Paki Paulie wore a shimmering silver gray double-breasted suit over an open-necked cobalt blue shirt. The clothes were obviously expensive but he looked cheap as a bag of sherbet lemons. He was leaning back in his chair, gazing at a point on the ceiling as if his only worry in the world was what to drink next. Next to him, a hard-looking white youth stared gloomily into an almost-empty pint pot.

Dennis picked up his glass and strolled over to the table, with me in his wake. “All right, Paulie?” he said.

“Dennis,” Paulie acknowledged with a regal nod.

“How’s business?”

“Not good. It’s the interest rates, you know?” Paulie replied, twitching his mouth into a smile. That was all I needed. A smack dealer with a smart mouth.

“A word, Paulie,” Dennis said softly.

“Dennis, you can have as many words as you want.” Paulie’s urbanity was firing on all four cylinders now, but it wasn’t polished enough to cover the quick flicker of concern in his eyes.

“You heard about Jack the Smack?” Dennis asked innocently. Paulie’s eyebrows rose. He clearly knew all about Dennis’s little vigilante action. “Bad time for accidents in your line of business,” Dennis went on conversationally. “State of the health service these

Paulie’s protection seemed to gather himself together and shifted forward in his seat. “You want to …” was all he got out before Paulie snapped, “Shut it.” He turned back to Dennis and said, “I hear what you’re saying, Dennis.”

Dennis gestured towards me with his glass. “This is a friend of mine. She’s looking for some information. She’s not the law, and if you’re straight with her, there’s no comeback.”

Paulie looked directly at me. “How do I know I can trust you?”

“The company I keep,” I answered.

Dennis put his glass down and cracked his knuckles dramatically. Paulie’s eyes flicked from me to Dennis and back again. I took a photograph of Tamar out of my bag. It was one I’d clipped from the papers that morning, with Jett cut out of it. “Has this woman ever bought anything from you?”

He barely glanced at it and shrugged. “Maybe. How do I know? I serve a lot of punters.”

“I can’t believe you’ve got a lot of punters like this, Paulie. Natural blonde, doesn’t dress out of a catalogue, accent like Princess Di? Come on, you can do better than that.”

Paulie picked up the picture and studied it. “I seen her down the Hassy,” he finally conceded.

“How much did you sell her, then?” Dennis butted in, thrusting his face forwards till it was only inches from the dealer’s.

“Who said I sold her anything? Shit, man, what is this? You joined the drugs squad?”