by Кевин Брукс
She'd spent most of her life on her own.
In the same way that I'd never known my father, my mum had never known hers. Her father had been just as unknown and absent as mine. So Gram had spent most of her adult life as either a single mother, bringing up her daughter on her own, or as a single grandmother, bringing up her dead daughter's son on her own. And she'd done all this while trying to make a living from something which neither paid very much nor gave her any enjoyment at all.
So I guess she was entitled to look a bit worn out.
"Hey, Gram," I said, sitting down next to her. "What are you watching?"
"Just the news," she said, muting the TV and smiling at me. "How's Lucy?"
"OK, I think ... well, kind of OK, you know ..."
Gram nodded. "And how about you? How's your head?"
"Fine ... no problems."
"Are you sure?"
"Yeah ..."
"No dizziness or anything?"
"No."
(Just a world of wonder and madness.)
"Any headaches?"
"No."
(Just phone calls and emails and texts and websites...)
"You haven't been hearing any voices then?"
I looked at Gram. "What?"
She smiled. "It was a joke, Tommy."
"Right. . ." I said. "Yeah, very funny."
She put her hand on my knee, "I'm glad you're OK, love. Really. I was so worried when you were in hospital ... I thought, you know ... I thought ..." Her voice trailed off, and she wiped a tear from her eye. And I knew she was thinking about my mum, her daughter ... and I could barely imagine how hard it must have been for Gram when I was in hospital, and she was sitting with me, not knowing whether I was going to live or die ...
I put my arms round her neck and rested my head against hers. "Don't worry, Gram," I said quietly, I'm going to be absolutely fine, I promise."
She smiled at me through her tears. "You'd better be."
"Trust me ... I plan on living until I'm at least as old as you."
She laughed, playfully slapping my leg, and then she took a tissue from her pocket and started wiping the tears from her face. There were so many things I wanted to ask her then, things about my mum, but I knew that she wouldn't want to talk about it. Gram never liked talking about what happened to Mum. It was just too much for her, I think. Too painful, too sad ... and I understood that. Or, at least, I tried to. I mean, it was mostly OK ... I didn't really mind too much. And most of the time I didn't need to know any more than the facts — i.e. that my mum had been killed by a hit-and-run driver when I was six months old.
That was enough for me ...
Most of the time.
But sometimes, like now, it wasn't enough.
Sometimes, for whatever reason, I felt the need to know more.
"Gram?" I said quietly.
She sniffed. "Yes, love?"
"Was it the same ... with Mum, I mean?"
She looked at me. "The same as what?"
"Did she ...? I mean, was she in hospital for a while, like me ... or was it, you know ... was it quick?"
Gram held my gaze for a second or two, then she turned away and looked down at the floor, and for a while I thought she wasn't going to answer me. But then, after sniffing and wiping her nose again, she said, very softly, "She didn't suffer, Tommy. It was very quick. She wouldn't have known what was happening."
"She died straight away?"
Gram nodded. "Georgie ... your mum, she was going to work ... she got off the bus, started to cross the road, and a car just came out of nowhere and ran her over. She died instantly. She wouldn't have known anything, thank God ..."
Gram's voice was broken with tears, and I could see her hands trembling.
"I'm sorry, Gram," I said. "I didn't mean to —"
"No, no," she said quickly, looking up at me. It's all right, Tommy ... it's just me ... it's just..."
She couldn't finish what she was trying to say. She smiled sadly at me, wiped another tear from her eye, and as she gently took my head in her arms and gave me a long hard hug, I could feel her shaking all over.
Later on, after we'd had something to eat and watched the end of a late-night film together, I asked Gram if she'd ever heard of Howard Ellman, the man that Davey had told me about, the one they called the Devil. Her reaction was totally unexpected. At first, she didn't do anything — she just sat there, completely still, staring straight ahead ... not even breathing — and for a moment or two I wondered if she'd actually heard me. But then, very slowly, she turned to face me, and I could tell by the look on her face that she had heard me. She looked stunned — totally and utterly stunned. It was as if she'd just heard the worst news in the world.
"What's the matter, Gram?" I said. "Are you all right?"
"What?" she whispered.
"Are you OK? You look terrible."
She blinked, frowning at me. "Sorry ...? I was ... uh ... I was miles away. What did you say?"
"Howard Ellman ... I asked you if you'd ever heard of him."
"Why ...? I mean ..." She cleared her throat. "Why do you want to know about him?"
I shrugged. "No reason, really. It's just that Davey told me he's the one who runs all the local gangs ... well, he doesn't actually run them, but he pretty much pulls all the strings."
Gram nodded, smiling tightly at me. "So why are you asking me about him? Why would I know someone like that?"
"I don't know ... I just thought you might have heard of him, that's all. I mean, you've lived here a long time, you know a lot of people, you hear a lot of stuff ..." I shrugged again. "It doesn't matter, Gram. It's not important or anything. I was only asking ..."
She nodded again, her eyes fixed on mine, and for a moment I thought that she was going to tell me something, that she wanted to tell me something ... something really important...
But I was wrong.
She just glanced at her watch and said, "You'd better get off to bed now. It's getting late. I'll see you in the morning, all right?"
A few minutes later, as I was closing the door to my room, I looked back down the hallway and saw Gram sitting bolt upright on the settee. She was perfectly still, her hands laid flat on her knees, and she was staring straight ahead, staring at nothing. She looked as if she'd just seen a ghost.
1111
The Devil tempts that he may ruin and destroy ...
Saint Ambrose
If you know where to look, and how to look, and if you have the ability to look wherever you want, the cyber-world is full of places where you can find out all kinds of things about all kinds of people. There's the National DNA database, the General Register Office (births, marriages, deaths), the national identity register, the NHS detailed care record, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, the Identity and Passport Service ... the list is almost endless. And if, like me, you can hack into these places without any problems at all, it's not too difficult to find out all there is to find out about someone.
But that night, as I lay on my bed in the darkness, searching through every search engine and hacking into every database that I could think of, I couldn't find any current information about Howard Ellman at all. At least, not the Howard Ellman that I was looking for. There was a Howard Ellman in San Francisco, a lawyer; another one who'd written a book called Arthroscopic Shoulder Surgery; another one who was "an accomplished designer and licensed architect"... there were hundreds of Howard Ellmans all over the world, but none of them had any links with Crow Town. I scanned millions of emails, billions of texts ... nothing. I checked telephone records, council tax, gas and electric, the electoral roll, bank and credit card accounts ... nothing. Even when I tried different spellings of the surname — Elman, Elmann, Ellmann — I still couldn't find anything. Nothing current, anyway.
It was only when I hacked into the Police National Computer (PNC) and accessed Ellman's criminal record that I finally found out something about him. The information wasn't exactly up
to date — the last entry was dated July 2002 — and it wasn't particularly detailed either ... but it was detailed enough to convince me that Davey hadn't been exaggerating when he'd said that Ellman was "a really bad guy".
Name: Howard Ellman
Ethnic type: Caucasian
Height: 1.85m
Weight: 83 kg
Eye colour: Pale blue
Distinguishing marks/tattoos, etc.: None
Address: Unknown
Date of birth: 1o/o1/1971
Place of birth: Addington House, Crow Lane Estate,
London SE 15 6cd Occupation: Unknown
Registered vehicles: None
Convictions/Cautions/Arrests: Arrested Sept 1989, March 1990, April 1992 for aggravated assault, all charges subsequently dropped. Arrested March 1993, Oct 1995, July 2002 for sexual assault, complaints withdrawn, charges dropped.
Additional comments: Suspected involvement in funding/import/supply Class A drugs, as yet unproved. Also possible involvement in organized prostitution, arms smuggling, illegal money lending, people trafficking. Known variously as "The Devil", "Hellman", or "Hell-Man", this individual is highly dangerous and should be approached with extreme caution at all times.
There were no photographs in the PNC file, but there was a link to the computerized custody records at South- wark Borough Police Station, and when I accessed these I found a JPEG image of a mug shot of Ellman which I guessed had been taken when he was in his early twenties. It showed an angular-faced man with a thin mouth, a shaved head, and staring, soulless eyes. There was no trace of emotion in his face: no fear, no anger ... nothing at all. It was the face of a man who could take a life as easily as taking a breath.
In the darkness of my room, in the light of the darkness inside my head, I studied that face for a long time. And the more I stared at it, the more I wondered how much Howard Ellman had to answer for, how much pain he'd caused, how much suffering ...
I remembered Lucy's anguished words: They ruined me, Tom. They totally fucking ruined me.
And I wondered how many other lives Ellman was responsible for ruining.
It was 03:34:42 when I left the flat and quietly closed the door. I tiptoed down the corridor, paused to put my shoes back on, then carried on down to the lift. My iSkin was glowing. My hood was up. My heart was stone cold.
10000
"The end may justify the means as long as there is something that justifies the end!"
Leon Trotsky
The estate was unusually quiet as I crossed the stretch of grass between Compton House and Crow Lane. The towers, the streets, the empty black sky ... everything was bathed in that dead-of-night silence that makes you feel like you're the only living thing in the world.
The night was cold. My breath was misting in the air, my hands were icy, and I could feel the soft crunch of frost beneath my feet.
But I didn't care.
Hot or cold ... it didn't make any difference to me. I was in that state of controlled brutality again — in control of being out of control — and the only thing I could feel was an overriding and irresistible sense of purpose. Get there, find them, find him ... get there, find them, find him ... get there, find them, find him ...
I walked on — across the grass, through the gate in the railings, along Crow Lane — and as I approached the entrance to Baldwin House, the sound of voices began to break through the darkened silence. Raised voices, laughter, the soft rumble of an idling car engine ...
I couldn't see anyone yet, but it wasn't hard to guess what kind of people the voices belonged to — I mean, they were hanging around Baldwin House at quarter to four in the morning ... they weren't going to be choir boys, were they?
I heard the car engine revving, a dog snarling, another shout of laughter, and then — as I turned off Crow Lane and into the square around Baldwin House — I saw them: half a dozen or so gang kids, all in hoods and caps, hanging around a VW Golf in front of the tower-block doors. A skinny Doberman and a Staff with a spiked collar were skulking around the car, neither of them on leads. A couple of the kids were quite young — twelve or thirteen — but most of them were about seventeen or eighteen.
I didn't recognize any of them.
The dogs noticed me first, and as they both started running at me, barking and snarling, the kids all stopped whatever it was they'd been doing and turned to see what was happening. They saw me walking towards them — my skin shimmering, my hooded face a pale glow of radiating light — and they watched, confused, as the two dogs suddenly sensed something about me that scared the shit out of them. They skidded to a halt about two metres away from me, their ears flat, their tails between their legs, and then they both sloped off, whimpering quietly.
"What the fuck?" one of the kids said.
As I carried on walking towards them, a tall black guy with a knife scar on his cheek moved towards me, blocking my way.
"Hey, fuck," he said. "What you —?"
I didn't stop walking. I just raised my arm, placed my hand on his chest, and blew him off his feet with a surge of electricity. As he lay on the ground — his hooded top smoking, his legs twitching — I stepped to the side and laid my hand on the bonnet of the Golf. The engine was still running. The kid in the driver's seat was staring open- mouthed at the tall black guy on the ground. I pressed my palm against the metal of the Golf's bonnet, twitched something in my hand — some kind of nerve or something — and shot a spark of electricity through the bonnet. Nothing happened. I tried it again, and this time the spark ignited. A burst of orange flashed under the bonnet, something went WOOF! and suddenly the car was in flames.
As the kid in the car scrambled out, and the others quickly backed away, I left them to it and carried on into Baldwin House.
Troy O'Neil's flat was at the end of the corridor on the ground floor. Number Six. The front door — which was made of reinforced steel — was guarded by a full-length metal grill. I'm sure I could have got through both the door and the grill if I'd wanted to, but instead I just reached up and rang the bell. Light was showing through the edges of the door, so I guessed that O'Neil was in, and probably awake.
I waited.
Orange light from the blazing Golf was flickering through the corridor window, and I could already smell the faint stink of burning rubber in the air. From inside the flat, I heard a ringtone (2Pac's "Hit 'Em Up"). Inside my head, I tuned in and listened to the call. It was from one of the kids outside, calling O'Neil.
Yeah? he answered.
You know that weird kid? The one done your brother? He's here, man. He just fucking —
Yeah, I know.
O'Neil ended the call.
I scanned the flat for other mobiles.
There were three of them, including O'Neil's.
I rang his number.
He answered, angrily. "I just fucking told you —"
"Are you going to open your door, or what?" I said.
"Eh?"
"I'm not waiting all night."
"Who's this?"
I saw an eye appear at the peep-hole in his door.
I waved at him.
"Is that you?" he said.
"Is what who?"
"What?"
I sighed. "Just open the door, for Christ's sake."
There was a pause then. I heard the phone's mouthpiece being covered, muffled voices, and then the metallic clack of locks being unbolted. After a few seconds, the inner door opened, and through the metal grill I saw Troy O'Neil standing in the doorway. He looked a lot like his brother — mixed race, tall, with dead-looking eyes — and I guessed he was in his early twenties. He had his phone in one hand, and the other hand was stuffed in his pocket.
"What d'you want?" he said to me.
I smiled at him. "Can I come in?"
He frowned at me. "What the fucking hell are you?"
"Let me in, and I'll tell you."
He stared at me for a moment, and then — with a shake of his head and a suck
of his teeth — he unbolted the metal grill, swung it open, and moved to one side to let me in. His right hand, I noticed, never left his pocket, and as I stepped through into the hallway, I wondered what kind of weapon he was holding. A gun or a knife? And I started wondering then if my electric force field was strong enough to protect me from a bullet... but I quickly realized that it was too late to start worrying about that.
As O'Neil pulled a pistol from his pocket, a figure moved out from behind the door and put a knife to my throat, and at the same time a door on my right opened and a fat Korean guy came out holding a rifle in his hands.
O'Neil grinned at me, waggling the pistol in my face. "You're not so fucking smart now, are you, eh?"
I stared at him.
The Korean guy — who was only about five feet tall, but seriously fat — was just standing there, pointing the rifle at my head, and whoever it was with the knife at my neck was making a weird kind of panting noise in his throat. I couldn't see him without turning my head, and I couldn't turn my head without the blade of the knife digging into my skin, but I guessed it was probably Jermaine Adebajo.
I kept my eyes on Troy O'Neil.
He moved closer, peering curiously into the shimmering whirl of my face.
"What is all that?" he said. "I mean, how do you do it?"
"Do you want to see what else I can do?" I said quietly.
Before he could answer, I tensed myself — from within — and then, almost immediately, I released the tension and blasted out a surge of power. It came out from all over my body, a blinding white CRACK! that knocked O'Neil and Adebajo and the Korean guy off their feet and sent them all flying. O'Neil and Adebajo smashed back against the hallway walls and crumpled to the floor, and the fat Korean guy was blown back through the bedroom door.
I waited a while, just looking down at their smouldering bodies, but none of them got up. The barrel of O'Neil's pistol had fused together at the end, and the blade of Adebajo's knife had buckled and melted.