by Cain, Tom
With every step Carver took it became more obvious that the entire sprawling estate was virtually abandoned. He could imagine the drawings and scale models that had been produced when the place had first been proposed, with their sunny skies, green-leafed trees and happy families living, playing and working in a modernist utopia. Now it looked like a post-apocalyptic wasteland, or the set of a zombie movie. Carver wasn’t given to shivers of apprehension, but even he prickled a little walking through the unlit shadows of the alley that led past the dead-end block to the promised open space beyond.
The first thing he saw when he came out the other side was a bonfire of old bits of furniture and building materials in front of yet another unlit building with glassless, dead-eyed windows. Three men – two black and one white – were sitting on a low brick wall just next to the fire, a scattering of empty beer cans at their feet, having themselves a party with the crack pipe that the white one had in his mouth. He was sucking hard, pulling his pitted, acne-ridden skin between his rotting teeth. His hands were cupped round the bowl of the pipe, making sure that the rain didn’t put it out. The other two were watching him hungrily, the way addicts do when they see someone else taking their share – possibly more than their share – of the stash.
It was only when White Boy looked up that he saw Carver coming towards him. He took the pipe out of his mouth and gave a wordless grunt that alerted his mates to the presence of a passer-by.
They turned their feverish, sunken eyes in Carver’s direction.
He knew perfectly well how he must look: a little over average height, but with a lean build that was unlikely to intimidate anyone. He wasn’t the kind of man who stood out in a crowd or attracted attention by virtue of his size. In his line of work, anonymity had always been a necessity. He’d never wanted people to know just how dangerous he could be.
Of course, this had the drawback that people didn’t actually know how dangerous he could be. People like dumb, brain-fried crackheads who were always looking for easy money and who, right now, were pulling out knives, getting down off the wall and closing the few metres between themselves and Carver with scuffling, unsteady steps.
They were drunk and stoned, so their reactions would be treacle-slow and their motor skills shot to pieces. On the other hand, they would also be irrational, incoherent and lacking in any sort of impulse control. Carver really didn’t want or need a fight tonight, but negotiation wasn’t an option.
‘You stay ’ere, don’ fuckin’ move!’ White Boy shouted, stabbing his knife in the air. He still had the crack pipe in his other hand. He wasn’t going to let that out of his sight.
The other two spread out to either side of him, blocking Carver’s lines of escape. But they didn’t make any further move to attack him, so he just stayed where he was, waiting to see how this would all unfold.
To his surprise, White Boy had actually broken into a feeble imitation of a run and was heading across the open space. Carver watched him scramble across the broken, debris-strewn ground and it was only then that he realized that there were more people, maybe as many as a hundred, gathered around another set of fires that had been lit on the far side of the space. And by the looks of them, they weren’t there to toast marshmallows.
White Boy disappeared into the crowd, only to re-emerge a few seconds later with another man in a black leather jacket and a beanie hat. This one was a very different specimen. He was squat and barrel-chested with the concentrated raw strength, broken nose and cauliflower ears of a rugby front-row forward. He walked straight up to Carver and asked him, ‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing here?’
‘What does it look like?’ Carver replied. ‘I’m walking.’
‘Well, fuck off and walk somewhere else, then.’
‘Get out of my way, and I will. All I want to do is go through this estate and out the other side so that I can have a nice, quiet drink with an old friend.’
‘I wouldn’t do that if I was you.’
‘Thanks for the advice, but I think I will anyway.’
The big man in the beanie hat knew a lot about intimidating people, and he couldn’t help but notice that Carver wasn’t in the least bit frightened. He was also sober and streetwise enough to have picked up on the calm, methodical way that Carver had been assessing the situation around him as they’d been talking. He could not have known just how precisely Carver had worked out the sequence with which he would disable the big man, take White Boy’s knife, place it against the big man’s throat and inform him that it was going to get cut to the bone if he didn’t tell everyone else to back up and let Carver through. But still, the big man got the clear impression that there was a risk attached to starting a fight with this apparently innocuous new arrival, so he took a step back, swept his arm like a traffic cop letting the traffic through and said, ‘Suit yourself.’
‘Thanks,’ said Carver, ‘I will.’
And he walked away towards Netherton Street.
12
ALIX HAD BEEN sent a limousine by the organizers of the rally – one of the armoured BMW 7 Series that had become the transport of choice for those wishing to reach their destinations unscathed, and rich enough to pay the price for such security. As she arrived a woman was waiting to greet her. She was holding a clipboard. She had to shout to make herself heard over the chaos on either side of the police line: ‘And you are?’
‘Alexandra Vermulen, of Vermulen Associates. I’m expected.’
The greeter gave a warm, professional smile. ‘Good evening, Mrs Vermulen. We’re so glad you could make it. Mr Adams will see you when he’s freshened up after his speech. Follow me, please.’
Alix was given a laminated all-areas pass and led up escalators, across a concourse and past a series of security guards to the VIP suite. There was a bar to one side behind which two hostesses were providing drinks and snacks to the dozen or so people gathered in the room. Most of them were men, hardcore careerists who were barking fiercely into their phones or having the sorts of conversations that are less about sharing any ideas or information and far more about a competitive battle to establish the superior status of one speaker over the other. As she waited to be served a glass of chilled champagne Alix caught snatches of speech: demands to, ‘Well, just get it done NOW!’; and insistences that, ‘I don’t care what’s happened in Iran. We have to lead the Ten O’Clock News!’
The only person who paid Alix the slightest bit of attention was another woman, standing by the rail that separated the interior of the suite from its dedicated seats in the auditorium itself. She was a few years older than Alix, pretty in a natural, unaffected kind of way, and dressed in smart, high-street clothes. ‘Hello,’ she said, holding out a hand. ‘You must be Mrs Vermulen. I’ve been so looking forward to meeting you. I’m Nicki Adams, Mark’s wife.’ She looked at her watch and then back at Alix. ‘Uh-oh, it all starts in five minutes. Why don’t you sit next to me? I’d much rather have you for company than any of this lot.’
Outside the arena a Sky News reporter called Bob Hunter was standing in front of the police line at the point where the skinheads, whose numbers had swelled to well over fifty, were still engaged in a running battle of chants, insults and the occasional thrown bottle with the anti-fascist protesters on the other side. Hunter was holding a hand to one ear, as if to help him hear questions amidst the pandemonium.
He set his voice to ‘battlefield reporter’ mode. ‘The atmosphere here is as bad as ever. In fact, it may be getting worse. I’ve just heard from police sources that a number of officers have been hit by missiles thrown from both sides. There are now very real fears that the situation is close to spiralling out of control. Meanwhile—’
His words were interrupted by the sound of smashing glass, followed by an explosion and a brief burst of flame just a couple of metres behind him as an amateurish, homemade attempt at a Molotov cocktail went off. ‘Whoa!’ Hunter exclaimed, throwing up a hand to shield his face. ‘We’re going to have to move. Things
are really heating up. Back to the studio . . .’
‘Who do you think put those yobbos there?’ asked Cameron Young, the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff. He was watching the broadcast from his office in Downing Street. Young was the sort of man who looked as though he’d been born wearing a suit and tie. His appearance was an exact definition of ‘blandness’: mousey hair, nondescript eyes hidden behind unexceptional glasses. Yet many Westminster insiders said he was the second most important man in the country. Those that disagreed only did so because they were certain that he was actually the first.
Young frowned pensively. ‘It must be good for Adams to have a certain amount of disorder about the place – helps persuade the masses that they need a short, sharp shock. On the other hand, if he really wants to persuade the rest of us that he’s basically a decent, reasonable chap, he hardly wants to be associated with louts and skinheads.’ He turned back to the rest of the room with raised, inquisitive eyebrows. ‘You didn’t plant them, did you, Grantham?’
‘If I did, would you really want me to tell you?’
Strictly speaking, Jack Grantham had no professional interest in events on UK soil. Those were the preserve of the police and MI5. That was the very reason Young had approached him for, as he put it, ‘A special consultative role, reporting solely to me and thus to the Prime Minister.’
Young was determined to use any methods necessary to stamp out Mark Adams and his new party before they became an even more serious threat to the established political order. That task required someone who had no direct ties to domestic law-enforcement; someone who understood that there were times when a problem was so serious that unconventional methods were required – the kind of methods that could never and would never be discussed in public. Grantham fitted the bill perfectly.
For his part, Grantham’s unrelenting ambition would be satisfied by even closer access to Number 10 and the promise of an accelerated knighthood. His greed, a relatively minor vice in his case, was covered by the assurance of a significant performance bonus on completion of his task. Meanwhile – and this was an essential consideration for a man who loved intrigue, but was very easily bored – his interest and curiosity were piqued by the lengths to which the government was prepared to go to discredit and destroy a political opponent.
With Grantham already in the bag, Young just had his traditional enemies to worry about.
‘Anything you’d like to add, Brian?’ Young asked.
Brian Smallbone, Young’s opposite number as political advisor to the Leader of the Opposition, shook his head. ‘Not at the moment, no. It all seems to be going well enough. Let’s just enjoy the show.’
13
THERE WERE TIMES when Paula Miklosko wondered why she’d ever bothered getting married or working for a living. It wasn’t that she regretted committing herself to her husband Marek. True, they couldn’t have come from much more different backgrounds: she was a half-Ghanaian, half-Welsh Baptist; he was a Czech Catholic. But they loved each other as much now as the day they’d met six years ago, and that was all Paula cared about. She wanted him, and was longing for the day when they could afford to start a family together.
In the meantime, she had something she’d always dreamed of: a little hairdressing salon of her own. She’d saved up since she left college to put down the deposit. Marek and his pals had done a great job gutting the old interior and giving it a whole new look. If she was given even half a chance, she knew she had the talent, the energy and the determination to make a real go of it.
So far, trade was holding up all right. Even in times of hardship, women still wanted their hair to look nice. But they couldn’t pay as much for it as they’d done a few years ago, and the tips were pitiful. Meanwhile, prices and taxes just kept rising all the time, and even when Marek and his crew charged rock-bottom rates they still found it hard getting building or decorating work.
After years of apparent immunity from the general decline of the British property market, London prices had collapsed in recent months. All the wealthy foreigners were leaving town, and banks had finally stopped paying bonuses. Without all that silly money the price-bubble had burst. Nobody was moving house. Nobody could afford to tart up the houses they’d got. Even if they could, what was the point? Areas that had once been promoted as up-and-coming were now little better than warzones. Even the respectable, desirable parts of the city were overrun with muggers, beggars and crazies. Any middle-class families that had country houses had fled. The rest were trying to find a way out. And those who had no choice but to stay, who were trying to live the right way, were being spat on by the system as much as those who sought to destroy it.
‘I don’t understand this crazy country!’ Marek liked to say. ‘If you work, they pay you less and less. If you just sit on your ass, then every year the benefits go up and up. No wonder the English are so lazy. Is a waste of time to work here. And having family is impossible! Maybe I should give you baby then leave. You get more money that way.’
Paula tried to explain that people on benefits weren’t living in luxury, whatever people said. She had enough friends trying to raise two or three kids by themselves in a council flat to know it wasn’t easy. But she also knew that none of those friends even tried to get jobs because they’d never earn enough to make it worthwhile. Plenty of them came from families where no one had worked for years and years. No one stayed married; no one even tried to get a decent education. Paula was desperate to avoid becoming another welfare statistic – and even if she hadn’t been, her mother would never have let her. She’d always taken the same view as Marek: lazy white folk could waste their lives away if they liked, but her children were going to make something of themselves.
That was what Paula planned to do. All she asked for was just a little help, a little recognition that she and Marek should be rewarded for at least trying to lead a productive life that would actually contribute to society.
As she cleaned up the salon after the last customer had left, Paula had the radio on. They were talking about that big rally Mark Adams was having at the O2. Paula didn’t quite know what to make of Adams. Marek often said, ‘Every other politician in this country full of bullshit – but this Adams I like.’
Paula had told him, ‘You wouldn’t think that if you were black.’ But she didn’t make a big issue of it. There were a lot of good reasons to have a fight with her husband, but politics wasn’t one of them.
She turned the radio off, closed up the salon, pulled down the security shutters and walked off to her car. It was only a little Suzuki Swift, eight years old with over a hundred thousand miles on the clock. But it was Paula Miklosko’s little luxury. She’d paid for it. And she loved it.
14
STANDING BEHIND HIS shop counter, Maninder Panu watched Ajay put fresh produce into the clear plastic bowls of fruit and vegetables arrayed on a table outside. Each bowl cost one pound. Ajay had to lift up the clear plastic sheet that kept the rain off the bowls in order to refill them.
A man had stopped to watch the whole procedure as though this was something new to him. He was a white man, somewhat shorter than Ajay and less heavily built, but there was something about the way he stood that gave Panu the impression that he knew how to look after himself. He had none of the fearful nervousness that afflicted so many people these days. Nor was there any of the bullying aggression of the criminals and gang-members who wallowed in their ability to intimidate. Instead he seemed relaxed, self-confident, as though he felt certain he could handle whatever the streets might throw at him. He might, Panu thought, be an off-duty soldier or policeman. The man asked Ajay a question, nodded with interest at the answer, looked at his watch, then came into the store.
Sam Carver walked up to the counter, scuffing a hand through his short, dark-brown hair – that now had a few faint streaks of grey – to get rid of some of the rainwater. He’d never seen groceries sold by the bowl before. It made him feel like a stranger in his own country to admit that, bu
t he liked the idea anyway. Inside, the Lion Market looked a cut above your average urban corner shop. It was air-conditioned and the goods on the shelves were an odd mix of bargain-basement offers and surprisingly upmarket brands. But then, this was a corner of London where great swathes of council flats mixed with terraces where four-bed family houses went for a million quid – or had done until a few years ago, at any rate. The families that lived in places like that wanted to eat sun-dried tomatoes, ciabatta bread and organic avocados. The Lion Market was obviously happy to supply them.
Sweets and chocolate bars were on display by the checkout, presumably to tempt shoppers into last-second impulse purchases. Carver scanned the racks until he found what he was looking for: two bars of Cadbury’s Fruit and Nut. Geneva was filled with fancy confectioners selling the finest Swiss chocolate, but he missed the taste of home. As he paid for the bars he noticed that the man behind the counter looked a little jumpy. There were signs by the door as he came in warning that the shop had full CCTV coverage, never kept more than fifty pounds in the till and was protected by (this handwritten in large black capital letters) ‘FAST-RESPONSE ARMED SECURITY’.
Carver didn’t blame the owners for being nervous. A place like this was a magnet for crime, from spotty little shoplifters to armed burglars. Still, the average urban lowlife was as cowardly as he was stupid. The lad out front looked big and mean enough to make most would-be perpetrators think twice. Carver thanked the shopkeeper for his change and walked out. Spotting the sign for the Dutchman’s Head fifty metres down the road he licked his lips. Snoopy Schultz should be getting the drinks in any second now, and he could practically taste that first pint.