Girl On Fire

28

Stan didn’t like to see you go.

Even if I was just nipping down the shops to get some bagels and milk, or if Scout was being dropped off for a sleepover, our dog would groan as if his heart was breaking into a billion tiny pieces to see part of the pack going its own way. And so Scout and I smiled at each other when he began to whimper when we parked on the street where it looked like nothing bad had ever happened.

Because seven days after we talked on Parliament Hill, with the summer and our city and her lifetime all before her, today she was really leaving.

‘Dogs don’t change, do they?’ Scout said.

‘That’s right,’ I said.

Dogs don’t change, I thought. Even when everything else changes. Dogs stay the same.

‘Oh, Stan,’ Scout said. ‘You best boy. You little red rascal. I will see you very soon.’

We left him in the car and carried her things up the path. Some of her things. Enough to get her settled, enough to remind us that the loft in Smithfield would always be there.

Anne and Oliver opened the front door as we came up the garden path. Their two small children milled at their feet.

Oliver stepped forward to help me, taking the suitcases I held and placing them in the hall. Then he shook my hand. How could I still think of him as the new guy?

This was Scout’s life now.

Scout was listening to her mother telling her about exciting times that were ahead. I didn’t catch all of it.

Pizza for dinner. A trip to the cinema to see The Angry Princess Two. All good stuff. The two children peered at Scout shyly from between their mother’s legs.

I looked at Oliver and for the first time in my life, I felt a pang of feeling for the man. I was touched that he was here for Scout’s arrival. ‘How’s work?’ I said, feeling like I should say something to him.

His mouth twisted into something between a grin and a grimace.

‘The bank let me go,’ he said.

‘Oh,’ I said. And that was the end of that conversation.

The handover had the feel of a sleepover. It didn’t feel real. It did not feel final. It was only when they all went inside and the door closed behind my daughter that I felt a sense of loss as acute as an amputation.

My daughter was gone and yet it felt like she was still there.

As if she would always be there.

Stan was sleeping when I stopped the car by the side of Richmond Park. A giant red stag stared at me from the tree line. I had thought that nothing could replace having Hampstead Heath as your back garden.

But perhaps I was wrong. There were wild open spaces everywhere.

Still watching the red stag, I finally returned the voicemail message from my brilliant young lawyer, Maria Maldini.

She was not angry with me and I was grateful for that.

‘As you can imagine, I just took a rather triumphalist call from Mrs Lewis’ lawyer at Butterfield, Hunt and West,’ she said.

Mrs Lewis. The mother of my child. What a mess we make of our lives, I thought. And it is always the children who pay the price.

‘I didn’t do it for my ex-wife,’ I said. ‘And I didn’t do it for myself. I did it for my daughter.’

‘Well,’ my lawyer said brightly, as if she already understood something about this world that I had yet to learn. ‘Let’s hope it works out, shall we?’

When Stan and I got home, Edie Wren was standing outside my front door, trying to call me. And Layla Khan was sitting on my doorstep.

Edie and I stepped away while Layla fussed over the dog.

‘Layla’s run away from home,’ Edie said. ‘Turned up at West End Central. She wouldn’t tell me everything but her grandmother sounds like a nightmare. She can’t keep doing it, Max, because social services will take her into care.’ Edie chewed her bottom lip, looking at Layla and Stan. ‘That’s why I brought her here. If she hangs around West End Central, someone’s to call social services just to get shot of her. What are we going to do with her?’

‘What can we do, Edie?’ I said. ‘We’re going to take her home. Going into care isn’t going to bring her any joy, is it?’

Edie leaned closer, lowering her voice.

‘But her grandmother knocks her about, Max,’ she said. ‘Calls her a whore for mucking about with her hair and make-up. She’s a sixteen-year-old girl growing up in London, for Christ’s sake.’ Edie shot a protective look at Layla. ‘I’m really concerned about her, Max. There’s other stuff going on that she doesn’t want to talk about. Apparently some cousin’s turned up from Islamabad. She’s got all these family members laying down the law.’

‘Edie,’ I said. ‘It’s good that you care about the kid. But you can’t change her world. What else can we do with her apart from take her home? Do you really want to hand her over to social services? You think that’s going to sort out her life? A few years being abused in care and then chucked on to the streets to fend for herself? Living with her family has got to be better than that, doesn’t it?’

‘But how can I send her back, Max? She trusts me. I was tempted to take her home with me. Just until we worked something out.’

‘Then you would have both been in trouble,’ I said. ‘There’s nothing to work out, Edie. Apart from the least worst option.’

We all went up to the loft.

Layla picked up a Frisbee and zipped it too high and hard across the room, as if Stan was a Labrador.

He gamely went after it anyway.

‘Layla?’ I said. ‘We are going to have to take you back to your grandmother. The alternative is to let social services take care of you. In the eyes of the law, you’re still a child.’

Layla glared at Edie with tears in her eyes.

‘You said he would think of something.’

‘I said he would try.’

‘I thought you were my friend. I bet you think you support women’s rights, don’t you? Well, what about my women’s rights? Or are you too scared of looking racist to stand up for my rights?’

‘I am your friend,’ Edie insisted. ‘And I’m going to keep an eye on you. And I am not going to let anyone—’

But Layla wasn’t interested.

‘You tell me to fit in!’ she said. ‘You tell me to integrate! You tell me to assimilate! Then you send me home to a place where I have to turn the clock back five hundred years.’

We had no answer to that.

‘Maybe my family were right about you,’ Layla said, looking at both of us now. ‘You hate the lot of us. We destroy your buildings because you destroy our countries. And we hate you right back.’

‘That’s not you talking,’ Edie said. ‘That’s your father or your uncles talking. That’s some dick with a beard on YouTube. But it’s not you, Layla.’

‘You don’t know me,’ Layla said, and stormed off to use the bathroom.

We watched her go. Stan belatedly returned with the Frisbee, disappointed the game was over so soon.

‘I promised her that we would work something out,’ Edie said.

‘And you did,’ I said. ‘Layla goes home and you keep an eye on her. Explain to dear old granny – and anyone else that’s hanging around – that nobody’s allowed to knock a child about in this country.’

Edie dragged her fingers through her hair.

‘Layla doesn’t really hate me, does she?’ Edie said. ‘She’s a teenager. Hormones all over the place. Reminds me of me at that age.’ She smiled ruefully at me. ‘You’ve got all that to look forward to, Max.’ She looked around the loft. ‘Scout’s got a sleepover?’

I took a breath. ‘Scout’s living with her mother now.’

Edie took that in.

‘I’m sorry, Max. That must have been hard.’

‘It’s hard but it had to happen. And how are you, Edie?’

‘I’m fine. I’m good.’ She hesitated. ‘I bailed out of the thing with Mr Big after the wife turned up at work.’ She shuddered at the memory. ‘I should have done it years ago. She was right. I should have known better. And he was never going to leave his wife. But it’s OK. Most relationships don’t end too soon. Most of them go on too long.’

She ran her fingers through her red hair as we stared at the bathroom door and waited for Layla to come out.

‘I just wish I could sleep,’ Edie said.

I nodded.

‘Me too,’ I said.

We drove Layla home.

At the far end of Borodino Street a crowd was gathering behind police tape and a short line of uniformed officers. At the other end, where we showed our warrant cards to a hefty uniformed sergeant, there were three police vans. Two of them were full of more uniformed coppers, drinking tea and laughing as if they were not expecting anything too arduous in the shift that lay ahead.

Most of the houses on Borodino Street were boarded up now. The locals were moving out. The developers were moving in. Building work was everywhere. A scaffolding lorry was parked halfway down the street. In a year or two Borodino Street would be full of luxury apartments for young professionals.

I stared at the crowd waiting beyond the police tape.

There were still some George Halfpenny haircuts but their numbers were swelled by local youths and perhaps not so local. They were white, black and Asian, with little in common apart from their age and their boredom.

The boys of summer, I thought, and I could smell a riot in the warm air.

‘How many have you got up here, Skipper?’ I asked the sergeant.

‘A full PSU.’

A complete Police Support Unit consists of an inspector, three sergeants, eighteen officers and three drivers for the three vehicles that every PSU is split into. So there were a couple of dozen officers to manage a crowd of perhaps a hundred.

‘It might not be enough,’ I said.

‘Oh, it will be enough if these little herberts keep it quiet,’ the sergeant said confidently. ‘And if they don’t, we’ll just bell for some back-up.’ He indicated the crowd. ‘They think they’ve got a big gang?’ The sergeant chuckled. ‘We’ve got the biggest gang in town.’

We walked down the empty street to the house.

There were jeers from the crowd when they recognised Layla.

‘They really hate us, don’t they?’ she said. ‘All of us. They just want us gone.’

Edie put an arm around her shoulders. ‘Nobody’s going to hurt you, OK?’ she said.

Layla snorted with disbelief. But she made no attempt to shrug Edie off.

The ground floor of the house on Borodino Street was an abandoned ruin. There was blackened brickwork around the boarded-up windows. The old wooden door was gone and had been replaced by what looked like a stainless steel slab behind a locked metal grille.

A few dim lights were burning upstairs. A Porsche 911 was parked right outside.

‘I’m surprised they didn’t move you out,’ I said to Layla.

‘My grandmother wouldn’t move,’ she said.

‘I thought the council would tell her to move,’ Edie said.

Layla laughed with something like pride. ‘They don’t tell her what to do. She tells them what to do.’

A man opened the door. He was young, fat, with the scant remains of his hair plastered across his gleaming skull. He said something to Layla in Urdu.

She brushed past him without replying and went upstairs.

We showed him our warrant cards. He stared at them blankly. He tapped his chest.

‘Husband,’ he said. ‘Husband.’

Edie and I exchanged looks.

The grandmother came shuffling down the stairs.

‘Husband,’ the man said, indicating the stairs. ‘New husband.’

‘You’re getting married again?’ Edie said.

Mrs Khan showed us her teeth. ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ she laughed. ‘Taking a new husband now the old one is gone. Ha, ha, yes!’

There was suddenly a roar from the crowd beyond the police tape. They were surging forward, trying to get past the line of officers. The tape had already been shredded. A policeman’s helmet careered like a skittle across Borodino Street. The cops from the vans were racing down the street to reinforce their colleagues.

‘Inside now,’ I said.

The fat young man locked and bolted the stainless steel door behind us.

I went into the front room. It still stunk of fire and sodden wood and blackened brickwork although the worst of the damage was all close to the hallway and front door. All three of the bay windows at the front of the house had been boarded up but there were gaps in the wood where shafts of light came in. I pressed my face against the largest crack in the boards that covered the middle bay window and saw it afforded a good view of the full length of Borodino Street.

A few dark figures with their faces obscured by ski masks and hoodies were already moving around the abandoned convoy of police vehicles.

As I watched, one of the empty police carriers suddenly burst into flames. One of them must have sprayed something on the side of the burning vehicle before it was torched because it was suddenly there in rough black characters, the single word and the four numbers, shining out of the flames like a thought for the day.

EXODUS 20:13

Edie was on the phone calling for back-up as Sir Ludo Mount came into the room.

‘This continuing campaign of intimidation against my clients is outrageous,’ he said. ‘The institutionalised racism of the Metropolitan Police must—’

‘Do you believe in Bad Moses, Sir Ludo?’ I asked him.

He stared at me.

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Do you think this Bad Moses is real? Because if Bad Moses exists, then he is here tonight.’ I indicated the boarded-up window. ‘Look out there.’

He pressed his smooth pink face against the crack in the boards and I saw his body stiffen. When he turned away from the window, I saw the terror in him.

‘I’m getting out of here,’ he said.

‘I strongly advise against it,’ I said.

‘This Bad Moses will lynch me from the nearest lamppost if he gets a chance!’

‘That’s why you are better off staying in here,’ I said. ‘There’s back-up on the way—’

But Mount was no longer listening to me. He was screaming at the fat young man who still held the keys in his hand.

‘Open it! Open it!’

The fat young man opened the front door and Sir Ludo pushed roughly past him. The door was quickly locked and bolted again. From the boarded-up window Edie and I watched Mount get into his Porsche and gun the engine.

‘Is this a good idea?’ Edie said.

‘If he makes it,’ I said. ‘And if he doesn’t, it’s a lousy idea.’

The police were pushing back the crowd at the far end of Borodino Street and the Porsche containing Mount sped off in the opposite direction, towards the abandoned police vehicles, swerving up on to the pavement to avoid the blazing van with the word and the numbers sprayed on its side.

But suddenly more dark figures were at that end of the street, as if drawn by the fire, faceless shapes with their features hidden by ski masks and scarves. There were a dozen of them, then twenty, then too many to count.

The engine of the Porsche gave a throaty roar as it hurtled towards them, but they blocked his exit now and Sir Ludo did not have it in him to plough through them.

He jammed on his brakes and began reversing down the street. Then he stopped and fell out of the car, on his hands and knees and then rising and running, as if it was his car that they wanted and not his skin, not his head, not his life.

And perhaps he was right because the masked crowd cheered as Sir Ludo fled but they did not give chase as he ran back towards the house.

The outnumbered police had fought the crowd to a standstill at the far end of the street while at the other end, the faceless figures capered and danced and cheered as they began rocking the abandoned Porsche, attempting to turn it over.

And then there were sirens in the distance, getting closer with every second, and at both ends of the street, the mob was melting away as if of one mind. Cursing them, the bruised and battered Police Support Unit gave chase.

Borodino Street was suddenly deserted.

Sir Ludo was standing bewildered in the middle of the empty street as Edie and I came out of the house.

‘Is it safe?’ he said. ‘Is help on the way?’ And then he squealed with pain. ‘My bloody car!’ he said, marching towards it. ‘Those animals!’

The Porsche had been flipped on its back.

I looked at Edie Wren and she smiled at me with the relief that comes when you know you are finally safe and sound.

And then my phone vibrated.

NO CALLER ID, it said.

And then the promise.

I will make you crawl

And at that moment the headlights of a scaffolding lorry came on at the end of the street.

‘We’ve been set up,’ I said as the scaffolding lorry’s engine fired up.

It was coming towards us, moving rapidly down the deserted street, gaining speed with every second, the headlights dazzling, the big diesel engine roaring.

Sir Ludo Mount was standing by the side of his flipped-over Porsche, looking at his phone.

The scaffolding lorry struck him a glancing blow, catching him low on the back, and it was enough to spin him around and toss him screaming into the air, his hands clawing at his broken spine before he even hit the ground.

And it just kept coming.

‘Go,’ I said, but Edie did not move. And for a long sickening moment, neither did I.

Then I shoulder-charged her off the pavement and over a low, scrubby bush into a neighbour’s garden that had long ago exchanged its grass for concrete. And when I saw her feet in the air and I knew she was out of harm’s way, I ran. I ran for my life.

And I ran for my car, that big Bavarian tank, as if it was my only hope of walking away. The scaffolding lorry was gaining on me, the driver leaning on the horn, one long scream of blue murder, but I threw myself behind my old BMW and then it was tearing past me and gone, hurtling out of Borodino Street.

I slowly got up off my knees, the smell of diesel in the back of my throat.

All at once the street was full of vehicles and people. The world had filled with blue lights. Edie was climbing out of the bush and numbly staring at Sir Ludo Mount.

At first I thought he was roadkill. But then Edie was on her knees, pumping his chest, pushing out the thirty compressions before lifting his chin and tilting his forehead and pressing her mouth against his mouth as she blew air into his lungs.

The fire had burned itself out in the police van. Most of its white paint had curled and dissolved, revealing the steel beneath. But you could still just about read the message.

EXODUS 20:13

‘What does it mean?’ a woman’s voice said beside me.

I turned to look at Scarlet Bush.

‘It’s the Sixth Commandment,’ I told the reporter. I knew them all by heart now. ‘Thou shalt not kill.’

Then Edie was there. Paramedics were all around Sir Ludo Mount, lifting him on to a gurney and loading him into the back of an ambulance.

She hugged me. I looked at her face. Her fabulous face.

We broke away from each other.

Scarlet Bush had approached the back of the ambulance and started taking photographs of Mount’s mangled body being secured for transportation to hospital. One of the paramedics furiously cursed her and she backed off, checking her phone to see what she had.

‘Get any good shots?’ Edie said, her voice ripe with contempt.

‘A few,’ Scarlet said. She lowered her phone and looked at us. ‘Sir Ludo was really hated, wasn’t he? Because he stood up for the Khan family after the brothers killed all those innocent people. Because he went after the Met after Alice Stone died.’

‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Sir Ludo Mount was hated.’

She held her phone nearer to me. There was a little red light that told me she was recording.

‘And would you say he was the most hated man in England?’

I nodded. ‘There’s your story, Scarlet,’ I said, and she hurried off to write it.

Edie was staring at me. ‘But they weren’t trying to kill Mount, were they?’ she said. ‘They were trying to kill you. He just got in the way. Exodus 20:13. Who do they think you killed, Max?’

Ray Vann, I thought. Someone thinks I have to answer for Ray Vann.

But I said nothing.

‘Look,’ Edie said, and we stared up at the house on Borodino Street.

Mrs Khan and the man who called himself husband were watching the street from the top floor.

And from an unlit window at the other end of the house, Layla Khan also looked down at the street. I hardly recognised her because the girl’s head and face were now covered by a hijab. And I understood that the bald young man from Islamabad was not here to marry Mrs Khan.

He was here to marry Layla.

Then Layla Khan turned her head, as if someone was calling her name, and she stepped away from the window and Edie Wren and I saw her no more.