White Riot (23 page)

Peta handed over her card. Kaye looked concerned as she did so. Peta imagined it wouldn’t be in Richie Vane’s possession for very long.

Richie Vane touched his nose, gave a wink. ‘If I hear anythin’ …’

‘Right you are.’

He looked hard at Peta. Smiled. ‘Mary said.’

‘Said what?’ Peta’s voice flat, uninflected.

‘Lillian’s daughter. God, yeah, family resemblance is strong.’ He nodded. ‘She nearly joined the Hollow Men.’

‘Lots of people say I look like my mother.’ said Peta.

‘Spittin’ image.’ He scrutinized her again. ‘And your father.’ Another nod.

‘Philip Knight.’

Richie Vane frowned. ‘Who?’

Peta’s chest fluttered. ‘Philip Knight. He was my father.’

Richie shrugged, no recognition of the name in his eyes. ‘Don’t know him. No, Trevor was—’ Seeing the look on her face, he said nothing more.

‘What?’ Peta said, her voice rising.

He nodded at Kaye, agitated. ‘I want to go now.’

‘What d’you mean about Trevor? Trevor was what?’

‘Please don’t excite Richie,’ said Kaye.

‘Him?’ Peta was almost shouting. ‘What about me?’

Richie was on his feet, Kaye guiding him to the door. ‘Sorry.’ He shrugged as he was escorted from the room.

Left alone, the colour drained completely from Peta’s face. She looked like a ghost. Kaye returned, saying something about not antagonizing her client, but Peta didn’t listen. Kaye walked her down the stairs and out of the building. Peta didn’t hear a word she said. She got straight in the car, slammed the door, locked it behind her. Put her face in her hands.

‘What did he mean?’ she said out loud. ‘What do they mean, all of them? What are they trying to tell me?’ Tears were welling, panic rising. She tried to keep it all in.

Put her head back and screamed.

Peta didn’t know how long she sat there in the car, waiting for the tears to stop, the wave of fear to ride out of her body, but it was beginning to get dark when she opened her eyes again. She took a deep breath. Another. Looked at her hands. They were shaking as much as Richie Vane’s had been.

She rummaged in her bag, reached for her mobile, powered it up. She needed someone to talk to. She had a message.

‘Hi,’ said Donovan’s voice, ‘it’s me. Hope you’re OK. Listen, I’ve been trying to reach you. I had that meeting with Abdul-Haq. It went, well, I’ll tell you when I see you. Thing is, this is what I’ve been trying to reach you for. I’ve tracked down Maurice Courtney. The last of the Hollow Men. He’s in London and he can see me tomorrow. I know that we should get together and compare notes from today, but I thought it best to follow this up. So I’m off to London tonight. I know I won’t see him till tomorrow but I thought it … there’s some things I need to take care of down there. First.’

She knew what that would be.

‘So I’ll see him tomorrow, then come straight back. Give me a ring when you get this. Actually, do it later. I’ll be driving. I won’t hear you.’ He gave something that sounded like a sigh and a laugh. ‘Oh, well. Hope you’re OK, like I said. Speak to you later.’

She put the phone down. Sighed. Picked it up again, called Amar. Got voicemail.

‘Amar, give me a ring when you get this. I’m … Just give me a ring.’

She was about to try Jamal but just didn’t have the energy to press the buttons.

‘Oh, what’s the fucking point?’ she said out loud.

She switched the phone off, threw it on the passenger seat. She wanted to talk to her mother. But she didn’t dare. In case she said something Peta didn’t want to hear. But she needed something. She needed help. She looked at her shaking hands again. Listened to what her body told her.

She knew what she wanted. Knew where she had to go.

Started the car.

Drove into the city centre.

Jamal didn’t know what else to do. He had tried everyone’s number, got voicemail for all of them. What was the point of having a mobile if it was never on? He hadn’t left messages. He didn’t know what to say.

Instead he had walked down to Amar’s flat, rang the bell. No reply. Beyond a joke now.

He let himself in with his key. No Amar. His laptop was set up, lights blinking away on it. He must still be monitoring Whitman’s phone, thought Jamal, routing the signal to his work mobile. The one Jamal had been calling was sitting on the table.

He sighed, sat down. Didn’t know what to do with himself. Who to talk to. He couldn’t call the police; they would trace it, haul him in. No one to talk to, to help. There was nothing he could do. He knelt on the floor, started going through Amar’s DVD collection. Hoped he could find something there to lose himself in. Get those images out of his head.

Knew it wouldn’t work.

It was going to be a long night.

*

Amar stood at the bar in Camp David, the rhythm of the music pulsing through his body. He felt connected. Happy. Alive.

He had sat in his flat all afternoon, monitoring the airwaves, letting his mind wander, reaching conclusions. Getting shot and nearly dying had changed his perspective on things. He had been happily throwing his life away before the shooting, out of his head with drugs and casual, unprotected sex, playing Russian roulette with his body. Nearly dying had caused him to reassess that. He hadn’t had a drink, taken a pill, done a line or had sex for months.

And it was starting to affect him.

Because the shooting had taught him something else. Life was too short. It was for living, for taking hold of life and getting everything you possibly could out of it. So there he had sat, watching lights blink, listen in to ghost conversations, wait for Whitman’s phone to spring to life. And it hadn’t happened.

Yeah, he had thought, his hand unconsciously stroking the pitted skin of his stomach through his T-shirt. Life’s too short. So he had put the phone on relay, stood up, walked to the bathroom without his cane, got ready and gone out.

He stood watching. Groups gathered round small tables on square stools that he didn’t think he would be able to get up from if he sat down. So he stood at the bar, the lights bouncing off bare brick wall, sipped from his bottle of Becks. The alcohol, long absent from his body, hit like a liquid endorphin rush. He had been eyed up on entering, just as he had done. He took another swig, tried to ignore the clichéd house remix of a Scissor Sisters track pumping out of the sound system, looked around. A few possibles, some definites, some definitely nots.

He smiled to himself, back in the swing. Like it was only days, not months.

Men smiled, threw him glad eyes. Mostly definitely nots, so he ignored them. Kept looking. Clocked a guy at the end of the bar, half in shadow. Big, muscled, with short, razor-cropped hair. Jeans, T-shirt and denim jacket. Promising.

Amar took his drink, moved slowly along. Stopped in the man’s line of vision, waited. Eventually he looked up. A rough face, nose broken a couple of times, not reset too well, a flecking of small scars. But his eyes. Soft. Lost. Something broken in there.

Amar found an instant connection.

He caught Amar’s glance, turned away. Amar waited, kept looking. The man slowly turned his head. Hurt eyes on Amar. Amar smiled, moved nearer.

‘Hi,’ he said. ‘Buy you a drink?’ Just like he’d never been away.

He said nothing, just looked scared. Amar knew what scared him. Himself. Wanting to connect, seeing only what holds him back. We’ve all been there. One time or another.

‘Just a drink,’ said Amar. ‘I’m having one.’ He motioned to the barman.

‘Same … same as you,’ the man said. He pushed his empty beer bottle along the bar towards Amar. Hand shaking.

Amar smiled, ordered the drinks.

‘First time here?’

The man nodded, eyes on the bar. ‘For a while.’

‘Don’t worry. I won’t bite. Not unless you want me to.’

He looked like he wanted to smile but couldn’t. Took a mouthful of beer instead. Amar reckoned those beers weren’t the first of the night.

‘So what’s your name, then?’

His mouth opened. Amar waited. This would be the turning point. The rest of the night decided on whether he gave a truthful answer. And Amar would know.

‘Kev,’ the man said. ‘My name’s Kev.’

‘Amar. Nice to meet you.’

And Amar knew he was telling the truth.

Peta opened the door of the Forth, paused for a few seconds on the threshold, entered.

She walked up to the bar, music pounding in her ears, people all around her. Fear of suicide bombers and riots hadn’t stopped drinkers coming out, enjoying themselves. But then, as she knew, there wasn’t much that stopped drinkers coming out.

She waited patiently to be served, the queue at the bar three deep in places. She had ample time to back out, to listen to that voice in her head, getting smaller the nearer she got to the bar. Someone was served, turned, took their drinks away. A space. She grabbed it.

She could have still turned round, walked out. She didn’t have to get the ten-pound note out of her purse, put it between her first two fingers, wait with her elbow on the counter for service.

She didn’t have to tell the tall, young barman with the dyed hair and the pierced face that she wanted a gin and tonic, double. But she did. She didn’t have to pay him, take the change and go to find a corner of the bar where she wouldn’t be bothered. Where she could look at the drink, gaze at its beauty. See how bright and clear and inviting it looked. Bubbling and sparkling and fizzing.

Her heart was beating like an express train was going to come steaming through her ribcage.

She placed it on her lips, felt the bubbles pop on the front of her face, the promise of enjoyment. She tried to smile.

The drink got closer. She tipped it forward, closed her eyes, her head back, ready to receive. She could almost taste
it, almost feel it run down her throat into her stomach. Rounding the edges off her anxiety, muting the sound of the questions in her head. Knew it would go down quickly, be followed by another. And another.

Her lips were wet with the liquid. All she had to do was swallow.

One gulp. Down.

She opened her eyes. Looked at it.

Couldn’t do it.

The glass fell from her fingers, smashing on the floor. People looked round, frowned. Peta didn’t see them. She ran for the door, out into the night.

Running like her life depended on it.

Every time Jamal had closed his eyes he had been back in the shop.

The hanging body covered in horror-film gore. The mess, blood everywhere. And Jason nowhere to be seen. At first he had thought the boy was dead too, but he had replayed the events over and over in his mind and he was sure Jason wasn’t there.

His next thought: had Jason done it? No. He was only small and it would have taken some strength to hang that guy on the back of the door. So whoever had done it had taken Jason. That meant his secret was real.

Jamal had drifted in and out of sleep, waking with a start each time he saw that hanging body again. He was never so pleased to see morning, had lain there watching the sun come up.

He couldn’t wait to tell Amar. But Amar’s bedroom door was firmly closed. So Jamal had taken a shower and was just getting dried when he heard voices outside. Amar’s and another. OK, cool. He had been round the bars and brought someone back. No problem. Just as long as they leave soon. What he had to say couldn’t wait.

But the voice was familiar. And not in a good way.

Unplaceable but with unpleasant associations; someone bad.

Dripping wet and naked, Jamal padded to the door, unlocked it, pulled it open slightly, looked out. He could see a sliver of hallway, voices coming from the kitchen at the
end. A glimpse of movement as Amar and his guest went about getting breakfast ready. He tried to tune in, listen.

‘Some serious tattoos.’ Amar’s voice.

‘If you’d seen them, would you have talked to me?’

Amar again after a pause. ‘You didn’t have them on show. You didn’t want them seen.’

A sigh from the guest, then: ‘Somethin’ I did. When I was younger. They’re just … there.’

‘That’s OK,’ said Amar. ‘You don’t have to explain yourself. I’m just some bloke you met in a bar. A one-night stand.’ There was a pause. ‘Aren’t I?’

The other man didn’t answer.

Jamal closed the door, stood with his back against it. He thought, hard:

Tattoos. Tattoos. The kind Amar didn’t like. Tattoos.

Played back the voice in his head again. Combined with tattoos.

He shivered, suddenly cold in a way that the warm bathroom could never reach. He had recognized the voice.

The skinheads who had abused him the other day, outside the house. Until Joe had seen them off.

It was him. The leader. Shit.

Jamal locked the door, grabbed his towel, wrapped himself in it. He looked round frantically, knowing there wasn’t another way out. He needed to think. No way he could tell Amar anything now. Had to get some clothes on, get to his room without the skinhead seeing him. But it meant passing the kitchen.

He carefully undid the bolt, cracked the door open. Listened.

The sound of physical movement, as if they were pulling apart from each other. Then Amar’s voice: ‘D’you want a shower or anything?’

‘I’d … I’d better be off. Get goin’.’

That was something, thought Jamal.

‘Sure I can’t tempt you?’

The skinhead said he couldn’t be tempted. That he had to go.

Movement. Jamal quickly shut the door, locked it again.

He waited, listening intently for the footsteps he knew would go past. Soon. Any second. Waited. Now, surely.

Nothing.

He opened the door again, listened. From the kitchen came unmistakable sounds. The skinhead wouldn’t be going anywhere any time soon. More movement, the two of them going to Amar’s bedroom. Jamal waited until the bedroom door shut, then, after counting to a hundred very slowly, made his way cautiously out of the bathroom.

He tiptoed down the hall, ignoring the damp trail his feet were leaving, crept round the corner to where the bedrooms were. The door was open slightly. He risked a glimpse inside. Saw Amar taking his robe off. He looked away, saw the other man.