Текст книги "The Cleaner"

Автор книги: Mark Dawson

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Текущая страница: 6 (всего у книги 19 страниц)

15

Milton waited until the sun had sunk below the adjacent houses before he went out to scout the area. It was a humid, close evening, the stifling heat of the day had soaked into the Estate and now it was slowly seeping out. Televisions flickered in the front rooms of the houses on his street, most of the neighbours leaving their windows uncovered. Arguments played out of open doors. The atmosphere sparked with the dull electric throb of tension, of barely suppressed aggression and incipient violence.

The area seemed to come alive at night. There were people everywhere. Youngsters gathered on street corners and on weed-strewn playgrounds. Others listlessly tossed basketballs across a pock-marked court while they were watched by girls who laced their painted nails through the wire mesh fence. A lithe youngster faked out his doughty guard and made a stylish lay-up, the move drawing whoops from the spectators. Music played from the open windows of cars and houses. Graffiti was everywhere, one crude mural showing groups of children with guns, killing one another. Milton carried on, further along the road. A railway bridge that bore the track into Liverpool Street cast the arcade of shops below into a pool of murky gloom. A man smoking Turkish cigarettes levered rolls of carpet back into his shop, drivers gathered around a minicab office, the sound of clashing metal from the open windows of a gym with a crude stencil of Charles Atlas on the glass. The arcade carried the sickly smell of kebab meat, fried chicken, and dope.

Milton took it all in, remembering the layout of the streets and the alleyways that linked them. Two streets to the east and he was in an area that bore the unmistakeable marks of gentrification: a gourmet restaurant, a chi-chi coffee shop that would be full of prams in the daytime, a happening pub full of hipsters in drainpipe jeans and fifties’ frocks, an elegant Victorian terrace in perfect repair, beautifully tended front gardens behind painted iron fences. Two streets west and he was back in the guts of the Estate, the ten-storey slabs of housing blocks with the nauseatingly bright orange balconies, festooned with satellite dishes.

Milton crossed into Victoria Park, a wide open space fringed by fume-choked fir trees. A series of paved paths cut through the park, intermittent and unreliable streetlamps providing discreet pools of light that made the darkness in between even deeper and more threatening. The area’s reputation kept it quiet at night save for drunken city boys who used it as a shortcut, easy pickings for the gangs that roamed across it looking for prey.

Milton passed through the gate and walked towards the centre. A group of youngsters had congregated around one of the park benches. One of their number was showing off on his BMX, bouncing off the front wheel as the others laughed at his skill. Milton assessed them coolly. There were eight of them, mid-teens, all dressed in the uniform: caps beneath hoodies, baggy jeans and bright white trainers.

He kept walking. As he drew closer he heard the sound of music being played through the reedy speaker of a mobile phone. It had a fast, thumping beat and aggressive lyrics. The rapper was talking about beefs, and pieces, and merking anyone who got in his way.

One of the group sauntered out from the pack and blocked his path.

“What you want, chi chi man?”

The boy showed no fear. His insolence was practiced, and drew hollers of pleasure from the audience. “I’m a journalist,” he said.

“You BBC? You on the television? Can you get me on the TV?”

“No, I’m working on a book.”

Laughter rang out. “No-one reads books, bro.”

“It’s about police corruption. You know anything about that?”

Milton watched the boy. He was a child, surely no older than fifteen. There was a disturbing aspect to his face, a lack of expression with his eyes constantly flickering to the left and right. Milton had seen that appearance before; soldiers from warzones looked that way, a pathological watchfulness to ward against the threat of sudden attack. Milton knew enough about psychology to know that kind of perpetual vigilance was unhealthy. He knew soldiers who had been constantly on the alert for danger, who equated any show of emotion with violence, and from whom all feeling had been smelted. They became machines.

“The pigs are all bent, man,” the boy told him. “You might as well write about the sky being blue, or water being wet. You ain’t teaching no-one nothing round these ends. No-one’s gonna read that.”

“Do you know Elijah Warriner?”

“What’s he got to do with the Feds?”

“I want to talk to him. I heard he’s around here sometimes. Is he a friend of yours?”

“That little mong ain’t my friend and there’s no point talking to him. He don’t know fuck all. You want, though, we could have a conversation? You and me?”

Milton noticed one of the boys in the group take his phone from his pocket and start to tap out a message. “Fine,” he said. “What would you like to talk about?”

“Wanna know about violence? I shanked a guy last week. Want to know about that?”

“Not really.”

“I could shank you, too. I got a knife, right here in my pocket.” He sauntered forwards, towards Milton, still showing no sign of how outsized he was. He patted the bulge in his hip pocket. “Six inch blade, lighty. I could walk up to you right now, like this, take the knife, shank you right in the guts.” He made a fist and jabbed it towards Milton’s stomach. “Bang, you’d be done for, blood. Finished. I could make you bleed, big man, right in the middle of the park. Ain’t no-one gonna come and help you out here, neither. What you think of that?”

Milton said nothing.

“Man got shook!” one of the others shouted out. “Pinky shook the big man.”

Milton looked down at the boy. He was tall and thin and wiry, couldn’t have been more than nine stone soaking weight. Calling his bluff would provoke the escalation he seemed to want, and there was no point in doing that. He wanted them to think he was a journalist, harmless, a little frightened and out of his depth. The hooting and hollering around them continued, but the atmosphere had become charged.

“I might shank you, the moment you turn your back.” Milton noticed a group of boys cycling across to them from the edge of the park. “Don’t turn your back on me, big man. You don’t mean nothing to me. I might do it, just for a laugh.”

The group on the bikes reached them. There were half a dozen of them. Milton recognised Elijah at the back. The biggest boy – Milton guessed he was seventeen or eighteen – propped his bike against the bench and strutted over to them.

The boy walked across to the group. “Alright, Pinky?” he said to the youngster who had threatened him. “What’s the beef?”

“Nah,” the boy said. “Ain’t no beef.”

Milton ignored him and addressed the newcomer. “Are you in charge?”

“You could say that.”

Milton pointed over at Elijah. “I want to talk to him.”

“You know this man, Elijah?”

A look of suspicion had fallen across his face. “Yeah,” he said warily. “He was with my Mums.”

“And do you want to talk to him?”

Elijah shook his head.

“Sorry, bro. He don’t want to talk to you.”

“He say he a writer,” one of the boys reported, loading the last word with scorn.

“That right?”

“That’s right. A journalist.”

“Bullshit. You ain’t a journalist, mate. If you’re a journalist then I’m going to win the fucking X Factor. You must think I was born yesterday. What are you? Social?”

“He’s po-po!” one of the other boys cried out. “Look at him.”

“He ain’t a Fed. Feds don’t come into the park unless they’ve got backup.”

The atmosphere was becoming fevered. Milton could see that it had the potential to turn quickly, and dangerously. He concentrated on the older boy. “What’s your name?”

“You don’t need to know my name.”

“I don’t want any trouble.”

“Then you don’t wanna come walking through our ends late at night, do you, bruv?”

“I’m not police. I’m not social. You don’t have anything to worry about.”

The boy laughed scornfully. “Do I look worried?”

“No, you don’t,” Milton said. He raised his voice so that the others could hear him. “Tell Elijah that I want to talk to him. I’m going to have my breakfast in the café on Dalston Lane every morning from now on. Eight o’clock. Tell him I’ll buy him breakfast, too. Whatever he wants. And if he doesn’t want to meet me, he can call me here instead.” Milton reached into his pocket and took out a card with the number of his mobile printed across it. He gave it to the older boy, staring calmly into his face. A moment of doubt passed across the boy’s face, Milton’s sudden equanimity shaking his confidence. He took the card between thumb and forefinger.

“Thank you,” Milton said.

Milton turned his back on the group and set off. He felt vulnerable but he made a point of not looking back. He felt an itching sensation between his shoulder blades and, as he walked, an empty Coke can bounced off his shoulder and clattered to the pavement. They whooped at their insolent bravado and called out after him but he did not respond. He kept walking until he reached the gate next to the lido. He stopped and looked back. The boys were still gathered in the centre of the park. No-one had followed.

On his return to the house he examined one of his own, thick hairs which still lay undisturbed where he had left it earlier in the evening, stuck between the panel and the jamb of the door to the lounge. Next, he went up to his bedroom and examined the dusting of talcum powder he had spread beneath the wardrobe door. It, too, appeared to be untouched. The routine might have appeared pointless, but it had been driven into him by his training, and then ingrained by years of experience. It did not make him feel self-conscious or foolish. It came naturally, an easy habit that he had no interest in quashing however pointless it might have appeared to someone without the particular experience of his strange profession. He was an assassin, and the observance of small rituals like this one had helped to keep him alive.

He was satisfied that the house had not been disturbed while he was away and, allowing himself to relax, he took off his shirt and stood bare-chested at the open window. He snapped open the jaws of his lighter, put flame to a cigarette and stared into the hot, humid night. The atmosphere was feverish, as taut as a bow-string. He took a deep lungful of smoke and expelled it between his teeth with a faint hiss. He could hear the sound of children on the street, the buzz of televisions, a siren fading in and out of London’s constant metropolitan hum.

What on earth was he doing here?

Milton blew more smoke into the darkness and tossed the spent dog-end into the garden below.

He undressed and got into bed. The mattress was lumpy and uncomfortable, but he had slept on much worse. He reached one hand up beneath the pillow, the palm resting on the cold steel butt of the Sig Sauer. He calmed his thoughts and went to sleep.

16

John Milton had a strict morning regime, and he saw no reason to vary it. He pulled on a vest and a pair of shorts, slipped his feet into his running shoes, and went out for his usual run. It was just after seven but the sun was already warm. The sky was a perfect blue, deep and dark, and Milton could see that it was going to be another blazing day.

His head had been a little foggy but the exercise quickly woke him. He ran through the Estate and into Victoria Park, following the same route that he had taken before. The park was quiet now, and the undercurrent of incipient violence was missing. The baleful groups of boys had been replaced by people walking their dogs, joggers and cyclists passing through the park on their way to work. Milton did two laps around the perimeter, settling into his usual loping stride, and by the time he peeled back onto the road and headed back towards the house he was damp with sweat.

He followed a different route back through the Estate and came across an old chapel that had evidently found itself an alternative use. A sign above advertised it as Dalston Boxing Club, and posters encouraged local youngsters to join.

He ran back to the house, stripped off his sodden clothes, tentatively stepped into the grimy bath tub and turned the taps until enough warm water dribbled out of the showerhead to make for a serviceable shower. He let the water strike his broad shoulders and run down his back and chest, soothing the aches and pains that were always worse in the morning. He closed his eyes and focussed his attention on the tender spots on his body: the dull throb in his clavicle from a bullet’s entry wound five years ago; the ache in the leg he had broken; the shooting pain in his shoulder from an assassin’s knife. He was not as supple as he had once been, he thought ruefully. There were the undeniable signs of growing old. The toll exacted by his profession was visible, too, in the latticework of scar tissue that had been carved across his skin. The most recent damage had been caused by a kitchen knife that had scraped its point across his right bicep. It had been wielded by a bomb-maker in Helmand, a tailor who assembled suicide vests in a room at the back of his shop.

He stood beneath the water and composed his thoughts, spending ten minutes examining the details of the situation in which he had placed himself. He considered all the various circumstances that he would have to marshal in order to help Sharon and her son.

He dressed in casual clothes, left the house and made his way back to the boxing club. The door was open and the repeated, weighty impacts of someone working on a heavy bag were audible from inside. He went inside. The chapel’s pews had been removed and the interior was dominated by two empty boxing rings that were crammed up against each other, barely fitting in the space. They were old and tatty, the ropes sagging and the canvas torn and stained. Several heavy bags and speed bags had been suspended from the lower ceiling at the edge of the room. A large, black man was facing away from him, and hadn’t noticed his arrival. Milton watched quietly as the man delivered powerful hooks into the sand-filled canvas bag, propelling it left and right and rattling the chain from which it had been hung. The muscles of his shoulders and back bulged from beneath the sweat-drenched fabric of a plain t-shirt, his black skin glistening, contrasting with the icy white cotton.

Milton waited for him to pause and took the opportunity to clear his throat. “Rutherford?”

He turned and his face broke into a wide, expressive smile. “Hey! It’s the quiet man.”

“How are you?”

“Very good. It’s John, right?”

“Yes, that’s right. Sorry to disturb you. Could I have a word?”

Rutherford nodded. He reached down for a towel and a plastic water bottle and went over to a pew that had been pushed against the wall at the side of the room. He scrubbed his face with the towel and then drank deeply from the bottle.

“This is impressive,” Milton said.

“Thanks. It’s hard work, but we’re doing good. Been here a year this weekend. Don’t know how much longer we’ll be around, though. Ain’t got much more money. The council do us a decent price on the rent, but they’re not giving it away, and I can’t charge the kids much more than I’m charging at the moment. Something has to happen or we won’t be here next time this year.”

“Can anyone join?”

“If they’re prepared to behave and work hard. You got someone in mind?”

“I might have.”

The man took another swig from his bottle. “Who is it?”

“He’s the son of a friend. He’s going off the rails a little. He needs some discipline.”

“He wouldn’t be the first boy like that I’ve had through those doors. We’ve got plenty of youngers who used to run in the gangs.” The man spoke simply, and inexpressively, but his words were freighted with quiet dignity and an unmistakeable authenticity. Milton couldn’t help but be impressed by him. “Which gang is it?”

“I’m not sure. I met some of them in the park last night.”

“That’ll be the LFB, then. London Fields Boys.”

“What are they like?”

“Been around for a long time – they were running around these ends before I went away, so plenty of years now. I remember we had a beef with them on more than one occasions – big fight in the park this one time, we uprooted all these fence posts and chased ‘em off. The members change all the time but they’ve always had a bad reputation. How deep’s your boy involved?”

“Not very, I think. He’s young.”

“If you’ve caught him early, we’ll have a better chance of straightening him out.”

“So you take new members?”

“Always looking for them. Bring your lad along. We’ll see what we can do.”

“Going to the meeting on Tuesday night?”

“Perhaps,” he said.

“Might see you then.”

Milton made his way back to the main road.

He went into the café and took a seat.

“Scrambled eggs with cream, two rashers of bacon and a glass of orange juice,” he said when the girl came to take his order. He was hungry.

He checked his watch. It was a little after eight. The food arrived and he set about it. When he was finished it was a quarter past. He opened the newspaper on the table and read it. There was a short story about the killings in France, but no new details. He skipped ahead, turning the pages and reading until half past eight, and then nine. There was no sign of Elijah. Fair enough, he thought, as he went to settle his bill. He hadn’t expected it to be easy. Getting through to the boy was going to take some time.

17

Little Mark, Kidz and Elijah had met for lunch at the fast food place nearest to the gates of the school. Elijah had hurried out from double science when he received the text from Pops earlier that morning. He was wearing the white shirt, green blazer and black trousers that made up his uniform and he felt stupid as he jogged the last few yards down the road to the arcade. Little Mark was wearing his usual low-slung jeans and windcheater and Kidz was wearing cargo pants and a hoodie.

“You look nice,” they laughed at him as he drew alongside.

“I know,” Elijah said ruefully. “I look stupid.”

“You still going to school?”

“Yeah,” Elijah said. “So?”

“Not saying nothing,” Kidz said, stifling a laugh.

“I don’t go all the time,” he lied.

“What you doing out here anywhere? Thought you’d be in the canteen with all the other little squares?”

“Got a text from Pops. He told me to be here.”

Other kids from school started to arrive. The canteen was only ever half full; everyone preferred to come down here for fried chicken and pizza.

“Had an argument with my Mums this morning,” Little Mark said.

“Let me guess – you ate everything in the house?”

Little Mark grinned. “Nah, bro, I slept right through my alarm.”

“Probably ate that, too.”

“I’m in bed, right, and it’s eight or something and my Mums is shouting at me to get up, says I’m gonna miss school, and this is the first time I realise, right, she still thinks I go to school. I ain’t been for six months.”

“Shows how much she pays attention to you, bro. That’s child abuse, innit? That’s neglect. You ought give that Childline a call.”

The happy laughter paused as they heard the rumbling thump thump thump of the bass. It was audible long before they even saw the car but then the black BMW turned the corner, rolled up to the side of the road and parked.

“Shit, bruv,” Little Mark said. “You know who that is?”

“What’s he doing here?” Kidz said, unable to hide the quiver of nervousness in his voice.

“Who?” Elijah asked.

“You don’t know shit,” Kidz said, sarcastically. “That’s Bizness’s car. You never seen him before?”

Elijah did not answer. He hadn’t, but he didn’t want to admit that in front of the others. He had the new BRAPPPPP! record, and their poster was on the wall of his bedroom, but that all seemed childish now.

The BMW kept its engine running. It was fitted with a powerful sound system, and heavy bass throbbed from the bass bins that had been installed where the boot had been. Elijah looked at the car with wide eyes. He knew it would have cost fifty or sixty thousand, and that was without the cost of the custom paint job, the wheel trims, the sound system and all the other accessories.

The front door of the BMW opened and a man slid out from the driver’s seat. Elijah recognised him immediately. Risky Bizness was tall and slender, a good deal over six feet, his already impressive height accentuated by an unruly afro that added another three or four inches. His face was striking rather than handsome: his nose was crooked, his forehead a little too large, his skin marked with acne scars. His eyebrows, straight and manicured, sat above cold and impenetrable black eyes. He was wearing a thin designer windcheater, black fingerless gloves and his white Nike hi-tops were pristine. He wore two chunky gold rings on his fingers, diamond earrings through the lobes of both ears and a heavy gold chain swung low around his neck.

“Aight, youngers,” he said.

“Aight, Bizness?” Kidz said.

“Which one of you is JaJa?”

Elijah felt his stomach flip. “I am,” he said.

Bizness smiled at him, baring two gold teeth. “Don’t worry, younger, I ain’t gonna bite. I got something I want you to do for me. Get in the car. Won’t take a minute.”

Kidz and Little Mark gawped at that but Elijah did as he was told. The interior of the car was finished in leather and the bass was so loud it throbbed through his kidneys. Bizness got into the car next to him and closed the door. He leant forwards and counter-clockwised the volume so he could speak more easily.

“One of my boys has clocked you, younger. Says you got a lot of fight in you. That right?”

“I don’t know,” he said, trying to stop his voice from trembling.

“He says you do. You hang with Pops’s little crew, right?

“Yeah,” Elijah said, tripping over the word a little.

“Don’t be so nervous – there ain’t no need to be scared of me.”

“I ain’t scared.”

“That’s good,” Bizness grinned, gold teeth glinting in his mouth. “Good to see a younger with a bit about himself. Says to me that that younger could make something of himself, get a bit of a reputation. Reminds me what I used to be like when I was green, like you, before all this.” He brushed his fingers down his clothes and then extended them to encompass the car. “Get me?”

“Yes.”

“So a friend of a friend says to me he’s heard of a younger who’s just starting running with Pops’s crew, that he’s got some backbone. Sound like anyone you know?”

“I guess.”

Bizness snorted. “You guess.” He looked him up and down. “You’re big for your age.”

“Big enough,” he said defensively.

“That’s right, bruv. Big enough. I like it. It ain’t the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog, that right? You got some balls, younger. I like that. How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

“Fifteen. Just getting started in the world. Getting a name for yourself. Getting some respect. That’s what you want, right?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Yeah. You’re at what I’d call a crossroads, right – it’s like Star Wars. You watched that, right, that last film?”

“Course,” he replied indignantly.

“And it’s shit, right, for the most part, except there’s that one bit that makes sense, you know where Anakin has that choice where he can either go the good way or the bad way? The light or the dark? He thinks like he’s got a choice, but he ain’t got no choice at all, not really. It’s an illusion. The dark side has him by the balls and it ain’t never going to let him go. Destiny, all that shit, you know what I mean? That’s where you are, blood. Your teachers, the police, the social, your Mums – they’ll all say you got a choice, you can choose to try hard at school, get your exams, get a job, except that’s all bullshit. Bullshit. Brothers like us, we ain’t never going to get given nothing in this world. Trouble is, a black man loves his new trainers too much. Right? And if we want to get the stuff we like, we gonna have to take it. Right?”

“Yeah.” Elijah laughed, nervously. Bizness was charismatic and funny, but there was a tightness about him that made it impossible to relax. Elijah got the impression that everything would be fine as long as he agreed with him. He was sure that arguing would be a bad idea.

“So we agree that getting busy on the street is the only way for you to get along in this world. It ain’t easy, though, not on your own. Lots of brothers all got the same idea. You want to be successful, you want the kids you hang around with to take you seriously, you need to build up your rep. I can help you with that. You start hanging out with me, your little friends all find out you’re in my crew, how quickly do you think that’s going to happen?”

Elijah could hardly keep the smile from his face. “Quick,” he said.

“No, not quick, blood – instantaneously.” Bizness clicked his fingers. “Just like that. So when I heard that was this new younger on the street, already making a name for himself, getting some respect, I say to myself, that’s the kind of little brother I used to be like, maybe there’s something I can do to help get himself started in life. I’ll do it for you, I guarantee it, but first I need you to prove to me that you’re up to it.”

“I’m up to it,” Elijah insisted. “What is it? What do I have to do?”

“Nothing too bad, I just got something I need taking care of for a little while. You reckon that’s the sort of thing you could do for me?”

“Course,” Elijah said.

Bizness took a Tesco carrier bag and dropped it into Elijah’s lap. It was heavy, solid. It felt metallic.

“Take this home and keep it safe. Somewhere your Mums won’t find it. You got a place like that?”

Elijah thought of his comic box. “Yeah,” he said, “she don’t never come into my room anyway, I can keep it safe.”

“Nice.”

“What is it?”

Bizness grinned at him. “You know already, right?”

“No,” he said, although he thought that perhaps he did.

“There’s no point me telling you not to look, I know you will as soon as I’m gone. Go on, then – open it.”

Elijah opened the mouth of the bag and took out the newspaper package inside. He unfolded it carefully, gently, as if afraid that a clumsy move might cause an explosion. The gun sat in the middle of the splayed newspaper, nestling amongst the newsprint like a fat, malignant tumour. He tentatively stretched out his fingers and traced them down the barrel, the trigger-guard, and then down the butt with its stippled grip. His only knowledge of guns was from his PlayStation, and this looked nothing like the sleek modern weapons you got to use in Special Ops. This looked older, like it might be some sort of antique, something from that Call of Duty where you were in the war against the Nazis. The barrel was long and thin, with a raised sight at the end. The middle part was round and bulbous and, when Elijah pushed against it, he found that it was hinged, and snapped down to reveal six chambers honeycombed inside. A handful of loose bullets gathered in the creases of the newspaper.

“What is it, an antique or something?”

“Don’t matter how old it is, bruv. A gun’s a gun at the end of the day. You get shot, you still gonna die. Go on, it’s not loaded – cock it. You know how to do that?”

The hammer was stiff and he had to pull hard with both thumbs to bring it back. He pulled the trigger. The hammer struck down with a solid click and the barrel rotated. The gun suddenly seemed more than just an abstract idea; it seemed real, and dangerous, and Elijah was frightened.

“You keep that safe for me, bruv, and be ready – when I call you, you better be there, no hanging around, thirty minutes tops. Alright?”

“Alright,” he said.

“Aight. I was right about you – someone I can rely on. Yeah. Aight, out you get, younger. I got to get out of here. Supposed to be seeing my manager, you know what I mean? New record out tomorrow.”

He held out his closed fist for Elijah to bump. Elijah did, everything suddenly seeming surreal. He stepped outside, holding the carrier bag tightly; it was heavy, and the solid weight within bumped up against his thigh. The bass in the BMW cranked back up and the engine revved loudly.

Kidz and Little Mark were sitting on a wall waiting for him. They both wore envious expressions, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

“What did he want?” Kidz said.

Bizness sounded the horn twice, let off the handbrake and fish-tailed away from the kerb, wheelspinning until the rubber bit on the tarmac.

“Just a chat,” Elijah said.

“What’s that?” Little Mark said pointing at the bag.

He clasped the bag tightly. “Nothing.”