Another swab appeared. The old man stared into the distance as the doctor took hold of his penis and swabbed round the glans.

‘I'm going to take a sample of blood now.’

A syringeful of blood was removed from Harry's arm and split into two small plastic jars — one for DNA testing and one for blood-grouping comparison. The detective collected the packages together and stored them in a fridge until they were able to go to the forensic lab. Now there was just one more sample left to collect. The doctor presented a small bowl.

‘Spit into this for me please, Mr Dickinson.’

But that was one sample that Harry had no trouble in providing.

*

Afterwards, Diane Fry couldn't stop trembling from a mixture of rage and fear. She looked down at her hands in horror, appalled at what they had done. Where was the control? Where was the discipline? Where was the high-minded motivation? She needed reassurance, but all she had was Ben Cooper, comatose in the passenger seat of her Peugeot.

The most difficult part of the job had been getting Ben to the car and away. He would just have to pick up his Toyota tomorrow, when he was sober and a bit more mobile.

She had no idea where he lived, and could see no alternative to taking him home with her. The very last thing she wanted was to have anyone in her bare, soulless flat, let alone Ben Cooper. But what else could she do? Cooper sat with his head lolling, a trickle of blood running down the side of his head on to his neck. A large bruise was forming over one eye, and his lips were split and swollen. Fry had never seen anyone look such a mess. She prayed that he wouldn't throw up in her car. On the way up Castleton Road she damned him to hell and back for getting her into this situation.

The only consolation she had was that she managed to divert her final blow at the last moment. But the strike to the side of the third youth's neck had been sufficient to lay him out on the floor of the alley with the other two.

She became aware of the Suzanne Vega tape on the cassette player. It had come on automatically with the ignition, but it sounded too depressing.

Impatiently, she flicked out the tape and replaced it with Tanita Tikaram, turning the volume up loud so that it beat against the car windows. The album was Ancient Heart', and Fry listened to Tikaram start to sing a familiar track. It had a line that always continued to run through her mind long afterwards: 'Now Your Conscience is Clear'. She glanced at Cooper, saw his eyes flickering half-open, as if the music was getting through to him. But his pupils were unfocused, and he stared straight ahead for a moment, seeing nothing, as the noise thumped around him. Then his head drooped again.

When they reached Grosvenor Road, Fry shook Cooper and managed to rouse him enough to negotiate the front door and the stairs partly under his own steam, though he needed her arm wound tight around his chest. She could feel his heart beating under her hand through a tear in his shirt, and the sweet smell of beer on his breath made a heady blend with his distinctive male odour. It was a scent she had not smelled so closely for a long time.

She took him straight to the bedroom and dumped him on the bed, disentangling his rubbery limbs from around her body. Then she began to pull off his clothes — his scuffed shoes, his jacket and his torn shirt, pulling and tugging violently at his jeans until they turned inside out and came away from his feet. Then she brought a bowl of warm water and a cloth and bathed the blood from his forehead and cleaned the weeping grazes on his back and legs. She noticed that his body was taut with lean muscle, and she guessed the injuries starting to appear on his chest and sides would prove to be nothing worse than bruises in the morning. No bones broken. Then, as she worked on a cut on his thigh, Fry became aware of the growing bulge that stirred in the front of his briefs. Cooper was getting an erection.

She looked up at his face. He had stirred and was regarding her with a bitter, aggressive stare through half-closed eyes. His face was red and his hair fell wildly across his forehead. At first she didn't think he even recognized who she was. Then his eyes came momentarily into focus and fixed on her face.

‘Fry? What have you got that I haven't got? Why don't you ever get so that you can't take all the shit any more? Are your tits made of steel, or what?’

She jerked away to the edge of the bed as if he had slapped her. She turned her back on him, clenching her fists and gritting her teeth, attempting to control her anger at the taunt. The blood flushed through her face and neck and into her throat at the ingratitude. Her palms itched to reach out and hold on to something, to prove the unfairness of the jibe. He was totally wrong.

She was not a passionless bitch, not some machine with no feelings. He was so, so wrong.

She was conscious of Cooper's bare, lean body only inches away, and tensely aware of the dark, curling hair spreading down his abdomen towards his tautly swelling erection.

‘I'll show you steel tits,' she said. She pulled her blouse roughly over her head and reached round to unhook her bra, in the same moment turning back towards him and leaning over his naked chest. Then she stopped. Her breasts were swinging free, her nipples beginning to harden with excitement as they brushed gently against his hot skin. The expression on her face changed and darkened with anger. She grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him violently. His head lolled forward, his cheek bouncing into the soft flesh of her breasts. Ben Cooper was unconscious and snoring.

‘Bastard!’

Finally she went back to the sitting room, her mind repeating what he had said, over and over. Steel tits. What had he meant? She undressed, did her exercises automatically and without enthusiasm, pulled a rug over her and lay down on the sofa. Her body was weary, but her mind was whirling endlessly. She tried to read a book, but found the pages were a blur. She discarded the book, turned over restlessly and eventually put out the light. She pressed her face into her pillow, hugged her steel tits to herself, and wept.

25

The old man sat upright on the plastic chair in the interview room, staring at DCI Tailby and DC Fry with frozen dignity, as if he were the only one present who knew how to behave properly.

‘Interview commenced at 1430 Friday twenty-seventh August. Those present are Detective Chief Inspector Tailby . . 'Detective Constable Fry . .

Tailby nodded at Harry. 'Could you identify yourself for the tape, please, sir.'

‘ My name's Harold Dickinson.'

‘ You're entitled to have a solicitor present, Mr Dickinson. Do you have your own, or would you like the duty solici tor?'

‘ I'll not need one of them.'

‘ Are you quite sure? ’

Harry ignored the question, waiting for the next one. Tape or not, he seemed to say, there were times when speaking was a waste of breath.

‘ Have you been given food and sufficient rest?' asked Tailby formally. 'Have you been given the opportunity to make a phone call?''Where's my dog?'

‘ He's being looked after, Mr Dickinson,' said Fry. 'She's a she, not a he,' he said, with open contempt. Tailby glared back across the table. 'We have to ask you some more questions, Mr Dickinson. ’

Harry stared at him impassively. Somehow he made his waxed paper suit look as if it had come from a rack at Marks and Spencers. The disposable plimsolls they had given him looked almost as if they had been polished overnight.