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Partridge or Gunner’s done him then?’
    Willy shrugged. ‘Someone done him, Pat, and let’s face it, Micky could be a ponce when the fancy took him. Even I’ve felt like cracking him one before now.’
    ‘Everyone in recorded history has felt like giving Micky a dig before now. So where are they running the birds from?’
    ‘Paddington as usual. They have a couple of flats there and other places all over the smoke and the South East. Right ropey some of them birds are, and all. Dosed up to the eyebrows a lot of them and that’s not counting the HIV-positive ones. Micky offers them the earth, see. They pay up to a grand to get out of their country, he sorts it for them and then takes their passports and papers and tells them they have to work off the excess money they owe. It’s a doddle really. He was earning off them all over the place. If they got a bit lairy like, they’d get a right fucking hiding to sort them out. I always said Wanker was a scummy bastard.’
    Patrick sighed. ‘So if he’s out of the game, who’ll be sorting it from now on?’
    ‘Well, Partridge and Gunner will be looking for someone else to bring in, won’t they? I reckon they’ll want to see you.’
    ‘Unless I see them first, eh?’ Patrick said thoughtfully. ‘Get the car ready, Willy. Me and you are going on a pussy hunt.’
    Willy left the room and Patrick felt a hand tighten around his heart. Kate would have his balls and nail them to the dining-room wall if she got wind of any of this.
    He knew that everyone thought he was off his trolley to take up with an Old Bill, even if she had found the murderer of his daughter. The daughter he worshipped, adored, who had been his whole life. He knew that people thought he was soft, losing it, that Mandy’s death had left him lacking the natural aggression he needed to be a hard man. He was aware of all that, but over the last couple of years he and Kate had proved themselves to be a good partnership.
    The only bugbear was, Kate really thought he was straight now. He had been in every kind of business under the sun, anything from massage parlours to debt collecting. She thought he had given it all up. She thought he was straight now.
    He closed his eyes in distress. The moment she heard about this latest piece of skulduggery she was going to go ballistic - and who could blame her? He knew he was a lying toe-rag.
    The day she had moved in with him he had promised her that he would be straighter than a Catholic nun having a vision. He had not kept his side of the bargain. In fact, he had never had any intention of keeping his side of the bargain. Not for a good while anyway.
    Like the man crying in the courtroom, he wasn’t sorry for what he had done, he was sorry he had been caught. Even he admitted there was a big difference between the two.
     
    Harris Jenkins was a small man with large teeth and thick lips. His job was unhealthy but he loved it. Emptying bins was his life. He said he could tell what type of person lived in a house simply by the rubbish they threw out. And with his eagle eyes he readily saw things he could take away and sell on. A walking car boot sale, was Harris. A true believer that one man’s crap was another man’s treasure.
    At the moment he was sorting through a pile of rubbish left by the bins at a small block of flats for old people. They threw out some great stuff. As he picked through the cardboard boxes he smiled happily. Let his colleagues wait. He needed to sift through this stuff carefully. Some of it was crockery and that could be worth a few quid.
    Meanwhile Denny Gardener and John Piles were sitting in the bin van talking. They were used to Harris and his treasure-seeking. In fact, they welcomed it as an excuse for a break.
    ‘Here, Denny, how do you make an Essex girl’s eyes light up? Shine a torch in her ear!’
    Both men cracked up with laughter.
    Denny carried on rolling himself a cigarette. He placed a bit of skunk in it and John