James Craig - What Dies Inside

‘Durkan called Murray about an hour ago,’ said Flyte, edging away from his colleague. ‘They arranged to meet up.’ He pointed at the bit of paper. ‘That’s the time and the place.’

‘OK, good.’ Palmer squinted at Flyte’s scribble. ‘The meeting — it’s going to be in a pub?’

‘An Irish pub,’ Flyte explained. ‘The McDermott Arms in Kilburn. Indian territory.’

‘Indian territory? But I thought you just said it was an Irish pub.’

‘Yes,’ Flyte nodded. ‘It might as well be in the Bogside.’

Bemusement turned to genuine annoyance as Palmer realised that he had not the foggiest idea what the little runt was talking about.

‘The Bogside,’ Flyte explained, sensing his colleague’s confusion. ‘The Catholic part of Derry.’

‘Londonderry,’ Palmer corrected him.

‘Yes. London derry. Where they had Bloody Sunday and all that.’

‘Tsk.’ At the best of times, Palmer found history of any description boring. Irish history was off-the-scale boring. Stupid buggers killing each other over stuff that might — or might not — have happened five hundred years ago. His contempt for them was infinite.

‘The point is that the neighbourhood is more or less a no-go area for the police and the security services.’ Flyte shot Palmer a knowing look. ‘Just like the rather unsavoury part of Kilburn in which the McDermott Arms resides.’

‘Rubbish!’ Palmer waved a dismissive hand across the table. He was about to mention that he had been in the McDermott Arms himself, and alone at that, but immediately thought better of it. ‘This is London, my dear fellow. There are no “no-go” areas here.’ Grabbing the scrap of paper, he stuffed it in his pocket, just as the kitchen door opened and the cook appeared, carrying his breakfast. Tucking a napkin under his chin, he turned to Flyte. ‘Now, if you’ll excuse me, I will deal with this in due course.’ As the heaving plate was placed in front of him, he sniffed the air appreciatively. ‘In the meantime, I have to attend to the rather more pressing matter of my food.’

Oh fuck. Carlyle walked through the doors of Shepherd’s Bush police station to be confronted by the leering face of Jamie Donaldson.

‘I hear you’ve been shagging Sandra Wollard,’ he said in a loud voice, eliciting sniggers from a couple of secretaries squeezing past him in the corridor.

The constable took a deep breath and tried to smile. It was already becoming old news around the station and Carlyle knew that if he didn’t rise to the bait the ribbing would die away more quickly.

‘You little wanker,’ Donaldson hissed, not without feeling. ‘I had twenty quid on Donne to get in there first. He was supposed to be odds on.’

Donne? Carlyle chuckled. No wonder he was so pissed off, stuck outside guarding 179 Nelson Avenue when he expected to be inside getting his end away.

‘What’s so bloody funny?’ Donaldson asked. He sounded genuinely annoyed. Then again, twenty quid was the equivalent of half a week’s holiday in Spain.

‘Nothing, nothing. How was your holiday? Looks like you got a good tan.’

The sergeant put a hand to his chin and scowled. His red face looked like it had melted and then reset. ‘Overdid it a bit on the first day.’

‘Mm. But the family enjoyed it, did they?’

‘Wife moaned non-stop,’ Donaldson groaned. ‘So did the bloody kids. They don’t know they’re born, the little buggers. When I was a kid, if we got a weekend in bloody Southend we were lucky. Nowadays. .’

Moving tentatively down the corridor, Carlyle cut him off. ‘I need to get going, Sarge. Get ready for my shift.’

‘Yes, you do.’ Donaldson looked him up and down. ‘You’ve got twenty minutes, then assemble in the canteen. We’ve got a job to do.’

Jesus Christ! If my father could see me now. . Arms folded, Rose Murray stood with her bum resting against the sink, a John Player Special dangling from her lower lip and the unmistakeable scent of Sentry floral disinfectant in her nostrils. From the bar next door, the sound of Prince’s ‘Let’s Go Crazy’, a current juke box favourite, began pounding through the walls. Not for the first time, Rose wondered about whether to go and see Prince’s new movie, Purple Rain . Once she’d finished here, she could catch a showing at the Marble Arch Odeon. On the one hand, everything about Prince was fey, pretentious and hopelessly bourgeois. On the other hand, the guy was clearly a total genius. And shouldn’t even the most ardent revolutionary have some free time?

Making a firm date with Prince, she turned her attention back to the slightly less than edifying scene in front of her. Sitting on the toilet seat in the nearest of two large cubicles, Gerry Durkan, jeans around his ankles, took a swig from a can of Carling Black label and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. Placing the can on the cistern behind him, he then stuck a hand down the front of his grubby green Y-fronts and began vigorously scratching his balls. Lifting his gaze towards Murray, she could see that his eyes were glassy and unfocused.

‘Gerry,’ she sighed, ‘how much have you had to drink?’

‘Gerry,’ parroted a second, slurred, voice, ‘are we doing this, or what?’

‘Jesus!’ Pushing his underpants towards his knees, Durkan slid off the toilet. ‘You’re gonna put me off here, the both of ya. One thing at a time.’ He tried to grin at Murray but only managed to burp. ‘Gimme a minute and I’ll be right with you.’

A minute? That should be about the long and short of it. Sticking a look of bored amusement on her face, Rose watched Durkan clawing at the backside of the woman crouching in front of him in the cubicle. The woman, a member of the London Spartacist League whose name Rose couldn’t quite recall, obligingly unzipped her jeans and began pushing them down. She was one of the McDermott Arm’s groupies, a brainless star-fucker in a place where the ‘stars’ either spouted dialectical materialism or threatened your kneecaps, or both. Kneeling on a thick pile of unsold copies of the Workers Hammer magazine, her eyes lowered to the floor, she studiously ignored Murray’s presence. Even from several feet away, Rose could smell the alcohol fumes coming from the woman’s mouth. Pressing herself more firmly against the basin, Rose wondered if the woman was going to throw up. The last thing she needed was to get covered in proletarian puke.

Still pulling at the woman’s clothes, Durkan looked up at her. ‘Enjoying the view?’

Saying nothing, Rose took a long drag on her cigarette.

‘You can join in if you want,’ he said, more in hope than expectation. ‘I’m up for a threesome.’

You and every bloke on the entire sodding planet. ‘Thanks — but no thanks.’

‘Oh, sorry,’ Durkan whined. ‘I forgot you don’t do doggie-style.’

Taking the cigarette between her fingers, she jabbed an angry hand towards him. ‘For fuck’s sake, Gerry, it’s not like we haven’t got things to do here.’

‘But I’m in the mood. It’s not going to take long.’

I bet it’s not. ‘You’re supposed to be hiding.’

‘I am hiding,’ Durkan chuckled. ‘Hiding in plain sight.’

‘Hiding in plain sight and off your fucking face,’ she scolded, realising that she was sounding like his mum and hating herself for it, ‘with your bloody trousers down.’

Adjusting his position slightly, he contemplated the pimply white globes in front of his face. ‘Life goes on.’

‘Fucking Special Branch could kick the door down at any moment and stick an MP5 in your face.’