Thicker Than Water

I may be an exorcist but at least I’ve got a bit more discrimination than a hand grenade lobbed into a crowded room.’

Trudie seemed disposed to carry on the argument, and maybe ramp it up a few notches, but Cheadle was tapping his feet and the night was on fire.

‘Skip it,’ I suggested. ‘We can have the big political debate some time when London isn’t burning.’

‘Castor—’

But I was already stepping down out of the van. ‘Come on,’ I said to Bic, ‘let’s get you home. Mister Cheadle, it’s been a pleasure to watch you work.

’

‘Thanks.’ Cheadle gave me a nod that conveyed the thinnest possible sliver of civility as he climbed back into the driver’s seat. ‘You know where to find me if you need me. Prices as per scale. Unsociable hours a bloody speciality.’

Trudie barely had time to jump clear: Cheadle drove away with a squeal of tyres, braking sharply after ten yards so that momentum would slam the tailgate closed for him. Then he put the van into gear again and disappeared into the night at a speed you seldom see clocked in the centre of London.

I led Bic around to the main road and the steps up to the estate’s front entrance. Trudie fell in beside us, but she didn’t try to open up the conversation again.

Before we got to the steps, a constable stopped us with an upraised hand. ‘Sorry, sir,’ he said. ‘There’s Ãsai=""1a fire in progress and we’ve had to close the street at this point.’

‘He lives in there,’ I said, putting my hand on Bic’s shoulder.

The cop looked away, squinting.

‘There’s some community support people,’ he said, ‘with yellow tabards. They’ve got a van set up. You find them, they can look after him.’

‘I need to get inside,’ I said.

He gave me an old-fashioned look. ‘We’ve got the bloody Third World War going on in here,’ he said. ‘Just move along, okay?’

But even while he was saying it, I caught sight of a familiar figure as she tacked between the parked police cars behind him. ‘Basquiat!’ I yelled. ‘Over here!’

She turned and saw me, and a whole range of emotions crossed her face one after another.

For a moment I thought she was going to turn again, like Dick Whittington, and keep right on going. But she said something brief and to the point to a uniformed officer hovering at her elbow, and then as he ran off to do her bidding she crossed over to join us. She didn’t look very happy, though: and bearing in mind the outcome of our previous conversation, neither was I.