thanked him, then said, 'Receipt?'
And when the fare took it and thanked him in turn, Dave went on, 'Giss yer card, mate.'
'What?'
'Give us your business card: the radio circuit I'm on are doing a raffle-type thingy for our customers. If your card gets
drawn you get two hundred quid's worth of free travel in the new year.' The fare dug his card out and passed it over. Dave
thanked him, wished him a merry Christmas and flicked the shift into drive. ' 'Course I'm not on the fucking radio circuit, am I, haven't been for years, I'd rather be a straightforward musher than bother with that malarkey. He looked at the card: the lettering meant nothing to him â CB & EFN INVESTMENT STRATEGIES, STEPHEN BRICE, CEO EUROPE â but he was one step closer to nailing Devenish now, pulling him off of Michelle with his wet dick gleaming in the dark, rolling the wanker over and grinding a boot into his fucking smug face.
Dave drove back out through the long, fume-filled tunnel under the runway, pulled round the roundabout and up on to the peripheral
road, where there were hotels so large other hotels could have checked into them. He turned into the cul-de-sac that ran behind
the police station to the taxi feeder parks. He pulled into the first one and parked up; it was a quarter full â not at all
heavy for a mid evening in late December. Doug Sherry's, the taxi drivers' cafe, looked cheery enough, if you think any joint full of these mugs can be cheery. The windows and eaves were draped with tinsel, and when he'd locked up the cab and strolled into the lobby, there was a Christmas
tree propped by the bins full of the drivers' free rags: Taxi, Call Sign, London Taxi Times and HALT. Tacked to the bare brick wall was a laminated poster showing a cheeky chappy cabbie's grinning mug. '233 Sexual Assaults and 45 Rapes' the caption read, 'So What's He Got to Laugh About?'
Dave took his place in the queue for the serving counters and checked out his peers. Fat, thick, racist, ugly, rotten wankers. In their dumb fucking zip-up jackets carrying their stupid little change bags, giving it this, giving it that, and saying fuck all. Dave didn't like many cabbies at all, but he reserved his special derision for the estimated half of London licensed taxi
drivers who did nothing else but work the airport. With their stupid bloody gang names . . . The Quality Street Gang, the Lavender Hill Mob ⦠and their stupider nicknames ⦠The Farmer, Gentleman Jim, Last Chancer, Musher Freddy ⦠Sitting out here ranked up for half their fucking lives, tootling up West with a fare, then putting their lights out and tootling back again. Too bloody scared to ply for hire like a real cabbie, too fucking fond of their fishing and their golf, their cards and their sweepstakes. Fancy themselves part of some stupid elite, following the 'cabbies' code', when half of them are faces on the fiddle, putting foil over their computer discs before they go into the feeder park to bilk a few quid, or going down on to the terminals to steal fares, pretending they're picking someone up on the radio if they get pulled. Makes me sick.
And always had, which is why Dave avoided the airport as much as he could. This evening he was bilked by a fucking pork chop that looked succulent under the bright lights of the servery, but, once he'd borne it over to one of the blue melamine tables,
turned out to be dry and solid. Meat to murder with. He wouldn't have minded plunging it like an ice axe into the red neck
of the cabbie who stood feet away, leaning his elbows on a table, sticking his fat arse in the air and slamming down dominoes
with Caribbean vigour. He might have done, if the back hadn't turned to reveal a face he knew: 'Wot you doin' aht 'ere ven,
Tufty?' the other cabbie asked and Dave grunted, 'nuffing, I 'appens to trap a flyer.' Yeah, a flyer, a fucking 'eretic ⦠some scumbag who's lost his faith in London.
Dave's eyes wavered over to the wood-panelled wall
And when the fare took it and thanked him in turn, Dave went on, 'Giss yer card, mate.'
'What?'
'Give us your business card: the radio circuit I'm on are doing a raffle-type thingy for our customers. If your card gets
drawn you get two hundred quid's worth of free travel in the new year.' The fare dug his card out and passed it over. Dave
thanked him, wished him a merry Christmas and flicked the shift into drive. ' 'Course I'm not on the fucking radio circuit, am I, haven't been for years, I'd rather be a straightforward musher than bother with that malarkey. He looked at the card: the lettering meant nothing to him â CB & EFN INVESTMENT STRATEGIES, STEPHEN BRICE, CEO EUROPE â but he was one step closer to nailing Devenish now, pulling him off of Michelle with his wet dick gleaming in the dark, rolling the wanker over and grinding a boot into his fucking smug face.
Dave drove back out through the long, fume-filled tunnel under the runway, pulled round the roundabout and up on to the peripheral
road, where there were hotels so large other hotels could have checked into them. He turned into the cul-de-sac that ran behind
the police station to the taxi feeder parks. He pulled into the first one and parked up; it was a quarter full â not at all
heavy for a mid evening in late December. Doug Sherry's, the taxi drivers' cafe, looked cheery enough, if you think any joint full of these mugs can be cheery. The windows and eaves were draped with tinsel, and when he'd locked up the cab and strolled into the lobby, there was a Christmas
tree propped by the bins full of the drivers' free rags: Taxi, Call Sign, London Taxi Times and HALT. Tacked to the bare brick wall was a laminated poster showing a cheeky chappy cabbie's grinning mug. '233 Sexual Assaults and 45 Rapes' the caption read, 'So What's He Got to Laugh About?'
Dave took his place in the queue for the serving counters and checked out his peers. Fat, thick, racist, ugly, rotten wankers. In their dumb fucking zip-up jackets carrying their stupid little change bags, giving it this, giving it that, and saying fuck all. Dave didn't like many cabbies at all, but he reserved his special derision for the estimated half of London licensed taxi
drivers who did nothing else but work the airport. With their stupid bloody gang names . . . The Quality Street Gang, the Lavender Hill Mob ⦠and their stupider nicknames ⦠The Farmer, Gentleman Jim, Last Chancer, Musher Freddy ⦠Sitting out here ranked up for half their fucking lives, tootling up West with a fare, then putting their lights out and tootling back again. Too bloody scared to ply for hire like a real cabbie, too fucking fond of their fishing and their golf, their cards and their sweepstakes. Fancy themselves part of some stupid elite, following the 'cabbies' code', when half of them are faces on the fiddle, putting foil over their computer discs before they go into the feeder park to bilk a few quid, or going down on to the terminals to steal fares, pretending they're picking someone up on the radio if they get pulled. Makes me sick.
And always had, which is why Dave avoided the airport as much as he could. This evening he was bilked by a fucking pork chop that looked succulent under the bright lights of the servery, but, once he'd borne it over to one of the blue melamine tables,
turned out to be dry and solid. Meat to murder with. He wouldn't have minded plunging it like an ice axe into the red neck
of the cabbie who stood feet away, leaning his elbows on a table, sticking his fat arse in the air and slamming down dominoes
with Caribbean vigour. He might have done, if the back hadn't turned to reveal a face he knew: 'Wot you doin' aht 'ere ven,
Tufty?' the other cabbie asked and Dave grunted, 'nuffing, I 'appens to trap a flyer.' Yeah, a flyer, a fucking 'eretic ⦠some scumbag who's lost his faith in London.
Dave's eyes wavered over to the wood-panelled wall
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