frustrations out on delinquent teenagers.
Contract soldiering, perhaps. Working for the highest bidder. Fucking up the lives of third-world citizens on behalf of multinationals like Shell or Monsanto?
All in all, he thought, he'd rather go back to Clacton and take the garage off his dad's hands. But then he couldn't quite see Sophie hunched up against the sea wind eating haddock and chips from the bag, or chucking a rubber bone for the dog, or watching Eas tEnders
Sophie. He should give her a bell.
'You're a quiet one, aren't you,' said Gail.
'You haven't said a word in ten minutes.'
'Sorry,' he said.
'I was thinking.'
'What about?'
'The future, I suppose.
'Well, we could start off with another drink.' She glanced at her two friends, who were subtly but definitely paired off with Andy and Lance.
'Same again?' he asked her.
'Pernod and black?'
'Yeah. I'll come with you.'
On their unsteady way to the bar, he found his arm encircling her waist and her body moving into alignment with his. He felt her hip-joint articulating beneath his hand, the soft weight of her breast against his side.
'You're an officer, your mate said.'
'Er, yeah.'
'You don't sound like an officer.'
He grinned.
'What do I sound like?'
She frowned and pouted up her lips.
'Oh... I don't know. Like the others, I s'pose.'
'Well, that's what I am like.'
'You're not, though. They're, like, dead lad dish and up for a laugh, and you're not like that at all. You just pretend to be.' She narrowed her eyes, leant against him and lowered her voice.
'I bet you're a right hard bastard. Have you got a girlfriend? Don't answer that of course you have. Just don't tell me about her.'
'As long as you don't tell me about your boyfriend.'
'I haven't got a boyfriend.' The crowd propelled them forward against the bar.
'I've got a bloody husband, worse luck.'
Alex turned to stare at her but at that moment the barman materialised in front of them, eyebrow raised. Alex ordered himself a sixth pint and ajameson's whiskey chaser, and Gail her fifth Pernod and black currant
'Married?' he asked flatly.
'He's away. With someone else.' She glanced up at him.
'Don't ask, just be nice to me.
She was pretty, he thought. Pretty eyes. And a mouth and body to chase the ghosts away. He slipped his hand under the bottom of her sweater, felt the taut waistband of her jeans and the warm flesh above.
The drinks arrived and they backed away from the bar.
'Where d'you live?' he asked her.
'I don't want to go there,' she said. She touched his cheek with the back of her fingers.
'What about you?'
'Walking distance.'
In the flat he bolted the door and closed the curtains as she walked slowly around, touching things.
'There's dust everywhere.' She smiled.
'I've been away. Coffee? And I've got some Bushmills somewhere?'
'Sounds good.'
In the kitchen area the strip light was on the flicker. Alex was kissing her against the wall and she was running her hands up his back when the kettle boiled.
In the bedroom there was a jumble of mostly green kit against the wall waterproofs, thermals, medical packs, a water purifier, sleeping bags and stuff sacks into which, earlier that day, Alex had tossed the shoulder- holstered Glock pistol and accessories he'd signed out of the armoury at Credenhill.
If Gail noticed this, she made no comment, just lowered her drink and kicked off her shoes.
'Music?'
In answer Alex directed her to the miniature sound system and pile of CDs that sat, as dusty as everything else, on a shelf.
'This is the strangest collection I've ever seen,' she said wonderingly.
'Miles Davis, Britney Spears, Johann Sebastian Bach, the Teletubbies, Bridget Jones's Diary.
'It belonged to a guy who got killed last year,' said Alex.
'I think there were some Christmas presents for his family among it.
She shook her head.
'The lives you people lead.' She switched the system on and selected the Britney Spears CD.
On the bed, or rather on the double mattress that served Alex as a bed, they undressed each other. She was wearing a tight lilac sweater which she pulled away from her face as he took it off so as not to smear her make-up. Beneath it, she amply filled a black lace bra. Smiling, she allowed him to search behind her back for a moment before pointing to the rosebud clasp at the front. He undid it and lowered his head. Her fingers knotted in his hair.
Finally they were both naked. She was pale-skinned and soft as ice cream, and there was a dreamy-eyed passivity about her which he found a vast relief after Sophie. She was his all of her, unconditionally and for as long as he wanted.
Breathing in her muskily synthetic aura part pub, part Boots perfume counter he ran his hands over the impossible softness of her breasts. When he reached the inside of her thighs she gasped and drew her knees apart.
She tasted, in some curious way, of Alex's memories of his childhood, of sweat and closeness and sea spray, of the time before he had killed anyone. She moved like the sea too -slowly and from somewhere deep within herself After a time he moved back up her body, manoeuvred himself inside her and forgot about Sophie altogether.
SIXTEEN.
She left early, while he pretended to be asleep. He woke for a second time to find a note on the pillow and a daytime telephone number a work number, he guessed.
Why had she left? Not wanting to spoil things with the awkwardness of a morning after? He smiled in many ways theirs had been the perfect relationship.
He shook his head and immediately wished he hadn't. It felt as if there was a cannon ball rolling around in it. The inside of his mouth was parched and sour, his stomach felt uneasy and he had a morbid thirst. Not for the first time he reflected that it wasn't the drinks that made you pissed that fucked you up, it was the completely unnecessary ones that you drank when you were already pissed. It was those Scotches that you ended up with just because it felt right, somehow, to wind the evening up with a glass of spirits in your hand.
The thought of whisky made his gorge rise, and he staggered to the bathroom and the cold tap. On the way he trod heavily on his old Casio Neptune watch it had survived worse and arrived at the sink just in time to throw up. Don Hammond, an enthusiastic drinker who had always tried to persuade Alex to put in more pub hours, would have been proud of him.
It wasn't until he had showered and dressed that he remembered the Glock. It was still there, thank God, as were all the heavy little boxes of 9mm ammunition.
