Not Dead Yet

prison and heavy smoking did for you. His hair was still immaculate, but the blonde colour had gone and instead was the gingery colour of bad dye. But he still exuded the same arrogance from every pore of his skin. ‘I didn’t do it.’
    ‘Do what?’
    ‘What you said I done.’
    ‘Vandalize my lady’s car?’
    ‘I didn’t do it. You’re making a mistake.’
    Clenching his fists, and having to work hard to control the anger that was steadily building inside him, and his hatred for this scumbag all the more intense now he was so close to him, Grace said, ‘Your handwriting’s all over it.’
    Smallbone shook his head. ‘You can think what you like, Grace, but knowing your reputation in this city, I don’t think I’m the only person who isn’t signed up to your fan club.’
    Grace leaned closer, his face right up against Smallbone’s. ‘Twelve years ago, just after you were sent down, someone burned almost identical words on to my lawn. Don’t even try to deny that was you, because that will make me even angrier. All right?’
    He leaned back a little. Smallbone said nothing. Then Graceleaned forward again, pressing his face even closer, so their noses were almost touching. ‘You’re out on licence, a free man, Smallbone, free to do anything you want. But I’m warning you now, and I’m not ever going to warn you again. If anything happens to my lady and the child she is carrying, anything at all, anything , I won’t be locking you up again, understand? I won’t be locking you up because there won’t be enough bits of you left to fill a matchbox, by the time I’ve finished with you. Do you understand?’
    Without waiting for any comment, Grace climbed out and walked around to the other side of the car, then jerked the door open as hard as he could. Smallbone, his right arm twisted behind his back and hooked by the other end of the cuff to the door handle, was jerked out and fell on his back in the grass, with a pained grunt.
    ‘Oops, sorry,’ Grace said. ‘Forgot you were holding on to the door.’ Then he knelt and frisked him for a second time. When he was satisfied he didn’t have another phone, he unlocked the cuffs, and pulled him to his feet. ‘So, we understand each other, do we?’
    Smallbone stared around him, in the almost pitch darkness now, the pelting rain matting his hair to his head. ‘I told you, I haven’t touched her car. It’s not my doing. I don’t know anything about it.’
    ‘In that case,’ Grace said with a smile, ‘you’ve got nothing to worry about. Have a nice walk home. It should sober you up nicely!’
    ‘Hey – what do you mean?’
    Grace walked round to the driver’s door and opened it.
    ‘You’re not leaving me here?’
    ‘Actually, I am.’
    Smallbone patted his pockets. ‘You’ve got my phone!’
    ‘Don’t worry, it’s safe!’ Grace climbed in, shut the door and hit the central locking. Then he started the engine.
    Smallbone pounded on the roof, shouting, ‘Hey!’ He tried to open the front passenger door.
    Grace lowered the window a fraction. ‘I’ll drop your phone off at Brighton nick – oh, and your umbrella too!’
    ‘Don’t leave me here like this…please,’ Smallbone said, trying politeness for once in his life. ‘At least give me a lift back to town.’
    ‘Sorry,’ Grace said. ‘It’s an insurance thing. Not allowed to takepassengers unless on official police business. You know how it is these days. Health and Safety, all that shit. Bummer.’
    He drove off, slowing down for a brief instant to flick on the rear spotlight, and enjoy the sight of the forlorn, bewildered-looking figure stumbling across the grass after him.

43
    Apart from one night here during happier times with Ari, when they’d toured around Wales before Sammy was born, Glenn Branson did not really know Cardiff at all, and he wasn’t sure of his exact whereabouts in the city right now. Except it was a nice, swanky hotel, and the bar was still open and busy. He sat at the counter with Bella Moy next to him. He was buzzing, on a high from having been in the TV studio, feeling a faint sense of anticlimax that it was all over.
    He grabbed a handful of nuts in exotically coloured coatings and crunched them, then lifted his pint glass. ‘Cheers,’ he said.
    Bella raised her Cosmopolitan and they clinked glasses.
    ‘Well done, star!’ he said.
    ‘You were the star,’ she returned with a sweet smile.
    She was dressed in a navy trouser suit with an