Acid Row

by Minette Walters

  She gave a joyful laugh as if a weight had dropped from her shoulders. ‘They’re my babies, darlin’. ’Course I’m proud of them. Always have been. So where’s Jimmy? Is he with them?’

  There was a tiny hesitation. ‘We’re not sure at the moment. His mobile packed up, so we can’t speak to him.’

  ‘What about the little ones? Where are they?’

  ‘You mean Melanie’s children?’

  ‘Yeah. Rosie ’n’ Ben. She had them with her when we started the march.’

  ‘We don’t know. They’re not with her, so we think she must have put them inside her house. It’s pretty rough where they are, Gaynor.’

  Worry took an immediate hold again. ‘Oh, God!’ She looked up the road but couldn’t see through the crowd that was still thronging the tarmac. ‘What’s going on? You said there was a fire.’

  ‘Some boys are trying to petrol-bomb the house. Your kids are standing in front of it to stop them,’ he told her. ‘I said they were brave, Gaynor.’

  There was a long beat of silence. ‘I should’ve known the little bastard wasn’t joyriding,’ she said obliquely before cutting the line.

  Inside 23 Humbert Street

  There was blood on the floorboards and in splattered droplets on the walls. The sight of it brought back the nausea that Jimmy had felt in the Glebe Tower lift. That and the terrible heat and smell of the room. Body odour and the must of disuse. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see something human lying crumpled in a corner, but all his attention was focused on the man and woman facing him across the room.

  He’d taken too long, he thought. Too long helping to put out the fire. Too long breaking through the door.

  The woman was propped across the man’s lap like a ventriloquist’s dummy, eyes closed, face battered beyond belief, chin and chest saturated in gore. Jimmy couldn’t even tell if she was alive except that blood and saliva bubbled from her lips like ectoplasm. She must have fought like a tigress. The old man’s face was scratched and clawed as if two-inch talons had hooked into his skin and ripped it wide.

  ‘You want I should kill her?’ Franek put one hand under Sophie’s slack jaw and the other round the back of her head. ‘I snap her neck if you make movement. She stay alive if you keep your friends away till policemen come.’

  Jimmy didn’t move a muscle. He wanted to say something, but the only words that formed themselves in his mind were obscenities and recriminations. Hadn’t he warned the fucking doctor? He remembered saying it. What’s the fucking difference between one man and a thousand? You’ve got a fucking psycho bastard who’s gonna kill her if I get it wrong. He’d fucking said it. Jesus! Even a fucking moron should’ve fucking known this would happen.

  ‘You understand me, nigger? Or you too stupid?’ demanded Franek angrily, fazed by the man’s gaping mouth and look of blank incomprehension. ‘I kill her if you come close.’

  Jimmy watched a sliver of silver appear between Sophie’s lids. He flicked a glance at the crumpled figure in the corner. ‘I understand,’ he said in a voice husky with dryness.

  Franek nodded in satisfaction. ‘You stay scared,’ he instructed. ‘That way she live.’

  Jimmy did as Sophie had done several times, ran his tongue around the inside of his mouth to unglue it from his teeth. ‘You’re a dead man unless you come with me, Mr Hollis,’ he said.

  A glimmer of humour twitched the man’s eyes, as if he saw a threat and was amused by it. ‘The girl dead if you try and take me.’

  ‘No, you don’t understand.’ He injected urgency into his voice. ‘There are barricades round the estate and the police can’t get in. The whole place is rioting. There’s guys in the street wanting to burn you alive with petrol bombs. I’ve agreed to take you and your son out the back and get you to the police at the perimeter wall. You’ve got about thirty seconds to make up your mind.’

  More amusement. ‘You think Franek believe this? You think Franek a fool?’

  Sophie’s eyelids started to flutter with returning consciousness.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Jimmy recklessly, itching to wipe the smile off his face. ‘I’ve never met a psycho bastard yet who had a brain. They’re all sodding retards. What’s so clever about smashing a woman’s teeth in? Any fuckwit can do it.’

  Franek tightened his grip on Sophie’s neck as she started to move. ‘We stay,’ he said. ‘You guard the door. Keep us safe.’

  It was Jimmy’s turn to smile. ‘They’re gonna fry you, Mr Hollis. You got enough brains to understand that? Me standing here ain’t gonna make a blind bit of difference ’cos the only way out’ll be through the window, ’n’ there’s guys down below waiting with blades. They don’t like sickos, and they’re stoned out of their skulls. They’ll cut you to pieces soon as look at you.’

  Franek’s gaze never wavered, but it wasn’t clear to Jimmy if lack of fear or lack of comprehension was the cause of his imperturbability. He couldn’t fail to hear the shouts from outside, which were louder and more persistent since the bedroom door had been opened. Jimmy could make out Wesley Barber above the rest and that worried him, because he guessed that Wesley was moving closer to the shattered downstairs window.

  ‘You get the brother out, Mel, or we gonna burn him, too . . .’

  ‘You call the wrong man dirty names, nigger. Do you ask if the son is sick? Do you ask if the son does this? No, you spit on the dada and say he must be the guilty man.’ He stared Jimmy down. ‘But it’s me – Franek – who does nothing wicked and me – Franek – who does what he can to keep his life.’

  ‘He’ll never blame himself . . .’ Jimmy glanced at the body in the corner again. ‘Is that your son? Is he dead?’

  ‘I knock him from the girl with a chair. He doesn’t move since.’

  ‘Yeah, well, you can save all that for the cops, Mr Hollis. There’s no way I’m gonna believe your hands are clean. You have to be a well sick fucker if you’re willing to break a woman’s neck.’

  ‘You give me no choice. Without the threat, you would not listen. But Franek is not the one you want. It is Milosz who causes this trouble. Milosz who does bad things.’ The old man’s eyes narrowed as Jimmy’s expression changed. ‘Why you look like this?’ he demanded. ‘What you thinking?’

  ‘They told me your name was Hollis.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘It’s fucking Zelowski, isn’t it?’

  ‘What difference is a name?’

  Jimmy’s fists clenched at his sides. He knew now why there was a studio downstairs. ‘A hell of a fucking difference. Jesus! I know what you did. No wonder your son pisses himself every time the door opens. You whipped a five-year-old kid, you bastard.’

  ‘This is lies.’

  ‘Don’t bullshit me!’ he said angrily. ‘I knew your son in the nick. I liked him. Milosz Zelowski. Best fucking musician I ever met.’ His voice rose in wrath. ‘They broke his fingers because they heard he gave handjobs, and there’s only one bastard who could’ve taught him to do that. You’re a real piece of work. Fucking brave when it’s kids ’n’ women.’ He spat on the floor. ‘No guts at all for taking on men.’

  The sound of his raised voice caused Sophie’s eyes to open. Her face was turned towards Jimmy, but he couldn’t judge if there was any understanding there except that she lay still, seemingly aware that movement might be dangerous. She stared at him unblinkingly, and he had the impression she was trying to tell him something. But he didn’t know what it was.

  Franek was unimpressed. ‘This is to fight me, yes? Do you think it so easy to make Franek forget why he hold this little white neck between his hands?’

  ‘If you break it, I’ll chuck you out of the window myself.’

  The old man’s eyes lit with amusement again. ‘Maybe I don’t care. Maybe I do it anyway. Maybe I say to myself, let’s see if a nigger tell the truth for once.’ He watched Jimmy’s face greedily. ‘Hah!’ he said triumphantly. ‘Now you not so interested in fighting. Maybe you carry messages for Franek instead.
Make your friends go home to their cages. Tell them if Franek is safe, the girl is safe. Go. Do what Franek say –’ he stretched a finger to caress Sophie’s cheek – ‘and the little miss live. Argue any more, and she don’t.’

  Sophie’s eyes widened immediately, and this time the message was clear. Don’t leave me. She was more alert than she was pretending, thought Jimmy.

  He had already calculated that he couldn’t cross the gap between them before Franek twisted his hands. He could take a gamble that Sophie would strike out when he made his move, or that Franek wasn’t experienced enough to get it right first time. But the risk was too great. He held no cards because he didn’t want her dead. Franek held them all.

  ‘They won’t listen to me,’ he said.

  ‘Don’t argue.’

  ‘I’m a nigger, ’n’ niggers aren’t welcome in Acid Row.’ He jerked his head towards the door. ‘Listen! They’re saying they’re gonna burn me, too, just ’cos I’m black.’

  This time a flicker of doubt did creep into Franek’s gaze. It was unlikely he could make out individual words among the shouts, but the sentiments Jimmy expressed matched his own views on blacks so he believed them.

  Jimmy nodded towards Sophie. ‘They’ll listen to her. She’s their doctor. If we take her into the front bedroom she can talk to them through the window.’

  Franek shook his head obstinately. ‘It give you chance to take her away from me. Go. Do what I say. Maybe they listen more than you think.’

  Jimmy’s seething anger boiled over. He didn’t have the time or the patience for negotiation, nor the mindset that would allow a man like this to think he would tamely take orders. He slammed the side of his fist against the wardrobe. ‘Listen, motherfucker,’ he roared. ‘I’ve had it with you. You’d better believe I’m the only bastard in this street who doesn’t wanna kill you. You’ve got one way to save your sodding life, ’n’ that’s with me. I’m coming in for Milosz, so let the lady go and get your fat arse off the floor.’

  Perhaps Sophie had been waiting for just such an ultimatum, perhaps she felt an easing of the hand under her jaw, because she gave a sudden lurch and twisted out of Franek’s grip, scrabbling on hands and knees towards Jimmy. He was half a second slower off the mark than she was, but still a damn sight faster than a seventy-one-year-old.

  ‘Gotcha,’ he said, lifting her round the waist and swinging her round behind him. He lowered his head and spread his arms wide, ready for the tackle. ‘How about it, motherfucker?’ he taunted. ‘Fancy your chances against a nigger?’

  ‘Don’t trust him,’ said Sophie’s voice in a rasp behind him. ‘He’s mad. I think he killed his wife. He’ll kill you if he can.’

  Franek chuckled. ‘She talk rubbish,’ he said. ‘She very stupid girl. Yack-yack all the time. Now you make good your promise. Keep Franek alive the way you say.’

  Jimmy straightened and dropped his hands invitingly to his side. ‘Sure thing, baas, but I’m not leaving without Milosz.’ He took a step towards the crumpled body of his friend, heard Sophie’s anguished cry as Franek made a lunge at him, and planted his fist on the side of the old man’s head. ‘Like I said,’ he murmured, massaging his knuckles, ‘I’ve never met a psycho yet who had a brain.’

  Twenty-four

  Saturday 28 July 2001

  Outside 23 Humbert Street

  MELANIE WONDERED WHY Wesley and his friends didn’t just rush them. All they had to do was barge the line and they’d be in through the window, quick as winking. It was weird. Almost as if they knew that Mel and Col were in the right and they were in the wrong. In an exhausted, abstracted way, she played Star Wars films across her mind, picturing herself as Princess Leia and Col as Luke Skywalker. Brother and sister Jedi knights. The force was with them.

  She felt Colin shake her arm. ‘Are you gonna faint?’ he asked in alarm.

  ‘No, I’m OK.’

  She didn’t believe in good or evil. Just kindness when you felt like it; and idiocy when you were wasted. So maybe it was the black lady at her side who kept telling Wesley his mother would have his guts that made him hang back. Or the helicopter, hovering overhead. Or his friends, who were Colin’s friends, too. Wesley was a fuck-head whichever way you looked at it. Stoned on acid. Prancing around with a flick knife in his hand. Yelling insults. Telling her he was going to slice Jimmy’s gonads the next time he saw him.

  Well, who cared? What had Jimmy ever done for her except get his arse banged up and leave her to carry his baby on her own? He wouldn’t come on the march . . . wasn’t there to take care of the bairns when she needed him. Where was he now? ‘Cleaning out the pervert’s house,’ Col had said. ‘There’s a fortune in stereos in the back room.’ Fucking bastard. He’d always thought more of money than he did of her.

  Colin grabbed her by the arm again. ‘Jeez, Mel. You sure you’re OK? You’re swaying all over the place, sis.’

  Her weary eyes filled with tears. ‘I don’t reckon Jimmy loves me no more, Col. Where’s he been all the time? Why didn’t he answer his phone? Do you think he’s messing with someone else?’

  ‘ ’Course he isn’t. He just had stuff to do.’

  ‘Like what? What’s more important than me and the baby?’

  ‘Just stuff,’ said Colin uneasily. But he, too, was plagued with doubts. He couldn’t believe Jimmy would put stereos before Mel and him. They’d been family to him and everyone knew you didn’t desert family.

  Inside 23 Humbert Street

  Jimmy used a tie from the wardrobe to bind Franek’s hands in front of him, before slapping his face to bring him round and hauling him to his feet. ‘We’re leaving,’ he told him. ‘I’m taking Milosz. You can stay or you can come. If you come, you do as you’re told. One false move and I feed you to the crazies. Capeesh?’

  ‘Untie me.’

  ‘No. You’re a fucking psycho and I don’t trust you.’ He dragged Milosz into the centre of the room then knelt to hoist the limp body over his shoulder in a fireman’s lift. He watched Franek all the while. ‘It’s your call. You follow or you die. I’m not turning round for you, and I’m not gonna help you. You make a mistake . . . anyone notices you . . . I’m outta there with Milosz and Sophie. Get it?’

  Franek’s breathing started to labour. ‘You put me in danger with my hands tied.’

  ‘I know. It sucks, doesn’t it?’ Jimmy headed for the door, putting a hand behind Sophie to urge her through. ‘I bet that’s what the hookers said before you beat the shit out of them.’

  The old soldier retreated hurriedly from the bottom of the stairs when he heard Sophie’s scurrying footsteps and Jimmy’s heavier tread on the landing. He had heard voices in the room above, but hadn’t been able to make out words against the commotion from outside. He was elderly and dis-orientated, and, as he freely admitted to himself, extremely frightened. He hadn’t realized how large the crowd was in Humbert Street, nor how angry it seemed to be.

  On previous occasions when trouble had erupted – though never on such a scale as this – it was invariably in response to heavy-handed treatment by the police. Acid Row harboured strong resentments against the forces of law and order, believing itself to be singled out for brutal treatment. There had been running battles on several occasions after gangland leaders had been beaten by truncheons because the police claimed they were resisting arrest. Like most of the older inhabitants of the estate, the soldier always believed the constabulary’s version, but it occurred to him now that something very bad must have happened for such a large number of people to be so irate.

  He regretted following the black man into a trap. Pride had brought him here. A determination to prove that he was still a man to be reckoned with. He cursed himself for his own stupidity. His wife had been fond of saying that he lost whatever sense he’d been born with when he donned the King’s uniform. Touting a gun in the jungles of Borneo, she would snap crossly, hadn’t given him the right to lecture everyone else on their faults. Fighting never achieved anything ex
cept the death of other women’s children. It had been the cause of every row between them, because he couldn’t bear to have his lifetime’s single real achievement belittled.

  He looked around desperately for a hiding place but there was none in the corridor. Terror settled in his stomach like a millstone. The door to the back room was locked and he hadn’t the speed to reach the safety of the gardens before the black man caught him. It was Jimmy he feared – and the gang he had with him – not the louts in the road, who would recognize the ‘grumpy old sod’ who took them to task every Saturday night for being drunk and disorderly outside his house. Clutching his machete to his chest, he sidled into the front room and hid behind the door . . .

  Gardens, Humbert Street

  Gaynor decided against trying to push through the crowd, recognizing that anyone who hadn’t taken the chance to escape was sturdy enough and strong enough to hold their place. Instead, she ran through Mrs Carthew’s house and followed Jimmy’s path behind the houses, reasoning that if exits were opening along the road she could bypass the crush and come out somewhere near her children.

  It was eerily quiet at the back. She expected the gardens to be full of frightened people and she couldn’t understand why they weren’t. Her pace slowed. The beat of the helicopter’s blades in the sky above reminded her that the police were watching everything. Should she be doing this . . . ?

  Command centre – police helicopter footage

  The video camera caught her upturned face in the garden with its climbing frame, while it waited for Jimmy’s withdrawal from 23. Ken Hewitt’s instructions had been to confine the exits to the even side of the road until he received word that Sophie and the Zelowskis were out. There was a collective sigh of relief from the watchers when three figures emerged, with the big man in black leather carrying a fourth on his shoulder.

  The lens tracked them towards Bassindale Row as Jimmy kicked down fences with a well-aimed boot, then panned back towards Humbert Street.