Acid Row (19 page)

“Nine o'clock.”

“Then I'll be back before nine. Is that a deal?”

“We'll see,” she said, bending over the young woman and feeling the pulse in her neck. “A deal's only a deal when it's honoured.” She pointed towards a bathroom on the left. "There's a tin bowl in there and a tray with some cotton wool and disinfectant. There's also a roll of bandages in the cupboard over the basin. I need the bowl filled with warm water and everything brought out here. If you clear the bedside table first and pull it forward, we can use it as a work surface."

He did as she asked, and watched while she set about cleaning the matted hair. “Are you a nurse?” he asked.

"Once upon a time till I started a family. Then I became a volunteer with St. John Ambulance."

"Is that why the paramedic knew you'd help? He talked about something called “Friendship Calling”."

“It's a telephone club for people who can't get out,” she explained rinsing cotton wool in the tin bowl. "Among other things, we take it in turns to call round all those who're poorly, and if we don't get an answer we alert the ambulance service. I'm one of the organizers which is how they knew my number."

“You're a bit of a saint then?”

“Good Lord, no, I just like a good gossip.” She looked up for a moment and chuckled at his expression. "Yes, yes, all about the good old days and how dreadful modern youth is. But I expect you're the same.

Everyone over seventy's senile. Isn't that what you think?"

“Sometimes,” he admitted. "They're pretty rude, that's for sure .. .

Act as though everyone has to respect them whether they deserve it or not."

“In our day, we respected our elders without question.”

"Yeah, but things have moved on. You can't demand it any more. You've got to earn it.“ He gave an Ali G flick of his fingers. ”Like I haven't got any trouble respecting you you're doing the business for me but there's others wouldn't have opened their doors."

"I doubt I would if they hadn't phoned to tell me what was happening.

You're hardly an old lady's dream, Jimmy." She carefully swabbed around the long cut in the policewoman's head, her gnarled fingers curled around the cotton wool. "Poor child. Who on earth could have done a thing like this?"

“Is she going to die?”

“I shouldn't think so. Her pulse is strong.”

“She's lost a hell of a lot of blood.”

"Head wounds always bleed, but they generally look worse than they are."

He envied her calmness. “You're very relaxed about it.”

"We can't make her better by screaming and shouting. In any case skulls don't fracture easily.“ She nodded towards the bathroom. ”Go and clean yourself up," she ordered him, 'while I put a pad on the wound to protect it. When you're finished, bring me the smelling salts from the second shelf of the bathroom cabinet. They're in a green bottle. We'll see if we can bring her round."

Jimmy always thought of it afterwards as a little miracle. One pass of the bottle under the young woman's nose and she opened her eyes and asked where she was. Why did people do that? he wondered. Was awareness more about where you were than who you were? Did you need to be sure you were safe before you could acknowledge anything else?

Whichever, his relief was intense. He hadn't wanted her to die. He didn't approve of people hitting women, not even policewomen.

Eileen watched the fluctuating emotions show themselves in his face and, with a hoarse 'harrumph', tapped the back of her hand against his leathered arm. “She has you to thank for this.”

“I didn't do anything.”

“You could have left her.”

“I did,” he admitted honestly, 'till I remembered I'd left my fingerprint on the fucking lift button." She frowned disapprovingly.

“Sorry. I get a bit lippy when I'm stressed.”

She gave another little chuckle. "The ambulance man told me to expect a big nigger with blood all over him who had just come out of prison and couldn't speak without uttering obscenities." Her eyes twinkled at his look of surprise that the description had been so blunt. "He said he didn't know how true it was because he was simply passing on your own description of yourself .. . but in his opinion you were a hero and he'd put money on the fact that I could trust you." She watched a blush darken his cheeks. “Give me a kiss,” she said gruffly, 'then go and look for your lady-friend and her kiddies. I hope they're all right."

He planted a smacker on the wrinkled skin.

“And make sure you're back by nine,” she finished severely, 'or I'll never make a deal with you again."

Outside 23 Humbert Street Complete mayhem followed Kevin Charteris's self-immolation. People scattered in all directions, crashing into each other, fighting to get away from the flaming tarmac. Spreadeagled on the road beneath her brother, Melanie saw Kevin being carried away by his friends, using her leather jacket as a stretcher, the skin of his head red and raw where the flames had fed on his glossy auburn ponytail. She flung Colin off and touched her hands frantically to her own head.

“It's all right,” he told her. “Most of it's still there.”

Her teeth started to chatter with shock. "They ought t-to leave K-Kevin where he is,“ she said urgently. ”C-call an ambulance. I s-saw this p-programme that said p-people can d-die of shock."

“I guess they reckon it's better to take him to the barricade,” said Colin uncertainly. “There's cops up there can get him to hospital.”

She shook her head. "Why d-did he do it? I t-told him not to.

D-didn't I, Col?"

“Yeah, yeah, but we've gotta get out of this,” said Colin, hauling her to her feet. “They've all gone fucking mad. Jesus!”

He fended off a hurtling body, dropping Melanie's mobile unnoticed beneath stamping feet, and dragged her towards the pavement. "There's gonna be a fight in a minute."

She was trembling from head to toe. “I don't know what to do,” she wailed. “What about my babies?”

"You're gonna lock yourself in with the kids while I go looking for Jimmy," he said purposefully.

“He's g-going to be that mad with me,” she wailed. "He said this would happen."

“Yeah, but he won't be mad till after you're safe,” said Colin. "And that don't matter a fuck. Come on, sis, get a grip. I know it ain't no picnic, but you've gotta be strong for Rosie and Ben. The poor little sods'll be scared shitless by now." He gripped her arms to imbue her with some of his steel, but she wasn't looking at him. He watched her eyes stretch wide in horror, turned to see what she was looking at and saw Wesley Barber launch another flaming Molotov at the paedophile's door.

“Oh, shitV he said in tearful despair. ”Now we're really fucked!"

Police Message to all stations >28.07.01 >15.43 >Bassindale Estate MAJOR ALERT Riot squads in place Entry to Bassindale imminent Orders awaited UPDATE WPC HANSON Situation secure UPDATE HUMBERT STREET Controlled exit operating Panic reported Possible attack on 23 UPDATE OR MORRISON No new information  

Saturday 28 July 2001 inside 23 Humbert Street

NICHOLAS CRADLED HIS father on the floor, supporting him across his knees in a surreal parody of Michelangelo's Pieta. The old man lay unmoving, face turned towards his son's chest, tiny rivulets of blood crusting on his neck. No one spoke. In the extraordinary stillness of that back bedroom, cluttered with unpacked boxes and small bits and pieces of unwanted furniture relics of the Zelowski family history Sophie had a sense that for these men conversation was a rare interlude in the silence that dominated their lives.

In another place, at another time, she might have mistaken Nicholas for a monk. There was something very ascetic about his thin expressionless face that seemed inured to passion, and she wondered if he'd schooled himself to hide his feelings or if he lacked feelings altogether. He was hiding them, she thought, remembering his shocked reaction to the determined way she'd attacked his father. Raw emotion frightened him.

But did that make him an ally or an enemy? She couldn't decide as she listened to the screams of the crowd still echoing outside. Would he support her version of events or his father's? In the distance she could hear a helicopter, and she relaxed slightly at the thought that rescue was imminent. Did it matter whom Nicholas supported? Would she still want to prosecute when this was all over? Did she hate Franck that much? Weren't they all in the same boat? Terrified out of their wits?

“I can hear a helicopter,” she said, recognizing from Nicholas's expression that he could hear it, too. "Do you think it's the police?"

“It has to be.”

“Oh, God, I hope so,” she said fervently.

He began to make excuses. "Life would be easy if we never did anything we regretted. But things happen .. . accidents .. . people in the wrong place at the wrong time. It doesn't make you evil .. . just unlucky.“ He raised his eyes. ”Do you know the Aesop fable about the scorpion and the frog?"

Sophie shook her head.

"The scorpion wants to cross a river but he can't swim so he begs a ride off a frog. The frog begins by refusing because he's afraid the scorpion will sting him. The scorpion laughs and says he's not that stupid. “If I sting you, you'll die,” he tells the frog, "which means I will die, too, because I can't swim." This persuades the frog to do as the scorpion asks, but halfway across the river the scorpion stings him anyway. “Why did you do it?” asks the frog as he's dying. "I couldn't help myself,“ says the scorpion, ”it's my nature." He touched his father's head. “Talk of my mother always makes him angry,” he went on. "If you'd done as I asked and stayed quiet, he wouldn't have hit you."

“You mean submit .. . like you?” She smiled sarcastically. "It's not in my nature."

“It's easier.”

“You're worse than he is,” she said. "He's brutish .. . uncivilized ..

. disgusting .. . but you' she shook her head in disbelief 'you let him do it. What sort of person does that make you?"

He gave a small shrug, metaphorically washing his hands. "I did try to warn you."

“How?” She raised her fingers to her cheek and touched the puffy flesh. It was aching all the way down to the bone, and she wondered if it was broken. "All I recall is being told to shut up do as I was ordered ... let your father believe he could control me."

“It's the same thing.”

She searched his face, looking for something anything -that would persuade her he didn't believe what he'd just said. She found nothing.

In his philosophy, it seemed, the victim took responsibility. The aggressor none.

“He wouldn't have hit you if you hadn't made him lose his temper,” he said, as if to prove the point.

Sophie took a firmer grip on the cricket bat. "Why didn't you warn him? Why didn't you tell him you'd break his arms if he touched me again?"

He flexed the fingers of his right hand and watched them with a strange sort of fascination. “It wouldn't have stopped him,” he said.

“Why not?”

“He's not afraid of me.”

Sophie stood appalled, watching the son keep the father quiescent by stroking his fleshy breasts. She couldn't have spoken, even if she'd wanted to.

Nightingale Health Centre A call came through on Harry Bonfield's direct line five minutes after Bob Scudamore had rung to say he was in his car and hoped to be at the Nightingale within an hour and a half. He told Harry that a Dr. Gerald Chandler 'good bloke .. . works closely with my future boss at Southampton' would be phoning in the next few minutes.

“I'm on the Isle of Wight and it's the holiday season,” said Chandler regretfully. "Even if I managed to get my car on to one of the ferries, I still can't reach you any quicker than Bob can. I'm attached to all three prisons here in various capacities, but my work is principally with sex offenders in Albany." He was silent for a moment while he gathered his thoughts. "I remember Milosz Zelowski well. I liked him, as a matter of fact. He's a shy, rather pleasant man .. . fantastic musician .. . retreats inside his head all the time to listen to jazz. Imaginary, of course ... he plays it out entirely for himself.. . things he's composed or things he's heard. The danger for Bob's fiancee is that he's severely emotionally repressed .. . and deeply introverted. I can fax through my notes on him. They're not particularly easy to read .. . they're a handwritten transcription of the tapes I made of my interviews with him .. . but they'll give you an idea of the sort of person you're dealing with. The full typed report's at my office .. . I'm willing to drive there, but it'll mean another thirty minutes before you get them."

“Fax the notes,” said Harry, 'but give me a quick rundown first. Does this repression make him dangerous? Would he rape Sophie?"

Chandler considered the question carefully. "In normal circumstances no,“ he said. ”He's not very highly sexed and his predilection is very definitely young men. He finds the whole idea of penetration deeply disgusting and prefers not to ejaculate if he can help it. It's like anal retention in children who refuse to perform on parental demand.

Shedding his seed gives him the heebie-jeebies. That's not to say he isn't interested in orgasm for himself .. . but it's a very private thing. He uses masturbation of others as a form of manipulation. In simple terms, anyone he pleasures is under his control as long as they continue to derive pleasure from what he does. The three boys he was convicted of molesting were engaged in homosexual activity already .. .

they all admitted to it. They also admitted to being in love with Zelowski and plaguing the life out of him ... so he gave them what they wanted in order to control them. They all described him as an unemotional man, which doesn't mean he wasn't attracted to them, merely that he keeps his feelings well hidden."

“But he is a paedophile?”

"Yes. In so far as he suffers from a psychosexual disorder which predisposes him to find adolescent boys attractive. But I'm doubtful he'd have done anything about it if the boys hadn't found him attractive first. He's a likeable man. Says very little .. . listens a lot. He was a Samaritan in prison. Used to sit for hours with suicidal men, hearing their problems. He understands internalized fear and pain rather better than most."