by Jay Stringer
See? I’m not such a bad son.
NINE
I kept an eye out as I drove down my mother’s street. It was quiet and residential. Nobody who lived there was rich, but they all took pride in their small kingdoms. Quiet, safe, and mortgaged to the hilt. The semidetached houses had been built at the start of the last century and withstood two world wars and countless recessions. There was a church at the bottom of the road that had been flattened by a German bomb during an air raid, but not one single house in the street had fallen down. You could raise a family here and teach them that the fullness of their ambitions needn’t stretch beyond the end of the street.
There was a police car parked halfway down, and I saw a couple of uniforms chatting to someone in a doorway. Since my mother was not reporting the crime, there wouldn’t be an official investigation. Laura had clearly pulled in some favors to get a few guys down here. I eased the car to the curb in front of my mother’s house, most of it hidden from the road by a tidy privet hedge.
The only person I still knew who lived on the street, aside from my mother, was Mrs. Daniels. She lived across the road, and I’d helped her with a few DIY jobs over the years. I crossed the street, pushed through her gate, and rang the bell. It took her so long to answer the door that I might as well have taken a run round the block.
“Eoin,” she said when she opened the door.
She gave me the full false-teeth smile, shining and awkward.
“Hiya, Mrs. D. How are you?”
“Oh, I’m fine. But listen, how’s Erica? I’ve been so worried.”
“You saw them take her away?”
“Oh yes. She was all wrapped up and on one of those boards. It looked like a car accident.”
“She’s going to be okay. She’s a bit banged up. She’ll still insist on mowing your lawn for you, I’m sure.”
She made as if to invite me in for a cup of tea, but I said I couldn’t stay.
“Did you see what happened?”
“Oh no. I was just telling your friends”—she meant the police; she still had it in her head that I worked for them—“that the first I knew was when the ambulance came roaring down the street. Your Laura came too. In fact, I’m sure she was here before the ambulance.”
“Have you seen anyone visiting Mum today?”
“There was that man she doesn’t like. I can’t remember his name, but he’s been round a lot lately. He was here this morning.”
“What does he look like?”
“Oh, you know, he’s just a bad one, him. Has that look about him.”
“Was he wearing a coat? A hat? Got any hair?”
“Yes, I’m sure he has.”
“Was he white? Asian?”
“Oh, he’s white, all right. I think. Looks the sort, you know?”
I pretended to know what that meant and told her to get in out of the cold. I crossed the road and let myself into my mother’s house with my spare key.
That man she doesn’t like.
I had no idea who that was.
I found a mess in the living room. A potted plant was on its side, dirt spilling out. A plate had been smashed, as though it had hit the wall with some force. A cup lay empty on the floor. It smelled like coffee and something else that I couldn’t put my finger on.
My mother hates coffee.
Who was here drinking it? I heard the sound of the cat flap, and seconds later a small ginger blur was doing laps around my legs.
The cat, Rollo.
“Some help you were.”
I knelt down to give him some fuss. He purred a response, not sounding the least bit guilty, the little fucker. He followed me into the kitchen, where I dug out a pouch of cat food and slopped it into a dish for him.
“She better get out soon,” I said, “because I’m not looking after you.”
He seemed to look at me quizzically before he returned to his food. On my way out of the kitchen, I noticed something on the door that led to the living room: a patch of badly cracked paintwork and dented wood. I’d seen something like that before, investigating a case in which an attacker had repeatedly rammed a victim’s head into a cupboard door. My stomach turned over and began to burn. To calm myself down, I cleared the mess.
After sweeping up the smashed crockery and doing the once-round with the Hoover, the room was as clean as I’d ever seen it. Rollo supervised and even seemed to approve. By the front door, I looked through the mail. It was the usual pile of circulars, free newspapers, bills, and bank statements. There were five or six manila envelopes with the same return address. I opened one, and then a second. By the time I reached the fourth, I knew what the fifth one would hold. They were all financial demands. It looked like my mother owed a large sum of money to a company called Kyng & Bootle. The letter was signed by David Kyng.
I could easily imagine the type of company these letters were coming from. My family had never had a credit rating. I’d never asked where my father had gotten the money for the pub, but it wouldn’t have been a loan or a mortgage; he went through less official channels. Buying the house had only been an option because our family had gotten insurance money when we’d been burned out of the pub. The mainstream world had never been very welcoming to the Roma and still weren’t, after all these years. That’s how our kind ended up dealing with places like Kyng & Bootle, which handed out loans to people with credit problems. They preyed on desperation and panic. I didn’t want to put too much thought into why my mother had gone begging to these people. But they wanted her to pay up now; that was for sure. The most recent demand was dated four days earlier. It promised a home visit from one of their collections agents. The address at the top of the page was listed as Broad Street, in Wolverhampton. The Gaines family owned most of the buildings on that street, and I decided that it was time for Kyng & Bootle to take a turn receiving a visitor.
I pocketed one of the letters and looked through the bank statements. All the mortgage payments were going out on time. Why did she need such a large sum of money from a loan shark?
I scanned the free paper and spotted a story on the front that was all about the PCP. The party was holding a rally that evening in Bilston, and its high-profile leader was going to be there. I checked the time and realized I could still just about make it. Kyng & Bootle would have to wait until business hours, anyway. In the meantime, I could distract myself with some paid work. Rollo stuck his head round the living room door as I put my coat back on.
“Seeya, creep,” I said.
I swear the cat gave me the finger.
TEN
I headed to Bilston, which was another small town on the road to the city. Some people still wouldn’t call Wolverhampton “the city,” but that’s how I thought of it. It was still torn between the two identities, though: by day it was a large town, and by night it was a small city. It was no accident that the PCP was doing so much of its campaigning in the Black Country. Some regions come in and out of fashion in the national media, but the Black Country was always ignored. Consisting of a large urban sprawl loosely connecting West Bromwich and Dudley to Wolverhampton, it was full of struggling and disenfranchised working-class families. Most politicians didn’t speak for the people here. Football teams like the Wolves and Albion were the only thing that drew the string of local towns together, but that didn’t connect the region to the national media, which disregarded even the local football teams. Political parties like the PCP could come in and say, “We’re here for you,” and locals would take interest. Especially now that the PCP was downplaying its racist and extremist policies, and acting like its only focus was the economy and local problems, it was possible it could trick people into supporting the party. It was certainly trying.
I drove into Bilston and pulled over near the town hall. It was one of those grand old beautifully crafted buildings with loads of history that completely lacked a modern purpose. Millions of pounds had been spent renovating it. The challenge had been finding a use for it. The PCP now paid rent there so at least s
ome of the space was put to use, if not “good” use: the party had set up shop in one of the interior offices and used the hall for rallies and public events.
In the reception area an aged security guard looked up from his newspaper long enough to point me to the right doorway, which wasn’t really necessary as it was the only suite in use that evening. At the doorway I found another reception area had been made. This one was makeshift, consisting of a small table stacked with piles of pamphlets and photographs. The main impression I got from looking at the literature was that this was an event that involved white men in suits wearing blue ties. The pamphlets were asking for votes and donations while promising little more than the hint of a firm handshake. The photographs were of families and celebrities but all had the same man at their center: a square-jawed man in his forties who could only be described as a poor man’s JFK with an easy smile and a sharp suit. I remembered the man because he’d been the keynote speaker at the rally I’d policed; he’d been the only one who hadn’t stirred the crowd into an angry mob.
A woman smiled up at me from the table. She looked to be in her forties. She wasn’t fat, but she would be dependable in a windstorm.
“Hiya.” She beamed at me.
Perfect teeth were framed by bright lipstick. Her eyes locked onto me like the headlights of an oncoming car. This moment would be interesting. So much had changed since I was a child. Back then my sallow complexion and shadowed eyes had stood out as foreign, but a generation of immigration from Eastern Europe and the Balkans now meant many Roma didn’t stand out that much from “normal” white people. Of course, every now and then someone would spot something different about me. I have that look about me. This time, though, I passed the test. There was no change in the way she looked at me. No sizing me up or narrowing of the eyes. I was white and proud.
I shook her hand to confirm it.
“Hi. I’d like to sign up.”
“That’s fine, dear. We just ask that you put your details on this form here.” She passed me an official-looking paper. It asked my name, date of birth, address, occupation, ethnic origin, and who I last voted for. Was that even legal? It also asked what I felt would be the most important issues in the upcoming election, and it offered a selection to choose from plus a helpful section where I could get creative entitled “other.”
I started filling in the form, lying in all the right places, and spelled my first name as “Owen” so that she wouldn’t think I was Irish either.
“Busy tonight?” I asked as I wrote.
“Oh yes. Good turnout so far. It’s going to be a good speech, I think. Rick’s really been working hard on it.”
“Rick?”
“Rick Marshall.”
“Oh, right, yeah. Sorry. Mind’s not switched on tonight.” I knew Marshall’s name. He had a national profile, and he represented the progress the party had been making. He’d defected to the PCP from the Conservatives after the last election and had taken the lead in reforming the party’s image. If he was on the local campaign, it showed how important the result was to them.
“I know how it is. Long day, I take it?”
“The longest.” I rolled my eyes in disgust at an imaginary day that involved boring meetings and a low-fat lunch instead of a local drug lord threatening me with a cricket bat and my mother being cruelly attacked. “Not a minute’s peace.”
“Well, it’s good to see you still putting in the effort tonight. We do appreciate the support.”
“You guys are saying what everyone else is scared to say, you know?”
“Thank you. Well, we like to think so. Everyone’s gone PC-mad these days.”
“Tell me about it. I got talking to a friend in the pub the other night, and he told me all about you guys, and I’m behind you all the way.”
“We can always use more volunteers. What do you do for a living, Mr.—?”
“Miller, Eoin Miller. I’m between jobs at the moment. Seems every time I go for an interview it goes to someone less qualified.”
She fixed me with a look of motherly concern and shook her head.
“The country’s in a shocking state, isn’t it? So many nice young men come in here and tell us the same thing. I tell you what, stick around after the talk and I’ll introduce you to some of our team. We’ll see what we can do.”
I didn’t even get a chance to say thank you. As soon as she finished the sentence, her eyes locked onto the person behind me in the queue. Clearly dismissed, I turned and walked past her table and into the main hall.
The hall was large and a little too warm. The noise of the crowd bounced between the shiny hardwood floors and the high ceilings. Every age range seemed to be represented, from pensioners to children who had been dragged along by their parents. I noticed a couple of camera crews from local TV news channels and some photographers from the regional newspapers. I recognized one of them as the guy who had taken pictures of me in the hospital after I’d been stabbed. Some of the news stories had played me up as a hero and an ex-cop; others had focused on my dirty past and gangland connections. I couldn’t remember which angle his paper had taken, so I kept my distance. He noticed my arrival. If he was surprised to see me, he didn’t show it.
There was a small catering table. It was behind a rope barrier, and I guessed it was for VIPs only because they had biscuits. I skirted the edge of the barrier to the entrance and, with nobody to stop me, wandered into the VIP area, trying to look as though I wasn’t headed straight for the food. The orange juice was good. The biscuits were stale.
“I know.” A friendly voice was followed by a soft slap on the shoulder. “They’re awful, aren’t they?” I turned to see the man from the pamphlets, Rick Marshall. “I don’t know where Gladys gets them. Every event, it’s the same selection. Would it kill her to get in some Jammie Dodgers?”
I choked back the mouthful of biscuit and took the hand he offered. The shake was as firm as the pictures suggested. I suddenly felt like the only person in the room and his new best friend.
“Rick Marshall,” he said. “Mr.—?”
“Miller. Eoin Miller.”
I saw the flash of something. He’d heard the name. It didn’t have its usual effect, though. His eyes didn’t narrow. He still held me locked in his gaze.
“Ah yes. The newspapers. You helped catch that killer awhile back, right?”
“I, uh, yes. I was good enough to bleed all over him until the police came. That threw him off, you know?”
He laughed. It was warm and infectious.
“Well, I’m sure you’re downplaying your role there. It’s a pleasure to meet you. Didn’t I read that you were once in the force yourself?”
“Yes. For a while. I wasn’t very good at it, but I did police one of your old rallies, when your party was still the ESP.”
He tilted his head to one side and stepped closer, as though about to let me in on a secret. “National Socialism, who wants to be seen belonging to that tradition, right? It took a lot of work to get rid of them. Too many people saw the Union flag as an excuse to curse and fight, you know what I’m saying?”
“So you changed the name and the idiots went away?”
“No, I changed the name and then moved the party away from the idiots. It took a long time. But I think the opinion polls show it was worth it.”
I looked round the room again. There wasn’t a Union flag in sight. There were none of the symbols I’d come to associate with nationalism. He started speaking again, and I was surprised by the way my attention snapped right back to him. The guy was good.
I tried to rattle him. “And naming your party after a drug? Wise move. Everyone loves drugs.”
“Yes, that was a bit of an oversight. But nobody really makes the connection. I like the name, especially the community bit. I’d wanted us to run with that on its own; it gives off the right vibes. Like a gated community, a symbol of safety.”
“Depends which side of the gate you’re on.”
“Y
ou’re not here to support the rally, are you?”
I thought about the things I’d planned to say. Then I thought, Fuck it.
“No flies on you. To be honest, no, I’m not one of your voters.”
He nodded for a moment and then showed a little more of his hand, the cards he was holding back. “And you work for Veronica Gaines, right? Is she here? I’d love to talk to her.”
“No, I’m here on my own time.”
“Well, mention me to her, maybe? I’d love to run some of my ideas past her. With the elections less than two months away now, PCP is the place to be.” One of his aides came and touched him on the shoulder. It was time for him to move on and become best friends with someone else. “I’m sorry, Eoin, but I have to get ready for my speech. I’d love to hear your thoughts on it afterward.”
I watched him walk away through the crowd. I saw a round man with slicked-back hair step up to him and shake Marshall’s hand. Marshall laughed off whatever was said and continued making his way across the room.
I listened to the start of his speech. It was all very stirring and civil. In fact, Marshall sounded just like every other politician I’d ever heard. He talked of taxes and schools and getting back to family values. When he got to the nationalism issue, he talked of progressive politics and asked the crowd why we had let the Far Right take hold of our most important symbols, like the British flag. I stopped listening: they’d never felt like my symbols to begin with. As I turned to leave, I saw the fat man again, flanked by two tall, muscular men wearing tattoos as though they were clothes. He was staring at me and whispering something to one of the guys.
I slipped out into the evening air and drove home. I popped a couple of pills to ease the pain in my stomach. My mind was blank on the drive; I don’t think a single thought passed through it until I turned onto the car park outside my flat. As I climbed the stairs that led to my front door, I heard voices from inside and saw light coming from beneath the door. Someone was in my flat. Again.
I jangled the key in the lock as I turned it, making as much noise as I could. I pushed open the door.