‘How bad?’

‘Liam Catchpole, Dottie Williams, Tiny Spotswood.’

‘That’s not good. That’s trouble.’

‘Yeah. Catchpole seems to have turned up about the time the kid went haywire. Last week he was looking for him again. The father’s been told his kid was on the piss with the three of them. You can guess what comes next, Frank?’

Parker scratched at his heavy beard; the noise was like amplified radio static. ‘I’d have to ask around a bit. That wouldn’t be too hard, there’s still people who owe me favours.’

‘I’d be grateful’, I said.

He wasn’t listening to me; he was off in the private world the persecuted build for themselves in the long, quiet nights and the slow, slow days.

‘Favours… favours. I can put pressure on people-bucket them if I want to. They’re afraid of me. Sometimes I think the whole bloody system runs on terror.’

‘Easy, Frank. I don’t want any terror. Just a line on Catchpole-who he’s fizzgigging for at the moment. What might be going on.’

‘Why don’t you front him?’

‘It might come to that. I’m just trying to be subtle first.’

‘Haven’t lost your nerve have you, Cliff?’

‘Come on, you know Liam and his sort better than I do. Thumping them does no bloody good. You make it worth their while if you can, or you find someone else who’ll tell you what they won’t. Thumping’s no good unless you’re prepared to go all the way. Liam would’ve got thumped in the cradle.’

‘You sound like a social worker.’

‘Just ask-will you?’

‘Okay.’

‘Thanks. Another beer.?’

‘No, don’t think so,’ He stretched his arms out in front of him and shook the imaginary bars of a cage. The old knife-scar showed dirty white on his black-haired forearm. ‘I reckon I’m glad you dropped by, Cliff.’