ARMED WITH STICKS AND STONES, the ragtag band of boys walked quietly through the Village streets; any yelling would attract adult attention that might thwart their quest. It was late but still light. Shawn did a head count – they were at least twenty strong, their ages ranging from ten to seventeen, and they were from all over: Rubery, Rednal, Frankley and West Heath. The Scottish lad, Trigger Magaw, who had inspired this vigilante procession, led the way.
The Shelton boys were absent. They weren’t allowed out for obvious reasons, and it had been Tom who had told Shawn that his dad and a few of his mates were going to get drunk then ‘sort out’ the Old Nonce. Alan, frustrated and grief addled, was fired up with the idea that Aster murdered both his son and Mickey Grant. Tom said that, apparently, the police couldn’t find the Old Nonce so he must be in hiding, but his dad would find him and beat the shit out of him. Shawn thought that was fair enough, but if the boys could get to the Old Nonce first, all’s the better – the police couldn’t charge them the same way they would a grown-up. Alan in prison was the very last thing Kelly and their sons needed.
The Old Nonce’s bungalow was at the end of a long drive, its garden unkempt and its windows dirty. The boys started shouting for Aster to come out, to try it on if he thought he was hard enough.
Nobody came out.
Shawn sensed the house had been empty for some time, but their blood was up now, there was no retreat, so they banged their sticks against the doors, threw their stones and smashed the windows. Some of the older boys pissed through the letter box and spat on the path. There was a pure, pleasurable joy in meting out such deserved destruction, and Shawn’s heart was racing so hard it felt more like a hum than a beating in his chest. Trigger wordlessly handed him a bottle filled with clear fluid and a piece of fabric stuffed in its neck – a Molotov cocktail. Shawn had only ever seen them on the news, during the riots. He lit its rag fuse with a lighter and the flame bloomed hot and bright against his tear-stained face.
This is for you, Bry, he thought, and launched the missile through a broken window, the bottle exploding like a burst of temper.