The Cleaner (26 page)

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.