A Place Of Safety (7 page)

The high street is lined with stalls selling fruit and vegetables. Gargantuan black women haggle over things that look like giant spring onions and bunches of leaves tied with string. Rude boys hang around, tracks cut into their hair and eyebrows, their accents dense. Sometimes Tom would put on a voice that he thinks sounds Jamaican. He says ‘ting’ instead of ‘thing’ and calls everyone in the dorm ‘bredren’. The other boarders would laugh, but Luke thinks it makes him look like a twat.

He becomes transfixed outside a Caribbean takeaway, the smell of patties rooting him to the spot.

‘On your way,’ shouts the cook from behind the counter. They’re not welcome.

Caz is impatient and presses the buzzer a second time. Luke can’t believe they’ll get a shower in here.

‘Don’t look like that, soft lad,’ says Caz. ‘Have I let you down yet?’

A woman opens the door, a fag between her lips. ‘The lovely Caroline.’

Caz grins. ‘All right, Jean.’

‘And who’ve you got with you this time?’ asks Jean, smoke causing her to squint.

‘This is my mate, Luke,’ she says. ‘He’s new.’

Jean nods and lets them pass.

The washing machine is hypnotic. Luke watches his clothes spin round and round. For the first time since he ran away he feels calm. It’s not that he’s forgotten about Anna and Tom and Charlie and all that stuff. It’s more like it’s pushed to the back of his mind. He’s had a shower and has seized the opportunity to wash his jeans and hoodie. He offered to stick Caz’s parka in but she declined.

‘It’s only the stains holding it together.’

‘So, Luke,’ says Jean, an unlit cigarette between her lips. ‘Got everything you need?’

‘Yes, thank you,’ he says.

Jean pats her pockets until she finds a lighter and gives it a shake. ‘Do you want something to eat while you’re waiting? Make yourself a sandwich if you fancy it.’

He’s not sure if he should. He’s already had a shower and used the washer. His mum always says you shouldn’t take advantage. But the woman seems to expect it. Earlier, when two boys asked if they could take some milk with them, she just nodded and gave them one of the cartons out of the fridge. As for Caz, she’s made herself right at home. Half a bottle of Radox in her bath, then she’d crashed out on one of the sofas in the common room. She’s still in there, fast asleep.

‘There’s plenty of ham,’ Jean says. ‘Or cheese if you prefer it.’

‘Thank you,’ Luke repeats, and Jean laughs.

‘Someone taught you good manners,’ she says.

Luke blushes. He’s not sure whether she’s taking the piss. ‘My mum says they maketh the man. Manners, that is.’

Jean just smiles and nods in the direction of the bread bin. Luke takes two slices and butters them. The bread’s springy like it was bought fresh that morning.

‘When d’you last see your mum?’ asks Jean.

Luke grates some cheese. Red Leicester, his favourite.

‘A few days ago,’ he says.

‘So you’re still in touch?’

Luke gives her a puzzled frown, then realises Jean has no idea how long he’s been on the streets.

‘Don’t worry, love, we don’t have nothing to do with your parents unless you want us to. Nor the social or the police for that matter.’

Luke takes a bite but it’s hard to chew. His mouth has gone dry at the mention of the police and all his fears come rushing back. What if the police have already arrested Tom and Charlie? And what if they’re looking for Luke right this minute?

‘What’s your business stays your business. We’re just here to help if we can,’ she says.

Luke forces the lump of bread down his throat. ‘I don’t think anyone can help.’

Jean stubs out her cigarette. ‘You’d be surprised.’

Kerry Thomson was fat. Properly fat. Not half-a-stone, jeans-a-bit-too-tight fat, but can’t-reach-your-feet-to-pick-up-your-sandwich fat. Rolls of flesh began at her neck and fell down her body in waves. Her head seemed too small for the monstrous body as if it belonged to someone else completely. And that was how Kerry liked to think of it, a pleasant—some said pretty—face that ought to have attached itself to a smaller person. Not necessarily a thin person, but not the hulk of blubber that was Kerry Thomson. She shunned full-length mirrors, preferring a pocket compact to isolate the one part of her body that she didn’t hate. When had she started doing that? In her twenties when she last wore official sizes? In her thirties, when her periods dried up?

To be honest, she’d always been overweight. A podgy toddler wobbling around in her terry nappies making her brothers laugh, her sticky fingers outstretched for a custard cream. At school she didn’t mind her ‘puppy fat’, at least not much, and in her mid teens she wore it quite well. While the other girls were all straight lines and right angles, Kerry had tipped into womanhood, breasts, hips and arse. It had been a window of opportunity and she’d used it to full advantage. Kerry had had more sex between the ages of fourteen and sixteen than she’d had in the rest of her life put together.

Some of her so-called mates had called her a slag; others more kindly pointed out that Kerry was having a rough patch, what with her mum dying. Either way Kerry had enjoyed those wet fumblings in the back of Ford Cortinas.

She looked at the clock and sighed. She’d zipped her way through six burglaries, four common assaults, two possessions and a pile of traffic including a drunk in charge of a bike. Only one case left, but the solicitor for the defence hadn’t turned up yet. If they didn’t get here soon the court would have to sit through the lunch break.

She felt in her pocket for a sweet.

A crowd had congregated outside the Magistrates’ Court. The usual gaggle of smokers that gathered whatever the weather had been pushed to one side by a group of twenty or so dark-skinned men in checked shirts and women in headscarves. Lilly assumed they were Albanian. A hundred feet away a smaller group of white men shouted. One had a megaphone. Their suits were no disguise. WBA. White British Alliance. The swastika tattoos had gone but the sentiment remained.

Sandwiched between were the police, and watching with amusement were the press. Lots of them. Thank you
Three Counties Observer.
Lilly had no intention of shuffling past that little lot, and headed for the back entrance.

Inside the court, Milo was slumped in a chair. When he saw Lilly his face lit up. ‘Thank you for coming.’

The noise of the megaphone filtered into the building.

Milo shook his head. ‘Some of the Hounds Place residents contacted their friends. I told them not to come, that it would do no good.’

‘It won’t,’ said Lilly.

‘But they’re so angry,’ he said. ‘Anna was raped and yet she ends up in jail.’

Lilly put her hand over his. ‘So let’s try to get her out.’

Lilly slipped into the advocates’ room and found Kerry Thomson building a glittering pyramid out of Quality Street wrappers. As always, Lilly noticed the hair sprouting from the doughy chin and wondered if Kerry knew she had polycystic ovaries.

‘Hello there,’ said Lilly.

Kerry scrunched the papers into her fist, a guilty secret.

‘I’m here for Anna Duraku,’ said Lilly. ‘Conspiracy to murder.’

Kerry nodded to the lone file awaiting its fifteen minutes of fame.

‘It’s a load of old rubbish,’ said Lilly. She knew that if it had been anyone else she would have ripped into them, but Kerry always seemed so vulnerable. Shouting at her would feel like bullying someone with Down’s syndrome.

‘Director of Public Prosecutions says it’s good to go,’ Kerry answered.

‘The fact that she looked at it in person means there are people in the mothership with doubts,’ said Lilly.

Kerry pressed both palms on the table and heaved herself to her feet. ‘Let’s get it into court and see what the magistrate says.’

As they made their way to court number three, Lilly didn’t know which was louder—the rumbling from outside or that emitting from Kerry Thomson’s stomach.

She could smell them before she turned the corner. Even if they hadn’t been shouting she would have known they were there. Something about the food they ate and the clothes they wore gave off an odour. Not exactly unpleasant, just distinctly different.

No matter how many times the liberals and leftists insisted that these people were the same as us, Snow White knew it was not true.

Grandpa had travelled from Cairo to Soweto and back again, and he had declared the other races ‘simply not cricket’. Today, watching this dark-haired horde screaming at the court house, she knew he was right.

‘Terrible, ain’t it?’ said woman with a double buggy.

‘Yes indeed,’ Snow White answered.

‘I thought there was a law against it,’ the woman said, feeding her twins a packet of Cheesy Wotsits.

Snow White watched the toddlers turn their mouths and chins orange as they sucked the additives from their snacks.

‘Sadly not.’

‘It’s the same on match day,’ said the woman. ‘The skinheads hijack the whole thing with their shouting.’

Snow White turned to defend the reasonable turnout of brothers that had come to make their feelings heard, but the woman had already pushed on to the bus stop.

At least these comrades had the courage to stand up for what they believed in, however unsophisticated they might be in making their point. She had had some misgivings about involving them but, seeing them now, standing shoulder-to-shoulder against the enemy, the press documenting their every move, she knew she had done well. She wished she could join them but knew it wasn’t possible. She used to resent having to keep her views secret, but now she realised it gave her an advantage. She could infiltrate, gather information and destroy the enemy from within.

The chanting reached a crescendo and a can was hurled at the foreigners.

The magistrate was the intelligent and intuitive Mrs Lucinda Holmes. Many wondered why she had spent so many years in the Youth Court; certainly she could have sought out promotion. Lilly had always assumed that, like her, she just loved kids.

‘Before we begin,’ Mrs Holmes fixed the advocates with a steely look, ‘let’s remind ourselves that Tirana is a minor and this is not an episode of
LA Law
.’

‘Yes, Madam,’ said Lilly.

‘Now,’ said Mrs Holmes. ‘Do we need an interpreter?’

‘No,’ Anna shouted.

Mrs Holmes smiled at her, civilly but not warmly. ‘We find things work better if you address the court through your solicitor.’

‘Sorry,’ Anna muttered.

‘She neither needs nor wants one,’ said Lilly.

Mrs Holmes made a note with a silver fountain pen. ‘Then let’s proceed.’

‘This is a case of conspiracy to murder,’ said Kerry. ‘The prosecution say that the defendant went with Artan Shala to Manor Park Preparatory School, each with a firearm. The intention of both parties was to kill pupils at that school. They were unfortunately successful in their plan, fatally shooting Charles Stanton before Ms Duraku was disarmed and Shala shot dead by a police officer at the scene.’

‘I gave the policeman the gun before Artan shot the boy,’ said Anna.

Mrs Holmes frowned at Lilly. ‘Miss Valentine, you must keep your client in check. This is not a free-for-all.’

‘I’m sorry, Madam, but what my client says is true. She voluntarily handed her weapon to Officer McNally some time before Artan was killed. There is no question that he acted alone.’

Mrs Holmes nodded. ‘That is for another tribunal to consider. Today I simply intend to transfer this case to the Crown Court. Nothing more.’

‘What about an application for bail, Madam?’ said Lilly.

Mrs Holmes replaced the top on her pen before laying it gently but deliberately on the pad before her. ‘Do you intend to make one, Miss Valentine?’

Lilly thrust up her chin. ‘Indeed I do.’

The magistrate opened her arms.

‘I realise, Madam, that this is a serious matter and wouldn’t normally attract bail, but this case is unusual in any number of ways,’ said Lilly.

‘Go on,’ said Mrs Holmes.

‘You may deny bail, Madam, if you believe my client is likely to re-offend.’

‘Indeed I may,’ said Mrs Holmes.

‘Which is why I know you’ll have worked out that re-offending in this case is impossible,’ said Lilly ‘Anna is charged with a conspiracy with someone who is now dead. They could hardly plot anything else together, Madam.’

Mrs Holmes bit her lip. ‘And what about the possibility that Anna might abscond?’

Lilly gave her best theatrical shrug. ‘Where would she go? She has no living family and few friends. The Hounds Place hostel is her only lifeline.’

Mrs Holmes breathed evenly, clearly thinking things through.

‘Who would supervise her at the hostel?’

‘There are social workers on duty, Madam, and Milo Hassan visits every day’

Mrs Holmes shook her head. ‘There’s insufficient continuity for my liking. One person needs to be in charge.’

Lilly looked over at Anna. Every molecule of her being looked terrified, and Lilly was consumed with guilt. If she had stepped in to prevent Artan taking the law into his own hands, Anna wouldn’t be here now.

‘She can stay with me,’ said Lilly.

Everyone stared.

Lilly gulped. She’d surprised herself as much as anyone else.

‘Stay with you?’ Mrs Holmes repeated.

‘Yes,’ said Lilly. ‘I will undertake to the court to supervise her in my home.’

‘That’s a huge commitment, Miss Valentine.’

Lilly gulped. It was huge. Bloody huge. Lilly pushed the implications to the back of her mind and nodded.

As they left court in Lilly’s car, Milo rubbed Anna’s shoulders. ‘It’s over.’

Lilly didn’t speak but an old quote came into her head.

‘This isn’t the end. It’s not even the beginning of the end.’

‘Tell me this is a joke,’ said Jack.

‘Am I laughing?’ said Lilly. She stared out at the field beyond her kitchen window. The earth was brown and hard. The harvest had been and gone and nothing would grow until spring.

‘You can’t have her living here,’ he said.

‘The court says I can.’

He groaned. ‘It’s madness.’

And of course it was. Sheer madness. Sam would hit the roof; David would apply to have her sectioned; and Rupes…Lilly shuddered at the very thought.