Poppet

Browns Brasserie, The Triangle

DI CAFFERY KNOWS everyone in the restaurant is monitoring him for signs he’s going to react to the woman throwing wine on him. He can sense their universal disappointment when he isn’t pulled that easily.

He takes his time with the hamburger – refusing to be harassed or hurried. Occasionally, as he chews, his eyes go casually to the door – to the backs of the two bouncers – legs planted wide, arms folded, facing the glass doors. Beyond them the woman – now on her feet – staggers around on the pavement, hurling abuse at the doormen.

Caffery has spent the dullest lunchtime and afternoon at a Criminal Justice Forum: discussing liaison practices between custody suites and mental health unit admissions ward – he’s fed up with talking about stuff he’s not interested in, schmoozing and being nice to people he doesn’t care about. But this woman – her name is Jacqui Kitson – this woman has, at the eleventh hour, kickstarted an ordinary day into something extraordinary.

Extraordinary. Not pleasant. It’s what he’s been half expecting for a long time.

She has given up hectoring the door staff and is sitting in the gutter, her head in her hands, crying. By the time Caffery has paid his bill the staff have opened the doors again – allowing in the customers who’ve had to wait outside. They shuffle in edgily, casting cautious glances at the woman – only pausing to stand aside for Caffery to make his way out.

He puts his wallet in his inside pocket. The bill was forty pounds. Extravagant for a meal alone – but he doesn’t have much to spend his money on these days. He’s always tinkering around for a hobby to take his mind off work, but it doesn’t come naturally and he knows dining alone isn’t going to be the answer. Maybe if there was someone to eat with? There’s one woman he’d prefer to be with, but the complications there are taller than a mountain. Jacqui Kitson doesn’t know it but she is deeply connected with those complications.

‘Jacqui,’ he says, standing over her. ‘You want to talk.’

She turns her head to check out his shoes. Then she raises her face – half blind. Her eyes are swollen and there are long streaks of mascara down her cheeks. Her head isn’t steady on her neck. She has been sick in the gutter and her handbag is lying half in the road, straddling the double-yellow lines. She’s a total mess.

He sits next to her. ‘I’m here now, you can yell at me.’

‘Don’t wanna yell,’ she murmurs. ‘Just want her back.’

‘I know that – we all do – we all want her back.’ He pats his pocket for one of the silver-and-black tubes he’s been hauling around for months – V-Cigs – trying to break his old bad habit, which, after years of pressure from the government and friends, he has at last done – replacing it with fake steel replicas. He clicks the atomizer into the battery housing. He is still faintly embarrassed by the gimmickry of the V-Cig. If he was sitting outside himself and watching he’d be tempted to make a scathing comment. The passing motorists and pedestrians let their attention brush briefly over the pair sitting on the pavement. A pink Humvee stretch limo crawls by, the blackened windows open. A woman in a pink cowboy hat and strapped on L-plates leans out and waves at Caffery.

‘I loves you,’ she yells as the Hummer passes. ‘I do!!!!’

Caffery sucks in the nicotine vapour. Holds it and blows it out in a thin stream. ‘Jacqui, you’re a long way from home. How did you get here – are you on your own?’

‘I’m always on my own now, aren’t I? Always on my fucking own.’

‘Then how am I going to get you home? Did you drive here?’

‘Yeah.’

‘All the way from Essex?’

‘Don’t be a fucking idiot. I’m staying here – in a hotel. My car’s …’ She waves her hand vaguely down the hill. ‘Dunno.’

‘You didn’t drive like this, did you?’

She focuses hazily on the V-Cig. ‘Can I have one of them?’

‘It’s not real.’

‘Gimme one out of my—’ She squints, searching for her bag. Then slaps her hands down – feeling around in panic.

‘Here.’ Caffery passes her the bag from the road. She pauses, scowls accusingly at him and grabs it – as if he was on the point of stealing it. She starts rummaging through the contents, but every time she lowers her head the alcohol sets her off balance and she has to put her head back and take deep breaths.

‘Oh,’ she says, ‘it’s all going round and round. I’m arsed, aren’t I?’

‘Close your bag, Jacqui. You’re going to lose all your stuff. Come on.’ He gets to his feet. Holds a hand out to her. ‘I’ll drive you back to your hotel.’