RIOT ACT: Charlie Fox book two

by Zoe Sharp

  A dark blue horsebox was ignoring the double-yellow lines on the main road, under the streetlights, but I don’t think the driver was likely to get a ticket. The ramp was down and four big well-muscled police horses were being hurriedly led out. They had riot gear on, too.

  Madeleine was abruptly waved on by one of the fluoro-jacketed coppers directing traffic.

  “Move it on,” he shouted. “Now!”

  Madeleine wound down her window. “What’s happened to the residents?” she demanded. It would have taken a more determined man to have ignored her.

  The copper jerked his head. “The ones that aren’t still in there are down at the Black Lion,” he said, grudgingly. “Now get this thing shifted!”

  We moved away, heading for the pub where I’d attended the Residents’ Committee meeting. This time, though, there’d be no Langford sneering at me from a corner of the bar.

  Most of the residents of Lavender Gardens seemed to be crowded together in the car park outside the pub. They milled around with the kind of shell-shocked lethargy that overwhelms disaster victims the world over.

  We pulled up by the entrance, and Jacob slotted the Range Rover in behind us. We all jumped down onto the tarmac.

  As soon as I was out, I’d started moving. “Look for Pauline,” I called back.

  “But what about Roger?” Madeleine asked.

  I turned briefly. “If we’re going to have to go in there we only want to do it once,” I said. “If Pauline hasn’t got out yet, we may as well get two for the price of one, don’t you think?”

  Nobody argued and we pressed on. It wasn’t easy to pick out one specific person in the darkened mass, but eventually it was the flash of the white dressings on Pauline’s face that led me to her. That and Friday standing rigidly at her feet.

  When I got closer I discovered that Pauline was also holding Mrs Gadatra’s youngest, Gin, wrapped in a blanket and fast asleep. Mrs Gadatra herself was sitting on part of the low car park wall a few feet away, her arms wrapped round her body, weeping loudly.

  Aqueel was standing stiff and scared next to his mother, with one hand clutching at her shoulder. He was staring at her as if she’d suddenly grown another head. I called his name, and the look of utter relief that passed across his features when he recognised a friendly face was heartbreaking.

  Pauline threw a shaky smile towards us as we approached. She was dry-eyed, but very pink around the lids to show what that was costing her.

  “They burned the houses,” she said, trying unsuccessfully to stop her chin from wobbling. “We only just got out in what we’re standing up in.”

  The simple statement sent Mrs Gadatra off into a fresh spasm of grief. Her words were partially obscured by the frenzied chop of the police helicopter as it swung low overhead, heading back towards the estate. The searchlight mounted under the front stabbed into the darkness.

  “You can’t stay here,” Clare said with a decisive edge. “Come on, Pauline and you, too, Mrs G. You can all come back to the house with us.”

  When there were signs of objection from both women, Clare went straight for the emotional jugular. “You can’t leave the children standing around all night in this cold,” she said briskly. “Besides, it feels like it’s going to pour down again at any minute.”

  Mention of the impending weather seemed to be the deciding factor. Mrs Gadatra and Pauline allowed themselves to be shepherded towards the Range Rover then. Madeleine had taken Gin from Pauline. The little girl had woken up as soon as she was moved, but she made no protest.

  Clare dug in the glovebox and produced a tatty bag of chocolate limes, her emergency stash. Aqueel and Gin accepted this offering with some fervour, a symbol of normality in an otherwise blown-apart world.

  “If we’re going to leave, I should tell that nice young girl from the Social Services,” Mrs Gadatra said, fussing. “They came round and took names, to try and find us temporary shelter,” she explained. “I will tell her they can give our place to some other poor family. Aqueel, look after your sister.”

  Jacob and Clare said they’d go with her. The three of them hurried off through the crowd, and were soon gone from sight in the crush.

  Pauline was standing staring back in the direction of Lavender Gardens, hugging her thin cardigan around her shivering body. Friday was glued to her leg. Sean retrieved a rug out of the back of the Patrol and draped it round Pauline’s shoulders, ignoring the warning growl from the dog.

  “I don’t suppose you’ve seen anything of Garton-Jones and his men since this all kicked off?” Sean asked her quietly.

  Pauline shook her head. “I understand they’re still in there, though, doing what they can,” she said. She glanced across at me. “I know you didn’t think much to Ian – I didn’t, for that matter – but if it wasn’t for him, we probably wouldn’t have got out of there at all.”

  Sean was looking at her, surprised. “Didn’t you know?” he said. “Good old Ian Garton-Jones is up to his non-existent bull neck in this whole thing.”

  Pauline’s confusion and disbelief were plain. “But that’s ridiculous,” she said faintly. “He’s here to protect us.”

  Sean tried to let her down gently, but there wasn’t an easy glide path open to him. “He was on to a winner either way, Mrs Jamieson,” he said. “You were all paying him to keep the estate clear of crime, but we now think he was probably behind the crimewave in the first place. Drumming up business.”

  “Oh no, it was Mr O’Bryan who was doing that.”

  We all of us froze, then turned very slowly to stare at Aqueel, sitting swinging his heels on the sill of the Range Rover. It was like our heads were suddenly made of steel and he had just become an eight-year-old electromagnet.

  The boy himself appeared not to notice the sudden attention his words had gained. The clear cellophane sweet wrapping had ripped, and he was carefully making sure it was all peeled away before he gave the sticky lime to his sister.

  It was only when Sean crouched alongside him, brought his eyes down to Aqueel’s level, that the boy tore his gaze away from his task.

  “Aqueel, this is important,” he said gently. “Are you sure you mean Mr O’Bryan?”

  Aqueel regarded him gravely while he chewed the remainder of his own sweet, mindful of his manners. We held our collective breath until he’d swallowed. Then he said, “Oh yes. My brother told me. Mr O’Bryan was trying to make Nasir do things for him that were wrong, stealing things for him.” His big liquid-dark eyes rested on each of us, serious. “Nasir didn’t want to do that any more. He was going to be a daddy.”

  “Was that why you damaged Mr O’Bryan’s car?” I asked, thinking of the group of kids I’d seen running away from the Mercedes.

  Aqueel looked a bit sheepish. “We found some things in the boot that had been stolen. Nasir was very pleased. He said he was going to show them to Mr O’Bryan. He said they would make Mr O’Bryan stop bothering him, and leave Ursula alone. I like her,” he admitted shyly, “She’s pretty.”

  But Nasir’s amateur attempts at blackmail hadn’t stopped O’Bryan, I realised with a growing sense of horror, they’d made thing ten times worse.

  They’d upped the stakes to murder.

  I hadn’t considered for a moment that O’Bryan was a player in all this. In fact, I was the one who’d tipped him off at the beginning that Nasir had been making vague threats that day at Fariman and Shahida’s house.

  Cold all over, I shut my eyes for a moment, unable to believe how stupid, how gullible I’d been. It wasn’t a surprise now that the CBR had been run off the road and Roger grabbed. After all, I’d told O’Bryan exactly what to look for.

  Whatever else he was, the man was efficient. O’Bryan must have set Garton-Jones on the trail of the Honda as soon as he’d walked out of the gym after our last meeting.

  Sean was staring at me with the same dismay reflected on his face. “That’s why Roger ran from us at the house,” he murmured. “It wasn’t us he was scared of
at all, it was O’Bryan.”

  “And it would explain why Nasir thought I was involved,” I said, “if he knew O’Bryan had been to see me.”

  “So why was the man trying to get Roger off with a caution for injuring Fariman?” Madeleine wanted to know.

  “The reason Roger and the others were in Fariman’s shed in the first place was because O’Bryan had sent them there to rob the place,” Sean told her. His mouth twisted into a mocking smile. “He was just looking after his own, wasn’t he?”

  “Where is he now, your brother?” Pauline asked.

  Sean jerked his head towards the estate, just as a traffic car came howling past. “They’ve dumped him somewhere in the middle of that lot and they’re going to make damned sure he burns,” he said bitterly.

  Mrs Gadatra hurried up at that point saying she was good to go. We began squeezing them all into the Range Rover, piling up children on the back seat.

  “We’ll put Friday in the back,” Jacob said, but Pauline shook her head.

  “He’s staying,” she said. She handed me his lead. “I think you might need him.”

  I opened my mouth to object, but she held up a finger.

  “Friday’s a good guard dog,” she said, “but he’s a better tracker, and Rhodesian Ridgebacks were originally bred to fight lions. Take him.”

  She glanced in Sean’s direction and lowered her voice. “I know you told me your young man didn’t have anything to do with Nasir’s death, dear,” she added, troubled, “and you’re probably right, but I’d watch him now, if I were you. He’s got blood in his eyes.”

  I turned to skim mine over Sean where he stood talking quickly to Madeleine by the Patrol.

  “Don’t worry,” I said, dragging up a smile. “I’ll keep a close eye on him. And on Friday, too.”

  She gave us both a quick hug, although I didn’t try and lick her face by way of a thank you, then she turned and trotted back to the Range Rover. I watched the four-by-four rumble out of the car park with a sense of relief that they, at least, were out of harm’s way.

  The road outside was a mass of vehicles with flashing lights. More police cars arrived in the Black Lion car park, but I didn’t pay much attention to them.

  Instead, I walked back over to the Nissan with Friday, who had now transferred his attention firmly to me, treading on my feet all the way. His eyes were anxiously fixed on my face as if looking for some sign that I was going to abandon him, too. I scratched the back of his neck by way of reassurance, and he butted against my legs.

  Madeleine glanced at me, her face fearful as her eyes slid to her boss. Sean had moved away to stand near the front of the Patrol and from the back his body was stiff with rage. At his sides, his hands spasmed briefly, once, as though he could already feel his fingers tightening round O’Bryan’s neck.

  “Out of the mouths of babes, eh?” he said, not turning round as I closed in. “That little lad knew, all the time, and we never thought to ask him. He could have told us all about O’Bryan right at the start. Dammit!”

  “Sean,” I said quietly. “Don’t do it. Leave O’Bryan alone.”

  He still spoke without meeting my eyes. “Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill him?” he said, and it was his conversational tone that scared me most, as though he was discussing washing the car.

  “Have you ever killed anyone, Sean?” I asked. He turned then, and as he started to make an impatient gesture I added quickly, “No, I mean really, actually killed someone? Deliberately? Face to face?”

  There was a long pause, and I realised I wasn’t going to get an answer. I pressed on doggedly, anyway.

  “If you haven’t then you have no idea what it will do to you,” I said, my voice low with feeling. “What it will take away from you. Even if you managed to get away with it, the consequences will stay with you forever. Think about that, Sean. You’re not in the army any more.”

  He offered a half smile that gave up trying almost before it formed. “And here was I thinking you were going to give me a lecture about the moral rights and wrongs of it.”

  I shook my head. “There was a time when I’d have been first in the queue to help you plan the hit,” I said. “The man’s a shit of the lowest order and he probably deserves to die, but not at your hands, Sean. Not if I can help it.”

  “What really happened to you, Charlie?” he asked, and must have seen my face close up. He held up his hand. “OK, OK, you don’t want to tell me, and I think I can understand that, but one day I hope you’ll feel you can trust me enough to tell me about it, because that sounds like the voice of experience talking.”

  With that, he moved past me, and for a moment I didn’t follow him. I did trust Sean, I realised, but I didn’t think I’d ever be ready to bare my soul to him.

  I didn’t much like looking in there myself.

  “So,” Madeleine said, pale and nervous, “what do we do now?”

  “We have to get to Roger – if he isn’t dead already,” Sean said. “We’ll worry about how to deal with everything else later—”

  “I would say,” said a measured voice behind us, “that you’ve got far more important things to worry about right now.”

  We spun round, to find Superintendent MacMillan and a pair of uniforms large enough to have been Streetwise men themselves were looming behind us.

  “Charlie,” MacMillan nodded sharply in my direction, then turned that flat gaze onto Sean’s suddenly tense figure. “And you must be Sean Meyer, whom I’ve heard so much about. Well, much as I hate to break up the party, I’m afraid you’re under arrest.”

  Twenty-six

  Just for a moment there was silence. Not that any of the people who thronged the car park stopped talking or crying. Not that the distant sirens stopped blaring. But for the six of us there was utter silence, nonetheless.

  It was Sean who broke it.

  “What’s the charge?” he said, with that slight lift of his chin I knew so well. The one that issued a challenge you’d be foolish to ignore.

  “Murder.”

  “Whose murder?”

  “Harvey Langford’s – for now,” MacMillan said, composed, “but I’m sure we can add to that later, if need be.”

  One of the coppers standing behind him reached for his cuffs, shook them loose, and took a step towards Sean.

  Without clearly recalling doing it, I found I’d shifted my feet halfway into a stance. When I looked, I found we all had. Even the Superintendent looked poised and Friday was standing motionless but alert.

  Sean turned his head slightly, stared straight into the approaching policeman’s eyes. “Come near me with those now, and I’ll break both your arms,” he said. His voice was light, pleasant, but I’d never heard anyone mean a threat more.

  He looked back to the Superintendent. “Give me until tomorrow morning,” he said, “and I’ll turn myself in.”

  “What happens tomorrow morning?”

  “Because by then I’ll either have found you the real killer, or my brother will be dead,” Sean said evenly. “Either way, it won’t matter much any more.”

  The copper with the cuffs took another step. His mate unhooked the baton from his belt. Madeleine and I closed in on either side of Sean, and I slipped Friday’s lead.

  The Ridgeback moved smoothly in front of us, showing every incisor in his considerable array and making noise in his chest like the continuous droning of a light aircraft engine. It was enough to stop all three policemen in their tracks.

  I took advantage of the breathing space. “Don’t you want to know what’s going on round here?” I asked MacMillan quickly, trying to keep the note of desperation out of my voice. “Don’t you want to find out not just who really did kill Langford, but why he died? Don’t you want to know who’s been organising the crimewave, masterminding the burglaries, fencing the gear?”

  The Superintendent tore his eyes away from the dog’s teeth.

  “What makes you think that we don’t know already?”
<
br />   “Because if you could prove it you wouldn’t be here, going through the motions of arresting a man you know isn’t the one you really want.”

  MacMillan eyed me without speaking for a long moment. I could almost hear the gears in that calculating mind engaging. I don’t know what conclusions he came to, but maybe he remembered back to another time when we hadn’t trusted each other, and someone had died because of it.

  “Come on, MacMillan,” I said, unable to stand the waiting any longer. “I got you the proof you needed last time. Don’t do this again.”

  Eventually, he sighed and his hand went out, stilling the advance of his men. “OK,” he said cautiously. “Tell me what you know and maybe we can talk about this. Just don’t let me down, Charlie, or we’ll both swing for it.”