type”?’ he mouthed to himself, amazed. He stuck his head around the door. ‘I’m clean-living, kind-hearted and pathetically single. If you’re going to pass on this great opportunity, can you at least fix me up with a date?’
‘Sure. My sister would like you. She’s cute and she might even go out with you. Just say the word and I’ll arrange it. But I warn you, she’s a Muslim.’
‘Would she really? What difference does it make, her being a Muslim?’
‘She’ll only go out with a Muslim boy, so you’d have to give up the beer,’ Meera told him. ‘And Muslims are circumcised, so you might need a small operation.’
‘Jesus, Meera, you have a sick sense of humour.’
‘What’s the matter, Colin? Feeling threatened? Now you know how I feel when you pester me.’
‘I think you spent too much time roughing it in the south London stations.’ Colin kicked his locker door shut. ‘Come on then. I’ll give you a lift, no strings attached.’
‘It’s Tate, he’s in the garden again,’ said Kallie, holding open the front door.
‘Does he know you’ve seen him?’ asked Meera, entering.
‘I don’t know—I don’t think so. He hasn’t moved for over half an hour, even in this rain.’ The lights in the hall had been turned off. ‘I could keep an eye on him more easily in the dark,’ she explained, leading the way down to the back door. Meera stood in front of her, looking out. She was unusually short for a police officer, but could hold down a man twice her weight.
‘OK, I see him.’ A figure could be discerned inside a large elder bush. Meera ascended three steps to the small sodden lawn. It was hard to see any detail through the gloom of the overhanging ceanothus. The garden was so enclosed and dense that she could have been stepping into the green underwater murk of a pond.
‘I need to talk to you, Mr Tate,’ she said briskly, raising her hands in a gesture of friendship. ‘Please, come on out.’
His movement was so sudden that she started. The bush shook violently, spraying rainwater as he twisted about and dropped low. The last thing Meera wanted was to plough through wet undergrowth in semi-darkness, but she instinctively shoved her way in between the leaves.
Suddenly he was pushing away fast, bending and cracking the branches. She heard the thud of his boots hitting the fence, saw him scrambling over with ease, even though it was clear that he only had the use of his left arm and leg. He’d either been born with the affliction or the injury was old: his movements were practised and agile. She remembered a young heroin addict on the Peckham North estate who had lost a leg after passing out in a crouching position down the side of a club toilet, cutting off his blood supply. Afterwards, he moved as if the limb was still in place: Phantom Limb Syndrome. The mind still worked when the body failed.
Her jacket was caught on rose thorns. She yanked her sleeve free and ran for the fence, taking it easily, keeping her eye on his retreating back as he leapt the next divider, turning the back gardens into a mud-spattered steeplechase.
This time he swerved and dropped over the low brick wall at the rear, into the narrow alley that separated Balaklava Street from the road behind. She was no more than a few feet behind him, vaulting in his wake, slipping and scrambling to her feet, but the dim brown corridor of the overgrown path was deserted. There was nowhere he could have gone. She fought her way to one end, then back to the other. Nothing in either direction, not even any footprints in the muddy track.
Meera returned to the bush where the tramp had been hiding. The centre of the elder had been hollowed out and shielded with branches to form a small hideaway. The earth inside was trampled flat, and several squashed cigarette ends lay in the mud at her feet. A familiar green and gold tin lay on its side. She picked it up, shining her pocket torch across the metal surface, and saw the macabre image of a dead lion with a swarm of bees feeding from its stomach. The label read ‘Out of the Strong Came Forth Sweetness.’ An emptied can of Tate & Lyle Golden Syrup. At least she now knew how the old man had got his nickname.
She looked back at Kallie shivering in the doorway. Home is