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three of their men. They didn’t say anything to his face, but then they didn’t need to. He could see it in their eyes. He could feel it in the way he was shunned in the bar. He could sense it in the way no onewas ever going to trust him again. When the chips were down, no one could count on John Porter. And the Regiment didn’t have much space for those who couldn’t be relied on.
    Within three years, he’d left active service, and been put on firing-range duty: there was no more humiliating posting for a Regiment man. After another couple of years, he’d left the army completely. The only career he’d ever planned for himself was over. How do you put your life back together after something like that? Porter wondered. If there was an answer, he’d never found it.
    Porter could suddenly feel a hand on his shoulder. As he spun round, Dan was looking straight at him. ‘I thought I told you to piss off.’
    ‘I’m just –’ started Porter.
    ‘You’re just stinking the place up,’ snapped Dan. ‘Now scarper before I call the police and get you banged up for the night.’
    Porter was about to say something, but the words stalled on his lips. The aching in his head was terrible, and the pain in his left leg was growing worse: a tingling sensation, that seemed to numb him all the way up to the knee. With his head bowed, he started walking.
    ‘The bloody back door,’ shouted Dan.
    Porter ignored him, and kept on walking. He stepped out of the foyer of the Travel Inn into a murky, overcast street. There was a McDonald’s round the corner, and he glanced towards the bins, but so far as he could see they’d been emptied recently. No chance of getting a bite to eat there then, he reflected.
    He walked slowly across the river. There was a hole in one of the old canvas shoes he was wearing, and it was letting in the dirt, but his left leg was already in such terrible condition, it probably didn’t make any difference. There were plenty of people around him as he walked across thebridge, and up the busy road that led towards the prosperous houses, shops and bars of Chelsea and Fulham.
    ‘Could you spare me some money?’ he mumbled to a man who was walking past him towards the tube station.
    The man looked away, not saying anything.
    ‘Just a couple of quid to help me out,’ Porter muttered to another guy who standing right next to him.
    He snapped something in what sounded like Polish, then headed past him.
    ‘A quid for a cup of tea, love,’ he said, trying to meet the brown eyes of a girl who was rummaging around in her handbag for a ringing mobile phone.
    She said nothing, glanced at him once, then started smiling as she answered the phone.
    ‘Jesus,’ Porter muttered. ‘Doesn’t anyone …’
    A woman brushed passed him, ignoring him as he wobbled on his feet. His head was spinning and he was having trouble concentrating. ‘Watch where you’re fucking going,’ he shouted.
    She turned round and looked at him. She was forty or so, with dark brown hair, a well-cut black trouser suit, and a briefcase under her arm. ‘Piss off,’ she snapped sharply. ‘Some of us have got jobs to get to.’
    Porter walked towards her menacingly. He wasn’t sure what he was going to do. He couldn’t even think straight. The splitting, beating noise in his head was getting worse. There were stars flashing in front of his eyes, and he was finding it hard to balance. He was swaying as he walked, unsure how much longer his feet would support him. ‘Watch your fucking mouth,’ he shouted, surprising himself with the strength and anger he put into the words. ‘You know nothing about me. Fucking nothing.’
    He knelt down. She had already turned and fled, but as she’d moved swiftly away she’d dropped her purse from her handbag. Quickly, making sure nobody could see him,Porter slipped the wallet into his ragged, filthy jumper and started to walk away. He’d moved on a hundred yards towards the New King’s Road before