The Reaper. Steven Dunne

to turn out a large tin of mush into a bowl.

      Cat ate remorselessly until the bowl was empty then sauntered past Brook as though he didn’t exist, to seek out the hottest radiator to doze under.

      ‘Enjoy that, monkey?’ Cat ignored him and trotted off to the living room. ‘Don’t mention it.’ He smiled. There was a time when Brook would have preferred dogs. He still did, but over the years, as his job took him full pelt away from childhood, he’d noticed the resemblance the dumb mutts had to victims of crimes–battered wives and abused children, in particular. Dogs were too innocent for this world. They belonged in boyhood, in a past of hot endless summers and English sporting supremacy.

      Cats were different. Nothing was unconditional. If you played ball you’d be given the appropriate amount of love and affection. But if you didn’t feed and house them properly they’d find somewhere better to live. Their demands provided a behavioural straitjacket from which you couldn’t deviate.

      Brook flung open the back door to clear his head and ventilate the flat. He didn’t believe in aspirin. The freezing morning air felt good so he stepped out to have a cigarette. It’d been many months since he’d smoked in the morning but as it was the last in the packet best to get it finished. Already he was thinking like an addict again.

      Brook lit up and exhaled towards the heavens. The sky was still black but the occasional early bird drove by.

      On one such pass, a car’s headlights picked out a figure standing on the other side of the Uttoxeter Road. Brook narrowed his eyes, curious. People didn’t stand around in this weather, at this time of the morning.

      From the shock of long blonde hair, it had to be a girl and she appeared to be staring back at Brook standing in the communal alley at the side of his building. He must look odd, outside in the bitter cold in shirtsleeves.

      Brook continued to glance over, glad of the cigarette as pretext for loitering. There wasn’t a bus stop nearby so her presence was mildly interesting and he continued to observe her. Perhaps she was a prostitute or someone waiting for a lift into work.

      She wore a dark blue padded jacket, buttoned up to her chin, faded blue jeans with horizontal slashes in the knees, brown boots and a pair of garish pink ear muffs, the sort of garb only young people seemed able to wear and not feel self-conscious.

      One thing was clear. She was cold, jogging up and down in an effort to keep warm. Brook, in shirt and trousers, was reminded of the bite of winter morning and shuddered. Flicking his cigarette against the wall for the satisfying spray of orange, he turned to go inside.

      As he did so, he noticed the girl crossing the road towards him so he tarried a moment longer. Perhaps she wanted directions.

      She walked steadily towards him, her gaze locking onto Brook’s face so blatantly that he felt no embarrassment about staring straight back at her.

      She was young, twenty perhaps, and had straggly unkempt hair, parted vaguely in the middle. Brook noticed a touch of darker root. She was medium height with a pretty face and a button nose. Her complexion was clear and soft and her grey eyes were large, with a hint of Eurasian slant. She moved well on her slim legs, like a model, aware of her attractions.

      When she was a few yards from Brook, she hesitated, as though she’d remembered something, and rummaged in a generous, fleece-lined pocket.

      ‘Good morning,’ she smiled, revealing a full set of teeth in a large, slightly protruding mouth. There was no trace of an accent, which Brook, rightly or wrongly, always took as a sign of a middle-class upbringing.

      Brook returned her smile, resisting the urge to flap his arms around his freezing torso. She consulted a piece of paper from her pocket. ‘Could you tell me where the Casa Mia Hotel is please?’

      ‘The Casa Mia?’ Brook knew it well. He could’ve taken her there blindfolded so many times had he been called in to deal with the unfortunates who fetched up in that DSS fleapit. Sergeant Hendrickson joked that it would be cheaper to have an officer permanently stationed there, to save on petrol. He wasn’t a natural comedian.

      ‘Why would you want to go to that dump?’

      She seemed nonplussed by Brook’s frankness but she smiled, her grey eyes fixing him. ‘I’m staying there tonight. I’ve got an interview at the university, tomorrow.’

      ‘For what?’ asked Brook.

      ‘To study there,’ she replied. Her expression carried a semblance of reproach, as if Brook had suggested she looked like she’d be applying for a cleaning job.

      Brook was tempted to challenge her further but he was shivering so he gave directions and darted inside.

      He looked at his watch. He had an hour before Terri could call so he nipped inside to pull on a coat and went back out into the cold.

      A couple of minutes later, he was staring up at the menu board in the steamy warmth of Jimbo’s Café, known to regulars as Jumbo’s because of the girth of its proprietor.

      Brook sat down with his mug of tea to await his Farmhouse Special, having helped himself to one of the tabloids on the counter. He wasn’t feeling hungry, as a purely functional eater he rarely did, but he knew he hadn’t eaten for over a day so he had to take on board some fuel.

      As he smirked at the nursery school alliteration of the Page Three caption, he suddenly became aware of a tightening of lips and stomachs amongst the only other customers, two stout lorry drivers tucking in to two oval plates of saturated fat, at the table in front of him. Brook turned to follow their gaze and saw the girl. She closed the door and smiled at him.

      ‘Hello again.’ She passed Brook and ignored the other table with its four eyes moving up and down her body like a barometer in a British summer. She ordered a cup of tea and painstakingly counted out the change from a small beaded purse.

      ‘Nothing to eet, meese?’ enquired Jumbo, in his broken English.

      ‘No thanks.’ She returned to Brook’s table with a smile and a nod at the chair in front of him.

      ‘Please,’ said Brook, folding the paper away. She sat opposite him and took off her coat. Full House Brook noticed, trying not to stare. To sharp intakes of breath from Jumbo and the other table, she pulled her baggy sweater over her head, almost pulling her flimsy T-shirt away from her unfettered breasts.

      Eventually she sat down, pulling her T-shirt back over her midriff. Heavy sighs were released around the room and Brook almost expected a round of applause to follow. He tried to ignore the looks of exquisite pain directed at her from the other table and hoped his own expression didn’t betray the same yearning. Unattainable pleasures were to be avoided at all costs. The emotional epidermis of this male was pocked with enough wounds.

      Still, it wasn’t easy for Brook to find a place to rest his eyes. Even looking directly at her face couldn’t hide the dark rim of her nipples goading him. Fortunately his breakfast arrived to distract him and he tucked in with more gusto than he’d felt a moment earlier. ‘No joy, then?’ he mumbled, through a mouthful of toast.

      ‘No, you were right. It wasn’t a very nice place,’ she replied absently.

      Brook looked up to try and fathom why she’d need to lie. He saw her looking at his plate and realised that she didn’t have enough money to buy herself any food. Come to think of it, when he looked again, her cheeks did seem a little hollow, gaunt even. He was savvy enough to avoid wounding her pride by offering to buy her something so he just rolled his two sausages to the side of his plate and shook his head.

      ‘I told him no sausages,’ Brook complained. ‘I hate sausages. Look, I’ve paid for them already. Would you have them? I can’t stand waste.’

      She seemed to perk up a little. ‘Well if you’re sure you don’t want them?’

      ‘I’m certain,’ he said and before the last syllable was out, she’d fallen on them as delicately as she could manage. Watching her mimic fellatio, Brook wished he’d offered her