Not Dead Enough

Clyde Weevels, tall and serpentine, with little spikes of black hair and a tongue that rarely stopped wetting his lips, stood behind the counter, surveying his – at this moment empty – domain. His little retail emporium in Broadwick Street, just off Wardour Street in Soho, bore the same anonymous legend as a dozen other places like it sprinkled around the side – and not-so-side – streets of Soho: Private Shop.

In the drably lit interior, there were racks of dildos, lubricating oils and jellies, flavoured condoms, bondage kits, inflatable sex dolls, thongs, g-strings, whips, manacles, racks of porno magazines, soft-core DVDs, hardcore DVDs, and even harder stuff in the backroom for clients he knew well. There was everything in here for a great night in, for straights, gays, bis and for plain old saddo loners – which was what he was, not that he was ever going to admit that to himself, or to anyone else, no way, Jose. Just waiting for the right relationship to come along.

Except it wasn’t going to come along in this place.

She was out there somewhere, in one of those lonely-hearts columns, on one of those websites. Waiting for him. Gagging for him. Gagging for a tall, lean, great-dancer-dude who was also a mean kick boxer. Which he was practising now. Behind the counter, behind the bank of CCTV monitors that were the window on his shop and the outside world, he was practising. Roundhouse kick. Front kick. Side kick.

And he had a ten-inch dick.

And he could get you anything you wanted. You name it – I mean, like, you name it. What kind of porno you want? Toys? Drugs? Yeah.

Camera Four was the one he liked to watch most. It showed the street, outside the door. He liked watching the way they came into the shop, especially the men in suits. They sort of nonchalantly sidled past, as if they were en route to someplace else, then rocked back on their heels and shot in through the door, as if pulled by an invisible magnet that had just been switched on.

Like the pinstriped git in a pink tie who walked in now. They all gave him a sort of this-isn’t- really-me glance, followed by the kind of inane semi-grin you see in stroke victims, then they’d start fondling a dildo, or a pair of lace knickers, or a set of handcuffs, like sex had not yet been invented.

Another man was coming in. Lunch hour. Yeah. He was a bit different. A shell-suited jerk in a hoodie and dark glasses. Clyde lifted his eyes from the monitor and watched as he entered the shop. His type were the classic shoplifters, the hood shielding their face from the cameras. And this one was behaving really weirdly. He just stopped in his tracks, staring out through the opaque glass in the door for some moments, sucking his hand.

Then the man walked over to the counter and said, without making eye contact, ‘Do you sell gas masks?’

‘Rubber and leather,’ Clyde replied, pointing a finger towards the back of the store. A whole selection of masks and hoods hung there, between a range of doctor, nurse, air hostess and Playboy bunny uniforms, and a jokey Hung Like a Stallion pouch.

But instead of walking towards them, the man strode back towards the door and stared out again.

Across the road, the young woman called Sophie Harrington, whom he had followed from her office, was standing at the counter of an Italian deli, with a magazine under her arm, waiting for her ciabatta to be removed from the microwave, talking animatedly on her mobile phone.

He looked forward to trying the gas mask out on her.

14

‘Gets me every time, this place,’ Glenn Branson said, looking up from the silent gloom of his thoughts at the even gloomier view ahead. Roy Grace, indicating left, slowed his ageing maroon Alfa Romeo saloon and turned off the Lewes Road gyratory system, past a sign, in gold letters on a black ground, saying Brighton and Hove City Mortuary. ‘You ought to donate your rubbish music collection to it.’

‘Very funny.’

As if out of respect for the place, Branson leaned forward and turned down the volume of the Katie Melua CD that was playing.

‘And anyhow,’ Grace said defensively, ‘I like Katie Melua.’

Branson shrugged. Then he shrugged again.

‘What?’ Grace said.

‘You should let me buy your music for you.’

‘I’m very happy with my music.’

‘You were very happy with your clothes, until I showed you what a sad old git you looked in them. You were happy with your haircut too. Now you’ve started listening to me, you look ten years younger – and you’ve got a woman, right? She’s well fit, she is!’

Ahead, through wrought-iron gates attached to brick pillars, was a long, single-storey, bungalow-like structure with grey pebbledash rendering on the walls that seemed to suck all the warmth out of the air, even on this blistering summer’s day. There was a covered drive-in one side, deep enough to take an ambulance – or more often, the coroner’s dark green