White Riot

by Martyn Waites

The city was on a knife edge. The murder of the student, Sooliman Patel, at the hands of racist extremists was bad enough. Now this. The youth’s brutal death had shocked the whole city. He was young, photogenic; he played well on TV. He became a story, a symbol. Different things to different people. Parents saw a dead child. Students saw one of their own. Racists saw one less Paki.

  There had been street rallies, demonstrations. A candlelit vigil was planned in the cathedral in his memory. That would be another potentially explosive meeting. They needed to keep the lid on this as much as possible. It was the kind of thing that would have the city tearing itself apart.

  Young, angry Asians were already patrolling the streets around Fenham and Arthur’s Seat, tooled up, telling the media, themselves and anyone who would listen they were there for the protection of the community, making the streets safe for innocent people to walk in at night. Demarcating their territory. Warning the police not to interfere. The fact that Sooliman Patel wasn’t even from that area, that he had lived on a mixed, affluent housing estate in Gosforth, miles away from the west of Newcastle, both culturally and geographically, didn’t matter. Just as long as the club felt strong in a young man’s hand, she knew, the blade felt sharp in his pocket and his heart burned with righteous anger, there would always be an excuse.

  Nattrass wiped the sweat from her brow. It was going to be another long day. She felt sure overtime would be sanctioned for this. She didn’t see what the alternative was.

  Fenton’s mobile rang. He answered it, talked, hung up. Looked at Nattrass.

  ‘Just heard. Abdul-Haq’s organized another street rally.’

  Nattrass sighed. ‘Oh, brilliant. That’s all we need.’

  ‘He’s trying to get it down this street, marching on us.’

  ‘Let him fucking try.’

  ‘Boss?’ Fenton stared at Nattrass. She was usually in control, hardly ever swore unless it was necessary.

  ‘Sorry. The heat. Right, get Community Liaison to talk to him, try to head it off. We haven’t finished here yet, he knows that. He’s just causing trouble. Let’s hope he hasn’t got the cameras with him.’

  Fenton gave a small laugh. ‘What’s the chances of that, eh?’

  Nattrass nodded. Her mobile rang. Without checking the screen she answered it.

  ‘Hi, Di,’ said a voice she couldn’t immediately place. Gave another sigh. Joe Donovan. Not the last person she wanted to talk to, but very close.

  ‘Hello, Joe,’ she said, her voice not even disguising her irritation. ‘I’m very busy. I can’t talk right now.’

  ‘I know you are, making the streets safer for us innocent members of the public—’

  ‘I only wish you were.’

  ‘You love working with me and you know it. Unofficially, of course.’

  ‘What d’you want? Make it quick.’

  ‘I know.’ Donovan’s voice changed, became more serious. ‘I need Paul Turnbull’s address. Can’t find it anywhere else.’

  ‘Why? What makes you think he wants to talk to you?’

  ‘Because I’ve got work for him, Diane. A job.’

  Nattrass didn’t take long to make up her mind. She gave him the address, broke the connection. Smiled. He was a good man, Joe Donovan. Irritating bastard, but a good man. She became aware that Fenton was looking at her.

  ‘Boss?’

  She sighed. ‘Right. Get Liaison to talk to Abdul-Haq. Get Forensics to hurry up with their report. I want to interview Safraz Rajput’s wife myself. I want toxicology …’

  She went on.

  The sun still burning in the sky.

  Unrelenting.

  13

  Ex-Detective Sergeant Paul Turnbull sat staring at the TV screen, impotent anger raging inside him.

  Car finance. Accidents at work that weren’t your fault. Debts consolidated into easily affordable monthly payments. The working classes airing their personal lives on chat shows like dirty laundry on some high-rise balcony. Trisha Trash. Kyle Cunts. Mouth breathers, the lot of them. The middle classes finding cash in the attic, a home in the sun, going on bargain hunts. A black and white film nostalgic for a world that never was. Philip and Fern just filling in time until the viewers died.

  Daytime TV. He hated it.

  This wasn’t who he was.

  This wasn’t where he was supposed to be.

  He flicked it off, got up, found he had nowhere to go. The flat was small, shabby, rented. Not a home. Never a home.

  He listened. Heard traffic going past on Chillingham Road. The sound of people who had to be somewhere. No noise from below, the pizza place not open until evening when the walls would judder as the current was diverted and the ovens turned on, the ancient, overloaded wiring struggling to cope. Then the smell of cooking dough would waft upwards.

  He avoided the place at first, thinking it not just literally but figuratively beneath him, worried even that he would meet some lowlife he had nicked, but that smell began to entice him down. Now, it was his staple diet. And talking to Iqbal the proprietor was sometimes the only human interaction he would experience for days.

  He paced the room, a caged animal. It wasn’t right. He should be out there, in the wild, on the streets. Back on the strength. Looking for the killer of that murdered Asian kid. Looking into that suicide bomber. He bet his ex-DI, Di Nattrass was deep into the investigations and he should have been there with her.

  He sighed. Di Nattrass had really gone to bat for him. Put her own job on the line. It had really surprised him. But ultimately even her intervention hadn’t saved him. They had still thrown him out.

  Turnbull’s last case as a member of Northumbria Police had brought down a sex-trafficking ring and the successful arrest of a serial killer. But instead of the expected commendations, he had ended up out of the service. Too many dead bodies. Tyne Dock ablaze. Too cavalier, too maverick. Not by the book. Transparency was all now, and his methods couldn’t be held up to public scrutiny. A walking time bomb. Too much potential embarrassment.

  For his superiors, not for him.

  And now all he had was a soul full of bitterness, a heart full of broken dreams. And daytime TV.

  He thought of making a cup of tea. Or coffee. Gave a shuddering self-pitying sigh. What his life had come to.

  He caught his reflection in the mirror over the mantelpiece. Once so sure of himself and his opinions, now he didn’t recognize the face staring back at him. He used to be Mr Monochrome in every sense: his clothing, his views, even his football team black and white. Now just a slurry of sludgy, blurry greys. His once neat hair greasy and untidy, more grey than black. His weight increasing from lack of exercise. His shoulders sagged. His T-shirt stained, dirty. His beard beyond designer stubble. And jogging bottoms. Jogging bottoms. But the eyes were the worst. They showed a man who had given up. On himself. On everything.

  He hated the Trisha Trash and the Kyle Cunts. And feared that was what he was becoming.

  Then: a knock on the door.

  Turnbull turned, unsure whether he had heard correctly. He stood, unmoving.

  It came again. Unmistakable.

  He crossed the room, made his way downstairs. Tamping down the small surge of hope in his chest. It would only be Jehovah’s Witnesses. Or canvassers ahead of the election. Still, he could send them off with a mouthful.

  He opened the door, insults charged and ready to hurl. They died in his mouth. It was the last person he expected to see. Joe Donovan.

  ‘Hello, Paul,’ Donovan said. ‘Bastard of a job tracking you down. Almost like you didn’t want to be found. Can I come in?’

  Turnbull stood mutely aside, let Donovan enter, followed him up the stairs. Donovan looked round. Turnbull saw the flat from Donovan’s perspective: a collection of rooms decorated with carpet remnants and trade-only paint and wall coverings, containing geriatric charity-shop furniture and an air of despair and hopelessness. Turnbull felt a bile-ball form inside him.

  ‘What d’you want?’
/>   ‘Cup of tea would be nice,’ said Donovan, sitting down on a sofa that had last had a brush with fashion when Thatcher was coming to power, trying to ignore the cloud of dust that rose as he did so.

  Turnbull didn’t move. Donovan was taking it all in.

  ‘This where you end up when they chuck you off the job?’

  ‘They didn’t chuck me off. I resigned.’

  Donovan nodded. ‘Right. Made their job a lot easier, then.’

  ‘Fuck off.’ He looked away from Donovan, embarrassed by his sudden outburst. Donovan said nothing.

  ‘Traffic division,’ Turnbull said bitterly, as if vocalizing an ongoing internal conversation. ‘Fuckin’ traffic division. That’s what they offered me. That or a desk job somewhere down in the fuckin’ bowels. May as well have just said they were movin’ me to the fuck-up squad. What choice did I have?’

  Turnbull sat down in an armchair, armrests holding so many cigarette burns they seemed part of the pattern.

  ‘And then Karen throwing you out,’ said Donovan.

  Turnbull stared at the floor, nodded. ‘Changed the locks one day when I was out, threw all my stuff into the street. Can’t see my kids, nothin’.’

  ‘Bad,’ said Donovan, genuine empathy in his voice.

  Turnbull looked up. ‘What the fuck would you know about it?’

  Donovan didn’t have to answer. Turnbull stared at the pattern on the carpet, wondered what sort of mind had ever considered the sickening swirls and clashing colours a good idea.

  ‘How d’you find me?’ Turnbull asked eventually.

  ‘Phoned Di. She didn’t want to give your address out but—’ He shrugged, smiled ‘—I insisted.’

  Turnbull nodded absently. ‘Diamond. Only one who kept in touch. Rest have backed off like I’m fuckin’ Typhoid Mary. Like my bad luck’s goin’ to rub off on them.’

  ‘Suppose you can’t blame them under the circumstances.’

  Turnbull’s anger broke again. ‘What the fuck d’you want? Did you just come here to make—’ he moved his hands around as grasping words from the air ‘—judgements you’re not qualified to make?’

  Donovan shook his head. ‘No.’

  ‘Mister Smartarse. Mister Cunt. Mister I-don’t-need-to-operate-within-the-law-because-I’m-better-than-all-of-you.’

  Donovan bit back words, stood up. ‘Call me when your head’s in a better state.’

  Turnbull looked at Donovan. They weren’t friends. Didn’t even like each other. But there was mutual respect there, trust even. And Turnbull couldn’t say that about many people. Certainly not his former colleagues.

  ‘Wait.’

  If Donovan walked, Turnbull wouldn’t find out what he wanted.

  And he would be alone again.

  Turnbull eyed again the hideously patterned carpet. ‘Sorry.’

  Donovan sat back down, tried to shrug it off. ‘OK.’

  Another silence stretched between them.

  ‘Why did you come here?’ said Turnbull. ‘I doubt you’re concerned about my welfare.’

  ‘You’re a friend, course I am.’

  The words hit. Turnbull couldn’t look up. Couldn’t trust himself to say anything.

  ‘But there was something. Got a job for you.’

  Something fluttered inside Turnbull’s chest, like a sparrow trapped in a cage breaking for freedom. He looked up. ‘A job?’

  ‘Yeah. If you want it, that is.’

  ‘What kind?’

  ‘One that requires discretion, tenacity and patience.’

  Turnbull attempted a laugh. ‘But your go-to guy for that wasn’t available, so you came to me.’

  Donovan smiled. ‘Jesus, that’s a first. Self-deprecating humour from Paul Turnbull.’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  Donovan laughed. ‘That’s more like the twat I know.’

  Turnbull smiled. Stretching muscles he hadn’t stretched in weeks. Months, even. The sparrow fluttered harder. Then stopped.

  ‘Last time I worked with you I got kicked off the force.’

  ‘You can’t blame me for that, Paul. So. D’you want to know about it?’

  ‘Tell me.’

  Donovan told him of the couple in Hertfordshire who had turned up one day with a son. ‘There’s talk it might be some kind of international child-smuggling operation. But I’m not interested in that. I just want to find out who the boy is and where he came from. So what d’you think?’

  It sounded so easy. All Turnbull had to do was say yes and he could start living again. He opened his mouth; no words came out. The fluttering started again. Bigger this time, harder. He was scared. He had left more than his job when he left the police.

  But he couldn’t let Joe Donovan see that. ‘So that’s it, is it?’ His voice was loud, words wrapped in a hard carapace of anger. ‘You come along and … and plug my life-support system back in, and everything’s fine again? Yeah?’

  He had more but Donovan cut him off. ‘Look around you, Paul. This isn’t a place to live. This is a place you go to die. Listen, mate, I know what a struggle it is day after day just to get up. I know what it’s like to have a whole load of nothing stretching out in front of you and think this is it, this is my life.’

  ‘Good for fuckin’ you.’

  ‘Yeah, good for fuckin’ me. An’ I’ll tell you. It’s a deep, dark pit and you haven’t begun to reach the bottom yet. Not even halfway.’

  ‘So why’s this job so important you want me to do it?’

  ‘Because I want someone I can trust. Because the boy that this couple have got? I think it’s my son.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You heard. So what d’you want to do? Stay here or climb out?’

  Turnbull swallowed hard, not trusting himself to speak. His hands were shaking. He struggled to bring himself under control. ‘Climb,’ he said, his voice sounding like someone else’s.

  Donovan smiled, relieved. ‘Good.’ He held out his hand. ‘Consider yourself on the payroll. Welcome to Albion.’

  They shook.

  Turnbull smiled, caught his eyes in the mirror. No longer saw a man who had given up. Saw someone whose eyes held, no matter how small an amount, hope. ‘I’d better get a shave, then.’

  14

  ‘You should have called us sooner, Trevor.’

  ‘Why? You didn’t even have the trace in place.’ Whitman was sitting on the sofa in the old rectory, Lillian perched on the arm, her hand draped protectively over his shoulder.

  The curtains were drawn to keep out the heat. It just succeeded in making the room feel more claustrophobic.

  Peta looked at Amar, shrugged. It was true. They had been in the process of doing that when Whitman had received the call.

  Whitman put his glass to his lips with shaking hands. Drained it, swallowed hard, grimaced, the whisky going down burning. Lillian held him all the harder. His shirt looked like he had slept in it, his hair was all over the place. He looked like Wayne Coyne after a particularly intense Flaming Lips gig. Eyes sunken black and red, like ragged wounds in his face. Enough newspapers lying around to mop up an incontinent pet. Despite the reservations she had about him, Peta felt pity for the man.

  ‘So what do we do now, then?’ Whitman said.

  ‘Ask questions.’ She sat down next to him, switched on the Dictaphone in her pocket. ‘Did you recognize the voice?’

  Whitman drained his glass, sat forward, head in hands. Sighed.

  Peta looked to Amar who was sitting on the chair by the fire. He gave her a nod, handing the play to her. She would be good cop, he bad. Or at least she sympathetic, he flippant. They were roles that had worked for them in the past.

  ‘Was it Baty again? Is that who it sounded like?’

  Whitman shook his head, gave a small whimper.

  ‘Who, then? Did you recognize it?’

  Whitman covered his face with his fingers, grimaced behind the mask. ‘T. S. Eliot …’

  Peta and Amar shared a look, frowning.
/>   ‘What?’ said Peta.

  ‘T. S. Eliot …’

  ‘I don’t think so,’ said Amar. ‘He died years ago.’

  Whitman looked up. His eyes were red for any number of reasons: tears, fatigue, intolerance at Amar’s wilful stupidity. ‘The person on the phone. Quoted T. S. Eliot at me.’

  Silence fell in the room while that fact was digested.

  ‘Not that one about the cats, was it?’ said Amar. ‘Went to see that show with the school. Piece of shit.’

  Whitman turned his attention to Amar. ‘No. Not the one about the cats. The one that used to be a code for my old group.’

  ‘The Hollow Men,’ said Peta.

  ‘Right.’

  Peta leaned closer. ‘So what did they say?’

  Whitman reached for the whisky bottle. Peta gently moved it out of his grasp. ‘You can have that in a minute, Trevor. I just need to know what they said.’

  His eyes couldn’t meet hers. ‘They said … they said … They’re planning something. And I was too late to stop them.’

  Questions tumbled through Peta’s head, all sparked off by Whitman’s words. She didn’t know which to come out with first. ‘Too late in what way? Planning what?’

  Whitman shook his head. ‘I don’t know …’

  ‘Did you recognize the voice?’

  Whitman sighed. ‘I don’t … I might have done.’

  ‘Male or female?’

  ‘I don’t know. It sounded familiar. But different.’

  ‘Like it was distorted?’ said Amar.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Whitman quickly, latching on to the phrase like a drowning man to a life raft. ‘Distorted. That’s it. Like they wanted me to hear it but not recognize it.’

  Peta looked at Amar, shared a frown.

  ‘Give us some help here, Trevor. Did you recognize the voice?’

  Whitman looked up, about to speak. Then put his head down again, shook it, sighed heavily. ‘No. But I think it was one of the Hollow Men,’ he said weakly. ‘Try them.’

  ‘Which one?’ said Amar.

  ‘I don’t know.’ His hands were flexing and unflexing. Practising reaching for the whisky. ‘Just get the trace set up. Please. Soon.’

  Peta sat back, looked at Amar, shrugged. That seemed to be all they were getting. Whitman, sensing their talk had come to an end, reached for the bottle. Peta didn’t stop him.