and the Muzak resumed.
Jack hurried along the aisle-ends, and then darted up aisle four, watching everywhere for movement. The few shoppers he passed cowered back behind their trolleys or simply stared at him in fascination.
‘Hi,’ he whispered to several of them.
The aisles had mid-length breaks. Jack sidled up to the aisle four break, his back against the shelves (cleaning fluids, bleach, disinfectant), and peered around the corner at the aisle five displays.
No one in sight.
He stepped around into aisle five, feeling the cold aura of the chest freezers. There was no one in the aisle except a huge black woman standing beside her trolley as if she’d been told to make like a statue. Her eyes were wide.
No sign of the guy. Jack hadn’t expected to see him. Everyone in the shop had heard the floor manager rat out his position over the Tannoy.
Jack took a step forwards and leant on the nearest freezer compartment (pizzas, stone-ground, deep pan and thin-n-crispy, budget, double-topping) and bent down to peer under the eye-level ice-boxes at the bank of freezers that backed on to the aisle five units to form aisle six. Nothing.
He stood up again. He looked at the big black woman, and raised his eyebrows quizzically.
Remaining otherwise immobile, her eyes still wide, the big black woman extended her index finger and jabbed it repeatedly in the direction of aisle six.
She winked.
Jack beamed and mouthed a ‘thank you’.
As quietly as he could, Jack climbed into the freezer full of pizzas. He gently rolled himself under the eye-level display and over into the adjacent aisle six freezer (chill-fresh prawns, seafood medley, haddock portions, individual boil-in-the-bag cod in parsley sauce, fish fingers). Frosty packaging crackled softly under his weight. The big black woman’s eyes grew even wider.
Flat on his back in the freezer compartment, Jack braced, counted silently to three, and lurched upright.
The man in the suit was crouching down below the freezer’s fascia. He started up at Jack’s surprise appearance.
‘Hi there,’ said Jack.
Dean Simms reached into his briefcase.
Jack pounced on him.
They went down together in a bundle of limbs. Dean’s briefcase fell out of his grasp and slapped onto the lino. Magazine inserts and a rather nice pen spilled out of it, along with a small, greasy beige lump that looked like a not-so-vital internal organ, the sort of thing that was hard to recognise in a quiz once you’d discounted liver, kidneys and spleen.
It flopped onto the hard floor and pulsed gently.
Struggling under Jack’s weight, Dean yelled something. Securing Dean’s arms, Jack gave him a slap that cowed him. Jack hoisted him up by the tie and leant him against the nearest freezer (summer puddings, freezer- to-oven apple pies, sorbets).
‘OK, you’re done,’ Jack told him. ‘Behave yourself.’ He glanced down at the pulsing lump.
‘Eeuww,’ he said. ‘You cough that up?’
Dean said nothing. His eyes blazed.
‘Listen to me,’ Jack began, ‘here’s what’s going to happen. We-’
His phone began to ring.
Jack looked away for a second. All his life, Dean had listened to his old man’s advice, keen to learn from him. Retail wasn’t the only thing his dad had known about. Dean’s old man had been an amateur welter-weight. Tough old bird, his dad.
Dean threw the jab, just the way his old man had taught him.
Distracted by his phone, Jack caught the fist square on the jaw. He reeled away, flailing, and hit the wall- freezers opposite (Ben and Jerry’s, soft scoop vanilla, Cornish dairy cream, triple fudge sundaes). The glass door cracked with his impact.
Jack tried to right himself, his hand to his mouth. ‘Jesus!’ he exclaimed.
Dean had picked up the beige lump. He aimed it at Jack and squeezed it.
Jack blinked. He took a step back. He got a sudden, strong smell of bourbon and willow.
‘I…’ he said. He glanced around. He leant back against the cracked glass door and shook his head.
Dean started running, the lump in his hands. He headed for the checkout. Shoppers screamed as they saw him coming. Dean pushed through them, trying to work his way out via one of the narrow checkout lanes. A potbellied man was blocking his exit with a trolley heavy with crates of beer. A bulk purchase.
‘Out of my way!’ Dean yelled. He halted.
James was standing on the far side of the checkout, facing him. James said nothing. He stared at Dean, right in the eyes. The meaning was clear.
Dean roared and drove the crate-laden trolley at James. With the bulk purchases on board, the thing weighed fifty kilos.
Dean rammed it into James’s legs.
‘Bastard!’ James yelped. He grabbed the wire cage of the ramming trolley, and threw it sideways. It flew the entire length of the shop front and crashed down on its side near the exit, castors spinning.
James turned, deftly ducking the punch Dean threw at him, and landed a punch of his own.
Dean hurtled backwards onto the checkout, breaking the code reader. He flopped unconscious. The checkout display flashed ‘UNKNOWN BAR CODE’.
The shoppers and the checkout girls gave James a spontaneous round of applause. James stepped forward, and looked at the beige lump sliding towards him on the packing conveyer.
He pulled one of the crumpled serviettes out of his pocket and gathered the thing up. It was unpleasantly warm.
Gwen appeared behind him. ‘Hello,’ she said. ‘Having fun?’
‘Loads,’ James replied.
‘How did that happen?’ she asked, pointing.
At the far end of the shop front, a broken trolley full of slumping beer crates was making the automatic exit open and close and open and close.
‘No idea,’ said James.
Jack’s phone rang again. He straightened himself up on the edge of the nearest chest freezer.
‘You all right, honey?’ the big black woman cooed at him, peering under the eye-levels.
‘Yeah, I’m fine. Thanks,’ Jack replied. Who the hell was she?
He opened his phone.
‘This is Jack.’
‘Jack, for God’s sake!’ said Owen’s voice. ‘In answer to your question, twenty-bloody-seven!’
‘On a scale of one to ten?’
‘Yes!’
‘Owen, why the hell didn’t you call me earlier?’
TWENTY
‘We’ll meet you there,’ said Owen.
Jack hung up. ‘Owen says they’ll meet us there.’
‘Uh-huh,’ said James. He was driving. ‘Lunchtime rush. Cathays is going to be fifteen minutes minimum from here.’
‘Punch it,’ said Jack.
‘You two OK?’ James called back.
‘We’re fine,’ said Jack.
