Suffer the Children by Adam Creed Page A

friends and partied for a week – until the police came knocking, not busting his spoiled white ass for drugs but to tell him he had, at the age of eighteen, been orphaned.
    The pain is dull. He is so, so tired, but sleep has ebbed away from him. Could Colquhoun’s murder be the work of a mercenary ? Hired by Debra Bowker? But why now? Why after all these years? Two wives. Two suspects. And Ross Denness?
    And what did Golding mean by he ‘knows’? Where is Sohan Kelly? What if the e. Gang get to Kelly? Should Staffe go and see him or is he best left alone?
    Maybe Colquhoun’s wasn’t a professional killing. But they got in and got out without so much as a broken pane or the finest trace of DNA.
    Far away in the white noise of low-grinding wagons beating the congestion by using unearthly hours, a siren sounds. It tails away, warps into the night. Staffe is drifting now, thinking of the children who suffered. A silence to be broken.
    *******
     
    Johnson shows his warrant card to the minicab driver and tells him to: ‘Fuckin’ wait, unless you want someone to have a real good look over this piece of shit.’
    There is no reponse from 26d so he buzzes the downstairs and is told that Paolo Di Venuto will probably be in the Golden Fleece.
    ‘What’s he look like?’ says Johnson.
    ‘Who are you?’
    ‘Police. Bet you got something in your place. Maybe growin’ a bit of weed. Cookin’ up some C meth?’ He takes a step back, looks up at the peering face at the curtains, holds up his warrant card and smiles.
    The intercom crackles. ‘Skinny fuck with long hair. He’ll be in a jean jacket and a white vest. Combat shorts. Never fuckin’ changes.’
    Johnson checks his watch, can’t afford to hang around, so he tells the minicab driver to wait up outside the pub. As he walks along the High Road, he works up a sweat and plots ahead to what might transpire. He feels weak and knows he should have sorted himself out before he came. He stops, hands on knees and gulps at the air, shakes himself down.
    ‘The fuck you lookin’ at!’ he shouts at a couple of youths. One black, one white, both looking for trouble. But they stop dead when they see Johnson’s face, look down at his big clenched fists. They cross the road, muttering, and he strides off, the blood flowing through him now as he pictures Di Venuto, pictures him beating up on Staffe’s sister, pictures him turning her over, pulling off her pants, pressing her buttocks out, softening her up.
    The Golden Fleece is fifty yards away. He should wait outside until they throw out but it looks like a place that locks in. He pictures the look on her face when he’s done; hears the slap when she complains, a line of blood coming from the corner of her mouth, an eye swelling, the lies she’ll make up to cover for him. He pushes open the door and it slams into the wall. Half a dozen at the bar turn round, the smiles off their faces. Johnson points to the dark one in the jean jacket and shorts second from left and says ‘Di Venuto!’ striding towards him as he watches the others shuffle away. One of them takes a hold of his bitch pop by the throat and Johnson says, ‘Put the fuckin’ bottle down or I’ll shove it up your arse.’
    He puts the bottle down.
    Di Venuto opens his mouth to say something but he doesn’t get the chance. Johnson kicks him in the balls and as he doubles over, he punches him in the neck, takes a hold of his hair and drags him outside. Patsy Cline sings them on their way and out to the street. Johnson stamps on his face and pulls him to his feet. ‘You know what you done? You know what you fuckin’ done!’
    Di Venuto nods, blood pumping from a gash across his nose. Johnson can see the bone. His eyes will swell good. ‘I’m gonna pay,’ begs Di Venuto. ‘I swear to fuckin’ God I’m gonna pay!’
    And Johnson laughs. God shining down on him. He won’t know Staffe’s sent him. He thinks this is over some drugs he’s ripped off or a loan