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aftershave. ‘You got a problem, son?’
    ‘No, mate, but you do.’
    ‘Yeah?’
    ‘Yeah.’ The youth nodded at the Cavalier. ‘I was backing in. It was my space. Until you fucking nicked it.’
    ‘Nicked it?’ Billy looked injured. ‘
Nicked
it?’
    The youth stared down at him. Anger did nothing for his composure. He glanced over his shoulder at his girlfriend. She was making a loose movement with her wrist. He nodded, turning back to Billy. ‘She’s fucking right,’ he said. ‘Wanker.’
    Billy was fiddling with the radio again. When he got the station dead centre, he pulled the door shut, ignoring the string of oaths through the open window. A taxi had arrived, the cabbie leaning on the horn, and the noise brought a couple of drinkers out of the pub. They read the situation at once, settling by the kerbside with their pints of lager, awaiting developments.
    The youth beside Billy’s car took a step back then swung at the door panel with his boot. The Audi shuddered as he did it again, harder this time, and Billy carefully stowed his screwdriver under the dashboard before getting out. The youth looked uncertain for a second or two, then threw a long, untidy right hook. Billy ducked it, closing with the youth, seizing him by the collar and driving his forehead into his face. He heard the youth’s nose break and, as his hands went up to shield his face, Billy drove his knee into his unprotected groin. The bellow of pain became awhimper as the air whistled out of him, and he collapsed onto the road, his body curled into a tight, protective ball.
    His girlfriend was out of the Cavalier now, and the sound of her screams brought more drinkers flooding from the pub. She gestured hopelessly at her fallen boyfriend, begging someone to do something, but most eyes were on Billy. He was standing over the prostrate youth, gazing down. At length, he tried to stir a little movement with his foot but the youth was still fighting for breath. A moment or two later, he groaned and began to vomit. Billy bent quickly, hauled him across the road by his armpits and left him curled in the gutter, still throwing up. The girl was hysterical, flailing at Billy with her fists. She’d call the police. She had his number. He was a bastard. He was sick. She’d make him pay. Billy ignored the threats, suggesting she move the Cavalier. She was causing an obstruction. People were trying to get past. The girl stared at him, then began to wail again, and in the end Billy left her to it, getting back in the Audi and starting the engine. Driving away, he paused beside her in the road. The youth was up on one elbow, looking dazed. His nose was pulped and blood was dripping off his chin. Billy smiled at him, then indicated the parking space he’d just abandoned outside the pub.
    ‘All yours,’ he said, reaching again for the radio.
    Kate Frankham sat in bed, trying to ignore the lure of the Sunday papers. They lay in an untidy pile beside her supper tray, a constant reminder of the world to which she knew she belonged. Eighteen months in local politics had taught her a great deal, and the most important lesson, by far, had been the realization that nothing was probably beyond her.
    She moistened the tip of her finger and began to flickthrough the thick raft of paperwork on which tomorrow’s meeting would float. The committee met on the first Monday of every month. In the council circulars, and on the public boards in the Civic Centre, it was known as the Cultural and Heritage Services Committee, and the first time she’d attended it, the experience had scared her witless. She’d been a stranger to this world of proposers and seconders, of minutes and addenda. She’d known nothing about procedures and protocols. Even the simple business of taking a vote had been a mystery. But Kate had never been slow to learn and it had dawned on her very quickly that the language of committees, like any other language, was simply the insiders’ way of