Black 2.3

... a little further on and he is passing the Vella's house ... yes ... Maltesers .. the husband a pimp, or so his father told someone last week ... the mother a dark eyed beauty with amazing legs ... the sons two thugs who liked to throw their weight around but got beaten fairly regularly when things got really tough ... things got tough very often round here ... too often for most of the kids ... mostly fists, but sharpened tail combs were becoming more frequent and now and then a proper blade turned up these days ... one of the boy's friends brthers was doing time for a knife murder ... the eldest boy was doing national service...

the fog had thickened ... or was it more properly a smog ... the street lights seemed dimmer now and he spotted a bicycle tyre around the base of the one outside the Campses house ... an act of bravado that ... he bethought himself of the daughter of the house who had died last Xmas of a brain tumor ... not the Campses, they were methodists and the kids went to the same sunday school as he had ... until the Camp girl had died ... they had prayed for her at the mission ... week after week ... and Peter had been the leader of the Boys Brigade ... and still she had died in pain ...

the boy turned into the road on his left and headed up toward the methodist mission ... and the fruit and veg stalls ... and the fish stall ...