yellow hardhats were lined up against the wall like helmets at a fire station, whilst they filled their faces with the three quid all-day breakfast. The room was a noisy haze of fried food and cigarette smoke, probably courtesy of the Bosnian. I put in my order and listened to the radio behind the counter while I picked up my mug of instant coffee. The news on Capital gave only bullet-point headlines about yesterday's terrorist incident.
It was already taking second place to Posh Spice's new hairdo.
I settled down at a four-seater wrought-iron-and-marble-effect garden table, moved the overflowing ashtray out of the way, and stared at the sugar bowl. The pins and needles had returned and I found that my elbows were on the table and my face was stuck in my hands. For some reason I was remembering being seven years old, tears running down my face, trying to explain to my stepfather that I was scared of the dark. Instead of a comforting cuddle and the bedroom light left on, I got a slapped face and told not to be such a wimp or the night monster would come out from under the bed and eat me. He used to make me flap big-time, and I'd spend the whole night curled up under the blanket, petrified, thinking that as long as I didn't look out the night monster wouldn't get me.
The same feeling of terror and helplessness was with me again after all these years.
I was jolted from my trance.
'Set breakfast, extra egg?'
That7 s me!'
I sat back down and threw bacon, sausage and egg down my neck and started to think about my shopping list. At least I wouldn't need much clothing for my Central American trip. There now, maybe things weren't that bad: at least I was going somewhere warm.
I'd never been to Panama, but had operated on its border with Colombia against PARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) while in the Regiment. We were part of the UK's first-strike policy in the eighties, an American-funded operation to hit drug manufacture at source, which meant getting into the jungle for weeks on end, finding the DMPs (drug-manufacturing plants) and destroying them to slow the trafficking to the UK and US. We might as well not have bothered. Over 70 per cent of the cocaine entering the States still originated from Colombia, and up to 75 per cent of the heroin seized on the east coast of the US was Colombian.
PARC had their fingers in a substantial amount of that pie, and those kinds of numbers were also heading this way, to the UK.
Having operated in the region for over a year, I still took an interest especially as most of the Colombians I'd cared anything about had been killed in the war. To keep the peace with PARC, the Colombian government had given them control of an area the size of Switzerland, and they ran all their operations from there. It was hoped that things would change now that Plan Colombia was getting into full swing. Clinton had given the Colombian government a $1.3 billion military aid package to combat drug trafficking, including over sixty of the Yes Man's precious Huey and Black Hawk helicopters, along with other military assistance. But I wasn't holding my breath. It was going to be a long and dirty war.
I also knew that, for most of the twentieth century, the USA had paid for, run and protected the Panama Canal and stationed SOUTH COM (the US Army's Southern Command) in-country. It was SOUTH COM that had directed all military and intelligence operations from Mexico's southern border to Cape Horn during my time in Colombia. Thousands of US troops and aircraft stationed in Panama had been responsible for all the anti-drug operations in Central and South America, but that had stopped at midnight on 31 December 1999 when the US handed back control of the canal to the locals, and SOUTH COM and all American presence was withdrawn. It was now fragmented, spread around bases all over Central America and the Caribbean, and nowhere near as effective at fighting any kind of war as it once had been.
From what I'd read, the hand-over of the canal had sort of sneaked up on the American public. And when they discovered that a Chinese company, not American, had been awarded the contract to operate the ports at each end of the canal and take over some of the old US military facilities, the right wing went ape shit I couldn't see the problem myself:
Chinese-owned companies ran ports all around the world, including Dover and others in this country. I hadn't thought of it at the time, but maybe that was why the Chinaman had been in the delegation, as part of the new order in Central America.
I felt a little better after some death-by-cholesterol, and left the caff wiping egg yolk off my fingers and on to my jeans, where a fair amount of it had dribbled anyway.
A fifteen-minute shopping frenzy in the market bought me a new pair of rip-off Levi's for sixteen quid, a blue sweatshirt for seven, a pair of boxers and a pack of three pairs of socks for another five.
I carried on walking past fruit and veg stalls until I came to Arlington Road, and turned right by the Good Mixer pub, a 1960s monstrosity in need of a lick of paint. The usual suspects were sitting against the pub wall, three old men, unshaven and unwashed, throwing cans of Strongbow Super down their necks obviously this week's special offer at Oddbins. All three held out their grime ingrained palms for money without even looking up at the people they were begging from.
I was just a few minutes away from a hot shower. Maybe a hundred metres ahead, outside my impressive Victorian redbrick residence, I could see someone being troll eyed into the back of an | ambulance. This was nothing unusual around here, and no one r passing gave it a second look.
( Walking past the graffiti-filled walls of the decaying, pollution-stained buildings, I approached the front entrance as the ambulance moved off. There was a white Transit behind it.
Gathered around its open rear doors were a group of Eastern Europeans, all carrying sports bags or day sacks Of course it was Monday: the boys from Manchester were dishing out smuggled cigarettes and rolling tobacco for them to sell in the market and pubs.
Two worn stone steps took me to a set of large, glazed wooden doors which I pushed my way through. I buzzed to be let through the second lot of security doors, and pressed my head against the glass so whoever was on duty could check me out.
The door buzzed and I pushed through. I got a smile off Maureen at reception, a huge, fifty-year-old woman who had a liking for tent-sized flowery dresses, and a face like a bulldog with constipation. She took no nonsense from anybody. She looked me up and down with an arched eyebrow.
'Hello, darling, what you doing here?'
I put on my happy face.
'I missed you.'
She rolled her eyes and gave her usual loud bass laugh.
'Yeah, right.'
'Is there any chance of using a shower? It's just that the plumbing in my new place has gone on the blink.' I held up my bag of washing kit for her to see.
She rolled her eyes at my story and sucked her teeth, not believing a word of it.
'Ten minutes, don't tell.'
'Maureen, you're the best.'
Tell me something I don't know, darling. Remember, ten minutes, that's your lot.'
I'd only said about a dozen words to her all the time I'd lived here. This was the closest we'd been to a conversation for months.
I walked up the steps to the second floor, where the decor was easy-clean, thick-gloss walls and a light grey industrial-lino staircase, then walked along the narrow corridor, heading for the showers at the end. To my left were rows of doors to bedrooms, and I could hear their occupants mumbling to themselves, coughing, snoring. The corridor smelt of beer and cigarettes, with stale bread slices and dog-ends trodden into the threadbare carpet.
There was a bit of a racket on the floor above as some old guy gob bed off, having an argument with himself, and profanities bounced off the walls. It was sometimes difficult to work out if it was alcohol, drugs or a mental condition with these guys. Either way, Care in the Community seemed to mean leaving them to look after themselves.
The showers were three stained cubicles and I got into the centre one, slowly peeling off my clothes as men wandered around the corridor and noises echoed.
Once undressed, I turned on the water. I was in a daze again, just wanting my day to end, i;?, forcing myself to check the bruising on my legs and chest, even though I didn't care if it hurt. I Somebody in the corridor called out my name, and I re cog- lr nized the voice. I didn't know his name, just that he was always s drunk. As with the rest
