Riot Act

by Zoe Sharp

  I acknowledged the enormity of the concession he’d just made. “So,” I said, “you don’t have anything solid to go on, then?”

  “Nothing that would stand up in court, no,” he admitted at last.

  The balance shifted. I felt the tension began to unwind out of my shoulders. I glanced at the others, but their faces didn’t give me any encouragement to collaborate with the enemy. “We think the person who’s been running the burglary ring on the local estates is your Community Juvenile man, Eric O’Bryan,” I began.

  “Why?” MacMillan rapped out, but there was no real surprise there.

  “Because he’s got the perfect access to all the local teenage criminals,” I said. “We think he and Garton-Jones’s mob have had a deal going where O’Bryan revs up the crime rate, and then takes a cut when the private security men are called in.”

  “You think, or you know?” MacMillan asked sharply now. “We’ve suspected the same for a while. O’Bryan’s got expensive tastes in classic cars that he couldn’t finance from his official earnings, but he’s been clever, and it’s been extremely difficult to prove it. He tells a good story about buying them as wrecks and doing them up himself, and witnesses have been singularly reluctant to come forwards.”

  “Your proof’s in there,” Sean said tightly, indicating Lavender Gardens. “O’Bryan’s arranged for my brother to be killed in there tonight, because of what he knows. Unless you get to him first.”

  “Where?” MacMillan asked.

  I told him about the derelict houses with cellars, omitting to mention how we’d obtained the information.

  Once he’d pinpointed the exact location, MacMillan gave a frustrated grimace and shook his head. “We can’t do it,” he said.

  “What the fuck do you mean, you can’t do it?” Sean flared. “We’re talking about saving the life of a fourteen-year-old boy. Don’t you give a damn about that?”

  “Yes, but there’s no way I can get my men in there,” the Superintendent said, keeping his own anger in check. “It’s the middle of a war zone, the way the gangs are fighting. They’ll treat it as an invasion. I haven’t got the manpower to cope as it is. The best we can do at the moment is contain the trouble within the estates. Let them slug it out and pick up the pieces afterwards.”

  He cocked an eye upwards. “The only thing you can do now is pray for rain. Nothing quells a riot like a good downpour.”

  “So let us go in and get him,” I said urgently. “If you can’t, then for God’s sake let us do it.”

  MacMillan’s gaze was even as he considered the implications and the consequences. “No,” he said. “I don’t want your deaths on my conscience, Charlie. I can’t allow it.”

  Sean gave him a thin smile. “What makes you think you’re going to get the opportunity to stop us?”

  And suddenly we were back to a stand-off again, half a beat away from violence.

  It was Madeleine who spoke then. “Look, Superintendent,” she said, calm and reasonable as though breaking up squabbling children, “you’ve just said you haven’t got men to waste. Why waste these two trying to arrest us?”

  MacMillan did his best to hold back a smile, but it escaped across the corner of his mouth, even so. He glanced back at me, and in that brief connection I saw the struggle, the tightrope he was walking between the result he so badly wanted to obtain, and utter, bleak disaster. He sighed again, more heavily this time, and gave in.

  “What do you need?” he said.

  Beside me, I felt Sean loosen. “Body armour would be good,” he said. “It’ll have to be covert stuff, though, or they’ll think we’re with your lot.” He cracked a tired smile of his own. “And I wouldn’t say no to a couple of MP5s.”

  MacMillan threw him an old-fashioned look. “Body armour I can manage,” he said grimly. “Firearms are quite another matter.”

  I thought of the Glock, still in the glovebox of the Patrol.

  “We’ll manage,” I said.

  MacMillan jerked his head back towards one of the Sherpa vans on the other side of the car park. “Come on,” he said. “We’ll get you kitted out.” As we started to follow him across the wet tarmac, he added, “Are you sure you realise the dangers of what you’re doing?”

  Sean paused at that, met the Superintendent’s eyes and said simply, “I realise the dangers of doing nothing. Roger’s my little brother. What else can I do?”

  ***

  In the back of the Sherpa was a pile of spare body armour like thin black nylon life jackets. MacMillan’s sidekicks started sorting through it and dragging out appropriate sizes for the three of us.

  Sean looked at the one he was handed, clearly unimpressed.

  “Where are the plates?” he demanded.

  MacMillan favoured him with a pointed stare. “This is all I can supply at short notice,” he said. “Take it or leave it.”

  “What plates?” Madeleine wanted to know, as Sean helped her strap on her vest.

  “Thick ceramic plates that fit into these pockets on the front and back,” he explained. “As they are, these wouldn’t stop anything heavy.”

  Madeleine looked down at the vest as she shrugged her jumper back over the top of it. “You mean that without them they’re not bullet-proof?” she asked faintly.

  Sean gave her a savage grin. “Nothing’s ever bullet-proof,” he said. “It’s just bullet-resistant. It’s like a rain jacket. Even if it’s supposed to be waterproof, if you stand out in the rain for long enough, you will get wet.”

  There was a short, pregnant silence.

  “Thank you,” I said tartly, “That’s very reassuring . . .”

  We quickly discovered, though, that Sean couldn’t stand having the straps of the armour anywhere near his injured shoulder. Trying to work round the wound just exacerbated the problem.

  Eventually, he gave it up, threw the armour back on the pile in frustration. “I’ll just have to risk it,” he said, sweat standing out on his forehead. “But I’ll take a spare one for Roger. The smallest you’ve got.”

  MacMillan had eyed him in stony silence while he struggled. “I won’t ask what happened to that shoulder,” he said quietly, “but you’re going to have to give me the full story tomorrow. And it had better be good.”

  ***

  Twenty minutes later, we climbed into the Nissan and Madeleine cranked up the engine. A thin drizzle had started to fall. MacMillan put his head in through the open window.

  “I’ll try and pull my men back from the area so you don’t get any interference,” he said. “I can’t warn them you’re on your way. We think half this lot are listening in on police scanners and I don’t want to tip anyone off.”

  “Thank you,” Sean said, and meant it.

  MacMillan nodded shortly, rapped his hand on the top of the door briskly as he stepped back. “Don’t forget,” he warned, in more like his old clipped tone, waving a finger. “I want both you and your brother in my office tomorrow morning. First thing.”

  “Don’t worry,” Sean said. “If we make it, we’ll be there.”

  ***

  Getting into the estate without first tangling with the police lines was the easy part. MacMillan had opened up a small gap for us in the perimeter, and we shot through it without stopping.

  To begin with, the outward demeanour of Lavender looked normal. Quiet, maybe, but normal. Except for the total lack of population. The first houses we passed were unnervingly still, as if the empty properties were watching us blankly under the streetlights. There didn’t even seem to be any cats.

  Madeleine made another turn. This time there was more evidence of haste, and fear. Windows had been left open, letting the net curtains behind them flutter at the end of their tethers, as though they were trying to get away, too. The odd front door was ajar. The Patrol’s headlights picked out a child’s red plastic pedal tractor, lying on its side in the gutter.

  We nearly got as far as Kirby Street, when we turned a corner to find the road completely blo
cked from one hedge to another by a pair of burning vehicles. One of them had once been a police patrol car. The road was covered in debris, a pavement tree lay uprooted, and a road sign had been pulled up and bent double, its concrete footing still attached.

  Madeleine braked to a halt about twenty metres away just as the tyres burst on one of the cars. They went off like pistol shots, echoing from the brickwork on either side of us, making us jump.

  “What do we do now?” she asked, shaky but holding. “Is there another way round?”

  “We’ll look,” Sean said. I gestured to the glovebox. He reached in and came out with the Glock, which he checked briefly and shoved into the back of his belt. “Stay here and keep the motor running,” he told Madeleine. “If there’s any sign of trouble fall back two streets and we’ll meet you there.”

  She nodded whitely and I jumped out with him, slamming the door on an indignant Friday. The stench of the smoke instantly clogged my nostrils. I held my breath as we slipped into the nearest ginnel.

  The raucous noise grew louder as we approached the next street, and our pace slowed to a cautious tiptoe in the darkness. It was impossible to see what was under your feet, in any case. I stayed a pace or so behind Sean, my eyes constantly straining to cover the ground behind us.

  At the end of the ginnel we crouched low to the fence and peered around the corner of it.

  A white kid who couldn’t have been more than twelve ran out of the nearest house doorway and down the short path away from our position, with a flat square box clutched to his chest that was probably a video recorder.

  He was followed by a blonde-haired girl, perhaps a year or so younger. In one hand she was carrying a ghetto-blaster, running so the plug bounced along on the end of its lead behind her like a toy dog. In the other she had a cordless electric drill.

  The next person out of the house was older, but that still didn’t mean he was out of his teens. He came out walking backwards, emptying the last of a green plastic fuel can over the hall carpet as he emerged. Once the can was empty he threw it aside, pulled a box of matches out of his pocket, and struck one.

  As we watched, he flicked the match into the house and darted back out of reach of the blaze that clawed instantly at the doorway. The fire seemed to burst into the world fully grown by the accelerated nature of its birth, and ravenous.

  The older boy grabbed his fuel can, but was no more than four strides down the path when something small, dark, and blurred came raining out of the sky. We heard the sound effects of impact, a crack, a grunt, then falling.

  “He’s been hit,” I whispered, starting to rise.

  Sean grabbed my arm and yanked me back against the fencing, still far stronger than I’d ever be. I rebounded as I hit. It knocked the breath out of me.

  “Keep down,” he hissed.

  Seconds later, I picked up the sound of running feet. A group of Asian boys pounded into view, armed with lengths of timber and baseball bats. One of them even carried what looked like a sword. They pounced on the one who’d fallen, dragging his lifeless form out into the street so the pack could get at him.

  They were onto him like jackals then, thrashing and tearing. I tried for my feet again, but as suddenly as it had started, the beating stopped. They abandoned their attack with a few last, heartfelt kicks and retreated. The firestarter was left washed up on the pavement behind them, bleeding into the gutter.

  It only took a moment before the reason for the rapid withdrawal became apparent, even from our screened location.

  A line of well-drilled bodies pressed forwards, hiding behind makeshift shields and plastic dustbin lids. Despite the cast of the streetlights, I could see they were all white, teenage at best.

  Behind them, another wave were lighting Molotovs and throwing them casually towards the enemy. Those without a cigarette lighter were lobbing bricks or bottles instead. The cacophony was unbelievable. It was a devastating barrage to endure, and the Asian gangs fell back in disarray in the face of it.

  The newcomers advanced until they’d moved over and round the firestarter, paused for a moment, then backed away. When the piece of pavement where he’d been lying reappeared, he’d been gathered up and taken from it as though he’d never existed.

  I glanced at Sean, found his eyes narrowed. He jerked his head to indicate we should leave, and I followed him silently back down the ginnel.

  Madeleine was still waiting for us beside the burning police car. We didn’t speak again until we’d climbed into the Patrol.

  “What the hell was going on back there?” I demanded, fighting off Friday’s ecstatic reaction to our safe return.

  “A very pro operation,” Sean said, twisting in his seat. “They’re clearing everything of value, burning the evidence, and carrying out their wounded. It’s slick, you have to give them that.”

  “You mean the whole thing’s been planned?” Madeleine asked when he’d quickly run through what we’d just seen. The disbelief was plain in her voice. “I can’t believe O’Bryan would engineer a riot just so they could rob a few houses.”

  “But it’s not just a few,” I said, catching on. “It’s the whole estate, if they can get away with it. This isn’t just a battle, it’s a campaign.”

  “We need to tell MacMillan what’s going on in here,” Madeleine said, reaching for her mobile phone.

  We didn’t have a direct number for the Superintendent, so the best we could do was dial the main police station in town. Half the population must have been doing the same, because we consistently failed to get a connection.

  After half a dozen tries, we gave up. “MacMillan’s got a helicopter up there,” Sean said. “He probably doesn’t need us to tell him what’s happening. We’ve got more important things to focus on, and we’re probably going to have to take the long way round now, so let’s move.”

  Even being circumspect, we caught a by-blow of the violence. Turning a corner we almost ran down a small gang of Asian boys who were trying to mount an untidy rearguard action against the interlopers. Both sides reacted immediately to our arrival, turning their missiles onto the Patrol as though by prior agreement.

  Madeleine let out a shriek as a petrol bomb shattered on the front bull bars, blocking our forward view in a sheet of flame. Without needing to be told, she slammed the Nissan into reverse and shot backwards. She managed to largely ignore the lump of rockery stone that cartwheeled across the corner of the bonnet, striking the paint to the bone.

  Suddenly, we seemed to be surrounded by running figures on all sides. A feral face appeared outside the side window opposite me, making me gasp. Friday hurled himself towards it, all teeth and hackles, and the face dropped away. There were slobber marks left behind on the glass, but I couldn’t tell who’d made them.

  Before, the Patrol had made me feel enclosed, protected, but now it was a small steel trap, airless and contracting. My heart seemed to be trying to trampoline its way out of my chest. I bore down hard on the sheer panic that gripped my gut. If they caught us there wasn’t any line of dustbin lid-wielding comrades to come and rescue us. They would hack us to pieces.

  Madeleine kept going backwards for several hundred metres with her foot hard down, ignoring the screaming protests of the twin differentials. She steered with one hand, looking back over her shoulder as she swerved wildly down the obstacle-strewn street, jolting over debris and detritus.

  I didn’t see anyone standing in our way, but if they were Madeleine didn’t alter course to avoid them. It was best not to look. I expected the tyres to burst at any moment, send us slithering out of control, but somehow they held.

  “OK, OK,” Sean shouted. “We’re clear.”

  She lifted her foot off the accelerator jerkily. In the low gear the engine braking effect was sharp and severe, throwing us back in our seats. The dog half-fell into my lap, and wasn’t careful which bits of me he trampled on to regain his footing.

  Once we’d stopped, Madeleine slumped forwards over the wheel, her whole b
ody shuddering. Sean reached out, stroked her hair. She sat up quickly then, scrubbing at her eyes with an angry fist. “I’m sorry,” she said, forcing out a tight, bright smile. “I’m letting you down.”

  “You’re not,” he said, firm, but gentle. “You’re doing great, Mad. Don’t give up on us now.”

  She flicked her eyes in my direction, as though expecting to see scorn, but I didn’t have any to give her. Although she’d had a terrifying situation thrown at her, she hadn’t frozen. You couldn’t ask for more than that from anyone.

  “Courage isn’t about not being scared,” I said. “It’s about overcoming it.”

  She looked surprised for a moment, then nodded and squared her shoulders.

  “OK,” she said, back on level ground. “I’m OK. Let’s go.”