Brent said, 'We were told that you might bluster a bit at first. ..'

Ken said, '… but after the bluster you'd be good as gold. Miss I'arsons, I've been on Drug Squad a bit over four years. Brent's been on Task Force, drug-importation team, for six years. All we get near is the creatures at the bottom of the pyramid. What we were told, sort of vague, you've the chance to hurt them right at the sharp end, nothing specific, but hurt the top of the pyramid. Now, if the bluster time's over, could you get in, please?'

She did as she was told. She was good as gold, as Axel Moen had said she would be.

She took the big step, and ducked down into the back of the old Sierra. Bloody man…

The car was a fraud, dapped out exterior but a high-performance tuned engine. Brent drove, and Ken was twisted round in the front seat so that he could la Ik to her. She thought she was tired, but as the car hammered on the lanes and then the fast road, she came to know the crow's-feet lines and the sack bulges at Ken's eyes. Something of a joke at first, about the tattoo only being a transfer that he could wash off each night, about a limit to the cause of duty, but old Brent had gone the whole hog and had his nostril pierced for the goddam job. They were not in the style of any policemen that she had met before. She l bought a part of the smell came from the discarded polystyrene last-food plates that were dumped on the floor in the back, under her feet, and the rest of the smell came from the clothes they wore. They smoked hard, and didn't ask whether she minded them smoking. Ken said they weren't interested in cannabis, nor in solvents, nor in amphetamines, nor in the benzodiazepines like Temazepam and the barbiturates like sodium amytal. They worked the world of heroin that was skag, horse, smack, stuff, junk, and the world of crack cocaine that was rock, wash. She listened…

They came into the city of Plymouth, where Charley went for best shopping, for a dress for a friend's wedding, for Christmas presents and birthday gifts for her mother and father, and they talked her through the street cost of skag and rock. She listened…