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register. She gave me a coy look above the rim of her cup, said,
    “You look like a guard.”
    I gave her my shy smile, as if I was secretly pleased. I wasn’t entirely sure how to smile like a guy in insurance, but predatory had to be a good start. I asked,
    “Was Sarah clumsy? I mean, would falling down be something she might be likely to do?”
    Peg glanced at Mary and I tried to read it but failed. Peg rooted for a cigarette in a pile of crushed boxes, found one, lit it from the cooker, said to Mary,
    “He’s asking if she was pissed, if she was a drinker…isn’t that what you’re asking? Then he puts that in his report and hey…no money.”
    I reassessed Peg, the hard stare, the fuck-you body language, and figured I could play. Said,
    “So was she? Fond of it I mean? Being a student, it’s part of the deal, best days of your life and all that.”
    She dropped the cig in her cup, swirled the contents, the fizzle making a noise like rumour. She said,
    “You’re a prick, you know that?”
    I was warming to Peg, no doubt about it. Mary picked up a book, deciding I no longer mattered, asked Peg,
    “You get to read this yet?”
    I saw the title, The Lovely Bones , by Alice Sebold. It begins:
    “My name was Salmon, like the fish; first name, Susie. I was fourteen when I was murdered.”
    Peg gave a dramatic shrug, went,
    “I don’t do saccharine shit.”
    Mary turned to me, explained,
    “Susie, in the book, she was murdered. Our Sarah died in a freak accident, so pay the fucking money.”
    Before I could gear up, Peg went,
    “Didn’t I read an interview in the Guardian with Alice Sebold?”
    Mary gave a smile of sheer malevolence. She’d been waiting for a male audience to run this by.
    Here I was.
    She didn’t rub her hands in glee but it was there, in the neighbourhood. She began,
    “Alice was eighteen, a student, and on her way home she was raped. Her attacker raped her with his fist and his penis, he beat her up and urinated on her face. When she got home that night, her father asked if she’d like something to eat.”
    Mary paused, so I knew this was going to be rough. She continued,
    “Alice replied, ‘That would be nice, considering the only thing I’ve had in my mouth in the last twenty-four hours is a cracker and a penis.’”
    For once in my dumb life, I did the smart thing: I did nothing. They stared with expectation and I stared back.
    Then Peg said,
    “If there’s nothing else…Mr?…we’d like to get on with other stuff, like our lives.”
    I stood up. God knows I’d been dismissed by experts. I had certainly been dissed. I asked,
    “Might I see a copy of the book?”
    Mary, suspicious, went,
    “Alice Sebold?”
    I watched their faces, said,
    “A copy of a book by Synge, lying beneath the body.”
    Peg shrugged, began to build another coffee. I was wondering how wired she was going to get.
    She said,
    “It’s in the bookcase…like…’cause…it’s where we keep…books.”
    She enunciated this slowly like you would to a very slow child, but hey, I can do the tolerance rap. I asked,
    “Might I see it?”
    Mary stormed out, leaving me with the caffeined fiend. A few moments later she was back, held out the volume, asked,
    “I give you this, are you gone?”
    “Like the Midlands’ wind.”
    I put it in my pocket, said,
    “You’ve been most generous with your time.”
    Peg brushed past me, not quite shouldering me but the intention was clear, and she said,
    “Wanker.”
    On that note, I was out of there.
    I held off examining the volume till later, took a long walk out to the bay, bought a burger, large Coke and sat on the rocks. I refused to think about Ann Henderson, wished I had brought my Walkman. I hadn’t yet moved along to Discmans and, like some dinosaur, was still using cassettes. There is one benefit: they slide on your belt like a smooth untruth.
    Then and there I’d have listened to Bruce and Empty Sky . That he’d finally released a new album should have