White Riot (13 page)

Amar Miah walked down the lane from Westgate Road, his walk uneven as his cane navigated the cobbles. He stopped outside the front door, the cane supporting his weight, getting his breath back. Physically he was feeling better all the time. His strength returning, his body repairing itself. But his mind, his spirit, was another matter.

Coming so close to death had made him reassess everything in his life. He thought he had died at one point, lying
on the pavement, life flowing out of him, only to be brought back by the paramedics and doctors. As a result he had given up his heavy drug habit. Even stopped cruising the gay clubs and bars. It had been difficult, but after experiencing first hand how easy it was to die he had clung that bit harder on to life. And now, stronger, more focused, he just wished he had something to do with his life.

Peta’s call was unexpected. He had thought she was phoning about the job she wanted him to do and she had mentioned it but there had been more.

‘Come to Albion,’ she had said, giving him a time.

He had tried to argue, at least ask why, but no more details had been forthcoming.

‘Just come along. We’ll talk then.’

And here he was.

He tried the front door, expecting resistance. There was none; it was unlocked. He pushed it open, went in. Down the hall, still strewn with rubbish and debris, layered with dust. He looked into the front room, what used to be the client room. The big, chocolate leather sofas now slashed and spewing stuffing, mildewed through neglect. Boards at the window throwing selective shafts of early-evening sunlight round the room. No one there. He walked on towards the office. Opened the door.

And stopped.

There sat Joe Donovan on a packing crate, Peta sitting on a partially destroyed office chair next to him. Jamal stood, back to the filing cabinet, hands in pockets. They all looked up as Amar entered. Donovan stood, smiled.

‘Glad you could make it,’ he said.

‘What’s going on?’ said Amar.

Peta stood also. Jamal gave him his full attention.

‘We’ve been talking,’ said Donovan.

Amar waited.

Donovan and Peta shared a look. He spoke first.

‘Fuck Sharkey,’ he said, ‘and fuck waiting for the dust to settle.’

‘And fuck taking on your own crusades when you’ve got a team to help you,’ said Peta.

Donovan couldn’t meet her gaze, looked instead at Amar. ‘Peta’s in, Jamal’s in. I’m in. All we need is a techie. And, of course, we want the best in the business.’

Amar smiled. ‘Where do I sign?’

Trevor Whitman was in the back bedroom at Lillian’s house. He had given up his hotel room; now that Peta knew where he was with her mother there was no need to keep it on.

Philip had used the room as an office, and Lillian hadn’t touched it in the four years he had been dead. Dust covered everything. A computer that had once been state of the art but now looked like something from prehistoric times took up most of the desk. Whitman had cleared most of the peripherals away, made space for his laptop. He was looking over his schedule for the next few days, a three-quarters-empty bottle of red wine beside him, Coldplay playing through iTunes on the laptop. One of the few modern bands he actually liked. He hummed along with the lyrics, something about seeing the world in black and white.

He could get used to this. Lillian downstairs, the promise of good food, conversation, more wine and physical comfort. Almost get used to it. Just one thing to get out of the way first, then he could relax.

His mobile rang. Putting his laptop aside, he picked it up. Peta, perhaps, with an update.

‘Hello.’

Silence.

Whitman’s heart skipped a beat. He knew who it was. He
looked round. Not in Lillian’s house, he thought, anger and fear building within. Like he was being invaded, violated.

He said nothing more, waited for them to speak.

A small laugh came down the line. ‘This is the way the world ends,’ the voice said. ‘This is the way the world ends.’

Whitman returned the next line, couldn’t stop himself. ‘Not with a bang but a whimper.’

That laugh again. ‘Oh, it’ll be a bang. A fucking big one. And the hope of empty men won’t stop it.’

The phone went dead.

Whitman stared at it, the only sounds in the room his breathing and Chris Martin’s voice singing about the black and white world again and how it wasn’t painted right.

He threw the phone as hard as he could at the wall. It shattered and fell.

He started on the wine again.

The night closed in. The heat still oppressive.

He felt it was about to get hotter.

Newcastle was still heating up. And didn’t Detective Inspector Diane Nattrass know it.

The sun over the city was like a magnifying glass held over an anthill, the rising temperatures setting the inhabitants aflame. As people lost sleep, focus and patience with each other, as small irritations grew to large grievances, conflict flashpoints were everywhere. Road rage, abuse, assaults, fights all on the up. And that magnifying glass still overhead, unrelenting. The city was working its way to the brink.

And with the city’s emergency services overstretched, particularly her city centre-based department, the last thing she needed was this.

She looked round, took in the sight. The blast had completely wrecked the car, atomized the body inside, blackened and cracked the road and pavement around it, put all the windows out down the street. Those that remained. The area was beyond being run down; it was derelict. It was a run-down street in Fenham, bordering Arthur’s Seat in the West End of Newcastle. The houses were old and terraced, mostly boarded up, roof tiles missing, tagged by street gangs. Thank God, thought Nattrass, that it hadn’t happened on a more populated street.

Blue and white police tape cordoned off what was left of the car itself. Uniforms were out doing door to door in the surrounding streets. SOCO were all over the scene, sifting, bagging, brushing. Looking for occult clues to stop it being a scene, to turn it into a story.

She hadn’t been able to stop the press running with the story:
SUICIDE BOMBER KILLS SELF IN BUNGLED BOMB ATTACK
. She had been able to keep the TV cameras and print media out of the area. Another area cordon had secured that.

‘Boss.’

She looked round. Stevie Fenton, her new detective sergeant, was coming towards her. He was young, eager, ambitious. Conscientious and good at his job. She had no complaints about him. But his very professionalism just made her miss her old DS.

‘Yes, Stevie,’ she said, turning.

‘Forensics have come up with a name.’ He looked down at his notebook. ‘Safraz Rajput.’ He looked up. ‘Sounds like he fits the bill.’

‘Don’t jump to conclusions,’ she said, pressing down a mild irritation with him. ‘Go on.’

‘Born here, third-generation Indian. Described himself as British, more than anything. Married to a librarian.’

‘Kids?’

Back to his notes. ‘One son. How can he do that, eh?’

‘Anything else?’

‘Lived in Gateshead. Uniforms over the water have had a word with the wife. Worked in IT, played five-a-side on a Thursday, supported Newcastle United. Went out occasionally with his mates on a Friday night, took his wife out to dinner on alternate Saturdays when they could afford it and get a babysitter.’

‘Religion?’

‘Muslim, but vague. Only really went to mosque on special occasions. Family stuff and the like.’ He looked at the rest of the notes, frowned. ‘Says here he had a sizeable DVD collection. Liked American cop shows.
The Wire. The Shield. Sopranos
. Stuff like that. He was a gadget freak, loved his sat
nav. CDs in his car: Kaiser Chiefs, Franz Ferdinand, James Blunt.’

‘His car?’

‘Yeah. Funny thing. Still parked outside Gateshead Leisure Centre. Went for a game of five-a-side with his mates, never seen again until this.’

‘So this wasn’t his car.’ Nattrass looked at the burned-out, blackened shell.

Fenton was looking around, clocking the faces nervously watching them from the ends of the street. The brown faces. ‘Maybe he came up here, got his orders from someone round here.’

‘How?’

‘Someone picked him up. Brought him here.’ Another look round. ‘Gave him his orders, sent him on his way. If it’s goin’ to happen anywhere, it’s goin’ to happen round here. Lucky for us they’re amateurs.’

She looked at Fenton, could almost see what he was thinking. Al-Qaeda cell. Go in guns blazing, breaking down doors, drag some bodies down to the station, get them to talk. Have a major terrorist threat foiled by Stevie Fenton.

‘Let’s not get carried away with hysteria. Let’s examine all the angles first, DS Fenton.’ Not for the first time she wished her old DS was still there. For all his faults, and there were many, Paul Turnbull was a man she could trust.

The city was on a knife edge. The murder of the student, Sooliman Patel, at the hands of racist extremists was bad enough. Now this. The youth’s brutal death had shocked the whole city. He was young, photogenic; he played well on TV. He became a story, a symbol. Different things to different people. Parents saw a dead child. Students saw one of their own. Racists saw one less Paki.

There had been street rallies, demonstrations. A candlelit vigil was planned in the cathedral in his memory.
That would be another potentially explosive meeting. They needed to keep the lid on this as much as possible. It was the kind of thing that would have the city tearing itself apart.

Young, angry Asians were already patrolling the streets around Fenham and Arthur’s Seat, tooled up, telling the media, themselves and anyone who would listen they were there for the protection of the community, making the streets safe for innocent people to walk in at night. Demarcating their territory. Warning the police not to interfere. The fact that Sooliman Patel wasn’t even from that area, that he had lived on a mixed, affluent housing estate in Gosforth, miles away from the west of Newcastle, both culturally and geographically, didn’t matter. Just as long as the club felt strong in a young man’s hand, she knew, the blade felt sharp in his pocket and his heart burned with righteous anger, there would always be an excuse.

Nattrass wiped the sweat from her brow. It was going to be another long day. She felt sure overtime would be sanctioned for this. She didn’t see what the alternative was.

Fenton’s mobile rang. He answered it, talked, hung up. Looked at Nattrass.

‘Just heard. Abdul-Haq’s organized another street rally.’

Nattrass sighed. ‘Oh, brilliant. That’s all we need.’

‘He’s trying to get it down this street, marching on us.’

‘Let him fucking try.’

‘Boss?’ Fenton stared at Nattrass. She was usually in control, hardly ever swore unless it was necessary.

‘Sorry. The heat. Right, get Community Liaison to talk to him, try to head it off. We haven’t finished here yet, he knows that. He’s just causing trouble. Let’s hope he hasn’t got the cameras with him.’

Fenton gave a small laugh. ‘What’s the chances of that, eh?’

Nattrass nodded. Her mobile rang. Without checking the screen she answered it.

‘Hi, Di,’ said a voice she couldn’t immediately place. Gave another sigh. Joe Donovan. Not the last person she wanted to talk to, but very close.

‘Hello, Joe,’ she said, her voice not even disguising her irritation. ‘I’m very busy. I can’t talk right now.’

‘I know you are, making the streets safer for us innocent members of the public—’

‘I only wish you were.’

‘You love working with me and you know it. Unofficially, of course.’

‘What d’you want? Make it quick.’

‘I know.’ Donovan’s voice changed, became more serious. ‘I need Paul Turnbull’s address. Can’t find it anywhere else.’

‘Why? What makes you think he wants to talk to you?’

‘Because I’ve got work for him, Diane. A job.’

Nattrass didn’t take long to make up her mind. She gave him the address, broke the connection. Smiled. He was a good man, Joe Donovan. Irritating bastard, but a good man. She became aware that Fenton was looking at her.

‘Boss?’

She sighed. ‘Right. Get Liaison to talk to Abdul-Haq. Get Forensics to hurry up with their report. I want to interview Safraz Rajput’s wife myself. I want toxicology …’

She went on.

The sun still burning in the sky.

Unrelenting.

Ex-Detective Sergeant Paul Turnbull sat staring at the TV screen, impotent anger raging inside him.

Car finance. Accidents at work that weren’t your fault. Debts consolidated into easily affordable monthly payments. The working classes airing their personal lives on chat shows like dirty laundry on some high-rise balcony. Trisha Trash. Kyle Cunts. Mouth breathers, the lot of them. The middle classes finding cash in the attic, a home in the sun, going on bargain hunts. A black and white film nostalgic for a world that never was. Philip and Fern just filling in time until the viewers died.

Daytime TV. He hated it.

This wasn’t who he was.

This wasn’t where he was supposed to be.

He flicked it off, got up, found he had nowhere to go. The flat was small, shabby, rented. Not a home. Never a home.

He listened. Heard traffic going past on Chillingham Road. The sound of people who had to be somewhere. No noise from below, the pizza place not open until evening when the walls would judder as the current was diverted and the ovens turned on, the ancient, overloaded wiring struggling to cope. Then the smell of cooking dough would waft upwards.

He avoided the place at first, thinking it not just literally but figuratively beneath him, worried even that he would meet some lowlife he had nicked, but that smell began to
entice him down. Now, it was his staple diet. And talking to Iqbal the proprietor was sometimes the only human interaction he would experience for days.

He paced the room, a caged animal. It wasn’t right. He should be out there, in the wild, on the streets. Back on the strength. Looking for the killer of that murdered Asian kid. Looking into that suicide bomber. He bet his ex-DI, Di Nattrass was deep into the investigations and he should have been there with her.