by Zoe Sharp
When Pauline had moved in to number forty-one, Kirby Street hadn’t yet started on its downward course. It was one of a maze of streets of ugly brick and pebbledashed semis built in the fifties on reclaimed marshland, down near the River Lune. As far as anyone knew, the area had never been remotely cultivated, despite the picturesque name.
For the past twenty years, Lavender Gardens had been slowly taken over by the local Asian population. Mainly Pakistani, they’d moved into the streets one house at a time as they came up vacant. And, as is so often the way of these things, the more the Asian numbers swelled, the faster the other houses seemed to come up for grabs, and the lower the prices fell.
For as long as I’d lived in Lancaster, the place had been known as Lavindra Gardens. At least, that was one of its more repeatable nicknames.
Pauline wasn’t remotely Pakistani, but she’d stayed put. “I get on all right with them,” she’d informed me stoutly. “I just don’t stick my nose in where it’s not wanted, particularly with the kids, and they leave me well alone.”
She didn’t appear to make any connection between this wide berth and the presence of Friday, who had the run of the house when she was at work. The dog had arrived as an abused puppy not long after Mr Jamieson had departed and, in the long run, Pauline reckoned she’d got the better end of the deal. If nothing else, he was the best home security system you could wish for.
The Ridgeback was big, and totally aware of his own strength. Besides, he had the much-envied local reputation of once having chased an imprudent dustbin man up onto the roof of the shed in the back garden, and kept him up there all morning. Part of the reason I was staying at Pauline’s was so that Friday could stay in residence, and on guard.
So, I’d moved in to make sure his food came in tins rather than in trousers. I’d agreed to keep lights on in the evening, and the curtains opening and closing at the appropriate hours.
I’d also promised not to interfere in local problems. Not to take sides. Not to get involved. After all, I was only going to be there for a relatively short period. The last thing I’d wanted to do was draw attention to myself.
But it looked like I’d managed it, just the same.
***
After I’d let Friday tow me round the block on the end of his lead, my conscience got the better of me. I bundled him back into the house and crossed over the road to go and bang on the faded varnish of Fariman and Shahida’s front door.
It took a long time for anyone to answer. When the door was finally opened, it wasn’t Shahida who stood there, but an Asian teenager. He was one of those beautiful Indian boys with almost androgynous features, flawless skin and a slender body. It was emphasised by the tight, but grubby white T-shirt he wore, along with dusty jeans, ripped at the knees.
I vaguely recognised him, but seeing him out of context, it took me a moment to put a name to the face. Nasir, that was it. His widowed mother, Mrs Gadatra, actually lived next door to Pauline. Although I’d seen and talked to her two younger children, the elder boy was rarely home, and remained aloof when he was.
I realised that he hadn’t spoken, and was eyeing me with apparent disfavour, as though something with a faintly unpleasant smell had crawled onto his upper lip.
“Yes?” he said at last, sharply, and totally without the grace his appearance would have suggested.
“Hello Nasir. I’m here to see Shahida,” I said, somewhat uncertainly, and when that didn’t seem to impress him, I added, “to find out how Fariman is.”
The boy glowered a little more. “Wait,” he said. “I’ll ask.”
He turned and stalked away up the hall, not quite shutting the door in my face, but making sure I knew I wasn’t invited over the threshold. I hovered, uncomfortable, and almost regretted the impulse that had made me come over.
I glanced around and noticed, with a knot in my stomach, the net curtains twitching in the houses opposite.
After less than a minute another figure appeared round the door, almost completely filling the narrow hallway. He was unusually large for an Asian man, with huge callused hands, but he was squeezed into a suit that, if I was any judge, hadn’t come off a market stall.
“Yes?” he said, too, but with less aggression than Nasir had injected. His voice was oddly high-pitched.
I repeated my inquiry about Fariman and he eyed me bleakly for a second.
“You heard about what happened, then?”
“I was there,” I said.
“You are Charlie?” he asked.
When I nodded he paused for a moment, considering, then swung the door open and gestured me in, but laid a heavy restraining hand on my arm before I could advance much further. “Fariman’s condition is not good,” he said quietly. “One lung collapsed and his leg is badly burned, and there is some talk of infection in the wounds. Please do not upset Shahida with your questions.”
I nodded again, and the weight was lifted from my arm.
We went through into the small, neat front sitting room. Nasir was slouched by the netted window, scowling at life in general, and me in particular.
Shahida was sitting on the sofa, looking utterly dejected. She barely glanced up as we came in. Nasir’s mother was sitting next to her. She was holding both Shahida’s hands in her own as though she could impart inner strength that way.
“Shahida,” I said gently, after a few moments of silence, “I’m so sorry.”
She looked up slowly, as though only just registering my presence. “I begged him not to do anything stupid, Charlie,” she whispered.
The sense of guilt rose quickly, had to be swallowed back down. It stuck like dust in my throat. “I tried,” I said, “but when Langford and his bunch joined in, it all got out of hand so fast.” As excuses went, it sounded pretty lame to my own ears.
“So, why did you stop them beating the boy?” Mrs Gadatra demanded suddenly, her normally placid face fierce. “Look what he did to my sister’s husband. He needed to be taught a lesson, or where will it all end?”
Nasir pushed himself away from the window ledge abruptly, as though he couldn’t maintain his silence any longer, and agitatedly raked his hands through his hair. “You think that, but there are others who deserve to be beaten more,” he said with quiet feeling, starting to pace jerkily. “He’s not the one who was behind this attack.”
“Nasir!” protested the big man, his voice more squeaky than it had been before. “Just remember, boy, it wasn’t so long ago when that could have been you.”
Mrs Gadatra paled visibly at the man’s words, but Nasir twisted to face him. “I know who’s behind this,” he said, vehement, “and I’m going to see they get what’s coming to them.”
“Nasir!” It was his mother who broke in this time, her voice hushed with outrage. “Show some respect to your employer. Mr Ali has kindly brought you away from work to see your aunt, and this rudeness is how you repay him? You should be ashamed.”
I vaguely remembered an over-the-fence conversation with Mrs Gadatra when she mentioned that Nasir was training to be an electrician, and had a good job with a local builder. Mr Ali had built up his business from nothing and Nasir much admired him. You certainly saw enough of Mr Ali’s green and purple painted vans driving round to vouch for his success.
The man himself dredged up a weak smile for Mrs Gadatra, fluttering a hand to show that it really didn’t matter. There was only a slight tightening round the corners of his mouth, a stiffness to his neck, that called him a liar.
I didn’t get the chance to express my doubts. He pointedly checked his gold wristwatch and glanced at Nasir. “We have to go now,” he said, smiling at the women to belie the hint of steel in his thready voice. “I have a meeting, and you are needed back on site, Nasir,” he said.
Nasir nodded sullenly, head bowed. The fight seemed to have gone out of him.
Mrs Gadatra got up to see them out, the soft folds of her bright silk sari rustling as she moved. “I’m sorry about my boy,” she said to Mr Al
i, flashing Nasir a speaking look, but unable to stop defending him, even so. “He is upset about his uncle.”
“I’m sure the police will do everything they can to bring those responsible to justice,” Mr Ali said, but his voice held little conviction.
“I’m sure they will,” Mrs Gadatra agreed, but she sounded less convinced, or convincing, than he had. She turned to her son as he moved past her. “I want to hear no more talk of retribution, Nasir,” she said sharply. “Let the police take care of things.”
Just for a moment, the fire was back in Nasir’s eyes. “They don’t know what’s going on, and they don’t care,” he muttered. He brought his head up, oddly seemed to look me straight in the face, as he added, “Maybe you should be asking who really profits from trying to rob an old man?”
Mr Ali shot a quick, nervous glance to Shahida to see what effect the boy’s inflammatory words were having, but she was still sitting frozen on the sofa, and seemed oblivious. He grabbed hold of Nasir’s shoulder and practically hauled him out of the room. The front door banged shut behind them a few moments later.
I would have turned and gone back to Shahida, but Mrs Gadatra laid a hand on my arm. It was half the size of Mr Ali’s, but it had the same detaining effect, nevertheless.
“I think you should go now, too, Charlie,” she said to me, more softly than the tone she’d used on her son. “My sister has been through a lot. I’m sure she appreciates your calling, but she needs some peace.”
There wasn’t an easy way to argue with her and, I must admit, I didn’t even try.
Nasir’s words troubled me as I walked back over the road to Pauline’s. Surely there wasn’t anything more sinister behind the attack on Fariman than a group of frightened kids who’d panicked when they’d been cornered, and who had lashed out blindly.
So, what did he mean about working out who’d profit from robbing an old man?
I shrugged. It was rubbing me up the wrong way, but part of me just wanted to hope that Fariman recovered from his ordeal without any lasting side-effects, and to forget about it. Besides, I’d promised Pauline I wouldn’t do anything rash and, at that point, I really did fully intend to keep my word.
Ah well.
Three
As I approached Pauline’s place, I dug in my pocket for my keys, noticing out of habit the man leaning on a sleek-looking sports car by the kerb next to the house.
He was middle-aged, balding, shortish and rather rotund, wearing a grey anorak that had three lots of carefully knotted drawstrings and a hood. As I drew nearer I could see that the skin of his face was pale and clammy. He mopped at it with a wilted blue cotton handkerchief.
He certainly didn’t look the kind of bloke who’d own a Mercedes of any description, unless he was just cheekily using this one as a perch. Not that it was a new car, but a classic square-shaped SL convertible. The shine on the dark green metallic paint was so deep you felt you could reach into it right up to the elbow.
As I drew nearer he straightened up, leaning down to pick up a battered briefcase that had been resting against his grey-slacked legs. I had time to weigh him up before we got within hailing distance. Social worker, or council official, probably. Only the Merc didn’t quite fit the bill.
“Miss Fox, is it?”
I nodded, hesitating on the pavement by Pauline’s driveway. He fumbled in his anorak pocket and produced a slightly dog-eared business card, which he handed over to me. Eric O’Bryan, it said, with Community Juvenile Officer in smaller print underneath, and an official-looking crest.
“You’re with the police?” I said. I wouldn’t have pegged him as that.
“Not quite,” he said. “Associated with, but not part of, if you see what I mean. I work with them on occasion, in a sort of mediatory capacity. Do you mind if I have a word?”
I shrugged, and leaned on the lichen-encrusted concrete gatepost. “Feel free.”
He looked uncomfortable, as though aware of the net curtains fluttering at the windows across the road. “Erm, no, I meant somewhere – less public.”
I eyed him for a moment, but he didn’t strike me as the axe-murdering type, so I nodded and led him up the short driveway. I got the outside door open, then stopped him going in to the porch. “You’d better let me go and get the dog out of the way first,” I said. “He’s big, and he’s mean, and he’s not mine, so I wouldn’t like to guarantee that he’ll do as I tell him. Especially not when he’s hungry.”
O’Bryan swallowed and nodded quickly, clutching his briefcase like that was going to save him from Friday’s savage jaws. By this time, the animal in question had gone into what sounded like a slathering barking frenzy on the other side of the door.
I shouted to him through the panelling, and gradually the din subsided into woeful whining. Only then did I risk pushing the door open, getting my knee through first so that Friday couldn’t ram his powerful snout into the gap.
Once I’d actually got into the hallway, the dog decided that he did remember me after all. He went through a big show of sucking up, standing on my feet and butting against my legs.
“Come on, you,” I said when he’d calmed down enough, grabbing hold of his collar. “Kitchen.”
I dragged his unwilling bulk into the other room in a scrabble of claws on the lino, pulling the door shut behind him, then went to let O’Bryan into the house. He checked me over dubiously when I opened the door, anxiously looking past me, as though I should have been losing blood through numerous bite holes and gashes.
“So, Mr O’Bryan,” I said once he was ensconced on the sofa in Pauline’s living room, “what is it you feel the need to talk to me about in private?”
“Well, bit of a sticky subject this, no doubt,” he said. He put his head on one side, rubbing absently at his chin as if trying to gauge in advance my response to his next words. “Not to put too fine a point on it, well, it’s about young Roger.”
I stared at him blankly for a moment. “Roger?” I repeated.
Whatever reaction he’d been expecting, that clearly wasn’t it. He looked at me in surprise. “Roger Mayor,” he prompted. “The young lad who was arrested last night. I have got it right, haven’t I? You were there?”
“Oh, right,” I said, feeling foolish. “Sorry, I didn’t know his name. When they put him into the back of a police car last night he was doing his best impersonation of a deaf mute.”
O’Bryan snorted. “Yes, well, they soon learn that keeping their mouth shut is their best option, I’m afraid. Keep quiet, say nothing, and wait for their parents or social services to come and get them out.”
“So that’s all that happened to him, is it?” I demanded, aware of a spurt of anger. “Fariman’s half dead in the hospital, and this kid is sitting at home watching TV?”
O’Bryan looked wary. He pushed his glasses up to his forehead so that he could try and squeeze the stress out of the bridge of his nose with a finger and thumb. When he finished the glasses dropped back into place as though on elastic.
“It’s not quite as simple as that,” he said, speaking quickly as though afraid I’d cut him off in mid-sentence. “We’ve found that keeping these wayward youngsters out of the justice system for as long as possible seems to stop them re-offending, and the feeling is that it might work in this case. Roger’s basically not a bad lad, but he’s had problems at home.”
I rolled my eyes. What teenager didn’t?
O’Bryan missed the gesture, too busy snapping open the briefcase on his knees and rifling through the contents. “It’s all here,” he said, tapping the manila folder he brought out. “He’s only fourteen. The youngest of three kids, two boys and a girl. Violent father who died in a drunken road accident. Older brother got involved with a pretty rough crowd before he left home. Sister’s one step up from prostitution, if the rumours are to be believed. She’s got a bit of form for shoplifting, and she’s just got herself knocked up, too.”
“Where’s he from?”
O’Bryan’s
hesitation was only fractional, but there, all the same. “Copthorne,” he said.
I nodded. It figured. Living in Lancaster for a few years, I thought I knew all about Copthorne. Living on Kirby Street for a few weeks, I’d found out a whole lot more. None of it good.
The Copthorne estate had the undesirable local reputation of being an open remand centre. If O’Bryan wanted to take his Mercedes through that particular battle zone, he’d have to keep the wheels spinning to stop them undoing his wheelnuts as he went past.
Copthorne and Lavender Gardens faced each other with sinister normality across a derelict piece of wasteland that had once been three more streets of houses. When they’d been built in the late fifties, there’d been a waiting list to move in. By the time the council engineers sent in the bulldozers, the rush to leave had become something of a stampede.