Twenty-five.
Caffery got back to Shrivemoor just after 6 p.m. and as he parked he saw Kryotos, dressed in a cream jacket, climbing into her husband's car. He crossed the road. "Anything happened?" he asked, both hands on the roof, looking up the road to check that no cars were coming in this lane. " Logan back?"
"Been and gone, photocopied some Actions and left them in your pigeon-hole nothing doing."
"Shit." He bent down, looked into the car and nodded at Kryotos's husband. "Pardon my language."
"No problem."
"There're some messages for you," Kryotos said, putting on her seat-belt and eyeing Caffery cautiously. He had that run-ragged look about his eyes again. "That dentist, he called, wants to talk to you, and someone called Gummer, oh and West End Central have found Champ Keodua-wotsit for you, if you still want to see him."
"Peach?"
"No change." She nodded up at the incident-room windows where the sunlight bounced off the silver anti-blast film. "Danni's still up there."
"Shit."
"I know. She's not in the best mood."
"OK." He straightened up and knocked on the car roof. "Right, thanks, Marilyn. See you tomorrow."
The incident room was empty and Danni was in the SIO's room filling in her duty sheets for the month. Next to her was an open bottle of Glenfiddich an oiler courtesy of a Sunday tabloid journalist doing an article on geographical profiling: Caffery and Souness had talked her through the Rossmo/Barwell stuff and she'd squeezed three articles out of it.
"Danni?"
She looked up. "Oh," she muttered. "You." She went back to her work.
He stood awkwardly in the doorway, watching her, not certain whether to leave or stay. When she seemed determined not to speak to him he sat down at his desk, hands folded on his stomach, and stared out of the window in silence. Before long Souness caved in.
"Right." She signed off the form, threw her pen on the desk and sat back in her chair. "Spit it out."
"OK…" He put his hands flat on the desk and looked out of the window for a moment, thinking how to approach this. "I He turned to her. "Look about this morning."
"Yes?"
"I'm sorry."
She pursed her mouth, looking at him suspiciously with her narrow, blue eyes.
"It was out of all proportion," he continued. "I'm finding this case, y'know, not great, for the reasons you know all about and I suppose I haven't been sleeping." He shrugged. "Just means I'm sorry."
Her mouth remained in its sour little bud knot. "I see." She picked up the pen and tapped it on the desk, up-ending it, tapping, staring at the desk. She seemed about to say something, then changed her mind and rubbed her head. She stretched her arms in the air and looked out of the window. "Oh, fuck," she muttered. "I suppose I'll have to forgive ye."
"Oh," he sighed, 'well thanks, you know, thanks for the build-up."
"That's OK." She put her finger in her ear and jiggled it ferociously, looking sideways at him. "I don't think I could get my head that far up my own arse." Could ye not have come up wi' something a wee bit better than that?"
"Next time, I'll try."
"You do that," she said, swivelling her chair round to face him, her hands clasped on her stomach. "Anyway have ye seen this?" She shook her belly up and down. "See that? I'm losing weight." She looked up at him, her face serious. "And didn't you say something about owing me dinner?"
"Did I?"
"Yes, you did if you were wrong about Gordon Wardell being all over the newspapers you'd buy me dinner."
"Was I wrong?"
"Doesn't matter. I'm your boss."
"I was right, then."
"Maybe."
"In the end I had to forgive ye, Jack, I've got no transport today Paulina took the Beemer." They didn't discuss where to go. They just got into the Jaguar and drove to Brixton as if it was the most natural place on earth, as if they were being drawn by the imprisoned river Effra along its route. On its fringes, where the mystifying eye-dust of nightclub and art house hadn't permeated, Brixton was still dangerous and lonely. Here, shrivelled men in mud-stained track suits and straw hats, tinsel flowers on the brims, rolled their eyes at the stars and the lamp-posts and mouthed madness to the moon. Here street-lights had been taken out by BB guns from the estates, and the only illumination was cold cubes of ultraviolet in the shops, installed to stop addicts cranking up in the doorways by making their own arm veins invisible. In central Brixton the real nightlife hadn't woken up yet it was too early: the Bug bar, the Fridge, Mass were all silent. It wouldn't be until midnight that central Brixton turned into little Ibiza traffic jams at midnight and Balearic beat bunnies standing up through car sunroofs waving at the world. Still, as they parked on Coldharbour Lane, Caffery was glad of the comparative light and warmth.
He stopped at a cash point "Just for forty quid or so."
"I'd get more than that if I were you. I'm nae a cheap date, y'know." Souness stood with her hands in her pockets, her back to him, and tried to outstare the beggar with the baby who sat under the cash point Caffery checked his balance. That figure he'd given Tracey Lamb hadn't come out of nowhere he'd had good reason: he knew how far the bank would extend his overdraft at short notice. Three thousand pounds. What could three grand buy you? No matter how many times he reminded himself she's a liar, she's a washed-up old con his hopeful heart, his pathetically hopeful heart, kept up the pestering: what if what if what if…
"Right." He pocketed the money, checked around to make sure no one was watching, and nodded towards Coldharbour Lane. "Dinner, then?"
The Windrush population, who had once laid claim to these few streets, had largely been pushed out of central Brixton and into the narrow capillaries around. There were few true black pubs left few places one could walk into on a Saturday afternoon and see young men playing dominoes, screaming, slapping their thighs, flipping open their mobiles to relay twists in the game to absent friends. Most of Coldharbour Lane catered to the new population, and Caffery and Souness chose a place near the square, the Satay Bar, with its mirrors and bird-of-paradise flowers in towering glass vases. They ordered Malay kebabs with rice cubes and two Singha beers, and sat at a tiny table next to the window. Souness sat comfortably, her jacket unbuttoned, her pager resting on the table between them.
"I like it here." She leaned forward a little and peered out of the window. "This road is so fucking trendy that if you sit still long enough, in your wee cave, once in a while a bit of A-list totty breaks cover. Saw Caprice out there once, I'm sure it was her, wearing these…" she sucked breath in through closed teeth and chopped her hands at the top of her thighs '… these red shorts, right up to here, and who's that one with the big tits? She gets fat like me now and then. You know. Big mouth."
"Dunno."
Souness smiled wryly and picked up a kebab. "First sign of depression that."
"What?"
"Losing interest in sex."
"I haven't lost interest in sex."
"Oh, aye," she pointed at him with the kebab, 'the day you die'll be the day you lose interest in sex, Jack Caffery."
"I'm just…" He unrolled his knife and fork and pulled his plate towards him. He looked at the food for a minute, then leaned forward, elbows on either side of the plate. "You've been in the force, Danni, what? Fifteen, sixteen years?"
"And the rest I know I've the face of a wee angel, but my thirty's only nine years away."