Free Suffer the Children by Adam Creed

what he was supposed to have done?’ says Staffe.
    ‘Everyone knew.’
    ‘Knew what?’
    ‘His last missus had to piss off out the country to keep him off his own kids and now they say his new missus can’t see her own kids in case he starts giving them one. Fuckin’ frag.’
    ‘You seem to know a lot about the victim.’
    ‘Victim?’ says Denness. ‘Give ’em a medal, I say. And, anyway, I worked with him, didn’t I?’
    ‘And you live round the corner from him.’
    ‘So fuckin’ what?’
    ‘Do you know Leanne Colquhoun?’
    He takes a swig from his bottle of Beck’s and says, ‘I know a lot of women. How d’you expect me to keep track?’
    Denness is swaggering now and his mates are laughing, nudging closer still, forming a ring.
    ‘What about Leanne’s ex, Rob Boxall? You know him?’
    Out of the corner of his eye, Staffe can see Denness’s mates look away, drinking from their bottles.
    ‘Don’t ring no bells.’
    ‘Just so you know, you’re being watched. Put your filthy hands anywhere near that girl again and I’ll have
you
for kiddie fiddling.’
    ‘She’s a woman, you muppet,’ says Denness.
    ‘That’ll be your burden of proof,’ says Staffe.
    ‘The fuck you say?’ says Denness, like he’s wrestling with algebra.
    Staffe has had enough. He turns on his heel and pushes his way out of the pub. When he gets to his car, he leans against the off-side wing, sees the girl in the bright white light of a fried chicken queue opposite. Ross Denness comes out of the Rag. The girl waves at him but Denness blanks her. He has a face like thunder and, putting his head down, he strides off up the high street.
    Unsure whether to follow him, Staffe feels suddenly nervous , as if he might be under-equipped. But then a car blazes towards him. It blares its horn and swerves towards his car and Staffe has to throw himself on the bonnet. He rolls on to the pavement as the car screeches to a halt just yards away and a youth jumps out shouting, ‘What the fuck!’ Staffe gets up off the pavement, brushes himself down.
    The youth from the car walks towards Staffe, leaning backwards and swaggering with his pelvis pushed out, low-slung baggy jeans and a sideways baseball cap. As he walks, he talks, jabbing two fingers towards Staffe as if he’s holding a gun. ‘You in the fuckin’ road, man. What you doin’? We seen you, man. Know your game.’
    Staffe takes a deep breath and reaches into his inside pocket for his warrant card. The youth flinches, reaches into his own back pocket and with a fizzing noise he releases the catch to a flick knife. Staffe holds out his warrant card and says, ‘I’m police, you fucking prick, now drop that knife and put your nose against the wall.’
    He doesn’t know how this will pan out, can’t be sure he can pull it off. You never can be sure. And true enough, the ringleader looks back towards his mates in the car. Staffe knows he only has one chance. Four of them pile out of the car, so Staffe takes a step towards the youth and launches himself, going for the arm with the knife. He takes hold of the weapon and feels a bright seam of pain open up along his arm. He twists the youth’s wrist and sees his face come towards him, snarling. Staffe shoves him into the wall, drops him to the floor.
    The youth squeals and the blade drops to the pavement, metallic, smeared with Staffe’s blood. Staffe puts his boot on the blade and stands back as the chav curls into a ball, saying, ‘Fuckin’ bully, I’ll do you. Fuckin’ bully, don’t hit me no more.’ The ringleader looks daggers at the four mates who have stopped dead in their tracks. Then, to the gathering crowd, he says, to no one in particular, ‘You see that? You see that fuckin’ copper pullin’ a knife on me.’
    Staffe bends down, picks up the knife and as he does he sees blood streaming off the end of his fingers. His suede jacket is torn and the pain begins to kick and spread. He grimaces, blade in hand and