The Cleaner by Mark Dawson

Milton knew enough about psychology to know that kind of perpetual vigilance was unhealthy. He knew soldiers who had been constantly on the alert for danger, who equated any show of emotion with violence, and from whom all feeling had been smelted. They became machines.
    “The pigs are all bent, man,” the boy told him. “You might as well write about the sky being blue, or water being wet. You ain’t teaching no-one nothing round these ends. No-one’s gonna read that.”
    “Do you know Elijah Warriner?”
    “What’s he got to do with the Feds?”
    “I want to talk to him. I heard he’s around here sometimes. Is he a friend of yours?”
    “That little mong ain’t my friend and there’s no point talking to him. He don’t know fuck all. You want, though, we could have a conversation? You and me?”
    Milton noticed one of the boys in the group take his phone from his pocket and start to tap out a message. “Fine,” he said. “What would you like to talk about?”
    “Wanna know about violence? I shanked a guy last week. Want to know about that?”
    “Not really.”
    “I could shank you, too. I got a knife, right here in my pocket.” He sauntered forwards, towards Milton, still showing no sign of how outsized he was. He patted the bulge in his hip pocket. “Six inch blade, lighty. I could walk up to you right now, like this, take the knife, shank you right in the guts.” He made a fist and jabbed it towards Milton’s stomach. “Bang, you’d be done for, blood. Finished. I could make you bleed, big man, right in the middle of the park. Ain’t no-one gonna come and help you out here, neither. What you think of that?”
    Milton said nothing.
    “Man got shook!” one of the others shouted out. “Pinky shook the big man.”
    Milton looked down at the boy. He was tall and thin and wiry, couldn’t have been more than nine stone soaking weight. Calling his bluff would provoke the escalation he seemed to want, and there was no point in doing that. He wanted them to think he was a journalist, harmless, a little frightened and out of his depth. The hooting and hollering around them continued, but the atmosphere had become charged.
    “I might shank you, the moment you turn your back.” Milton noticed a group of boys cycling across to them from the edge of the park. “Don’t turn your back on me, big man. You don’t mean nothing to me. I might do it, just for a laugh.”
    The group on the bikes reached them. There were half a dozen of them. Milton recognised Elijah at the back. The biggest boy––Milton guessed he was seventeen or eighteen––propped his bike against the bench and strutted over to them.
    The boy walked across to the group. “Alright, Pinky?” he said to the youngster who had threatened him. “What’s the beef?”
    “Nah,” the boy said. “Ain’t no beef.”
    Milton ignored him and addressed the newcomer. “Are you in charge?”
    “You could say that.”
    Milton pointed over at Elijah. “I want to talk to him.”
    “You know this man, Elijah?”
    A look of suspicion had fallen across his face. “Yeah,” he said warily. “He was with my Mums.”
    “And do you want to talk to him?”
    Elijah shook his head.
    “Sorry, bro. He don’t want to talk to you.”
    “He say he a writer ,” one of the boys reported, loading the last word with scorn.
    “That right?”
    “That’s right. A journalist.”
    “Bullshit. You ain’t a journalist, mate. If you’re a journalist then I’m going to win the fucking X Factor. You must think I was born yesterday. What are you? Social?”
    “He’s po-po!” one of the other boys cried out. “Look at him.”
    “He ain’t a Fed. Feds don’t come into the park unless they’ve got backup.”
    The atmosphere was becoming fevered. Milton could see that it had the potential to turn quickly, and dangerously. He concentrated on the older boy. “What’s your name?”
    “You don’t need to know my name.”
    “I don’t want any