Riot Act

by Zoe Sharp

  For a moment, my mind was too blank to be diplomatic. “What do you mean, you’re here for good? The Residents’ Committee threw you lot out.”

  “Yeah well,” he said, smoothing a hand over the stubble of his haircut, “after recent ‘events’ shall we say, they just couldn’t wait to beg us to come back.”

  I stilled, suddenly cold at the rich satisfaction in his voice. Now, there was a twist I hadn’t given much thought to. If Garton-Jones was as obsessed with the idea of keeping his claws into Lavender Gardens as he’d seemed that night, was he mad enough to kill to achieve his aims? And what were they, in any case?

  “By the looks of it,” West went on now, “we turned up just in time. Proper seventh cavalry, we are,” he mocked. “So, are you going to tell me just what the game is here?”

  I took a brief look at the Asian boy. Only half of his face was visible. The rest of it was wedged up tight against the fence where Drummond was crushing him, but I didn’t need to see it to read the fear in every tense line of his body.

  I remembered what Garton-Jones’s men had done to Roger, and found with a sickly taste in the back of my mouth that I couldn’t stomach having another beating on my conscience.

  After all, Nasir had blamed me for getting Roger worked over, and then the pair of them had come looking for me with a gun. No way did I want to be seen to be siding with the Streetwise thugs. Not if I was going to stay in one piece until Pauline returned. Even if that meant letting go of my anger. Now wasn’t the time to let it out.

  I twisted myself out of Harlow’s grasp, giving him a dark look as I straightened my jacket. “There is no game,” I said sourly. “I was just teaching the boys here a bit of self defence. They’ve all been on edge since they heard about Nasir.”

  “What?” West spluttered his disbelief, incredulity lighting up his face. His gaze shifted from my face, to the boy’s, and back again. “You have to be jerkin’ my chain.”

  I stood my ground, even though the explanation had sounded just as unlikely to my own ears. Still, sometimes the ones that seem the most unlikely are the most fitting. Plus that was the best I could come up with in the time allowed.

  “Of course I’m not,” I snapped. “Since when did Garton-Jones introduce rules about that. It’s like being back at school.”

  West moved round until he was in the boy’s line of vision. “What’s your name?”

  “Jav,” the boy supplied in a voice breathless with his discomfort. “Tell him to let go – he’s breaking my arm, man!”

  West nodded and, with great reluctance, Drummond slackened his grip on the boy and let him disengage his face from the rough wooden planking. There were spots of blood on Jav’s cheek where splinters had gouged their way in. He sidled stiffly out of Drummond’s reach, rubbing at his over-stretched shoulder and eyeing all of us with wary distrust.

  “Well, sonny? I suppose you’re going to back her up on this cock-and-bull story. Is that how it happened?” West’s voice dripped with raw contempt.

  Jav carried on staring at me for a moment longer, then peeled his gaze away, dismissive, as though I wasn’t worth the effort. “Of course not,” he said arrogantly.

  My breath stopped.

  West flashed me a savage look, then turned back to him. “Go on,” he said grimly.

  “Of course that wasn’t how it happened,” the boy went on, growing in confidence. “We were teaching her how to defend herself. After all, she’s only a girl.”

  He’d gone too far. West’s head ducked and his expression soured. He reached out and grabbed Jav by the back of his neck, digging his stubby fingers into the skin until his knuckles turned white as he dragged the boy up close. “Don’t piss me about, sonny,” he growled.

  Jav swallowed, the fright jumping again in his eyes, but his nerve held. “It’s the truth,” he protested.

  West’s eyes narrowed as he thrust the boy away from him. He searched our faces for the first sign of a crack. We both kept them deadpan.

  “All right,” he said at last to Jav, scepticism clear. He jerked his head. “Get out of here. Go on!” he added, when the boy didn’t move. He took a quick menacing stride towards him. It was enough.

  Jav ran.

  When he’d disappeared, West turned back to me. “I suppose you realise that I don’t believe a single word of that shit you’ve been shovelling,”

  I shrugged. “You’re the expert,” I said, offhand. “That’s your prerogative.”

  He ignored the dig, such as it was. “So, what really went down back there?” he challenged. “Don’t tell me – they tried to jump you, right?”

  “We were practising self defence,” I said, stubborn, setting my teeth.

  He let out his breath in a long hiss. “You people make me sick,” he muttered. “You let these young thugs walk all over you and you don’t have the bottle to stand up for yourself just one time, do you?” He shook his head disbelievingly. “You just have to say the word, and we’ll take care of the problem for you. That’s why we’re here.”

  “Are you really, though?” I murmured. “So, who said the word when these two beat Roger Meyer half to death, hmm?”

  “We didn’t need anyone to say the word over Meyer,” West bit out. “He was caught, red-handed, remember?”

  “That still doesn’t justify what you did to him.” I cast a glance at Harlow and Drummond. They returned it with every appearance of a clean conscience.

  “He half-kills an old man, and now you’re feeling sorry for him?” West made an open-handed gesture of frustration, rolling his eyes. He groaned. “God preserve us from yet another bleeding-heart liberal.”

  “No, I don’t feel sorry for him, but I don’t believe Roger was directly responsible, and I think there’s a lot more going on there than we realise.” I tried throwing that one into the mix, and was surprised by the end result.

  “You mean with the Gadatra kid?” West chucked back at me straight away. He stepped in, grinning that nasty little grin of his again. “Could well be, but he got what he deserved, now didn’t he?”

  How had the news of that one travelled so fast? I could feel my face stiffening with surprise, and fought to keep my expression even.

  They made to leave, with West unable to resist a final jibe. “I thought you had a bit more about you, but looks like I was wrong,” he told me scornfully. “If you ever dig down deep enough to find the courage to point the finger at these scum, we’ll be right in there, taking care of them for you, and cheap at the price.”

  He looked me up and down, slow and insulting, and his lip curled. “Yeah, and there’ll be snowballs in hell.”

  Fourteen

  I don’t remember getting back to Pauline’s. My legs were on autopilot. It wasn’t until I caught the faintest rustle in the hedge by the front door that I clicked out of it and lurched round, fast.

  “Come out of there,” I snapped, “or I’ll drag you out.”

  After a few moments the foliage parted to reveal a tearful Aqueel in the hollowed-out section at the bottom that seemed to be one of his favourite hiding places. He faced me with his bottom lip out defiantly, even if it wobbled.

  My shoulders slumped. So that was what I was down to – frightening little kids and letting the real bullies get away.

  “I’m sorry, Aqueel,” I said wearily. “I didn’t know it was you, and you made me jump.”

  Aqueel raised a tremulous smile that didn’t even have enough wattage to light up the rest of his face. His eyes looked bruised, sunken into dark-smudged sockets and red-rimmed from weeping. He must have been crying non-stop ever since MacMillan’s fateful visit. Was it only this morning? It seemed like weeks ago.

  “Hello, Charlie,” he greeted me, his voice lifeless and wooden as a bit-part actor in a daytime soap. “And how are you today?”

  “I’m fine, Aqueel,” I said carefully. “What about you?”

  “Oh, I’m very well, thank you,” he returned formally. He must have seen the sympathy in my face
, maybe even pity, because he climbed jerkily to his feet. “Please excuse me, but I must go and look after my mother, and my sister.”

  With that he turned, stiff-backed, and stumbled back towards the front door, suddenly the man of the house at eight years old and doing his best to take it on the chin. My heart went out to him.

  Inside Pauline’s, Friday registered his usual delight at my reappearance. Eventually I bribed him into calm good behaviour with half a dry biscuit. His lanky tail wagged so frenetically at the prospect of even such a motley present that it made the whole of his hard-packed body wriggle.

  God, isn’t life simple when you’re a dog? Cats and street thugs, bad. Trees and biscuits, good. And you know just who your friends are. Sometimes I envied him.

  ***

  I was halfway through making a snack for lunch when the phone rang. I picked it up warily, in case it was Sean, even though I wasn’t sure if he had Pauline’s number.

  “Hello, Charlotte,” said my mother’s voice, characterised by its usual brittle brightness.

  “Oh, hi,” I said, relief injecting more warmth into my voice than she was used to.

  “Erm, well,” she said, sounding pleased. “Erm, yes, I was just getting back to you about your young burglar, darling,” she went on. “I’ve been talking to some of my colleagues about it.”

  “Oh yes,” I said, with a pang of guilt. “Actually, I think things have moved on a bit since we last spoke.”

  “In what way?” she said, still pleasant, just curious.

  “Well, it turns out that Roger is Sean Meyer’s younger brother,” I explained. “You remember Sean, I assume?”

  The silence went on for so long I thought the line had gone dead.

  “Mother? Are you still there?”

  “Yes, yes I’m still here,” she said faintly. There was a pause, then she went on more strongly, in a rush, “Oh Charlotte, you’re not thinking of getting involved with him again are you?” Her tone was starting to rise. “You can’t, darling. You mustn’t!”

  She didn’t quite say, “I forbid it!”, but it was there, all the same.

  “I have no intention of getting involved with Sean again,” I said, surprised by her vehemence. “I’ve hardly spoken to him, and when I have, it’s been about his brother.” Well, that was mostly the truth, at any rate.

  “He’s dangerous,” my mother burst out. “Look what he did to you last time!”

  “That was hardly down to Sean,” I said, shocked to find myself defending him. “He wasn’t even there when it happened. They posted him.”

  And kept posting him, Madeleine had said. It suddenly dawned on me that maybe Sean hadn’t abandoned me after all. Perhaps he hadn’t refused to come back and speak up for me at the court martial. Perhaps he hadn’t even known that I was on trial . . .

  I was so busy getting my head round the idea that I hardly noticed my mother making hasty excuses to get off the line. After she’d gone, I spent a little while staring rather stupidly at the telephone, and wondering how on earth I was going to find out the truth about the role Sean had really played in my getting chucked out of the army.

  ***

  Later that evening, by way of contrast, I rode the Suzuki north from Lancaster and out past Caton village to Jacob and Clare’s for supper as I’d promised. Not that it took much arm-twisting. Jacob is a superb cook and it seemed to have been a long time since I’d enjoyed a relaxed evening with my friends.

  Once we’d finished eating we moved through from the farmhouse-style kitchen to their comfortable living room with its blazing log fire. It was then that I gently reminded Clare about her inquiries into Mr Ali and Langford.

  She sighed, but more because she’d just curled up on the sofa with their terrier, Beezer on her lap than anything else. She turfed the dog onto the floor and obligingly went to retrieve what she’d managed to dig out.

  Mr Ali, it transpired, wasn’t just a property developer and builder, he was also one of the biggest private landlords in the area. And the majority of the rental housing he owned was slap bang in the middle of Lavender Gardens, with some of it even spreading across into Copthorne.

  “I’d like to bet that the residents there don’t know who owns the roof over their heads,” I said.

  “Mm, but it’s unlikely they’ll ever find out,” Clare agreed. “He looks after them all through a separate letting agency, and that in turn is owned by another subsidiary company. It’s quite a paper trail. It would be quite difficult to find anything out if you were just a tenant.”

  “It might explain the connection between Ali and this vigilante bloke you were talking about, though,” Jacob said as he came limping in with a tray of cups and a full pot of coffee.

  “What, you mean he’s got a vested interest in wanting to clean up the estate?”

  “It makes sense, I suppose,” I said, shaking the pieces together in my head to see if they fitted any better now.

  Jacob nodded as he pressed the plunger in the lid of the cafetiére down slowly.

  “It does,” Clare put in, “until you look at the guy he’s chosen to do his dirty work for him. Harvey Langford isn’t anybody’s idea of an altruist.”

  “Harvey?” I asked with a chuckle. If I’d had to guess, we would have been there for some time.

  Clare nodded seriously. “He’s got form as long as your arm, mainly for putting the boot in. He’s particularly noted for racially-motivated stuff.” She leafed through various clippings. “Going back a few years he used to belong to a local neo-nazi organisation, until they apparently beat up a young Asian lad, and then set him on fire.” She grimaced her distaste. “Then the police clamped down on them pretty hard and the thing broke up. According to my crime desk pal, they arrested a few people, including Langford, but nobody was talking, and they couldn’t prove it.”

  “Well, that explains the secrecy I suppose,” Jacob said. “If I was Ali, and Langford was the only bloke I could find to do the job for me, I wouldn’t want to shout about our association, either.”

  “You could be right,” I said. I picked up one or two of the pages Clare had laid out on the low table in front of the sofa. “I don’t suppose there’s anything in there about him being involved with firearms, is there?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” Clare said. She sat back and eyed me warily as she sipped her coffee. “Why, Charlie, what aren’t you telling us about all this?”

  I sighed, and told them all about Roger and Nasir’s gun-toting visit to the gym, and then MacMillan’s arrival with the news of Nasir’s murder. Well, nearly all. Somehow I didn’t feel ready to talk to anyone about Sean, so I left him out of the tale.

  They listened in silence, then Clare said determinedly, “I’ll find out what I can on Monday. I’ll come round and let you know after work, shall I?”

  I thought of the restless atmosphere on the estate and shook my head. “No,” I said quickly. “I’ll give you a call. Things are very uneasy on Lavender Gardens at the moment, especially if you’re not a resident. I think it would be best if you stayed well out of the way.”

  Clare nodded and bent to clear away the papers. Over her head, Jacob had sent me a brief, grateful glance. I smiled back, trying to reassure him that whatever other demands I might place on our friendship, putting Clare anywhere near any possible risk was not going to be one of them.

  ***

  Sunday morning, seeing as I wasn’t in at the gym, I made a desultory stab at the housework, throwing Friday out into the back garden while I ran the vacuum over his discarded fur. He was losing it at such a rate I was amazed the dog wasn’t completely bald.

  The noise of the hoover meant I almost missed the phone ringing. I made a grab for it at the last minute, out of breath. “Yes? Hello?”

  I almost expected it to be Clare, even though reason told me she probably wouldn’t be able to get back to me until she was back in at work the following day.

  “Charlie?” I recognised the voice immediately, but even so
, he added, “It’s Sean.”

  My first reaction was to drop the phone back on its cradle like it had suddenly gone live. I shook myself, tried to relax.

  “Hello, Sean.” I tried for a light tone, but couldn’t bring it off. “What do you want?”

  I heard a sigh at the other end of the line.

  “I’m sorry I missed you when you came round yesterday,” he said, voice careful. “I was getting a new front screen put in the jeep.”

  I remembered the way the glass had crazed in response to Nasir’s wild shot. “That’s OK,” I said, “I had an interesting chat with Madeleine.”