circa 1994. Still in circulation.’ She opened a drawer, took out a jeweller’s glass and squinted through the magnifying lens at the note. ‘Real money, you’ve got about eighty, eighty-five different inks, all printed one after another. These are CMYK. Resolution’s amazing though…’
Logan picked one of the notes out of the bundle. ‘Looks OK to me.’
She straightened up. ‘Paper’s too white. They don’t make the original stock any more, and it wasn’t available for public sale anyway. Whoever’s making them’s faked up the watermark pretty well, but the trouble is making them look old enough. So they stick them in a cold tumble drier with a bunch of tea towels, or socks, or something, and squirt in some stewed tea every now and then. Softens them up and makes them all sepia. Good enough to fool the punters.’
She delved into the bag and took out another bundle. ‘They’re doing fives now too! How cool is that?’
Logan smiled, pulled up the bill of her baseball cap, and kissed her on the forehead. ‘If I’d known counterfeit cash got you this excited, I’d have brought some home ages ago.’
She pushed him away, smiling. ‘Cheeky. Give me a couple minutes to finish up.’ Samantha pointed at the nine iron. ‘DS Taylor got herself a murder. Wife paid a couple of blokes to teach her cheating husband a lesson with his own golf clubs. They kinda got carried away…’
‘Lucky old Doreen.’
‘You know, maybe we should skip the restaurant — grab a curry, go home, and climb into a nice hot bath. Get all soapy…’ She stepped in close, chest-to-chest, and kissed him, running her hands through his hair.
Logan flinched back — hot shards stabbing out across the back of his head. ‘Ow!’
‘Not still sore, is it?’ She grabbed him, turned him around, then Logan could feel her fingers working their way across his scalp. ‘What the hell did you do to yourself? Got
‘Like I said: it’s been a bad day.’ He forced a smile. ‘Now tell me again about getting all soapy.’
26
‘C’mon, Sparks, just a wee one, eh?’ She flutters her eyelashes, big thick black things like mouldy caterpillars. ‘Please?’
Sparks turns his back, gives her the hard shoulder…or is that only on motorways? Fucked if he knows. Shouldn’t be parking on the hard shoulder: no, no, no. Dangerous. Saw this bloke on that CCTV camera show getting his piece of shit Mondeo squashed by an eighteen-wheeler. Fuck kind of car is called ‘Mondeo’ anyway? What: some marketing cunt couldn’t come up with a better name than-
‘Sparks? Come on, it’s fuckin’ freezin’ out here.’
Big Eleanor’s right for a change — it
She sidles up, gives him a smile with that bullet-hole mouth of hers. ‘Give us a cuddle…’
She snakes her arms around him, big chunky things, like a fucking anaconda. ‘Ooh, you’re all warm.’ She lays a padded cheek against his neck, a cold pillow of flesh, nuzzling in deeper.
Sparks is always warm, got one of them internal thermostat things, like central heating, always up full crank. Roasty toasty, fever fun.
‘Come on, Sparks, just a wee wrapper, yeah? Do you a favour for it?’ Big Eleanor’s hand drifts down his back and into his trousers. She wraps her cold fingers round one bony arse cheek and squeezes. Runs a wet tongue up his throat, scritching through the stubble.
Sparks wriggles free. ‘Fucksake, leave us alone, you horny fat cow.’
She steps back, bottom lip out, wobbling in the piss-yellow light like an epileptic slug. Big Eleanor sniffs. ‘Don’t be like that, Sparks, I’m only wantin’ a wee-’
‘No.’
She sticks her hand down the front of his trousers, rummaging about till she’s got hold of his cock. Squeezes. Steps in close again. ‘Just one wrap, couple of rocks, just to keep the cold-’
‘WILL YOU FUCK OFF?’ He shoves and she stumbles back, goes sprawling. Lies there with her wee black skirt up round her thighs, spotty, shaved minge on show.
Sparks wipes a string of spit off his chin. ‘Doing business here.’
Big Eleanor gets to her feet, pulls her skirt back into place, stamps her strappy high-heel down on the pavement and gives him the finger. ‘WANKER!’ She storms off, slipping and sliding on the snowy pavement.
Silly cow.
Like he’s going to do her a freebie? Fat chance.
And he’s no’ a wanker. No’ got time for wanking, got a beautiful girlfriend to keep him company.
He licks his lips.
She’s whispering from his jacket pocket. Telling him she wants it. Love him
He shifts in his little spotlight. Looks up and down the street. Clears his throat.
Never touch the merchandise: never. No’ like Shaky Jake, silly cunt. Lot of good it does you when you’re on your back in intensive care with fucking gravel for ankle bones. Mr Mowat’s people don’t like sales staff with sticky fingers.
Sparks checks his watch: eight fifty-three and fourteen seconds. Fifteen seconds. Sixteen seconds. Looks up, makes sure he’s standing right under the streetlight, gotta be keen to be seen. Eighteen. Nineteen. Time is money, yeah, but money’s no’ time, is it: otherwise all them rich cunts would buy more of it and never have to die.
Fucking profound that is.
Sparks twitches, jitters, keeping time to the beat no one else can hear. OK, so he likes a wee smoke every now and then, the odd pipe, a wee syringe or two, but who doesn’t? No’ his fault, is it? Nah, Mum was an alky, wasn’t she? And Dad was a junkie. That’s genetics. Gee-net-tick. Tock. Ticktock. Tick-tock.
Stand still you daft bastard and
Force the twitches to stop. Stand dead-still under the streetlight.
A car goes past. A seagull screeches.
More silence.
Fucking cold when you’re standing still.
The car does a three-pointer at the end of the road, then heads back towards him. Big black fucker. Headlights for eyes. Staring. Making all them snowflakes shine.
Sparks’s knee twitches.
The big car stops by the kerb right in front of him and the window slides down. Woman looks out: blonde, no’ bad looking. If Sparks wasn’t spoken for, he’d probably do her, you know? But his girlfriend’s a jealous bitch…
Blondie says, ‘Looking for someone.’ Sounds posh, doesn’t she: like something off the telly. English. Nothing wrong with that, long as she’s got the cash.
‘Yeah? Who?’ Sparks tells his knee to stand the fuck still, but it’s off on its own, taking no prisoners.
‘Charlie about?’
‘Might be. Who’s asking?’
She reaches into her jacket pocket and pulls out a couple of notes. Holds them up and peers at them. ‘Charles Darwin and…Sir Edward Elgar.’
Sparks curls his top lip. ‘Fuck’s that supposed to mean?’
‘Thirty quid.’
Nod. Yeah, that’s more like it. He does a quick calculation in his head, totting up the number of wrappers and the change from thirty. Always shite at arithmetic at school, you know? Much better now, yeah, like Carol Fucking Vorderman with the old arithmetic, fractions, and shite like that. Teachers want to make kids better at maths? Learn them how to do a decent drug deal: Wee Jonnie has a sixth of an ounce, and Sarah wants an eighth — how stoned will she be, and how much change does she get from twenty and a handjob?
Blondie’s looking at him like he’s supposed to know the answer to some fucking question he wasn’t even listing to.
