‘You know about this Celia Hobart character. She’s a lucky bleeder, right? The bones would like to wring her dry, of course they would. Who are you working for?’
‘Just myself.’
‘Yourself… and a friend?’
‘The two of us, yes. But I’ve given up trying. It’s too dangerous.’
‘Maybe we could work together, Daisy? With my resources…’
‘No. It’s over.’
‘I see.’ The inspector stood up. ‘Thanks for the game.’
‘I’m free?’
‘Go on. Before I change my mind.’
‘You won’t follow me?’
‘Daisy, I know where you live.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Tell that Hackle prof to make the cheque out to me, personal. OK?’
Daisy smiled at him.
By the time she got back home, the Golden Samosa was closed until the evening. That was OK, she didn’t want to see Jazir, not yet. She didn’t want to see anybody. Everything was here that she wanted: her desk, her work, her bed. Sleep, she wanted, and some comfort. Most of all, some time to think. She saw the note while taking off her clothes. ‘Daisy, gone to find you. Jaz.’
She laughed, quietly. He found her two minutes later, in bed.
It was the best love they had ever made.
An unmarked police car waiting outside. Two cops, chewing gum, rubbing their dancing bones to keep warm. Not a scarlet W in sight.
Play to win
All the pieces were poised for the game by the time the Golden Samosa opened for that evening. Jazir Malik was to work as normal; he would only be the messenger. Daisy Love was upstairs, hanging on the signal. Joe Crocus and Sweet Benny were making a five-course curryfest last all night. Their car was outside, waiting for action. Nobody knew where DJ Dopejack was and nobody much cared. He hadn’t been seen since Friday’s argument, no loss. Max Hackle was waiting back at his house, having dinner with Jimmy Love. Hackle had given Jazir the punies required for a special curry. This was paid to father Saeed Malik, in compensation for a free meal to a beggar.
If she ever arrived that is. The whole game hanging on that one final bone.
Ten o’clock came and went. Eleven. The restaurant always shut at midnight, no way was Mr Saeed keeping open after that – on a Sunday, even! – just for some hare-brained scheme, even if the most esteemed Professor Maximus Hackle of the University of Manchester had set it up special.
She was the last customer. At ten to twelve she arrived, demanding, ‘A free curry as promised, for me and my friends.’
‘Friends?’ shouted Jazir’s father, when told of this. ‘Since when has anybody been mentioning friends?’
‘Please, Father, you’ll be compensated—’
‘And ten to shutting time it is, I shall have to pay my staff extra wages, no? And what is it these filthy beggars is wanting, only the Chef’s Very Special times seven?’
‘Fully compensated.’
‘I shall be expecting more than fully.’
Jazir went back to the table. All the other diners had left, apart from Joe and Benny and these seven ragged brethren of the streets, come to claim reward for information. They could not be contained, constantly moving around from table to table, trying on serviettes, nibbling at every passing poppadom and relish tray, singing bawdy songs of following the endless road to the perfect resting hole, guzzling the finest lagers, burping, farting, kissing the menus, demanding, in the loudest voices, that their starters arrive.
Jazir tried his best to keep them happy, and with every dish he served, always asking the main beggar woman if she would tell him where Celia was yet. ‘When I’m finished,’ she replied, smacking chilli sauce around her lips. ‘Lovely grub!’
‘You do know where she is?’ Jazir asked, worried now.
‘More food!’
‘More, more, more!’ chorused the brethren.
Play to win
The Yawndale Monstermarket was opened in the early 1970s. A grotesque slab of prefab, its birth destroyed whole streets of shops and an outdoor market; it gobbled them like a glutton. Its twenty-five-year reign as the ‘ultimate shopping experience’ was only relieved by four separate terrorist attacks, each carried out by a different group, the last by the now-famous Children of the Swamp. In 1998, this ramshackle band of eco-warriors had gutted the building with a devastating methane bomb explosion. The Yawndale Corporation cut the funding, the monster breathed its last, sad, special, once-only offer.
A year later a new sign had appeared above the main entrance on Market Street: ‘OPENING SOON! THE DOMIDOME EXPERIENCE! SHOPPING BY NUMBERS!’ Brought to us courtesy of the AnnoDoms, of course, but they’d need the extra lovelies from going national to start extensive work on the jittery substructure.