LITMIR.BIZ

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police,’ Graham held his arms out dramatically. ‘There’s no future in it.’

      ‘He’s on accelerated promotion,’ Sara reminded him.

      ‘Accelerated promotion,’ Graham scoffed. ‘He’s a sergeant. Now if he’d joined the army he would have started at lieutenant – the equivalent rank of inspector. None of this playing around in the other ranks nonsense. It’s not too late, you know,’ he continued down a familiar track. ‘I could still pull some strings and get you into Sandhurst. You’re still young enough, just.’

      ‘It’s not for me,’ King insisted. ‘I’m not like you or Scott.’

      ‘And what exactly is wrong with being like me or Scott?’ he demanded.

      ‘Nothing,’ King looked for a way to escape the conversation.

      ‘Then at least think about it.’

      ‘No,’ he answered bluntly.

      ‘Why not?’ his father demanded.

      ‘Because the army’s for fools,’ he couldn’t stop himself from blurting out.

      His father breathed in deeply, preparing to attack before his wife finally stepped in to bring matters to an end. ‘That’s enough, you two,’ she insisted with a smile, as if the argument had been nothing more than friendly jousting. ‘We’re just glad that both you and Scott have fully recovered. You gave us quite a scare.’

      ‘Indeed,’ her husband forced himself to agree – the redness in his face and his slight trembling betraying the anger he still harboured.

      ‘It wasn’t intentional,’ King told them, happy to continue with the fight until he felt Sara kick him under the table. ‘But at the end of the day Scott’s going to recover and that’s all that matters.’

      ‘Good,’ his mother finished it for this occasion at least. ‘Now eat your dinner. You’re getting too skinny.’

      Kelly Royston walked to Susie Ubana’s maisonette and reached through the metal grid to knock on the front door. After a few seconds the door opened slightly and Ubana peered through the gap, relaxing when she saw it was only Kelly – someone she’d known for years, having watched her growing up on the estate. She opened the door fully, but kept the metal grid firmly closed. Their meeting looked like a prison visit in an American jail.

      ‘You gonna open this … barricade?’ Kelly asked.

      ‘No,’ Ubana answered bluntly. ‘D’you want something?’

      Kelly sighed and opened her clenched fist, revealing a crumpled five-pound note and a handful of loose change. ‘I need an eighth of Lebanese red,’ she told her. ‘It’s all there,’ she assured Ubana as they both looked at the mess of cash in her palm. Kelly saw the look of distaste on Ubana’s face at her offering. ‘What d’you expect?’ she asked. ‘Brand new tenners out the cash machine?’

      ‘Chance would be a fine thing,’ Ubana answered, awkwardly holding out both her hands through the grid and cupping them as if she was holding water. Kelly tipped the banknote and coins into her hands and watched them retreat back beyond the grid. ‘Wait there,’ Ubana told her and disappeared inside.

      Kelly leaned against the wall and looked out over the estate as the night grew ever darker, its silence punctuated by the occasional scream of a child, shout of a drunk or bark of a dog. Her mind wandered to the young cop who’d arrested her mother’s boyfriend earlier in the day. She knew she’d affected him in a way she could affect pretty much any man she chose to, but he was different. Very different. He was a policeman. The men and boys on the estate were largely desperate fools she could manipulate like putty, taking whatever she liked from them with just the promise of intimacy with her at some distant, unspecified point in the future. At seventeen she already knew that to them she promised the chance of escape to a better world where they could have something wonderful and beautiful. Even if it only lasted for a few minutes, it would be the best thing that would ever happen to most of them. But would the young policeman be so easily enthralled by the drug of her beauty?

      After a couple of minutes Ubana returned and ended her daydreaming.

      ‘Here,’ she told Kelly, easing her clenched fist through the grid. Kelly pushed herself off the wall and took hold of Ubana’s fist as if they were shaking hands in a slightly strange way until she felt Ubana’s well-practised fingers push the small parcel wrapped in clingfilm into the palm of her hand. Quickly she slipped it down the front of her skintight jeans and nestled it in her public hair, but she didn’t then scamper away as Ubana had expected. ‘Don’t wait around here long,’ Ubana warned her. ‘Not with that on you. One of them new coppers might be hanging around.’

      ‘Think they’ll want to search me?’ Kelly smiled mischievously, but her charms were wasted on Ubana.

      ‘They’ll want to arrest you,’ Ubana told her grimly. ‘And me.’

      ‘I wouldn’t mind being searched by one of them,’ Kelly ignored her.

      ‘Oh yeah,’ Ubana looked her up and down. ‘And which one would that be?’

      ‘The one in charge,’ Kelly answered, moving from hip to hip.

      ‘That’ll be the sergeant then,’ Ubana said sarcastically.

      ‘Yeah. Him,’ Kelly agreed. ‘The one with the stripes. The good-looking one – well, good-looking for a cop.’

      ‘What you got in that young mind of yours?’ Ubana asked suspiciously.

      ‘Nothing,’ Kelly lied, blinking her wide almond-shaped eyes and for once looking younger than she was. ‘I was just saying …’

      ‘I’d get those crazy notions out your head if I was you, girl,’ Ubana cautioned her. ‘I’ve spoken to the man. He ain’t interested in the likes of you, unless he’s arresting you. He’s pure, you know. He’s here to bring the bad times to us. Sure, he’s starting with the local thugs and fools, but what d’you think he’s gonna do after they’re all gone? He’s gonna come after people like me and that will not be good. Where would you get your puff from then, Kelly?’ The girl just shrugged disinterestedly. ‘Yeah, exactly,’ Ubana told her. ‘I’ve seen his type before. Best thing for us is he gets his promotion or joins the CID or whatever it is he’s after and fucks off and leaves us alone, before he has a chance to do any real damage. He’s already been here too long.’

      ‘You shouldn’t be so afraid,’ Kelly dismissed her fears. ‘You just need to know how to control him.’

      ‘Really,’ Ubana replied patronizingly.

      ‘Really,’ Kelly continued. ‘There isn’t a man on the planet I couldn’t control.’

      ‘What do you know about men?’ Ubana asked. ‘You’re too young to know anything much. Too young to even know that.’

      ‘We’ll see,’ Kelly answered, walking backwards and smiling before elegantly spinning on her heels, never looking back as she strolled away. ‘We’ll see.’

      King nursed their car through the light evening traffic as Sara sat in the passenger seat still talking relentlessly about the evening they’d just spent with his parents – continually shaking her head and groaning with frustration. He listened to her many complaints as his head throbbed from the stress of being in the company of his parents, while his back and shoulder ached as if the knife was still buried deep in his body. But he said nothing to her as she continued to list the crimes against his parents and even managed to smile and appear amused by her ranting.

      ‘Honestly,’ she told him, ‘I don’t know how you got through the night without a drink. Jesus, your dad. How did you put up with that growing up?’

      ‘I told you,’ he explained. ‘I was never at home or almost never. I went to boarding school.’

      ‘Yeah. I remember,’

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