Ten Days (20 page)

And at one point when all this was going on she'd thought she'd heard somebody in the corridor. It must have been Lyndall, who wouldn't have known that Cathy was only answering the policewoman's questions so as to protect her. She'd be furious – and knowing Lyndall she'd convert that fury into sullen withdrawal.

She had finished wiping down the shelves. A satisfying process but now, although the cupboards were clean, every surface, including those she'd already wiped, were covered in jars and tins, some of which needed throwing out while others were so sticky she couldn't possibly put them back.

She filled the sink with hot soapy water. She was really getting somewhere. Lyndall would be thrilled. She grabbed for a jar, but it was so sticky it slipped out of her hand. In that moment, all the frustration that she'd been suppressing seemed to fire up her leg so that when she kicked the jar, it hit the wall, cracked and rebounded with such force that parts of it hit the wall opposite.

It left a sticky trail of glass and green gunge on the floor. Could it have been greengage jam, she wondered, or something else that had turned green with age? Most likely the latter – it stank. She fetched some newspaper, which she used to trap the glass, then got down on her hands and knees and, with a bucket of soapy water at her side, washed the lino.

By the time the floor was clean enough to pass temporary muster, she was boiling hot. The floor was clean, but the rest of the kitchen was a disaster zone. She would see to it later. For now she needed to talk to Lyndall.

She went down the corridor and knocked on Lyndall's door. No answer. She turned the handle. It didn't budge. She knocked again. ‘Lyndall.'

Silence. She gave another knock. ‘Lyndall.'

Some shuffling followed by the grating of a key, and when she turned the handle again the door opened.

Lyndall was on her bed, stretched out on her side to face the wall. She didn't move when Cathy entered.

‘What's wrong?'

No answer.

When Cathy went over, Lyndall shuffled closer to the wall, but at least she did nothing to stop Cathy sitting on the bed.

‘Come on, honey, tell me what's wrong.'

At last an answer, but, delivered as it was into the pillow into which Lyndall's face was squashed, Cathy couldn't make out a word. ‘I'm sorry, I didn't hear that. Say it again.'

Lyndall spun round. ‘You. Know. What's. Wrong.'

She must have been in the corridor; she must have heard everything.

‘You promised,' Lyndall said. ‘You promised me and you promised her.'

‘Her?' Cathy had given the policewoman no promises.

‘Jayden's mum.'

Cathy's exhalation was so intense she felt her chest deflate.

‘You promised her that if he didn't come back, you'd look for him.'

She sighed again, not from guilt for having forgotten a boy whom everybody except Lyndall always forgot, but more from relief. ‘Yes, I did. And with everything that's happened, I didn't do it. I'm sorry.'

‘It's not me you need to say sorry to.' Lyndall did another flip to face the wall again. When Cathy touched her, she shrugged the hand away.

There was no talking to her, not when she was in a mood. Cathy got up and, relief still coursing through her, left the room.

6.10 p.m.

‘Home Secretary,' Patricia's voice was icy, ‘you have put the blame for the failure to contain the disturbances onto the police. But there has been a 10 per cent year-on-year cut in funding of the Met during your time in office. Don't you think that the cuts may have affected their capacity to respond to what was after all a series of extraordinary events?'

‘I don't think . . .'

‘Yes, you do, you always think. What you don't do is consider.'

‘You're right. I don't
consider
the events to be in any way extraordinary. A man died in Rockham. We will know exactly what happened there only after the IPCC has completed its investigation. Our current concern is with the demonstration that followed. I would have been the first to defend it if it had been orderly. But it was not orderly.' A pause.

‘Slow it down.'

‘The police should have come down hard' – he took care to separate each word from the one that followed. ‘If they had, they would have contained the situation.'

‘But the cuts?'

‘You asked a two-part question; allow me the opportunity to address the second part.' Peter looked to the place where a camera would be. ‘We came into office promising no further cuts in front-line services, and we have kept this promise.' His words came out smoothly, leaving him free to concentrate on preventing the tell of his boredom – that slight twitching of his left eyelid, which Patricia would be sure to pounce on – from displaying itself. ‘It is true that we have encouraged the outsourcing of clerical work, custody arrangements and the transfer and care of prisoners, but this is so as to streamline the service and free up police officers to carry out the jobs for which they were trained. And as well . . . he took a deep breath, about to deliver that quick one-two of falling crime stats that always did the job, but he was distracted by the sight of the Minister for Work and Pensions holding forth on the real news on the television behind Patricia. ‘Save us,' he said. Despite that the sound was off, Work and Pensions' wild gaze told him that his Cabinet colleague, an incompetent bore at the best of times, was making a complete hash of the interview.

‘You were saying?'

He straightened up. ‘And as well,' he said, but then he slumped back down, ‘and blah, bloody blah. I can do this bit in my sleep.' Another glance at the screen: ‘Are you sure I shouldn't have said yes to the six?'

‘Don't worry. The six is just picking over yesterday's events. Come dark, the trouble's going to kick off again. Then everybody who isn't out destroying stuff will be at home glued to their TVs. That's why the ten – and they're already planning to extend it – is the right slot for you.'

6.30 p.m.

‘Come.' Joshua Yares looked up from the memo he was drafting.

‘The file you requested, sir.'

He laid down his pen. ‘What took so long?'

‘It had been mislabelled, sir, and sent mistakenly for destruction. We only just saved it.'

Destruction? What the hell was going on? ‘Thank you, sergeant. Put it over there, will you.' He pointed at the low table that stood beside the sofa at the other end of his office.

‘Anything else, sir?'

‘No, thank you. That will be all.' Joshua got up and instead of immediately going over to the table, he went to stand by the window. He stretched his arms up high above his head, afterwards dropping them and moving his head round in circles, hearing how his neck creaked, granulated knots audibly resisting his attempt to ease the stiffness from his shoulders. He straightened up. He could see the dark water of a waning Thames, and beyond the river the pods of the London Eye through the milky white of an early summer sky. From the cool of his air-conditioned office, it was hard to imagine just how unpleasant it was out there. But he knew that it was and that it was going to get even more unpleasant once the disorder that BBM and the Twitter-sphere were planning exploded. He turned away from the window and went over to the sofa.

He reached for the folder that the sergeant had laid on the table. On the cover was a name: Julius Jibola. He opened the file to a picture of a man who stared, unsmiling, at the camera. Another page turned and, sighing, he began to read.

7.30 p.m.

One more politician on the TV banging on about feral youth and feckless fathers and Cathy was going to scream. She switched the TV off.

What to do now?

The radiator was on full blast and the room, despite every window being wide open, was as hot as an oven. She downed another glass of tepid water.

Lyndall had at last emerged – driven, no doubt, by hunger. She had gone into the kitchen, presumably to fix herself something to eat (Cathy didn't dare go in with her), and then, seeing the mess, must have stayed, by the sounds of the clattering, to clear it up.

The heat was too much to bear.

And it wasn't just the heat.

The clattering had turned into actual banging. Okay, Lyndall was prone to melodrama, but this was going way over the top. Couldn't just be that she was missing Jayden, could it?

Only way to find out was ask, but at this moment Cathy did not have the strength. She clicked on the television. Saw Banji with his Molotov. Turned the television off. Thought, is this how it's always going to be? Punished my whole life for something I did when I was too young to know any better?

From the pocket of her skirt she took out the crumpled pack of Marlboros she'd found nestling at the back of one of the kitchen cupboards.

She'd given up years ago, soon after they'd moved into the Lovelace and after she'd caught the three-year-old Lyndall pretending to smoke. She must have hidden this pack with its one remaining cigarette then. Just in case. Now the sight of it drove her from her seat and out.

A blast of heat, underscored by pollution, and while dusk had not yet properly taken over, the sky was a strange brackish colour. It was so hot, the estate was weighed down by lassitude despite all the open doors, with the only closed one being, as ever, Jayden's mother's.

Cathy took the lone fag out of its pack, as well the box of matches she'd also stashed away. She stared at them. Longingly. Thought, why not? Reminded herself about the agony of giving up. But then another voice: one can't do any harm. She would reward herself, she decided, after bearding Elsie's lair.

She made her way over to knock at Elsie's door. No answer. She knocked again – and again – standing there long enough to confirm her suspicion that Elsie was never going to open up.

Mission if not accomplished then at least attempted. She could indulge herself. Not outside her own flat, however.

She stepped over to the wall by Elsie's flat. Put the cigarette in her mouth. Felt the unfamiliarity of it. The guilt. And the excitement. Lit a match. Brought it up to her mouth, her hand hovering, but before she touched the match to the cigarette she was distracted by the sight of a score of police, all in riot gear, who were standing around the entrance to the community centre.

They'd already set aside the tributes to Ruben, piling the flowers and cards and teddy bears into one messy heap some feet away. Now one of their number who was close to the door and holding something red pulled back both arms before thrusting them forward and against the door. There was a bang followed by a series of other bangs as he used what she now realised must be a battering ram to break the door down. And he wasn't the only one: another policeman began pounding at the bricks that blocked access to the vacant building next door.

Ouch – she dropped the match as it burnt her finger. And saw she wasn't the only one to be watching. All over the Lovelace, lethargy was transmuted into action, with people hurrying down the gangways.

The door to the community centre caved in almost at the same time as the bricked-up building was breached. Police surged through both openings as the first of the Lovelace residents appeared at ground level. Leading the charge was a young man who, fists raised, dreadlocks flying, was running at the police. A helicopter was buzzing low. So low Cathy thought it might be going to land inside the Lovelace. And then she saw something else: more policemen, ranks and ranks of them, who must have been waiting around both corners and who now snaked in from either end, blue helmets glinting as they converged in a pincer movement. The helicopter lifted up to pass through the murky sky before beginning its circled return just as a boot shot out in front of the running man and tripped him up. He flew forward, sprawling down. Which is all they saw of him for a while, as a clutch of policemen had soon surrounded him while the rest formed a line, waiting for the next of the Lovelace runners.

7.45 p.m.

As Joshua made his way towards the control room, he heard the sounds of a commotion. He quickened his pace. Other officers, in uniform and plain clothes, and clerks were already crowding the doorway.

They were so busy trying to see what was going on, they didn't register his approach. He took hold of the shoulders of the two at the rear and hauled them backwards. That made a space big enough for him to pass through, which widened when the others saw that it was him.

‘Ah, there you are, sir.' This from Anil Chahda. ‘I was just coming to fetch you. There's been another flare-up in Rockham.'

The biggest screen in the room was running a loop that must have been taken from one of the Air Support Units. A huge concentration of riot officers, who by their helmets' MP codes 01 and 02 were members of the Met, had formed a double line, while a further line was advancing, batons flailing, to push a crowd away. No need to ask where and when: someone had punched that information onto the screen.

A near riot – this one before night had even fallen. ‘Is it still ongoing?'

‘No, sir. They managed to disperse the crowd.'

Thank Christ for that. ‘How did it start?'

‘We thought our suspect might be hiding in the community centre. When our officers tried to gain access, the crowd reacted. We had to send in reinforcements.'

‘Why didn't they use a key?'

‘They didn't have one, sir. The IPCC has one but they failed to return our calls. The only other person known to possess one was a Lovelace resident, name of Marcus Garcant, known to us. On being asked to produce the key, he swallowed it. We have him in custody. But it was the judgement of the officer on the ground that she couldn't waste further time by waiting for the key to come out the other end.'

Marcus Garcant: he'd read that name. Community leader. Anti-police but well loved in Rockham. Was Chahda trying to provoke more trouble? ‘What have you charged Garcant with?'