' pig."
"What do you think, Rollo?"
"He smells. He smells like milk."
"OK, that '
Rewind. Play.
"He smells. He smells like milk."
"OK '
Rewind. Play.
He smells, he smells like… smells like milk… smells, smells like milk, smells… Rollo? He smells. He smells like milk. OK, that looks good… What do you think, Rollo? He smells, smells like milk, what do you think, Rollo, Rollo, Rollo.
Caffery groped in his jacket pocket for his mobile. He just had time to register his visit and drive through the traffic to North London before Holloway visiting hours started.
He registered under Essex's name, Mr. Paul Essex, and used Essex's driving licence as ID. He didn't want anyone seeing the name Jack Caffery on the roster of visitors, and he didn't want anyone knowing he was job. He switched off his mobile and put it with his other belongings in the glass-fronted locker in the visitors' centre and let the officer stamp him an invisible visitor's pass tattooed on the back of his hand -like a teenager going to a nightclub.
He'd been here dozens of times before, but something odd happened on this visit. He realized it as he walked along the line of tape that led visitors through the system, passing them under the cold, programmed attention of the screws, past the drugs amnesty boxes, past the mouth search "Lift your tongue, please, sir, and now just turn your head, this way, good, and now this way." He realized that this afternoon he was seeing it with new eyes because you're on the other side now, like it or not you are on the other side. This was what it was like to be on the outside, to see clearly the towering, bureaucratic engine, to feel its threat. The female officer didn't meet his eye as she ran her hand around the waistband and shook the front of his trousers. "Thank you, sir." She held out a hand to show him the way through.
Waiting outside the visitors' room an officer walked a passive drugs dog down the queue the animal must have smelt Caffery's discomfort because it paused next to him, turned its head slightly, eyeing him coldly -just as if it knows which side you're really on. Discomfited by the dog's naked stare he loosened his collar and turned away his eyes, conscious of the officer's attention on the side of his face. For God's sake, move on, move on… Eventually the dog did turn away. It continued down the line, finally coming to sit at the end of the queue, next to a woman with a baby in a car seat. "Madam." The baby might have been what had made the dog stop. Sometimes drugs came in in babies' nappies. "If you'd like to come with me."
"Mr. uh Essex." The officer at the door ticked off the bogus name on the clipboard and unlocked the door, nodding towards the nearest table. "You're on reception one."
The first 'reception' desk, on the row reserved for new inmates still in reception week, was the closest to the senior officer. Caffery sat on the red plastic visitor's chair, his back to the officer, and looked around the room. Polystyrene tiles hung from the ceiling, the carpet was shiny with tea stains in an emotional encounter the first thing to go on the floor was the tea, he'd seen it happen time and time again. The officer unlocked the holding cell and the quiet, bass murmur of conversation crescendoed as the inmates came out, a cloud of trapped cigarette smoke coming with them. Caffery rested his hands on the little wooden table and didn't look up. He sat and stared at his hands and waited, and soon here she came, out from the back of the group, in a pale blue T-shirt, her jogging trousers rolled up to mid-calf, bare ankles, trainers and an ankle chain. Her hair was held back severely from her face, her earrings were in place. She took a polystyrene cup from the tea bar and dropped into the blue inmate's chair opposite him, her glittering little eyes taking in his clothes, his face, his eyes.
"You come in under a different name," she said. "I asked the kangas who it was, they said Essex."
"An old friend of mine." He felt in his pocket for change. "What do you want, Tracey? Tea? Coffee?"
"Nah did you bring my fags?"
"You know I can't bring them in here you know that."
"OK," she said lightly. Caffery could tell she was glinting with satisfaction at getting him here with just one phone call. But she wasn't going to be the first to show her hand. "What're you here for, then?"
He leaned forward, his hands clasped on the little child's table between them. "Who's Rollo?"
"Eh?
"Rollo. From Carl's videos."
"Not him again? You don't want to get anywhere near him he blades your sort."
"He lives by the park in Brixton, doesn't he?"
"So?" She frowned, scratching nervously at the inside of her arm. "So what?"
"What's his real name?"
"What am I? A cunt? I'm not telling you anything."
"You'll tell me, Tracey or that trouble we talked about is going to come back to haunt you."
She stared furiously across at him. "Nah…" she said. "Nah you're more scared of the dirty squad than I am. You're not going to let them have the rest of those vids because you don't have them any more -you've traded them already." She spat into her polystyrene cup, wiped her mouth and looked up. "I know your game. I know your connections."
He didn't speak. He pressed both hands palm down on the table. Behind her, in the creche, children screamed and ran in circles. A baby lay on its back, kicking its legs and arms, having its nappy changed. Lamb might think she had him straddled, but she'd already given him more than she knew.
"Right." He stood up to leave. "Always nice to see you, Tracey."
"Wait!" She half stood, her eyes bright and desperate.
"What?"
She glanced nervously at the guard and lowered her voice to a hiss: "You never asked me about the boy, you never asked me about Penderecki's boy." Lowering herself back into the chair, she pushed her hair behind her ear, and dropped her eyes to the table. "I thought we was going to talk," she murmured, out of the side of her mouth.
"No." He bent over and put his hands on the table, his face close to hers. "No, Tracey. I'm tired of being dicked by your sort."
"I know something."
"I don't think so. You're lying to me, but it's not the first time and, believe me, it's no novelty to me."
"1975," she said, 'in the autumn."
Caffery, who was taking a breath to reply, stopped. He stared at her, his eyes moving across her face. He shouldn't let himself be pulled in again she was just putting up another smokescreen and if Penderecki had told Carl about Ewan then there'd be no mystery about when it happened. But, of course, you can't let it go, can you. He sat down again, subdued, crumpling into the chair and putting his head in his hands. He sat like this for over a minute, resenting her, hating her, and wanting to hit her. "Go on then." He looked up, wearily drawing his hands down his face, knowing. "Roll out the spiel."
"Nah." Lamb looked sullenly at him. She scratched under her armpit and sniffed loudly, looking around the room with her nose tipped up. "Nah," she said, looking at the ceiling. "You need to try a little harder than that. "S not that easy, is it?" She summoned up phlegm, spat into the polystyrene cup, wiped her mouth and raised her eyebrows at him. "You've got to convince me. You've got to prove you ain't nothing to do with the dirty squad. Because it's funny how they come sniffing around right after you did, isn't it?"
He nodded, and sat looking at her, stroking his chin, a therapist assessing a patient. Had Tracey Lamb known more about him she would have stopped there. She wouldn't have blatantly fed his mood pure oxygen. "Well?" she asked, cocking her head and smiling. "Come on. It's your turn to be nice to me."
And with that she'd crossed the line. It was too late. He sat forward and spoke very quietly: "Don't dick with me, Tracey." He said it into her face. "Because if I ever see you on the street I'll kill you."
"Oh," she said archly, her lips white. "Well, fuck you, then, cos maybe I don't know anything after all."