'I'm the sugarplum fucking fairy. Now answer my question.'
Ashley Bradley shook his head nervously. 'I have no idea what you're talking about.'
'You don't know who I am?'
Bradley shrugged.
'I'm Jack Delaney. Detective Inspector Delaney. That make matters clearer for you?'
'You've come to let me out?'
Delaney barked a short, humourless laugh. 'Now why in the name of all that's fucking holy would you think that?'
'Because I haven't done anything wrong.'
'We caught you filming up the skirt of some woman with no knickers on, you twink.'
Bradley sat up, more animated now. 'Are you saying she wasn't wearing anything?'
Delaney sighed. 'You want to stick with the programme here, son.'
'I want that tape back. That's my property. It's legal to film people in public places, I looked it up on the Internet.'
Delaney glared at him, his voice ratcheting up a few decibels. 'Up her fucking skirt isn't considered a public place, you sick dipstick.'
He crossed over to Ashley who flinched back against the wall. 'What the hell is the mirror and the buckle about?'
Bradley shook his head. 'I don't know what you're talking about.'
Delaney looked in his eyes. Could see the fear and the confusion, but couldn't see any guile. In truth, he hadn't expected to. He turned back to the door and rapped on it for the custody sergeant to let him out.
'Wait a minute.'
Delaney could hear the desperation in his voice and turned back half hopeful. 'Yes?'
'About that tape . . .'
'What about it?'
'If you could get it back for me, I'd make it worth your while.'
Delaney slammed the door on him.
The curly-haired man was sitting at his usual table in the White Horse again. Nursing a pint of Guinness. He took a sip and spilled some as he put the glass back down on the table, his hand was shaking so much with anger. The barman picked up the remote control and changed the channel from Sky News to Sky Sports.
He took another sip of his pint. The Irish beer was far too bitter for his taste but he drank it anyway. That clown Delaney had just made a big mistake. He was helping the guy after all. And, all right, he might have teased him a little with a practical joke. But he'd been helping him. Leaving him clues. Getting that retrousse-nosed reporter to put her candy-coloured lips to good use. Delaney should have been orgasming by now. He should have been coming in his fucking detective trousers for the help he was giving to him and his career. Instead he was dicking about on national television. Deformed genitalia! He'd give him deformed genitalia. He looked at the woman who was standing at the bar sipping on a bottle of Gold Label. Her thin shoulder showed bone, but her arms had muscle on them, like a female javelin thrower, with just as strong a grip. In her thirties with ancient eyes and buttocks that had been kissed by more bricks than a stonemason's trowel, he reckoned. He watched as she took another gulp of her Gold Label. Strong barley wine, proof against the elements. Probably proof against any leakage in her mouth from a poorly fitting condom too, he thought. Gold Label, it was like Domestos, killed ninety-nine point nine per cent of all germs dead.
