He reached over and pulled a London road map out of the glove box. He saw Tim had dropped his woolly hat on the floor. When traffic lights next demanded he stop, Dean leant over and picked it up. He turned it inside out and sniffed it a couple of times. It smelt of unwashed hair. As the light went green, Dean dropped the hat into his lap, where it fell upon a burgeoning erection.

The map book told him to leave the main road and Dean promptly saw the orange Sainsbury’s lettering attached to a building he was approaching on the near side. Now he had to find his way round the back. He pushed the map aside. He opened the window and spat. The glob landed on the boot of a VW. Dean closed the window again.

The roads that led behind the supermarket were twisty, narrow and one-way, fortunately. The attitude you had to take to them was that you owned the road, and the rest of the traffic had to make way. You could not be an HGV driver and a considerate driver at the same time. Dean could not pull in between a couple of cars to let someone pass, even if there was nowhere for them to go but in reverse, and even if they were there first.

Dean thumped the hooter loudly as he drove into the side-street. There was already someone in a blue and orange uniform waiting for him out back of Sainsbury’s. There was a short, sloping road that led into the subterranean depot. Before he even reached it, Dean saw the woman in uniform giving him serious hand signals. Dean ignored her and drove in without her help, but she was still walking behind the lorry giving pushing motions when he parked.

Dean turned off the engine. His erection was gone. He grabbed the clipboard from the back wall of the cab and climbed down. The woman was waiting.

“You’re late,” she said sharply.

“And you’re ugly, but tomorrow I shall be on time.”

She stared at him, as if she couldn’t quite believe what he’d said.

Dean sniffed more phlegm into his mouth and spat it at the ground. “How long are you going to take unloading?”

The woman took a second to respond, then she looked through the sheaf attached to the clipboard. “Standard turnaround is about an hour. Does that suit you?”

“Yeah. Where can I get some food?”

“There are some shops along the high street, or you could try morning tea at our very own Sainsbury’s cafe.”

Dean smirked. “Yeah, right.”

He tossed the keys in a high arc toward her. She reached out for them and consequently dropped both them and her clipboard. Dean walked away with his hands in his pockets as the woman bent down to pick up her things.

“Arsehole,” she said.

“Your cunt smells of fish,” said Dean.

It was turning into a bright morning. The sky was blue but with powdery grey clouds to the east. It looked warmer than it was. Dean did up his coat as he left the depot.

As he walked out onto the high street he saw the Wembley Park tube station sign ahead. He looked into the shop windows. Little Indian women in purple silk dresses leant over counters and Muslim men with beards and caps stood stacking shelves in others. Dean kept going.

On the other side of the road Dean saw a public toilet looking like a bomb shelter: a thick, squat brick building that was fifty years old, which had no windows. Dean cut through the traffic and his erection returned as an old black man who was really just dark brown came out of the block.

Dean went into the first cubicle and locked the door. He put the seat down and began to masturbate standing up. After a couple of minutes he bent his knees and ejaculated onto the toilet seat. Then he carefully pulled on the toilet roll so as not to pull off any sheets and wiped the end of his penis along it lengthwise until nothing more would come out. Then he carefully rolled the toilet roll back up again.

As he came out of the ladies he got a funny look from a man just going into the gents.

“What?” Dean said.

He continued along the high street. Eventually he found a little cafe that was empty and went in.

The cafe had a fake linoleum floor. It was some kind of plastic lining that came in a big roll. There were three round tables, also plastic, white; they looked like they had been bought of the Argos catalogue’s summer garden furniture range. There were at least two seats at each table, but not necessarily two of the same type. Some looked like garden chairs whilst others looked like they had been pinched from a school, the stackable metal-plastic ones.

Dean went up to the counter, where a man was standing with his back to Dean, wiping a surface clean. He glanced round and called, “Nita” or something through a bead curtain.

Dean looked at the menu. He decided on a coffee and a chocolate-drizzled bagel, which sounded nice.

“Excuse me,” he said.

The man cleaning glanced round at Dean, then called out louder through the curtain, “Nita!”

The beads suddenly parted with a clatter and a girl with a clothes peg in her hair for some reason came through.

Dean folded his arms.

“What can I get you?” the girl Nita asked.

Dean frowned. “Is your coffee fair trade?”

“Uh, I don’t know.”

“Can you find out?”

Nita looked round at the man, who ignored them both and probably uncoincidentally finishing his cleaning at that point and disappeared through the bead curtain.

“Did you know that seventy percent of the world’s coffee comes from coffee beans grown by farmers who aren’t even paid a subsistence wage for their crop?” Dean said. He didn’t know if the figures were correct, but it sounded like something he’d heard on a Radio 5 Live phone-in.

“I’m not sure where our coffee comes from.”

“Then that suggests it’s from disreputable sources, doesn’t it? You don’t know because the people selling it to you don’t want you to know. That’s because they’re ripping off the poor farmers in South America. I mean, you don’t buy your coffee direct from the farmers, do you?”

“Uh. It comes in a packet.”

“Well, what does it say on the packet?”

Nita blinked. “You want me to go and check?”

“Yes. Please.”

Nita scratched her head. “Okay.” Then she turned round awkwardly and went back through the curtain.

About half a minute later, she returned.

“What did it say?” Dean asked.

“It just say it’s from Brazil.”

“Well, that doesn’t mean anything.”

“Look, I can get you something else if you don’t want coffee. Our herbal teas are made locally.”

“I don’t want a herbal tea.”

“Then what can I get you?”

“I think I will try one of these coffees. And I’d also like one of your chocolate-drizzled bagels.”

Nita nodded and totted it up. “The bagel will take a couple of minutes. Is that okay?”

“Is the chocolate free of genetically modified cocoa milk?”

The girl stared at him. “I’m pretty sure it is, yeah.”

“Good. How much do I owe you?”

“£1.80 please.”

Dean gave her a twenty pound note.

“Do you have any smaller?” she asked.

“I’m afraid not,” Dean said, smiling apologetically. Meanwhile all that loose change he got off Tim was weighing his trousers down.

Nita worked out his change.

“Thank you,” he said.

As he sat down at one of the tables, Nita poured his coffee and brought it over. Then she went through the curtain again.

Dean blew on his coffee and sipped at it. It was bland, watery, bitty and already too sweet. It tasted like coffee grown in Bradford, not Brazil. Dean drank it anyway.

A couple of minutes later, the man that had been cleaning came back through the curtain. He was carrying a bagel on a plate. He brought it round the front of the counter and placed it in front of Dean with a professional smile.

“Would you like a cake fork?” he asked.

“No, that’s okay. Thanks,” said Dean.

The man smiled and turned to go.

“Your waitress is a bit surly.”

He stopped. “I’m sorry?”

“I was only being friendly, having a bit of fun, making conversation. She didn’t have to be surly.”

The man looked toward the curtain. Nita wasn’t there. “What did she say?”

Dean shook his head. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Okay. If you’re sure.” He went to go again.

“Maybe it’s her time of the month.”

The man hesitated behind the counter. “I’ll have a word.”

Dean turned his head. “Thank you.”

Then the man cut his way through the curtain and Dean bit into his bagel. It didn’t feel like a chocolate-drizzled bagel. It felt like a bagel that had had chocolate sauce squeezed over it in the factory before it had been put in a packet, and Nita had just put it in a microwave for thirty seconds. Dean ate it all, then returned to his coffee.

The man came out and did some wiping. He nodded at Dean, which Dean interpreted as a sign he’d had a go at the girl. Dean finished his coffee.

The door opened, hitting a little tinny bell above it. A forty-something man in a suit came in. The suit was Pierre Cardin, with a precise dotted pinstripe. It had a high lapel and a narrow collar. The shirt was a creamy-grey colour with a faux silk sheen. The man’s weathered drawn face emerged from inside the suit like a turtle from its shell. Instead of a left hand he had a black leather case.

“Nita!” the man behind the counter shouted.

Nita came out, batting the bead curtain to the sides, and started talking to the customer.

Dean was still holding his coffee cup when the man from the behind the counter came and collected his plate. Catching Nita’s glance and returning it was a disapproving look, Dean got up. He slipped a pound coin under his saucer and headed toward the door.

NOTES:
No, I haven't missed out a section, nor made an error. Like teenage runaway Simon telling homeless Eliot that his name was Max in a much earlier chapter, here it turns out Dean was lying to Tim when he said his name was Mike. And does that really surprise you? I wanted to make Dean as repulsive as possible, and indeed, some of those early scenes even I found off-putting to write. I think I hint at why he's such a damaged individual, but I didn't want any obvious forensic explanation such as 'he was starved of love as a child'.