	Celia turned from the window and gave him one of the wrinkliest smiles in the universe.  'Oh, and Marie rang,' she said.  'She's not feeling well enough to get in again.'
 	'Geordie's day off,' said Sam.  'So that leaves you and me.  And next to nothing in the post.  Maybe we should close down for the day.'
 	Celia shrugged.  'You go off if you've got something to do.  I want to reorganize the accounts.  But I can easily hold the fort for a day.'
 	'I'm worried about Marie,' Sam said.  'What is it,  do you think?  Some kind of bug?'
	 'Deeper than that, Sam.  What we used to call a soul illness.  She's got a lot of spirit, though.  I'm sure she'll pull through.'
 	Sam sighed and straightened up the mail, so it was in roughly the same shape as when he arrived.  'Think I'll call round and see her,' he said.
 *
HE LEFT THE OFFICE behind and walked past the post office in Lendal, over the road to the Museum Gardens.  He colonized a bench and sat quietly, watching as a squirrel came over the grass towards him.  They were so inured to the hoards of tourists who tramped this way that they had little fear of humankind.  This one hopped over the path and joined Sam on the bench.  'I've got nothing for you,' Sam told it, and the squirrel cocked its head to one side and watched the man's hands, as if to say: 'Me neither.'  They only had each other.
 	Marie Dickens was the widow of Sam's ex-partner, Gus, who had been killed on the job some months earlier.  After Gus's death, Marie had given up her job as a nurse, and joined Sam Turner Investigations.  She had thrown herself into the job with a lot of energy and will, but over the past weeks she had been withdrawn and uncommunicative.  For the last ten days or so she had been pleading illness.  Sam didn't believe it.  He believed something was wrong, but it wasn't a bug.
 	Sam got up from the bench and the squirrel shot up a tree.  He walked to the rear of the Gardens and along the river to Marie's house.
 *
He knocked and walked in.  She was sitting by the window, devouring a bag of salted nuts.  The wrappers from a couple of bars of Nestles chocolate were on the table in front of her.  Gus used to say that no bar of chocolate was safe when Marie was in town.
 	She was a big woman, in her early thirties now, with real flesh stacked up on her hips and behind.  The description of her bosom as 'generous' was not really ample.  She smiled and placed the bag of nuts on the table in front of her.  'Hi, Sam.'
 	'Heard you called in,' he said.  'Not been feeling too good?'
 	'It's passing,' she said.  'I'll be OK tomorrow.'
 	Sam walked to the table and pulled out a chair.  He sat over from her.  'You sure?' he asked.  'Nothing I can do?'
 	Marie shook her head.  'Women's problems,' she said with a smile.  She reached over and took his hand.  'It's sweet of you to come, Sam.  But I'm nearly over it now.  I'll be OK tomorrow.'
 	Sam couldn't think what kind of women's problems she could be referring to, but he let it pass.  They lapsed into silence together.  A bag of nuts between them.
 	'I saw a duck being gang-banged down by the river,' he said.
 	Marie opened her eyes wide.  'Goodness, what did you do?'
 	'I didn't do anything.'
 	'What happened?'
 	'There was this duck, by the verge.  Small.  And there were several drakes, six or seven of them.  They took her in turns.  When one had finished another took over.  Just held her down.  Whenever she tried to get away they'd get her by the neck.  In the end she gave up and took it.'
 	'And you didn't do anything?'
 	Sam shook his head.  'What could I do?'
	 'Jesus, you could have stopped them.'
	'I was paralysed,' he said.  'My first thought was to stop them.  Chase the drakes away and wait until the duck was safely in the water.  But then I thought, hell, they're ducks.  I mean, this is nature, this is what ducks do, for Christsakes.  It's not right to interfere.'
 	Marie shook her head.  'Only a man could say that,' she said.
 	'I kept swinging back and forth.  First I thought I should interfere, then I thought I shouldn't.  Then, in the end, I didn't know what I should do.'
 	'So you didn't do anything?'
	 'I watched them,' he said.  'I watched them, and her, and it.  When they'd had enough they just waddled off  and left her there.  Eventually she got to her feet and headed back to the river.'
	'You should've stopped them,' said Marie.
 	'Maybe.  It didn't seem right, though.  Like the whole concept of interfering in other cultures, always thinking we know best.  You know what I mean?  The great white western way.  Like it's our duty to teach the rest of the world how to live.  How many cultures have been undermined and withered away because of that attitude?'
 	'Sam, we're talking ducks here, not culture.  You see a duck suffering, any animal suffering, and you do something about it.'
 	'Yeah, I know,' he said.  'I admit I was confused out there.  I couldn't work out if it was suffering or if it was natural.  If it would solve anything by me interfering, or if it would make it worse.'
 	'A woman would have stopped it,' Marie said.  'Any woman would have stopped it.  You don't stand and watch somebody get raped, anything get raped.'
 	'I don't know if an animal can get raped,' Sam said.  'Or if they get raped all the time.  I mean, they can hardly give their consent, can they?'
 	'I can hardly believe you're saying these things, Sam.  They come on heat, they give off some kind of scent, or they give other signals.  When it's OK, when they're ready, then they have their own ways of making the invitation.  If they don't do that, if they're not on heat, then it's wrong.  It's like rape.'
 	'Yeah.  Except I'm not a duck, Marie.  If I was a drake then maybe I'd get the signal, know when to do it and when not to do it.  Hell, those drakes this morning, they might have all thought they got the signal.  The duck, she might have given off too strong a signal, woke up all the drakes in the neighbourhood.  Christ, there's no way of knowing what was happening.  For all I know the drakes were turned on by a factory chimney, an exhaust emission.'
 	Marie sat and looked at him.  'I can see you find it interesting,' she said.  'That's the trouble, though, Sam.  That's why I can't agree with you.  I can't ever find rape interesting.  It's never interesting, it's always wrong.  Wherever, whenever you come across it, it's simply wrong.'  There was something final in her voice.  Like that was the last word.
 	Sam thought she might be tired.  'OK,' he said.  'Next time I'll scatter them, throw a bucket of water over them.'
	 She walked to the door with him.  As they passed the kitchen he noticed a full round of Brie cheese near the kettle.  He kissed Marie on the cheek and told her to rest.  She touched his cheek with her lips and said again that she would be better tomorrow.  Back in the office.
 *
AS HE WALKED BACK past the spot where the gang-banging of the duck had taken place, Sam suddenly wondered what Marie was doing with a whole Brie cheese in her kitchen.  The only time people bought full rounds of Brie was when they were having a party.  But Marie wasn't having a party.  If she was having a party, she would have invited Sam.  She would have invited Geordie and Celia.  She was ill.  People who are ill don't have full rounds of Brie in the house.
 	Sam walked through the Museum Gardens still thinking about it.  Then he turned round and walked back again.  He wasn't a man to interfere in the gang-banging of a duck, but when it came to friends, he couldn't leave it alone.  He lengthened his stride along the river and made his way back to Marie's house.
 	He knocked and walked in, fully expecting to find Marie sitting by the window.  But she wasn't there.  He walked through to the kitchen and examined the round of Brie.  Lifted it and weighed it in the palm of his hand.  Several pounds of full-fat cheese.  'Marie,' he shouted.  There was no reply.
 	He walked to the foot of the stairs and shouted again.  'Marie.  Marie, it's Sam.  Back again.'  But there was no reply.  She wasn't in the house.  She was ill.  She couldn't come to work.  She had several pounds of full-fat Brie in the kitchen.  And she'd gone out.  Sam Turner was a detective.  This kind of situation got bells ringing in his head.  He was hooked now, and he wouldn't be satisfied until he'd got to the bottom of it.
 	He sat by the window for twenty minutes, then moved over to the couch.  She goes out and leaves the door unlocked.  You'd think she'd only slipped out for a minute or two.  But no, she's gone out to do something.  Something that takes time.  Sam wasn't going to move until she returned.  There was something wrong about the situation.  It wasn't a lot.  But it didn't fit.  And he'd started worrying at it, like a tongue at a broken tooth.
 *
IT MIGHT HAVE BEEN a few minutes later, or it might have been an hour or more.  Sam had dozed off and slipped down on the couch.  Too many late nights.  He was awoken by the door opening and closing.  Footsteps padding down the hall to the bathroom.  Marie's footsteps. Unmistakably Marie's footsteps.  Who else would walk into the house like that and go straight to the bathroom?  It was a real advantage in the kind of business he was in, having this deductive kind of mind.
 	She obviously hadn't seen him when she came in.  He staggered to his feet and walked slowly over to the bathroom door.  Marie had not closed it behind her.  She stood over the wash-basin, and she had pulled her arm out of the sleeve of her blouse.  Sam began to turn away, finding himself in a position that could be embarrassing to both of them.  Marie didn't look round, and obviously was not aware that he was there.
 	As he turned away, Sam stopped and let his glance return to Marie and what she was doing.  He couldn't believe his eyes.  But he watched her take an apple corer and dig the sharp end of it into her upper arm.  She twisted it, just like you would if you wanted to get the core out of an apple, and a stream of blood ran down her arm and into the wash-basin.  Then she removed the apple corer and stuck it in again, a fresh spot, just above the first injury.  She did it with no trepidation whatsoever.  She stabbed away at the white flesh with real aggression.  The drakes by the river earlier in the day had not relished their task half as much as Marie was now doing.
 	Whatever was going on here, Sam didn't know if it was natural or not.  But he didn't hesitate.  He took two steps forward and removed the apple corer from her hand.  She looked round at him then, and great tears oozed their way from her eyes and streamed down her face.  Sam put his arms round her and held her while great heaving sobs shuddered their way up from the depths of her.

 				chapter five
Š'Uh uhn, ' Gog said.
	Ben was immediately awake.  A thin shaft of early-morning light slipped through the gap in the blue curtains and sliced the room in two.  Gog's bed on one side, Ben's on the other.  'Aghhhhh,' whispered Gog.  Then again with a softer, breathier tone.  'Aghhhhh.  Ugh.  Gog.'
 	'Yeah,' said Ben.  'Morning already?'  He strained his ears, listening for the sound which met him every morning of his life: the slow rustle of bedclothes from the other side of the room as Gog explored his abdomen and thighs before taking on his already erect prick.  'You at it already, Gog?' he asked.
 	Gog did a laugh.  Should've been an actor, like Steve Reeves or Arnold Schwarzenegger.  Could've played monsters.  He'd have made a fortune.  'Ohhhhhh,' he grunted.  'Nahhhhhhh.'
 	Ben peeled the sheet away from his face and watched Gog turning from side to side on his bed.  He had kicked the blankets down to the end of the bed now, and was cupping his balls in one hand while he massaged away in long sensuous strokes with the other.  His head was arched backwards and his jaw set forwards.  He took in and expelled long breaths through his nose.  His eyes were closed.  It was his pre-training warm-up.
 	Ben felt good, surprisingly, because he'd dreamed of Roid Rage, the madness that comes from the abuse of steroids.  Ben and Gog, of course did not abuse steroids, theirs were prescribed by a doctor, a legitimate doctor who had been trained and who knew what he was doing.  But there were people who came into The Monster Gym who did abuse steroids.  And there had been cases of Roid Rage down there, and there would be again.  The main pushers knew that Ben and Gog were against steroid abuse, and they were careful not to get caught.  But there were lots of users.  More people were using than weren't using.  They didn't buy the gear in The Monster Gym itself, Ben was strict about that.  They bought it outside, in the alley.
 	Gog was up on his knees now, stroking his prick with both hands, alternately, long strokes beginning at the scrotum and travelling the whole length of the thing, finishing at his lower chest.  His fingers took on a kind of grace during this operation.  He seemed to have the hands of a dancer.  The room was getting lighter every minute and Gog's huge bull head and ripped neck were awesome in silhouette as he bounced up and down on the bed.  He looked over at Ben and grinned, made an animal sound in the back of his throat, pursed his lips at an imaginary female.
 	Imaginary females were the only ones Gog had ever had.  He'd been with Titus and Vince, the progeny of a stolen moment between a prize-winning whippet bitch and an equally celebrated collie, but neither of those were female.
	And they didn't have the dogs now.  When the last one, Titus, had died they hadn't replaced him.  Too much trouble.  You had to train them, take them for walks last thing at night, first thing in the morning.  Worse than having kids about the place.  The Monster Gym was alarmed anyway, and if anyone ever did break in Gog and Ben would make as much of a mess of them as any dog.
 	Gog was moaning softly now.  Still on his bed, he had got up on to his feet, completely naked.  He was striking a pose, forcing his abs into relief, the huge delts on his shoulders glistening with sweat.  His hand strokes were quickening, his breath now coming in short gasps.  His head moved backwards and forwards in a rhythm that kept pace with the moaning song.  Ben glanced down at his brother's spastic leg, but quickly filtered it out.  Positivity, that was the thing.  Don't be led astray by the one thing that was not quite right.
 	Ben pushed back his own sheets and got up on to his bed.  'OK,' he said, laughing.  'OK, Gog, lets do it.'  Ben had no time for the slow preparation, the build-up, he  went straight for the climax.  The two of them together, rushing for the finish, spurting their loads on to the sheets and down to the carpet beyond.  They finished together, groaning in unison, greeting the world and the day with total physical comprehension.  The room was awash with sweat and musk.
 	Gog jumped down from the bed and opened the curtains wide.  He felt down by the side of his bed and plucked his T-shirt from the floor.  He pulled it over his head.  The slogan on his chest read,  STEROIDS - THE BREAKFAST OF CHAMPIONS.
 	Ben walked over to a chest of drawers and put on a clean T-shirt with the legend,  IF YOU'RE NOT A MONSTER - MOVE ASIDE.  Shorts and trainers followed, and then downstairs to a breakfast of skimmed milk and carrots.  And seven different coloured capsules.
 	Half an hour later they were in The Monster Gym warming up for their first session of the day, the best session of the day, the one they always did together before the customers arrived.
 	Gog warmed up with ten reps of a Swan Lift, while Ben did ten minutes with the rope. Then they each bench-pressed 250 lbs., lowering the barbells to the nipple area, inhaling as the bar came down, exhaling as it went up. 'Imagine you're blowing it up,' said Ben.  And Gog made his laugh come again.
 	They'd started working the Schwarzenegger Split: chest biceps and forearms on day one, legs, triceps and lower back on day two, and today they were on upper back, shoulders and abdominals.  But first Gog wanted to do half a dozen sets of the Donkey Calf Raise, because he thought his lower legs needed extra work.  Ben didn't agree with the diagnosis.  Gog's lower legs were one of his best features.  Well, his left lower leg was.  And it didn't seem to matter what they did with his right leg, it never got any better.  Never would.  But Ben knew that if Gog got an idea in his head there was no point arguing about it.  Gog leant forward with his upper body and head on the bench, feet on the floor.  Then Ben sat on his lower back while Gog raised himself high on to his toes and back again.  He did fifty reps, with only a few seconds rest. Six sets in all.
	Ben didn't believe it, but what they'd been told was that their mother had syphilis when Gog was born.  That was the explanation for his leg.  Congenital syphilis.  There was no cure for it.  You couldn't ever make it right.
 	They began their abs exercises with Hanging Knee Raises from the horizontal bar, fifty reps each for four sets.  Then a series of Bent Knee Sit-ups on a bench, thirty reps, five sets.  By the end of it Ben felt elated.  He felt different, good, not tired at all, his bowels were working better, his body felt tighter. It was like this all the time now, even when something failed he wasn't disappointed because other things were always working well to compensate.  He looked over at Gog and could see that Gog was the same, very pleased, a smile on his face, feeling good.  There was a visible hardness to his biceps, delts and quads.  'This is good stuff,' he said breathlessly.  'The best.'
 	When they measured up, after practising some poses in the mirror, Ben found he had put an inch on one of his arms, half an inch on the other.
 	Later in the day Gog went to lie down with a headache.  Ben took a banana upstairs for him, but Gog was sleeping.  That wasn't right.  Getting headaches all the time.  That wasn't supposed to happen.  They would have to talk to Doc Squires about that.
 *
THE MONSTER GYM WAS a short walk from Acomb Green. The building had gone through a period of neglect, but had originally been a flourishing gym.  According to legend, the Wharton boys had trained there, under one of those old-time managers from the Eastern bloc.  Manny something or other; they all seemed to be called Manny something or other.  Ben didn't give a shit.  If you look behind all those sentimental legends you find the Manny guy from the Eastern bloc is just a front.  The real manager, the man who nobody ever hears of, but who can spot the champ in the undeveloped boy, he's a Brit.  Like Ben.  Ben was a Brit, as was his brother Gog.  All the way through, like that writing in a stick of rock
 	But that was the past, when it was a gym.  The place was derelict for a while, then some budding entrepreneur had used it to store other people's furniture. Franco Tampon had bought it for a song and brought in some muscle from Bradford to clean it up.  Now Ben and Gog who were also muscle, but intelligent muscle, had both of their names on the lease and were entrepreneurs themselves, the proprietors of The Monster Gym, open seven days a week for enthusiasts of hard-core body-building.  Ben and Gog weren't at the gym seven days a week themselves, except in the early mornings.  They had plenty of work of another kind from Franco.  Franco called the work he gave them 'odd jobs'.  But it was more than that.
 *
'YOU'RE GOOD LADS,' FRANCO told them.  'Three new customers since last time.'  He ran his forefinger down the column of figures.  The accounts.  Checking the receipts and expenses.  He always did that since they'd got into trouble with the bank manager.  He'd lent them money then, rescued them from the clutches of the bankers.  All bankers were part of an international conspiracy.  Everybody knew they were.  But most people ignored the truth.
 	Ben wasn't worried about Franco checking the figures, though.  Not any more.  He'd been over those figures three times.  They added up.  Franco looked at him again, a broad smile on his face.  'And you look professional, too,' he said.  Ben and Gog were dressed identically in plain white T-shirts and black polyester jogging pants with Nike air cross trainers.  Ben was blond and the smaller of the pair, with shoulders like a bull and biceps straining at the cotton sleeves of his T-shirt.  Gog, his brother, was taller by a head, and always had a smile on his face.  He was dark and swarthy and sometimes suffered from depressions.  But he smiled through everything.  Like Ben, he had developed his upper torso to the limit.
 	Ben and Gog had been deprived children.  Their mother had run off with a Chinaman shortly after Gog was born.  No one knew where.  Ben and Gog both thought it must be to China, since no one had seen her since.  It was odd that she'd run off with a Chinaman.  Very odd.  No one else's mother had run off with a Chinaman.  No one in York, anyway.  In fact, in York, hardly anyone had ever met a Chinaman.  There were those Chinamen who ran Chinese restaurants and Takeaways, but they didn't count.  They just talked funny.  Seemed like the only real Chinaman who ever came to York came for the sole reason of running off with their mother.
 	Ben and Gog didn't think that this had anything to do with the fact that they both, independently of each other, without conferring in any way, hated Chinamen.  They had talked about it for the first time two years previously after trashing a Chinese restaurant and putting two Chinese waiters in the local hospital, one of them separated from several of his fingers and the other divorced from two of his teeth and one of his eyes.  They had not premeditated this act.  It had been spontaneous.  Something to do with the cerebral cortex.  Which is how they got off and had the charges against them dropped.
 	It was bad luck that their mother had run off with a Chinaman.  That's all you could really say about it.  Other people's mothers had run off with street cleaners, butchers and, on one memorable occasion, a TV personality.  Actually a producer's assistant, not someone who had a face.  And other people's fathers had run off with school-girls, grandmothers, single-parent teenagers, nurses, shop assistants, housewives and fucking fruit cakes.
 	So there was plenty of choice for people who were going to run off.  But a frigging Chinaman was the last thing anyone would have expected.
 	Ben watched the smile on Gog's face.  That was another thing.  They could read each others' minds.  Someone else watching that smile on Gog's face might think he was pleased with the praise that Franco Tampon was coming out with.  But Ben knew that the smile on Gog's face had nothing at all to do with Franco Tampon.  Gog wasn't even listening to Franco Tampon, he was thinking about trashing that Chinese restaurant.  He always smiled like that when he thought about trashing the Chinese restaurant.  It had been one of the high spots of his life.  His mystical experience.
 	That's what he called it.  Ben, being rather more intelligent than Gog, realized that it wasn't a real mystical experience at all.  It was simply a substitute for the lack of bonding with a mother person when Gog was a small infant.  But Gog wouldn't understand that, so Ben didn't burden him with it.  He let him go on thinking it was a mystical experience.  It wasn't the truth, but it didn't do any harm.
 	'Is Doc Squires coming tonight?' Ben asked.
 	Franco consulted his watch.  'Yes, should be here any minute now.  Why is that, Ben, are you anxious to be off?'
 	'No,' Ben said, defensively.  He wasn't wanting to be off.  It hurt him that Franco thought he wanted to be off.  As if he wasn't committed or something.  A dilly-fucking-tanty, or whatever they called them.
 	Franco was smiling to himself, avoiding Ben's eyes.  'Thought you might have a date or something, Ben.  Got yourself a girl.  Am I wrong?'
 	But Ben didn't take the bait.  Franco was like that sometimes, making jokes.  Ben and Gog stayed away from girls.  You couldn't afford to get involved like that when you were in training.  It wasn't just the direct energy loss, in fact that was something you could replace easily enough by eating a couple of raw steaks.  It was something else about women that really drained you.  To someone in training, serious training, like Ben and Gog's, a woman was like a vampire.
 	'I was looking forward to seeing Doc Squires for a number of reasons,' Ben said.  'First, me and Gog have nearly run out of those blue tablets.  The capsules.  And Doc Squires said we could double up on the dose from this month.  And second, Gog's been having more headaches than usual, and I wanted to talk to the doctor about that.  Maybe get something that really helps.'
 	'Is that true, Gog?' said Franco Tampon.  'The headaches getting worse?'
 	Gog put a brave smile on his face.
 	'He doesn't complain,' said Ben.  'He never complains.  But I know when he's under the weather.  I can tell these things.  We've got telepathy.'
 	Franco shook his head.  'I thought the headaches were getting better,' he said.  'Doc told me they were getting better when you started on the steroids.'
 	'They did at first,' Ben said.  'And they help as soon as we take them.  But after a while the headaches come back.  And they come back worse than they were before.'
 	Gog made a sound in his throat, which could have been agreement or dissent.  Ben glanced at Franco to see if he had interpreted it correctly, but Franco didn't know what to make of it.  'Gog thinks the doctor will be able to fix him up,' said Ben.
 	'I hope so,' said Franco.  'I want you two to be efficient.  I don't want anything to go wrong.  You're my best men.  When I give you a job I want to know that everything will be all right.  I want to go home and sleep.'
 	'Doc Squires has got everything under control,' Ben said.  'He knows what he's doing.'
 	Franco made a church and steeple with his two hands, opened it up and looked inside at all the people.  'Bosnia?' he said.
 	Ben smiled.  'Great isn't it,' he said.  Gog flapped his arms and made that sound at the back of his throat.  Ben continued,  'Wish it was here,' he said.  'Ethnic cleansing.'
 	'Yes,' said Franco.  'God knows we need it.'
 	'Nignogs,' said Ben.  'Fucking nignogs.'
 	Gog said something that had two syllables.
 	'Yeah,' said Ben.  'Chinese nignogs.'
 	'It'll come,' said Franco.  'It's remarkable, don't you think, that the masses seem to know instinctively what is right in these situations?  The leaders are bankrupt, of course, decadent, but the indigenous masses know what to do.  It's as if they feel it like a physical pain when their blood is being diluted.  They become an endangered species, the last of their kind, and when that happens they stand up and fight.'
 *
BEN COUNTED OUT THE tablets that Doc Squires had given them.  He transferred them to the jars marked BEN and GOG, so they could start on them first thing in the morning.  When he went upstairs Gog was already sleeping.  Peacefully.  On his back, his arms and hands thrown back on the pillow like a baby.
 	Everything was going to be all right.  Doc Squires had increased the doses, and he'd prescribed a new tablet for Gog, to undermine the headaches.  It wouldn't happen straight away.  They'd have to be patient.  But eventually Gog would get better.  The headaches would disappear.
 	Ben stripped off his clothes and got into bed.  He switched off the light and peered up through the gloom to the ceiling.  Franco Tampon was useful, but Ben didn't like him.  First off, he wasn't a Brit.  With a name like that?  Do me a favour.  Frank, maybe.  If the guy was called something regular like Frank Taylor, you'd know where you stood.  But Franco Tampon, fucking Italian name.  Fucking greaseball.  How they got into the country in the first place, that was what Ben didn't understand.  The government kept saying they were taking measures to ensure that illegal immigrants couldn't get into the country.  But they did.  They flooded in.  All the time, like there was no one really stopping them.
 	A government that was serious would build a wall or something.  The ancient Chinese had done it, built a wall.  Probably copied it off Hadrian.  And look at York.  Those guys back in the Dark Ages had built a wall that was still standing today.  With a moat round it, drawbridges.  All the way round the city.  Anybody wanted to get in they had to present themselves at the gate.  If they were illegal immigrants, Chinamen or Italians, they got a dollop of boiling oil thrown over them.  At least that.  Something to make them think.
 	Franco, secondly, was full of all this stuff about international Jewish conspiracies, about ethnic cleansing.  He'd bring it up, he'd talk about it from time to time, but it was like something he'd read in a book.  You looked at Franco and you knew straight off that he wasn't serious.  He was puny.  He didn't do any work on himself.  He was rich and he had various scams going in the town, and in other towns, Manchester, Bradford, Nottingham.  Things he managed for other guys, bigger guys.  He had contacts, big contacts.  Could get things done.  He had cars, as well.  Great cars like that Carrera they'd borrowed the other day.  But he wasn't a monster like Ben and Gog.  He was letting himself go to fat.  In a proper world, a world where men could be proud of themselves, guys like Franco would be fixed.  Ben and Gog had talked about that.  They would have guys like Franco fixed, like you fix a tomcat.  You cut off those bad genes, like with thoroughbred horses.  In the end you'd have a race of giants
 	And not just physical.  Ben didn't mean physical, muscles.  He meant intellectually and morally as well.  And that was something guys like Franco would never get their heads round.  You might be able to start him on a programme, get him lifting weights, building himself up physically.  But you wouldn't be able to stop him messing with little boys and girls.  You'd never be able to stop him doing that.  The guy was a fucking toilet. 

 	chapter six
'OH, FUCK.  I'VE FORGOTTEN the word.'
	Geordie had played the best game of football he'd ever played in his life.  Then he got a lift home, to the end of the street, and walked, covered in mud, to the house.  He couldn't remember the word.  The word that described it.  But Sam would know what it was.
 	Sam Turner, the boss.  He was also Geordie's family, in a way, though the two of them were not related.  Sam had quite literally picked Geordie out of the gutter one night and helped him get somewhere to live.  He had washed him, given him a job, got Celia to educate Geordie in the English language.  What else had Sam done?  More like it was easier to list the things he hadn't done, because there weren't any.  When you thought about it he'd done more for Geordie than anyone, ever, in his whole life.  And Geordie did think about it, sometimes wondered how he could ever pay the guy back.  Sam, Geordie sometimes thought, was short for the original good Samaritan, except he wasn't an Arab, he was a private detective.
 	Geordie walked into the flat and sat on the edge of Sam's table.  Sam was playing a tape of the 'Skin to Skin' duet between Harry Belafonte and Jennifer Warnes.  He'd been playing it constantly for the last few days.  Sam was in love with Jennifer Warnes.  He didn't know it, and if Geordie pointed it out Sam would deny it.  But he was in love with her all the same.  He looked up and widened his eyes when Geordie sat on his table.
 	'What's wrong?' he asked.
 	'Why should something be wrong?'
 	'You're covered in mud,' Sam said.  'If you come in and sit on the table where we eat our breakfast when you're covered in mud, something's gotta be wrong.  Besides, you look like you always look when something's wrong.  So what is it?'
 	'I can't remember a word'
 	'An emergency, eh?' Sam said.  'Move your ass off my table and start at the beginning.  I'm all ears.'
 	Geordie moved away from the table and sat on a hard chair.  Barney, his dog, came over and sniffed at the mud on his legs.  'Aw, Sam.  I played brilliant' he said.  'Everybody said I played brilliant.  But that's not the word.  Oh, what's the word?'
	'Geordie, think.  Describe it.  What was the game like?'
	'Christ. I got the ball just after half-time.  They'd nearly scored, so it was somewhere near our goal mouth. I started running with it.  I realized I was on my own, but it felt right.  I took it past four of their players, you know, selling dummies, dribbling it round them or through their legs.  Nobody could stop me.  It was like I was charmed. I left them standing  When I got over the half-way line,  their backs put up a solid wall, so I sent it out to the left wing.
  	'I was in the goal mouth.  The ball came back in from the left wing, almost down by the corner flag.  I saw I could get there.  It was impossible to get there.  It was like I was drowning.  I could see the surface, at least I knew the surface had to be there, but I didn't know if I could get there before my lungs filled up.  That must be what it feels like, when you're drowning.  Anyway, I went for it.  I was way past the goal mouth, Sam.  Even if I got to the ball, there was no way I was gonna score.  Maybe the best I could do was get close to the right goal post.  It was never gonna go in.  The goalie had it covered, anyway, except for the top corner.  And I was breathing really hard, my legs had gone.  I'd just come the whole length of the pitch.
 	'I struggled upwards.  I couldn't get that high.  But I got there, Sam.  The ball came towards me, arcing over the others clustered round the goal mouth.  I knew it was coming to me, but I had to get my head still higher.  I'd already passed the height of my leap, and I had to wriggle, flap my legs like a fish's tail, force my head higher still to connect with the ball.  I arched my back, then came forward with my head, and the ball came down and made the connection.  I hit it, Sam.  I connected with the middle of my forehead, and it spun off like a bullet into the net.  The goalie saw it at the last moment, but he didn't have time to think it.  It was in the back of the net.
 	'I looked down.  I had, like, you know, about a hundred miles to travel.  There was no way of getting down safe, and I just collapsed into a heap of arms and legs.  I saw the ball had gone in, and then nothing, I turned into a heap on the pitch.  And there was the clapping.  Everybody was clapping and cheering, even guys on the other team, and they all came over and patted me on the back, tried to kiss me, and one of them said, 'Geordie, you played a. . . you played a. . . a. . .'
 	'A blinder,' said Sam.
 	'Yeahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.'  Geordie leapt in the air.  'A blinder, man.  I played a fucking blinder.'
 	There it was again, that word, blinder.  He played a blinder.  He played a blinder.  'What does it mean?  Blinder.  I mean, I know it means a good game, but why do they call it that?'
	Sam shook his head.  'Maybe it means you blinded yourself.  You'd been blind because you couldn't see that it was possible.'
	'It wasn't possible,' Geordie said.  'That's why it felt so good.'
	'And it means you've blinded everybody else to the every-day world.  You've come through the shit, you've achieved something perfect.  You've made the world open its eyes and see.  You've made the world realize something that it will never be able to forget.'
	Geordie laughed.  'Hang on, Sam.  I was only playing in the Railway Cup.  And I don't even work on the Railway.'
 	'I was there,' Sam said.  'Wouldn't have missed it for the world.  I saw it.  I clapped as well, Geordie, clapped and cheered with the rest of them.  You played a blinder.  Reminded me of George Best when that ball went in.'
	Geordie was strutting round the kitchen, really pleased with himself.  'George Best,' he said.  And he stopped, then, and looked back at Sam.  'George Best,' he said.  'Christ, Sam, he's old enough to be my grandfather.'
	'Wasn't always, though, Geordie.  When I was in Didsbury we used to go to Old Trafford on a Saturday to see him play.  He was like a prince.'
	'Oh-oh,' said Geordie,  'story coming on.  'Bout way back in the nineteen sixties.  Eric Cantona, now he was a real player.  Lives in the modern world.  Better than all those old guys.'
	'People from Liverpool were always saying they had the Beatles, and Adrian Henri, and Gerry and the Pacemakers, all those guys. Later they had Willie Russell, and Bleasdale.  You know what I mean?  Bragging about all the talent came from Liverpool.  And we'd say, 'We've got George Best.'   And then we'd stand back and see how they'd try to cap it.  But Best was the best.  There was no way you could cap it.
	'Except occasionally you'd get one of the real clever idiots who would say, "George Best, he's not from Manchester, he's Irish, he only plays for Manchester."'
	'And what would you say to that?'
	Sam smiled.  Thinking back.  'We'd say, "Yeah, and we can go see him every week."'
 *
'YOU GONNA HAVE A party or what?' Geordie said, backing out of Sam's fridge with a full round of Brie.
	'Ah,' said Sam.  'You can eat as much of that as you like.'
	Geordie gave him the eyeball.  Sam looked back.  'You don't have to tell me why all this cheese is in your fridge,' Geordie said.  ''T'aint none of my business.  Jus' because I'm curious, and Barney here, who's a little dog who hardly ever asks for much, jus' because he's curious, that shouldn't make you feel under pressure to let us in on it.  I mean if you don't want us to know - me and Barney - like, what it was that moved you to buy such a Brobdingnagian chunk of full-fat cheese when you spend a considerable amount of time worrying about your blood pressure.  And me and Barney spend jus' about the same amount of time listening to you worrying about your blood pressure - then we wouldn't - in fact we don't - expect you to let us in on it if for some reason it's like, a secret.'
	'OK,' said Sam.  'Thanks, Geordie, Barney, nice of you to be so understanding.'
 *
BACK IN HIS OWN room Geordie put on the tape of John Lennon songs that Janet had given him.  He played 'Mother', then rewound the tape and played it again. Geordie's mother had run off with the landlord when Geordie was still a boy.  After that Geordie was taken into care, eventually running away and carving out a life for himself on the streets.
	After Sam had got him off the streets and life had begun to get better Geordie had stopped thinking about his mother.  Hadn't thought about her for a long time, except in dreams when it wasn't possible to choose if you thought about her or not.  Because you were asleep and you didn't have any control over her.  She just walked about inside your head.  But then Celia and Sam and other people he knew said that he should think about her, that if he suppressed thoughts and emotions about her he'd get ill.  Geordie didn't understand why he'd get ill by not thinking about his mother.
	For a while now he'd thought about her once a day.  Not for long, just a minute or two, sometimes less than that.  Some days he only managed a second or two, and there were some particularly busy days when he didn't even manage a second.  But he thought about her more than she thought about him.  You could guarantee that.  Geordie would've betted money on it, that she never thought about him.
	And he couldn't understand it, that she was his mother and she never thought about him.  If he ever had children of his own, say if Janet and him had a child, Geordie would think about that child every minute of every day for the rest of his life.  He couldn't see how there would be room for any other thoughts, except thoughts of that child to get inside his head.  Maybe there'd be the odd chink of room for the odd thought about Janet or Sam or Celia or Marie or Barney.  But mainly he'd think about the kid.
	So maybe his mother did think about him.  Maybe she thought about him all the time.  For all anybody knew she'd finished with the landlord guy and gone back to the house they used to live in and found Geordie had gone.  And now she spent all her time searching for Geordie.  Tramping the highways.
	Barney came over and nuzzled Geordie's hand.  'OK,' he told the dog.  'Jus' having a fantasy, innit?'  When John Lennon got to the end of  'Mother', Geordie let the tape roll on.
	'You know something, Barney?' he said.  'This Janet I've been telling you about.  She's got two cats.'  Barney sat back and cocked his head to one side, like 'cats' was a very interesting word, which, of course, it was.
	'And I don't want anything to go wrong between me and Janet.  So you and me are gonna have a few little chats.  Janet is very keen on her cats, which are called Venus and Orchid.  Well, fuck, Barney, that's the kind of names that cats have.  Dogs are called more down-to-earth names, but cats are more uppity.  You have to accept that.
	'The thing is, if you were to take against these cats, or even if you were to take against just one of them, Orchid, say, and give it a hard time, then that would cause problems between me and Janet, and I'd be really pissed off at you.
	'So what we're gonna do, is, when we go out and we see a cat, instead of you leaping up and down and barking your head off, and then chasing after it like cowboys and indians, what you're gonna do is, you're gonna say "Hello, little cat, pleased to meet you," or something like that.  And get yourself used to the idea that one day, if me and Janet decide to live together, you might have two cats in the same house as you, like brothers and sisters.  OK?'
	Barney had put more and more weight on his front legs until they had slid away from him.  His head had dropped forward on to his legs, and all that was now visible of his face was one eye.  That eye returned Geordie's stare for a moment or two.  Then Barney let it fall closed, probably imagining there was no Heaven.
 *
ON HIS WAY OUT of the flat Sam stopped him.  'Did you say Brobdingnagian?'
	'What you talking about?'
	'Earlier,' Sam said, 'when we were talking about the cheese.  Did you say Brobdingnagian?'
	'Yeah.'
	'Do you know what it means?'
	''Course I know what it means.  You think I use words I don't even know what they mean?  Do you know what it means?'
	'The way you said it it means big,' Sam said.
	Geordie looked up at Sam and smiled.  'It means gigantic,' he said.  'Celia gave me Gulliver's Travels, and there's this place in there, called Brobdingnag.  Land of the Giants.'
	'And you remembered that?'
	'Yeah.'  Geordie opened the door and stepped outside.  He looked back at Sam, still smiling.  'The people in Brobdingnag, they all have full rounds of Brie in their fridges, and when anybody asks them where they got it they just play dumb.'
 *
'WALK SLOW.  I CAN'T walk as fast as you.'
	Geordie slowed down.   'I'm not walking fast.  I'm just walking normal.'
	When he'd first got to her flat he'd given Janet a third of a round of Brie.  'Sam had it in his fridge, and he can't eat it,' he explained.
	'Venus'll eat some, and I love it,' she said.  'But Orchid won't touch it.'   She grabbed her coat and suggested they walk into town.
	Geordie didn't really mind what they did, so long as he could spend the evening with her.  Have her all to himself.  He didn't have to go to work until tomorrow, which meant he could follow Janet around all evening, talk to her, listen to her, look into her hazel eyes and let her lead him through her wacky life.
	Geordie had played her the tape of a Presley song, 'Too Much', because he didn't understand what it meant.
	'It means, like she's pretending to sigh,' Janet said.
	'Why would she do that?'
	'To turn him on, encourage him.'
	Geordie thought about that.  'That's ridiculous,' he said.  'Wouldn't work with me.  If I was with somebody and they were pretending to sigh, it'd put me right off.'
	Janet laughed.  'I've done it with you,' she said.  'And it doesn't.'
	'Doesn't what?'
	'Doesn't put you off.  Quite the opposite, gets you going a treat.'
	'Why'd you do that?' he asked.  'I dunno if I like that, pretending.  Like you have to pretend 'cause I can't make you do it naturally.'
	Janet laughed.  'Male ego,' she said.
	'How's that?'
	'Male ego.  That's what you've got.  You think the world goes round the sun just to keep you happy.'
	'Round the sun?' Geordie said, real confusion spreading over his face.
	'Yes, you ought to take it as a compliment.  I'm pretending for your benefit.  I don't have to sigh at all.  I could be totally unresponsive.  You wouldn't like that, would you?'
	Geordie thought about that longer than he'd thought about the last one.  'Yeah,' he said eventually, a hint of a sigh in his voice.
	'Yeah, what?' asked Janet.  'What does Yeah mean?'
	'Means it's a really good song,' Geordie said.  'Perceptive innit?'
	They walked alongside the beck into town, then followed the inside of the wall, ending up in a high-tech pub with terminals and speakers over every table.  The joint was called Fischingers, and sold Budweiser for three times the price you could buy it anywhere else in York.  And it didn't even taste better.  You paid that much for it, Geordie told Janet, it made you feel like you couldn't enjoy the rest of the evening.
	Then he worried about it.  'You don't think I'm tight, do you?'
	'No.'  Janet smiled.  They had to shout to make themselves heard above the loudspeakers.  'You've just been ripped off.  Wouldn't be normal if you didn't feel mad about it.'
	That's true, Geordie thought.  The trouble with it was that he knew Janet would see right through it, and even be able to explain it.  That was because she wasn't only beautiful, but she was bright as well.  Quick in the brains department.  She would never have thought he was tight.  She expected he would be pissed off over the price of the drinks.
	Geordie was getting brighter himself.  He was still having English lessons with Celia, learning poems and writing essays about them, and if you lived and worked with Sam you had to be fairly quick or he'd ride all over you.  But, compared with Janet, it was obvious that she was quicker and brighter than him.
	What Geordie worried about was that she would get bored by him.  That she'd look around for somebody as quick as she was.  If she waited, then with all the work he was doing on himself, Geordie would probably get as bright as her, and then they'd be equals.  But if she couldn't wait, he'd lose her, and that'd be a real drag, because he'd only just got her.  Geordie hoped it wouldn't work out like that.  He hoped she'd see that he was catching up, and that if she had the patience to wait for him, it would be worth her while.  He still went on thinking and pondering about things for hours after she'd said her last word on the subject.
	'All this sighing you've been doing,' he said.  'I know you've explained it, but I'm still not sure I like it.'  He had liked it, Janet sighing when he took her in his arms, when he kissed her.  But that was when he thought she couldn't help it.  Now he knew she was doing it for his benefit he felt pissed off.
	Janet knitted her brows together and took his hand over the table.  'Geordie, I like you.  I like you more than I've liked other boyfriends.  A lot more.  I shouldn't have told you about the sighing.'
	'I'm glad you told me, Janet.  Even if it hurts a bit, even if it gets me pissed off, I still want you to say it.'
	'I sigh because you like sighers, Geordie.  It's as simple as that.  I like being with you.'
	 'I like you, too.  I like you just as you are.  You seem like you're almost perfect to me.'
	Janet smiled at him, then looked down at the table.  'Yeah, and you seem like almost perfect to me as well.'
	When they left Fischingers Geordie hesitated outside a lingerie shop.
	Janet pointed to a pair of crotchless scarlet knickers.  'Margaret's got a pair of those,' she said.  'Christ, look at the price.  No wonder she's always broke.'
	'I like that, though,' said Geordie, indicating an underskirt in blue lace.
	'What, for me?'
	'Yeah, you'd look nice in it.'
	Janet took his hand and walked him away from the window.  'It's over rated, Geordie.  If lingerie was so wonderful, men would be wearing it.'
 *
Sam was already in bed when Geordie got home.  Either that, or he was out somewhere.  But it felt like he was in bed.
	Geordie couldn't remember exactly what happened later.  But he'd gone out with Barney, and he'd not bothered to put a lead on him because it was so late.  Barney had done a crap and then gone sniffing on up the road while Geordie collected the crap in a plastic bag.  Sam and Celia had said it was best to collect it because if you didn't the little kids in the neighbourhood would get brain damage.  And Sam and Celia both collected the crap themselves when they took Barney for a walk.
	Then a car came round the corner with a load of louts in it.  They were hanging out of the windows, and shouting at Geordie, but the guy who was driving the car was picking up speed.  Out of the corner of his eye Geordie saw Barney run on to the road.  And that was a strange thing to happen, because Barney had been trained not to do that.
	Then everything happened quickly.  Geordie watched it, knowing exactly how it was going to be.  But he was powerless to stop it.  The car was tearing along the road.  Barney was running across the road.  There was a point where they would meet.  The only way to avoid that was if the car or Barney stopped.
	Geordie shouted, but it didn't make any difference.  Barney ran straight into the side of the speeding car.  He bounced off it and screamed.  Later Geordie thought that Barney must have squealed, because that's what animals did, they didn't scream.  But at the time it sounded to him like Barney really screamed.  Like a human.
	The car didn't stop.  And neither did Barney.  With a series of screams he belted off along the road, the way they had come.  Running along the middle of the road.  Geordie called after him, but Barney wasn't at all receptive.  He just kept going, and in a few seconds he was out of sight.
	Geordie ran home and found Barney by the front door.  The dog was shaking and whimpering, and his nose was smashed and bleeding, but he wasn't dead.  

	chapter seven
Mama was making ice cream and Doc was laying down lines of cocaine on the bread board.  Franco watched Doc add the food colouring to the lines of coke.  Red, yellow, blue, bright primary colours for the little darlings.
	They were in the big kitchen on the ground floor, but Franco had left the doors open so they could hear the Three Tenors playing on the stereo.
	Doc mixed the colours into the white powder and sucked up each line with an antique dispenser that Mama had found in a junk shop.  Then he laid the colours on top of each other in a leaded glass bowl and stood back to get a better look.
	'Do you think they'll go for that?' he asked.
	Mama looked up from her own creation and smiled.  'Yes,' she said.  'They won't be able to resist it.  Looks like a rainbow.'
	Doc looked across the table at Franco, engaging his eyes, looking for confirmation, approval.
	'Yeah,' said Franco, speaking through tight lips, the word coming out like a hiss.  Doc was an artist.  He knew they would all like his coloured coke, it always went down big when they had a party.  But you had to tell him.  He had to hear it.
	Mama put her ice cream into a round baking tin and referred back to Delia Smith's Complete Illustrated Cookery Course.  It was a new recipe, one she hadn't tried before, but Delia reckoned it was an unbeatable party dish, and in that department Mama was prepared to call her the boss.
	'You want a hand?' Doc asked Mama.
	'Yes, you can help me with the acid,' she said.
	Doc went to the fridge and brought back a small container of acid and an eye dropper.  He filled the eye dropper and asked: 'How many?'
	'Ten,' she told him.  She switched on the electric whisk and moved the thick white mixture around in the bowl.
	'Now?' asked Doc, raising his voice above the sound of the whisk.
	Mama nodded and they counted aloud together as Doc squeezed the ten drops into the ice cream.
	Franco went downstairs, left them to it, his mother and his brother playing at getting ready for the party.
	He stood in the bathroom and looked at the black tiled walls and floor, noticed how they reflected the light.  He sniffed at the air and caught a whiff of the new Coty soap Mama had bought.  There was something else there as well.  Dettol?  He listened to the silence and saw his own reflection in the mirror.
	There were no sudden and violent movements, no cries for mercy, no blood spattered on the walls.  The air was clean.  The smell of death had vanished.
	Franco walked through to his cellar study and rang Mr Julian's number.  He counted the rings.  Mr Julian usually picked up on the eighth ring, but this time it didn't get past four.  And the voice was wrong.
	'Mr Julian?' he said into the mouthpiece.
	'Who is this?'
	Franco recognized the voice.  It was the old man's son.  He was coming of age, would eventually take over the organization.  He was difficult.  His inexperience was almost tangible, like a rash of acne.
	'It's Franco,' he said.  'I want to speak to your father.'
	'Not available, Franco.  Anything I can help you with?  Father's away.  I'm in charge.'
	Franco said he'd ring back later, at the weekend when the old man got back.  He hung up the phone.  He'd sort it out himself.  The young Mr Julian was only a kid.  Franco wasn't going to leave it to a kid.  This was man's work.
 *
Mama answered the door and smiled at him.  'Benjamin,' she said.  'He's waiting for you.'
	Ben would've hated Mama even if she called him Ben instead of Benjamin.  He returned her smile and followed her downstairs to Franco's study.  She ushered him inside and closed the door.  Franco was sitting in his leather chair, and as usual the room was in near darkness, lit only by a dimmed spotlight on Franco's table.  Ben tried to make out the expression on Franco's face, but all of his features were hidden in the gloom.  All that was available was a black silhouette, and the hissing sound of Franco's breath.
	Franco didn't speak.  He touched a key on a handset and a TV monitor came to life in a corner of the room.
	Ben turned towards it and watched pictures of himself and Gog and young Andrew.  He watched Gog chasing young Andrew and stomping him, and he watched Gog fold the kid up and throw him in the back of the car.  And then he watched the car drive away as the camera fixed itself on the custom number plate:  franc 0.
	The screen went black and Franco switched it off.  Ben didn't know what to say, but after a minute or so he thought he'd better say something.
	'That was us,' he tried.  'Me and Gog, when we was getting the kid.'
	Franco sighed.  'That was you being filmed when you picked up the kid,' he said.  'And you were doing it in my car.'
	'I can explain that,' Ben said.  'Mama wanted to use the other car.  She said we should take yours.'  He pointed at the now blank television screen.  'How come you've got pictures of it?  Was somebody following us?'
	Franco didn't have to say anything to make you feel bad.  He didn't sigh exactly, he expelled air through his tight lips, made a whistling sound, but not like music.  And you knew immediately, when you heard that sound, that you weren't worth shit.  That you were the lowest form of life.
	Then he explained it.  How the video tape had arrived.  He showed Ben the blackmail note asking for five grand.  And he said he wanted whoever was behind it stopped.
	'The most important thing,' he said, and he used that same whistling sound all the time, so you'd know you had to listen good, 'the most important thing is to find the original of the tape.  Once you've got that you can waste the guy who did it.  But I've got to have the tape.  Do you understand?'
 *
'Do you understand, Gog?'  Ben asked his brother.  'What we should've done was bury the kid on the moors, same as the others.'
	Gog raised his eyes to his brother and nodded his head.  Then he looked down again, shuffled his feet.
	'You couldn't help it,' Ben continued.  'It's no good blaming yourself.  Oh, sure, if you hadn't been sick we'd have gone up to the moors like usual.  But you were sick, so we couldn't make the trip.  Some people would've done it differently, maybe.  Like some people might've stashed the kid's body under the floorboards in the gym until you was feeling better.  Then we could've got it out from under the floorboards and took it up to the moors.  Now you think about it that would've been better than dumping it in the river.  But it's easy to say that after the fact, with fucking hindsight.  At the time you had the sweats and your head was splitting open and you couldn't see right so I thought the best thing was to dump the body and get you home to bed.  And you would've done the same for me if it was the other way round and it was me that got sick.  Except I don't, ever get sick, that is.'
	Gog put his hand on Ben's head, but Ben shook it off.  'Gog, I'm not looking for gratitude here.  What I'm trying to say is, Franco's pissed off because somebody got a photograph of his car and the kid being loaded into it.  But Franco still thinks the body is safely buried up on the moors.  So how much more pissed is he gonna be when he finds out the kid's body is floating about in the river?'
	Gog made a sound like an explosion.
	'Yeah,' said Ben.  'Precisely.  He's gonna hit the roof.  Except Franco doesn't hit the roof, he makes other people hit the roof.  And in this case it's you and me who're gonna have the dynamite stuffed into the orifices at the top of our legs, round the back there, you know what I mean, so we get a real good lift.'
	'Ugh, Gog,' said Gog.
	Ben shook his head.  'I don't know what we're gonna do,' he said.  'Either we sort it out somehow, or we think of a really good excuse when Franco catches up with the news.'

		chapter eight
SAM AND GEORDIE LEFT home shortly after nine-thirty.  The rain was still holding off, and St Helen's square was bright and busy.  The smell of coffee coming from Betty's got Sam by the throat and almost pulled him inside.  But he followed Geordie, who was carrying his dog, up the stairs to the office.
	The vet had said there was nothing he could do about Barney's nose.  It was badly damaged, and was going to be sensitive for a time.  Perhaps his sense of smell would be impaired, a major disadvantage for a dog.  If that happened Geordie might think of having him put to sleep?  Geordie shook his head, picked up his dog and walked out of the Vet's surgery.  Sam followed.  It wasn't the Vet's fault.  Sam was preoccupied with the image of his own wife and daughter, taken from him by a mad driver who didn't stop.  A hit-and-run driver.  Probably a drunk.
 	Celia met them as soon as they entered the office.  'Sorry, Sam,' she said.  'There's a lady to see you.'  She motioned behind her, to her own office.  'Mrs Bridge, she doesn't have an appointment, but I think you should see her.'
 	Sam made a face of resignation.  'Give me a couple of minutes,' he said, taking his coat off and hanging it on a peg behind the door.  Geordie got Barney into his basket and sat at the desk with Sam.  Celia brought Mrs Bridge over to them and sat her down in the clients' chair.
 	She was a small woman, black, with large doleful eyes.  Early thirties, Sam guessed.  She wore soft flat shoes, and her tights had gone into holes.  She had a round smiling face.  She wasn't smiling, but her face seemed to give that impression.  There was something else about her bearing which undermined the effect of the smile.  A great earnestness which travelled over the distance between her and Sam, and kept Sam from smiling himself, even superficially.
 	'You'll have to tell me what the problem is, Mrs Bridge.  I don't know if I can help until I've heard your story.'
 	'It's my boy, Mr Turner,' she said.  'Somebody's killed him.'  Her voice was surprising.  There was a high-pitched quality to it that Sam guessed was not usually there.  The woman was in a state of shock.  She continued.  'Andrew was thirteen last month.'  She looked over at Geordie momentarily, then back to Sam.  'He was supposed to have a friend over here, in York.  We live in Leeds, you see, in Chapeltown.  Some boy from school, but I think it was a lie.  Anyway, he was coming over here twice, three times a week at first.  Then he disappeared altogether.
 	'We went to the police in Leeds, but they didn't seem as if they wanted to help.  He was only a child, but still they didn't take it seriously.  After he'd been gone for six weeks, yesterday. . .'  She faltered, brought her right hand up to her hairline and rubbed it lightly.  'No, it was the day before yesterday, although it seems a long time ago.  Such a long time.  Tuesday.  I got a telephone call from him, four o'clock in the afternoon.  "Mother," he said.  Just like that, "Mother, come and get me."  He told me he was in Micklegate, just near the Bar, and he'd wait there for me.  He didn't have enough money for the phone, and we were cut off.
 	'I got a taxi and came straight over to York.  The driver knew where Micklegate was, and we went straight there.  He let me out at the Bar, and I stood there for an hour.  I walked round the area for another two hours after that.  But there was no sign of Andrew.  I went to the police in York, but they were even less helpful than Leeds.  They discriminate against the colour of our skin.  I'm sorry if you don't agree with that, Mr Turner, but it is the truth, nevertheless.  In the end I went back home on the train.'
 	Mrs Bridge stopped speaking.  She covered her face with her hands and hung her head for perhaps a minute.  Then she felt in the pocket of her coat and brought out a handkerchief to wipe the tears away from her face.
 	Geordie got up from the desk and walked quietly over to Celia's room.  He returned a moment later with Celia in tow.  Celia put her arms round the woman and offered to make her a cup of tea.  Mrs Bridge said she would love a cup of tea.  'You'll have to bear with me,' she said to them all.  'I've been up all night.  And I've seen the body of my boy.'  Then she hung her head again and let her arms dangle loosely by her sides.
 	Celia disappeared to make the tea, and after another minute or two Mrs Bridge had composed herself enough to continue with her story.
 	'A policeman came to the house last night,' she said.  'A policeman and a woman, and they told me they'd found a body in York and they thought it might be Andrew.  They brought me over to York and showed me my boy.'
 	'They'd found him in the river, in some kind of lock in the middle of the town.  What the water had done to him, I could hardly recognize him myself.  But it is him.
 	'I've been in the police station all night long.  Now they want to know everything about him.  If they'd wanted to know half of that before, maybe Andrew would still be alive.'
 	Sam leant forward on his desk and took advantage of the woman's pause.  'Were the police sure he was murdered?' he asked.  'Was there anything to indicate that?'
 	The woman looked at him silently for some time, before she said, 'Mr Turner, when they fished my boy out of the river he didn't have his penis.'
 *
'I'LL DO WHAT I can,' Sam told her.  'I can't promise anything.  The police are the ones best placed in a case like this.'
 	'I don't trust them,' she said.  'If they'd listened to me in the first place, Andrew would still be alive.'
 	'Still,' Sam said, 'they have the resources.'  He held eye contact with Mrs Bridge, and she showed him a brave face.  'What we can do is ask around.  Try to find out where he's been during the last weeks.  What he's been doing.  If we can get that far, there's at least a chance we'll discover what happened to him.  But don't hold your breath.  We might get nowhere.'
 	He walked down the stairs with her, to the door on to St Helen's square. The weather had stopped being bloody, and turned bloody vicious.  Sam opened the door and they stepped back while a torrent of rain poured into the building.
 	'You can wait a while if you like,' he said.  'Celia'll make another drink.'
 	She shook her head and reached for his hand.  'I'll wait to hear from you,' she said.  And she stepped out into the downpour.  Sam stood and watched for a moment until she turned the corner.
 	Then there was just the rain.  It was as if God was throwing builder's skips of water directly at the building.

		chapter nine
GOG HAD DONE GOOD.  After they'd blown away the CCTV operators they didn't have a lot of time.  Ben had gone to the address of the one called Geoff, and Gog had gone to the other one's house.  The one called Cal.
	A video tape, that's what they were looking for.
	Gog had gone in through the front door.  He could have gone in the back, through a window.  That would have meant breaking the window and then finding something to climb on - lots of messing around.  And Ben had said they didn't have much time.  The front door was a piece of piss, even rattled before he opened it.  Gog gave it two kicks with his good foot and it caved in.  There was another flat next door, but nobody came out of there to investigate.  So Gog had the whole building to himself.
	He didn't find any video tapes though.
	The guy had a television, but that box they have under the television, the thing with a slot for the video tapes - he didn't have one of those.  He had a stereo system, with tons of those old records, like Ben used to have, called albums, before they got CDs.  Gog used to like those album things.  Liked them better than CDs because you could look at the pictures on them without screwing your eyes up.  But Ben had never let him take the records out of the sleeves, in case he scratched them.  Whereas, when Ben'd got the CDs he let Gog do what he liked with them.  That was because Gog didn't want to do anything with the CDs, they were too small to be interesting.
	There was a load of girlie magazines.  The ones with double pages in the centre you could fold out and they had mucky women on.  Women you could do anything you liked with, like animals.  But Gog preferred animals.
	He spent some time with the magazines but never forgot what he was there for.  Remembered that he didn't have all the time in the world.
	Under the sink was a collection of plastic carriers.  Gog found the telephone on a sideboard, and spent some time going through the drawers in the sideboard looking for an address book, but couldn't find one.  He looked on the mantelpiece and even through some more drawers he found in the kitchen.  But the address book wasn't there.  It would have been easy to panic and break something, but Gog didn't do that.  He kept looking.
	When he found the address book he laughed out loud, because it was under the telephone.  Gog thought that was funny.  Because that's where he'd started, with the telephone.  He'd known all along that it would be somewhere near the telephone, that's why he'd found the telephone first, before starting to look for the address book.  But what he'd done, he hadn't looked closely enough at the telephone.  The guy had put the address book so close to the telephone that Gog had missed it.
	Gog put the address book in the plastic carrier and thought about it some more.  If he ever wanted to hide something he'd put it right next to where it should be.  That way it made it really hard to find it.
	Only thing was, with what Gog wanted to hide he couldn't think what to put it next to or under.  He patted his pocket, his handkerchief pocket.  Because that's where the kid's prick and balls were.  Wrapped up in Gog's hanky.  In Gog's pocket.  He'd looked for somewhere safer to put them at home, but couldn't think of anywhere that Ben wouldn't find them.  Perhaps he should put them under the telephone.  Or even better, he smiled to himself, he could get a screwdriver and open up the telephone when Ben wasn't at home, and then he could put the kid's prick and balls inside the telephone and screw it back up again.  That way nobody would find them ever.
	If the guy whose flat this was, who they'd just blown away, the one called Cal - if he'd put his address book inside the telephone with a screwdriver, Gog would never have found it.  Not in a hundred years.  Or even longer.  Except if he hadn't found it he might have got really mad and smashed the place up and thrown the telephone at the wall, and broken it, and then the address book would have fallen out, and he would have found it.  And that wouldn't have taken a hundred years.  Nothing like it.  So was it safe to put the kid's prick and balls inside the telephone?
	Yes, because Ben didn't even know about the kid's prick and balls being in existence.  And Ben never got mad and threw things around, except maybe in Chinese restaurants.  So he wouldn't be throwing his own telephone around, in his own house, what he paid for every month and complained about the bill.  He'd never do that.  'Cause if he did do that who'd have to find the readies to buy a new phone?  Ben would.  Ben would think about things like that.  At the end of the day he'd decide not to throw the phone at the wall.  It'd be crazy to do that.
	But what if, when he picked the phone up to throw it at the wall, before he got round to deciding not to throw the phone at the wall - what if when he pulled the phone back to throw it, he heard the kid's prick and balls rattling around inside?  Then he'd get a screwdriver out and open up the phone and the kid's prick and balls'd fall out, and he'd've found them.
	So how d'you stop that happening?  Easy-fucking-peasy.  You get a piece of blu-tack and you stick the kid's prick and balls to the bottom of the inside of the phone with it.  That way when Ben picks the phone up to throw it he doesn't get a rattle, and the thought of getting a screwdriver never enters his head.  Brilliant.  And in any case Ben hardly ever used the phone these days, since he'd got the mobile.
	Bloody brilliant.  People would look at Gog when he walked down the street, and they would never know how brilliant he was.  They'd probably think he was just a body builder.  All brawn and no brain.  That was because they couldn't see all this stuff going on inside his brain box.
 *
GOG DID IT AGAIN and felt the warm spunk spill on to his belly and roll down his thighs on to the sheets.  Ben still wasn't back from his search of the other guy's house.  The one called Geoff.  Gog didn't move.  He was lying in an ocean of semen, in his own bed.  He had done good.  He hadn't found the video tape, but he'd done everything else good.
	He hadn't been seen breaking into the flat, he hadn't been seen leaving it.  He'd found the guy's address book and brought it home with him.  He'd had a brain wave about where to hide the kid's prick and balls, and he'd come home and found a screwdriver and some blu-tack and done the business.
	And those weren't even the best things that he'd done today.
	He'd done some wanking.  But he could do that any day.
	No, the best thing he'd done was with Ben when they'd blown those two tossers away.  Gog just loved it the way they got that look on their faces, between when you fingered the trigger and they actually died.  Like their eyes and their eyebrows and their mouths and their whole faces turned into a question mark.  And the question was always the same, what Ben called Gogspeak.  Like they'd be saying, Uh, uhn, agh, fuck, God, oh no.  Something like that.  Gogspeak, 'cause that's the way it sounded when Gog spoke.  It didn't sound like that to Gog, but it sounded like that to other people, and that's what freaked them out.  Freaked them out more than the size of him, all his muscles.
	Gogspeak.  It was a new word.  Ben had invented it.  And it was a word like Christian or Freudian, 'cause it had the guy's name in it, and there was another one called after the guy who'd invented electricity.  Gog couldn't remember what he was called.  And there was loads of drugs that had the names of the guys who'd invented them.  Like steroids was probably invented by a guy called Stero.  Must've been foreign.
	So, anyway, Gogspeak probably meant that Gog would be famous one day.  Once the word got around a bit, and then someone would come along and put it in the dictionary.
	They'd gone in as Robert De Niro and Joe Pesci.  Ben had been De Niro, as usual, and Gog had been Pesci.  Neither De Niro nor Pesci were really developed enough.  They weren't real monsters, they were little guys.  But they were true gangstas.
	There had been a time when Gog had real trouble with being Pesci.  Right up until the time Pesci was in the video where he smashed people up with the telephone.  That made Gog laugh.  That look Pesci got in his eyes when he was mad at somebody, and then he'd have the phone in his hand and he'd just lay into the guy, slap him across the head with it.  Then when the guy was down he'd kick him, carry on kicking until the guy was asleep.  Brilliant.  Ben had bought the video in the end, so Gog could watch it and have a good laugh when Pesci got started on people.
	Anyway, they'd gone into the control room and knocked the two guys around.  Ben made them both kneel on the floor and put their hands behind their heads.  The one called Cal had shit his pants, and Ben had said that would be the last time he ever shit in his pants if he didn't hand over the video tape.
	The guy had stuttered and started crying, so Ben shot him in the head.
	The other one, the one called Geoff, caught some of Cal's blood as it came out of his head.  Most of it went on the wall, but a slick of it laid itself along the side of Geoff's face, and some of it went on the collar of his shirt.  So then he started gagging, and ended up being sick on the floor, and Ben said if he did that any more  he'd rub the guy's nose in it.
	'Gimme the tape,' Ben said.
	The guy looked up at him.  He looked over at Gog, and he had a kind of pleading look on his face, like he didn't believe this was real.  'I don't have it,' he said.
	'If I ask you again,' Ben said, 'I'll fucking kill you.'  He sounded like De Niro.  He could do the voice really good.  The whole thing was like being on a video.  Like they were the mob.  Made guys.  From the five families.
	'It's not here,' Geoff said.  'Cal took it home with him.  Must be in his flat.'
	Ben did a De Niro nod over to Gog.  Geoff didn't even see it happen.  So Gog took a step forward and grabbed Geoff by the hair, yanking his head back.  Then he stuck the barrel of the gun in Geoff's mouth, broke some of the front teeth getting it in.  Shoved it in as far as it would go.
	Ben came close to the guy's face and said, 'You sure you don't wanna change your statement, sir?'
	Geoff said something.  And when he said it Ben and Gog looked at each other, and both of them laughed, because it was pure Gogspeak.  They didn't say anything else.  Gog shot the guy dead.  His ass was grass.
	They had a quick look round the control room, made sure the tape wasn't there.  But they knew that Cal and Geoff wouldn't have told them any lies.  Then they split, and Ben went over to Geoff's place to do a search, while Gog did the search at Cal's flat.
	And that was the best thing Gog had done today, but there was still something else he'd done that was nearly as good.  And even Ben didn't know about that yet.  But he would as soon as he got home.
 *
SHOULDN'T HAVE MOVED.  Once you moved the warm wet sheets turned to cold wet sheets.  Then you had to get out of bed and go in the shower.  After that you had to take the sheets off the bed and take them to the washing bag and put them in there.  Then you had to get clean sheets from the cupboard and make the bed up like you hadn't been in there.  But you had to do all that anyway, before Ben got home.
	In the shower Gog looked at his prick.  It was definitely getting smaller.  If it carried on getting smaller he'd tell Ben about it.  And Ben would arrange for Doc Squires to have a look at it, give Gog something to make it grow big again.
	The kid's prick and balls were getting smaller as well.  Gog had noticed it when he blu-tacked them inside the telephone.  Not that they had ever been big.  But they were definitely shrivelling up quickly.  Why he'd taken them was because he didn't want to waste them.  They were testicles, and anabolic steroids were made out of testicles.  Ben had explained all that to him one night.  How in history they'd taken testicles from prisoners and injected them into other prisoners.  And that's why the steroids made your muscles grow.
	When Gog cut the prick and balls off the dead kid, he'd thought that somehow he'd be able to inject them into himself.  But he hadn't thought about how you would inject a prick and balls into yourself.  There must be some way you chopped them up and turned them into liquid.  Also you had to get them into a syringe, and it had to be so fine th