hidden, and she wondered how many old men and old women needed to be robbed to make a crack cocaine high that lasted ten minutes. She felt sick.
The light was going. Where the street lights were broken, where the shadows clung, she saw ghost figures gathered. Brent cruised the car. Ken said, 'See over there, Miss Parsons? See the tall kid? Most days he's there, he'll do about a hundred grammes a week in rocks.' Brent said, 'He can do you skag as well, maybe some ecstasy. He's not special. He's one in a hundred, going on more. It's got hold of the place. Lift him, there's another ninety-nine.' She saw the boy. He wore good Reeboks and Nike leisure wear and the cap on his head was the wrong way round. The contact she saw was short and sweet. Hands moved, money given over by the customer, goods given over to the customer. Brent said, 'We're not even holding the line. The price is going down. It goes down when we're awash with it. The job of our young friend is to keep moving the rocks, getting new customers, creating demand. He's good in his market place.' She listened…
Brent said, 'I hope you're getting the picture, Miss Parsons. But I wouldn't want you to get the impression that this is C2 or C3 trade only. We could run you down to Plymstock or Roborough, up to Southway and round Goosewell. We can show you it anywhere.'
'I want to go home, please.'
Ken said, 'No can do, sorry. The American gentleman said you should have the grand tour.'
The unmarked police car slipped out of the estate. Charley looked i last time for the old people hurrying with their wallets and purses and their fear, for the kid with his Reebok shoes and Nike leisure suit, for the customers.
'Hi, Dwight, how was the vacation by the sea? How'd it go?'
I'd rate him as cold shit.'
His coat was flipped onto the hook of the stand, alongside the i oat of the Country Chief.
You'd better come in, you'd better talk.'
He look a plastic cup and filled it with water from the dispenser. He walked across the deserted outer office and through the open door and into the Country Chief's office. It was a lowering, dark evening outside, and there was rain in the heavy cloud that settled over the square. He was waved to a seat.
Dwight Smythe shrugged. 'I reckon, Ray, I can cope with most sort of men. I failed with that bastard. Is he some sort of zealot? I thought Quantico was supposed to weed that sort. Right, he's rude, I can live with that. Right, he's aggressive, I can handle it.
Where we part company, he elbows into a small and unsuspecting life, a young woman's life, and puts together a web to trap her, and does it cold. Me, I'm surplus to requirements, the chauffeur that's no longer needed.'
'Did you read his file?'
'No.'
'Do you know about him?'
'Not before I picked him up yesterday.'
'Happy to make a judgement?'
'My assessment of him, yes, I feel comfortable with it.'
'My opinion, Dwight, you're a lucky guy.'
'How come, Ray, I'm a lucky guy?'
'A lucky guy, Dwight, because you have personnel and accounts and running this station to keep busy with.' The eyes needled on Dwight Smythe. 'You have fuck-all of nothing to worry about.'
'That is not fair.'
'And true as hell. You, Dwight, are promotion material. You keep the leave charts regular, you keep wiping your ass, you keep the budget and expenses in blue, you keep your butt clean, you keep us all in surplus paper-clips, and you don't have to worry because that is promotion material. It's the road, Dwight, to the big office back home and the pile carpet, but it's not that joker's road.'
'That is not fair, Ray, because without administration-'
'I have heard it before, I have practised it. You are talking with the converted. When did you last carry a sidearm?'
'The way to fight organized crime is through the intellectual deployment of resources, not-'
'I've made that speech, Dwight. You think if I'd preached on body confrontation, nose-to-nose, I'd have climbed the goddam ladder? Grow up.'
'I didn't expect to hear you, Ray, give out that sort of crap.'
'Your consolation, what should make you feel good, the likes of Axel Moen don't get to climb the goddam ladder. The ladder's for you and for me. It's you and me that like to collect the plaques for the wall, the photographs of the Director's handshake, the commendations and the bullshit.'
'Sorry, I spoke.' Dwight Smythe pushed himself up, drank the last of the water. He looked around him. The plaques recorded successful operations, the photographs witnessed the warmth of the Director meeting with a coming man, the commendations were polished print engraved on bronze. 'And I don't recognize bullshit, Ray.'
'You taking Melanie out tonight, something to eat?'
'Yes, why?'
'My advice, meant kind, call her, tell her to hold an hour so you can get your face into the computer, take a look at Axel Moen's file.'
'For what?'
'Did he tell you his target?'
'He did not.'
'Read his file so you get to know what sort of man gets put up. against a way big target.'
'Maybe in the morning…'
'Tonight, Dwight, read it.'
It was an instruction. They prided themselves, the Country Chief and the four special agents and the clerical staff working on the fifth floor of the embassy, that they were a close team, that harsh words were rare, instructions came rarer. He walked out of the office. He went to his desk. He called Melanie and he told her he wwas held up and put her back an hour and asked her to call the curry house on the Edgware Road to hold the reservation for an hour. He checked with the file that was kept locked in the drawer of his desk for the entry code and the password key. He went into the NADDIS computer for the file on the man he called cold shit.
'We've just got the one at the moment. There was another one last month but it died.
The other one died about three days before this one came in here,' the nurse said. She was a big woman but with a gentle Irish voice. She spoke flatly as if she did not care to feel emotional involvement. 'I couldn't tell you how long this one's going to hold on.
Myself, I hope it's not too long. You see, she's damaged. She was damaged in the womb, pretty close to conception, she was damaged all the time through the pregnancy, she's damaged now. It's what happens when the mother is an addict. Her mother's nineteen years old, she's into mainlining with heroin, lovely girl, was and still is. The little one is seventeen days old and it's as if she's on heroin, same as Mum, same as if she was using Mum's syringe, Mum's tourniquet. This one's too far gone to be weaned off it, the damage is in the little one's system. That's why I say that I hope it's not too long…'
Charley stood by the door. She looked into the room, Children's Unit (Intensive Care). The baby seemed to shiver inside the glass case and the tubes hooked to its nose and mouth waved slowly with the movements. The nurse spoke as if they were alone, as if the mother, the 'lovely girl', was not there. The mother sat beside the glass box. She wore a dressing gown, hospital issue. She stared blankly at the quivering baby. When Charley turned away, the nurse smiled at her, and said that it was decent of her to have bothered to come. That was an empty remark because the nurse did not know why Charley had come, did not know of the arrangement made by Brent and a hospital administrator. Charley hurried out. She thought she hated Axel Moen.
Brent and Ken were in the corridor. They led, she followed.
Out into the night air. Across a car park. There was a light over a door.
Brent knocked at the door. Ken rang the bell. They entered the hospital mortuary.
'This one's heroin but it could just as well have been cocaine. On average we get three a year. His father's a retired major in Tavistock, not that it matters who his father was, is,' the pathology technician said. He was a young man with an angled nose on which were balanced heavy spectacles. He spoke as if the corpse, the retired
