Deviance. London Psychic Book 3 (6 page)

O laughed, a silvery sound that lifted the dank atmosphere of a place set up to feed the increasing number of poverty-stricken Londoners. She led the way into a commercial kitchen area where several other women had already started work. They called greetings to O as she passed.
 

"Can you help Meg with chopping vegetables? We've got to get the stew on." O pointed Jamie towards an older black woman with dreadlocks tied back in a blue patterned scarf. She stood by a large sink with a mountain of potatoes in front of her and a box of carrots and other mixed veg next to it.

"Of course." Jamie headed over and introduced herself, grabbed a peeler, and started on peeling the carrots. Although tentative at first, Jamie was soon into a rhythm. There was a meditative state in food preparation, a repetition that left the mind free to wander.
 

"This stew is for the evening run," Meg said. "It's best to cook it for a long time to soften the offcuts of meat that we get, so we have to start cooking it soon. We get a load of regulars every night and then we take any leftovers out into the parks round here." She smiled and Jamie saw that her teeth were crooked and bent. The wrinkles in her skin were deeper than a woman of her age should have and there were faint scars around her neck. Meg put down her knife and Jamie noticed her hands shaking, perhaps a symptom of long-term alcohol abuse.

"For some who sleep rough, it's their only meal of the day." Meg pointed to a number of round mixing bowls on the side, covered in tea towels. "That's bread, too – we make it ourselves. We have an allotment out east. That green veg is from our garden." There was a quiet pride in Meg's voice and Jamie wondered about her past. Her own tragedy was just one voice in a city of hurt and sometimes it was good to get some perspective, to realize how much others suffered too. Everyone dealt with life in their own way.

O's laugh rippled through the kitchen area and Meg looked up.
 

"She's magic, that one," she said. "Keeps everyone's spirits up, even when we're overrun. She can bring a smile to the most depressed of our clients, and I've seen her face down a huge man high on meth. She's fearless."

Jamie watched O as she organized the various teams with a smile and a personal touch that left people beaming. She made them laugh with light remarks, always remembering their names. Jamie thought how different this place was from the police, how isolated she had been there. Her own independence had been partly to blame, but as a woman in a male-dominated environment, she had definitely felt left out. But here she might find a place in a community that really seemed to care for its people.

"Time, everyone," O called out and went to the front door, unlocking it to allow a stream of people into the front area, set up with long tables and benches. They had clearly been queuing outside and they knew the drill. They were quiet as they came in, taking a bowl and lining up for thick porridge liberally doused in white sugar.
 

One woman with cardboard pieces tied around her body hefted her plastic bags into one corner and stood silently in line.
 

An old black man shuffled forward with little steps, his gait evidence of Parkinson's, his hands shaking as he reached for a bowl.
 

A waif of a girl slid through the door, a dirty denim jacket over a short dress, her arms wrapped around herself for warmth. Her eyes were black with kohl and darted around with nervous energy, her movements jerky and jolting.

The smell of unwashed bodies pervaded the cooking area, but no one reacted to it. Jamie supposed it was nothing unusual here. She finished the carrots and began chopping the bunches of green leafy veg. Meg pulled two huge saucepans from a rack and began browning onions and garlic, her shaking diminished as she concentrated on working.
 

O served strong instant coffee from a big vat, handing it to each person with a smile and a welcome. There was no judgement in her eyes as she looked at them, and Jamie saw that her respect gave the homeless more dignity. They walked to the benches a little straighter in posture, their humanity restored even for a brief moment. Jamie had seen the other side of poverty in the police: the crime and domestic abuse that often resulted from money problems. She had seen these people as criminals, but O and her team saw them as people needing food, warmth and a community.
 

After everyone had been served, O went around the benches, speaking in low tones to each person. She carried a bunch of leaflets, clearly trying to help with advice as well as food. The waif-like girl kept her head down as O approached, turning her face away. But O sat down next to her, whispering soft words and after a few minutes, the girl reached out a hand and took a leaflet about the sexual health services she could access.

The breakfast service soon finished and as each person left, a young man on the door gave each one a brown bag. He had a blue streak in his blond hair and Jamie recognized him as the guitar player from the Cross Bones memorial. Some people snatched the bag away without thanking him, but others were effusive in their gratitude. One woman had tears in her eyes as she left, clutching the bag close to her chest as she walked out into the day.

"Right, let's get the benches to the side and start weighing out today's rations." O rallied the team as Jamie helped Meg add the meat to the pans and begin to brown them, adding some oregano and other herbs. A delicious smell began to waft through the warehouse, drowning out the unwashed stench that still lingered. The smell of cooking reminded Jamie of the opulence of Borough Market, where food carts overflowed with amazing produce at prices only few could afford. This place was just a few streets away and yet here, they were scraping the barrel to feed the hungry.

"We can't give people anything they want," Meg said, noting Jamie's interest in the rationing preparations. "There are rules for the food bank and we have to weigh out rations for people who come to make sure there's enough for all. We give them three days' emergency food based on the stamps that they bring for themselves and their families." Meg shook her head, a look of despair on her face. "Problem is that some days we don't have enough food here to feed all who come. Makes you wonder, don't it?"

O organized the packing of boxes, some with more perishable food in them than others. Jamie knew that some families didn't even have a way to cook, so there was a balance of tins to whatever fresh food they could get hold of. O made sure to add a couple of apples to each box and Jamie noticed her frown as she surveyed the room, a shadow crossing her beautiful face as she calculated what they had left.

Meg crumbled some stock cubes over the meat, added salt, and poured in a kettle of hot water on top of each pan, then covered them with lids.
 

"We'll let these simmer for a while now," she said. "I'll get the bread on. Why don't you go help pack boxes? I can manage here."

Jamie walked through the kitchen area and joined in the packing production line, finding a place next to the young man who had been on the door.
 

"First day?" he asked Jamie, as he added a tin of beans to a box before passing it on to her. Jamie added a packet of macaroni cheese and passed the box to the next woman.
 

"I guess so," Jamie said, realizing that she would come back here. Looking at the Kitchen made her doubly grateful for what she did have, and she knew that it was only luck and circumstance that put her on this side of the fence.

"We have our ups and downs," the young man said. "Some days we win and we feed everyone. Other days one of our regulars doesn't show up and we hear of suicide or death in the streets. But Southwark is our community and this is our way of caring." He smiled at Jamie. "This place saved me, that's for sure."

O stepped up to the table, a broad grin on her face.
 

"Ed is one of our regulars. He's a superstar." Ed blushed under O's praise and Jamie saw a glimmer of the unspoiled youth beneath his harder exterior. O brought that out in people. "How are you finding it, Jamie?"
 

"I'm amazed at everything you do here," Jamie said. "I had no idea, honestly. I'd love to come and help again."
 

O smiled. "We'd love to have you back." She looked at her watch. "Ten minutes," she called across the room and everyone on the line speeded up their box packing. "Hungry people incoming. Let's feed them all today."

"We have to shut down that soup kitchen," Mrs Emilia Wynne-Jones said, clutching her designer purse to her chest like a shield as she stood to speak. "It's a danger to the schoolchildren who walk that route every day. And all those homeless beggars …" She shook her head. "One of them might harm a child, because they're probably sex offenders, you know. It's criminal to let them sleep there."

"Not to mention that it's affecting the house prices in the area," one of the older men in the hall said with a grunt, thumping his walking stick on the ground for emphasis.

The church hall echoed with murmurs of assent as the gathered crowd shifted on their seats. The tabled agenda had been finished and now they were onto Any Other Business, which usually consisted of a litany of complaints.
 

Detective Superintendent Dale Cameron nodded, his face serious as he met the eyes of the complainants. He always enjoyed the meetings of the Society for the Suppression of Vice. They were full of his kind of people, those who were ready to take the hard decisions necessary to make the city great again. After years of focused ambition, his day job was finally taking him into a position of real power.

He looked out at the crowd in front of him – the older stalwarts near the front, middle-aged men and women who voted to get rid of immigrants and return Britain to the white paradise they believed could exist in a multicultural world. Towards the back were a younger group, men with shorn heads and thick-soled boots, hands deep in pockets and wary eyes. They brought physical energy to the old who gathered to complain every week. They were the ones Dale Cameron really aimed to inspire. Men who only looked for a leader to give them permission to act.

Dale nodded at the discussion, his face set with concentration as he listened with one part of his brain even as the other dissected the crowd. He was aware of the impression he made on them. He exuded confidence and control, and years of studying body language had given him an ability to change his behavior to manipulate any situation. With his salt and pepper hair and trim runner's body, he looked more like a corporate CEO than a senior police officer. Not that he expected to be in the police for much longer. He was running for Mayor and fully intended to win.
 

As the discussion tapered off, he held up his hand for quiet. His authority silenced the room in seconds.

"You all know that I stand for cleaning up the city," Dale said, his voice strong and well measured. "That includes moving the homeless out of the central areas and into communities further away. There's plenty of council housing up north, if we can only get people to accept it."

"Ungrateful little –"
 

"What are you going to do about the sex workers?"

"When are you going to develop Cross Bones?"

"How will you deal with the drug problems of Southwark?"

Dale held up a hand again, calming the barrage of questions.

"I share the concerns of the Society," he said. "But I can only act with a mandate as Mayor. City Hall is around the corner, so it makes sense that my first acts will be cleaning up my own borough."

"Hear, hear," someone shouted, and Dale smiled out into the crowd. He made eye contact with many of them as applause rang out around the church hall. As they clapped, a ray of sunshine split into myriad colors on the floor, filtered by the brilliant stained glass windows above. Jesus fed the five thousand in one window and healed the blind on another. Dale found himself thinking of Borough Market round the corner. These days, Jesus would probably have to feed the hungry with multigrain spelt bread and wild salmon, that's how entitled they all were.

"You can help drive out the sex workers and the drug addicts," Dale said, and his eyes met those of the hard men at the back. "Report them to the police. Make it difficult for them to work. Make life more unpleasant for them and they will move on – or go back to their own countries."

The applause began again, and then it was time for tea. A queue formed in front of the dais of those who wanted a little one-on-one time with Dale. He would give them all the time they wanted, understanding that every individual connection was one more vote for him in the Mayoral election. His campaign manager was right – it was all about 'high touch.'

As his team organized the line, Dale accepted a china cup of tea from a frail old woman. Her liver-spotted hands shook as she handed it to him. Her eyes were rheumy and her skin sagging around a face that had witnessed the cultural change of the city since the Second World War.
 

"It's good that you're here, love," she said. "None of those other politicians understand that we have to reclaim what belongs to us before it's too late. It's time to stamp out the cockroaches and you're the man to do it." She patted Dale's shoulder and shuffled away, leaving him to ruminate on the surprising nature of some of the members.
 

The Society for the Suppression of Vice had been started in the nineteenth century to promote public morality, a successor to the Society for the Reformation of Manners. Dale liked the overtones of the word reformation, but manners were something few cared about and didn't quite have the dramatic ring to it. But who could object to the suppression of vice, a word that conjured all the nasty, dirty things that went on under cover of darkness. Surely no one could openly support those making money from vice – the prostitutes, the drug pushers, the criminals. Who would stand for them? Of course, Dale thought, as he took another sip of his tea, such obvious vice was merely the thin end of the wedge. He wouldn't rest until the city was clean in all senses of the word.