The Last Exile by E.V. Seymour

Croatian, his accent suggesting that he, too, was from the north. “Goran says to meet him back at The Courtfield tomorrow night at eleven.” Tallis thanked him and began to eat. Food customers came and went. Other punters, knowing the ropes, walked straight through. Tallis dismembered a piece of fish. The batter was chewy, but he was hungry and didn’t care. During a lull Tallis turned to the small guy.
    “Known Goran long?”
    “Three years.”
    “Good guy to do business with?”
    The small man leant over the glass, the genial manner gone. “No questions.”
    Tallis smiled a
fair enough
. “Thanks again for the chips. Be seeing you. She was good, by the way,” he called over his shoulder.
    The evening was spitting with rain. Logging the exact location of the chip shop, he began to walk, finishing his supper on the way. He soon found himself in a mixed sprawl of residential and industrial estate. Low-flying aircraft indicated he was near the airport, the sheer densityof houses suggesting that they’d been there first. A gang of kids shambled along the road towards him. One was on a bike, zigzagging along the pavement, the others larking about behind, effing this and effing that. On seeing two girls walking up the other side of the road, they let out a stream of sexual abuse. The oldest lad, who happened to be of mixed race, looked to be about fourteen years old. Tallis wondered if this was the future, if they were the next generation of thugs. Drawing near, it became clear from the feral expressions on the boys’ faces that nobody was going to step aside, nobody was giving ground. He should have done the simple thing and walked round them. Better to be safe than wind up dead with a knife in your stomach, but Tallis felt in a perverse mood. He kept on walking, calling their bluff, his eyes fixed on the ringleader riding the bike. As Tallis predicted, the lad swerved at the last minute to avoid him, the others following suit. Not quite so hard as you think you are, Tallis thought with a smile.
    The urban landscape was changing. Roads were wider and busier, the concrete more connected and commercial, less grim. There were airport hotels where you could walk into Reception and catch a glimpse of people in swimming costumes kick-starting their holidays, sipping pina coladas around bathtub-temperature swimming pools. Maybe Tremlett, the probation officer, was right, Tallis thought, if not about the ethnicity of the inhabitants, about the location. On he walked, occasionally glancing over his shoulder, for an irrational moment feeling as if he were being followed. Eventually, seeing a taxi, Tallis stuck two fingers in his mouth and whistled. Dropping the plastic tray in a nearby bin, he sprinted across the road and instructed the driver to take him to Euston.
    “Fair way to go,” the cabbie said, dubious.
    Tallis suddenly realised how dishevelled he looked, unshaven, smelling of booze and fish and chips. He pulled out a wad of notes. The driver told him to hop in. “You often do this run?” Tallis asked.
    “Several times a day, usually pick-ups from Heathrow.”
    “Know the area well, then.”
    The cabbie laughed. “Stating the bleeding obvious, if you don’t mind my saying.”
    “What about the people living here?”
    “What about them?”
    “Good mix of cultures?”
    “You mean how many immigrants we got here?”
    “Well, I wouldn’t …”
    “Answer to that’s bloody hundreds of them. Slough’s an Asian stronghold. Here’s full of Eastern Europeans and Polish. Well,” the cabbie said, blowing out between his teeth, “don’t get me started. Poles all over the bleedin’ place, ain’t they? Begging, and doing us out of a living and all that. Me, I live in Dagenham. Know where I belong.”
    Bet you vote BNP, Tallis thought. “Many Albanians live here?”
    “Shouldn’t wonder. Know how to use guns, don’t they?”
    Everyone from the Balkans knows how to use a gun, you prat, Tallis thought.
    They