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wrist.
    ‘So fucking snotty, aren’t you?’
    He twisted her arm. Not too hard, not enough to break it, just enough to hurt her. Just enough to give the bitch some pain.
    ‘I mean, a shitty bedsit off Kilburn Lane, and she thinks she’s found a future.’
    He felt her try to wriggle free. No strength, he thought. Like holding a bird.
    ‘He’s a driver, darling, so he’s rubbish, see? Can’t even keep you in tampons, can he? Just a sad little bastard who’ll buy you fuck-all.’
    It gave him pleasure, to feel her struggle. So slim, she was. Such a bit of nothing. It pleasured him, enormously. The bitch, he thought. The luscious bitch.
    ‘D’you like poor blokes, then? Cause there’s a lot of them around, sugar. Blokes like him, see. Blokes who want to stick it in for nothing. All cock and no cash, darling, that what you like?’
    ‘You can’t imagine what I like.’
    ‘Try me.’
    ‘You think money’s everything.’
    ‘I know it, sweetheart. I know it absolutely. It’s the iron law of life: if you don’t have it, you get shafted.’
    And he let her go, watched her rub her dainty skin. Not his fault, he told himself. She made him, frankly. She wound him up. He brushed his sleeve and flicked a speck of vagrant sponge to the floor.
    ‘I just don’t think you need a dosser, that’s all.’
    ‘He’s one of your boys, Henry.’ She wiped a teaspoon on the cloth. ‘I thought you looked after your boys.’
    ‘I do, my love. Long as they’re loyal.’
    She chucked the cloth on to the draining board.
    ‘Only dogs are loyal.’
    The Fatman smiled.
    ‘My boys are dogs.’
    He leaned forward and turned off the tap, for he liked to make a contribution, he liked to do his bit.
    ‘Look,’ he said, ‘let’s be friends, all right? Joe’s basically a mate, so you be nice to me, and I’ll be nice to him.’
    ‘How nice?
    ‘He owes twelve grand.’
    ‘Much as that?’
    ‘I’ll wipe it.’
    ‘Because he’s a mate . . . ’
    ‘Because you’ll be nice.’
    He watched her think it over, could see the cogs revolving in her brain.
    ‘He’s a soft lad, see. Needs cherishing.’
    He opened one of the cupboards and began to root inside.
    ‘Been bullied a bit,’ he murmured. ‘Schoolboy stuff, but pretty nasty.’
    A small exclamation of pleasure as he found a pack of assorted wafers.
    ‘You want to know what they did?’
    ‘Not really.’
    ‘Because I’ll tell you if you want.’
    ‘Rather you didn’t.’
    ‘Well as you’re asking, as you’re begging: they tied a ribbon round his thing and pulled him round the playground. In front of everyone, can you believe that, eh? I mean kids , I ask you.’
    He leaned towards her and lowered his voice.
    ‘Between ourselves, of course. I mean he told me that in confidence.’
    And he tapped the side of his nose and chewed on a caramel wafer. The girl began edging past.
    ‘Going back in, are we? Allow me, darling.’
    He held the door open and went in after her.
    ‘Been having a chinwag,’ he announced. ‘Bit of a chat with little luscious.’
    ‘We off soon?’
    ‘You bored, then, Merv?’
    ‘I’ve got this date, see.’
    A spasm wrenched the Fatman’s gut, for it always disturbed him, when the boys did that, when they showed their true, unfettered natures, revealed their damp and clammy urges. It pained him in his lower belly, made his insides throb and burn, and he’d have to take some milk to cool them down.
    ‘Delighted for you. A girly, is it?’
    ‘In her thirties.’
    ‘Not like you, son, to be so generous.’
    ‘Make better fucks, boss. More grateful, aren’t they?’
    ‘Well-spotted, Merv, and this is tremendous news. Am I right, Joe, eh? You happy for him? Cause I am, see. I’m a happy man.’
    The ache inside his Fatman gut, and Henry had this sudden longing to be physical, to unburden all his Henry stress, relieve himself by doing something dirty. A need he had. He couldn’t help it. To feed the need was all he wanted.
    He