Thicker Than Water

That downtrodden chattel, who went from Brent to Walworth as part of the property and appurtenances of a boyfriend who beat her up every night as regularly as another guy might put the cat out.

Anita."

"Why? What fucking sense did that make? She’d seen through Kenny when we were kids. She’d cut a slice out of him to save me, but then did a quick-fade before my balls dropped and I could ask her out on a date.

How could she end up with Kenny, even briefly? How could she give his name to her kid?

My phone rang, making me start so violently that my chest muscles spasmed and my fists clenched from the sudden pain as my damaged lung reported in still not fit for duty.

I hauled the greatcoat off the back of the chair and rifled the pockets with trembling hands. They didn’t seem to be in the right places, and the phone had stopped ringing by the time I found it. I checked last-number redial, but the number wasn’t one I recognised and it refused to take a call. So I waited.

After maybe a minute it rang again. I flicked it open.

‘Hello?’

‘Felix.’ It was Matt’s voice, and hearing it I remembered how our last meeting had ended: probably that was why his tone sounded so guarded. But maybe he’d had second thoughts about letting me in on what he and his dubious friends were up to at the Salisbury.

‘Hi, Matt,’ I said. ‘How’s your soul?’

There was a long silence. Maybe it wasn’t the most tactful way of starting the conversation, but then I was feeling too bruised and battered to be interested in my brother’s tender feelings.

Another silence.

‘This is my statutory phone call, Fix,’ Matt said at last, his voice unnaturally calm. ‘I’m at Cromwell Road police station. I’m under arrest for murder.’

15

The interview suite at Cromwell Road reminded me of the classrooms at tŽv>

So I suppose it was just the institutional thing: not quite ‘Abandon hope, all ye who enter here’, but the feeling that you’re handing over some portion of your life into someone else’s hands, to be tagged and bagged and given back to you later, maybe, if they can find it again and if it’s still identifiable as yours.