was distracted by the sight of a girl, walking on the other side of the road. She was wearing trainers, jeans and a T-shirt with a sequinned picture of a kitten’s head on it. A brightly coloured backpack. Twelve years old? Jackson didn’t like to see girls on their own. The ice-cream van slowed to a halt and the girl turned to look both ways (good) before crossing the road, and Jackson thought that she was going to get an ice-cream but then she stuck out her thumb (bad) at the passing cars.
She was hitching, for Christ’s sake! She was a child, what was she thinking? She ran towards the ice-cream van, her backpack bumping against her skinny shoulders. The bag was blue and had a unicorn on it, amongst a scattering of little rainbows. Kittens, unicorns, rainbows – girls were curious creatures. He couldn’t imagine Nathan carrying a bag with a unicorn on it or wearing a T-shirt displaying a kitten’s head. Unless it was the logo of a global brand, in which case the sequins would probably have been sewn on by hand by a child in a Third World sweatshop. (‘Must you always see the dark side of everything?’ Julia said. ‘Someone has to,’ Jackson said. ‘Yes, but does it have to be you?’ Apparently, yes. It did.)
The girl didn’t stop at the ice-cream van but instead ran past it, and that was when Jackson spotted the unassuming grey hatchback that had pulled to a halt in front of the Bassani’s van, and before he could even think, Don’t do that! she was climbing in the passenger side and the car was driving off.
‘Quick!’ Jackson said to Nathan. ‘Photograph that car.’
‘What?’
‘That car, get the number plate.’
Too late. Jackson started the engine and threw the Toyota into a U-turn just as the ice-cream van moved off slowly and – lo and behold – a bin lorry appeared, straddling the road with no intention of making way for anyone and cutting Jackson off at the pass. Between the pink ice-cream van and the bin lorry, Jackson had lost all chance of following the car.
‘Shit,’ he said. ‘I didn’t even notice what make it was.’ He was losing his touch.
‘A Peugeot 308,’ Nathan said, his eyes already back on his phone.
Despite his frustration, Jackson felt a twinge of pride. That’s my boy, he thought.
‘I don’t know why you’re so worked up,’ Nathan said. ‘It was probably her dad or her mum picking her up.’
‘She was hitching.’
‘She might have been joking with them.’
‘Joking?’
Nathan passed his phone to Jackson. There was a photograph, after all, too blurred to read the number plate.
‘Can we go, Dad?’
No sign of Julia at the unit base. ‘Still on set,’ someone said. The cast and crew were used to Jackson. The guy who played Collier was always pumping him for information about how a ‘real’ detective would behave and then not taking the advice. ‘Well, why should he?’ Julia said. ‘It’s years since you were in the police.’ Yes, but I’ll always be a policeman, Jackson thought. It was his default setting. It was knitted into his soul, for heaven’s sake.
He was the second guy to play Collier, the original actor had had a breakdown, left and never come back. That was five years ago, but Jackson still thought of the new guy as the new guy, and he had one of those names – Sam, Max, Matt – that had never stuck in Jackson’s brain.
The catering van had put sandwiches out and Nathan wolfed down a handful with no trace of a please or thank-you. He could give Dido a run for her money. ‘Nice there in the pigsty, is it?’ Jackson said, and Nathan scowled at him and said, ‘What?’ as if he was an irritation. He was, Jackson knew it. An irritation and an embarrassment. (‘It’s part of your job description as father,’ Julia said. ‘And, anyway, you’re an old man.’ ‘Thanks.’ ‘In his eyes, I meant.’)
Jackson thought he looked quite good for his age. Full head of hair, which – genetically – he would be donating to Nathan one day, so he should be grateful (as if). And with his Belstaff Roadmaster jacket and his Ray-Bans, Jackson thought he still cut quite an attractive figure, some might even say cool. ‘Of course you are,’ Julia said, as if she were soothing a fractious child.
Julia pitched up eventually, looking as if she’d come straight from the battlefield. She was dressed in scrubs, which was