“I see them.”

“Fuck me. They’re right there.” Ricky was quivering with excitement.

“Let’s get a drink,” said Donald.

“But… ”

Donald grabbed Ricky’s arm and forced him onto the street. “The Laughing Monkey looks good. Reasonable prices too.”

“But they’re right fucking there!”

“Yes,” said Donald. “They are right fucking there. Right near the fucking entrance to this fucking alleyway. And if they fucking see us guarding the fucking door like fucking Cerberus, they are going to smell what’s coming quicker than your fucking dad ran for the door after he got your mum up the fucking spout. So now we are going to the fucking Laughing Monkey, where we will buy a fucking drink like any other punter, thus making sure they go into the fucking Croc and start some fucking trouble and save us the fucking effort of coming back down here every night for the next fucking week. Was that fucking clear enough for you, or should I curse a little bit more before it sinks in?”

Ricky’s face was sullen, but he nodded.

“Excellent. Then what can I get you?”

The racket in the bar made his head spin. Had it ever been fun to come to places like this? He was too old for this game. No, he couldn’t afford to think like that. This was just a temporary blip while he got over – lock it down, Donald, or you won’t survive the night.

He squeezed through the crowd and caught the eye of the barmaid. The brandy was rough and hot in his throat. Beside him, Ricky pushed a sliver of lime into the neck of his beer and took down a long swallow.

How many years had he been doing this? Too long to like the answer. Working his way up from walking the beat to working the patch. This should have been the year he put his bid in for promotion, Harry moving either upwards or outwards, making room for the next man in the chair, and if his life had gone differently the chair would have been his. What would that have been like? A bigger better house in a greener leafier suburb. A flasher car on the driveway. That school for Alicia they’d been talking about. His mind was following two trains of thought: one picturing the life that had been stolen from him, the other counting mechanically in his head, giving the Brixton boys the time they needed to banter with the doormen, get inside, order their drinks, make themselves at home.

“Time to go.”

“Can I finish this first?”

“No you can’t.” He waited for Ricky to argue, but of course Ricky had his eye on the main prize here, which was to be part of the operation that took down the Brixton boys. Ricky abandoned his bottle on a table and followed Donald outside.

The doorman grinned when he saw them and opened his mouth to speak, but Donald silenced him with a fierce gesture and he subsided into the shadows. Inside The Croc, a blonde, a brunette and a redhead worked the stage, their bodies bumping and grinding, their faces a smooth absent blank. The boys were sprawled all over a corner table, two walls to their backs and the whole room under their gaze. They beckoned a girl over – Katya, he thought, or maybe Veronica. She went reluctantly, knowing trouble when she saw it. He watched them enjoying her discomfort.