Chloe was now back upstairs at the bedroom window and her heart was in her mouth.
Youths wearing hoods and masks were still trooping past the house and she could see now that they were heading towards the council estate at the end of the road where a large mob was gathering. There was lots of shouting and chanting, and in the distance the sound of police sirens.
Not all the youths were on the move. Four of them were standing outside the house across the road where an elderly man was yelling at them over his fence because his wheelie bin had been pushed over and rubbish was strewn across the pavement.
Chloe couldn’t hear what was being said, but she could tell that the youths were laughing at him and making abusive gestures with their fingers.
Suddenly one of them pushed open his gate and charged at him. The old man turned to rush back into his house but he wasn’t quick enough. The youth, who was wearing a grey shell suit and a black scarf around the bottom half of his face, caught up with him before he reached his front door.
He grabbed hold of the old man’s jumper, pulling him to the ground effortlessly, and kicked him several times in the chest and stomach before raising his arms like footballers do when they score a goal.
Chloe swallowed hard and fought the urge to be sick. Her whole body started to shake involuntarily.
She watched the youth walk back onto the pavement and high-five one of his mates, while the old man struggled to get up from the ground.
It was all too much for Chloe and she was about to turn away from the window when something else caught her eye. It was a car and it was pulling up at the kerb in front of the house. She recognised it immediately as Tom’s white Honda and it sent a wave of relief flooding through her.
She hurried down the stairs and got to the front door just as the bell rang. Tom was standing there when she opened it, phone in hand and smartly dressed in dark trousers and a brown leather jacket over a white shirt and tie. He looked as relieved to see her as she was to see him.
As she stood to one side to let him in, he shook his head, and said, ‘We’re not staying here, Chloe. Get your shoes and coat on. I’ve just sent a text to your mum to tell her I’m taking you to my place.’
Chloe was shocked and a frown tugged her eyebrows together.
‘It’s too dangerous here,’ Tom said by way of explanation. ‘The area is filling up with rioters who are bound to cause a lot of damage. It’s best I get you somewhere safe. It’ll be dark soon and Christ only knows what it will be like then.’
Chloe had no problem with that. She was scared now. Terrified in fact.
Her black puffer jacket was hanging up in the hallway and her trainers were under the stairs. It took her less than thirty seconds to slip them on.
‘Leave everything else,’ Tom told her. ‘We need to move.’
Tom took the keys from inside the door and locked up as they left the house.
He held Chloe’s hand and pulled her along the short pathway towards his car. She had to trot to keep up and his grip was so tight it hurt.
‘Don’t be afraid,’ he said. ‘We’ll soon be away from here.’
But Chloe was afraid, more so now that she was outside and able to see along both sides of the street. To her right smoke was rising above the heads of the crowd in front of the estate, which was about a hundred yards away. The shouting and screaming had got louder and she could also hear windows being smashed.
To her left more rioters were heading in their direction towards the flats, and some were pouring out of the grocery shop on the corner, grasping bags and boxes of goods that they had no doubt stolen.
To Chloe it was like a scene from one of those end-of-the world movies where society breaks down and there’s no law and order. It just didn’t make sense to her that so many people could behave so badly.
‘In you get,’ Tom said to her as he let go of her hand and wrenched open the front passenger door of his car. ‘Quick as you can.’
Chloe felt numb with shock as she sat down and Tom slammed the door shut behind her. Her hands were shaking so much that she couldn’t put the seat belt on. She was still fumbling with it as Tom got in behind the wheel.
But before he had even switched on the engine there was an almighty crash and the windscreen shattered into what looked to Chloe like a thousand pieces. Another crash followed and caused the glass to cave in, showering both of them with sharp fragments.
Chloe screamed and Tom swore out loud. In the same instant, Tom’s door was jerked open and hands reached in to seize his right arm. He hadn’t buckled his belt so there was nothing to stop him being pulled from the car.
Chloe carried on screaming and only realised that the door on her side had also been opened when she felt herself being dragged out.
‘She’s just a kid,’ a male voice yelled. ‘Leave her be and let’s give the black cunt a kicking.’
Chloe was dropped onto the pavement where she landed on her right side with a painful thud. She’d stopped screaming, but now she was struggling to breathe as the terror took hold.
Tears impaired her vision, but that didn’t stop her from bearing witness to what was happening. The car was now surrounded by a group of rioters and Tom was involved in a scuffle with three of them in the middle of the road. They surrounded him while throwing punches and insults.
Chloe scrambled to her feet and called out his name. He snapped his head towards her and shouted, ‘Go back into the house, Chloe. Now.’
But as soon as the words were out of his mouth, the men closed in and started to pound him with their fists and boots.
Chloe couldn’t just stand there and do nothing while the man her mother loved was badly beaten. So without thinking she ran into the road and screamed at them to leave him alone. But by then others had gathered round and were cheering the attackers on.
No one paid her any attention so she rushed right up to them and tried to pull them off Tom. Surely they wouldn’t hurt a twelve-year-old girl, she told herself.
But she didn’t get far before someone shoved her in the back and she fell face down on the ground. As she lay there her head spun and her senses were battered by all the noise and commotion. She managed after a few seconds to haul herself up but saw straight away that there was nothing she could do to help Tom. Through the chaos of bodies around her she watched as the three men who had beaten him picked him up. They threw him onto the bonnet of his own car and forced his legs through the broken windscreen. That was when Chloe saw that someone was in the driver’s seat.
A moment later the car lurched forward and roared off down the road towards the estate, with Tom lying face down on the bonnet. Dozens of jubilant rioters followed.
Chloe stared after it, scarcely able to breathe, her mind paralysed by fear and dread. Her thoughts were in disarray and despair clawed at her insides.
She decided to ring her mum to tell her what was happening. But when she reached in her pocket, she discovered her phone wasn’t there because she hadn’t brought it with her. It was still in her bedroom.
She stood there frozen to the spot for what seemed like ages. Then her mind suddenly seized on what Tom had told her:
‘Go back into the house, Chloe. Now.’
She forced herself to move and turned back towards the house. But that was when she realised that she wouldn’t be able to get back inside for two reasons.
The first was that Tom had put the keys into his pocket after locking up.
And the second was the fact that two men were standing in their tiny front garden. One was peeing up the wall while the other was daubing something on the front door with bright red spray paint.
As the dauber stepped back to admire his work, Chloe saw what he had written.
POLICE BITCH LIVES HERE
She couldn’t think what else to do now other than to give in to the panic that was spiralling through her.
So she sucked in a breath to stifle the scream that was bursting to get out. Then she started to run, with absolutely no sense of where she was going.