Starting Over Read Free Page B

like.’
    I slipped into the passenger seat and settled myself. It felt good.Keith eased himself behind the wheel, red-faced and muttering about a lack of initiative among the younger generation. We left the kid standing in the car park, staring after us with a wistful look.
    Out on the road, Keith pulled out a couple of packets from under the dash. Zestoretic. Amlodipine. He pushed out a pill from each and washed them down with a swig from a can of Red Bull.
    ‘Goes a treat with your blood-pressure medication,’ he smiled.
    ‘We’re getting old,’ I said. Keith was forty-two, five years younger than me, although he looked as though he had even more miles on the clock. ‘In fact, we are old.’
    Keith just laughed and pulled out a packet of cigarettes with a skull on the front. Then with one hand on the steering wheel and the other on his high-tar snouts, he pulled his car on to the wrong side of the road and really put his foot down, as if he was trying to outrace someone.
    We came across a woman crying.
    ‘Pictures of my children,’ she sobbed. ‘It had all the pictures of my children.’
    ‘Someone thieve your phone?’ Keith said, and when the woman nodded, he motioned for her to get in the back of the car. ‘Hop in, love,’ he said cheerfully. ‘We’ll get your phone back for you.’
    This was what Keith was good at. This was where he excelled. We drove around slowly, the lady still upset on the back seat, until we were passing a tube station where some kids in school uniform were talking to a skinny guy in his twenties. He had a scabby pallor about him that marked him as a heroin addict.
    ‘He’s not eating his greens, is he?’ observed Keith, stopping on a double-yellow line. When we got out of the motor and moved closer to the little crowd, I could see how scared the school kids were. The suspect had one hand in the pocket of his shabby parka, and held the other palm outstretched to the school kids. One of them was giving him an iPod. Keith chuckled as he put his arm around the suspect’s shoulder.
    ‘What’s going on here then?’ he said.
    The suspect looked at him with a start. ‘Just listening to some music, officer.’ He handed back the iPod and made to bolt, but Keith’s friendly arm held him in place.
    Keith was nodding. ‘Downloading a few banging tunes, are we?’ He nodded at the iPod. ‘What you got on there? Bit of garage? Bit of Shirley Bassey? I’m a Clash fan myself.’ He looked at the frightened faces of the schoolchildren. ‘Never heard of The Clash? What do they teach you at these schools?’ He made a small gesture with his head. ‘Better run off and do some homework.’
    They scarpered. The suspect made one last effort to get away. Keith embraced him tighter.
    ‘Not you, moonbeam,’ he said. ‘You’ve got detention.’
    With his free hand, Keith reached into the parka and pulled out a screwdriver. The metal had been sharpened to a vicious point.
    ‘That’s what he waved in my face,’ said the woman. She wasn’t crying now.
    Keith considered the screwdriver. ‘Planning a bit of woodwork, are we? Knocking up a few dovetail joints?’
    I went through the rest of his pockets. Each one produced a mobile phone. When the lady found the one that belonged to her, Keith told her to get into the car and wait. She didn’t move.
    Keith pulled the thief under a sign that said NO ENTRY and into the tube station. The lady and I followed them. I could hear the trains rumbling far below us. Keith slammed him back against the wall and gave him a slap across the cheek.
    ‘Stealing someone’s pictures of their children,’ he said. ‘I don’t think that’s very nice.’
    ‘You can’t do that,’ the suspect said. ‘That’s police brutality.’
    ‘I can do what I like if you resist arrest,’ Keith said. ‘Did you see him resisting arrest, DI Smith?’
    ‘It was appalling, DI Jones,’ I said.
    ‘I know my rights,’ the suspect said. ‘I want my lawyer.’
    ‘Yeah,