the prostitutes of our fair city please?”
“ Only if you'll give me the low down on who you're fucking at the moment.' He starts to laugh when I begin to protest. “I can see that healthy glow of anticipation about you, so I reckon you're on a promise for later tonight.”
“ Is it that obvious?” I'm grinning now too. “Well, until recently you had the look of a man who spends most of his time alone in the dark aiming for RSI. Now you do a passable impression of a normal well- adjusted human being; and since I'm not fucking you, I tend to remember small details like that, it means that somebody else is doing the honors.”
“ Okay, but keep it to yourself.”
“ Scout's honor.”
“ It's Karen.”
His expression remains blank for a long moment and then realization dawns, breaking out into a smile that threatens to touch each ear. “Detective Inspector Karen Ball-breaker Cobb? You are having a fucking giraffe, my son.”
“ Like I said, lips to remain sealed please.”
“ She's old enough to have given birth to you, for God's sake. I can't even begin to imagine how you managed that one. So there's your plan for immunity then? Sly dog.”
“ You're still talking.”
“ Okay, I'm done now, but I'm seeing you in a new light, mate.”
The afternoon drifts onwards; the dyeing dying blaze falling towards the cooling earth behind animated and lengthening skeletal silhouettes. As people pass each other, their shadows become giants, stretching out their limbs and falling over the foreground; fifty meter long exaggerations mimicking and amplifying the movements of the bodies that trap them. They seem to fight with each other as they cross and uncross paths, enraged by the uninvited intrusions into their space. When the sun finally collapses in a shower of red sparks on the horizon, and the wind breathes gentle life into each blade of grass, the shadow giants shrink back in mortal fear; flickering like flames in negative before vanishing from view.
We walk the last few hundred yards towards the station in easy silence. Entering the car park and then nodding a polite greeting to the pretty girl on reception, removing hats and coats as we make our way to the locker room, and finally checking in our radios now that the shift is over. Two other officers are getting changed. The atmosphere of gentle banter and convivial bonding begins to evaporate again, certain individuals presence can suck the air out of a room, leaving an uncomfortable vacuum.
“ Oh, grow up you pair of pricks.” Marcus aims the comment at Police Constable's Strang and Moore, coming on shift as we are clocking of.
They have their backs to us, shoulders hunched and dancing with the effort of suppressing laughter. In our absence Marcus' free-standing locker has had some alterations done; lifted onto the top of another locker, with a rudimentary rope-ladder sellotaped to the side. There's a label on the front which says 'laptop', it takes me a beat before I get the 'joke' – laptop, a small PC.
Strang replies first. “I thought having just been on an incredibly enlightening diversity course, it was time for a revamp of the old nickname.”
Jamie Moore adds his own thoughts. “Think of it as a term of endearment if it helps, my little black friend.”
I grab hold of Marcus at the moment that he is preparing to launch a right hook towards the point of Moore's chin, pulling him in to a tight bear hug.
“ It's not worth your job, I'll fix it.” I speak just loudly enough to be audible to him, holding eye contact. He stops struggling, eyes aflame and teeth clenched.
“ That's right, give your fella a cuddle, calm him down before he does something stupid.”
I wink at Marcus on their blind side, and step backwards onto Strang, the taunter's bare foot with my heavy police boot; grinding my heel into the delicate bones and feeling a satisfying crunch. He gives us a few bars of a unique scream aria composed mainly of impressively high and
“ Only if you'll give me the low down on who you're fucking at the moment.' He starts to laugh when I begin to protest. “I can see that healthy glow of anticipation about you, so I reckon you're on a promise for later tonight.”
“ Is it that obvious?” I'm grinning now too. “Well, until recently you had the look of a man who spends most of his time alone in the dark aiming for RSI. Now you do a passable impression of a normal well- adjusted human being; and since I'm not fucking you, I tend to remember small details like that, it means that somebody else is doing the honors.”
“ Okay, but keep it to yourself.”
“ Scout's honor.”
“ It's Karen.”
His expression remains blank for a long moment and then realization dawns, breaking out into a smile that threatens to touch each ear. “Detective Inspector Karen Ball-breaker Cobb? You are having a fucking giraffe, my son.”
“ Like I said, lips to remain sealed please.”
“ She's old enough to have given birth to you, for God's sake. I can't even begin to imagine how you managed that one. So there's your plan for immunity then? Sly dog.”
“ You're still talking.”
“ Okay, I'm done now, but I'm seeing you in a new light, mate.”
The afternoon drifts onwards; the dyeing dying blaze falling towards the cooling earth behind animated and lengthening skeletal silhouettes. As people pass each other, their shadows become giants, stretching out their limbs and falling over the foreground; fifty meter long exaggerations mimicking and amplifying the movements of the bodies that trap them. They seem to fight with each other as they cross and uncross paths, enraged by the uninvited intrusions into their space. When the sun finally collapses in a shower of red sparks on the horizon, and the wind breathes gentle life into each blade of grass, the shadow giants shrink back in mortal fear; flickering like flames in negative before vanishing from view.
We walk the last few hundred yards towards the station in easy silence. Entering the car park and then nodding a polite greeting to the pretty girl on reception, removing hats and coats as we make our way to the locker room, and finally checking in our radios now that the shift is over. Two other officers are getting changed. The atmosphere of gentle banter and convivial bonding begins to evaporate again, certain individuals presence can suck the air out of a room, leaving an uncomfortable vacuum.
“ Oh, grow up you pair of pricks.” Marcus aims the comment at Police Constable's Strang and Moore, coming on shift as we are clocking of.
They have their backs to us, shoulders hunched and dancing with the effort of suppressing laughter. In our absence Marcus' free-standing locker has had some alterations done; lifted onto the top of another locker, with a rudimentary rope-ladder sellotaped to the side. There's a label on the front which says 'laptop', it takes me a beat before I get the 'joke' – laptop, a small PC.
Strang replies first. “I thought having just been on an incredibly enlightening diversity course, it was time for a revamp of the old nickname.”
Jamie Moore adds his own thoughts. “Think of it as a term of endearment if it helps, my little black friend.”
I grab hold of Marcus at the moment that he is preparing to launch a right hook towards the point of Moore's chin, pulling him in to a tight bear hug.
“ It's not worth your job, I'll fix it.” I speak just loudly enough to be audible to him, holding eye contact. He stops struggling, eyes aflame and teeth clenched.
“ That's right, give your fella a cuddle, calm him down before he does something stupid.”
I wink at Marcus on their blind side, and step backwards onto Strang, the taunter's bare foot with my heavy police boot; grinding my heel into the delicate bones and feeling a satisfying crunch. He gives us a few bars of a unique scream aria composed mainly of impressively high and
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