‘Feels like we’re on a stakeout,’ Zara said, lifting her Doc Martens up onto the dashboard. ‘Got any binoculars?’
‘No. Now get those bloody boots off the walnut.’
She rolled her eyes as she lowered her feet and went back to her phone.
I’d turned the car round so that it was facing in the same general direction as Deacon’s, to save us staring straight at him when he came round the corner.
Five minutes passed. Ten. It got darker.
At first, I’d been genuinely concerned for the safety of the Meadows brood – there was something about Deacon that had rubbed me up the wrong way as soon as I’d heard him coming – but, on reflection, Charli’s son’s excitement wasn’t much cause for concern. Still, my hunch remained.
I was watching the rear-view mirror, in which I could see both the bend in the road and my own eyes. ‘Do we really look like Jehovah’s Witnesses?’ I asked.
‘Probably. You do, anyway.’
‘I should buy some new clothes.’
‘Probably,’ Zara said again. ‘At least we know who put those drugs in the car.’
I turned to face her; she didn’t look up from her phone.
‘Might as well say what we’re both thinking,’ she continued. ‘I have to admit, I did think our Keyser Söze would look a bit more impressive than Slim Shady on steroids, but there you go.’
‘We don’t know anything for sure.’
‘No? Growing up on my estate, I saw a lot of drug wagons. Now that, my learned friend, was a drug dealer’s car. He rocks up with his gold alloys, dressed in a few hundred quid’s worth of clothes, gives his girlfriend’s kid a pair of £500 trainers and just so happens to be familiar with the local courts. He put the drugs in the car. Next case, Your Honour.’
I clicked my tongue. ‘You know, you wouldn’t make a very good spy, staring at your phone like that. It’s lighting up the whole car.’
‘Research.’
‘How’s that?’
‘I’m rereading that National Crime Agency piece from last year: “County Lines Violence, Exploitation and Drug Supply”.’
‘I can save you the time,’ I said, eyes back on the mirror. ‘It’s a simple enough tactic. A group of dealers establishes an untraceable, disposable mobile phone line between their urban base and a distant county location. Orders are placed on that one phone line, and the group will typically exploit vulnerable persons, usually children, to travel out to whichever county whenever there’s stock to be replenished and cash to be collected. Seaside towns are a popular choice. If a child is nicked it’s no big loss to the dealers. A young offender can only receive a limited punishment and, as far as their bosses are concerned, they’re expendable.’
‘I know that, but there’s something in particular I wanted to check over … Ah, here it is. Cuckooing. Basically, it’s when a gang operates from the home of a susceptible person, typically a drug addict or sex worker, although this report also includes the elderly and people with mental or physical health impairments. Often, it says, cuckooing involves a drug dealer who forms a relationship with a single mother, essentially tricking her into feeling loved while using the house for storage of their product. Sound familiar, considering what we’ve just seen?’
‘It’s certainly persuasive,’ I had to admit.
‘I’d bet my tenancy on it. Then there’s the fighting dog. Didn’t you tell me those are rare?’
‘Very. Werner, the breeder I defended, told me they were being bred for specific people. It sounded as if he was talking about a gang.’
‘A gang like the Cutthroats?’
‘Quite possibly,’ I admitted.
‘And they’re used for guarding the homes of dealers?’
‘Often.’
‘Then she’s probably guilty,’ she said.
‘Remember not to confuse guilty with whether or not she has done it,’ I replied. ‘Guilty is a jury verdict, and that’s a long way away. We trust in the system. That’s justice.’
‘I know,’ she said, ‘but you’ve been doing this long enough. Surely there’ve been a couple of cases you’ve wanted to lose.’
‘Never. I want to win them all, and I try my best to do so.’
She inhaled deeply. ‘Because that’s what the client deserves, right?’
‘That’s right.’
Our wait continued. Another couple of minutes passed before Zara started to speak, hesitated, then started again. ‘I … I messaged Omar Pickett.’
I turned to face her. ‘You did what?’
‘Only through Facebook,’ she replied quickly. ‘And Instagram. Twitter … Oh, and Snapchat.’
‘Zara!’ I groaned.
‘Uh-oh. You only ever call me by my first name when I’m in trouble.’
‘You bloody well might be! That was a thoroughly unprofessional, dangerous, stupid thing to do.’
‘But this could be the solution to my whole case! This guy Omar is supposedly on the run from his own gang, so he’s got nowhere else to go. My client, Andre, was arrested in his place. All I said was that I wanted him to talk to me. If he does that, then maybe I could get him into witness protection in exchange for any information he has on –’
‘What about your own safety?’ I snapped. ‘Did you stop for one moment to consider the possible ramifications? You’ve personally messaged a drug dealer, a fugitive for Christ’s sake. It is totally irresponsible.’
‘Really?’ She looked me dead in the eyes. ‘How’s your dog?’
I opened my mouth. A few seconds later, I closed it again and turned my shoulder on her. After another minute of silence, music started playing from her phone. A hard, thumping, electronic beat with dark, slow, almost sludgy rapping over it. At first, I thought it was in a different language altogether, but there were definitely parts from the Oxford English Dictionary. Something about gutting somebody’s infant sister and burning down a hospital, as far as I could make out.
‘What the hell is this?’ I grumbled.
‘This,’ she said, ‘is Omar Pickett.’
It was enough to snag my curiosity. Reluctantly, I looked at her screen. A YouTube video. In it, a figure in a tracksuit was gesticulating in the half-pipe of an otherwise empty, graffiti-covered skatepark. He appeared to be a very young man, and he also appeared to be rapping along to the dubbed track, though both were hard to confirm as he was wearing a mask that completely concealed his identity. The mask was fabric and painted with a sinister red skull.
Unimpressed, I huffed. ‘How can you even tell who that is?’
‘He doesn’t try to hide it on social media. The mask seems to be for effect. His rapping alias is Post Mortem but, sure enough, that is Omar Pickett. Eighteen-year-old drill musician, former student of Leyton Sixth Form College, and the final, elusive dealer from my drug bust.’
‘A drill musician …’ I could hear my own annoyance succumbing to interest. ‘That would explain how Andre Israel recognised him in the pub.’
‘Oh, there’s more. A lot more. Listen to this …’
She played a twenty-second clip of the song. Rewound it and played it again, looking at me attentively.
I shrugged. ‘What am I supposed to be listening for?’
‘Can’t you hear it? Though to be fair it took me a few listens to pick it up myself.’
She played it once more. I shook my head. ‘I’m not getting anything,’ I said.
‘He says: “Cutthroats pulling them strings / Unlucky number’s feeling the wrath / Gaza Strip caught up in things / Sorry, Palestine–Israel’s off!”’ She tapped the screen excitedly. ‘This was uploaded a month ago!’
I frowned, working it out. ‘He’s rapping about the bust?’
‘Yes! Think about it! Unlucky number – that’s thirteen – feeling the wrath. And the Gaza Strip caught up in things –’
‘Andre Israel.’
‘Exactly.’ She silenced the music, exhaling deeply, a day’s pent-up secret finally off her chest.
‘In that case,’ I said, ‘Omar Pickett might as well paint a great big target onto that mask of his. He uploaded it himself?’
‘That one, yes, though his older material all seems to have come through Banged Up Records, a YouTube channel based in the East End, which also happened to post music by …’
‘Andre Israel?’
‘Yep.’
‘Jesus. I don’t suppose Israel spent any time rapping about being either a drug dealer or an innocent jogger, did he?’
‘Never. In fact, as far as drill music goes, his material was pretty tame. Seemed to be social commentary as opposed to direct threats, from what I’ve heard.’
‘That’s good for his trial at least. The last thing you need is for the prosecution to pull out a lyrical confession. Post Mortem, on the other hand … he’s hardly Bob Dylan.’
She shrugged. ‘You don’t like hip hop?’
‘No, I like hip hop just fine. Public Enemy. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. Run DMC. This sounds like a whole different genre to me.’
‘Hey, I’m not saying drill is my own personal cup of tea, but I do think it’s getting unfairly condemned in the media. If the papers are anything to go by, this music is partly responsible for nearly every violent crime in the city, which just isn’t true. I think it’s another case of art imitating life, not the other way around.’
‘I don’t know,’ I said doubtfully. ‘I’m not surprised it’s under fire with lyrics like those. It sounds to me like nothing but inflammatory instigation.’
She tapped her boots; the car was getting chilly. ‘You were big into punk music, weren’t you? Didn’t that cause a similar – I don’t know – moral panic?’
‘That was different,’ I said. ‘Punk was anti-establishment, it wasn’t anti-individuals.’
‘No? I bet there were plenty of individuals who would disagree.’
‘Perhaps you’re right, but this drill is –’
‘Wait!’ Zara said abruptly. ‘Look!’
Slick headlights were coming round the bend behind us; they blazed through my rear window, illuminating the inside of the car, and in unison we pushed back against our seats, Zara crouching slightly, to hide ourselves. The Audi passed. There was a speed bump at the end of the lane; it slowed there, indicating right to turn onto Markhouse Road. I noted the registration number in case we lost the car. It wasn’t hard to memorise: DM1.
‘Well,’ Zara said, ‘looks like he was only popping in after all. Now what?’
‘He’s turning south,’ I said. ‘That’s towards Leyton …’
Zara met my eye. Ahead, Deacon turned the corner, disappearing from view. ‘What shall we do?’ she asked.
‘In the films, what usually happens after a stakeout?’
She shrugged. ‘They’d put a tail on him?’
‘That’s right.’ I turned the key in the ignition. ‘They would.’
He was easy enough to follow, bright white between street lights, music blaring, carefully obeying every speed limit. He followed the same road south for a little more than a mile until it entered Leyton and turned into Church Road, at which time he indicated left past St Mary’s Parish Church.
‘Shit,’ I muttered. ‘He’s turning onto the Grange estate.’
‘So?’ Zara asked. ‘Have you got a problem with estates?’
‘No problem.’ I flicked my own indicator. ‘Don’t forget that you’re talking to a man who was raised on a slum.’
‘Glad to hear it.’ She didn’t sound glad; her voice had turned an octave sharper. She must’ve known, as I did, that we were entering the stronghold of the so-called E10 Cutthroats.
The Grange was a housing complex of ten prefabricated four-storey courts built around the bottom of a lofty block of flats called Slade Tower; it was well known as one of the most deprived areas in Waltham Forest. Shadowing the Audi had been simple enough on the straight, clear route down into Leyton, but now we were following it into a cramped maze of single lanes, tight corners and stunted roads. It didn’t help that there was nobody else around, making the presence of our headlights extremely conspicuous. Most of the flats in the courts had balconies with clothing hanging from makeshift washing lines. Some had hung sheets of cotton or hessian up there for privacy. Several of the parked cars I negotiated between had tarpaulin over broken windows.
‘Reminds me of home,’ Zara said.
Each court had caging around its outer doors and a blue sign illuminated by an overhanging lamp. I clocked them as we passed: Fitzgerald Court, Underwood Court, a sharp right to Clewer Court and a left past Cochrane, another left past Allanson and Eton Manor, then it was another two quick corners to Fitzgerald and Underwood, a sharp right to Clewer Court …
‘Hold on.’ I slowed down to double-check the last sign. ‘Bollocks.’
‘What?’ Zara sounded alarmed.
‘He’s on to us.’
‘What makes you say that?’
‘He’s leading us in circles.’
‘He must be lost,’ she said. ‘I’ll bet that’s why he’s on his phone.’
‘His phone?’ As we came up behind him on the next short stretch, I could see the dim glow of a phone against his ear. ‘Maybe you’re right.’
This time he took a different turn and I let him gain a few seconds before following through the car park of Slade Tower; the ten-storey block had warm lights behind closed curtains and red steel balconies at every level, but I still couldn’t see anybody around. A moment later, even the Audi was gone.
‘Where’d he go?’ Zara was craning her neck in all directions.
‘I don’t know.’ I turned back out onto another slender one-lane road, then another. Somehow, they seemed to be getting narrower.
Then Zara shrieked, making me jump out of my skin. ‘Watch out!’
I slammed my foot onto the brake and we were both shunted forwards into the hard grasps of our seat belts. Something metal – two things, in fact – had come rolling out of the darkness on either side, directly into our path. They were bicycles, one rolling from the pavement to the left and another from the right. Without passengers they wobbled unsteadily, as if the owners had simply vanished, then crashed into one another with almost expert precision and clattered to the tarmac, blocking the road.
‘What the …?’ I looked around for the riders.
Something was wrong with the picture outside. It took me another moment to realise what it was. Every street light on this particular stretch was out. The nearest lights were those in the highest windows of the flats on either side.
I looked at Zara and her face was stiff. With one elbow, she slammed the lock down on her door. ‘Lock your door,’ she breathed.
‘Excuse me?’
‘The door!’
I was turning to do it when my attention was stolen by a child in front of my car. Ten, maybe eleven years old at a push, dressed entirely in black with his hood up. I assumed he was going to pick up the bikes and be on his merry way. Instead, he came to a standstill in front of my bonnet as if we were playing some stationary game of chicken. I blasted the full beams to move him along; from that distance, the light turned his skin the colour of spoiled milk with freckles, making his green eyes burn while casting an enormous shadow up the road behind him.
Instinct brought my hand to the horn.
‘Don’t!’ Zara started, but the hand was already down, and I held it there for a hearty five or six seconds. Even with the horn close enough to blow him backwards, the kid didn’t even blink.
Then I saw the rest of them. Five. Ten. Twenty. More.
They were everywhere, not a single one of them old enough to shave. Boys and girls, black, white, Asian, it didn’t matter, almost all with their hood up or hat pulled low. They were standing on the pavement and the grassy verge behind it; there were even some watching silently from the balconies, faces no more distinguishable than those of smooth plastic dolls in the shadows. They’d appeared as if from nowhere, like the birds in Hitchcock’s eerie film. A sickness started to rise up from my stomach.
There were two dull thumps behind us before I’d even shifted into reverse, and when I checked the mirrors I saw two heavy wheelie bins dumped on their sides there, blocking me in. Back at the front, the boy had now turned his attention to the chrome jaguar emblem leaping from the bonnet, and he was wrapping both hands around it.
‘Oi!’ I yelled, slamming the horn again. ‘Get your hands off my –’
I didn’t even notice my door opening until the interior light flared above our heads. Here was another boy, this one older with severe acne across both cheeks, holding a knife that looked bigger than his forearm and pulling on the door with all his might.
‘Get out of the fucking car!’ is what I think he said, though I couldn’t hear much above Zara’s own yelling. I managed to catch the door just in time and yanked it back with both hands. The boy might’ve been armed, but I weighed twice what he did; his knife-arm got caught in the first slam, causing it to bend horribly, and on the second attempt I got it closed and locked.
I revved the car, inching forwards until I touched the first boy’s waist. Instead of moving aside he simply clambered up onto the bonnet and balanced there, brightly coloured trainers on steel, bending down to pull at the jaguar as if it was a stubborn weed in the garden.
By now the rest of the children had come closer. They surrounded the car, pressing their faces up against the glass, howling with laughter.
‘Nice car, fat man!’ one of the girls jeered.
Zara held her phone up for them all to see, took a deep breath that sounded shaky with adrenaline and yelled: ‘Fuck off, you little pricks! I’m ringing the police! You’re all in for –’
She was interrupted by a dense clunk as the first boy went flying backwards off the bonnet. He landed among the fallen bicycles and held the jaguar emblem up high like a trophy.
‘You little fucker!’ I roared. The rest of the children began to cheer.
What came next sounded like a hailstorm of biblical proportions; rocks, shoes and makeshift weapons of all denominations began slamming off steel and glass. Two whacks and both wing mirrors went spinning off into the dark. I heard air escaping the tyres as something sickeningly heavy bounced across the roof. A chunk of concrete fell straight through the rear window with a loud crunch.
I reversed several feet, shunting the bins backwards until I had enough room for a decent run-up, then I hit the accelerator. For a split second, it looked as if the boy with the bicycles wasn’t going to move. He soon realised that I had no intention of stopping and rolled aside.
The bicycles screamed beneath the wheels, and the car veered from side to side as the children gave chase with their bricks and knives. At the end of the road we bounced up over a grass verge and came down hard, and I looked into the rear-view mirror in time to see the first bicycle fall away in a shower of sparks, taking what looked like my exhaust pipe with it.
The boy with the jaguar was fast. He followed for two roads before giving up and waving us off with two fingers high in the air. I kept my eyes on him through the empty frame of the rear window until we turned the next corner and made it back onto Church Road.
The entire ordeal had lasted no more than a minute and a half.
Zara was still trying to control her panicky breathing, but my mind remained on the boy from the bonnet.
‘That little bastard’s trainers …’ I growled.
‘Wh-what about them?’
‘Did they look like Gucci to you, too?’