by Jane Adams
It would never end, Eric knew that now. Never end until he had been publicly vindicated. Until he had stood up in a court of law and shown the world that there were men, guilty men, far more worthy of hatred than Eric Pearson.
Chapter Five
Monday morning
Morning routine. Same as ever Mike checked the day book, accepted coffee, exchanged a joke with Symonds, duty sergeant for the first shift and still getting himself sorted with his electric razor in one hand and an unidentifiable hot sandwich in the other.
Mike listened to the morning briefing wishing the day had assigned him a more active role. He went to his desk carrying his bag of files and dumped it on the stained green carpet next to the waste bin as though hoping that was where the entire thing could end up.
Irritably, he rifled through his in-tray, grabbed a loose handful of report sheets and set to work, trying to rough out some sort of assessment of the Fletcher mess.
* * *
Eric stood in position by the living room window, sipping his second cup of tea of the day.
Johanna had persuaded him downstairs for breakfast. He’d eaten with a distracted air, listening vaguely to his children’s chatter, to Johanna’s replies, to the familiar sounds of the meal being prepared and eaten and argued over.
He had returned upstairs then, taking his tea and his camera, leaving Johanna and the children to clear away the remnants of breakfast and begin their morning lessons. Another duty he had once been so very conscientious of now left to Johanna. In his less self-indulgent moments Eric acknowledged that he left too much to Johanna these days. That he should do more to aid the running of their household and the daily welfare of his family.
But these moments passed quickly and came less and less frequently. Eric’s was a mind under siege. A life imprisoned within a tall house, whose windows gazed out upon a world that he could no longer share.
Intensely, as though every nuance of movement mattered, Eric watched and photographed the local children leave their homes and set off for school, shepherded by their mothers and older sisters and brothers. Watched the postman following the curve of the close and delivering nothing to the Pearson house. Stared with rapt attention as Ellie Masouk, now back from her shopping, opened the door to take a package too large to fit through her letterbox. Listened with devotion as the milk float rattled its way down to the end of the close and delivered its daily crate load to his door.
He would have to go out soon, Eric knew. Get some money, do some shopping, leave the house eyeless and unguarded for at least an hour or so.
Eric Pearson sighed irritably and placed his empty mug on the windowsill, glancing briefly about the room as he did so.
Such a dreary room, the sun seeming to miss both windows, apart from the earliest shafts in the morning and the half-dead rays of late evening. Untidy, too, with the clutter of toys and books and papers not cleared away from one day’s end to the next.
He frowned suddenly. He really ought to give Johanna more help. For all of two minutes Eric walked around the room picking toys from the floor and books from the chairs. Clearing the whole stack of unread papers from the table standing beside the back window.
Then, as though his purpose failed him, he let the entire bundle fall to the floor, leaving the mess so much worse than it had been. He stood still, his arms dropping to his sides and his eyes fixing once again upon the now empty street.
* * *
‘Got a minute, Mike?’ DI Miles stuck his round head round the door and followed it rapidly with his equally rotund body.
Mike looked up from his paper-strewn desk and grinned warily. ‘Depends what you’ve got in mind.’
Miles came over, perched his large self on the desk and awarded Mike his broadest, most welcoming smile.
‘Got an old dear down in the front office,’ he said. ‘Wants to talk to someone important, so we figured you’d do.’
‘Oh?’ Mike gave him a suspicious look. ‘And what’s her problem?’
‘Says someone’s stealing her garden, bit by bit. Trees gone last week and a whole stack of newly planted bulbs last night.’
He hopped off the desk and was across the office with surprising speed. ‘Nutty as a friggin’ fly biscuit,’ he called back over his shoulder as he hopped it out of the door. ‘But she’s driving the duty sergeant round the bend.’
Mike got to his feet, half disbelieving, and followed him to the door.
‘How come you can’t deal with it?’ he shouted at Miles’s rapidly retreating back.
The big man laughed. ‘It’s a shit job, Mike. But someone’s got to shovel it . . .’
A young WPC drifted by with her arms full of reports. She flashed a quick smile in Mike’s direction. ‘Hear they’ve got you dealing with old Mrs Delancey, guv.’
‘Mrs who?’
‘Old lady in the front office with the . . .’
‘Disappearing garden . . . Regular, is she?’
‘Set the clock by her, poor old soul. The council had to move her. She can’t look after herself any more and she’s no family. Had to put her in this sheltered housing place. In a little flat. And of course there’s . . .’
‘No garden. I get the picture. Someone phoned the home?’
‘Yes, sir. Be about an hour, they said. Don’t worry, guv, she’s quite harmless.’
The young woman went off laughing and Mike mooched along to the front office. ‘Harmless,’ he muttered to himself. ‘I’ll just bet she is.’
* * *
Monday 3 p.m.
Eric had been away from the house for almost three hours. He hurried down the little path, anxious now that he had been gone too long. That something had happened.
Ellie Masouk came through the kissing gate towards him, pushing her child in its buggy. She looked up at the sound of Eric’s footsteps, then glanced away swiftly as though afraid he might speak to her, engage her in conversation.
Her unease was written so clearly on her pale, blandly pretty face that Eric almost laughed aloud. He hurried by, feeling her unconscious withdrawal as he passed close to her. Her embarrassment.
She had no idea who he was, Eric realized. No idea that their paths had crossed before.
But he knew her. Who she’d been before she’d married Masouk. Who she was and what had happened to her.
Oh yes. Eric Pearson knew.
* * *
‘It can’t be easy,’ Superintendent Jacques sympathized, ‘having to sift through this lot. Being expected to put the work of fellow officers under the glass.’ He shook his head sadly. ‘It makes for bad feeling, Mike.’
‘It’s not exactly my idea of fun, sir,’ he said, realizing that his tone held more frost than was really warranted.
‘No, no, of course not, Mike. Not a job anyone would want, I know that. Anyway,’ he continued, pushing himself to his feet again, ‘just go through the motions. We’ll soon have this thing all wrapped up.’
He turned to go. Mike called after him. ‘It’s not been explained to me, sir. Why assign me instead of someone from internal affairs?’
The superintendent swivelled back to face him, a frown creasing his forehead. ‘Internal affairs, Mike? This isn’t a formal inquiry, probably never will be. Just a preliminary review of this so-called new evidence that might come up at the appeal.’ He shook his head as though amazed that Mike could think it would go any further and crossed the room again, placed his hands, palms down, on Mike’s desk and leant across.
‘That’s not going to be popular, Mike. This talk about internal affairs, it makes it sound as though you think we’ve something to hide.’
He smiled and backed off again. ‘When DCS Charles requested you for the job I knew he’d chosen the right man. I won’t lose any sleep about you covering this one, Mike, and I don’t expect you’ll have to either. It’s a closed book, my friend. Just needs the i’s dotting and the t’s crossing and we can say goodbye to it once and for all.’
* * *
Dora couldn’t wait to get home and tell her husband. It wasn’t that she liked gossip. Not really. Just that this was too good to miss out on.
Just went to show, didn’t it? These days the council didn’t give a damn about who they housed and where.
Reaching her front door, Dora glanced across at the tall house. Its blank windows were unlit and gave little sign of life.
How could his wife stay with him, knowing he’d been accused of something like that?
Chapter Six
Monday evening
‘Oh!’ The first crash. The sound of glass shattering startled Ellie, sent her hands fluttering nervously to her throat.
She glanced anxiously at Farouzi, but the child slept on, her smooth, round-cheeked face and soft black curls illuminated gently by the warm pink glow of the night light.
Another crash. The sounds of shouting in the street. A woman screaming insults and someone laughing. The laughter mocking and abusive.
Ellie crept over to the window and peered out through the crack in the curtains. The swiftest of glances told her more than she wanted to know. Two boys from the next street — Ellie knew them by sight though not their names — were taking stones from her front garden. From the precious little rockery she had spent so long in building, planting with tiny alpines.
For a brief moment, her indignation got the better of her fear. She pulled the certain back further, half intending to open the window and yell her protest at the boys.
Even as reason reasserted itself one of the boys glanced upwards, attracted by the movement of the curtain across the dimly lit window.
He actually had the temerity to wave at her!
Horrified, Ellie stepped sharply away. Visions of some vague retribution, because she had seen their faces, filled her already overwrought mind.
If they broke the bedroom window would the flying glass reach Farouzi’s cot?
Ellie knelt down beside the cot, releasing the catches that lowered the side. She let it down as softly and slowly as she could, as though the little squeak of the nylon hoops moving against steel runners would be noticed above the rising tide of noise coming from the street.
‘It’s all right,’ Ellie whispered, though her daughter slept on, as calm and beautiful and contented as she always was. ‘It’s all right,’ she said again. Half the people in the street, they had kids themselves. No one would let them hurt Farouzi. . .
A sob rose bitterly in Ellie’s throat as she thought of the Pearson house. Heard the breaking of the windows, the loud, and growing louder, pounding as someone began to beat upon something wooden. In her mind’s eye, Ellie could see her friends, her neighbours, trying to break down the Pearsons’ door.
There were children in the Pearson house. Children, like Farouzi.
Abruptly she reached out, gathered Farouzi, her blankets, her teddy, and, carrying them close, made for the bathroom where there was a lock on the door and only the tiniest of windows.
Ellie had reached the head of the stairs when someone began to hammer on the door.
* * *
Johanna Pearson crouched behind the shabby green moquette sofa, her arms circling the two smallest of her brood while broken glass fell in sharp-edged rain all around them.
She could hear her husband and the older ones in the room above. Eric had the water hose going. She heard the rush of water even above the sound of crashing glass and the jeers and shouts of those getting wet below. They had laid in a good supply of ammunition after the first window had been broken just over a week ago. Those boys. They’d said they had been playing football and the broken window had been accidental, but Eric had prepared the family anyway. Milk bottles thrown out at the yobs chucking stones seemed a fair exchange. And they had a good supply. Eric’s early-morning forays, with Mark and Alexander to help him, had made certain of that.
Little Danny had begun to cry. Johanna shook him gently. ‘It’s all right, my darlings. We’ve got through this before. Nothing’s going to happen to us.’
Through this before. Yes, many, many times before. But, then, God had told her that life was never going to be easy. He’d simply lived up to His promise.
‘Danny, Danny, it’ll be all right,’ she said again, straining her ears to hear what had caused the sudden lull of activity in the street.
Yes, it would all be right in the end. Let Eric just be able to prove that his new evidence was the truth. Let him present it in court and they would be vindicated. Yes, if they could just hold out against the flow of hatred and persecution for a little longer, everything would be fine.
There was silence now. Silence that in its own way was as menacing as the noise before.
‘Yes.’ She spoke her thoughts aloud to her bewildered children. ‘That’s what this is all about. They’re trying to frighten us. Stop us from giving evidence.’
She scooped the still weeping Danny into her arms and, tentatively, emerged from their precarious cover.
Eric was downstairs now. Standing by what was left of the front door and shouting at the crowd. She couldn’t hear his words clearly but could just make out the low, reassuring voice of the newly arrived policeman.
Johanna was not impressed. They were in it, of course. The police. Corrupt as Fletcher and the rest and out to protect the ‘Named’ against the ‘Unnamed’. Against the likes of the Pearsons.
Holding Danny closer and murmuring a prayer to give her strength, Johanna Pearson made her way across the room, feet crunching and slipping on the shattered glass, and went downstairs.
* * *
‘Ellie! For God’s sake, Ellie! Open the door. It’s me, Dora.’
Dora!
Still clutching a by now wakeful and bewildered toddler, Ellie scrambled down the stairs, fumbling clumsily with the door catch in her haste to get it open.
She almost fell into Dora’s arms.
‘There, there, love.’
As in control as ever, Dora eased Farouzi from her mother’s arms, pushed the door closed and coaxed Ellie through to the kitchen.
‘Here, sweetheart.’ She took one of Farouzi’s favourite ginger fingers from her cardigan pocket and held it out. The child seized it eagerly. Dora made her say thank you before letting go. Then she reached out and took Ellie’s hand.
‘Harry thought I should come round. Looks like it’s just as well I did. What are you doing, getting yourself in a state like this?’
‘But, Dora. . . .’ Ellie began to protest, then her face crumpled and she started to cry. ‘I was so scared. I saw what was going on and I just got so scared.’ She brushed flowing tears from her face and looked wetly at Dora, her mouth trembling. ‘What’s happening, Dora? Why are they doing this?’
Dora glanced away, momentarily embarrassed, uncertain how to answer. ‘Blessed if I know, my love,’ she said at last busying herself with the tea things. ‘You just clean yourself up while I see to this kettle.’
* * *
‘It’s gone quiet out there,’ Dora said a moment later as she filled the teapot. Nervously, Ellie followed her to the front door.
Outside two policemen emerged from their car and looked around them. Most of the kids Ellie had seen throwing stones had either scattered or stood around, innocently waiting for the next act.
The adult residents of Portland Close, similarly gathered, watched from their doorways.
Eric Pearson emerged from his battered house, baseball bat clasped firmly in his hands. He came to stand a little distance from his house, beneath the street lamp at the end of the close.
He looked terrifying. His entire body seemed to shake with rage. The glow from the streetlight showed blood on his face from a small cut above one eye and he hefted the baseball bat in both hands, shouting at the two police officers who stood, motionless, beside their car as though trying to decide on their next move.
‘Just what are you going to do about this?’ Pearson yelled at them. ‘I demand you arrest them all.’ He waved a hand, the gesture encompassing the entire popu
lation of the close. ‘Arrest the whole bloody lot of them; they’re all in it.’
He took a step forward and Ellie found herself taking an answering one back, into the hallway.
‘But you won’t, will you?’ Pearson went on, his voice lower and more menacing. ‘You won’t, because you’re in it too. The whole damn lot of you in it. Corrupt as hell.’
Ellie was close enough to hear both the younger PC speaking into his radio and the controller’s reply.
‘Oscar one zero to base. Responding to the disturbance in Portland Close. June, do you reckon we could have some back-up? It’s like a bloody war zone down here.’
‘Already on its way, Tony. We had reports of youths smashing windows. Any sign?’
The young officer laughed briefly. ‘Well, they’re not actually chucking things, control, but there’s broken glass all over the shop and it looks as if half the street’s turned out to watch.’
He paused and glanced over his shoulder at the sound of a car engine. Ellie followed his look and saw Rezah’s old Cavalier pulling up.
‘What’s the ETA on the back-up, June?’
‘Three to five, Tony. Oscar one zero, this is control out.’
The officer acknowledged, glancing sideways as Ellie ran from her doorway to greet the car. Rezah got out, looking about him in obvious confusion.
‘Ellie, what’s going on here?’
She shook her head. ‘I don’t know, Rezah, it’s just been—’ She broke off, waved a hand at the two policemen and the general confusion.
Further down the street Pearson was still ranting. Tony’s colleague, head bent slightly as though to avoid the worst of the tirade, was nodding sympathetically and nudging the glass on the path with the toe of his shoe.
Neighbours crowded in the doorways, exchanging comments, glancing towards the Pearsons and the policeman and over at Tony himself. Kids, larking about on the corner, nudged each other, laughing or just staring, talking to their companions almost without moving their heads, as though afraid to miss any of the action.
