The John Milton Series: Books 1-3 (30 page)

She made for the door. “Then I’m sorry, Detective, if you can’t tell me what Mr Milton has done, then I’m not sure what else I can do to help.” She opened the door. “Do you mind? I have to get ready for bed. I start work early in the mornings.”

“Of course,” Callan said. “Thank you for your help. Sorry again for disturbing you.”

He looked around again as he allowed her to shepherd him to the door. Unpaid bills on the floor. Paint peeling from the walls. Bars across the windows. What was Number One doing in a place like this, with a woman like this? He supposed that she was pretty, after a fashion, but that wasn’t a good enough reason to explain anything. The only thing that made any sense at all was Control’s contention that something had broken inside Number One’s head, and that, if it was true, would not be good for him at all. He politely bid the woman good night and walked over to the balcony as she shut the door behind him. He rested his elbows on the balustrade and looked out over the East End. It was a hot night, the air torpid and sluggish. Sirens wailed in the streets nearby, and a group of youngsters had gathered in the open space below, their raucous laughter reaching up to him. Callan did not understand any of it. His task was to gather evidence, not to draw conclusions, yet he could not help but wonder: what on earth had happened to Number One?

STOKE NEWINGTON POLICE STATION was a modern three-story building with wide windows on the ground floor. They were all lit up, lights burning behind them. Pops walked towards the entrance but did not go in. They had one of those old-fashioned blue lanterns hanging from the wall, and he carried on beneath it and further along the road before he stopped, crossed over, and headed back in the same direction again. He had repeated the pattern for the last half an hour, passing up and down the tree-lined road, thinking about choices and consequences. What he was about to do would change everything for him. There was no point in pretending that it wouldn’t, and the gravity of what he was contemplating frightened him. If he did as he had been asked to do, there would be no turning back for him. His life would be yanked off course and sent in a different direction.

There was a Turkish barber shop opposite the station. He sat down, resting his back against the window, and took the half-finished joint from behind his ear. He held it in the flame of his lighter and toked on it until it caught, drawing in a big breath of smoke. He held it in his lungs for a long moment and then blew it away. He needed to settle down, to relax. He drew his legs up to his chest and leant forwards, resting his forehead against his knees. He was hopelessly on edge.

Choices. He stared across the slow-moving traffic to the lit windows of the station. He knew that speaking to the police was a fundamental thing. It would make him a grass. He was at a junction; consequences one way, but consequences the other way, too. He had thought about it for long enough, before he met Elijah, before Bizness turned his back on him, before Laura, before Milton. There were always choices, even when you thought there were none. It had been his choice to join the LFB, to start mugging and steaming, to start selling drugs. There had been different choices at every point, but the problem was that those alternatives were harder or less lucrative or less cool than the life he could have on the street. He had told the youngers that came up that the easy way was the best way, but he had always known that the stories he told them were lies. He had always known. He lied to them and to himself. He had persuaded himself that he was right, but now, well, now there was nothing else for it but to face the truth.

Because the truth of it was that there was always a choice.

The shopkeeper had a small television above the counter, and Pops could hear it through the open door. There was nonsense in Tottenham tonight, brothers getting together and wrecking the place. He could hear the reporter speaking from the scene, the sound of yelling in the background, things getting smashed up. Pops listened absently to it for a moment, not really paying attention, toking on the joint and letting the smoke slowly seep out from his nostrils. He finished it, sucking the flame down to his fingertips, and dropped it to the ground, grinding the roach underfoot.

He crossed the street, pushed open the door, and went inside.

A female officer was on duty.

“How can we help you?” she said.

“I want to talk someone about Israel Brown.”

The woman looked at him askance. “Who’s that, then?”

“You probably know him as Bizness. The rapper. He beat a boy half to death in Chimes last week. I was there. I saw it all.”

BIZNESS STARED out of the tinted window of the BMW at the burnt-out house. A fire engine was still at the scene, a fireman playing water over the smoking wreckage. The ceiling of the extension had collapsed, and the window had buckled and shattered from the heat, revealing the blackened mess beyond. He didn’t own the house, and it wasn’t worth shit, anyway, but that was not the point. It was Bizness’s property. It served a purpose, and it made him a lot of paper. Now he was going to have to find somewhere else, spread the word, get things going again. It would cost him time and lose him money.

“Mother
fucker
,” he said, slamming his fist against the steering wheel.

Mouse was in the passenger seat. “We got a problem, Bizness.”

“You think? Shut the fuck up, Mouse. You don’t know shit.”

Levelz and Tookie, the two boys who had been working the squat, had told him what had happened. The man had attacked the place just after midnight, taking them by surprise. He had beaten them both, passed on his message, cleared the junkies out, and fired the place.

There would be a price to pay for that.

The door behind them opened, and a man slid into the seat. Bizness glanced up in the rear-view mirror. Detective Inspector Wilson glared back into his eyes.

“What’s going on, lads? Who did this?”

“Someone who’s gonna wish they never got involved with me. You don’t need to worry about it.”

“Are you sure about that? Because I’m pretty sure that when the fire service confirm that this is arson, there’s going to be an investigation.”

“Take it easy, a’ight? I know who did it. And I’m gonna sort it.”

“You better make sure that you do. You’ve got to keep a lid on things. Having one of your places go up like it’s bonfire night isn’t good for my blood pressure. You want to operate around here without any trouble from me, you keep things quiet.”

“Nah, man, me operating around here depends on you getting your cut every Friday.”

Wilson ignored him and stabbed a finger against the window. “Things like that don’t give me much confidence, son. I turn a blind eye to you because I don’t have time to start worrying about lads from outside the postcode causing trouble. There are plenty of others who can keep a lid on things if you can’t.”

“That you making a threat?”

“No, that’s me telling you that it’s going to cost you ten from now on if you want to stay in business.”

“Fuck, man, don’t gimme that shit. You’re doubling the fee?”

“There a problem with that?”

Bizness gripped the steering wheel hard. “Nah,” he said. “Ten’s fine.”

“There are other benefits to working with me,” Wilson said.

“Yeah? Like what?”

“Advanced warnings. You’ve got more trouble coming your way. Your boy Pops?”

“What about him?”

“He came into the nick last night. Says he’s willing to give evidence against you.”

“Against me?”

“So he says.”

“For what?”

“Beating up that kid in Chimes.”

“Man, that was nothing.”

“Tell that to the kid’s parents. He’s still in hospital.”

“Pops don’t got shit.”

“He’s saying he was there.”

“And he’s gonna talk?”

“That’s what I heard.”

Bizness glowered through the tinted windscreen, watching as the passing cars slowed so that their drivers could gawp at the smoking wreck of the crack house. The problem with the man who did that and now this? Timing was bad. Timing was awful. Bizness nodded grimly. Fair enough, he thought. Timing was awful, but sometimes that’s the way it was, the hand you got dealt. They were two small problems, and they could both be sorted. He started to work out angles, tactics.

“You’ve got to keep on top of things, son,” Wilson said. “Do I have a reason to be concerned?”

“No,” he said, gritting his teeth. “No reason. It’ll all get sorted.”

PINKY REACHED the door to Bizness’s studio and pressed the intercom.

“Yeah?”

“I’m here to see Bizness.”

“He ain’t in. Go away.”

“Don’t talk chat, bruv. I saw him come in.”

“Piss off, younger.”

“Nah, it’s about what happened at HMV yesterday. I got some information.”

“You can tell me.”

“Don’t think so,” he said. “I’ll tell him myself, or I won’t bother.”

There was a click as the intercom was switched off. Pinky paused, holding his breath. The intercom crackled into life again. “Alright. Come up.”

The lock buzzed, and the door clicked open.

Pinky climbed the stairs, the framed BRAPPPP! pictures on the walls on either side of him. He was nervous. Bizness had a reputation, a bad one, everyone knew that, and part of that reputation was that he could be unpredictable. All the stories Pinky had heard about him were at the front of his mind. He wasn’t stupid, he knew plenty of them were made up for the sake of his image, but there were others he knew were true, and it was those that he was thinking about now.

He stepped through into the large room at the top of the stairs. Bizness was on the sofa, his feet propped up against the edge of the coffee table. A flat-screen television was fixed to the wall and tuned in to Sky News. Pinky had heard all about the riots that had started in Tottenham last night. He had been excited by it, at the idea of looting all those shops. Now it seemed like the trouble had spread to Enfield and Brixton. Footage from a helicopter showed a police car on fire.

“What’s your name, boy?”

“Pinky.”

“Alright, Pinky, you better have a good reason for coming up here. I’m a busy man, lot on my plate. I ain’t got no time for signing no autographs.”

“I’m not here for that,” he said.

“Then you better tell me what you are here for.”

“I got some information,” he said. “That old man who got into it with you at the record signing—I saw it on YouTube.”

“What?”

Pinky took out his phone. He had already cued up the video, and now he hit play. The video rolled; someone in the shop had filmed the conversation between Bizness and the old man. The camera was close enough to see the expressions on their faces, the implacability of the man and Bizness’s growing anger. Their argument reached its crescendo, and Bizness lost his balance, stumbling backwards and tripping. The sound of laughter came as he sprawled amid the spilled posters and CDs.

“Who the fuck uploaded that?” he spat, grabbing the phone from out of Pinky’s hand. There were several pages of comments, most of them jokes at Bizness’s expense, and Pinky hoped that he would not read them. He did not; he played the video again and then tossed the phone back, his eyes flaring with anger.

“It’s about the man,” Pinky said.

Bizness’s eyes narrowed, and the animation washed from his face. Pinky realised he would have to tread carefully. “Go on, then—don’t just sit there, tell me what you know.”

“There’s a boy on the Estate, you’ve been asking him to do stuff for you—JaJa?”

“Yeah. What about him?”

“I was outside his mum’s flat the day before yesterday. It was in the morning. Early—we’d been up late, selling shit to the cats, we was just about to call it a night. Anyway, right, I saw Elijah coming out, looking all upset and shit, and then, right after him, out comes that man. It was definitely him, no doubt. He was half-undressed, had his shirt off.”

“What you saying? It’s Elijah’s dad?”

“Nah, his dad’s in prison.”

“So who is it?”

“Dunno. His mum’s a skanky ho—some bloke she picked up, I reckon.”

Bizness zoned out as he tried to remember what the man had said to him. “He told me to stay away from the boy,” he recalled.

“Him and Pops’s bitch,” Mouse offered.

“You know anything else?” Bizness asked.

“Nah, that’s it. I thought it could be useful so I came over.”

“It is useful, younger. I appreciate that, you making the effort. You done good.”

“There was another reason for coming,” he said. It had gone as well as he could have expected, and now here it was, the opportunity he had been hoping for.

“Go on,” Bizness said sceptically.

“I been thinking,” Pinky said. “I know you asked JaJa to do some things for you.” He left the “things” vague, but he knew all about the incident at the launch party. “Between you and me, boy ain’t up to much. He’s just a little kid, gets scared about things.”

“You ain’t that much older yourself, younger.”

“Nah, true enough, but me and him ain’t got nothing in common. There ain’t nothing you could ask me to do for you that I wouldn’t get done. You know what I’m saying? You want to ask around, people will tell you. I’m reliable. I don’t mess no one about. When I say I’m going to do something, I do it. You don’t need to worry about it, it gets sorted, you know what I’m saying?”

“That so?”

“Yeah,” he said. “Thing is, I’m looking for a change. I’m ambitious, man, and I’m getting bored hanging around in the same old crew. I want to do mad shit, but Pops don’t have his heart in it no more. We just hang around these ends doing the same tired old shit day after day. The way I see it, I could do that kind of stuff with you.”

Bizness looked over at Mouse and grinned. “The balls on this one, eh? Reminds me of what I used to be like.”

“All you need to do is give me a chance—I promise I won’t let you down.”

“You don’t take no for an answer, do you?”

Pinky shook his head.

“A’ight, I’ll tell you what, younger, there is something you could do for me.”