MACDONALD DODGED THE OBSCENITIES THAT THE FRUlT STAND vendors screamed at each other across the intersection. He was at the corner of Berwick and Peter streets in Soho. Just look at what they’ve done to our proud fruit market tradition, he thought. Covent Garden closed, everything driven out of downtown.

This was what has become of it: half-drunk men slipping on banana peels, a few pitiful stands for a handful of curious tourists and ten times as many junkies. Soho doesn’t swing anymore, it crawls-at least here, where an empty lot is the most pleasant sight for miles around.

He turned up the collar of his raincoat against the drizzle and stepped over a crushed beefsteak tomato. Walkers Court was so short, unassuming and shoddy that it didn’t even appear in the new edition of a London A-Z street atlas. Maybe they excluded it on purpose, he thought. It’s not the kind of street you feel like bragging about to rosy-cheeked Italian and Scandinavian tourists straight from Heathrow and Gatwick.

Walkers Court was porn without silk sheets or the pink young models who show their pee hole in Hustler, Macdonald thought as he shook his head at a doorman who beckoned him into one of the theaters. It was more for sweaty junkies in rags-low-budget sex for the masses, books, magazines and videos for those who came to see themselves as they might have been in another life.

Maybe they bought the fantasyware in these sophisticated stores. Just what you need in certain situations. Or how about this leash or that noose? This is a free country. We’re all entitled to a personal life. Some people light a cigarette in the privacy of their own home; others like to poop in the faces of strangers.

He passed by the biggest bookstore on the street. It looked out of place with its advertisements featuring the latest in fine literature for the educated middle class: V. S. Naipaul and Jonathan Raban, a new biography of Bruce Chatwin.

Macdonald knew that the owner was a complex character. The ground and upper floors were bright and cheerful, overflowing with novels, poetry, travelogues and cookbooks. The basement, which you got to by descending a stairway on the other side of a curtain, was a different world altogether. Magazines with titles like Over Forty and Life Begins at Fifty fearlessly defied the youth culture. The room was always full of customers. Just like that one, Macdonald thought as a man with a flat brown bag hurried out of the store.

Macdonald promised himself that he would read more as soon as he retired from the police force. He was thirty-seven, and he had served Queen and country since he was twenty-three. Only eleven years left. After that he could be a private detective and chase runaway teenagers from Leeds through the bowels of London. Or work as a security guard at Harrods and keep an eye on the Oyster Bar. Or arrange birthday parties for his grandchildren at his house in Kent, never more than ten steps from a malt. He’d let them pull on his ponytail as much as they wanted, he thought as he waited for a car to pass on Brewer Street. Crossing the intersection, he followed Rupert Street for a quarter of a block, nodded at a black man in a leather jacket and entered a theater under a flashing neon sign that said PEEP SHOW.

It took him a few seconds to get used to the shadows. Passing the cashier’s booth, he knocked on a door to the left of the main entrance. He stood and listened to the moans that echoed in the darkness. Somebody was screaming, “Yes, yes, YES, YES,” but it didn’t sound very convincing.

The door opened a couple of inches and another black man stared out at him. After the door closed again, Macdonald heard a rattling sound and it was flung wide open.

The man stretched out his hand and nodded for Macdonald to enter. “Welcome, Mr. Investigator.”

“You don’t skimp on security here, do you, Frankie?”

“Not a chance.”

They shook hands and Macdonald stepped into the office. No larger than a hundred square feet, the room was thick with humidity, along with the smell of vinegar and grease from half-eaten fish and chips on the pockmarked desk. A poster celebrating the pleasures of life in Jamaica was taped to the wall above, its bottom right corner curled, as if protesting the romanticism of it all. Next to the plate of leftovers was a notepad, a pen and a keyboard. The computer screen on the right side of the desk flickered more than it should. Cheap crap, Macdonald thought.

“Sorry I couldn’t offer you my lunch,” Frankie said. “But I’d be glad to order some more.”

“Looks like it was pretty tasty.”

“As English as can be. Should I send Johnny Boy to get another?”

“No thanks, the savory smells are enough for me.”

Frankie flicked his shoulder as if he were brushing off a thank-you after having paid for a five-course meal at Wheeler’s. “It’s your call. So what can a hardworking businessman do for the guardians of law and order?” he asked, taking a chair from behind the desk. “Have a seat, I’ll go get another one.”

He returned carrying a big, clunky chair with red imitation leather upholstery and gray stuffing that stuck out through the loose seams.

Frankie followed Macdonald’s eyes. “It might be ugly, but it’s comfortable as hell.” He sat down but popped back up when a young woman walked in with a tray. After putting a stainless steel teapot, two cups and saucers, a little pitcher of milk and a bowl of sugar on the desk, she smiled, bowed her head slightly and left the room. Frankie sat down again and poured a cup for each of them.

“Just what I needed.” Macdonald leaned forward.

Frankie stood up a second time.

“What is it now?”

Frankie walked out and returned with a plate of cookies.

“Are the rituals just about over?”

“Now they are. Jamaicans are crazy about ritual. We come from a different world than you do.”

“What the hell are you talking about? You were born in London.”

“A zebra never changes its spots. Genes, you know.”

“Genes have always fascinated me.”

“Me too.” Frankie picked up a nail file and inspected his left index finger. “But I don’t expect that you came all the way here to talk about genetic code.”

“You haven’t given me much of a chance to explain why I’m here.”

“I’m all ears.”

“You aren’t nervous, are you?”

“Me, nervous? Because I’m not used to such fine company, you mean?”

“Don’t ask me why.”

“Good-looking coat.”

“Hmm.”

“I like your ponytail too, but isn’t it rather passé these days?”

“It’s mostly to blend in here.”

“Everybody’s welcome in south London. We don’t discriminate.” Frankie filed away at the offending nail.

The computer beeped.

“An e-mail from the other world?” Macdonald asked.

“Didn’t you know that there are more computers per capita in Jamaica than anywhere else in the Caribbean?” He read the message, which appeared to be quite short.

“Wrong,” Macdonald said.

“What?”

“Brixton may officially be a suburb of London, but it has more computers per capita.”

“Very funny, but this e-mail actually comes from your bailiwick.” He quickly reread the message and closed the program.

“Since when did it stop being yours?”

Frankie’s smile flashed in the semidarkness of the room. He picked up the file and moved on to another finger.

“Brixton,” Macdonald repeated.

“Right, the e-mail is a confirmation that my subsidiary has just received a new shipment of top-quality magazines and videos.”

“A new shipment?”

“That’s what I said.”

“Where from?”

“Is this an interrogation, Steve?” A jewel glittered in one of Frankie’s front teeth.

Macdonald tried to remember what those gems were called, but couldn’t. “You know me better than that, Frankie.”