Authors: Jo Bannister

Charisma (10 page)

BOOK: Charisma

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âFrom Coronation Row.' Carver's voice was reedy, his teeth chattering as if the night was cold. âYou can cross from the backyards of Coronation Row into the backyards of Brick Lane. We might get out that way.'

Under normal circumstances perhaps: the need for a little breaking and entering would have deterred Donovan no more than any genuine resident of The Jubilee. But with a hostile gathering at that end of the walled city someone would see them, raise a hue and cry. They might conceivably reach Brick Lane but they wouldn't get any further. Brick Lane was where these people had come from, where they were probably still coming from, where their cars were parked, where those who didn't want to get involved but also didn't want to miss much would be waiting.

âWe'd better get indoors. Round here somewhere, I don't want those people to see us. Do you know anybody who lives here, who'd let us in without making a row?'

Perhaps he did but Carver couldn't seem to think. He peered anxiously from one front door to another as if trying to distinguish between them. âNever mind,' said Donovan, âI'll flash my card at them.' He reached for the nearest bell.

But no one came. The first couple of times he rang and no one answered Donovan thought he was being unlucky. He wondered if half The Jubilee was down at the wharf as well: from curiosity, he couldn't see them going anywhere to pray. But when time and again his summons went unanswered, as he moved from door to door and no one so much as opened a window to look at him, he understood. These houses weren't empty; not all of them. At some of them the inmates didn't know what was going on and didn't want to. And at some they knew exactly what was going on and, through fear or because they too believed in Carver's guilt, wouldn't raise a finger to stop it.

âYou miserable bastards!' Black fury and gnawing fear ravelled together in Donovan's mind. He didn't know what to do. He could force an entry but he couldn't do it silently and the sound of breaking glass would carry.

That gave him an idea. There was no time to go through it in detail to judge if it was a good one. He waved Carver to the bike. âYou take her. Don't ride, push. Get round the far corner and stay out of sight till you hear a commotion. I'm going to break into one of these houses. One of two things should happen. Either I'll find a phone and whistle up some help. Or the God-botherers'll come after me. If they come up here to see what the noise is about, maybe they'll leave the road open.

âIf that happens, get out of The Jubilee as fast as you can. Don't stop for anyone. If they try and stop you, run them down.'

Sheer bad luck defeated him. He chose a house at random and stabbed his gloved fist through the circle of reeded glass in the front door. The glass was tougher than he expected: he hit it twice without result. When it did break the noise of falling glass shattered the uneasy quiet of The Jubilee.

Protected by his leather jacket he fumbled for the catch, stumbled inside. But there was no telephone. A low-wattage bulb showed him a tiny hall, stairs and two doors. He tried the front room but there was no phone there either. He tried the kitchen. Finally he ran upstairs. He found an old man cowering on an iron bedstead in the dark.

âI need your phone.'

âI haven't got one.'

Donovan flung downstairs again and back to the street. He could hear them coming, the rumble of feet and voices mounting as they approached the corner. He had no idea what they'd do when they got here. Quite possibly nothing: they might eye one another in growing embarrassment for a few minutes and then shuffle off home. But unpredictability is inherent in any mass action, and the experiences of Toxteth and Broadwater Farm destroyed for ever the comfortable notion that, even when they were worked up, people weren't animals and common sense would intervene before anything really nasty took place.

So Donovan didn't wait to see but smashed the glass in the next door along, scrabbled for the catch and fell into the hall with an image of movement â rolling movement like a breaking sea â on the edge of his vision.

His groping hands found the phone. He dragged off a glove with his teeth and dialled 999. While the dial returned unhurriedly to neutral he had time to think that countries which used 111 as their emergency code had the right idea. Then the line connected and someone asked him which service he required.

Then the wave of bodies that had wheeled into the street behind him surged through the open door, bowled him away from the phone and fell on him like breakers falling on rocks. Fists and boots rained on him. The arms he raised to shield his face were wrenched apart and someone hit him across the eyes.

Then the tide receded, taking its flotsam with it. When the house was empty the little tinny voice of the emergency operator was plainly audible asking with increasing agitation what was happening, whether anyone was still there, and which of the three services the caller was in most urgent need of.

Half conscious and unresisting, Donovan was dragged into the street and dropped in the gutter. His head collided with the kerbstone: new constellations rose before his eyes. Men leaned over him. Someone shone a torch in his face.

He could make more sense of the voices than of what he could see. They were saying Carver's name and, with taut satisfaction, âWe've got him.' Someone said, âThe stinking beast.'

Someone else said, âThat isn't Carver.'

A murmur and then a silence ran through the press. A voice raised in thin anger demanded, âThen why'd he run? Of course it's Carver.'

âI'm telling you,' said the first man, âI know Ray Carver and that's not him.'

âThen who is he?'

They bent over him; hands fastened in his jacket hauled him to his feet. The torch blinded him. He mumbled through broken lips, âI'm a frigging policeman.'

In the hush that fell the sound of the motorbike was clear, strong and close. Someone yelled,
âThat's
Carver!'

If he'd been the man they thought, Carver would have got through the depleted gathering in Jubilee Terrace, broken bodies spinning from the wheels of the big machine, and might well have escaped. But he wasn't. He was an ordinary man; within certain limitations a decent man; a man who could have avoided trouble by either compromising his lady-friend or lying about what he'd seen but who had refused to do either. Whatever he might have promised Donovan, Ray Carver was never going to mow through a press of human bodies. He didn't have it in him. At the last possible moment, when he had either to brake or drive into them, he braked.

Road-dirt spat from under the tyres and the machine slewed wildly. People scattered before it. When the wheels went from
under him Carver hit the ground hard, the bike toppling on to him, pinning him down.

For a long moment no one seemed to know what to do. The man they'd come seeking was helpless at their feet. They gathered round to look. A couple of the older men ventured forward to lift the bike off him and help him up.

A furious bellow stopped them. The young men who had led the charge up into the enclave were back, thrusting through the crowd. One of them bent over the man on the ground and pulled the helmet off. âThat him?' Voices agreed that it was.

The man straightened up, breathing heavily. He was stocky and well muscled but more accustomed to heavy labour than to running. Sometimes he was a catch-hand bricklayer, sometimes he was a bouncer at the âSamarkand' nightclub. He didn't live in The Jubilee but he was known there. His name was Jackson, he was in his mid-thirties, and he was the father of two daughters both under ten.

He'd put a suit on for the gospel meeting but it wasn't a new suit to start with and it had aged a lot in the last ten minutes. His tie was pulled down and his collar open; sweat glinted on his face in the wink of the street-lamps. He said, âSo that's what human filth looks like.'

Carver struggled with the machine lying on his leg but couldn't shift it. His mouth moved but nothing came out. Fear shone in his eyes.

Jackson bent over him again to take the key out of the ignition. For a moment Donovan thought he'd done it to prevent Carver leaping up and riding away. Then with a shock of premonition he realized what was intended. He roared, âNo!' and heard his voice crack.

Hands held him. Someone hit him in the small of the back and he went down on his knees. The rest of what happened he watched through a forest of legs.

Jackson didn't glance at him. He unlocked the petrol filler cap. The fuel ran over Carver's leg and up to his groin. Fumes rose acrid as incense.

The sometime bouncer took out a cigarette. âDamned if I know what we should do with it,' he said with a heavy and vicious humour. âAnybody want a smoke while we think about it?'

So far as Donovan could see nobody took him up on the offer. But he lit his own cigarette, and held the match until it burned down to his fingertips. For the same space his eyes held Carver's eyes as they rounded with terror, terrible mewling little cries
spilling out of his lips while his head shook from side to side and his hands thrust ineffectually at the machine.

When the flame burned his fingers the stocky man said mildly, âOw,' and let it drop.

âI want him for this, Liz.' Shapiro was speaking through clenched teeth which meant he was very angry. When he was ordinarily displeased, for instance with her, he favoured a kind of gruff sarcasm. Occasionally she had heard him angry enough, usually with Donovan, to raise his voice. But in the ten years, on and off, that she'd known him she could only remember three or four occasions when he'd been angry enough to whisper. âNot just the bastard in the cells who did it. I want the bastard in the tent who put him up to it.'

âIf we can get him.' Liz was more cautious. âIncitement's a tricky one, Frank. You can know perfectly well what somebody meant but if the words are in any way ambiguous you're not going to make it stick.'

âThat gang went straight from his tabernacle to The Jubilee. Ten minutes after he'd finished with them they were beating the crap out of my sergeant. Then they watched while one madder-than-average bastard doused a helpless man with petrol and put a match to him. You don't think that's cause and effect?'

âI'm sure Davey was responsible for what happened,' Liz said deliberately. âI don't know yet if he's committed any offence. I've got them waiting downstairs now. I may know more when I've interviewed them.'

âCan't Donovan nail him?'

âNot specifically, no.' Liz had talked to him in the hospital while he was getting his own hurts dealt with. They weren't serious: cuts and bruises, burns to one hand where he'd tried to smother the flames, forgetting that he'd left a glove in the house with the phone. He'd seemed dazed, mostly with shock. Seeing a trapped man deliberately set on fire, hearing the shrieks hammer at his brain and trying to effect a rescue while thirty men looked on and did nothing had been the most harrowing experience of his life. The flames were reflected in his eyes as he talked. Liz knew he was seeing anything but her. âNobody said “Reverend Mike sent us.” '

âWhat about Jackson? Will he say it was Davey's idea?'

âNot yet.' Liz gave a grim smile. âHe's still claiming it was an accident, that he wanted a smoke and didn't think of the consequences.'

âGod help us all!' exclaimed Shapiro despairingly. âWhen he'd
unscrewed the petrol cap? When he had to take the key out of the ignition to do it? What does he think? â somebody looked under a cabbage leaf and there we were?' Belatedly he caught an echo of what Liz had said. âInterviewed them? What them?'

âHe has an assistant. Jennifer Mills. She makes the business arrangements, he does the talking.'

âShe was there last night?'

âShe's there every night, apparently. Reverend Mike's cheerleader.'

Shapiro sniffed. âWhich do you want to talk to?'

âI don't mind.' They were alone so she could be candid. âBut if you take him, Frank, don't lose your temper. I know how you feel about zealots, but whether we like it or not people selling religion enjoy more latitude than people selling fish-and-chips. It doesn't make him fire-proof. It does mean that if you want to prosecute you'll have to be careful.'

Shapiro wasn't so angry that he'd lost all sense of proportion. He tugged an imaginary forelock. âYes, ma'am.'

She grinned at him with real affection. He wasn't one of the giants of detective mythology, one of the men to whom the conversation inevitably turned at police gatherings. But she thought he was probably as good a policeman, and at least as good a man, as those that were.

Being a Jew may have held him back. Being of no great height and inclined to stoutness would not have helped. There were no stereotypes of stardom that fitted him. At the same time she had never met anyone, police or civilian, who'd known Frank Shapiro however casually without learning to respect him. She hoped he knew that.

She said, âJust don't tell him about the agnostic dyslexic insomniac.'

âThe one who lies awake nights wondering if there is a dog?' He sighed and shook his head, making for the door. âIt's getting time to retire when everyone you work with knows all your jokes.' In the doorway he paused. âHave somebody buzz me when Donovan comes in.'

Liz stared at him. âDonovan won't be in today.'

Shapiro just smiled as he went out.

BOOK: Charisma

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