The Cleaner

36

Milton pulled over, extinguished the lights of the car and switched off the engine. He left the radio on so that he could finish listening to the news. The bulletin reported that a protest outside a police station in Tottenham had deteriorated into a riot. Relatives of a man who had been shot by police two days earlier had gathered to protest at his killing. Others had joined in and the crowd had started to pelt the police with bottles and bricks. There were reports that cars and a double-decker bus had been set alight. Milton drew down on the cigarette he was smoking and blew the smoke out of the window. It was a hot night, close and humid. There was something in the air, a droning buzz of aggression. It wouldn’t take much to ignite it.

He switched off the radio, opened the glove compartment, took out his holstered knife and pulled up the sleeve of his right trouser leg. He wrapped the holster around his calf and fastened the Velcro straps. He checked in his mirrors that the pavement outside was empty and, satisfied that he would not be observed, he took his Sig Sauer from its holster and checked the magazine. It was full. He pumped a bullet into the chamber and flicked the safety so that the gun was ready to fire. He slid it back beneath his armpit.

He looked around again. This part of Dalston Lane comprised a Georgian terrace of tall, two-storey houses with Victorian shop fronts that had been built over their front gardens when the railways arrived a hundred years earlier. The houses behind the shops had recently been used for social housing, but, as time passed and their tenants were moved into the high-rise blocks that dominated the nearby skyline, they had been allowed to begin their long slide into decrepitude. Those that were left vacant were boarded up. Damaged roofs were left unrepaired. Windows were shattered and left open to the rain. Four houses had been gutted by fire, the exposed bricks crusted black with soot and ash and the timbers exposed like cracked and broken bones. Those buildings had been condemned and demolished, tearing holes in the terrace like the teeth yanked from a cancerous mouth. Boards had been erected around the blackened remnants of the extension, and these had been scarified by graffiti and posters for illegal raves.

The Victorian extensions were occupied by local businesses. The entire house and extension at the corner of the road was a doctor’s surgery, with bars on the door and the windows plastered with posters about sexually transmitted diseases and nutrition. Next to that was an Indian restaurant, then a shop selling musical instruments, a Laundromat, a business selling second hand kitchen equipment, then a newsagent. Adjacent to that a façade announced the Star Bakery, but the shutters had been in place for so long that the rust had fastened the padlocks to their tethers. The property alongside had seen its extension occupied by a squat. It had been a bicycle shop years before, the block typography of its original frontage still visible despite the etoliation of the weather and the fumes from the busy road. The wide picture windows were obscured by sheets of newspaper and a printed notice that had been glued to the door declared that the squatters enjoyed rights of occupation, and could not be evicted without a court order.

Milton scanned it all quickly. The terrace behind the squat was one of Bizness’s most profitable crack houses. Pops had told him everything. Heroin and crack were sold around the clock, rain or shine. Most of the customers were poor locals, drawn in from the surrounding estates, but a significant minority of the customers were white, very often professional and middle-class.

Milton got out of the car. He went around to the back, opened the boot and took out a jerrycan that he had filled with petrol from the garage on Mare Street. There was no sense in making his entry through the front door. It looked as if it was locked, just enough of a delay to allow for escape should the police arrive for a clean up. Milton had another idea. The terrace was listed, and the plans were available online. He had visited the library and downloaded them, reviewing them before he came out. He knew that there was another way in. He followed the road to the junction, taking a right turn and then, before he reached a tawdry pub, another sharp right. A narrow cul-de-sac led around the back of the terrace. Overflowing dustbins were stacked up against the wall and detritus had been allowed to gather in the gutter. Each house had a rear entrance and the one that served the crack house was wide open. Silly boys. Milton took out his Sig and went inside. The first room used to be a kitchen. Old appliances had been left to rot, with anything that could be easily removed long since sold for scrap. The walls were partially stripped and scabbed with lead paint and the remnants of a twee wallpaper that depicted an Alpine scene had been left to peel away like patches of dead, flaking skin. Empty cardboard boxes and fast food wrappers were scattered on the floor. A single man, strung out and emaciated, was slumped against the wall. He was unconscious, and Milton would not have been able to say whether he was dead or alive. He heard low conversation from the front of the house and set off towards it. The junkie’s arm swept around sharply and his eyes swam with drunken stupor, but he paid Milton no heed as he passed through the room.

He moved through a hallway with a flight of stairs leading up to the first floor. Patterned linoleum was scattered with drug paraphernalia. A mattress rested upright against the wall. Another junkie was asleep on the floor. Milton tightened the grip on the butt of his pistol as he stepped carefully around him.

The noises were coming from the front extension. Milton paused in the shadows at the doorway to assess his surroundings. The only furniture was a sofa and a huge, monolithic television. It was a big unit with a cathode ray tube and it had been left on, badly tuned, scenes from a soap occasionally resolving out of the distortion of static. The front door was ahead of him, barricaded with an old sideboard that had been propped against it. Vivid wallpaper with a woodland design had been hung on the wall, the paper stained yellow by months of smoke. There was no ventilation and the atmosphere was thick and heavy, woozy, a sickly miasma.

There were a dozen people inside the room. Men and women, mostly supine, their heads lolling insensately, unfocussed eyes lazily flicking across the television screen. They were all black, dressed cheaply, feeble and thin. Plastic bottles were arranged in neat rows, each of them full of urine. A collection of shoes, random and unpaired, was pushed into one corner. Empty vials of crack had been ground underfoot, crunching like fresh snow as the addicts shuffled across the room to the two men who were sat on the sofa. They were clear-eyed, and moved with crisp purpose as they exchanged vials of crack for their customers’ crumpled banknotes. They were younger than their patrons; Milton guessed in their late teens, not long out of school. They were dressed in low-slung jeans, the crotch hanging down between the knees, there were diamond ear studs and golden chains, and both wore the colourful purple bandana of the LFB around their necks. These were the dealers, one step up from the shotters, Bizness’s representatives on the street. They sold the drugs and then protected the house so that their customers had somewhere to get high, and then buy from them again.

Milton felt a shudder of revulsion.

He assessed the situation. The junkies were too far gone to pose any kind of problem and he discounted them. The two dealers looked fit and strong, and there was a kitchen knife resting on the arm of the sofa. That would be a problem if they could get to it before he had disabled them. He could not discount the possibility that they were armed, either.

Milton suddenly decided.

He sprang across the room and lashed out with the barrel of his pistol. He struck the bigger of the two men across the temple, a stunning blow that dropped him to his knees. The second man stretched across the sofa but Milton had anticipated his move, firing out a kick that struck him in the side of the chest and brought a whistle of pain from him. The man’s hand fell short, the knife dislodged from its perch by the attempt. Milton’s hands grabbed the man in two places — bunching into his singlet and by waist of his trousers — and he heaved him off the sofa and onto the floor. The sharp edges of crushed vials and syringes bit into his face and throat as he tried to find his feet. Milton followed him to the floor, pinning the point of his knee between his shoulder blades and pressing down. He took the Sig and pressed the barrel into the cornrows on the top of the man’s head.

“Pay attention,” he said. “I want you to deliver a message to Bizness. Tell him that this is what I said would happen. If he doesn’t do what I told him to do, tell him that this will keep happening. One crack house at a time. Do you understand? Nod if you do.”

The man jerked his head awkwardly against the floor.

“Alright. You’re going to get up now, and you are going to clear these people out. Then you’re grab your friend over there and get him out, too. If you do anything foolish, I’ll shoot you. Understand?”

Milton got up and backed away. He took the jerrycan and poured the petrol across the floor, on the sofa, sloshing it across the thick curtains. If the boy needed motivation, Milton’s self-evident plan was it. He did as he was told, ushering the crackheads out the back and then returning to collect his friend, propping him up and helping him away.

The room quickly stank of petrol. Milton took out his lighter and thumbed it to flame. He played the lighter over a rag and blue-white flame consumed it hungrily. Milton dropped it onto the sofa and, with a quiet exhalation, the fabric caught fire. The flame spread quickly over the upholstery, stretching higher and higher until it started to scorch the ceiling. It raced across the floor to the walls, a quiet crackling that quickly became a hungry roar, with black smoke billowing up to the roof and then spewing back down again.

Milton went out into the alley gun-first, only holstering the Sig Sauer when he saw that both boys had fled. He walked briskly, making his way back onto the main road and to his car. He unlocked the door and slipped inside.

Across the street, the squat was burning fiercely.

37

Christopher Callan paused outside Flat 609 and then, satisfied that it was the correct address, he knocked firmly, three times, on the door. He heard sounds of activity inside: the chink of pieces of crockery being knocked together, a door opening on a rusty hinge, and then footsteps approaching. A woman opened the door. Callan guessed that she was in her early thirties. Dark black hair, smooth skin, wide eyes, a slender build. She was wearing the uniform of a fast-food chain.

“Yes?”

Callan smiled. “Excuse me. Sorry for disturbing you. Are you Sharon Warriner?

Her eyes narrowed. “Who’s asking?”

“I’m detective constable Travis.”

Her face fell. “It’s Elijah, isn’t it?”

“Elijah?”

“My boy — what’s he done?”

“No, Mrs Warriner, it’s not that. Nothing to do with Elijah. Would it be alright if I came inside for a minute?”

“What’s it about?”

She had the usual suspicion of the police, Callan saw. It was to be expected in a place like this. He reached into his jacket pocket and took over the file picture of Milton. “Do you know this man?”

She became confused as she studied the picture. “That’s John.”

“John Milton?”

“Yes. I don’t understand. What’s he done?”

“Can I come in, please? Just five minutes.”

She reluctantly stood aside and let him through. They passed through the small hallway and into the lounge. It was a large room, the décor a little tatty and tired, an old sofa, a table with four chairs, a flatscreen television, PlayStation games scattered across the floor. Sharon stood stiffly; her suspicion had not been assuaged, Callan could see that, and he was not going to be invited to sit. Fair enough. He wouldn’t be long. In some ways, he had already seen enough.

“How do you know Mr Milton?”

“He’s a friend.”

“How did you meet him?”

She paused, her face washed by a moment of worried memory. “I just did,” she said. “What’s this about, please?”

“What’s he doing here?”

“I told you, he’s a friend. He’s helping me with my son.”

“How?”

“I’m sorry, detective, but I don’t understand how any of that is relevant. What has he done wrong?”

“I’m afraid I can’t tell you that. Please — how is he helping you?”

She waved her hand agitatedly. “My boy, Elijah, he can be a bit of a handful. Headstrong, like they all are at his age. Mr Milton is” — she paused, searching for the right word, and then repeated the same one again — “helping me with him, like I said. I don’t understand why you’re asking me — has he done something wrong? Should I be worried?”

Should she be concerned? Callan suppressed the smirk. She had no idea. None at all. “No,” he said, “there’s no reason to be concerned. I’m sorry I can’t say any more than that.”

She made for the door. “Then I’m sorry, detective, if you can’t tell me what Mr Milton has done then I’m not sure what else I can do to help.” She opened the door. “Do you mind? I have to get ready for bed. I start work early in the mornings.”

“Of course,” Callan said. “Thank you for your help. Sorry again for disturbing you.”

He looked around again as he allowed her to shepherd him to the door. Unpaid bills on the floor. Paint peeling from the walls. Bars across the windows. What was Number One doing in a place like this, with a woman like this? He supposed that she was pretty, after a fashion, but that wasn’t a good enough reason to explain anything. The only thing that made any sense at all was Control’s contention that something had broken inside Number One’s head and that, if it was true, would not be good for him at all. He politely bid the woman good night and walked over to the balcony as she shut the door behind him. He rested his elbows on the balustrade and looked out over the East End. It was a hot night, the air torpid and sluggish. Sirens wailed in the streets nearby and a group of youngsters had gathered in the open space below, their raucous laughter reaching up to him. Callan did not understand any of it. His task was to gather evidence, not to draw conclusions, and yet he could not help but wonder: what on earth had happened to Number One?

38

Stoke Newington police station was a modern three-story building with wide windows on the ground floor. They were all lit up, lights burning behind them. Pops walked towards the entrance but did not go in. They had one of those old fashioned blue lanterns hanging from the wall and he carried on beneath it and further along the road before he stopped, crossed over, and headed back in the same direction again. He had repeated the pattern for the last half an hour, passing up and down the tree-lined road, thinking about choices and consequences. What he was about to do would change everything for him. There was no point in pretending that it wouldn’t, and the gravity of what he was contemplating frightened him. If he did as he had been asked to do there would be no turning back for him. His life would be yanked off course and sent in a different direction.

There was a Turkish barber shop opposite the station. He sat down, resting his back against the window and took the half-finished joint from behind his ear. He held it in the flame of his lighter and toked on it until it caught, drawing in a big breath of smoke. He held it in his lungs for a long moment and then blew it away. He needed to settle down, to relax. He drew his legs up to his chest and leant forwards, resting his forehead against his knees. He was hopelessly on edge.

Choices. He stared across the slow-moving traffic to the lit windows of the station. He knew that speaking to the police was a fundamental thing. It would make him a grass. He was at a junction; consequences one way, but consequences the other way, too. He had thought about it for long enough, before he met Elijah, before Bizness turned his back on him, before Laura, before Milton. There were always choices, even when you thought there were none. It had been his choice to join the LFB, to start mugging and steaming, to start selling drugs. There had been different choices at every point but the problem was that those alternatives were harder, or less lucrative, or less cool than the life he could have on the street. He had told the youngers that came up that the easy way was the best way but he had always known that the stories he told them were lies. He had always known. He lied to them, and to himself. He had persuaded himself that he was right but now, well, now there was nothing else for it but to face the truth.

Because the truth of it was that there was always a choice.

The shopkeeper had a small television above the counter and Pops could hear it through the open door. There was nonsense in Tottenham tonight, brothers getting together and wrecking the place. He could hear the reporter speaking from the scene, the sound of yelling in the background, things getting smashed up. Pops listened absently to it for a moment, not really paying attention, toking on the joint and letting the smoke slowly seep out from his nostrils. He finished it, sucking the flame down to his fingertips, and dropped it to the floor, grinding the roach underfoot.

He crossed the street, pushed open the door and went inside.

A female officer was on duty.

“How can we help you?” she said.

“I want to talk someone about Israel Brown.”

The woman looked at him askance. “Who’s that, then?”

“You probably know him as Bizness. The rapper. He beat a boy half to death in Chimes last week. I was there. I saw it all.”

39

Bizness stared out of the tinted window of the BMW at the burnt-out house. A fire engine was still at the scene, a fireman playing water over the smoking wreckage. The ceiling of the extension had collapsed and the window had buckled and shattered from the heat, revealing the blackened mess beyond. He didn’t own the house, and it wasn’t worth shit, anyway, but that was not the point. It was Bizness’s property. It served a purpose and it made him a lot of paper. Now he was going to have to find somewhere else, spread the word, get things going again. It would cost him time and lose him money.

“Motherfucker,” he said, slamming his fist against the steering wheel.

Mouse was in the passenger seat. “We got a problem, Bizness.”

“You think? Shut the fuck up, Mouse, you don’t know shit.”

Levelz and Tookie, the two boys who had been working the squat, had told him what had happened. The man had attacked the place just after midnight, taking them by surprise. He had beaten them both, passed on his message, cleared the junkies out and fired the place.

There would be a price to pay for that.

The door behind them opened and a man slid into the seat. Bizness glanced up in the rear-view mirror. Detective inspector Wilson glared back into his eyes.

“What’s going on, lads? Who did this?”

“Someone who’s gonna wish they never got involved with me. You don’t need to worry about it.”

“Are you sure about that? Because I’m pretty sure that when the fire service confirm that this is arson there’s going to be an investigation.”

“Take it easy, aight? I know who did it. And I’m gonna sort it.”

“You better make sure that you do. You’ve got to keep a lid on things. Having one of your places go up like it’s bonfire night isn’t good for my blood pressure. You want to operate around here without any trouble from me, you keep things quiet.”

“Nah, man, me operating around here depends on you getting your cut every Friday.”

Wilson ignored him and stabbed a finger against the window. “Things like that don’t give me much confidence, son. I turn a blind eye to you because I don’t have time to start worrying about lads from outside the postcode causing trouble. There are plenty of others who can keep a lid on things if you can’t.”

“That you making a threat?”

“No, that’s me telling you that it’s going to cost you ten from now on if you want to stay in business.”

“Fuck, man, don’t gimme that shit. You’re doubling the fee?”

“There a problem with that?”

Bizness gripped the steering wheel hard. “Nah,” he said. “Ten’s fine.”

“There are other benefits to working with me,” Wilson said.

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Advanced warnings. You’ve got more trouble coming your way. Your boy, Pops?”

“What about him?”

“He came into the nick last night. Says he’s willing to give evidence against you.”

“Against me?”

“So he says.”

“For what?”

“Beating up that kid in Chimes.”

“Man, that was nothing.”

“Tell that to the kid’s parents. He’s still in hospital.”

“Pops don’t got shit.”

“He’s saying he was there.”

“And he’s gonna talk?”

“That’s what I heard.”

Bizness glowered through the tinted windscreen, watching as the passing cars slowed so that their drivers could gawp at the smoking wreck of the crackhouse. The problem with the man who did that and now this? Timing was bad. Timing was awful. Bizness nodded grimly. Fair enough, he thought. Timing was awful, but sometimes that’s the way it was, the hand you got dealt. They were two small problems and they could both be sorted. He started to work out angles, tactics.

“You’ve got to keep on top of things, son,” Wilson said. “Do I have a reason to be concerned?”

“No,” he said, gritting his teeth. “No reason. It’ll all get sorted.”

40

Pinky reached the door to Bizness’s studio and pressed the intercom.

“Yeah?”

“I’m here to see Bizness.”

“He ain’t in. Go away.”

“Don’t talk chat, bruv. I saw him come in.”

“Piss off, younger.”

“Nah, it’s about what happened at HMV yesterday. I got some information.”

“You can tell me.”

“Don’t think so,” he said. “I’ll tell him myself or I won’t bother.”

There was a click as the intercom was switched off. Pinky paused, holding his breath. The intercom crackled into life again. “Alright. Come up.”

The lock buzzed and the door clicked open.

Pinky climbed the stairs, the framed BRAPPPP! pictures on the walls on either side of him. He was nervous. Bizness had a reputation, a bad one, everyone knew that, and part of that reputation was that he could be unpredictable. All the stories Pinky had heard about him were at the front of his mind. He wasn’t stupid, he knew plenty of them were made up for the sake of his image, but there were others he knew were true, and it was those that he was thinking about now.

He stepped through into the large room at the top of the stairs. Bizness was on the sofa, his feet propped up against the edge of the coffee table. A flatscreen television was fixed to the wall and tuned in to Sky News. Pinky had heard all about the riots that had started in Tottenham last night. He had been excited by it, at the idea of looting all those shops. Now it seemed like the trouble had spread to Enfield and Brixton. Footage from a helicopter showed a police car on fire.

“What’s your name, boy?”

“Pinky.”

“Alright, Pinky, you better have a good reason for coming up here. I’m a busy man, lot on my plate. I ain’t got no time for signing no autographs.”

“I’m not here for that,” he said.

“Then you better tell me what you are here for.”

“I got some information,” he said. “That old man who got into it with you at the record signing — I saw it on YouTube.”

“What?”

Pinky took out his phone. He had already cued up the video and now he hit play. The video rolled; someone in the shop had filmed the conversation between Bizness and the old man. The camera was close enough to see the expressions on their faces, the implacability of the man and Bizness’s growing anger. Their argument reached its crescendo and Bizness lost his balance, stumbling backwards and tripping. The sound of laughter came as he sprawled amid the spilled posters and CDs.

“Who the fuck uploaded that?” he spat, grabbing the phone from out of Pinky’s hand. There were several pages of comments, most of them jokes at Bizness’s expense, and Pinky hoped that he would not read them. He did not; he played the video again and then tossed the phone back, his eyes flaring with anger.

“It’s about the man,” Pinky said.

Bizness’s eyes narrowed and the animation washed from his face. Pinky realised he would have to tread carefully. “Go on, then — don’t just sit there, tell me what you know.”

“There’s a boy on the Estate, you’ve been asking him to do stuff for you — JaJa?”

“Yeah. What about him?”

“I was outside his Mum’s flat the day before yesterday. It was in the morning. Early — we’d been up late, selling shit to the cats, we was just about to call it a night. Anyway, right, I saw Elijah coming out, looking all upset and shit and then, right after him, out comes that man. It was definitely him, no doubt. He was half-undressed, had his shirt off.”

“What you saying? It’s Elijah’s Dad?”

“Nah, his Dad’s in prison.”

“So who is it?”

“Dunno. His Mum’s a skanky ho — some bloke she picked up, I reckon.”

Bizness zoned out as he tried to remember what the man had said to him. “He told me to stay away from the boy,” he recalled.

“Him and Pops’ bitch,” Mouse offered.

“You know anything else?” Bizness asked.

“Nah, that’s it. I thought it could be useful so I came over.”

“It is useful, younger. I appreciate that, you making the effort. You done good.”

“There was another reason for coming,” he said. It had gone as well as he could have expected and now here it was, the opportunity he had been hoping for.

“Go on,” Bizness said sceptically.

“I been thinking,” Pinky said, “I know you asked JaJa to do some things for you.” He left the “things” vague but he knew all about the incident at the launch party. “Between you and me, boy ain’t up to much. He’s just a little kid, gets scared about things.”

“You ain’t that much older yourself, younger.”

“Nah, true enough, but me and him ain’t got nothing in common. There ain’t nothing you could ask me to do for you that I wouldn’t get done. You know what I’m saying? You want to ask around, people will tell you. I’m reliable. I don’t mess no-one about. When I say I’m going to do something, I do it. You don’t need to worry about it, it gets sorted, you know what I’m saying?”

“That so?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Thing is, I’m looking for a change. I’m ambitious, man, and I’m getting bored hanging around in the same old crew. I want to do mad shit but Pops don’t have his heart in it no more, we just hang around these ends doing the same tired old shit day after day. The way I see it, I could do that kind of stuff with you.”

Bizness looked over at Mouse and grinned. “The balls on this one, eh? Reminds me of what I used to be like.”

“All you need to do is give me a chance — I promise I won’t let you down.”

“You don’t take no for an answer, do you?”

Pinky shook his head.

“Aight, I’ll tell you what, younger, there is something you could do for me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a crumpled ten pound note. “First of all, though, I’m hungry — go down to Maccy D’s and get me a Ready Meal, aight? Here.” He handed him the note as the other boys started to laugh.

Pinky felt the colour running into his cheeks. He pretended he wasn’t bothered. “Alright,” he said.

“Big Mac and a Coke. And be quick. I ain’t eaten all day.”

41

Pops came out of the takeaway with a bucket of fried chicken. The boys were waiting outside, arranged around a bench opposite the parade of shops. Little Mark was cleaning his new Nikes with a piece of tissue; Kidz, Chips and Pinky were hooting at a couple of pretty girls outside the launderette; and JaJa was sitting facing half away from them, a scowl on his face. They were drinking a six-pack of beer that Little Mark had stuffed down the front of his jacket in the mini-market when they went in for chocolate earlier. Pops put the bucket down on the seat and took off the lid. He helped himself to a breast and bit into it. It was crisp, with just the right amount of grease to it. The others helped themselves.

“I’m hungry,” Little Mark said.

“You’re fat,” Chips retorted.

“Piss off,” he said, but his eyes shone. Little Mark didn’t care if they teased him about his weight. He knew he was fat; he couldn’t deny it, and he didn’t care. He liked being the centre of attention.

“I’m bored,” Chips said.

Kidz looked up. “What we gonna do then?”

“Dunno.”

“Go see a film?”

“Nah. Nothing on. All shit.”

“What then?”

Chips raised his voice. “See if those fine girls fancy hanging out?”

The girls heard him, snorted with derision, and disappeared into the launderette.

“Something else, then.”

“Dunno.”

Pops looked at Elijah. He glared back at him sullenly. His eyes were piercing and, for a moment, he wondered if there could have been anyway that he could have found out about his visit to the station. No, he thought after a moment of worried consideration. No, there couldn’t be. He had been careful. They would all know, eventually, but not yet.

Little Mark spoke through a mouthful of chicken. “We could go and look at that crackhouse — you seen that shit?”

“That place Bizness had?”

“So they say,” Chips said.

“In Dalston?” Kidz asked. Chips nodded. “What happened?”

“Burned to the ground,” Little Mark replied, fragments of fried chicken spilling out of the corner of his mouth. “Some guy turns up, beats the shit out of the two boys who were there to look after the place, pours petrol around the place and sets it off.” He spread his fingers wide. “Whoosh.”

“Who was it?”

“Fuck knows. Some cat, probably, didn’t have any money for his fix and went mental or something.”

“Whoever that cat is, man, I would not want to be him when Bizness gets hold of him.”

“That shit’s going to be epic.”

“Medieval.”

“He should film it, stick it on YouTube. That’s viral, innit.”

“Stop it happening again.”

“Nah,” Little Mark decided. “Can’t be bothered. Dalston’s too far and I’m still hungry.”

“You always hungry, fatman.”

“It wasn’t no cat who did it,” Chips said. “You hear what happened at the BRAPPPP! signing? Some old guy, like in his forties or some shit like that, he turns up in the queue and basically calls Bizness out.”

“You see it?”

“Someone put it on YouTube. The old man goes toe-to-toe with him, stone cold, they have words and he does this ninja death grip on his hand. Bizness ends up on his arse in front of everyone. What I heard, they reckon the guy who did that is the same guy who burned down the crackhouse.”

“He’s a dead man,” Kidz said.

“You ain’t wrong.”

Elijah gave out an exasperated sigh.

“You hear about it, JaJa?” Chips said.

“Yeah.”

“What you reckon?”

“I reckon none of you know what you’re talking about.”

Pops watched the five of them, the easy banter that passed between them. Only JaJa was quiet, the rest joshing and ribbing each other without affectation or agenda. They were what they were: young boys, caught in the awkward hinterland between being children and men. He felt a moment of mawkishness. He had grown up with them. They were his boys, yet his days as one of them were limited now. When they learned that he was going to give evidence against Bizness they would shun him as surely as if he had thumbed his nose at them personally. He would be a grass and there would be beef between them, serious hype, and things could never be the same after that.

“Pops, man,” Kidz said as he started on his second breast, grease smeared around his mouth. “What we gonna do?”

His train of thought depressed him. “I don’t know,” he said, his voice blank. “Do what you want.”

“We could steam a bus?”

“Up to you, innit.”

“What are you doing?”

“Stuff.”

Little Mark looked at his BlackBerry. “Get this,” he said. “Just got a message from my boy in Hackney. You know all that rioting and shit in Tottenham?”

“And Brixton.”

“Yeah, now it’s spreading all over. There’s a big crowd getting together on the High Street. Hundred kids already and no sign of boydem anywhere. It’s kicking off.”

“Fuck we waiting here for?” Chips said. “That’s what we doing tonight, right? Let’s breeze.”

They all rose.

“You coming, Pops?” Little Mark asked.

“Nah, bruv. I got things to do.”

Pinky stopped and looked at him quizzically. “Where you heading?”

“Homerton.”

“Going through the park?”

Pops said he was.

“I’ll come with you.”

“You’re not going with the others?”

“Nah, bruv. I’m not into rioting and shit. Waste of time.”

Pops shrugged. He would have preferred to walk to college on his own but he wasn’t ashamed of it any more. Who cared if they knew? And Pinky, more than the rest of them, needed to see that there were other alternatives to the street. Perhaps it would help give him a nudge to do something else. And if it didn’t, if he thought worse of him, well, Pops didn’t care about that any longer.

“Aight,” he said to the others. “Laters.”

They bumped fists and Pops had another moment of sentimental affection for them all. He quickly recalled some of the things they had done together. Long, hot summer nights, smoking weed in the park, watching the world go by. He smiled at the memories. Another world. It was all finished and gone now.

With Pinky loping along beside him, he set off towards the park.

42

It was seven o’clock and still bright and warm.

“Where you going, then?” Pinky asked him.

“Like I said, I got an appointment.”

“Yeah?”

“That’s right.”

“Who with?”

Pops sighed. “No-one, Pinky. I’m going to college.”

“Course you are,” Pinky replied, managing a wide grin.

“I’m serious.”

“Bollocks, man.”

“Twice a week. Night classes.”

“Serious?”

Pinky was about to laugh again but he saw that Pops was staring at him darkly and stifled it.

College, he thought. What was the point of that? Studying, books, teachers; he had no interest in any of it. Pinky had always been a little slow in school. It wasn’t as if he had never tried. He had given it a go when he was younger but it didn’t seem to matter what he did; the others were always better at reading and numbers and shit and coming bottom of the class again and again got to him eventually. In the end, he had just stopped bothering. Stopped going. The school did nothing about it, his mums didn’t care either way and no-one seemed to miss him. Might as well just be philosophical about it. You couldn’t be good at everything. He’d concentrate on the stuff he knew he was good at: robbing, tiefing, shotting, frightening people. Those were his skills. He’d work on them, get better at it. That was where the money was. That was where the power and respect were, too.

“Why’s it so funny?” Pops asked him.

“Dunno. It’s just — well, it’s just not something I can imagine any of the others being interested in, that’s all.”

Pops snapped, “Because they’re not interested means it’s a bad idea?”

“Dunno,” he said, surprised at the heat in Pops’s voice.

“So what’s your plan? You must have one. Or you planning on being on the street all your life?”

“Hadn’t really thought about it,” he said. “It’s not so bad, though, is it? I get to hang out with my mates and I still make more money in a week than my Mums does in a month.”

Pinky could see that Pops was about to say something else but he sighed and shook his head instead. “Never mind,” he sighed. “You’re right. School isn’t for everyone.”

They walked along the Old Ford Road and crossed at the shops. A police car, its lights flashing and siren wailing, rushed by at high speed. They walked up to the roundabout and crossed there, too, passing through the park gates and heading north. There were fewer people in the park than on the street. Pinky looked around. It was quiet. He felt his fingers start to tremble.

“You can disagree if you want, but if you want to get on in life you need to have the grades.”

“That’s what you’re doing? Exams and shit?”

“Yes.”

“For what?”

“For a job. Work.”

Pinky gestured around at the park, and the streets beyond. “You don’t want to do this no more?”

“Everything comes to an end.”

Pinky had looked up to Pops when he started to make his way on the street. He had been a powerful figure, successful and feared, not afraid to get stuck in so that he could get what he wanted. He was what Pinky would have considered a role model. He couldn’t believe how wrong he’d been about that. Bizness had shown him. Pops was nothing to look up to. He wanted out. He couldn’t hold on to his woman. He was a fassy. A sell-out, a fraud who didn’t deserve anyone’s respect. Choosing to go back to school was just another example. And if what Bizness had said was true: going to the police? He felt sick when he thought about the way he had aspired to be like him. How could he have got it so wrong? He was nothing to look up. He was nothing at all.

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess.”

“What are you going to do with your life?”

“Smoke a lot of weed,” he laughed. “Work on my rep, make sure everyone knows who I am.”

“Can’t do this forever, man.”

“Why not?”

“You just can’t.”

“Nah,” Pinky said, suddenly overcome with the urge to put Pops in his place. “You’re talking shit, man. Just because you ain’t got the stomach for it no more don’t mean the rest of us have to feel the same way.”

He had never spoken to Pops like that before. A week ago, he would not have had the nerve, but he knew more now. There was no reason to fear him. And he didn’t need to listen to his sanctimonious nonsense.

Pops gave a gentle shake of his head but did not rise to it.

They walked on.

Pinky’s bag bounced against his hip as he walked. He held it in place with his right hand; it was heavy, and it felt solid.

“Where you going, anyway?” Pops said. “Following me around like a bad smell.”

“Just fancied a walk,” he said. “Nice night, innit?”

He stopped, letting Pops take several steps forward until he was next to a park bench.

He opened the bag and reached inside. He took out the gun that Bizness had given him. It was a Russian gun, a old Makarov. He had practiced with it in the quieter part of the park, getting used to the weight of it, how it felt in his hand.

“Oi,” he said. “Pops.”

Pops stopped and turned. “What is it?”

Pinky pulled the gun up and levelled his arm, bracing his shoulder for the recoil.

“This is from Bizness,” he said, just as he had been told.

Pops started to say something but he didn’t, his voice just tailing off. Perhaps he was going to explain, to apologize, to beg for his life, but what he must have seen in Pinky’s dead eyes made it all useless. Maybe he just accepted it. The gun cracked viciously again and again — four times — and then fell silent. Pops fell back against the bench and sat for a moment, looking up at the darkening sky. His fingers opened in a spasm as he clutched at his chest. Then his head fell sideways and then the right shoulder and finally the whole upper part of his body lurched over the arm of the bench as if he were going to be sick. But there was only a short scrape of his heels on the ground and then no other movement.

Pinky looked around. There was no-one near them. He started to giggle, nervous at first and then faster and faster, unable to control it. He tugged his hood down low over his face and set off, crossing the wide open space at a jog and then cutting through a straggled hedge and into a patch of scrub beyond. He paused there, taking a moment to catch his breath.

His heart was racing. He had done it. He had lost his cherry, killed a man.

Breathing deep and even, but trembling with adrenaline, he clambered over a wall and dropped down onto the pavement beyond. As he set off back towards the Estate he heard the sound of police sirens in the distance.

43

Milton sat in the front room with the pieces of his Sig Sauer arranged on the table before him. He often stripped and cleaned the gun whenever he needed to think; there was something meditative about the process. He removed the magazine and racked the slide, ejecting the chambered round. He disassembled the gun, removing the slide, barrel, recoil spring and receiver, wiping away the dust from the barrel with a bore brush before squeezing tiny drops of oil onto the moving parts. The routine had been driven into him over the course of long years. He had seen men who had been shot after their weapons jammed; two of his own victims had been damned by their bad habits when they might otherwise have held an advantage over him.

He had piggy-backed next door’s wifi and was streaming the radio through his phone. The riots had spread to Hackney now, too, and there were reports of disturbances in Birmingham and Manchester. Milton thought of Elijah and hoped that he was sensible enough to stay out of the way. Aaron had left him a message earlier in the day: he had not noticed any real change in the boy, he was still hanging out with the other boys although he was, Aaron thought, quieter than usual. He said that he seemed to be angry about something but that he had not spoken with him to confirm it. As far as he knew, there had been no new contact with Bizness.

Milton tapped out one of his Russian cigarettes and lit up. He considered Bizness. Last night’s message would have been received and, if he had any sense, it would have been listened to. Perhaps he had taken Milton’s advice and was going to stay away from Elijah. Perhaps. Milton wet an ear bud with cleaning solvent and inserted it into the breech end of the barrel, working it back and forth and swabbing out the chamber and bore. Perhaps not. No, Bizness was not the kind of man who would back down. He had made his point but he had anticipated that it would be necessary to underline it. Another demonstration would need to be made. Milton looked over at the scrap of paper on the arm of the sofa. Aaron had provided the address for a second crackhouse. He planned to take it down tonight.

He heard the boom of heavy bass from a car stereo, gradually increasing as it neared the house. The thudding rattled the windows in their frames. He pulled aside the net curtains to look at where it was coming from. A car with blacked-out windows was moving slowly along the side of the road and, as he watched, the passenger side window rolled down. The car drew up alongside the house. A figure leant out of the window, bringing up a long assault rifle. With something approaching a mixture of professional curiosity and alarm, Milton recognised the distinctive shape of an AK-47. The car passed into the golden cone of light from a streetlamp and Milton could see Bizness’ face, his features contorted with a grin of excitement that looked feral.

Milton threw himself to the floor as the AK fired. The glass in the window was thrown out by the first few round, splashing down around his head and shoulders and shattering against the floorboards. Bullets studded against the thin partition walls, dusty puffs of plaster exhaling from each impact. The mirror above the fireplace was struck, cracking down the middle with each half falling down separately against the mantelpiece. A jagged track was pecked across the ceiling, more plaster shaken out to drift down like the thinnest of snow. The thin door was struck, the cheap MDF torn up and spat out.

Outside, someone screamed. Milton crawled behind the sofa, pressing himself into cover. The table with the pieces of his Sig was out of reach; he dared not make an attempt to retrieve it and even if he had been able to get it and assemble it he would have been badly outgunned. The AK had been fitted with a drum and he knew that it would have around seventy-five rounds if it was full to capacity. At a standard rate of fire the gun would chew through that in fifteen seconds.

As he was considering this, the shooting stopped.

He stayed where he was, waiting. Residual bits of glass fell from the wrecked frame, tinkling as they shattered against the floorboards. Milton’s breath was quick. He did not move.

He heard a loud whoop of exultation, a car door opening and then — panic spilling into his gut — he saw a small metallic object sail through the smashed window, bounce against the wall and fall back, landing on the sofa with a soft thump. A second followed. Milton knew what they were and scrambled up, desperately trying to find purchase for his feet as he threw himself out of the door and into the hall. The first grenade detonated with an ear-splitting bang, ripping the door from its hinges and sending a thousand razor-sharp fragments of shrapnel around the room. The second exploded seconds later. Shards sliced through the partition wall and into the hall, spiking into the masonry like tiny daggers. Milton shielded his head with his hands, pieces of debris bouncing off him.

He heard a car door slam shut, an engine rev loudly and then the shriek of rubber as tyres bit into the road. He opened the bullet-shredded front door and stepped out onto the street. The BMW was speeding towards Bethnal Green, turning the corner and disappearing from view. Pedestrians on the other side of the road were staring in open-mouthed stupefaction at the scene before them. Residents of the block opposite were hanging out of their windows. The house had been sprayed with bullets. Most had passed through the window but others had lodged in the brickwork. Dozens of spent cartridges glittered on the road and the pavement, a host of red-hot slugs, many still rolling down towards the gutter.

Milton was not interested in discussing what had happened with the police and there was no reason for him to stay. He quickly piled his clothes into his bag, collected the pieces of the gun, shut the door, got into his Volvo and set off.

44

Mouse was driving the new whip, the BMW. Bizness was in the passenger seat and Pinky was in the back. Traffic was crawling along the Kingsland Road. There were youngers everywhere, hundreds of them, kids from the gangs with their faces covered and white kids you’d never normally see this deep into the heart of Hackney. As he watched he saw different kinds of people in the crowd: professionals in suits, older people, plenty of girls, not so much watching the boys as involved up to their necks themselves. Ahead, they saw two boys in tracksuits with hoods pulled up over their caps dragging an industrial bin into the middle of the road. Another boy poured something into the bin and then dropped a flame into it. The fire caught quickly and, in seconds, a powerful blaze was reaching up to the roofs of the three storey buildings on either side of the road. Opposite them, a single hooded boy stood in the middle of a trashed Foot Locker, empty boxes and single, unpaired trainers strewn all about him. An old man, must have been seventy, grabbed a hat and bolted. A kid came out from the warehouse balancing eight boxes of shoes. Ahead of them, a people carrier with a disabled badge in the window pulled over and the grown man waiting for it quickly filled it with protein shakes from Holland & Barrett. Two girls pushed a wheelie bin full of the clothes they had taken from one of the local boutiques. Bizness had been following events on Twitter all afternoon: kids were rioting in Tottenham, Brixton, Enfield, Edmonton, Wood Green, all over London. And the Feds were nowhere.

The car came to a halt. “Fucking look at this,” Mouse exclaimed. “Shit is mental.”

Bizness couldn’t keep his eyes off the scene before him: a group of boys had gathered along the same side of a Ford Mondeo, heaving it in unison until they had it on two wheels and then, with a final effort, tipped it onto its side. They hooted in satisfaction before moving on to the Vauxhall parked ahead of it. Bizness grinned at it all. “Boydem shoot a brother like they did, what they expect? This was always gonna happen. People got no money, got noting to do. It’s been a riot waiting for an excuse for months round here.”

He craned his neck around so that he could look into the back at Pinky.

“You done good tonight, younger. Did exactly what I told you. Ain’t no way no-one’s going to be able to tie that back to us and, anyway, it’s all gonna get lost in all this nonsense.”

“Yeah,” Pinky said proudly. “Thanks.”

“First time you done that, right?”

“Yeah.”

“How was it?”

“Cool,” Pinky said. “You should’ve seen his face when I pulled the gun on him.” He giggled. “Looked like he was going to shit his pants. Then” — he made the shape of a gun with his forefingers — “blam blam blam blam.”

Bizness looked at the him. There was a smile on his face but there was no emotion in his eyes. They were blank and empty. Boy was a stone-cold killer. It was a little unsettling. He could see he wasn’t the smartest kid and he knew he’d end up getting merked himself eventually, but, until that happened, he’d keep him close. People like him, with no empathy, they were hard to find. They were useful, too. There were plenty of people he could do with having out of the way. Wiley T, for a start. Finish the job that JaJa never even started.

“That’s sorted out your problem, then?”

The boy craved his approval, like they all did. He laughed derisively. “There ain’t no case without Pops. That’s finished.”

“Won’t hurt with the stuff on YouTube, either,” Mouse offered.

Bizness felt his mood curdle just a little. He remembered that someone had recorded the old man standing up to him at the record signing, posting the clip online. There had been traffic on his Facebook page, too, and he had been called out for it. Mouse was right: when word got around that he had put out the hit on Pops, and that he had shot up the old man’s house, things would soon be back the way they were supposed to be again. No-one would be stupid enough to stand up to him now. Bizness wasn’t the things they were saying. He wasn’t a hood-rat. He wasn’t a kid you could just scare off. He was a serious player. A gangster with a reputation to defend. An authentic, one hundred percent OG.

“Yeah,” he agreed. “That shit’s gonna be good for business.”

That brought his thinking around. Business. It had been easy to find a replacement for the Dalston Lane crackhouse that the old man had torched. It wasn’t as if Hackney was short of empty properties and Levelz and Tookie had found a new place ten minutes away. They were already setting up again and putting out the word. Bizness hated crackheads, and he hated crackhouses, but they brought in plenty of Ps and he knew how to make the business work. It was like any business; you just needed to advertise, create a little demand, that was all. In this case you let it be known that there was cheap crack to be had and then you waited for your punters to come. Easy. It was like spreading shit and waiting for the fungus to grow.

“No way through here,” Mouse said. “We gonna have to detour.” He edged the Beamer further along the road until they could take a side street. He buried the pedal and they lurched forwards, wheels squealing as the rubber gripped. Bizness stared out of the window as they passed the rows of terraced houses and then the ugly boxes of the Estate.

Youngers were gathered on the street corners, their eyes following the car. Bizness wondered whether they knew who it belonged to. Some of them did, you could tell from their faces; he loved it when they nudged their friends and told them that it was him, loved the open-mouths and their surprise. It made him feel good. He had been one of them, once, stood around on the streets and doing nothing, shotting a little if he could get his hands on any merchandise, getting into beefs with other boys, looking for hype with lads from outside the postcode. He liked to remind himself how far he had come, how far he had left them behind. He was a player now, there was no question about it. He was a Face and everyone knew it. Some had started calling him the God of Hackney. He liked that. Maybe he’d change his name, release a solo record under that next. The God of Hackney. Had a ring to it, for sure. BRAPPPP! couldn’t go on forever and, after all, as far as most people was concerned he was BRAPPPP! anyway.

“We picking up JaJa now?” Pinky said.

“Yeah. You know what to say to him?”

“Just what I saw, innit,” he said. “Ain’t no problem.”

The boy was the last loose end he had to snip. He was waiting for them next to the entrance to the Lido in London Fields. Mouse had BBMed him earlier and told him to wait for them. He slowed the car to a stop. The boy got in next to Pinky, shut the door, and Mouse accelerated away again.

“Aight, younger. How you doing?”

“Alright,” Elijah said hesitantly. Bizness was pleased to see that the boy was still nervous around him. That was good.

“What’s he doing here?” Elijah said, nodding at Pinky.

“He’s in the crew now,” Bizness said. “You heard about Pops?”

He looked down at his new trainers, pressed close together in the footwell of the car. “Yeah,” he said.

“What you hear?”

“He got shot.”

“Other people know, too?”

“People are talking about it.”

Bizness folded his arms. “He had it coming to him, younger. Mandem was up to no good. First rule — you don’t ever, never, grass to the Feds. You do that, you’re worse than a dog. I know you know that, but it pays to keep it at the front of your mind. Pops forgot, see? And so he got what was coming to him. Ain’t no reason to feel bad about it.”

“You did it?”

“Nah. I made it happen.”

“Who, then?”

“You sitting right next to him.”

Elijah gaped at Pinky. “Him?”

“Yeah. Boy did good, just what I told him to do. Put four bullets into him. Ice cold. You want to pay attention. You got a lot to learn.”

“What do you mean?”

“I ain’t forgotten what happened with Wiley T, little man. You still got to make up for that.”

Elijah kept his eyes fixed on the floor. Yeah, Bizness thought, boy was real scared; of him and now of Pinky, too. That was just how he wanted it. You could get someone who was scared to do just about whatever you wanted them to do.

He changed the subject. “Reason you’re here, I want to talk to you about something. This man, the old fassy who burnt down my property — you know what we did to him today?”

He shook his head.

“There’s an AK-47 in the boot. We shot his house up.”

“You killed him?”

“Nah — we saw him come out, but he probably got shot, though, either that or the grenades we tossed in through his window would’ve done him. Messed his place up good. He won’t be bothering us no more.” He grinned at the thought of it. “It’s the same thing as Pops, see? Can’t have people questioning me, disrespecting me. You have to make an example out of people like that. You get me?”

Elijah nodded. It was a small, timid gesture.

“So,” Bizness went on, “the thing is, I heard something that’s troubling me. I heard you know who he is.”

“I—”

“Don’t mess me around on this, younger. It’s important. Pinky?”

“I was outside your Mum’s flat last week, wasn’t I? I saw him coming out. The HMV thing, too, I recognised him from there. I got an eye for faces, know what I mean? It was the same old man, I’m sure of it.”

“Come on, then, younger, what’s his name.”

“Milton.”

“You know what he does?”

“He never told me,” he replied quietly. “Said he ain’t police, though.”

Bizness sucked his teeth. Police didn’t typically burn down crackhouses, so he was happy that the old man wasn’t lying about that. “If he ain’t police, you know why he’s putting his nose in our business?”

“Dunno — honest.”

“He’s been staying with your Mums, though. Right?”

Fear washed over the boy’s face. “Not staying. One night.”

“Like a boyfriend or something?”

“Dunno.”

“Is it to do with her some way or another?”

“Dunno—”

“Come on, younger, there’s no need to worry. Nothing’s gonna happen to you or your Mums, I just need to know what’s going on so I can make sure he don’t do no more damage than he’s already done. Is he helping her?”

“I think maybe she asked him to keep an eye on me. I ain’t told him nothing, though, I swear. I don’t want nothing to do with him.”

“Aight, younger. That’s all I needed to know. That’ll do for now. Stop the car, Mouse — we’ll let him out here.”

They were near Bethnal Green now, nowhere near where they had picked him up. Another big group of hooded kids had gathered, heading along Mare Street towards Hackney’s High Street. They passed the blacked out windows of the Beamer, some of them staring, fire in their eyes. The busses weren’t running; JaJa was going to have to walk home. Bizness didn’t care about that. He picked up his phone and shuffled through his contacts for the number he wanted. He watched Elijah shuffling away with his head down as the call connected.

“You there?” he said.

“Yeah, man,” Tookie said.

“Do it.”

45

Milton stopped to fill up with petrol and then drove across to Blissett House. The traffic was heavy and it had taken him longer than usual. A large crowd of teenagers, their faces covered by bandanas and hoods, suddenly swept across the street, bringing the traffic to a halt. Milton clenched his jaw as he sat waiting for them to clear out of the way. An Audi was three cars behind him; Milton watched in the rear-view mirror as bricks started to bounce off the roof and bonnet. The windscreen caved in, a missile landing square in the middle of it. A police Matrix van was behind the Audi, the officers inside it powerless to do anything. A kid, his face wrapped in the purple bandana of the LFB, ran up to it and swung the golf club he was carrying into the side of the van, swinging it again and again and again until the wing was crumpled and bent.

He banged his fist against the dash. The stakes had been raised and he was suddenly very afraid. He had not expected Bizness to back down but neither had he expected him to do what he had done. He operated without compunction, with no regard for restraint. Milton was concerned that he would do something else, something worse.

He took his mobile and called Aaron. The phone rang five times, then six, before the call connected.

“Hello?”

Milton did not recognise the voice. “Can I speak to Aaron, please?”

“Who is this?”

He hesitated. “I’m a friend of Aaron’s. Who are you?”

“Detective constable Wilson, Stoke Newington CID. Who is this, please?”

“Where is Aaron?”

“I’m afraid Aaron has been shot, sir.”

“Is he alright?”

“I’m sorry, no, he’s not — he’s dead, sir. Please—”

Milton cut off the call and bounced his mobile across the passenger seat. The lights were still red. He felt a tightening in his gut, a cold knot of fear and dread. He slammed his palms on the steering wheel.

Come on, come on, come on!

The lights changed and he stamped on the accelerator, the rubber shrieking as he took a hard right turn. The traffic thinned out a little and he was able to make better progress, pulling out and bullying his way along the opposite lane whenever it slowed.

He knew something was wrong as soon as he reached the Estate. A thick plume of smoke was rising into the darkening sky. As he got closer, he saw that it was wreathed around the side of the block, lit by the spotlights on the corners of the building as it crawled up and pitched into the sky as a dirty, clotting cloud. He swerved the car onto the forecourt. A crowd had gathered around the foot of the building, their eyes fixed on the sixth floor. Thick smoke was gushing from one of the flats. A window shattered and more spilled out. Milton stared into the source of the smoke and saw the orange-red of the fire.

Sharon’s flat.

He sprinted across the forecourt to the stairwell, shouldered the door aside and took the stairs three at a time. He reached the sixth floor, slammed through the door and onto the walkway. He recognised Sharon’s neighbours among the group that had gathered at the end of the walkway. He grabbed one, the old lady who lived next door, and tugged her to one side. “Is she still in there?” he asked.

“I haven’t seen her come out. Her boy, neither.”

Milton released her arm and ran down the corridor. The heat climbed until it started to singe his eyebrows, a solid wall that washed over him and made it hard to breathe. He took off his coat and wrapped it around his hand, reaching out to the red-hot door handle and twisting it open. The room beyond was an inferno: the carpets, the furniture, even the walls and the ceiling seemed to be on fire. The flames lapped across the ceiling like waves. The smoke was dense and choking, and the sound of the hungry fire was threatening.

Milton heard a single scream for help, quickly choked back.

He draped his coat over his head and shoulders and stepped inside.

46

Rutherford left the house, locking the door behind him. It was another sultry, sticky night. The sound of sirens was audible in the distance, an up-and-down ululation that seemed almost constant, and seemed to be coming from several directions at once. He paused at the door of his car, took off his jacket and tossed it onto the passenger seat. There was something else in the atmosphere tonight, an almost tangible edge. He could not define it, but it made him uneasy. This part of Hackney often had the hint of menace to it, especially at night, but this was different. Something was wrong.

Milton had called him five minutes earlier. He had sounded anxious. Rutherford hardly knew him but he was not the sort of man that he would have associated with worry. He had explained that there had been an accident, and that Elijah’s mother was in Homerton hospital. Rutherford asked what had happened but Milton had ignored the question, asking him to find the boy and bring him to the hospital as quickly as he could. Rutherford had been eating a takeaway curry in front of a film but he had put the plate aside at once and put on his shoes.

Rutherford opened the door and settled in the driver’s seat. He had asked Milton where he could find Elijah. Milton said that he wasn’t at home but, save that, he had no idea. That wasn’t helpful, but Rutherford said that he would do his best.

He started the car, put it into gear and drove west.

There were more kids on the streets than usual, gathered in small groups on the corners and outside shops. They wore their hoods up and some had scarves and bandanas around their faces.

He reached for the radio and switched it on. Capital FM would normally have been playing chart music at this hour but, instead, there was a news bulletin. There were serious disturbances across London and Hackney was said to be especially bad. Rutherford had read the reports in the newspaper about the gangbanger who had been shot and killed and it seemed that the protests in Tottenham and Enfield had spread, metastasizing into something much bigger and more dangerous.

As he turned off the main road a bus hurried towards him from the opposite direction, driving quickly and erratically. As it rushed by, Rutherford saw that it had no passengers. All of its windows had been shattered. He drove on until he reached Mare Street; he had to slow to a crawl as the crowd on the pavement started to drift out into the road. Ahead of him, the crowd was a solid mass. He stared in stupefaction as a group of teenagers smashed the window of a parked police car. One of them reached in with a black bin bag and spread it across the passenger seat. He lit the bag, the flames taking at once, the upholstery going up and flames quickly curling back down again from the ceiling. The crowd cheered jubilantly. The windows that had been left intact blackened and then started to crack. Someone marshalled the crowd to stand back and then, on cue, the petrol tank exploded. A hundred mobile phones were held aloft, videoing the scene.

Rutherford had seen shit like this before in Baghdad, but this was London.

He found a side road and reversed the car into an open parking space. He set off, walking briskly. He didn’t know where Elijah was, but he did know what youngers would be like with something like this happening on their doorstep. They would be drawn to it like cats to free crack. His best chance was just to follow the mayhem.

Shop owners were closing their businesses early, yanking down the metal shutters to cover the doors and windows. People looked up and down the street anxiously.

Rutherford stopped at the stall where he liked to get his coffee in the morning. “You know what’s going on?” he asked the owner.

“Trouble,” he said. “It’s already crazy and they say it’s going to get worse. I’m closing up.”

Rutherford and the man turned and watched as a young boy, no older than twelve, sprinted down the pavement towards them. He was struggling with a large box pressed against his chest. The youngster ran past, screaming “I got an Xbox, bruv, believe it! There’s bare free stuff down there.”

Rutherford made his way further up the road. The shops were all shut now.

A large crowd had gathered in the high street. Forty or fifty of them, their faces covered with bandanas or hoods, were attacking the shuttered windows of the shops. Another two or three hundred were watching, laughing and pointing at the what they were seeing, on the cusp of getting involved themselves. A large industrial bin had been wheeled into the centre of the street, next to the bus stop, and set alight. Thick black smoke gushed out of it as the rubbish inside caught fire. The crowd whooped and hollered as young men took it in turns to launch kicks into the window of a Dixons. The glass was tough and resistant, but kick after kick thudded into it and it gradually started to weaken. A spider web of cracks appeared and spread, the glass slowly buckling inwards. “Out of the way!” yelled one of the crowd, a fire extinguisher held above his head. He ran at the window and threw the extinguisher into the middle of it. The glass crunched as it finally cracked open, the fire extinguisher tumbling into the space beyond. The crowd set on the wrecked display like jackals, kicking at it and clearing away the shards with hands wrapped in the sleeves of their coats. The televisions inside were ferried out, some of them put into the back of waiting cars, others wheeled away in shopping trolleys. The looters climbed into the window and disappeared into the shop beyond. Others moved onto the next one along.

Rutherford’s attention was drawn to a scuffle at the mouth of an alley fifty yards ahead of him. Four larger boys were surrounding a fifth person; his face was obscured by the t-shirt that had been put over it like a hood and he was identifiable as a police officer only by his uniform. The boys were dragging him into the alley, occasionally pausing to kick or punch him. Another one was tearing a fence down for the planks of wood it would yield; Rutherford knew what they would be used for. He changed course to head in their direction, shouldering people out of the way as he picked up speed.

“Oi!” he shouted to them. “That’s enough. Let him go.”

One of the boys turned, an insolent retort on his lips, but his expression changed as he saw what he was facing. Rutherford was big, and there was fire in his eyes. He called out to the others and they all faded back into the crowd.

Rutherford pulled the t-shirt from the officer’s head. He could only have been in his early twenties: a new recruit, tossed into the middle of the worst disturbances London had seen for years. His nose was streaming with blood, and Rutherford used the shirt to mop away the worst of it. “You alright, son?”

The man wore an expression of terror. “There’s nothing we can do,” he said, his voice taut with hysteria. “They’re like animals.”

Rutherford took him by the shoulders and looked right into his face. “You don’t want to be here,” he said, loosening the straps that secured his stab vest. “Ditch your gear and get back. It’s not going to take much more for it to get worse. Lynching, you know what I mean? Go on — breeze, man.”

People buffeted Rutherford as he was swept further up the street. He had never seen anything like it. There were no police anywhere and the crowd continued to grow and swell. The atmosphere was manic and the riot seemed to be gathering momentum, a life all of its own. Glass smashed and shattered, shards tumbling into the street to be trodden underfoot. Alarms clamoured helplessly, the sirens swallowed by the deafening noise of the mob. At the far end of the High Street someone had set fire to another bin and plumes of dark smoke billowed upwards into the dusk. A police helicopter swooped overhead, hovering impotently, its spotlight reaching down like a finger to stroke over the mob.

He was tall enough to look out over the top of the crowd but there was no sign of him. A teenage girl slammed into him and turned him to the left and there he was: with a group of boys, each of them taking turns to shoulder-barge the door to a newsagent’s.

“Elijah!”

He turned. His face was full of exhilaration but it softened with shame as he recognised him. “What you want, man?” he said, the false bravado for the benefit of his friends.

“I need to talk to you.”

“Nah. Don’t think so.”

Rutherford reached out and snagged the edge of his jacket. “You need to come with me.”

“Get off me!” He saw Rutherford’s face and the sudden anger paled. “What is it?” he said.

“It’s your mum.”

“What about her?”

“Better come with me, younger.”

Elijah’s face blanched. Rutherford made his the way back through the angry crowd, holding the edge of Elijah’s jacket in a tight grip. The boy did not resist.

47

Rutherford parked his car in the car park and led the way to the entrance of the hospital. Elijah had asked what was the matter as they made their way to the car. Rutherford had explained that he didn’t know, that he had received a message from Milton and that was it. The boy had been quiet during the ride and he remained silent now. Rutherford reached down and folded one large hand around the boy’s arm, just above the bicep, his fingers gripping it loosely. Elijah did not resist.

Rutherford stopped at the reception and asked, quietly, for directions to the Burns Unit. The hospital was sprawling and badly organised and it took them ten minutes to trace a route through the warren of corridors until they found the correct department. A long passageway gave access onto a dozen separate rooms. A nurse was sat behind a counter at the start of the corridor.

“Sharon Warriner?”

“Are you related to her?”

“This is her boy.”

The nurse looked at Elijah, a small smile of sympathy breaking across her face. “Room eight.”

They walked quickly and in silence, the soles of their shoes squeaking against the linoleum floor. The door was closed, with a sign indicating that visitors should use the intercom to announce themselves.

Rutherford paused. “Are you alright?” he asked Elijah.

The boy’s throat bulged as he swallowed. “Yeah,” he said, his voice wobbling.

“It might not look good now, but your mum is going to be alright. You hear me? She’ll be fine.”

“Yeah.”

“And I’m hear if you need me.”

Rutherford buzzed the intercom and opened the door. He stepped inside, leaving his hand on Elijah’s shoulder as they made their way into the ward. A series of private rooms were accessed from a central corridor. Milton was standing outside a room at the end. They walked up to him, and he stepped aside.

It was a small space, barely enough room for a bed and the cheap and flimsy furniture arranged around it. A window looked out onto a patch of garden, the ornamental tree in the centre of the space overgrown with weeds and bits of litter that had snared in its lifeless branches. A woman was lying in the bed, most of her body wrapped in bandages. The skin on her face was puckered across one side, angry blisters and weals that started at her scalp and disfigured her all the way down to her throat. Her head had been shaved to a stubbled furze and the eyebrow to the right had been singed away. An oxygen masked was fitted to her mouth and her breathing in and out was shallow, a delicate and pathetic sound. Her eyes were closed.

Rutherford felt a catch in his throat. He squeezed Elijah’s shoulder.

The boy’s hard face seemed to break apart in slow-motion. The hostility melted and the premature years fell away until he looked like what he really was: a fifteen year old child, confused, helpless and desperate for his mother. Rutherford’s hand fell away as the boy ran across the room to the bed.

Rutherford stepped back from the bed to give the boy some space. He turned. Milton was standing at the back of the room, his arms folded across his chest. His face relayed a mixture of emotions: concern for the woman; sympathy for the boy; and, beneath everything else, the unmistakeable fire of black anger. Rutherford knew all about that, it had landed him in trouble as a young man, and he had learnt to douse it down whenever it started to flicker and flame. He could see it smouldering behind Milton’s eyes now. His fists clenched and unclenched and his jaw was set into an iron-hard line. He was struggling to keep it under control. It didn’t look as if he wanted to. As he looked at the darkness that flickered in those flinty, emotionless eyes, he was afraid.

“What happened?”

“Arson.”

“Do you know—”

“I know.”

Rutherford lowered his voice even lower and flicked his eyes towards Elijah. “You said he was in trouble — is it because of something he was mixed up in?”

Milton nodded.

“Have you told the police?”

His voice was flat. “It’s gone beyond that.”

“So?”

Milton put his hand on Rutherford’s arm. “You need to do me a favour. Look after the boy. Keep an eye on him, keep on at him to train, he needs something like that in his life and we both know he’s got talent.”

“What about you?”

Milton ignored the question. “He needs a strong figure in his life. Someone to look up to. It’s not me — it was never going to be me. I’m the last sort of example that he needs.”

“What you talking about, man?”

“It doesn’t matter. Just say you’ll look out for him.”

“Of course I will.”

“Thank you.”

Rutherford pressed. “What about you?”

The feeling was suddenly bleached from Milton’s expression again. It became cold and impassive and frightening. “There’s something I have to do.”

“Let me help.”

“Not for this.”

“Come on, man, I don’t know what you’re thinking about, but whatever it is, it’ll go better if you’ve got someone to watch your back.”

“Look after the boy.”

“You’re going after them, aren’t you?”

“Look after the boy. That’s more than enough.”

48

John Milton set off for Dalston. The radio said that the rioting was getting worse and the evidence bore that out: the streets were choked with people, groups of youngsters making their way into the centre of Hackney. A girl was standing on a corner wearing her shorts and bra, her t-shirt wrapped around her face, both middle fingers extended towards a police car as it sped by. Shop windows were smashed: broken TVs were left on the street, unwanted t-shirts were scattered about, empty trainer and mobile phone boxes and security tags lying where they had been thrown. Milton watched as a young boy cradling a PlayStation box was punched by two older boys, and the box stolen, in turn, from him. The occasional police van went past, lights flashing, but not as many as Milton would have expected.

He passed a police station. It was surrounded by a large crowd and, as he watched, he saw the thick line of looters bulge and surge and then pour inside through a smashed door. Lights were turned on and, within moments, thick smoke started to pour through the windows. Rioters emerged again, some of them wearing police stab vests and helmets. They launched the helmets at the police and turned over the cars parked in the yard. Surely the authorities had not been caught out, he thought as he carefully skirted the crowd? Milton didn’t mind. This would serve as a valuable distraction for what he was intending to do.

The main road was eventually blocked by the sheer number of people in the street and so he picked a way to Bizness’s studio around the back streets, driving slowly and taking a wide path around clutches of rioters, their faces obscured by scarves and hoods, hauling away the goods they had looted from wrecked shops. He was stared down by huddled groups of people on the corner. They had boxes at their feet: consoles, stereos, flatscreen TVs.

He parked the car two hundred yards away and went around to the back. The light inside the boot cast a sickly light on the interior, a travel blanket laid across a collection of items that revealed themselves as bumps through the fabric. He looked around cautiously. There was no-one close enough to see what he was doing.

He took a pair of latex gloves from a cardboard dispenser and fitted them carefully onto his hands. He checked the street again and, satisfied, pulled the blanket aside. A sawn-off shotgun was laid across the floor of the boot and, next to it, his Sig 9mm automatic. He took a rag and wiped both guns carefully. He checked the Sig was fully loaded and holstered it under his shirt, inside the waistband of his jeans, the metal pressed into the small of his back. There was a box of shells next to the shotgun, and he stuffed a handful into his pocket. He cracked the breach and fitted two shells into the chamber. He wiped the gun with the rag, carefully removing any prints, and wrapped it in the travel blanket. It was eighteen inches from tip to stock and he slipped the bundle underneath his jacket, barrel pointing downwards. He had a dozen shells for the shotgun and seventeen rounds in the Sig. Twenty nine in total. He hoped it would be enough. He dropped a pair of flashbangs into his pocket and closed the boot.

The sound of alarms filled the air, loud and declamatory, and beneath their sharp screech came the occasional noise of windows shattering and the hubbub of shouts and shrieks from the rioters on the street. Police riot vans raced down the street towards Hackney Central and at the same time tens of kids with scarves over their faces came running in the other direction, laughing and screaming.

Milton made his way towards the main road.

49

“Shit’s going on out there,” Mouse whooped. “You see that brother? He just put a dustbin through the window of the Poundland.”

“Brother needs his head examining, looting a motherfucking Poundland.”

Pinky was speaking on the phone. “It’s going down at the shopping centre, too,” he reported. “They’ve bust in through the front doors and there ain’t no security or police nowhere doing anything about it. There’s a Foot Locker in there. What we doing here, anyway? It can wait. I want me some new Jordans, man. Come on, bruv, let’s get involved. We can be there in five minutes.”

Bizness looked at Pinky. The boy was immature. He was enthusiastic and full of energy but he was going to get on his nerves if he didn’t take it easy.

“It’s hot in here, man. Don’t you ever open no windows?”

“Have a beer. Smoke something. Just stop fucking getting in my face, aight?”

They had been in the room for two hours and it smelled of dope, sweat and cigarettes. Mouse had been out to find out the news and had returned to report that Pops’ body had been found in the park and that Elijah’s mother’s flat had been razed to the ground. Bizness was not worried. He had been careful, and there was nothing to connect him to either crime. The best policy, in a situation like this, was to sit tight for a few hours until the initial fuss had blown over. If the police wanted to talk to him, they knew where he was. They would say that they had been in the studio all day.

He had told himself he wouldn’t do any of the blow but it had been a long wait, they had a lot of it, and there wasn’t anything else to do. He felt twitchy and a vein in his temple jumped now and again, a nervous tic that was beginning to irritate him.

Mouse took out his phone. “I’m gonna go call my woman,” he said.

“Do it in here,” Bizness said.

“Place smells rank, man,” Mouse countered. “If I don’t get some fresh air I swear I’m gonna faint. I’ll speak to her for a bit, have a look on the street, see what’s happening, then get back inside. Won’t be long.”

50

Milton walked briskly to the entrance to the studio. Bass was thumping through the walls of the building, rattling the door in its frame. He scouted it quickly. If there had been time, he would have prepared a careful plan for getting inside and taking Bizness out. He would have found a distraction, perhaps disabled the electricity to put them on the back foot. Or he could have broken into the building opposite and sniped them from the second floor. The road was only twenty metres wide and he could have managed that in his sleep. He dismissed both ideas. There wasn’t time for either of them and, anyway, he wasn’t inclined to be subtle.

He tried the handle: it was locked. Milton took a step back and was preparing to kick it in when the locked clicked, the handle turned and the door was pulled open. A man was standing there, shock on his face, a unlit cigarette dangling from his lip. Milton released his grip so that the blanket fell away from the sawn-off and shoved the stock into the man’s face. His nose was crumpled and blood burst across his face. He lost his legs and began to fall. Milton followed him as he staggered back inside, swiping the stock like a club, the end catching the man on the chin as he went down. He was unconscious before he fell back and bounced off the stairs.

The light over the stairs was on. Milton flicked it off.

“Mouse?” came a voice from upstairs. “You alright?”

Milton turned the sawn-off in his hands, holding it loosely and aiming it diagonally upwards. He stepped over Mouse and started up the stairs, slowly, one at a time.

“Mouse?”

Milton climbed.

“You hear something?” came an angry voice from upstairs.

“Nah.”

“Go and check.”

“He’s outside on the phone. It’s nothing, Bizness.”

“Then there’s nothing to worry about going and making sure, is there?”

“Fuck it, man, all I want is a smoke and a relax.”

“Get down there.”

Milton kept climbing the stairs.

He thought of Aaron: shot dead in the park like an animal.

He thought of Sharon: breathing through a tube in a hospital bed, bandages wrapped around her face.

He thought of Elijah and his brutally short future if he let Bizness live.

No, he could not go back. Too much blood had been spilt. Milton had offered Bizness a way out, but he had decided not to take it. That was his choice. Ignoring his offer came with consequences, and those had been explained to him, too. There was nothing else to do; he had to finish it, tonight.

A second man appeared at the top of the stairs. Milton recognised him from the crack house. He squeezed the trigger and shot him in the chest, the impact peppering him from his navel to his throat. He staggered, his hand pointlessly reaching for the knife in his pocket. Milton cranked the pump and fired a second spread. Spit and blood foamed at the man’s lips as he pirouetted back into the room above, dropping to the floor.

The music suddenly cut out.

Milton paused, crouching low.

“Aight,” Bizness called down to him. “That you, Milton?”

He gripped the barrel in his left hand, the index finger of his right hand tight against the trigger.

“I know it’s you. I don’t know what your beef is with me but I ain’t armed. Come up, let’s sort this out.”

Milton took another step, then another.

“We can settle this thing. It’s about JaJa, right? That’s what you said. You want the younger, man, you can have him. Little shit ain’t worth all this aggravation. Come up, we’ll shake like men.”

Milton was at the top of the stairs.

He took a quick step and flung himself into the room.

Two Mac-10s spat out.

Tck-tck-tck-tck-tck.

The bullets thudded into the sofa, spraying out fragments of leather and gouts of yellowed upholstery. Milton landed next to the table and scrambled into the studio beyond, more automatic spray from the automatics studding into the floor and wall as he swung his legs inside and out of the line of fire.

Tck-tck-tck-tck-tck.

Chunks of wood sprayed out as bullets bit into the frame. The wide glass panel spiderwebbed and then fell inwards in a hundred razored fragments as bullets cracked into it. Milton crabbed backwards so that the solidness of the mixing desk was between him and Bizness’s dual autos.

He had dropped the shotgun. He fumbled for the Sig, pulled out the magazine and checked it, slapping the seventeen-shot load back into the butt. He clicked off the safety, cranked a bullet into the chamber, and held the weapon in front of his face.

“What — you thought you could embarrass me in front of my friends and my fans with no consequences? You could burn down my place and that would be that, no hard feelings, let bygones by fucking bygones? You must be out of your mind, man, coming here. You’re a dead man,”

There was a moment of peace. It was not silence — bits of debris still spattered down and the crowd was loud outside the window — but the firing had ceased.

“You dropped your shotgun,” he called. “Got anything else?”

Milton gritted his teeth.

“You ain’t got nothing like what I got here.”

“I gave you a choice,” Milton called out. “You just needed to leave Elijah alone.”

“See — there it is again, arrogance. What makes you think you can tell me what to do? You don’t tell me nothing, bruv.”

Tck-tck-tck-tck-tck.

The Mac-10s fired again and the room flashed, bullets spraying into the recording booth opposite Milton. He glanced up and saw the twin muzzle-flash reflected in the jagged remains of the booth window before bullets stitched across it and sent the shards crashing down on top of him. Bizness was behind the sofa. The bullets thudded softly into the upholstered sound insulation and the studio was filled with a fine shower of powder and dust.

“Come on. Come out and let’s get it over with. You know there’s no way out for you. What you got — a nine? You just pissing in the wind, bruv. I got two Mac-10s and enough ammo for a month. Stop hiding like a bitch. I ain’t gonna lie, you ain’t getting out of here alive. Come on. But you come out now, I promise I’ll do you quick.”

Milton straightened his back against the mixing desk and reached inside his jacket. His fingers touched a smooth, rounded cylinder. The flashbang fitted snugly into his palm.

“Funny thing is, even this won’t stick on me. You and my two boys had a gunfight and you all got done. There won’t be no sign of me. I’ve got a woman in Camden, she’ll alibi me up for now and earlier. All this — you gonna get dooked for nothing, bruv.”

Milton pulled the pin, reached up and tossed the grenade through the broken window and into the room beyond.

There was a fizz and a burst of the brightest white light as the phosphorous ignited.

Milton rolled out of the door, bringing the Sig up, and fired. The first shot missed but there was enough light from the flashbang for Milton to see Bizness, just as he popped up from behind the sofa to return fire. He brought the Sig around and aimed quickly, squeezing the trigger twice. Bizness staggered backwards through a sudden pink mist, the Mac-10s firing wildly into the ceiling. The boy toppled into the sofa. It tipped over so that he lay across it on his back, his legs splayed out over the now vertical seats. He was pressing his hand against his chest. A bullet had hit him there and blood was pulsing out between his fingers.

Milton had seen plenty of gutshots before. The boy was finished. No treatment could save him now.

He advanced on him, the Sig aimed at his head.

“You think you’re better than me, don’t you?” Bizness gasped out, the words forming between bloody gurgles. Milton kicked away the machine-guns. He crouched down at Bizness’s side. The boy took a ragged, wheezing breath. “You know what you are?” he said. “You people? You’re a bunch of fuckin’ hypocrites.”

A ringing sound danced in Milton’s ears and his eyes stung with sweat. The smell of cordite was acrid and he gagged a little. A trickle of blood, specked with bubbles of breath, dribbled from Bizness’s mouth.

“You sit in your cosy homes… with your soft, comfy lives… nothing bad ever happens…” He coughed, a tearing cough that brought blood to his lips. “You look at us and… you shake your head. You need people like me so you can shake your fuckin’ heads and say, ‘see that guy, he’s bad’, just so you can feel better about yourselves.”

Milton reached down and collected one of the cushions that had scattered away from the sofa.

“And you know why you… people are scared of a proud black man? I’m a threat to the way you see the world to be. The black kid in school… his Mums can’t put food on the table. The black kid who’s got no future… no prospects ‘cept slaving for some fucked-up… system that sees him as a second-class citizen.” He gasped. “You should be scared, bruv… Those kids running around outside tonight… I give them a purpose. I’m proof, man, living proof… that there ain’t no need to bow down to fuckers like you and those fuckers you represent. You want something, it’s aight, you go on and take it. JaJa, you can tell him what you want… but see how he feels this time next year when you’ve fucked off and he’s doing twelve hour shifts in Maccy D’s because that’s the only place that’ll give him a job.” He gasped again; the words were harder and harder to form. “He’ll think about me… the taste I gave him of the life… and he’ll ask himself, ‘why not me? Why can’t I have me some of that good stuff?’ You know I’m right. You’ve seen it in his eyes… same as I have.”

“You don’t know that. Maybe he will. Maybe he won’t. But he’ll see he’s got choices. You can take the short cut or do things properly. You chose the short cut. The easy choice. It hasn’t worked out so well for you.”

“Fuck you, bruv. You don’t know shit.”

“I know he wouldn’t think your life looked so appealing now.”

Bizness tried to retort but he coughed on a mouthful of blood.

Milton took the pillow and placed it over his head, one hand on each side, pressing down. The boy struggled, but Milton had his knees pressed down so that his arms were pinned to his side. His legs thrashed impotently, the kicks becoming less frequent until they subsided to spasms.

The spasms stopped.

Milton gently released the pressure and the cushion, covered in blood, fell aside. Milton had it smeared across his trousers and on the latex gloves, too. He looked up and was suddenly aware that there was another person in the room. He stared into the eyes of a teenage boy, the same age as Elijah. He was tall and skinny, his chin pressed down hard into his chest, just his eyes showing. It took a moment but then he recognised him: it was the boy from the park, the one who had threatened him on his first night in Hackney. He was in the corner of the room, pressed tight against the wall. He had a Makarov revolver in a trembling hand. The gun hung loosely from his fingers, pointed down at the floor. The boy looked young and frightened.

For a moment, Milton was back in France again, on the road in the mountains

He stood and walked across the room, reaching down for the Makarov. The boy released it without speaking. He located the spent cartridges from the shotgun and pocketed them. He collected the sawn-off and put it, the Sig and the revolver into a Nike holdall he found in a cupboard. The boy’s eyes followed him about the room, wide and timid, but he stayed where he was against the wall. He checked the room one final time to make sure that he had not left anything behind and, satisfied that he had not, he closed the door behind him and descended to the chaotic street below.