Crime

see me as a person?

The kid got it. The kid fucking knew. For the first time Lennox senses that deep down inside, she has the stuff. Maybe he’s just seeing what he wants to see. — Aye, of course I do, he smiles, patting her lightly on the back, and quickly withdrawing his hand as if it’s touched hot coals. How many grooming nonces start that way, with normal human contact, before shifting gear?

The mall is bland and sterile from the outside but, as its automatic doors swish open, its air-conditioned superiority to almost any equivalent in the UK is evident. The grime of Salford Shopping Centre, near where Stacey Earnshaw went missing, was a million miles from this brightly coloured mall of pastel oranges, lemons and salmon pinks. There was a record store, across from a rack of phones. Lennox gives Tianna two twenty-dollar bills. — I’ve got a call to make. You go over to that record store and get us some sounds for the drive.

— Awesome, Tianna says again, takes the bills and skips across the mall.

Lennox gets a hold of a phone book from the attendant at the information desk. There are numerous entries for the local offices of the police department under the City of Miami. He is going to see if he can get a reaction from Dearing, the cop who seems to be calling all the shots. He looks first at Allapattah 1888 NW 21st. No. He is so tired now, feeling the jet lag, the coke withdrawal. He wants his antidepressants as waves of panic hit him in irregular pulses. They have to be faced down, but sting his psyche like a bad curry would his gullet. He worries about driving in this condition with the kid. The receptionist tells him that no Lance Dearing works here. So he tries West Little Havana just because Flagler Steet, where the office is listed, sounds familiar. A female, Hispanic voice comes on the phone. — You try North Leel Havana. You find Lance there, she cheerfully informs him. He sees the entry and the address for North Little Havana. Starry’s right about Robyn and her Riverside pretensions. He calls the number and asks for Lance.

— Officer Lance Dearing, North Lil’ Havana Station. How can I help you?

Dearing’s voice creeps him out. But Lennox draws power from his revulsion, and braces himself. It’s time to turn up the heat. — You can pray for somebody to help you, Dearing. That’s all you can fuckin well do at this stage.

— Who the hell is…?

Lennox hears the realisation seep down the phone line. He’s comforted by the fact that Dearing is just a police officer, not a sergeant. An expendable uniformed spastic. But he might be getting his arse covered by some dirty nonce further up the line. Lennox recalls the swaggering typeface of Maroon Mayhem, and his threatening remarks to other posters on Kickback. Although he was obviously a retard who lived with his mother, Lennox finds himself aping his style. — I know you now, prick-face. I know who you are, where you live and where you work. Most importantly, I know exactly what you’re up to and who you’re up to it with. I’m going to take you right down, sunshine.

If Lance Dearing is fazed, his concealment skills are consummate. — Our Skarrish friend. Listen to me, Ray: you are in serious trouble. Let me tell you this: if you do not return that girl to the custody of her mother, a long- standing personal friend of mine, I’m going to issue an APB on you, charging you with the kidnap of a Florida minor. You do not want that, Raymond: trust me on this.

Nice, Lennox thinks. Professional tones. Letting me know the gravity of the situation, but at the same time the use of the Christian name to indicate friendship and acceptance. Attempting to isolate you while simultaneously presenting himself as your only ally. — I take it that means you’ll issue my description to all squad cars, he says. Dearing might not be bluffing.

— That is exactly what I’ll do. I’ve only refrained from taking this action so far as it would jus get Robyn and Tianna into more trouble with social services. Also, and I may be a damn fool, I believe that you got their best interests at heart. But let me tell you one thing, Ray: you are misguided and you will bring big trouble on yourself, and Robyn and that child, should you continue to keep her from her home.

— Home? A place full of fucking paedophiles, he hears himself say, — that’s no home for a kid!

It strikes Lennox that every atom of his body is pulsing with the same sense: that he’s stumbled on to something bigger than a drunken pervert and some coked-up, low-life mother who’d left her kid again. He just doesn’t know what, nor can he elucidate Dearing’s role.

— I think you got it all wrong, Ray. You are way, way out of line.

He has to think, to find out from the kid. And this Chet guy. — I’ll call you back in a while. It can either be here or on your cell. You decide.

— Where are you, Ray? Lance Dearing calmly asks.

Lennox has had enough of telephone interrogations. — Give me your cellphone number. Now. Or I hang up.

After a pause, Lance Dearing seems a little cagier when he speaks again. — Okay, Ray, but jus you take good care of that lil’ girl, y’all hear? Then he deliberately enunciates the number and Lennox scribbles it down in Trudi’s notepad, feeling the flush of his small victory.

— Do the right thing, Ray, Dearing says, — by that lil’ girl, and her momma.

He’s too quick to cede control. Is he bluffing, or holding all the aces? Lennox can’t trust himself to judge.

Then, in savage flashback, his brain sears with an image of Johnnie on top of Tianna, trying to rape her. Guess I jus like the taste of young pussy. Lance’s easy, unperturbed carriage: We all been round the block enough times to know to take our pleasures where we can get em. No questions asked.

— You haul that child across the state line and you are in big trouble –… Lance begins.

— Shut yir fuckin hole, cunty baws, Lennox sneers. — And the trouble will be all yours, that I guarantee, and he slams the phone down. Sees Tianna eagerly making her way towards him. Tries to stop shaking.

— They ain’t got much of a choice. It’s a pretty crummy mall, but I got some good stuff, and she pulls a plastic bag from her sheep’s head backpack.

— Humph. Lennox looks through the CDs. It was going to be a long ride. He shifts his gaze to Tianna. — Let’s get you something to wear. Cover up some skin.

— I guess.

It’s Monday morning and many of the shops are shut, including the Macy’s, which, as a notice informs them, has closed for inventory purposes. — Sears is open, Lennox says, pointing at the big store.

Tianna’s features pinch. — Even Momma’s grandma wouldn’t go in there. It’s true; inside everybody is old. If my ma was American, this is where she’d shop, Lennox mulls. In trying to dress Tianna appropriately, he feels as if he’s been transformed from pimp into fussy old maiden aunt. But she’s just a kid, she cannae be allowed to dress like a tart.

Lennox buys some loose-fitting clothes for her, replaces his lost Red Sox baseball cap and picks up a new pair of shades. Then Tianna heads for the mall restroom, emerging in jeans and a T-shirt. It’s better, but he begs her to wash the make-up from her face and she reluctantly heads back in to comply.

— That’s great, Lennox says, encouraged by the result on her return. She looks like a ten-year-old.

— I look like a geek, she says, but it’s a token protest.

They go to the ice-cream parlour and order. Lennox gets the best shake in Florida, chocolate. Tianna has a strawberry-ice-cream float. He looks at her again, both delighting in the crackle as the bubbled remnants of the dessert rattle up her straw. She’s just a kid. Why is he with her?

I’m a cop.

I’m not a good cop. I’ve gone as far as I can go.

No. Not true.

He’d gone as far as he needed to go. Far enough to hunt the bad fuckers, and lead the investigation from the front. Another promotion and he’d be a Toal: deskbound. His grim lot was that he was drawn to the dark side of policework – anything else would be a waste of his time – but he let it get to him. To do that sort of job, sleep soundly and get up and repeat the process the next day, you had to be like Dougie Gillman. Gillman would never get promotion. He would go before any board of suits and cough back monosyllabic answers to their bullshit questions and quietly judge them. They would feel his contemptuous wrath and scorn. Wouldn’t be able to meet those loathsome gelid eyes. Because Gillman spoke a truth – a particularly dark and brutal truth, but one that still had the power to shame and damn the liars around him.

And like Robbo before he cracked, Gillman was a good cop. The fear he inspired made you happy he was