The Cleaner (24 page)

42.

IT WAS SEVEN O’CLOCK and still bright and warm.

“Where you going, then?” Pinky asked him.

“Like I said, I got an appointment.”

“Yeah?”

“That’s right.”

“Who with?”

Pops sighed. “No-one, Pinky. I’m going to college.”

“Course you are,” Pinky replied, managing a wide grin.

“I’m serious.”

“Bollocks, man.”

“Twice a week. Night classes.”

“Serious?”

Pinky was about to laugh again but he saw that Pops was staring at him darkly and stifled it.

College, he thought. What was the point of that? Studying, books, teachers; he had no interest in any of it. Pinky had always been a little slow in school. It wasn’t as if he had never tried. He had given it a go when he was younger but it didn’t seem to matter what he did; the others were always better at reading and numbers and shit and coming bottom of the class again and again got to him eventually. In the end, he had just stopped bothering. Stopped going. The school did nothing about it, his mums didn’t care either way and no-one seemed to miss him. Might as well just be philosophical about it. You couldn’t be good at everything. He’d concentrate on the stuff he knew he was good at: robbing, tiefing, shotting, frightening people. Those were his skills. He’d work on them, get better at it. That was where the money was. That was where the power and respect were, too.

“Why’s it so funny?” Pops asked him.

“Dunno. It’s just––well, it’s just not something I can imagine any of the others being interested in, that’s all.”

Pops snapped, “Because they’re not interested means it’s a bad idea?”

“Dunno,” he said, surprised at the heat in Pops’s voice.

“So what’s your plan? You must have one. Or you planning on being on the street all your life?”

“Hadn’t really thought about it,” he said. “It’s not so bad, though, is it? I get to hang out with my mates and I still make more money in a week than my Mums does in a month.”

Pinky could see that Pops was about to say something else but he sighed and shook his head instead. “Never mind,” he sighed. “You’re right. School isn’t for everyone.”

They walked along the Old Ford Road and crossed at the shops. A police car, its lights flashing and siren wailing, rushed by at high speed. They walked up to the roundabout and crossed there, too, passing through the park gates and heading north. There were fewer people in the park than on the street. Pinky looked around. It was quiet. He felt his fingers start to tremble.

“You can disagree if you want, but if you want to get on in life you need to have the grades.”

“That’s what you’re doing? Exams and shit?”

“Yes.”

“For what?”

“For a job. Work.”

Pinky gestured around at the park, and the streets beyond. “You don’t want to do this no more?”

“Everything comes to an end.”

Pinky had looked up to Pops when he started to make his way on the street. He had been a powerful figure, successful and feared, not afraid to get stuck in so that he could get what he wanted. He was what Pinky would have considered a role model. He couldn’t believe how wrong he’d been about that. Bizness had shown him. Pops was nothing to look up to. He wanted out. He couldn’t hold on to his woman. He was a fassy. A sell-out, a fraud who didn’t deserve anyone’s respect. Choosing to go back to school was just another example. And if what Bizness had said was true: going to the police? He felt sick when he thought about the way he had aspired to be like him. How could he have got it so wrong? He was nothing to look up. He was nothing at all.

“Yeah,” he said. “I guess.”

“What are you going to do with your life?”

“Smoke a lot of weed,” he laughed. “Work on my rep, make sure everyone knows who I am.”

“Can’t do this forever, man.”

“Why not?”

“You just can’t.”

“Nah,” Pinky said, suddenly overcome with the urge to put Pops in his place. “You’re talking shit, man. Just because you ain’t got the stomach for it no more don’t mean the rest of us have to feel the same way.”

He had never spoken to Pops like that before. A week ago, he would not have had the nerve, but he knew more now. There was no reason to fear him. And he didn’t need to listen to his sanctimonious nonsense.

Pops gave a gentle shake of his head but did not rise to it.

They walked on.

Pinky’s bag bounced against his hip as he walked. He held it in place with his right hand; it was heavy, and it felt solid.

“Where you going, anyway?” Pops said. “Following me around like a bad smell.”

“Just fancied a walk,” he said. “Nice night, innit?”

He stopped, letting Pops take several steps forward until he was next to a park bench.

He opened the bag and reached inside. He took out the gun that Bizness had given him. It was a Russian gun, a old Makarov. He had practiced with it in the quieter part of the park, getting used to the weight of it, how it felt in his hand.

“Oi,” he said. “Pops.”

Pops stopped and turned. “What is it?”

Pinky pulled the gun up and levelled his arm, bracing his shoulder for the recoil.

“This is from Bizness,” he said, just as he had been told.

Pops started to say something but he didn’t, his voice just tailing off. Perhaps he was going to explain, to apologize, to beg for his life, but what he must have seen in Pinky’s dead eyes made it all useless. Maybe he just accepted it. The gun cracked viciously again and again—four times—and then fell silent. Pops fell back against the bench and sat for a moment, looking up at the darkening sky. His fingers opened in a spasm as he clutched at his chest. Then his head fell sideways and then the right shoulder and finally the whole upper part of his body lurched over the arm of the bench as if he were going to be sick. But there was only a short scrape of his heels on the ground and then no other movement.

Pinky looked around. There was no-one near them. He started to giggle, nervous at first and then faster and faster, unable to control it. He tugged his hood down low over his face and set off, crossing the wide open space at a jog and then cutting through a straggled hedge and into a patch of scrub beyond. He paused there, taking a moment to catch his breath.

His heart was racing. He had done it. He had lost his cherry, killed a man.

Breathing deep and even, but trembling with adrenaline, he clambered over a wall and dropped down onto the pavement beyond. As he set off back towards the Estate he heard the sound of police sirens in the distance.

43.

MILTON SAT in the front room with the pieces of his Sig Sauer arranged on the table before him. He often stripped and cleaned the gun whenever he needed to think; there was something meditative about the process. He removed the magazine and racked the slide, ejecting the chambered round. He disassembled the gun, removing the slide, barrel, recoil spring and receiver, wiping away the dust from the barrel with a bore brush before squeezing tiny drops of oil onto the moving parts. The routine had been driven into him over the course of long years. He had seen men who had been shot after their weapons jammed; two of his own victims had been damned by their bad habits when they might otherwise have held an advantage over him.

He had piggy-backed next door’s wifi and was streaming the radio through his phone. The riots had spread to Hackney now, too, and there were reports of disturbances in Birmingham and Manchester. Milton thought of Elijah and hoped that he was sensible enough to stay out of the way. Aaron had left him a message earlier in the day: he had not noticed any real change in the boy, he was still hanging out with the other boys although he was, Aaron thought, quieter than usual. He said that he seemed to be angry about something but that he had not spoken with him to confirm it. As far as he knew, there had been no new contact with Bizness.

Milton tapped out one of his Russian cigarettes and lit up. He considered Bizness. Last night’s message would have been received and, if he had any sense, it would have been listened to. Perhaps he had taken Milton’s advice and was going to stay away from Elijah. Perhaps. Milton wet an ear bud with cleaning solvent and inserted it into the breech end of the barrel, working it back and forth and swabbing out the chamber and bore. Perhaps not. No, Bizness was not the kind of man who would back down. He had made his point but he had anticipated that it would be necessary to underline it. Another demonstration would need to be made. Milton looked over at the scrap of paper on the arm of the sofa. Aaron had provided the address for a second crackhouse. He planned to take it down tonight.

He heard the boom of heavy bass from a car stereo, gradually increasing as it neared the house. The thudding rattled the windows in their frames. He pulled aside the net curtains to look at where it was coming from. A car with blacked-out windows was moving slowly along the side of the road and, as he watched, the passenger side window rolled down. The car drew up alongside the house. A figure leant out of the window, bringing up a long assault rifle. With something approaching a mixture of professional curiosity and alarm, Milton recognised the distinctive shape of an AK-47. The car passed into the golden cone of light from a streetlamp and Milton could see Bizness’ face, his features contorted with a grin of excitement that looked feral.

Milton threw himself to the floor as the AK fired. The glass in the window was thrown out by the first few round, splashing down around his head and shoulders and shattering against the floorboards. Bullets studded against the thin partition walls, dusty puffs of plaster exhaling from each impact. The mirror above the fireplace was struck, cracking down the middle with each half falling down separately against the mantelpiece. A jagged track was pecked across the ceiling, more plaster shaken out to drift down like the thinnest of snow. The thin door was struck, the cheap MDF torn up and spat out.

Outside, someone screamed. Milton crawled behind the sofa, pressing himself into cover. The table with the pieces of his Sig was out of reach; he dared not make an attempt to retrieve it and even if he had been able to get it and assemble it he would have been badly outgunned. The AK had been fitted with a drum and he knew that it would have around seventy-five rounds if it was full to capacity. At a standard rate of fire the gun would chew through that in fifteen seconds.

As he was considering this, the shooting stopped.

He stayed where he was, waiting. Residual bits of glass fell from the wrecked frame, tinkling as they shattered against the floorboards. Milton’s breath was quick. He did not move.

He heard a loud whoop of exultation, a car door opening and then––panic spilling into his gut––he saw a small metallic object sail through the smashed window, bounce against the wall and fall back, landing on the sofa with a soft thump. A second followed. Milton knew what they were and scrambled up, desperately trying to find purchase for his feet as he threw himself out of the door and into the hall. The first grenade detonated with an ear-splitting bang, ripping the door from its hinges and sending a thousand razor-sharp fragments of shrapnel around the room. The second exploded seconds later. Shards sliced through the partition wall and into the hall, spiking into the masonry like tiny daggers. Milton shielded his head with his hands, pieces of debris bouncing off him.

He heard a car door slam shut, an engine rev loudly and then the shriek of rubber as tyres bit into the road. He opened the bullet-shredded front door and stepped out onto the street. The BMW was speeding towards Bethnal Green, turning the corner and disappearing from view. Pedestrians on the other side of the road were staring in open-mouthed stupefaction at the scene before them. Residents of the block opposite were hanging out of their windows. The house had been sprayed with bullets. Most had passed through the window but others had lodged in the brickwork. Dozens of spent cartridges glittered on the road and the pavement, a host of red-hot slugs, many still rolling down towards the gutter.

Milton was not interested in discussing what had happened with the police and there was no reason for him to stay. He quickly piled his clothes into his bag, collected the pieces of the gun, shut the door, got into his Volvo and set off.

44.

MOUSE WAS DRIVING the new whip, the BMW. Bizness was in the passenger seat and Pinky was in the back. Traffic was crawling along the Kingsland Road. There were youngers everywhere, hundreds of them, kids from the gangs with their faces covered and white kids you’d never normally see this deep into the heart of Hackney. As he watched he saw different kinds of people in the crowd: professionals in suits, older people, plenty of girls, not so much watching the boys as involved up to their necks themselves. Ahead, they saw two boys in tracksuits with hoods pulled up over their caps dragging an industrial bin into the middle of the road. Another boy poured something into the bin and then dropped a flame into it. The fire caught quickly and, in seconds, a powerful blaze was reaching up to the roofs of the three storey buildings on either side of the road. Opposite them, a single hooded boy stood in the middle of a trashed Foot Locker, empty boxes and single, unpaired trainers strewn all about him. An old man, must have been seventy, grabbed a hat and bolted. A kid came out from the warehouse balancing eight boxes of shoes. Ahead of them, a people carrier with a disabled badge in the window pulled over and the grown man waiting for it quickly filled it with protein shakes from Holland & Barrett. Two girls pushed a wheelie bin full of the clothes they had taken from one of the local boutiques. Bizness had been following events on Twitter all afternoon: kids were rioting in Tottenham, Brixton, Enfield, Edmonton, Wood Green, all over London. And the Feds were nowhere.

The car came to a halt. “Fucking
look
at this,” Mouse exclaimed. “Shit is mental.”

Bizness couldn’t keep his eyes off the scene before him: a group of boys had gathered along the same side of a Ford Mondeo, heaving it in unison until they had it on two wheels and then, with a final effort, tipped it onto its side. They hooted in satisfaction before moving on to the Vauxhall parked ahead of it. Bizness grinned at it all. “Boydem shoot a brother like they did, what they expect? This was always gonna happen. People got no money, got noting to do. It’s been a riot waiting for an excuse for months round here.”