Free Acid Lullaby by Ed O'Connor Page B

main entrance of New Bolden station. He had fifteen minutes to get there: more than enough time. He was zipping up his rucksack and extinguishing a cigarette when a car’s headlights swung into the courtyard.
    Stark froze. Not many of his clients drove. It was most likely a squad car. He knew that the New Bolden police did regular drive-bys after dark. He shrank into the shadows and watched carefully. The car stopped directly opposite to his position. It was a Porsche 911. The driver didn’t move. Stark peered out from the shelter of RT Plastics. It was odd. Perhaps the driver was looking for prostitutes. The area wasn’t the exclusive preserve of druggies. The car door opened and the driver stepped out into the rain and extended his arms upwards towards the heavens as if stretching a troublesome back. He was tall. Beyond that, Stark couldn’t determine very much.
    The car door slammed. Stark heard the man’s footsteps moving around the courtyard. Perhaps he was a client: a lawyer or a young farmer seeking some jollies after a hard day’s exploitation. Business was slack – maybe it was worth the risk.
    ‘You looking for someone?’ he called at the figure. The footsteps stopped. There was a moment’s silence before the darkness replied in a crisp, rasping voice.
    ‘I was told I could buy stuff here.’
    ‘What stuff?’ Stark was uneasy but confident in his invisibility.
    ‘You know, syringes, needles, some smack.’
    ‘Who told you that?’
    ‘A bar man at The Feathers. Shaun, I think.’
    Stark knew Shaun McBride. He was reliable, a believer. In any case, the man didn’t look like a copper.
    Stark decided to chance it: one last punt before he hit theclubs. He climbed out of his hiding place and pushed open the fire exit, walking out into the courtyard. The figure stood before him smiling.
    ‘So what exactly were you after?’ asked Stark.
17
    Harvey dropped Underwood at his flat just before 11p.m.
    Underwood unlocked the door to the small studio he was renting and flopped into an armchair. The flat was pokey and basic: telephone, sofa, armchair, bed, table. He hadn’t unpacked his books and his record collection. It wasn’t home. He wasn’t really there.
    He knew he had to occupy his mind until sleep came. The tide began to roll in when he became bored.
    Busy.
    Underwood looked at the small pile of envelopes on his dining table. The previous evening he had rearranged all his direct debits and bank details. That morning he had written out his shopping list for the month. He was King Canute, running out of ideas.
    He decided to transcribe all the numbers saved in his mobile phone to the address pages of his diary. That would fill some time. As he began the task, he realized that there were significantly less numbers than there had been twelve months previously. The completion of his divorce from Julia had revealed the true allegiances of their ‘mutual’ friends.
    Wankers.
    Julia hadn’t called him for some time now. He knew she was alone, living in Hertfordshire, that she had bought a little cottage, that she had a job in an office. He tried not to let the situation anger him. Julia had left him for a man called Paul Heyer, then promptly left Heyer to be on her own. He still wasn’t sure whether he should feel insulted or complimented. He decided to return to his task and fill his mind withnumbers. Words were pissing him off. Numbers were inert. Numbers didn’t hurt.
    Underwood was disappointed that the transcriptions only took him ten minutes. He reassured himself that it was important to keep hard copies of mobile phone numbers; that he had been livid when he had lost his old mobile. Still, he felt pathetic. Particularly so when he noticed that he had entered Dexter’s number twice: once under ‘Alison’ and once under ‘Dex.’
    Pathetic.
    It didn’t make it any likelier she would call.
    The starkness of the room was getting to him. His life had been cleared of ornamentation and elaboration.