London Noir by Cathi Unsworth Read Free Book Online Page A

smile.
    “Oh, this is the new Ericsson, right?”
    “Yes. Please. To take. My boss …”
    “It’s the flattop, isn’t it?”
    “Please, just take.”
    “Yeah. It’s got those buttons that really stick out. You could play with them all night. What are you, love? Polish? Latvian?”
    “Please, I don’t …”
    He gives her the killer’s stare.
    “Mark my words, love. You fucking do. And you fucking will. All right?”
    He holds her gaze before leaning away and into the distance. Feeling exposed by the coruscating sunlight, she pulls her coat together, mumbles an idea of faith while thinking about her mother and the friends she left behind, and moves onto the next.
    “Mobile phone, please?”
    On the other corner: the public toilets.
    Usual setup. Standard, heading underground. Disabled, at floor level. Toilet of choice for drug addicts.
    “The animals went in two by two, hurrah, hurrah.”
    “Fuck off. Give me the gear.”
    “You make me feel like dancin’, gonna dance the night away.”
    Lucy takes the first boot. The back of her knees fold and immediately she’s scratching like a monkey.
    “Gimme that.”
    Sandra, not singing for the first time since these two scored, squirts Lucy’s blood into the sink and then rinses the syringe in the toilet bowl before drawing up the heroin, tying up, shooting up, tying off, and time ending and trouble saying goodbye. She looks to Lucy who now slides down the wall like a lifeless doll, smashing her head on the toilet bowl in the process.
    “Get up, you stupid bitch.”
    Nothing.
    Sandra gets the hell out of there. She makes a fuss to an oncoming guy who’s wheelchair bound.
    “They’re broke, love. You should try downstairs.”
    The guy looks at her. “Un-fucking-believable.” Finally she notices the wheelchair; scratches her face in slow … motion.
    “Sorry, love. You must have done all right though, eh? Couldn’t lend me a fiver, could you?”
    On the other corner: Costcutter. The most expensive twenty-four-hour supermarket in the world.
    What the fuck are they on about? Nine pounds sixty for a couple of newspapers, some fags, and a drink?
    “Nine pounds sixty.”
    Someone bursts through the door.
    “Give me a single, you get me?”
    The shopkeeper (There’re six of them. Remember the time some posh kid walked in followed by fucking Crackula himself, wielding a crook-lock and swinging at the poor cunt, whose only crime was to point out that the Count could take a piss in the bogs instead of in the road?) responds with, “No more singles. Out. Get out.”
    A couple of stray Australians, believing themselves to be in the warmer reaches of Notting Hill, wander in. Seeing a chance to exercise an act of old-country benevolence, the Aussie guy pulls out a smoke and gives it to this arsehole. Now this idiot’s all over him.
    “Nice one, bruv. SEEEN. Let me carry you shit for you.”
    “I’m good, thanks.”
    “I WASN’T TALKING TO YOU. I WAS TALKING TO THE LADY.”
    “It’s cool, buddy, just er …”
    “Just what?”
    He stares hard into the Aussie guy’s eyes and presses his head against him, the poor sod now reeling; purblind; red in the face and his girlfriend is starting to really get the shits.
    “Tell him to go fuck himself, Dobbo.”
    Dobbo decides to wade in, kakking himself.
    The shopkeepers surround the scene and the guy walks, lighting the smoke; grinning and staring between the Aussie girl’s legs as she puts some breakfast stuff, eggs and the like, on the counter.
    “Nice nice nice nice nice.”
    “Rack off, numb-nuts.”
    “Lay down, gal, let me push it up, push it up.”
    “Look, mate, just fuckin’ …”
    “Leave it.”
    “Twenty-four pounds thirty-eight.”
    “What?”

    On the final corner: the pub.
    Well. I wouldn’t know about that anymore, would I? Be the last place I could afford to be seen in. I mean, what if they decide to reopen the case? Then what?
    When Mary tells me that it’s “the best craic in town,” I