Where was Carl? Where was Dave: the cabbing was all tangled up — the city itself was ductile in the furnace, it warped and curled, becoming overwrought. His Faredar tricked by human chaff, Dave found himself breaking rules, heading south, dropping off some fucking rude boy on the Railton Road. Then, backing into a tight space in back of Brixton Market, the chrome bumper of the Fairway kissed the rubber bumper of a mustard Vauxhall Carlton. Dave clambered out of the cab and, more out of reflex than because he felt responsible, went to examine the rear. No dink — no mark even. When he straightened up, he was surrounded by bredren in their saggy-arsed tracksuits and LA Raiders jackets, yellow gold on their fingers and in their teeth. Mad golliwog hair … Along Electric Avenue, outside the butchers', there were counters piled high with pigs' trotters. One of the men took a step forward, his hair was shaved suede-close, he had a sock puppet's stubbly muzzle. 'Tax, mun,' he said, poking a stiff little trotter right into Dave's chest.
'You what?' Dave was incredulous. The little man pointed at the bumper of the Carlton. 'You fe damage me moto, mun, issall bashedup an vat. Seen.' There was a collective sucking of cheeks, 'tchuk', and a murmur of assent. 'Twenny pahnd,' said the little man. Dave's mobile rang.
'It could be nosebag,' began the Skip Tracer, 'but there's definitely a bird.'
'You what?'
'Your man, I've 'ad that team on him an' they've come up trumps, seems 'e's aht an' abaht all the time, up west, down souf, in and out of fucking crack houses, pubs, clubs, knocking shops, squats — there's no kind of lowlife he won't stoop for, but 'e's always picking up the same bird. Pretty thing — young enough to be his daughter.'
'Twenny pahnd,' the crash victim reiterated. He was standing right up against Dave now, his face almost resting on the bigger man's sternum. His fellow revenue men had closed in as well — a barrier of bloodshot eyes which blocked out the entrance to the Reliance Arcade. Over one man's velour shoulder Dave could see women sitting at little tables in the nail parlour, their taloned hands splayed for the manicurists. He took the phone away from his ear and mouthed, 'I'm on the phone', and such was the obeah of this that his taxers fell back, muttering 'foufou, mun' and 'raasclaat'.
'Perhaps it is his daughter,' Dave said to the Skip Tracer. 'He has got one, y'know.'
'Oh, no, no, no, that I do not think. My team saw them in a very compromising clinch, her tongue right down 'is fucking throat. Oh, no, no, no. This changes everything, right, yes, because I don't think your ex is gonna be too happy wiv this — do you? Might have a bit of a debt-tree mental effect on the old happy home. Gotta go, my son — sweat's lashing offa me.' It was lashing off Dave as well. I can feel cold drips on my ribs, what the fuck am I doing here? This is bandit country. It was, because, despite the solid Baptist ladies trundling bags as big as pantechnicons, and the Saturday afternoon shoppers, no one even noticed the extortion being practised on the cabbie. 'Twenny pahnd.' The little man persisted — and Dave just gave it to him. But once he was back in the cab and heading to safety down the Brixton Road, the humiliation welled up and overflowed.
On the midget location where his hit show Blackie was being filmed, Cal Devenish accepted a cup of sparkling mineral water from one of the gofers and stood sipping it in the shadow thrown by the catering truck. I'm paranoid … spend too much time round miniature cameras and you're bound to think you're being watched. . and yet. . and yet… what if someone had seen that occasion when Daisy, caught in a dizzying fugue of mania and rising up, up, up and over the rooftops of Shoreditch, had grabbed her father's head in both hands and slammed her mad mouth into his. I pushed her away — threw her away from me … It was disgusting … repellent … she tasted of me … Yet she'd hung on to him, they'd teetered, slammed into a wheelie bin with a hollow 'boom'. Cal had been desperate to get her out of the foul alley, into the car and away to safety, so for one minute of yawning perdition … I responded, I kissed her back … I felt that bolt in her tongue with mine…her hands on me… mine on her… When the clinch was finally broken she was calmed, and he could lead her to the car. Then, emerging into the flambéed sodium of Great Eastern Street, Cal saw a back that moved away … too fast. That was all, the ordinary back hadn't done anything, it was merely that it accelerated too fast, got away too quickly … got away with it.
Even in sleep Dave Rudman couldn't escape. His mobile vibrated on the bedside table, hungry rats' claws drumming on tree bark. He groped and drew it down into the darkness of the undercovers, into his man reek. 'Meet me at Wagamama in Canary Wharf,' said the Skip Tracer.
'B-but why?' Dave gagged.
'Why not?' the Skip Tracer snapped.
'It's … it's Sunday.'
'Sunday? Sunday! Whaddo I care about fucking Sunday, only bloke who can't get out of his crib on a Sunday is one oozebin doing nosebag on a Saturday night —'ave you?'
'No, 'course snot.'
'Right, see you there innanour.'
It was a flashback to the mid 1980s when the vast development was a deserted, newly built ruin. The whole of Canada Square couldn't have had more than thirty people drifting across it. Dave ranked up at the foot of No. 1 and sauntered through the precinct. Au Bon Pain was shuttered up — Starbucks as well. In the tiny ornamental garden a languid Somali tweezered leaves from the lawn with a grabber, while a brushed steel fountain plashed to itself. The designer vents from the tube lines below sent waste pages soaring like gulls up the glass sides of the HSBC building.
Dave crossed to the shopping centre on the far side, descended, then mounted a theatrical staircase into Wagamama, which was an aircraft-carrier flight deck of an eatery. The open-plan kitchen full of hiss, steam and clatter gave on to long wooden tables and benches laid out with the simplicity of ruled lines. Dave ignored the girl in the Mao tunic who asked him, 'Is it just you, sir?' because the place was all but empty, and he could see the Skip Tracer sitting in the far corner by the window that looked out over the shopping mall, a big bowl steaming in front of his pink, boyish face. 'Look at this Jap food,' he said when Dave sat down opposite him, 'noodles, dumplings, veggie-fucking-nibbles.' He poked at it with his chopsticks. 'Issa little world in that bowl, innit just.' The Skip Tracer was wearing a heavy, three-piece, herringbone suit and a lilac silk shirt. Beneath the table mirror-shined shoes tapped on the tiling. His queer features — the ski-jump nose, the parboiled brows — were sharply defined by his razor-cut fringe. He was unshaven and the sweat was lashing off him, dripping down through the steam into the bowl like rain from low cloud.
'I saw a dwarf on the way over,' the Skip Tracer said. 'I only mention it 'coz she was stacked, man. Stacked.' Dave ordered a beer. 'Aren't you gonna eat, son?' the Skip Tracer snapped. 'You gotta eat, else people'll think you're on — '
'I don't care what people think.'
'Please yourself.' The Skip Tracer wasn't himself; he kept darting little glances away to each side of them. He dipped at the noodles with his wooden bill, yet never raised one to his mouth. His bitten-off statements lacked their usual emphasis — he was no longer the candour man, the sincerity daddy.