Riot Act (7 page)

As it was, the local families advanced beyond their net curtains and their front doors. Now they came out into their untidy gardens to stand taciturn in their reproof at how little positive action had been taken before.

It wasn’t just the older generation who stood and muttered, and eyed the squad cars suspiciously. There seemed to be more teenage boys in the mix than I’d noticed hanging around before. Angry, cocky, eager to prove themselves in the face of authority.

For the moment they contented themselves with silent posturing, but I wondered how long it would be before one of them crossed the line. For their part, once they’d come back out into the street, the police stayed close to their cars, tense. I know most of them wear body armour as a matter of course these days, but in this instance it seemed like provocation.

To keep out of the way, I took Friday by the long route, out onto the main road via the cycle way that ran alongside the river. As I popped up onto the main road by Carlisle Bridge I spotted another of Mr Ali’s green and purple vans. You generally saw them all over the place, but this one made me sit up and take notice.

For a start, it had pulled up just where the two lanes from over Greyhound Bridge narrow into one under the railway line, and was causing quite a major constriction in the traffic flow. The second thing that turned my head was the man leaning in through the passenger-side window to talk to the driver.

It was unmistakably Langford.

As I watched, he took his last cigarette out, stuck it between his lips, and tossed the crumpled empty pack onto the pavement behind him. Then he opened the door and climbed in, ignoring the annoyed hooting of horns. The van driver pulled straight out into traffic with enough disdain for the Highway Code to have earned him an instant re-test.

I wondered vaguely if Mr Ali knew that the head of the Copthorne vigilante brigade was cadging lifts at his expense.

***

Several hours later, I wheeled the bike out and headed for work. Within fifteen minutes of relatively easy town traffic I’d pulled up outside the gym.

Attila’s place used to be an auto salvage yard with such a dodgy reputation that some wag had once painted “reserved for police vehicle only” on a section of the rusting iron fencing just inside the gate. It was still there, despite the change of use and ownership, and I ran the bike into the space underneath the faded lettering.

Against every advice, Attila had snapped the whole property up for a song when it finally closed down for good a few years ago. He’d turned the tatty workshop and storage area into a spacious fitness room, complete with a sauna. It wasn’t snazzy, but it had the workmanlike atmosphere that suggests real people who are seriously into the job, rather than a poseurs’ palace.

Usually, it was bustling, but today of all days, it was dead. I spent the first hour as the only inhabitant, and took the opportunity to get my own workout in, just in case things hotted up later.

I used to train a lot, starting when I was in the army and needed to build up both my strength and my stamina. After I was kicked out, it became a method of relaxation of sorts. A way to shut my brain down through sheer physical exhaustion, and rid myself of my frustration and anger, taking it out on the machines.

I was halfway through a tough set of bench presses when I finally got some company. The two blokes who came in were regulars, and they were into it enough to wave me on with the set. Conscious of them watching, I rushed through the last five reps before moving over to the counter to sign them in.

They were a friendly enough pair, giving me the usual cheery amount of stick as they hefted their sports bags and went to get changed. It was only when they reappeared that a sudden thought occurred to me.

“Wayne,” I said to one of them, while they were still doing their warm-up exercises, “don’t you work for Mr Ali, the builder?”

Wayne gave a grunt, but whether that was at my question, or because he was attempting to touch his toes, I couldn’t be sure. He was a well-built black man, with hands like shovels. He was currently struggling to ward off a beer gut and only just keeping pace with it. “Used to, girl,” he said. “Got laid off couple of weeks back.”

“Really? I thought he was doing well.”

“Yeah, so did I.” He gave me a wry smile. “Half a dozen of us got the punt at the same time. Last in, first out. That’s the way it goes. He reckons he’s got a big contract coming off soon, and we’ll be back in there but, tell you the truth, I’m not bothered. I’m working for that mob who are converting the old asylum now. Pay’s better.”

I digested the information, then decided a hunch was worth a try. “D’you know a guy called Langford?”

He frowned. “Oh yeah,” he said, suddenly guarded, “we all know him.”

If I’d been a horse, my ears would have pricked straight up at his tone. “Why’s that?”

For a moment Wayne looked as though he’d said too much, then he shrugged. His loyalties lay elsewhere these days. “He and the boss, well, there’s something going on there, and I’m damned if I know what, girl,” he said. “That Langford used to flag us down like we was bloody taxis. Take me here, take me there. I tried to complain to the boss about it once, but he said don’t ask questions.” He shrugged. “I got rent to pay, so I didn’t ask.”

“And you’ve no idea what was going on?”

He shook his head, plonking one foot up on a bench and reaching over it to stretch his hamstrings. When he came upright again, he said darkly, “All I
do
know is, he always turned up on a site, convenient like, on a Thursday afternoon, and the boss used to hand him a pay packet just like the rest of us. If Langford wasn’t such a bloody racist, I’d say they must be related or something. Know what I mean?”

The door went again as more of the evening lads came in. I smiled my thanks to Wayne, and went to deal with them. Langford and Mr Ali? As unlikely combinations went, it was right up there at the top of the list.

***

Attila came in around six-thirty, and that’s when the place really started to busy up. Once people knew his schedule they tended to time their visits to coincide with his presence. I didn’t take it personally. It was his place, after all.

I finished around nine, changed into my leathers and stuffed my gear into my tank bag. It was dark outside, cold and drizzly. I didn’t wait too long for the Suzuki to warm up before I was on my way.

Traffic was starting to bulk up through town. As I filtered down the outside of it going past the bus station, a taxi stuck its nose out from the rank into traffic, blocking my path. I sighed and braked to a halt with the rain tenaciously drilling its way down the back of my neck.

I tried to leave as much room as I could between my front wheel and the taxi’s exhaust pipe while I reflected morosely that it didn’t seem to be my day for clean air.

There were times when riding a bike all year round was a real pain. I really was going to have to splash out on a decent pair of gloves. My fingers were already wet and before I got back to Pauline’s I knew the tips of them would have gone numb.

We were alongside a little café and I glanced idly through the window into the brightly-lit interior with something like envy. There were two people sitting at the table by the window, drinking coffee. Their hands were wrapped round the mugs and I could just imagine the warmth of the hot liquid seeping through the china.

As I watched, one of them lifted the mug to his mouth and drank, and as my gaze followed its progress I realised I was looking at a face I knew. It was the boy from Fariman’s garden.

Roger put the mug back on the table, keeping one hand round it, using the other to illustrate his speech as he talked earnestly to his companion. It was with some sense of shock that I recognised the other boy, too.

He was probably the last person I would have expected to find relaxing in the company of a teenage thug on the fast track to a long stretch inside. Yet there they were, chatting away like old friends.

Nasir.

The driver of the car behind me blew his horn, making me jump, and I realised that the taxi was long gone. I hastily booted the bike into gear and flung the clutch out with all the finesse of a first-day learner. The Suzuki made its displeasure plain by bounding forwards, and then refusing to drop cleanly into second.

Cursing under my breath at the fluffed change, I brought my mind back onto the job in hand. The last thing I could afford to do was try and ride through darkened rush-hour traffic preoccupied. I like my legs just the shape they are, thanks all the same.

With an effort I pushed the significance of what I’d just seen way into the background. Roger was from Copthorne. Nasir was from Lavender Gardens. They should have been at each other’s throats. Race almost didn’t come into it.

I swung across Greyhound Bridge and onto the road to Morecambe, filtering down the outside of the cars when they shuffled to a standstill. It didn’t take long before I was turning in to Lavender Gardens and weaving through the gloomy back streets.

I’d let my brain wander by this point, churning it over and over to try and make some sense of it. What on earth was the connection between Roger and Nasir? I knew Nasir had been in trouble, too, but I also remembered the way he’d flown off the handle over the attack on his uncle.

At the time, I’d thought his anger was aimed at Roger and his mates, but it wasn’t. He knew far more than he was telling about all this. I needed to talk to him about it. Try and get something more out of him. Perhaps O’Bryan might have a better idea of what was going on. As I turned in to Kirby Street, I made a mental note to give him a call.

Then a big man carrying what looked like a baseball bat stepped out of the shadows into the road in front of me.

My first thought as I grabbed for the front brake was that Roger had somehow already got wind of my intention to go the distance, and had sent the boys round. Timing and logic didn’t come into it. This was straight gut-reaction fear.

The Suzuki’s tyres slithered on the wet greasy tarmac as I locked the wheels up tight, stepping the back end out. Somehow, I managed to bring the bike to an untidy halt within about six feet of him, slanted across the road. I put my feet down, shaky, heart bouncing against my ribs.

The man had made no move to get out of my path. Arrogance made him confident that I would stop in time. That I wouldn’t dare run him down. I wondered if he tried the same tactic with buses and trucks.

For a couple of beats, nothing happened. Then he swaggered forwards to meet me, and I saw that the baseball bat was actually one of those oversize torches. The type so favoured by jumped-up security guards without the authority to carry a weapon for real.

He came right up to the fairing, crowding me, tall enough for me to have to crick my neck up to make eye-contact with him through my visor. His was a face that had seen some action, the bridge of the nose lumped with scar tissue. There was the line of an old knife wound cutting through his moustache stubble from nostril to upper lip.

He was a sizeable bloke, wearing the black bomber jacket and dark cargo trousers of the professional bruiser. I’ve come across enough of them in my time to recognise the type without needing a diagram. I was reminded strongly of Langford.

It was only when he spoke that my preconceptions took a knock. “OK, sonny, where do you think you’re going?” he demanded, surprising me with the genuine cut-glass accent that came out of his thuggish mouth.

I didn’t bother to correct his mistake. Even in these enlightened times nobody expects a girl to be riding a motorbike. “Home,” I said shortly, my voice muffled by my scarf. “What’s it to do with you?”

“You’d be wise not to take that tone with me, my lad,” he warned with a grim smile. He thrust his chin forwards, showing me his teeth and the whites of his eyes all the way round the irises. The skin of his face was stretched over wide cheekbones that protruded through it, revealing the shape of his skull.

Close up, he was older than I’d first thought. Even under the streetlighting, I could see that the hair cropped short to his scalp was silver, not blond. The lines were etched deep into his face like penknife graffiti in an old school desk.

“Come on,” he said, roughly now. “Let’s have that helmet off and have a look at you.”

“
What?
You’ve got to be kidding?” I managed, appalled. “Who the hell d’you think you are?”

At that moment another figure appeared from a ginnel between two houses and joined the first. He was younger, shorter, not so broad in the shoulder, but the haircut and the uniform was the same. This was starting to get creepy.

“You got trouble, boss?” he asked, not taking his eyes off me. His voice wasn’t nearly so far upmarket, but he was trying hard to match it, and his tone was hopeful, spoiling for a fight.

I pride myself on being a pretty good judge of sticky situations, but I didn’t have to be to work out that now was a good time to back down.

With a sigh I yanked my gloves off and undid the chinstrap holding my battered old Arai helmet in place, pulling that off over my head.