Cleaning Up Read online

  She offered him her hand in greeting, smooth-skinned, long tapered fingers and nicely manicured nails. He liked her voice too, soft with just a bit of husky sing-song in it. She was sunshine with the birds all-a-singing.

  Tommy willed himself into the work zone and ushered her to the nearest chair. She sat down lightly and demurely crossed those long legs, her body just slightly turned away from his. She cut to the chase straight off, obviously on the clock and obviously concerned for her little Prince. She gave him the lowdown, surprisingly open enough to share a little bit of personal stuff with him too. The old man had fucked off when the kid was still toddling leaving her well and truly in it. She’d struggled working various shit, lowest rung type jobs; she’d gone to college in the evenings whereupon she had completed an accountancy degree. With the qualification, she’d scored a good job with a nearby local authority, which had afforded her and the boy a decent lifestyle. The kid had started to drift in the last couple of years, she said. He was bright but with no focus, the usual adolescent angst coupled with a questionable taste in friends. The boy would listen, tell her what he thought she wanted to hear then do exactly what he wanted to do. To Tommy that sounded like the modus operandi of plenty of grown men, not just adolescent spin out boys, but he kept that particular nugget to himself.

  He listened intently to her story with his mind taking a couple of brief detours to speculate what it would have been like to have met her in different circumstances.

  Once she finished he gave her the details of the pretty much standard no frills package that the programme offered. To start with the kid was pencilled in for twice a week one-on-one sessions. He’d get in touch with the school and he’d let Sonny know what was going on too.

  After she left, he stared out of the long window that was above his desk, it allowed him the oft needed balm of a view of a presently mottled unshifting sky.

  Donna Edwards, he mused, a bloody peach.

  Well, he and Moz had cracked the case of the century - an anonymous phone call tipping them off to a pair of likely lads for the spate of muggings on the Barrington. Both of the toe rags known petty crims whose idea of paradise was unlimited Special Brew, a state of the art pair of trainers and a fifty inch flat screen TV set up to go in a greased up, marijuana saturated lounge room.

  They’d found cash cards and a rake of IDs in one of the bozo’s bedrooms and, even better, they had an eye witness to one of the attacks, a doughty old pensioner who had the misfortune to be residing in the same postcode.

  Mozzer Morris was embedded in the interrogation room chatting with the bright spark who’d kept the cards in his bedroom, his mate a few walls away cooling his heels off in one of the holding cells.

  They were young, unemployed, bereft of aspiration; one black, one white. Mozzer had christened the pair Sammy and Dean. After an hour or so Mozzer came out of the ‘hard questions’ room and gave him the lowdown near the new drinks machine that was in the ground floor corridor. Moz had a piece of what looked like puff pastry on his left cheek and was fishing out some shrapnel to get himself a fizzy drink.

  ‘Daryl (Sammy) has flipped over son. Somewhat surprisingly, according to his version of events, Scott (Dean) was the main protagonist, Daryl himself, just a reluctant, near innocent bystander. I’ll have the drink then swap them over. Scott will be chuffed to bits when he hears Daryl’s version of events. No honour amongst dick-cheese scum, is there son?’

  With a grunt Moz leaned over to liberate his can of Coke and then duck walked with, what was for him, a degree of jauntiness back on to the interview room.

  Fucking Rat Pack alright, Darrin thought. He spent the next half hour walking through the station telling as many bods as he could find about the collar - it was a result.

  His mum had asked him if he’d wanted her to accompany him to the Community Centre but he had said no. They’d left the house together and she had offered him a lift in her sparkling new Elantra. Normally he wouldn’t have thought twice - he loved that car as much as she did - but he wanted the walk, he’d had a crap sleep, tossing and turning thinking about it. His head felt musty and he could do with the time alone too.

  From their place it was only a mile or so to the Centre and he zigzagged through the quiet back streets in order to get there on time. It was all pretty quiet at this time of the day, late starters heading off to work, a few oldies with their shopping bags trying to beat the rush, some dog walkers and a solitary jogger. He cut through onto the canal path stepping to the side into the longish grass so that he could squeeze past a line of silent men whose fishing rods almost reached to the other side of the canal. If M had been with him he would probably have made some smart-arsed remark. He was daft enough to mouth off to grown men even when there was a real chance that he would have been thrown head first into the canal’s dank, scummy water.

  Pasquale ambled up the path to the arched dark-stoned bridge that had once acted as a boundary between two boroughs that no longer existed, and then he made a diagonal on across the bleak looking empty park with its lattice of bird nests that were now in plain view, exposed to the elements in the tough looking branches of the bone naked birch trees.

  He knew that the trees were birch because his mum had often spent many of their hours together engaged in the naming of things; trees, birds, cars, styles of architecture. All those times they’d spent together, he thought, just the two of them, either out driving in one of her spotless small cars, or out and about on foot. He had enjoyed it most of the time. Occasionally he’d wished that she would just shut the fuck up and let him enjoy his own thoughts. She was crazy about learning, to her it was the potential cure for everything and now that childhood had gone and here he was hanging on to school by his fingertips, off to meet a stranger for some more of the naming of things.

  The Centre was buzzing when he arrived, lots of silver haired ladies and a few old blokes milling around in the reception area and some kiddies being sung to by a couple of birds in a partially glassed oblong room that was almost directly opposite the reception desk.

  The fossil on the reception gave him a beady once over as he mumbled his name and the reason for his presence. The bloke warmed up a little when he finished telling him who he was and why he was there and he gave him directions with a crinkling of his eyes and a smile that Pasquale couldn’t help but reciprocate.

  ‘Go on then lad,’ the old man made a little shooing motion at him with his right hand, ‘Tommy won’t bite yer.’

  The room was out of the back of the building, on past the kiddies’ room, then down a tight dog-legged corridor that led on to a battered, cheap looking door with the slightly peeling words youth service stuck on it.

  Pasquale knocked lightly, heard a cough inside and then knocked again, a little harder this time. At that, a strong sounding baritone told him to come in. He stepped inside and the guy swivelled around from his computer. His eyes widened slightly. It was the youth worker who had stopped them from getting into the dance, but the bloke stood up and gave him a warm smile and proffered a meaty, square shaped hand. He was a pretty big fucker, maybe only slightly taller than average but big in the shoulders and chest. His hand was warm and the shake was firm but not a bone crusher.

  Thankfully there was minimal of the getting to know you bullshit, the guy (Tommy) asked him what he thought he needed help with, then showed him a piece of paper on which was typed what Tommy called a study plan.

  ‘Not cast in stone though,’ Tommy told him, ‘we’ll play it by ear, to a degree. See how you go. Sonny tells me that you’re a bright kid with plenty of potential. That true then?’

  He nodded and just about held the guy’s eyes as he did so.

  Despite himself, he’d felt a swell of pride at that. He liked Sonny and the guy had said it in a way that made him feel good about himself - not with the underlying anxiety of affirmation that he always sensed with his mum.

  ‘Mind the music while we work?’ Tommy asked with a nod to the computer sp
eakers.

  ‘Fine,’ he said with a shrug of his shoulders although it did sound a little toss.

  ‘David Bowie,’ Tommy said, ‘heard of him?’

  He hadn’t.

  Tommy laughed a little but Pasquale couldn’t work out why.

  ‘OK then bro, let’s kick off with me reading and you writing down what I say, alright?’

  That didn’t sound too hard and it wasn’t. They worked together for an hour straight through, Tommy humming along at times to the stereo warbling. Finally, Tommy rang the bell on it without any fanfare or notice.

  ‘Good work Pasquale, Sonny was right, it’s not a lack of brains that has landed you in here, is it?’

  He didn’t know what to say to that. Tommy let him off the hook with a friendly pat on the shoulder.

  ‘See you in a couple of days son - stay well. Get your arse off to school then.’

  For the rest of the week he managed both the Centre and school much to M’s scorn when the three of them had finally met up at M’s house on the Friday. He riposted with giving M a good arse kicking on the Xbox. Usually he held back a little bit, letting him think he was better at it than was the case. But this time he gave it to him. After a couple of hours of getting smashed M threw his console at the wall and had given him a look, which caused Junior and himself to dissolve into laughter. That shut the fucker up for a while, good and proper. M went off and sulked for a spell but soon came back to the game. He couldn’t bear to be alone for more than five minutes. As they played, M gave both Pasquale and Junior some initially half-hearted and then full bore exhortations, all the ill feeling well and truly gone. That was one good thing about M, he never held on to it for too long.

  Although he won again, he gave it up to let Junior take the next game. M hopped back on, giving him a half-smile in recognition of his gesture. That was cool, he’d made his point and, what the hell, he thought, as he stretched out on the sofa and lit up a rasper. They were his mates.

  It was a flat week at work after the high of the Sammy and Dean case. Darrin had been assigned foot patrol with Johno. That with a bit of desk duty interspersed with some rigorous workouts at the old man’s sweat-box gym made up the rhythm of his week.

  A DI Bowden from the Drug Squad had come to the station from the city headquarters and had prepped the crew about the upsurge in the manufacture and use of ice. It was a drug that had swamped the conurbation over the last few months; massively addictive, cheap and easy to produce, twelve times the high of sex and six times the high of cocaine.

  ‘In my case that would be twenty times the high of sex,’ said Mozzer, which had them all rolling in the aisles for a good while until an amused Sarge Thomas benignly cracked the whip.

  DI Bowden dived back in. Darrin noted that he’d barely cracked a smile at the crew’s reaction to Mozzer’s funny. Then Bowden went on, about the downward spiral for the users, the ‘inevitable law of diminishing returns,’ ie more and more of the shit needed for the same effect - a drug dealer’s wet dream. Increasing addiction, till the brain was fried to the point of being null and void. It was like shooting fish in a barrel for the pushers and they always had fresh meat to prey on; the young, the impressionable and the disaffected.

  Word was that some of the old firm who had bossed the city for the last thirty years or so had started moving it around and they wouldn’t be bothering to do that without a very good yield for both their investment and risk. The Drug Squad was operating towards the top end of the pyramid and they, the foot soldiers, would keep their eye on the bottom feeders in the industry, principally the dealers and their customer base up on the estates.

  ‘It’s a crisis waiting to happen,’ said the Inspector, ‘this drug ripped the heart out of loads of communities in the States.’

  He looked around the room with a gravity that pre-empted any more glib funnies.

  ‘Let’s get the breaks on it, nice and early lads and lasses.’

  At the break he chatted about it with Mozzer and a few of the other plods whilst they were hanging out in the canteen. The young end was fired up at the prospect of the battle. Mozzer had raised a sceptical eyebrow at him as Darrin enthused about getting stuck into it.

  ‘Lopping off a few branches won’t get rid of the tree.’ Mozzer stated with a flat firmness.

  Johno asked him what he meant and Moz snorted at him.

  ‘War on drugs - it’s about as real as Luke Skywalker waving his fucking light sabre at Darth Vader that is.’

  Mozzer looked around the table and snorted again at the lack of comeback. He lifted his head towards the canteen counter and smiled. ‘Sweet time - they’ve got the trifle on today.’ Moz swung his gut away from the table, nimbly rose to his feet and made his way over towards the food counter.

  Tommy had taken the Friday off and the luxury of a long weekend stretched out in front of him. Earlier in the week he had called his mate Lee who was living down in the smoke and after a brief catch up chat had arranged a stay with Lee and his missus. He caught the first train south just after lunch and he was glad that he’d bothered to reserve a seat. It was packed just like everywhere else in this fucking country.

  He was still adjusting to that, nearly eighteen months back and the country still felt like a fucking anthill. He liked travelling the trains though, it had always soothed him and train travel was very much part of the warp and weft of his growing up.

  Tommy’s old man had worked for twenty years on the railways, ensconced in the upstairs offices of the substantial, soot covered, Gothic redbrick of the city’s central station. Not that this train was anything like the powerful, belching, lurch, roar and rattle of the steam trains of his boyhood. It was almost silent, high speed with nary a ripple as it bulleted on to its destination. He’d brought some sounds with him and a decent mag, to read to help fill the time and, this time, he had brought his own butties too. Previously, he’d made the mistake of getting on board hungry and unprepared and Virgin had well and truly burnt a hole in his pocket.

  A mixed race woman got on board just as the train was about to pull away from the platform. He glanced at her and she gave him a little smile, which warmed him up almost as much as Donna Edwards had. He let his mind wander over that notion for a while, bit of a non-starter though with the boy and all. A step-dad to a malcontent teenager, surely a busman’s holiday and Donna didn’t seem like the casual, no strings attached type. If he kicked it off with her he would have to commit himself, again.

  The journey was over in a twinkle, just over two hours and they were pulling in to Euston. It was just coming up to three o’clock so it was not yet bedlam time on the tube, but it was still pretty busy down there and he was thankful that he was travelling light. That leg of the journey was not quite one of Dante’s Circles of Hell, but five days a week of it would have to be close enough. His body percolated in the humid netherworld as he let his eyes wander around the carriage; students with iPods, a couple of tired looking African blokes and some slightly frazzled mums with mercifully placated children. A young French couple smilingly canoodled with each other, oblivious to their surroundings. He thought of that old Joni Mitchell song as he discreetly watched them, ‘amour mama, not cheap display.’ He changed lines then made his way back up to what passed for fresh air. He rode a few stops on a washed out local train and got off at Deptford, which had been Lee’s home for well over a decade now.

  Lee was waiting for him at the station entrance down on the High Street and they gave each other a hearty bear hug, which lifted Lee onto his toes. He was still as skinny as a lat, but now with a hint of belly under the baggy shirt. His friend had never been big on exercise - making music, playing chess, drinking red wine and a loving indulgence of his extroverted partner, these were the things that rang Lee Murphy’s bell.

  They had last caught up at the previous Christmas break, Lee had undertaken his regular, usually solitary, flying visit to the old folks’ home that housed his mum and had crashed on his sofa for a couple of
nights before taking his leave to join Bern who was nestled at her parents’ place somewhere down in the Norfolk boondocks.

  The two of them chatted happily as they walked back to the couple’s one bedroom gaff, which was located in a nearby warren of council flats.

  Lee asked him how Mick was going.

  ‘Hanging on really Lee,’ he told him.

  ‘It’s just piss, vinegar and stubbornness that makes the old fart reach for his slippers in the morning.’

  Lee had come round to the old man’s for a feed the day after Boxing Day and Tommy had clocked instantly that Mick’s deterioration had been as much of a shock to Lee as it had been to him. Lee had hid it well enough just as he had done the year or so before. Tommy had replayed that dreadful moment many times, Mick answering the door and the shocking, face slap awfulness of the immediate realisation that Mick was already running his last lap.

  He’d been away from the UK for over eight years and he hadn’t seen the old man for that length of time. Eight years! His staying away had been a mixture of choice and circumstances, his friends had tried to prepare him for it; Jimbo telling him more than once that his dad ‘was not quite the same.’ His monthly telephone chats with the old man hadn’t given anything of the decline away. But, his old man was now wizened and frail, a goblin like version of the prime Mick. Tommy had quickly adjusted because, well he had to and because Mick was definitely still Mick, irrespective of the physical decline.

  Lee had his own travails to deal with. His mum was in the middle of her own private hell in dealing with Alzheimer’s. Tommy took a lot of comfort from the fact that his old man was fully firing mentally. To him, that was a sizeable mercy.