Dead in the Water

“Anyway, we are all done here,” Branston said with finality. “Time to go home.” He turned off the hall lights in order to drive home his point. “See you next week, Doug.”

Mullen nodded and said goodnight. His opportunity had gone, but his suspicions remained.

Chapter 8

The dream began in the usual way. He was back in the army and was opening the door into Ben’s bedroom. There was a smell of joss sticks, which was strange because Ben never burned joss sticks. He was sitting at his small table. The room was dark except for where his red, blue and white angle-poise lamp cast a glaring light down onto a book over which Ben was hunched. Mullen was puzzled. He walked over to the desk to see what the book was because Ben was not a reader of books.

“Hello, mate,” Ben said, turning his head. Mullen didn’t dare look at him because he knew what he would see. That black hole where his mouth and nose should be. He bent down and closed the book so that he could see what it was. An animal’s face stared out at him: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. Then he became aware of a ringing sound. Half awake, Mullen felt for his mobile and answered the call.

“Who’s that?”

“Fitz,” said a thick Glaswegian accent. “You said to ring. It’s about Chris.”

Mullen’s somnolent brain woke up, identifying the guy to whom he had given the last of his supply of cigarettes. “Yes?”

“You promised twenty quid.”

“OK. Where shall we meet?”

“There’s a good café in St Giles. In half an hour.”

“Half an hour? Not sure I can be there that soon.”

“I’ll wait outside.” He hung up.

* * *

Fitz was sitting on the pavement, legs crossed, eyes cast down and a cap laid upside down in front of him. There were half a dozen coins in the bottom, but only one of them was silver.

“Fitz?”

As soon as Mullen spoke, the man leapt to his feet with surprising alacrity, scooping up hat and money as he did so.

“Thought you weren’t coming.”

“You know what thought did,” Mullen replied, quoting something that his teacher Miss King used to say to him without ever explaining further.

“I’m hungry.”

A full English breakfast was clearly part of the deal as far as Fitz was concerned. Mullen didn’t mind. He ordered himself one too. It was a welcome change from Muesli. And a

s long as Fitz was waiting for and then eating his breakfast and drinking his tea, he was a captive audience.

“So, tell me about Chris.”

“Hungry,” Fitz said.

Doug shrugged and waited. Two mugs of tea were soon delivered, but Fitz remained sullen and silent. The teas were followed, with impressive speed, by two plates piled with the sort of fry-up a man would die for. Mullen dug in, pushing a fork piled high with bacon, egg, sausage and toast into his mouth. He shuddered with pleasure. He looked across at Fitz, who grunted rhythmically as he swallowed three mouthfuls of food in quick succession. At that rate, Mullen reckoned, he would be done and dusted within minutes and then out of the door. Maybe this was a mistake, another dead end up which he had been led. Fitz jerked his head up as if he had read Mullen’s thoughts and gave a toothy grin.

“He was a tight bastard.”

Fitz took another slug of tea from his mug and belched. Mullen sipped at his tea and waited.

“Tried to borrow off me. He pretended he was skint. I was stupid enough to give him a tenner, but I never got it back.”

“If he didn’t have any money, why do you say he was tight?”

Fitz pushed another fork-load of food into his mouth and chewed it more slowly, maybe spinning out his pleasure. He wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked across at Mullen again, this time without a trace of a grin.