'Did I?'
'Yes, you did if you were wrong about Gordon Wardell being all over the newspapers you'd buy me dinner.'
'Was I wrong?'
'Doesn't matter. I'm your boss.'
'I was right, then.'
'Maybe.'
'In the end I had to forgive ye, Jack, I've got no transport today Paulina took the Beemer.' They didn't discuss where to go. They just got into the Jaguar and drove to Brixton as if it was the most natural place on earth, as if they were being drawn by the imprisoned river Effra along its route. On its fringes, where the mystifying eye-dust of nightclub and art house hadn't permeated, Brixton was still dangerous and lonely. Here, shrivelled men in mud- stained track suits and straw hats, tinsel flowers on the brims, rolled their eyes at the stars and the lamp-posts and mouthed madness to the moon. Here street-lights had been taken out by BB guns from the estates, and the only illumination was cold cubes of ultraviolet in the shops, installed to stop addicts cranking up in the doorways by making their own arm veins invisible. In central Brixton the real nightlife hadn't woken up yet it was too early: the Bug bar, the Fridge, Mass were all silent. It wouldn't be until midnight that central Brixton turned into little Ibiza traffic jams at midnight and Balearic beat bunnies standing up through car sunroofs waving at the world. Still, as they parked on Coldharbour Lane, Caffery was glad of the comparative light and warmth.
He stopped at a cash point 'Just for forty quid or so.'
'I'd get more than that if I were you. I'm nae a cheap date, y'know.' Souness stood with her hands in her pockets, her back to him, and tried to outstare the beggar with the baby who sat under the cash point Caffery checked his balance. That figure he'd given Tracey Lamb hadn't come out of nowhere he'd had good reason: he knew how far the bank would extend his overdraft at short notice. Three thousand pounds. What could three grand buy you? No matter how many times he reminded himself she's a liar, she's a washed-up old con his hopeful heart, his pathetically hopeful heart, kept up the pestering: what if what if what if…
'Right.' He pocketed the money, checked around to make sure no one was watching, and nodded towards Coldharbour Lane. 'Dinner, then?'
The Windrush population, who had once laid claim to these few streets, had largely been pushed out of central Brixton and into the narrow capillaries around. There were few true black pubs left few places one could walk into on a Saturday afternoon and see young men playing dominoes, screaming, slapping their thighs, flipping open their mobiles to relay twists in the game to absent friends. Most of Coldharbour Lane catered to the new population, and Caffery and Souness chose a place near the square, the Satay Bar, with its mirrors and bird-of- paradise flowers in towering glass vases. They ordered Malay kebabs with rice cubes and two Singha beers, and sat at a tiny table next to the window. Souness sat comfortably, her jacket unbuttoned, her pager resting on the table between them.
'I like it here.' She leaned forward a little and peered out of the window. 'This road is so fucking trendy that if you sit still long enough, in your wee cave, once in a while a bit of A-list totty breaks cover. Saw Caprice out there once, I'm sure it was her, wearing these…' she sucked breath in through closed teeth and chopped her hands at the top of her thighs '… these red shorts, right up to here, and who's that one with the big tits? She gets fat like me now and then. You know. Big mouth.'
'Dunno.'
Souness smiled wryly and picked up a kebab. 'First sign of depression that.'
'What?'
'Losing interest in sex.'
'I haven't lost interest in sex.'
'Oh, aye,' she pointed at him with the kebab, 'the day you die'll be the day you lose interest in sex, Jack Caffery.'
'I'm just…' He unrolled his knife and fork and pulled his plate towards him. He looked at the food for a minute, then leaned forward, elbows on either side of the plate. 'You've been in the force, Danni, what? Fifteen, sixteen years?'
'And the rest I know I've the face of a wee angel, but my thirty's only nine years away.'
'So remember back to when you joined. Do you remember what was in your head?'
'Oh, aye. I was excited. Came straight out the moment I got into Hendon I came out. But,' she said, emphasizing the word with a little jab of the kebab, 'I never used it, Jack. Even when the world changed and I could've used it, I never did.' She put the food in her mouth, chewed. 'Of course, that doesn't mean I never kissed a little ass. No. Nor kissed a little pussy neither.'
'And you still love it?'
'Kissing pussy?'
He smiled. 'The force.'
'Aye. I still love it. Every minute of it.'
'And you never feel you got in for the wrong reason?'
'No.' She forked rice cubes into her mouth and looked around the restaurant, chewing hard, focusing her eyes on a point somewhere above his head. 'But, then, nothing happened to me like what happened to you when you were a wain.'
At that Caffery cleared his throat and sat back a little, looking down at his food. He knew Souness was waiting for him to pick up the baton. Suddenly he wasn't very hungry. 'You know, don't you…' he looked up at her '… you know I only joined the force because I had some fucked-up idea I was going to find Ew He paused. 'Find my brother.'
'Aye, it doesn't take a genius to see that.'
He sat forward. 'But, Danni, I can't disentangle it. I get a case like Rory Peach and suddenly I'm ten years old again, fists up and wanting to take them all on wanting to bare-knuckle fight.'
'So ye get angry from time to time. What of it?'
'What of it?' He pulled out his tobacco and quickly rolled a cigarette. 'What of it? Well,' he said, holding a lighter to the cigarette, 'well, one day it's going to go too far, I can see it. One day someone's going to push me and I'll do something I can't go back on.' He dragged on the cigarette and held the smoke in his lungs, head back, eyes closed. Then he let out the smoke and rested the cigarette in the ashtray. 'It's all about perspective that's what they'd call it, isn't it, perspective? Look at what I did at the hospital look at the way I laid into you, trying to batter it into you that there's someone '
'Ah, wait,' Souness said. 'I know what you're going to say.'
'Do you?'
'Yes.' She dipped the meat in peanut sauce and ripped a piece off the skewer with her teeth. 'Aye, and I've been thinking about it too. You think there's still someone out there. Another family.'
'Yes. I told you, I'm a dog with a bone.' 's OK, Jack,' she said, chewing hard. 'I've spoken to the gov about it I can give you two of the outside team. Do whatever you want with them just bring them back with a smile on their faces. OK?'
He stared at her. 'You're feeding me.'
'No. No, I'm not. I think ye might just have a point. Now instead of sitting there with your mouth open like an eejit say thank you.'
He shook his head. 'OK,' he said. 'OK thanks, Danni thanks.'
'It's nothing. Now, put that out,' she jabbed the skewer at his cigarette, 'and just get on with your food. You look like a proper meal would kill you at the moment.'
He stubbed out the cigarette, but when he pulled his plate towards him he found he still couldn't concentrate on the food. 'What went on in that house, Danni?' he said after a while. 'What the fuck went on in there?'
She used a fork to push the rest of the meat off the skewer into the sauce. 'It's simple. Rory Peach got raped. By his father. It happens, you know.'
'Then what was going on in that family?'
'I don't know.' She forked some beef into her mouth and chewed. 'I often wonder what it'd be like to rape. It's one of those things women wonder about not to be raped, but to be the one who rapes. Not very PC for an old dyke, is it?' She took a swig of Singha and wiped her mouth. 'I had a conversation once with this rapist, and you
