Revenger (11 page)

Maninder’s warrior spirit had deserted him, if it had ever existed at all. He had been paralysed by what he’d seen happening in front of his eyes. Not just the couple inside the shop: the African kids outside had somehow got hold of bricks and small, rough lumps of concrete and were throwing them at the front window. The glass was supposed to be specially strengthened but some of the missiles were getting through, others cracking the surface, and any second now the whole thing was going to give way.

Maninder heard Ajay scream at him again, ‘Fuck’s sake, Maninder man . . . Shutters! Alarm!’

But there wasn’t any need to break the glass on the alarm because there was smoke rising from one of the shelves, a detector picked it up and suddenly a siren was howling and a blue light was flashing on the outside wall, casting an eerie light on the gaggle of young rioters on the pavement.

Maninder could see them gathering round the table that had held the one-pound fruit and veg bowls. They were sweeping the bowls on to the ground, and for a second he couldn’t help himself
thinking
about the cost of all that ruined produce. As if that mattered now. Out on the street he could see a crowd of people running to and fro, attacking other businesses just like his. The whole world was falling apart. There was nowhere to run to. He was panicking, his mind was scrambled, and he could not remember what Ajay had told him to do – Ajay, who was taking control now, even though he was the younger cousin.

Ajay appeared out of the smoke and glared at Maninder. Without saying a word, he leaned across the counter and pushed the button that controlled the shopfront security shutters.

‘Pass me the fire extinguisher,’ Ajay said. ‘If you think you can manage that.’

The shutters began rattling down over the cracked and broken glass. But then Maninder, whose eyes were still fixed on the people outside, realized what they were doing. They’d lifted the table, turned it round and were smashing it against the window like a battering ram: once . . . twice . . .

Ajay aimed the fire extinguisher at the flickering flames on the supermarket floor. The shutters were coming down but they seemed to be taking an age.

Three times . . . four . . .

Maninder cursed himself for his foolhardy optimism. Most mini-supermarkets like his had shelves running along their outside wall – even if it was windowed. Their owners wanted to use every square millimetre of space to sell more goods. But Maninder had said no, it was better to let customers walking down the road look in and see all the wonderful things they had on offer. He had won the argument, but now he wished that he hadn’t. He felt horribly exposed by the huge pane of glass that covered almost the entire frontage of the store, and he longed for a long, tall, heavy line of shelves to act as a wall against the evil of the outside world.

Five . . . six . . .

The flames were out. The shutters were almost down to the level of the table. If they could cover the window before the table broke through it . . .

But that wasn’t going to happen. The table broke through, the entire window shattered and the table was left half in and half out of the shop just as the shutters reached it, hit the table top and came to a grinding halt.

Seconds later there were rioters scrambling under the stranded shutters and Ajay was lashing out at them and shouting at him to get the gun.

Maninder knew what he had to do. That gun was their only hope. But somehow he couldn’t reach for it. He was paralysed. And meanwhile more and more rioters were coming through the window. Ajay was being driven back.

Only then did it occur to Maninder that there was one obvious thing he should have done the minute he saw the two shoplifters acting suspiciously: call the police. He dialled 999 . . . and all he got was a pre-recorded message saying that the line was experiencing an exceptionally heavy volume of calls. He was offered a menu of options for leaving messages. Or he could dial 0 and wait for an operator. But the phone seemed to ring for ever without a response.

No one was going to answer.

The police weren’t going to come.

All the other members of the Netherton Street Self-Help Association were too busy dealing with their own problems to worry about his.

And the Lion Market would soon be overrun.

24

RANDOM WAS WELL
pleased with the scenes he was getting on his head cam. It was more like a party than anything. Everyone was loaded. They went charging into shops and takeaways shouting at the top of their voices, waving knives and crowbars above their heads, some of them pulling faces for the camera. They’d grab whatever they wanted and scare the shit out of everyone in the place. Nothing heavy – just aim a kick or a punch at people as they ran away, maybe cop a feel of the girls’ arses and tits. A few of the lads had guns, but they were just firing them in the air, mostly, blowing holes in ceilings and smashing plate-glass windows. It was all a big laugh, really. Even when they were setting places on fire it seemed like a bit of a lark.

Then they got to this curry house called the Khyber Star. In they went, kicking over tables, sending plates of chicken tikka and pints of beer flying. There were only half a dozen punters in here, and they were bricking it. The women were screaming. The men were dragging them to the door, trying to make them shut up. One of the men slipped on the curry sauce lying on the floor, fell over and got
a
good kicking before he managed to crawl away. All the waiters had gone behind the bar, trying to get out of the way. But then Random saw one of them, this skinny little Bangladeshi geezer, reach down below the bar and pull something out. It took Random a second to work out what it was because it was the last thing he expected to see. A sawn-off shotgun – what the fuck was that all about?

The Bangladeshi didn’t even know how to use the gun. He just waved it in the general direction of the mob piling into his restaurant, pulled the trigger, and was almost knocked off his feet by the unexpected power of the recoil. The deafening noise of the gun going off was still echoing round the cramped dining-room as a shriek cut through the ringing in everyone’s ears. Random turned his head and saw one of the rioters, a teenage girl, screaming incoherently and pointing to something on the floor. He pushed through the crowd, knocking tables and chairs out of the way to get a better view, and then wished he hadn’t because the thing the girl was pointing at was the mashed-up bloody remains of a lad’s face. The full force of the blast had hit him and blown his eyes, his nose, his mouth – every single recognizable feature – to pulp. They just weren’t there any more.

And suddenly it was like a switch had been flicked. All the positive, high-spirited energy turned nasty in the blink of an eye. Forget the orders to keep violence to a minimum. The people wanted revenge. They wanted blood.

The crowd surged towards the bar. The Bangladeshi threw the gun away, as if he was trying to pretend it had nothing to do with him. But it was too late. People were grabbing the Khyber Star staff and hacking at them with their knives, butchering them where they stood. A couple of the cooks made a run for it. They got to the door and were a few paces out on to the street by the time they were caught and chopped to pieces.

People who’d not been in the Khyber Star saw that, and somehow it infected them with the same bloodlust. Some of them started running towards the pub, the Dutchman’s Head, and there
was
a new air of menace about their charge. The old man they’d picked up in the truck, Bakunin, was trying to stop them but they were ignoring him. Another, smaller posse was heading in another direction, towards a small car that had crashed broadsides into one of the garbage trucks. A woman was trying to get out of the car.

Random decided to follow the lads who were making for the car. He had the feeling he’d get some more great pictures there.

25

CARVER HEARD THE
first bottle-bomb detonating as it hit the road, followed immediately after by several more explosions, then shouting, the squeal of a skidding, desperately braking car and the smash of metal on metal. Then the front door of the pub burst open and there were people streaming in. They were male and female, black and white, aged anywhere from early teens to middle age. They carried knives, pipes, clubs of every kind. One of them was even waving a handgun above his head. All they had in common were the hoods, hats and masks covering their faces and the hostility and aggression blazing in their eyes.

Schultz was staring at the mob, but he didn’t seem scared. The look on his face and the expression in his voice was more one of outrage as he shouted, ‘What the fuck are you doing here?’ like they were disobeying an order.

The intruders ignored him. The gun went off, blasting a hole in the ceiling. But it didn’t have the effect they might have expected. Instead of yelling in terror and running for their lives, the regulars in the pub seemed to be galvanized by the sound of the shot. Two
or
three of them were even pulling out weapons of their own. Carver saw one of them wielding a fearsome-looking machete with a long, curved blade – like a cross between a scythe and a scimitar – that could slice through a human limb as easily as if it was jungle undergrowth.

A battle was breaking out, and Carver wanted no part of it. He looked across at Schultz: ‘Time we got out.’

Schultz snapped right back into the role he had played almost two decades earlier: the tough NCO taking orders from a Special Boat Service officer who’d earned his respect the only way that really counted with him – on the battlefield.

‘Got you, boss.’

‘And bring her.’

Schultz grabbed Chrystal by the upper arm. ‘Where’s the back way out of here?’

‘Through there,’ she said, pointing to a door behind the bar, and trying to make sense of the transformation that had suddenly come over Snoopy, the man who was scared of flying. He didn’t look scared of anything now.

‘Right, love,’ Schultz said. ‘Lead the way. Fast as you can go.’

She lifted up the flap at one end of the bar to let them through, and they followed her into a small kitchen. Schultz stepped across to a rack of knives and got out the longest one he could find. Carver moved past him to a broom that was leaning against the wall. The handle was wooden. He leaned it against a counter, stamped down hard and snapped it in two. Now he had a baton, roughly 75cm long, with a jagged end. Stick that in someone’s throat or face and they’d know all about it; jab the round end hard under their diaphragm or into their kidneys and, again, they’d be nicely softened up.

The back door at the far end of the kitchen led to a small, cobbled yard, no more than four metres across. Plastic crates and empty metal beer kegs were piled against the back wall of the pub. On the far side of the yard were two large, wheeled metal rubbish bins, about one and a half metres high, with hinged metal lids. To the left the yard ended in a double gate made of high, spiked metal
bars
. The gate was secured by a thick chain. Carver cursed to himself. The girl had led them into a dead end. No! There was a way out. If they rolled one of the bins up to the fence it should give them enough of a leg-up to get over without too much trouble, the girl included.

It was still raining, if anything a little harder than before. No, make that a lot harder.

Carver went up to the nearest bin and positioned himself behind it. He called across to Schultz. ‘Give me a hand.’

Schultz didn’t need to be told what Carver was thinking. One look at the bins and the gate was all it took. He stood next to Carver, stuck his knife in his belt and they started pushing. The swivel wheels rattled against the wet cobbles and swung from side to side as skittishly as a supermarket trolley, but they were making steady progress when Schultz said, ‘What the fuck’s occurring now?’

Carver had been pushing with his arms out and his head down. He looked up to see a group of rioters crossing the road towards the gate, coming in their direction. If the pub hadn’t been overrun by now it would be very soon. There was no way out apart from the gate.

The three of them were trapped.

26

A MUCH OLDER
man was leading the rioters coming towards the gate. The hood of his duffle coat was down, enabling Carver to see his painfully thin, sunken face, topped by a few unbrushed tufts of grey hair, the eyes hidden behind rain-spattered, metal-framed glasses. Physically, he was less imposing than any of the people around him, and yet he was unquestionably their leader. ‘Hey, you!’ he shouted out, looking at Carver and the others. ‘What happened in the pub?’

‘Fuckin’ ’ell,’ Schultz hissed. ‘He thinks we’re on his side.’

‘Better not disappoint him.’

‘No worries.’ Schultz raised his voice and called out: ‘Just moppin’ up the bastards now.’

To Carver’s surprise the older man seemed bothered by the news. ‘That wasn’t meant to happen,’ he snapped crossly. He turned his head towards one of the other rioters next to him, a Rasta with his locks piled up inside a knitted tam cap. ‘Open the gates.’

The Rasta stepped forward. He was carrying a heavy-duty,
760mm
bolt-cutter. It snapped through the chain like scissors through ribbon. Bakunin called out. ‘We need that rubbish bin. Bring it here. Now!’

‘Posh fucker, isn’t he?’ Schultz said to Carver as they started pushing again.

‘Maybe, but he’s getting us out of here.’

Schultz turned his head towards the barmaid. ‘Oi, Chrystal, give us a hand!’

As she joined them, Schultz told her, ‘Don’t say nothing, yeah? Just do whatever we do and we’ll get you out of here. All right?’

She nodded, her expression wide-eyed and fearful.

As they pushed the bin out into the side street, the grey-haired man directed them to turn right. A barricade was being erected about twenty metres away, blocking off the road and preventing any access to Netherton Street. The bin was taken from them and shoved between an overturned Transit van and the side of a parked BMW 5 Series. Carver saw Schultz wincing as the bin scraped along the BMW’s glossy flanks, leaving a trail of dents and scratches in its wake until it was finally jammed solid. More rioters followed, bringing the second bin and a trolley piled with beer kegs.