Riot Act (6 page)

“I’m fine,” I said.

She heard the mental step back and toned down her manner. “So, tell me all your news,” she said, still heartily. “How are you keeping? What have you been up to?”

“I’m fine,” I said again. “I’m house-sitting for a friend. Well, dog-sitting actually.” The dog in question, who’d been spark out on the rug in the middle of the living room, sat up long enough to scratch behind his ear with one hind foot, then flopped back down again.

That launched us into a conversation about her dogs, two elderly Labradors. She seemed relieved to be on neutral ground and had nearly started to relax by the time I got round to the real reason for my call.

“I need to pick your brains,” I said.

“About dogs?”

“No, not really, although I suppose that comes into it,” I replied, thinking of the part Friday had unwittingly played in last night’s events. “I need to pick your professional brains.”

There was silence again, and this time it went on for a while. My father’s lucrative job as a consultant surgeon has meant my mother never needed to work after she married, but to pass the time she’d become a local magistrate.

That had turned out not to be as much use as you’d imagine when it came to my own trial, but sordid little cases like mine didn’t crop up too regularly in the stockbroker belt of Cheshire. Burglary, however, was another thing.

“Of-of course I’ll help, Charlotte, if I can,” she said now, wary, but still amenable.

Before she could change her mind, I jumped right in and explained about the botched burglary by Roger and his mates, including the injury to Fariman, but glossing over any active part I’d played in the proceedings.

I finished by telling her about my feeling that Roger should end up in court, and O’Bryan’s opinion that a caution would better keep him on the straight and narrow. “But, he’s already had cautions before,” I said. “I don’t know what to do for the best and I was hoping for some advice.”

“Not exactly the sort of advice mothers are usually called upon to dispense,” she said wryly, and for the first time there was a trace of humour in her voice.

“No, I suppose not,” I agreed.

“I’ll do a little research, if that’s all right. I never applied to sit on the juvenile bench, but one of my colleagues deals with that type of case and I’d like to check my facts absolutely before I speak. Can you wait a few days. Maybe a week?”

I thought of O’Bryan and wasn’t sure how long I could stall him without making a decision.

My mother heard the hesitation and mistook the reason for it. “He’s not threatening you is he, Charlotte?” she demanded. “Are you quite sure you’re safe where you are?”

“Oh yes,” I said, glibly. “I don’t think anything’s going to happen for a while on this one.”

Honestly. There are days when I only open my mouth to change feet.

It may have been a coincidence, but the trashing of Eric O’Bryan’s Mercedes seemed to mark the beginning of a step-up in the usual level of crime on the Lavender Gardens estate. The next day all the cars which were left parked overnight on Kirby Street had been vandalised.

I made a mental inventory of the damage when Friday took me out for his regular morning walk. I had to keep him on a short lead to stop him from paddling about in the debris with a blatant disregard for vet’s bills.

By the sounds of the shouting going on, the kids of the street were getting it in the neck for the damage. I supposed it was difficult for them to convince anyone they were blameless in this exercise, when just about everyone with a net curtain to lurk behind had seen them pulling the Merc apart the previous day.

As I waited for Friday to finish his minute nasal examination of a tree trunk, it struck me abruptly that, unless they were very, very stupid, that was precisely why the kids on the road hadn’t had anything to do with it.

It was a train of thought that kept me occupied almost right back to Pauline’s front door. I discovered when I got there that two pairs of brown eyes were anxiously watching my return through a gap in the hedge.

Aqueel and Gin were Nasir’s younger brother and sister, of around eight and six. I discovered very soon after my arrival that they regarded Friday with a kind of horrified fascination. They were particularly intrigued by the fact that I could get so close to him, when Pauline was away, without getting bitten. I didn’t enlighten them as to how suddenly tolerant the dog became of the person who controlled the can opener. When Pauline returned, she would want to find Friday’s good name savagely intact.

I waved to them through the hedge and, having been spotted, they waved back. Or at least, Aqueel did, being the braver of the two. Gin merely ducked behind her brother’s back, chewing her hair.

“Is Friday being very fierce today, Charlie?” Aqueel asked me gravely.

“Yes Aqueel, I’ve struggled to keep him from attacking several people,” I told him, with equal seriousness, adding with a hard stare, “He is very annoyed about all this broken glass all over the pavements where he has to walk. It hurts his feet and makes him especially bad tempered.”

Aqueel swallowed and, over his shoulder, his sister’s eyes grew round as coffee cups.

I knew I was trying that one on for size, but I was pretty sure that one of the Mercedes vandals had been Aqueel. Despite his angelic face and general air of butter-wouldn’t-melt.

“Please tell Friday that it wasn’t me, Charlie,” he begged now. “It wasn’t. Honest!”

I glanced at the dog, who had given up waiting for me to open the front door and had sat down heavily on the drive. He stared up at my face with his head on one side, as though considering.

I shrugged. “I’m not sure he believes you, Aqueel,” I said sadly. “You see, he thinks he saw you out there yesterday, and—”

“That was yesterday,” Aqueel protested. “All these cars, that was not us. It was white people, like you.”

“Aqueel! Gin! Get inside immediately, and get ready for school.” It was Nasir who rebuked them, stepping out of the front porch to favour me with a contemptuous glare. He cuffed them both round the head as they dodged under his arm and through the doorway.

Nasir wasn’t dressed for work today. No ripped jeans and T-shirt, but designer labels were in abundance and he had the right build to show them off.

“Morning Nasir,” I said now, as cheerfully as I could, but he didn’t answer. Before I could find a way of bringing the conversation round to his outburst at Shahida’s house, he’d ducked back indoors without speaking further, letting the front door close firmly behind him. I shrugged. There’d be another time. Then I finally let a patiently yawning Friday into his own home for breakfast.

***

It wasn’t until later that afternoon that I was treated to the next instalment. I’d decided to wheel the Suzuki onto the concrete flagged patio in the back garden to give it a good clean, having only worked a half day at the gym.

If you’re into serious body-building, and you live anywhere round Lancaster, then the chances are that you do your training at Attila’s place. Not that Attila was the muscular and athletic owner’s real name, but his German parentage and almost stereotypical Aryan good looks made the misnomer inevitable.

I’d been going to the gym on and off for practically as long as I’d lived in Lancaster, and I’d been working there for around three months.

I’d fallen into the job by accident, really, having spent a good deal of my time rehabilitating there during the early part of the summer. I might have technically emerged as the victor from my encounter with a vicious killer the winter before, but it was a points decision at best. The knife wounds had healed a lot quicker than the broken bones, and it had taken me quite a while to get back to something approaching full fitness.

By that time, Attila had grown used to seeing me as part of the furniture.

“I think I need to encourage more women to come and train here,” he told me. “Having you around to show them we are not all macho apes with bulging muscles has been very useful, Charlie, and you know what you’re doing. We’ll see how it goes, yes?”

And, having nothing better to occupy me at the time, I’d agreed.

Working a regular number of set hours a week had taken a bit of getting used to after several years of working for myself, but I was just about getting into the swing of it.

It had meant that I’d neglected the bike a bit, which was not something I could afford to do when the council were throwing salt around the roads like it was going out of fashion. The aluminium box frame was pitting with corrosion faster than I could keep up with it.

I washed the worst of the salt away thoroughly, then leathered it off and gave the whole of the bodywork and the exposed bits of frame a coat of wax. While I waited for the wax to glaze over, I sat back on my heels and just looked at the bike.

It wasn’t in its first flush of youth, but it was still my pride and joy. Lightweight and compact, the two-stroke RGV was frighteningly quick for a quarter-litre machine, with straight-line performance that bikes more than twice its size struggled to match. Not to mention the cornering agility of a cheetah.

They were out of production now, and when the time eventually came to replace it, I struggled to know what to go for instead. Which made keeping it in good condition even more important.

“Oh, there you are, Charlie,” Mrs Gadatra’s head appeared over the fence. She seemed to have recovered her good humour. “Did you see all the mess on the street this morning? Wasn’t it terrible?”

I agreed that it was and inquired after Fariman’s condition.

“They are still worried about the infection, but his breathing is much easier,” Mrs Gadatra replied. She stared at the Suzuki. “However do you ride such a machine?” she asked. “Whatever does your mother think?”

“She thinks it’s better than walking,” I said, which was nearly the truth.

“These days, I can understand her thinking,” Mrs Gadatra said, nodding wisely so that her earrings jangled. “Still, at least this street should be safer soon, don’t you think?”

“Safer soon? What do you mean? Have the police caught the vandals?”

“The police? Ha.” Mrs Gadatra pulled a face and flapped her hand languidly from the wrist at the very suggestion, setting a dozen gold bangles jingling. “I don’t think they have even looked,” she said. “No, last night the Residents’ Committee asked Mr Garton-Jones to come and take over. I think they were going to telephone him this afternoon. There is another Committee meeting next week. You should come along perhaps. But isn’t that good news?”

“I’m sorry,” I said, shaking my head, “I think I missed an episode somewhere. Who is Garton-Jones and what is he taking over?”

Mrs Gadatra laughed. “Oh, of course. I think this is before you came here, but I’m surprised you haven’t heard about him, though. He and his men have been patrolling the streets on some of the other estates. Of course he is not cheap, but the crime there was awful before he came, and now they say it has almost disappeared completely because of him. He sounds wonderful.”

“Mother!” Nasir’s voice from the back doorway as he came out into the garden was sharp enough to cut through his mother’s chatter. “The children will be home from school soon and they will be hungry.”

“Oh yes, of course, Nasir, I was just coming now,” his mother replied serenely, and hurried inside, giving me a cheery wave as she went.

I turned my attention back to the bike. The polish had set to a fine white mist and I began rubbing it off briskly with a soft dry cloth.

“It’s a bit of a waste, isn’t it?” Nasir’s voice made me jump. I hadn’t realised he was still in the garden, regarding me over the fence with that brooding stare.

“What’s a waste?”

He looked me up and down with a slow thoroughness that was as insulting as it was intended to be. “A bike like that belonging to a girl.”

It was the way he said the word “girl” that really got my back up. The same way some people would say “whore”.

“I hate to break this to you, Nasir,” I returned sweetly, “but we’ve just hit the twenty-first century, not the nineteenth. Women have the vote and everything now. Much as I’m sure you’d approve, we can’t all be kept permanently chained to the kitchen sink, barefoot and pregnant.”

His head came up, eyes flashing as his mouth set into a line of fury.

“You want to watch your step,” he hissed, raising his finger. “You are an outsider here, and you are not welcome.” With that friendly thought he stepped back from the fence, his body rigid. I heard the back door slam behind him.

Ah well, I thought, so much for maintaining cordial relations with the neighbours.
Sorry Pauline.

***

The day after, my morning walk with Friday revealed that the police were back on Lavender Gardens. It was half a dozen or so burglaries this time, which had brought them out. That and, I suspect, a growing realisation that if they didn’t at least make a show of force round the estate, the public’s trust in them was going to break down completely.