Burglary at Constantine Court

His next port of call is Alan Carrack’s room. He mounts the spiral into the attic with anticipation.

In the event, Carrack disappoints him. There is a Dell laptop but that is it. Angrily, he goes through the bedside chest, slamming the drawers in and out, hoping for drugs – Carrack has the erratic, jerky movements and dilated eyes of a cokehead – but there’s just bank statements. He folds and slips a few into the knee pocket of his combats. He knows a man in Charlestown who will pay fifty pounds apiece for card numbers.

On one wall he sees a certificate in a frame. It is a commendation ‘in recognition of courage and selflessness in helping a police officer under attack during the riots of May 14, 2008.’ Fuck knows what this is about. In malicious glee he stomps on the glass frame, smashing it. The certificate gets fed into his lighter’s flame.

The only other item of interest is a bottle of red wine, tucked behind a stack of books. He takes this for comedy value.

Tom Dubois thunders back down the stairs and puts the laptop and bottle with the now substantial stack by the front door. He uses the landline to call a contact in Irlam. The contact will be here in fifteen minutes. He kills the time by smoking a reefer. He dislikes the squishy brown hash – it is really more of a fluid than a compound – but at twenty a gram it is all he can afford these days. The decline of his life, from fine Thai sticks to heavily cut Salford resin.

At two twelve, an anonymous white van pulls up in Constantine Court. Two men get out. One is white, one is Asian. Both have substantial police records; one has even been involved in kidnapping. As Tom’s status has degenerated from drifting ex-student to full-time petty criminal, these men have watched his deterioration with amusement and interest. He has started hanging more and more around the pubs where they can be found; at first he used to buy things from them, and now he has started to do things for them as well. These men still think of Dubious T as essentially a student. Tom is useful, but neither man would hesitate to rip him off or sell him out, were there the least material advantage in doing so.

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