After they booked the prisoner back in with the custody officer, the gaoler came straight over and handed him a hot meal, and then led him back to his cell to eat it. It didn’t look particularly appetising, and it smelled like it had been badly burnt.
“Can’t you give him something better than that?” Clarke complained, eying the stodgy meal the canteen had prepared as though it were a can of overcooked Pedigree Chum, which, knowing the canteen, Murray suspected it might well have been.
“I mean, does that gloop even qualify as food?”
“He gets the same food as we do,” Susie said, “only we have to pay good money for ours.”
Clarke wasn’t convinced. “If this was an internment camp instead of a police station, I reckon the Red Cross would be up in arms by now. That pile of lumpy gruel you just gave my client would definitely contravene the Geneva Convention.”
Murray became antagonistic. “Well, if you don’t like it, why don’t you put your hand in your pocket and treat your poor hard done by client to a MacDonald’s or something?” He sneered at the look of horror that appeared on the solicitor’s face. “Thought so. You’re quick enough to complain, but you’re not so keen to fork out any of your own money on the little scumbag, are you?”
Clarke spluttered, his face turning red. “How dare you!”
“Oi, Gifford,” Murray shouted after the departing prisoner. “Your solicitor has kindly said that if you don’t like the canteen food, he’ll pop out and get you a Mackey Dees. You can have whatever you want, no expense spared.”
Clarke stared at the detective with undisguised hatred. “I never –”
“Thanks, bruv,” Mullings said, returning to the custody desk and contemptuously tossing his food onto it. “This stuff smells like shit.”
“Maybe you should try it first,” Clarke said quickly.
“You try it, bruv,” Mullings said, turning his nose up at the suggestion. “I’ll have a Big Mac, large fries, and a strawberry shake.”
“They do a nice apple pie too, if you fancy a dessert,” Murray told him.
“For real,” Mullings said, nodding approvingly. “I’ll have one of them as well. How long you gonna be getting it, bruv? I’m famished.”
Murray smiled sweetly. “Yeah, you’d better hurry up,” he said. “He’s a growing lad.”
Clarke nodded, knowing he could hardly refuse his client without losing face. “Very well,” he said curtly. “I need to phone the office anyway, and feed the meter. Don’t want the council clamping my brand-new Jag, do I?”
After escorting Clarke out of the station, Murray decided to take advantage of the enforced break and pop over to the nearest tobacconists to get himself a packet of fags. He was feeling rather pleased with himself for getting one over on the Tango-faced brief. The smarmy bastard deserved to be taken down a peg or two.
There was a queue in the shop, and Murray tapped his foot impatiently as the Indian proprietor worked his way through them with all the speed of a handicapped slug. Three scruffily dressed schoolkids stood directly in front of him, laughing and giggling and generally being a nuisance. Checking his watch, he considered coming back later, but he didn’t’ know when he would get another chance, so he waited in line, trying his utmost to ignore the noisy urchins in front of him.
After what seemed an age, but was in reality only a few minutes, the shopkeeper finally got around to serving the brats, and Murray breathed a sigh of relief.
It was almost his turn.
He wondered what delights the little horrors would waste their pocket money on. With any luck, he thought bitterly, all the sugar would make their teeth rot.
“How much are these, mister?” the first of them asked, holding up a bag of Skittles.
“What about these,” the second chimed in, thrusting a packet of Rolo chocolate caramels in the Indian man’s face.
While they distracted the shopkeeper, their mate started jamming packets of sweets up his jumper, as bold as brass.
When Murray saw this, he smiled. It was shoplifting, plain and simple, and he should probably have nicked them for it, but he had done similar things – worse things actually – as a youngster.
Discreetly removing his warrant card from his pocket, he slid it in front of the little tealeaf’s face and placed a firm hand on his bony shoulder. Leaning forward menacingly, he whispered, “Be a good lad and put that lot back or you’ll be spending an afternoon in the cells with all the kiddy fiddlers and rapists.”
The boy froze on the spot, his face draining of colour. “I wasn’t going to keep them, mister,” he lied, hurriedly replacing the items as he spoke.
“Of course, not,” Murray said, grabbing hold of the boy by the scruff of the neck. “Now get your scabby mates and piss off so that I can get served.”
The boy nodded fearfully and quickly marshalled his two protesting friends out of the shop.
Murray smiled at the shopkeeper, who eyed him with undisguised suspicion, no doubt wondering what he’d just said to the poor innocent children to send them scurrying out of the shop without spending any money.
This twatprobably thinks I’m a paedophile, Murry thought, wishing he’d kept quiet and left the boy to his own devices.
Ignoring the dubious looks the man behind the counter was giving him, Murray purchased a packet of twenty B&H, a giant bag of cheese and onion crisps, a can of full-fat Coke and a large bar of chocolate. If the proprietor did suspect that Murray was a child molester, he certainly didn’t let it stop him from making a sale.
Murray considered grabbing a little something for Susie while he was there, but then decided against it. She was a big girl, and if she wanted food, she could get it herself.
As he left the shop with his little bag of goodies, he caught sight of Oliver Clarke standing in the side road opposite. Unaware that he was being watched, the solicitor was tenderly
