Random Acts of Unkindness by Jacqueline Ward Page B

station, then go home. Uniformed are there, waiting in a car for me. Sheila Lewis meets me.
    ‘Must have got in through the back window. It’s been forced. Fucking Connelly, I bet. This is the second today.’
    I nod. At least it’s not just me who thinks Connelly shouldn’t be knighted in next year’s honours.
    ‘Oh. Right. And the other one?’
    ‘Didn’t you hear? Jim Stewart’s car was covered in human shit. Covered. His wife must have run him to work, then she left it in the drive. When she went out to get it, it was dark and she even leaned against it. She’s hysterical. Not as bad as your cat though. Sorry, Jan, that’s horrible.’
    I stare at her. She’s sorry about my cat. What about my son?
    ‘Thanks, Sheila.’
    She shifts from one foot to the other.
    ‘Erm, we’ve been posted outside here tonight. Can we make some hot chocolate? We’re bloody freezing.’
    I smile at her. I used to do her job.
    ‘Course. Look, why don’t you come in and stay in the lounge. I’ll only be upstairs. Better than sitting in a cramped car all night, yes?’
    She nods and signals to her colleague. They settle in the lounge, sipping hot chocolate and watching Sky Movies. I go to bed and sleep for twelve hours solid.
    When I come downstairs in the morning the two women are asleep on the sofa. They stir and then sit bolt upright.
    ‘It’s OK, ladies, I’m still alive. No thanks to you two.’
    Sheila picks up a stray biscuit.
    ‘We must have dropped off. The Matrix trilogy was on back to back and it was just too good to resist.’
    I make tea and toast. It’s good to cook for someone again and I overdo it slightly. Then a joiner arrives to fix the window and I offer him some.
    Mike calls to tell me that he’s been cleared for the job and that he’ll keep me updated and feed-back any info for me to record. I tell him I’m doing the TV appeal and he just sighs and tells me to be careful.
    I guess he’s heard about Percy. I look at Percy’s dish. This house doesn’t feel like mine anymore.
    ‘Look, you stay as long as you like, until your shift finishes. I’ve got to be somewhere.’
    Shelia takes another piece of toast.
    ‘Oh. You sure? To be fair, we’ll probably be more of a deterrent from in here.’
    I text Sal to tell him that I’ll pick him up. So I drive over to his flat. Unlike most people, who listen to music when they’re driving, or sing along, or even learn a language, I’m still working.
    I was trained at the start of my career to keep my eyes and ears open for everything. Early on, I thought that ‘everything’ meant the ever more intrusive CCTV cameras and mobile phone masts. The shop CCTV and the people who stand on street corners every day and know the area intimately; newspaper stands, prostitutes, paperboys, milkmen. That sort of thing.
    I thought I had it sussed. But then, when it became a little bit boring and predictable, just when I thought there was nothing left to learn, I realised that the world was full of silent messages and signs. The kind of thing that was shared between a group of people, a kind of code.
    They’re everywhere. In graffiti, in music, even unintentionally, the clothes people wear and how they decorate their houses. Everywhere. So, when I first saw the various items hanging on the telephone wires—the shoes, the scarves, the sweaters, and hats—I thought they were just some kind of tribal decoration. Little did I know, back then.
    I see them now, hanging in the backstreets, a pair of high heels marking off the working girls’ territory. Stray beyond that boundary and you’re strung up. Silent messages, an entry point to an unknown world. Usually a criminal world. You have to be in it to read it.
    Reading the messages passes the time on the short drive to Sal’s. He hasn’t replied by the time I’ve got to his flat about two miles away, so I park and skip up the steps at the front. Someone’s conveniently coming out so I slip in through the half-closed