I Watson - Director's cut

The boy said abruptly, “We ain't going back home. No way.” Powder Pete answered sternly. “Did I say that? Did I? That's up to you and your sister.”

“It's me dad. He's not our real dad. But he does things.”

The girl nodded in agreement. She was all of nine. The boy was older by a couple of years.

Paul said, “So you got her out of it, did you?”

“Had to. No choice.”

“What about your mum?”

He struggled. “She don't know.”

“She should know.”

The boy shook his head and a tear squeezed from his eye. “Those two geezers back there, they meet you at the station?” “Said they knew a place we could stay.”

Powder Pete cut in, “Now's not the time. We'll sort it in the morning. But you're too young to be on the streets. This is a dangerous place.”

“So's my bedroom at home,” the girl said suddenly, surprising them.

In the early hours the Warren, dark apart from the occasional flickering night-light, tiny candles in silver containers supplied by Powder Pete, was damp with tears. Nightmares woke the kids and in the darkness they tasted the fear of abandonment. Those that were streetwise slept through it, barely disturbed. They had learned the hard way how to shut out the unforgiving world.

Powder Pete listened to their cries and sometimes he'd throw on his old dressing gown and fight with his slippers and he'd make his way through the tunnels to the source of distress. There, he'd stroke a sweaty brow and whisper. “It's all right, all right. You're safe. And I'll look after you.”

The dark things that crawled in the night were outside and they couldn't get in.

“You're safe here,” he'd whisper. “I won't let anyone hurt you. Go back to sleep.”

The crying became a whimper and then a snatch of breath and then, moments later, soothed by his certainty, the deeper sigh of sleep. Powder Pete was the guardian, the protector, the trustee. The bollocks, really.

The difference between hard men and the rest of mankind is not subtle. Hard men are willing to do things that others are not. They'd use a knife or a gun or a broken bottle without compunction, without a single thought to the consequences and without pity. The difference lay in a tiny gene, or the lack of it, that created a conscience, that moral sense that made cowardice a virtue. Paul's suitor was a hard man. Suitor is probably the wrong word, for he is a man who pursues a woman. But Paul was becoming more feminine by the day. Hard men can find things and other people easily, because people talk to them. It might have been the kids, or perhaps the trail started in The British, but someone talked, and the big hirsute – bald – unsavoury type turned up, just as Paul was turning in.

“Oh, it's you.”

“You don’t seem pleased to see me.”

Paul tried to hang back from the beer-breath but it was impossible. “I heard you'd become a painter of pictures.”

“Yeah, something.”

“Maybe you could paint me.”

The words came slowly, strangled in the throat, fighting phlegm and swollen glands.

The lights were out. Only a distant candle gave Paul the outline and it was even bigger than he remembered.

“I've been looking for you. All this time I've been thinking of nothing else.” His voice dropped a notch. “After you got out, I didn’t know what to do.”

“I, I, I thought of you too.”

“That's good.”

Paul felt his balls being stroked, then he felt them being crushed. He gasped out loud.

“I heard you been fucking hiding from me!”

“No, no, that's wrong.” His voice rose a couple of octaves. “It was the kozzers.”

“You was supposed to be waiting for me.”

“I was waiting, honest, but they was all over the place. You must have seen them.”

“I been fucking celebrity and I ain’t waiting no longer.”

“There's children in here.”

“They're asleep, or they should be. This time of night.”

Paul had no choice and it went like it always had. Surprisingly, to begin with, and it always happened even though he knew what was coming, it gave him an erection, but that folded when the beating started.

There was no doubt about it, if this affair continued, then Paul would be beaten to death.

“I'm sorry, Paul, this is difficult, but I can't have the children put at risk.”

“I understand. I agree with you. It's my problem.”

“I'd help you. But you're an adult, old enough to help yourself. Sort it out and you're welcome back. That man is a lunatic. Can't take the chance. Not on my account, but for the kids. Responsibilities, see? If it wasn't for the kids I'd help you out. But he's dangerous and I got to weigh the odds. And they don't come down on your side.” “I understand, Powder Pete. Really I do. I'll go.”

“You could go over the road, with the dossers, but sooner or later you've got to sort it. He'll be back.”

“I know that. I know that. It's decisions, innit?”

“Decisions, right. They're the things you got to make when you're an adult. And you’ll know when you’re an adult when you realize there might not be an answer. Where will you go?”

“Back to the shop.”

“He'll find you there.”

“Yeah. Mr Lawrence will help me.”

“He's the painter?”

“Yeah.”

“He's an old man. What can he do?”

“He's a thinker, Powder Pete. He'll think of something. I heard, somewhere, that brains is better than muscle.”

“That’s bollocks. Fear is the key, Paul Knight, the fear of death, that inventor of heaven and hell and all the gods there ever were. When people know that you have no fear then they will fear you.” “So I'll make myself scarce, then.”

“Yes. I've got to let you go, Paul. I want to help you but, if I get hurt…bad, then who's going to look out for the kids? And time's against me. Gotta find a new place, a safe place. The villains, Ticker's men, are coming back and this time they'll mean business.” “You don't need to say nothing, Powder Pete. Just help me out, will you? I'm hurting a bit. Just a bit.”

“You're bleeding.”

“Yeah, a bit. It ain't much, is it?”

“You ought to get to the hospital, boy. Something might be busted, inside. But they'll ask questions. It didn't happen here, right?” “Don't you worry about me, Powder Pete. You got enough to worry about with the kids. I'll make out. Always did, right? You take care of the kids. I'll be back… Terminator, innit?”

Powder Pete helped him through the window and passed out the bags containing the badminton rackets and trainers. He shook a sad head. Paul Knight was one of life's losers, a non-starter in the race of the nobbled. Had he been a dozen years younger then Powder Pete would have taken an interest, taken care of him, but lines had to be drawn. Aid agencies across the world drew them and one man could only do so much.

It was a shame, but there was nothing he could do but watch him go, damaged goods leaking on to the gutted road.

A cry came up from the Warren and Powder Pete turned from the window and the forlorn figure of Paul Knight, a hunched silhouette against the shine of the city, clambering over the top of the world, the piles of rubble and the silent diggers. He moved towards the sound of tears and found their source curled up beneath a stained duvet. He stroked a head of damp hair and said gently, “Don't be frightened. I’ll take care of you. My name is Powder Pete.”

Two days earlier, the day before Brian Lara had met Paul Knight in Avenue Road, PC Donna Fitzgerald spent the morning with Geoff Maynard. She considered that Cole and Maynard made an unlikely alliance. Cole was direct, intense and dangerous on a number of levels