‘Whoa, fishy, bwah,’ said Wally, and Bram laughed loudly.
‘I realised I was in the wrong place and went and found them. It wasn’t a big deal.’
‘Did they check up with your mates?’ asked Wally.
‘Yeah.’
‘Bloody hell,’ said Tim. ‘They’re being thorough.’
‘Is this the police?’ asked Bram at the top of his voice. Everyone ignored him.
‘What did they say to you, Wal?’ asked Seb.
‘I dunno, same sort of shit. I was wiv ’em longer’n an hour, though.’
‘Did they ask whether you were Anomie?’
‘No, but they asked if I knew ’oo Anomie was, and then they just kept goin’ on about some Brotherhood of Ultimate Something.’
‘I thought the group’s called The Halvening?’ said Seb.
‘They didn’t mention The Halvening, they just kept talkin’ about this fuckin’ Brotherhood,’ said Wally. ‘I said, “I’m not in no fucking Brotherhood, do I look like a monk?” And they asked me about being sacked as Drek and all that, and what I fort of Edie’s politics.’
‘What did you say?’ asked Tim.
‘Said I fort ’er politics were a pile of shit. They knew that anyway,’ said Wally, whose voice now held an undertone of aggression. ‘They’d watched my videos. I said, you wanna go talk to some of the little SJWs. They wanted ’er dead, I didn’t. Go find the cunt—’
He caught himself too late, but Bram simply laughed.
‘He’s heard it all before,’ said Nils airily.
‘You is rude mukfluk,’ Bram told Wally, in his Drek falsetto.
‘Yeah, well,’ said Wally, ‘I told ’em, “Go find ’ooever writes that Pen of Justice thing.” You seen that?’ he asked the others, who all shook their heads.
‘You’d like the Pen of Justice,’ Wally told Tim, with a trace of malice. ‘The Worm’s transphobic, apparently.’
Tim’s smile looked forced.
‘Yeah?’
‘Yeah. Hermaphrodite, innit? So it’s taking the piss out of non-binary kids. Obviously.’
‘And did they ask you where they were that afternoon?’ asked Seb.
‘Yeah, an’ I told ’em I was at home with my gran and my sister, and they talked to them an’ confirmed it, and that was that.’
‘Did they wanna know when you last saw Edie?’
‘Yeah,’ said Wally. ‘I told ’em I ’adn’t seen ’er since I got sacked, but I told ’em I still see Josh sometimes.’
‘Do you?’ said Tim, who sounded surprised.
‘Yeah. Well, we were mates before that fuckin’ cartoon, weren’t we? Anyway, Josh didn’t want me gone, did ’e? That was all ’er. And they asked when I last seen Josh and I told ’em New Year. We were at the same party.’
‘Yeah?’ said Tim.
‘Yeah, ’e was off ’is fuckin’ face,’ said Wally with a harsh laugh. ‘Talkin’ film deals and shit.’
‘Katya was talking about the movie last night,’ said Nils.
‘It can’t happen now, can it?’ said Seb. ‘If Josh is…’
‘No, I think it’s still going to happen,’ said Nils.
Tim now took out his mobile, looked at it, didn’t seem to particularly like what he saw, and put it back in his pocket. Simultaneously, Seb picked up his own mobile and tapped something into it before putting it down again. Strike glanced down at Anomie’s Twitter feed. There were still no fresh tweets. The two detectives continued to make intermittent small talk, though the four men and the boy didn’t seem interested in them, nor particularly worried that anyone might hear their conversation.
‘What did they ask you, Nils?’ asked Tim. ‘Why did they want to see you, even?’
‘Well, they’d heard Josh was staying at North Grove for a month before they were attacked.’
‘Was ’e?’ said Wally, looking as surprised as the other two young men.
‘Yeah. He flooded his new flat, and the one beneath. A lot of structural damage.’
‘Silly sod,’ said Seb, but not unkindly.
‘So we said he could have his old room for a bit. The police wanted to know all about Yasmin visiting and—’
‘Who?’ said Seb.
‘Ah, that was after your time, perhaps,’ said Nils. ‘She helped them out for a while, part time. Dealing with fan mail, scheduling interviews and so on.’
‘I remember ’er,’ said Wally. ‘Fat bird, yeah? Edie sacked her an’ all.’
‘Yeah. Anyway, Yasmin went to Josh’s new flat and he wasn’t there, so she tracked him down to us, and they had a talk and afterwards Josh had it in his head that Edie was—’
At this point the bored Bram got up again and began spouting Drek phrases at the top of his voice. His eyes slid over Strike and Barclay as he looked around for any kind of distraction.
‘Drek is lonelik and borkled. Drek is lonelik and borkled. Drek is lonelik and borkled.’
The relentless squawking drowned out everything Nils was telling the three younger men. It was a couple of minutes, though felt much longer, before Nils broke off whatever he saying, took his phone out of the pocket of his cargo shorts and held it wordlessly out to Bram, who grabbed it, sat down again and fell silent as he began to play a game on it.
‘So,’ resumed Nils, ‘Katya says Josh took the dossier with him.’
‘Didn’t they find it in the graveyard?’ asked Seb.
‘No,’ said Nils. ‘They think the attacker took it. And Josh’s phone.’
‘Shit,’ said Seb.
‘And ’ave the police talked to Pez?’ asked Wally.
Nils shook his head.
Tim now took his phone out of his jacket again, and typed something into it. Strike checked Anomie’s Twitter feed. It was still inactive.
‘I’m gonna have to head off,’ said Tim.
‘We ’aven’t even got to you,’ said Wally.
‘I told you, they haven’t been in touch,’ said Tim, now getting to his feet. ‘I just thought, if they’d gone to you they must be working their way through everyone involved in The Ink Black Heart, but it sounds like they had other reasons for speaking to you three.’
This idea seemed to have reassured Tim.
‘Good to see you, anyway,’ said Tim. Then, catching sight of a taxi, he said, ‘Actually, I might grab that,’ and with a wave of his hand jogged out of the beer garden to flag it down.
Wally, Seb and Nils watched Tim go. Bram didn’t look up from his game. After the taxi had pulled away, Wally said,
‘I always fort he was a bit of a tosser.’
Seb chuckled. Wally now consulted his own phone, and said,
‘Yeah, I need to split, too. Give my best to Mariam, Nils. Tell ’er at least I never set fire to nuffing.’
This appeared to make sense to Nils, who smiled and shook hands with Wally.
‘Seb, you going back to the Tube?’
‘No, I might grab a cab as well.’
‘All right, well, see ya.’
Wally set off at a fast pace in the direction of the Underground station. Barclay let him walk out of sight before holding out his hand to Strike, who shook it.
‘Nice meetin’ you,’ Barclay said quietly. ‘But ye don’t look anything like yer photo.’
‘In fairness, it was of my arse,’ said Strike, and the grinning Scot departed, leaving Strike alone at the table.
Seb was typing on his phone again. Strike checked his own: Anomie still hadn’t tweeted.
‘Yeah, think I’ll head off, too,’ said Seb, draining the last of his pint and now appearing anxious to be gone. ‘Good to see you, Nils.’
‘We’ll walk with you,’ said Nils, a suggestion the younger man didn’t appear particularly to welcome.
Strike let them get a short head start then got up and followed, intending merely to watch Seb until he got into his cab.