White Riot (17 page)

‘Hi, Claire,’ he said, ‘it’s me.’

She was taking a long drink from a Bacardi Breezer in her handbag, swilling it round her mouth before swallowing. She looked up. The streetlight made her face look even gaunter than when he had last seen her, the hollows underneath her cheekbones and eyes almost skeletal. Her eyes, even in this light, he noticed, were pinwheeling.

It took her a while but she recognized him. ‘Paul.’

‘Yeah.’

‘What d’you want? What have you got that I want?’ Her fingers played against his chest in an approximation of flirtatiousness that she had been doing so long it was now automatic. She giggled in attempted coquettishness.

He shut his eyes, shook his head. He hated to see her like this, fought hard to be non-judgemental about her, to just talk to her.

‘Listen, Claire, I just wanted to let you know, I’m going to be away for a while. Work. Don’t know how long for.’

‘But what about me?’ She grabbed the front of his shirt.

Turnbull took a second before answering her. Addicts were so selfish, so unappreciative of everything anyone ever did for them. Yet still he did it. He had no choice. He had promised. She was his responsibility.

‘Just listen a minute,’ he said. ‘There’s someone you can contact if you need anything,’ he said. He handed her a card. ‘Joe Donovan. You’ve met him before. You probably can’t remember. Call him if you need anything. Right?’

She nodded, trying to focus her eyes on his face.

Turnbull stood back, took her in. So thin, her clothes as
worn out as she was. He had seen that downward spiral so depressingly often.

‘I thought you were going to that clinic. Getting yourself cleaned up.’

She sighed. ‘I am. I was. It’s just … Don’t keep going on at me. I’ll do it. In me own time.’

‘OK. I’ve got to go.’ He didn’t hug her. He didn’t know how. ‘Bye.’

She replied.

He turned and left. Behind him, another man was already approaching her.

Jason Mason couldn’t sleep. Not because of the rats gnawing nearby, or the smell of the bins although they were bad enough. But because of what was going on in his head.

The sleeping bag was on the floor in the back of a second-hand shop. Insect-and animal-chewed mismatched carpet squares, offcuts and bare boards competed to see which could hold the most dirt. Around him were battered metal shelves holding cardboard boxes filled with old, used cameras, mobile phones, video game consoles. Plus bigger pieces: electric guitars, keyboards, amplifiers. Even a dismantled drum kit.

The shop was a front. Norrie was a fence. A go-to guy for Newcastle muggers, burglars and boosters, he kept smackheads and crackheads solvent. Anything saleable went in the window, was soon snapped up. But he was a victim of his own success: too well known to the police to handle anything big and valuable, so he had been forced to improvise. He now made most of his money through stolen credit card details, selling identities, working online. But he still kept the shop supplied. For appearances, if nothing else.

After leaving Jamal’s place, Jason had gone straight to him with the iPods.

‘Good resale, no problem sellin’ this.’ Norrie looked it over, down at the other one on the counter next to it. He was short, round, with thinning, steel-wool hair unsuccessfully flattened down to his scalp, big glasses, greasy thumbprints glinting off them in the weak light. Behind the glass his eyes blinked continuously. A nervous habit, Jason reckoned. ‘Anything on it worth keepin’ that I can download? Sell separately?’

‘Dunno. Listen, Norrie’ he had said, looking round anxiously all the time as if expecting someone to run in and grab him, ‘I need to ask you a favour.’

‘Don’t do fuckin’ favours.’ He was scrabbling about in the till for notes. ‘You’ll wanna be my fuckin’ friend next.’

Jason had expected Norrie to say that. He had to try harder. ‘No, listen, this is … this is good. I’ve got somethin’ else. Somethin’ big, y’knaw? But I need somethin’ in return for it.’

Norrie didn’t look up. ‘Not jewellery. Can’t shift that stuff at the moment. Prices aren’t worth shit.’

‘Naw, better than that.’

Norrie sighed. ‘How much and what is it?’

‘Information.’

Norrie looked up. ‘What information?’

‘The party.’ Jason could hardly keep the excitement out of his voice. ‘They’re plannin’ somethin’ big. Thor’s Hammer, it’s called.’

‘So?’

‘I mean big. Really big. A lot of people would pay loads to know what they were plannin’.’

‘Oh, yeah? An’ how d’you know all this?’

‘Because—’
I’m the special one
. He nearly said it. Stopped himself just in time.

He had got to know Norrie through the boys in the Gibraltar. Their fence of choice. For the cause, they had
always said. His shop was on Westgate Road, sandwiched between two motorbike shops. Just a hefty stone’s throw from the Gib. Not that Norrie was a fully paid-up member of the party – they wouldn’t allow it; they thought he was Jewish, although he was actually Scottish – but he did say he was sympathetic to their aims. Kev had once said he would be sympathetic to anybody’s aims if there was money in it.

Jason couldn’t tell him. Because if Norrie knew that, then he would just phone someone up, tell them he knew where Jason was, wait for the reward. And he knew what would happen to him then.

‘Because what? What d’you know? What information?’ Norrie was starting to get angry. Eyes blinking faster. Jason had just stood there with his mouth open.

‘Can’t tell you now,’ he said.

‘Well, you’re fuckin’ useless, then, aren’t you?’ He looked at the iPods. ‘Give you fifty for the pair.’

Jason nodded. Norrie moved over to the till.

Jason had looked round the shop, an idea forming in his head. He had to think quickly if it was going to work. ‘Listen, Norrie.’ Another look round to check there was no one after him. ‘I need … somewhere to stay. For a bit.’

Norrie blinked behind his filthy glasses, counted out bills. ‘Salvation Army’s that way.’

Jason screwed up his eyes, thought harder. This had to work. Had to. The alternative didn’t bear thinking about. ‘I’ve got a … a prop’sition. For you.’

Norrie looked at him. Waited.

‘Yeah. Yeah. I stay here, right? You let me stay here. I know you do that.’ Norrie had given a few wanted faces a place to stay until things had cooled off for them.

‘Not any more. Too fuckin’ risky.’

Jason thought hard. ‘I’ll work for you, right?’ He looked at Norrie, a hopeful little smile on his face. ‘Stay here an’ work for you. Yeah?’

‘Fuck off. Can’t afford to pay anyone else.’

Wasn’t working. Jason shook his head quickly, tried to get his brain functioning. ‘Naw, naw, not like that …’

‘What like, then?’

Yeah, he thought, what like, then? ‘On the street, like. Nickin’ stuff. Cards an’ that. Bringin’ them back, an’ you sellin’ them.’ Jason stood still. He grinned this time, pleased with his quick thinking, his brilliant idea.

Norrie looked at him. Jason could almost see the numbers rolling around his eyeballs like they did in old cartoons. He waited. Eventually Norrie nodded.

‘Stay in the back there. I’ll pay you what I think stuff is worth, take your rent out of that. Food you find yourself. You don’t like that, you can fuck off.’

Jason nodded his head vigorously. ‘Yeah, yeah, I like it. ’S great.’

Norrie folded the pound notes up, put them back in the till. ‘Your first bit of rent.’

Jason watched the money disappear back into the drawer. He said nothing, not wanting to jeopardize his position already. Norrie looked at him.

‘What you still standin’ there for? Fuck off out of it an’ get some work done.’

Jason had done as he was told.

That was a couple of days ago. Now Jason lay there, as far away from sleep as he was a concept of home. He couldn’t keep living like this, running like this. He just wanted peace.

He thought of Jamal’s house. It had seemed so cosy, so comfortable. How come he had somewhere like that? How come it was always other people?

Never him.

So he lay there in his sleeping bag, listened to the rats, tried not to smell the bins behind him. Bullying back the tears. Tried to will himself to sleep.

And dream of a better future.

The TV news was white hot the next morning, and the run-up to what was just another boring local election was taking on almost national significance.

Images of police clashing with balaclavaed rioters were on every channel, along with footage of screaming, terrified marchers running into the cathedral. Rick Oaten’s face followed, an interview held immediately after his dinner at the Assembly Rooms: ‘We are a legitimate political party with respectable policies. Like any other party. We are not responsible for acts of random violence such as this, which I join you in condemning.’

He seemed calm and reasonable, debonair in his bow tie and dinner jacket. Unruffled. His words matched his appearance. Abdul-Haq, however, appeared as the opposite. Interviewed in the cathedral directly after the attack, he was visibly shaken, his mood alternating between fear and anger: ‘This was a peaceful march in memory of a young boy’s life. A boy murdered by racist thugs, the kind of thugs who did this to us! This is not who we are! We are men of peace! Peace!’ His face, in wide-eyed close-up, failed to match his words.

And back to the studio.

Donovan turned from the TV, shouted into the kitchen. ‘Don’t think we’ll be getting an interview with Abdul-Haq today. Might be a bit busy.’

Peta walked in, two mugs of coffee in her hands. ‘You never know,’ she said, ‘might want to talk to as many journalists as possible.’

She sat down next to him, watched the remainder of the bulletin. A long piece about the proposed razing and rebuilding of the West End of Newcastle, replacing terraced houses and crumbling tower blocks with what they described as ‘an urban brownfield regeneration scheme’. The screen showed computer-generated images of sculpted parkland with cutting-edge blocks of housing, shopping complexes and offices dotted about on it. It was a multi-billion-pound project. If it ever went through. Talking heads’ pieces from local councillors showed it was having trouble being passed.

‘Hey, there’s Colin Baty,’ said Peta.

The screen was filled by his round, red face. ‘Obviously there are things we need to look at, but in principle the proposal’s sound. It’ll mean much-needed jobs for a deprived area and, at the end of the day, better housing and better amenities.’

‘Yeah,’ said Donovan, ‘if you can afford to live in them.’ He turned to Peta. ‘That’s who terrified Trevor Whitman?’

‘You want to see him on full power.’

The weather came up next. More heat.

‘Right,’ said Peta, snapping the TV off, ‘to work.’

The previous evening they had ordered an Indian takeaway instead of eating Peta’s pasta. Jamal’s relief had been apparent, earning him a scornful look from Peta. He had eaten and gone to bed. Not like him, Donovan knew.

‘Did you have much luck finding him?’ Donovan had said, knowing what was on the boy’s mind.

‘Nah, man.’

‘You going to try again tomorrow?’

Jamal had nodded.

‘OK. When this case is finished, I’ll give you a hand. We’ll all get on it, yeah?’

Jamal had nodded, gone in the living room to watch TV.

Donovan and Peta had sat either side of the dining room table and got down to work, Donovan through the pile of photocopied old newspapers Peta had brought back from the library, Peta surfing the net, then through Whitman’s book, more thoroughly this time. There was no mention of Peta’s parents. The relief on her face had been palpable.

They had then planned what to do next. Peta showed him a photo in the book of the Hollow Men. ‘And they weren’t all men, either,’ she said.

‘How very patriarchal for such heavy progressives,’ Donovan had replied.

‘Indeed. Five men, one woman.’ She showed him the photo.

Five people, young, idealistic and full of hope, taken at a party some time in the early Seventies judging by the clothes. Trevor Whitman stood in the middle looking suitably charismatic in leather jacket, white kaftan and faded Levi’s. An urban Jesus Christ Superstar. Next to him was a young Asian man with the obligatory long hair, wearing a velvet jacket and holding a cigarette in one hand and a glass of red wine in the other.

‘Our friend Abdul-Haq,’ said Peta. ‘Or Gideon Ahmed, as he was known then.’

‘In less strict times, obviously.’

‘Looks like Cat Stevens,’ said Peta, smiling. ‘You know, I still have a problem with all this.’

‘All what?’

‘Well, religious extremism. Political extremists you can cope with. They’re not usually ready to die for their beliefs. But religious extremists, you can’t reason with them. Because God tells them to do it. And anything you say or do against them is just a test from God.’

‘Not just Muslims, though. Look at the American
Christians. Censoring free speech, burning books, blowing up abortion clinics and, worst of all, voting for George Bush.’

‘You’ve got a point.’

‘When the political extremists start blowing themselves up, that’s when we’ve got trouble.’

They went back to the photo. A woman stood on Whitman’s other side, gazing up at him like she was basking in the light from his halo. With long dark hair and flowing Indian-cotton-print dress, she looked the archetypal hippie chick.

‘Mary Evans, I presume,’ said Donovan.

Peta looked at her notes. ‘Now a community activist. Well respected. Gets things done. And a poet. Award-winning, apparently. And a lesbian. Big advocate of gay liberation, women’s rights, that sort of thing.’

‘The way she’s staring at our Trevor here, she doesn’t look too lesbian,’ said Donovan.

Peta ran her finger down the notes again. ‘Late convert from what I can gather given some of her quotes. Says men abused her, systematically, for years. Would never trust them again. Only trust women. Lot of anger. Channelled it into her poetry.’

‘Strange how you can shift your whole sexuality like that.’

‘Not really,’ said Peta. ‘I don’t think we’re as hard-wired as you think. There’s been times in the past when … never mind.’