Ending the call, he turned round. The girl was already gone. Smiling to himself, he walked into Paddington Street Gardens and squeezed into the small space that was free on a bench in the shade of a tree. Slowly drinking his coffee, he thought about the phone in his pocket with a copy of William Murray’s video nasty on it. Would he ever do anything with it? He had no idea. Would it make any difference to anything, even if he did share it with the world?
His mind went completely blank.
Finishing his coffee, he tossed the empty cup into a nearby waste bin. A car pulled up at a nearby red light, The Clash’s ‘London Calling’ blasting from its stereo. Singing along under his breath, Carlyle watched a young boy happily chasing a pair of pigeons across the grass, oblivious to the couple snogging enthusiastically right in front of him. Behind their heads, a poster stuck to the outside of a phone box proclaimed ‘Capitalism Isn’t Working’. Inside the booth, the selection of cards offering a wide range of services from ‘Japanese schoolgirls’, ‘Indian models’ and pre-op transsexuals suggested otherwise.
After a short while spent contemplating all of the city’s bounty, Carlyle left the shade of the tree, heading for home. Feeling the sun on his back and the stone beneath his feet, he smiled.
