‘Yeah, all right then.’ He didn’t know whether or not to bother. Shaun wouldn’t like him working for the Houghtons after her set-to with Philippa. And he didn’t know whether he wanted all the grief that would entail. But . . . they needed the money. Shit, did they need it. He had bills coming out of his ears.

When Dave put the phone down, Josh looked at Connor, who was watching him wide-eyed, his finger stuffed in his rosebud mouth. ‘What d’you make of that?’ he asked, and Connor grinned, bounced his chubby legs up and down in his pale blue rompers, and let out a shout.

Shauna came downstairs and into the lounge, pulling on her cardigan. ‘Who was that?’ she asked, bending, taking the baby off him. Connor grizzled, but she rocked him and he stopped.

‘Dave Houghton.’

Shauna’s face took on a pinched look. ‘Well, I hope he’s not expecting a fucking apology,’ she fumed.

‘He asked me to come in on Friday, start work.’

‘What, after that flipping fiasco?’ Shauna looked gobsmacked.

‘What the hell. It was nothing,’ said Josh, hoping to make light of it.

‘It might have been nothing to you, but to me it was bloody humiliating.’

‘Maybe Philippa will apologize.’

‘She can stuff her apology up her arse,’ said Shauna, taking the baby out to the kitchen to fetch his milk. She’d stopped breastfeeding and had switched Connor on to the bottle now. ‘She’ll be sorry she ever tried to make a berk out of me.’

51

51

‘They call cannabis “green petrol”,’ said Dave as Josh sat in his office with him on Friday evening. Out in the club, a girl singer was crooning ‘Downtown’, the big Petula Clark hit. ‘They grow it up in the Rif mountains of Morocco, place called Ketama. They call it kif. It keeps about a million families off the breadline up there. Well, what else can they do? Can’t grow olives or wheat on that soil. But cannabis? Grows like a bastard, that stuff.’

‘OK,’ said Josh. He’d never done drugs, but he’d known a few who had, silly sods. All his life he’d been conscious of being blessed with phenomenal health and exceptional strength, so what would he want to go and abuse his body for, just to get high?

‘But there’s no money in cannabis on the streets any more. Now what we get mostly is Charlie.’

‘Cocaine,’ said Josh.

‘Comes in through Ireland. Standing joke is, the Irish Navy is a pedalo and a couple of inflatable bananas. They can’t patrol all that coastline, it’s wide open.’ Dave shrugged. ‘What the hell, people got to make a living, I understand that. But when it hits home, right here in my club, then I got to draw the line.’ Dave paused and looked at Josh. ‘John said you’re a sound man. Trustworthy.’

‘I am,’ said Josh.