Acid Row

by Minette Walters

  Who knew?

  The journey to shock was equally vivid. Perhaps they thought it was a mannequin that Wesley had tossed so carelessly from the window to dance on its rope, because a wave of laughter rippled across the faces. Soon after, the smiles turned to puzzlement. Some continued to watch Wesley strut his stuff, but most averted their eyes. There was a spontaneous push away from the centre. A girl dropped to her knees and was sick on the pavement. On the fringes, the crowd began to melt away through the exits.

  It wasn’t their fault. They hadn’t asked the black boy to behave like a maniac. It was pretty bad what he’d done, but, hell . . . it was only a fucking paedophile!

  Outside 23 Humbert Street

  Gaynor lifted a sweat-drenched face to look at Jimmy but didn’t pause in her attempts to revive Colin. Straight-armed, she was pumping his heart. ‘One – two – three – four – five.’ She bent to breathe air into his mouth. ‘We think Mel’s alive – three – four – five.’ Another breath. ‘Please help – three – four – five.’

  Sophie dropped to her knees beside the black woman who was holding Melanie’s wrist between her fingers. ‘We got her back,’ she said, tears rolling down her cheeks. ‘See. It’s like on Casualty. She’s breathing. She’s got a pulse. Ain’t that right?’

  Sophie pressed her fingers to the girl’s neck. ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Oh God! Oh God! Thank you. Thank you.’ She raised her own tear-stained face to Jimmy’s. ‘Talk to her, sweetheart. Tell her how much you love her. The quicker you can bring her back the better. Make her listen. It’s your voice she hears all the time, Jimmy. Nobody else’s. She’s told me over and over again how much she loves you.’

  Jimmy sank to his knees and pressed his hand to his lady’s face. ‘Help Gaynor,’ he said. ‘Col’s her baby, too.’

  But Colin was dead.

  Monday 30 July 2001

  MEMO

  From:

  DCI Tyler

  To:

  Superintendent Hamilton

  Date:

  30.07.01

  Re:

  Charges relating to the abduction of Amy Biddulph/Rogerson

  Sir,

  Updated information is as follows:

  •

  No evidence of incest against Martin Rogerson. Both Laura and Amy deny any such intimacy took place. Laura has confirmed his interest in soft pornography.

  •

  Rogerson admits that if Townsend had threatened to send tapes of his daughter ‘posturing to camera’ to his colleagues and clients, he might have ‘been more amenable’ to postponing Townsend’s bankruptcy. ‘A man in my position can’t afford scandal.’ Less concerned about the images being logged on the Net, interestingly. ‘No one would know who she was.’

  •

  Rogerson admits to being upset and angered by what Townsend persuaded Laura to do on camera. ‘I was jealous. She never did it for me.’ Laura agrees she gave the tapes to him. ‘I wanted to hurt him.’

  •

  It seems clear that Rogerson has always been more interested in his wife than his daughter.

  Advise no further action in regard to Martin Rogerson.

  Re: Edward Townsend

  •

  Computers currently being searched – estimated time of investigation: 2–3 weeks.

  •

  Denies filming Laura Biddulph/Franny Gough/ women/children for pornography.

  •

  Denies any involvement in Net pornography.

  •

  Denies abducting Amy for purposes of extortion/ blackmail/ransom.

  Questioning continues.

  DCI Tyler

  P.S. The bastard was lying. Watch this space!

  Thirty-one

  Monday 30 July 2001

  IT WAS TWENTY-FOUR hours before the police could confirm the true identity of the hanged man – Corporal Arthur Miller, Second World War veteran and widower – but the press was surprisingly coy about reporting it. They had rushed into print in the hours after Bloody Saturday, taking official refusal to release a name as corroboration of what was being whispered on the streets of Acid Row. The victim was a paedophile.

  However, even the tabloid editors baulked at ‘Soldier butchered in error for sex pervert’ for the Monday editions, for fear of being seen to condone lynching as a method of dealing with deviants. Most preferred the more anodyne ‘Tragedy of old soldier’ or ‘Murder victim was random killing’.

  Leader writers leapt to their pens after the Home Office confirmed that a registered sex offender had been rehoused anonymously in Humbert Street to avoid vigilantism. An injunction was issued against the reporting of his name in the interests of public safety, but there was no such restriction on the details of his conviction because the Home Office was keen to emphasize that the local police had been right to say he wasn’t dangerous.

  Sections of the press seized on this as evidence that, had he been ‘outed’ in line with Megan’s Law in the US, the events of Bloody Saturday would not have happened. It was the secrecy surrounding him that had led the mob to riot. If his name and the nature of his offence had been widely publicized, the inhabitants of Acid Row would have known that a reticent man, convicted of minor offences against sixteen- and seventeen-year-old boys, was unlikely to pose a threat to their toddlers.

  Others argued forcefully that to reveal any paedophile’s identity or address was to court the sort of hatred seen on Bloody Saturday. The man in question had already been hounded from one estate, even though the details of his conviction had been printed beside his photograph. The problem was the word ‘paedophilia’. In most people’s minds it was synonymous with evil, and few were ready to draw distinctions between inadequate men who sought only to touch, and psychopaths who set out to hurt and kill children for pleasure.

  Politicians tried to avoid the issue by blaming the riot on contemporary drug culture.

  By contrast, the public – democratic – response was unequivocal. When they learnt that a confused old soldier had been brutally murdered in mistake for a pervert, people came from near and far to pile the entrances to Acid Row with flowers.

  But in the twenty-four hours that they believed him to be a sex beast, not a single blossom was laid.

  Tuesday 2 October 2001

  (two months later)

  Thirty-two

  Tuesday 2 October 2001

  Bassindale Estate

  EILEEN HINKLEY SAID Jimmy was making a fuss when he produced a brightly coloured rug from a carrier bag and tucked it round her knees in the wheelchair. ‘It’s a present,’ he said, before vanishing into her bedroom and poking around in her cupboards.

  ‘If you’re looking for something to nick you’re wasting your time,’ she called out cheerfully. ‘The only thing I have of any value is my engagement ring . . . and you’ll have to chop my finger off to get it.’

  He came back into the sitting-room with a collection of hats in his hand. ‘I know,’ he said. ‘I worked that out the first time I met you.’ He held up a red beret. ‘What about this? No? This one.’ He discarded the others on the sofa, and placed a brown felt trilby at a jaunty angle across her limp white hair. ‘Perfect.’

  ‘Why do I have to wear a hat?’ she asked suspiciously, as he spun the chair and pushed her towards her front door.

  ‘It’s cold outside.’

  The lift had been cleaned and painted since WPC Hanson had bled across its floor. It remained unpredictable and the local youths still emptied their bladders into it at weekends, but the tenants had formed a cleaning roster and it smelt of disinfectant more often than it smelt of urine. There were other small changes. Someone had imported pot plants into the foyer, and the cigarette butts were regularly swept up. It wouldn’t be long, Jimmy often thought, before rugs and curtains started arriving.

  He pushed Eileen out through the doors into the blustery October afternoon. ‘Where are we going?’ she asked him, clinging to her hat.

  ‘Not far.’

  She
tucked the rug under her thighs. ‘Did I tell you Wendy Hanson came to see me the other day?’

  ‘The policewoman?’

  ‘Yes. She’s gone back to college to train as a nursery teacher. Says she thinks she’ll get on better with the under-fives.’

  ‘Will she?’

  The old woman chuckled. ‘I shouldn’t think so. They’ll scare her stiff the minute they start fighting. She’s been watching too many films. She’s got it into her head that toddlers are little angels and that corruption doesn’t begin till secondary school.’

  ‘Is she still seeing the old geezer who hit her?’

  Eileen tut-tutted. ‘She’s a glutton for punishment . . . says he’s got full-blown Alzheimer’s . . . hasn’t a clue who she is . . . but she feels she owes it to him to waste an hour a week in the nursing home. Have you ever heard such nonsense? He nearly killed her, and she thinks it’s her fault for upsetting him. She ought to have been a nun. Martyrdom and saintliness appeal to her.’

  Jimmy grinned. ‘She’s being conned. The word is his lawyer got him sectioned to avoid prosecution. I mean, if he really did have Alzheimer’s, he wouldn’t have been able to get her into the lift and stick an “Out of Order” notice on the door. Stands to reason.’

  They passed the Co-op, also repainted and refurbished. Young trees had been planted in the newly pedestrianized precinct in front of it, and several more shops – grant-assisted – had opened, giving a taste of upward mobility to the area that hadn’t been there before. Eileen remarked on how pretty it was beginning to look before cocking her head to listen to the sound of bulldozers in the distance. ‘Have they started on Humbert Street yet?’

  ‘Yup. First house came down yesterday.’

  ‘Is it really all going?’

  ‘Every last brick. Bassett Road, too. They’re clearing the whole site between Bassindale and Forest, and starting again.’

  ‘About time,’ she said bluntly, ‘even if it is akin to shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. Are you happy in your new house, Jimmy?’

  ‘Sure am. It’s a palace compared with the last one. We’ve got a proper garden this time, plus we’ve been given the choice of staying there or taking one of the new ones when they’re built. We’re waiting to see what they look like before we decide.’

  She twisted round to look at him. ‘Is that where we’re going?’

  ‘I’m not telling you.’

  ‘Are there going to be people there? Is that why you’ve covered me with a blanket and put a hat on my head? Are you ashamed of me, Jimmy?’

  He squeezed her shoulder. ‘I’m proud of you. Everyone is. You’re the most famous old lady in Acid Row. They reckon you saved more lives than anyone else by persuading your mates and their relations to open their doors.’

  ‘Not enough though,’ she said sadly. ‘I still think about poor Arthur Miller and young Colin. Such a terrible waste, Jimmy. Will Gaynor ever get over it, do you think?’

  ‘No,’ he said honestly, ‘but she doesn’t have so much time to think about him since you made her your “Friendship Calling” visitor. She takes Johnnie, Ben and Rosie with her and the oldies get a real buzz out of it. Half of them are so confused they think they’re their own grandchildren . . . but at least it makes them feel part of a family again.’

  ‘And what about you, Jimmy? Will you ever get over it?’

  ‘I guess,’ he said grimly. ‘When I stop wanting to murder Wesley Barber and that bitch of a health visitor. She’s still trying to claim she told Mel Milosz wasn’t dangerous . . . says it’s not her fault if Mel’s so thick she got the wrong end of the stick.’

  She twisted her head again. ‘No one believes her, my dear. People are judged by their actions, and Miss Baldwin’s been spiteful all her life. Everyone round here knows that. She’s a silly woman. You reap what you sow in life, and she’s reaping a lot of animosity. Wendy Hanson says ex-colleagues are fed up to the back teeth with her whining excuses, and they’re looking to charge her with incitement.’

  ‘It’ll never stick,’ said Jimmy.

  ‘Maybe not, but it might make her face up to what she did. There are too many rabble-rousers in this world, and too few peace-makers.’ She folded her ancient claw over her shoulder to pat his hand. ‘Whatever your other sins, Jimmy, you’re a peace-maker. It’s a rare breed, and a fine one. Never let anger persuade you otherwise.’

  He dropped a kiss on to the gnarled fingers. ‘What other sins? I’m Big J, remember. The Main Man. Hero of the bloody hour. Going straight for the first time in his life.’

  She gave another chuckle. ‘How’s that working out?’

  ‘What you’d expect when you pay a guy peanuts to run a ramshackle youth centre. I spend most of my time doing my Cetshawayo impression to stop the various gangs killing each other. There are some good musicians, though.’

  ‘Is that where all the sound equipment went?’

  ‘What sound equipment?’

  ‘The stuff that vanished mysteriously from number 23.’

  He gave a grunt of amusement. ‘There was no mystery about it. Milosz signed it over to me for saving his life. I’ve got the paper to prove it.’

  ‘Sophie said he was unconscious for three days.’

  Jimmy grinned. ‘I looked in on him a few times in the hospital while they were operating on Mel. He had a rare moment of lucidity at two o’clock in the morning. He sat up and signed the document. Take it all, he said, with my blessing.’

  Eileen clucked her tongue busily. ‘Fuck that for a load of bananas,’ she said happily. ‘You nicked it before anyone else could. Dolly Carthew said you smuggled it out the back while the police were guarding the front, and stashed it in one of her empty rooms for a week.’

  ‘Language, Mrs H.’

  ‘You’ve been a very bad influence on me, Jimmy. I’m swearing . . . I’m party to crimes . . . and I haven’t felt so useful in years.’

  His infectious laughter bellied out above her head. ‘I still think I’d have done better to hightail it out of here with Mel and the babes. I’d be making a fuck sight more money selling drugs to kids in London than knocking heads together in Acid Row.’

  ‘You’d never be able to do it,’ she said comfortably. ‘It’s just another form of child abuse. You care too much, that’s your trouble. If you didn’t, you wouldn’t have told Milosz to get lost.’

  ‘How do you know I did?’

  ‘Sophie told me.’ There was a twinkle in her eye though he couldn’t see it. ‘There were several references to Armageddon, apparently. Something along the lines of . . . next time good and evil wage a war outside your door, find some guts and pick the side of the angels instead of taking the coward’s way out . . . or words to that effect.’

  ‘Yeah, well, I’d had time to think about it by then, and I reckoned it sucked that a guy’d let his father beat a woman black and blue because he was afraid of him. OK, he had a lousy childhood, but then so did a lot of us. You have to make choices in life . . . and all he ever chose was to make his father worse. He said it would have been different if he’d known his dad had killed his mum –’ he shrugged – ‘but I reckon he’s lying about that. That’s why he closes down and never mentions her. He knew she was dead, may even have witnessed it . . . but what did he ever do about it?’

  Which was more or less what Sophie had said, but it was interesting that neither she nor Jimmy felt any compassion for Milosz because of it. ‘It would have been a terrifying experience for a little boy,’ Eileen pointed out.

  ‘Sure,’ said Jimmy, ‘but he grew up, didn’t he? It’s never too late to change your mind. He should have turned his bastard father in years ago instead of going back to live with him. That makes him a real motherfucker even if his statement does support Sophie’s version of events. He shouldn’t have let it happen . . . shouldn’t have let his dad smack the whores about. I don’t care how frightened a geezer is . . . beating up on women’s wrong.’

  He was a true gentle gia
nt, thought Eileen. Hard as rock on the outside, soft as marshmallow inside. Love for him threatened to burst from her chest. ‘You and Sophie are two of a kind,’ she said gruffly. ‘Hearts as big as mountains . . . tolerance for sinners zero.’

  ‘It depends what the sin is,’ he said. ‘Our Col was a thief . . . but I loved him. And Sophie’s got more balls than I’ll ever have. I couldn’t’ve walked up the aisle looking like Elephant Man. That takes real class. She is who she is, and fuck anyone who says different . . . that’s her style. Me, I’m vain. The day I marry I want the world to say: “WOW! There goes a dude.” ’

  Eileen laughed. ‘They’d say it whatever you looked like. It’s behaviour that makes a man, Jimmy, not the beauty of his face.’

  He turned the corner into Carpenter Road and slowed to a halt in front of the third house. He squatted down in front of her and rested his palms on her knees. ‘Ready?’ he asked.

  ‘What for?’

  He nodded towards the door. ‘To meet my daughter. Sophie delivered her, at home, in our bed, at three o’clock this morning. She’s the prettiest babe you ever saw.’

  Eileen’s old eyes lit with excitement. ‘Oh, Jimmy, how wonderful!’ she said, clapping her hands. ‘What’s her name?’

  He grinned. ‘Colinna Gaynor Eileen Sophie Melanie James.’

  She chuckled. ‘Will she remember them all?’

  ‘She’d better,’ he said, grabbing the handles and spinning her up the path. ‘They’re the first words of her story.’