stood on the bridge by the station awaiting their train. ‘We comes here on the Friday night to meet a stiff what nobody don’t know about and by Tuesday tea-time we got the two geezers what done it, busted up a lot of bolshies and run in a sample of ponces and Teddiesall in a long weekend, you might say.’
Gently passed him a peppermint cream and took one himself. ‘We certainly haven’t been too heavy on the ratepayers.’
‘And me, I was just getting attached to the place, sir. I reckon it beats Sahthend hollow for some things… there’s a bloke off Nelson Street as does a plaice-and-chips that knocks you backwards.’
Gently smiled at a distant tug with an orange funnel. ‘Talking of plaice, there’s some first-rate fishing goes on off the Albion Pier.’
‘And them digs of ours, sir, they wasn’t half bad neither. I reckon I could stand a week down here with the missus next Bank Holiday…’
A train-whistle sounded close at hand. Gently consulted the watch on his clumsy wrist. Beneath them an empty motor-barge came chugging past, its skipper lounging lazily by his wheel.
‘But things change, Dutt… it doesn’t take long to alter them. Do you know what struck me most while we were on this job?’
‘No, sir. It ain’t been like our other jobs, really.’
Gently took careful aim with his screwed-up peppermint cream bag and dropped it neatly on the barge- skipper’s peaked cap.
‘Well, Dutt, it was the donkeys.’
‘The donkeys, sir?’ queried Dutt.
Gently nodded and raised his hand in salute to the barge-skipper. ‘They’ve done away with them, Dutt. There isn’t one on the beach. If you’d known Starmouth when I knew Starmouth it would make you feel older… but something like that goes on all the time, doesn’t it?’
