Part 29 (2/2)
”Cheese bap and a mug of tea,” he said. ”And have you seen this lad, by any chance?”
The guy behind the counter was young and dark skinned. Unlike some others, he took care checking the image; still, he shook his head.
”Sorry, man.”
”Never mind.”
”Eat in or take away?”
”Here, please. I'll sit in the corner.”
His table was at the rear. Incense smells drifted from out back. He sat leaning against the wall, pulled up the business news and searched for Broomhall. A tiny overlay pane checked for new sightings of Richard, finding nothing. The main pane showed thirteen recent items, none mentioning Philip Broomhall directly, all featuring companies he owned. Every one of them was facing a shareholder revolt or some other indication of possible hostile takeovers. Put together, it was an allout corporate attack on Broomhall's interests.
s.h.i.+t, I hate this stuff.
There are salespeople whose idea of aggression is to sell things more cheaply than their compet.i.tors. Business writers couch their narrative of corporate manoeuvres in the language of battlefield and military strategy. Without limbs being blown off in boardrooms, AGMs being rife with sucking chest wounds, and seventy percent burns on voting shareholders, the a.n.a.logy was an insult. Or perhaps he was one with the limited viewpoint.
A related comment piece, one that did mention Philip Broomhall, described him as looking ”unusually selfabsorbed.” Worried about his son?
Maybe he loves Richard and just can't show it.
”Cheese bap. Tea.” It was a young woman who delivered the food. ”Here you are.”
Her gaze was dull and her shoulders slumped, and she shuffled back toward the kitchen with little interest in what was going on. Congenital, or worn down by her situation? But saving the world was beyond him: witness his inability to find a single fourteen year-old boy.
The bap tasted dry and floury. Chewing, he scrolled through his phone's contacts list, found Viv, and pressed. He forced down the food as her image appeared, with the homeless shelter in the background.
”Hi, Josh. I haven't heard anything definite, before you ask. But there was something I was going to follow
up before calling you.”
”What kind of thing?””Just a maybe... The lad might be friendly with some gekrunners.”
”Any particular location?”
”No, sorry.”
”Viv, you've given me the only piece of meaningful information I've had today, maybe this week. So thank you.”
”Well, you're welcome. Look, we're busy at the”
”Sure. Take it easy.”
”You too.”
So, gekrunners. He could fire off querybots to research their movements locally, see which places they haunted, perhaps even backtrack to where they lived.
His attention snapped outwards as seven young guys, aged around eighteen, filed in and sat around the window table. The large workmen had departed; only two solitary men were left, finis.h.i.+ng their lunches. The gang all white, some with motile tattoos: a swastika rotating on one guy's neck, or flowing lines of tears from eye to jawline ordered tea, then sat waiting for everyone else to leave.
The dark-skinned man behind the counter shuffled his feet. His gaze kept moving towards the gang, then sliding away, while his hand repeatedly went to his phone, drew back.
Josh shut down his own phone.
First guess: five were armed.
”Tea tastes like p.i.s.s,” one of them was saying.
”We need to ask for our money back.”
”With cash interest, like.”
”f.u.c.kin' dark skin cooks their brains, don't it? Absorbs heat, right?”
They sn.i.g.g.e.red.
”Need a p.i.s.s,” said one.”Got a magnifying lens you can borrow. Help you find it.”
”f.u.c.k off.”
It was Rotating-Swastika Guy who went past Josh, heading for the small toilet at the back. Meanwhile, some of the others were on their feet, slapping each other's arms, all part of the ritual. The two men who'd been lunching both drained their cups and left, heads down, trying to maintain a fiction: that nothing was about to happen, that what went on around them was none of their business. Finally, Rotating-Swastika came back grinning. Chairs sc.r.a.ped as the remaining gang members stood up. Rotating-Swastika stopped at the till.
”You got cash in there, intya?”
”That's nothing to do with you.”
”Seein' as how you served us p.i.s.s, it f.u.c.kin' does, pal.”
”Please leave now.”
The others were gathering in a semi-circle, one-deep, behind Rotating-Swastika. When Josh stood up, all seven of them were in front. The tables on either side would make it hard for anyone to outflank him. They thought they outnumbered everyone; in fact they were lined up, targets for him to drop.
”Oh, sorry, mate.” One of the guys with drippingtears tats had noticed him. ”After you.”
The thug's sweeping, ushering gesture, encouraging Josh to leave, was not courteous: it was pa.s.siveaggressive. In court, he could claim he was being polite; uneducated witnesses would find it hard to describe the intimidation.
Except I'm not playing.As Josh breathed from his diaphragm, his voice came out deeper than normal.
”I'm in no hurry to leave.”
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