The Cleaner (9 page)

“Nice to meet you, Rutherford.”

“You too, John. You take it easy. Maybe I’ll see you at the meeting next week?”

“Maybe.”

“And say something next time, alright? You look like you got plenty on your mind. You’ll be surprised the difference it makes.”

Milton watched as the big man walked away from him. He turned off the main road and headed into the Estate, stopping at the mini-market to buy a bag of ice. He ignored the sullen aggression of the teenagers who were gathered outside the shop, the silence as he passed through them and then the hoots of derision, the calls of “lighty!” and “batty boy”, as he set off again. Most of them were young, barely in their teens. Milton did not give them a second look.

It was half-ten by the time he returned to the maisonette. He took the carton of orange juice and poured into one of the newly cleaned glasses. He opened the bag of ice and dropped in three chunks, putting the rest in the freezer. He took off his clothes and put his gun and holster under a pillow. He swilled the juice around to cool. He pulled a chair up to the window, then went and sat down, letting the hot air, the compound smell of baked asphalt and fried food, breathe over his body. He sipped the cool drink, feeling the tang against the back of his throat, felt it slide cold down his throat and into his stomach.

He filled up his glass again, this time with more ice, and sat back down. The bedroom overlooked the front of the house. He looked out onto the street and, beyond that, the looming mass of Blissett House. A group of young boys had gathered at the junction of the road, the glowing red tips of their cigarettes and joints flaring as they inhaled.

Milton felt restless. He went over and took his gun from beneath the pillow, slipped out the magazine and pumped the single round onto the bed. He tested the spring of the magazine and of the breech and drew a quick bead on various objects round the room. His aim was off, just a little, but detectable nonetheless. It was the tiny tremor in his hand. He had noticed it in France and it seemed to be getting worse. He snapped the magazine back. He pumped a round into the breech, put up the safety, and replaced the gun under the pillow.

He watched the kids outside for another five minutes, the sound of their raucous laughter carrying all the way back to the open window. Then, tired, he closed the curtains, finished undressing, and went to bed.

14.

ELIJAH WATCHED the Vietnamese hassling the shoppers as they came out of Tesco. They were in the car park, far enough away from the entrance to go unnoticed by the security guards. They stepped up to the shoppers with their trolleys full of groceries and held open the satchels that they wore around their shoulders. There were four of them, two men and two women, all of them slim and dark-haired. The satchels were full of pirated DVDs. They were given the brush off most of the time but, occasionally, someone would stop, rifle through the bags and hand over a ten pound note in exchange for a couple of them.

“You ready, younger?” said Pops.

“Yeah,” Elijah said. “Ready.”

“Off you go, then.”

He did exactly as Pops had instructed him. One of the Vietnamese women was distracted by Little Mark, who pretended to be interested in her DVDs. She kept her money in a small shoulder bag that she allowed to hang loosely across her arm. Elijah ran up to her and, her attention diverted, he yanked on the bag as hard as he could. Her arm straightened as he tugged the bag down, her fingers catching it. A second, harder tug broke her grip and he was away. He sprinted back again, the other boys following after him in close formation. The two men started in pursuit, vaulting the wall that separated the car park from the pavement and the bus stop beyond, but it did not take long for them to abandon the chase. They were outnumbered and being led into unfriendly territory. They knew that the money was not worth the risk.

They boys ran down Morning Lane, whooping and hollering, eventually taking a sharp left along the cycle path that ran underneath the East London Line. They sprinted up the shallow incline on the other side of the tunnel and slowed to a jog. Once they were in the Estate they found a low wall and sat down along it.

Pops held up his fist and Elijah bumped it with his. He beamed with pride. He knew he ought to keep his cool, hide away the excitement and happiness that he felt, but he could not help it. He did not care how foolish it made him look.

“How much you get?”

Elijah took the notes from his pocket and fanned through them. “Two hundred,” he reported.

“Not bad.” Pops reached across and took the notes. He counted out fifty and gave it back to Elijah. “Go on, younger, put that towards some new Jordans. You done good.”

Little Mark went into the minimart nearby and returned with a large bottle of cider and a bagful of chocolate. The cider was passed around, each boy taking a long swig of it. Elijah joined in when the plastic bottle reached him, the sickly sweet liquid tasting good as he tipped it down his throat.

“What did you get?” Kidz asked.

Little Mark opened the bag and emptied out the contents. He laid the bars out on the wall. “Twix, KitKat, Mars, Yorkie.”

“Too pikey.”

“Maltesers. Milky Way.”

“Too gay.”

“Got them for you, innit? Galaxy, Caramel––that’s it. You want something else, go get it yourself.”

Pops tossed the chocolate around and they devoured it.

“I gotta jet,” Pops said eventually, folding the wad of notes and sliding them into his pocket. “My woman wants to see me. I’ll see you boys tomorrow, aight?”

“Hold up,” Little Mark said. “I’m going your way.”

“Me, too,” Kidz said.

Elijah was left with Pinky. He wanted to go with the others but Pinky got up and stretched. “Come on,” he said. “I’ll walk back with you.”

They set off together, making their way through the Estate and cutting across a scrubby patch of grass. Pinky was a little older, and a little taller, than Elijah. His face was sharply featured, with a hook nose and prominent cheekbones. He was normally boisterous and brash, full of spiteful remarks, yet now he was quiet and brooding. Elijah quickly felt uncomfortable and wondered if there was a way he could disentangle himself without causing offence. They made their way through the Estate to a children’s playground. The surface was soft and springy beneath their trainers but the equipment had all been vandalised. The swings had been looped over the frames so that they hung high up, uselessly, and the roundabout had been pulled from its fixings. Vials of crack were crushed underfoot, shards that glittered like diamonds amid the dog mess, discarded newspaper and fast food wrappers.

“Let’s sit down here for a minute,” Pinky said, pointing to a bench at the edge of the playground. “Something I want to talk to you about.”

Elijah’s nerves settled like a fist in his stomach. “I got to get back to my Mums,” he said.

“You don’t want a quick smoke?” Pinky reached into his jacket and grinned as he opened his hand; he had a small bag of weed and a packet of Rizlas. “Sit yourself down. I wanna get high. Won’t take long.”

Elijah did as he was told and sat.

Pinky was quiet as he held the cigarette paper open on his lap and tipped a line of marijuana along the fold. He rolled the joint with dexterous fingers, sealed it and put it to his lips. He put flame to the end and sucked down greedily. He did not give the joint to Elijah.

“You quietened down now, little man,” he said.

“Yeah?” Elijah said, uncertainly.

“You don’t get wanna too excited.”

“What do you mean?”

“That big smile you had on your face back then. Like you’d won the fucking lottery. Robbing those nips ain’t nothing. Rolling that train weren’t, either. You ain’t done shit yet.”

Elijah was ready to fire back some lip but he saw the look in the boy’s face and decided against it. He knew banter, and this was something different; hostility sparked in his dark eyes and he could see it would take very little for the sparks to catch and grow into something worse.

“You don’t know me, do you?”

“What you mean?”

“You don’t know who I am.”

“Course I do.”

“So?”

“You’re Pinky,” he said with sudden uncertainty.

“That’s right. But you don’t know me, do you? Not really know me.”

“I guess not.”

“You know my brother? Dwayne? You heard of him?”

“No.”

The joint had gone out. Pinky lit it again. “Let me tell you a story. Five years ago, my brother was in the LFB, like me. They called him High Top. Your brother, Jules, he was in, too. The two of them was close, close as you can be, looked out for each other, same way that we look out for each other, innit?” He put the joint to his lips and drew down on it hard. “There was this one time, right, there was a beef between this crew from Tottenham and the LFB. So they went over there, caused trouble, battered a couple of their boys. Tottenham came over these ends to retaliate, and they found your brother and my brother smoking in the park. Like we are, right now. They got the jump on them, they was all tooled up and our brothers didn’t have nothing. Rather than stay and get stuck in, your fassy brother breezed. Straight out of the park, didn’t look back, forgot all about my brother. And he wasn’t so lucky. The Tottenham boys had knives and cleavers and they wanted to make an example out of him. They cut my brother up, bruv. Sliced him––his face, across his back, his legs, all over. Ended up stabbed him in the gut. He was in hospital for two weeks while they stitched together again. His guts––they was all fucked up. He weren’t never the same again. He has to shit into a bag now and it ain’t never going to get better. Turned him into a shadow of himself.”

“Fuck that,” Elijah managed to say. “My brother would never have done that.”

“Yeah? Really? Your brother, what’s he doing now?”

“We don’t see him no more.”

“Don’t go on like you don’t know. I seen him––he’s a fuckin’ addict. He was a coward then and now he’s a fuckin’ junkie.”

Elijah got up from the bench.

“Give me that money,” Pinky said.

Elijah shook his head. “No. Pops gave it to me. I earned it. It’s mine.”

“You wanna fall out with me, little man?”

“No––”

Pinky grabbed him by the lapels of his coat and shoved him to the ground. He fell atop him, pressing his right arm across his throat, pinning him down, and reached into the inside of his jacket with his left hand. He found the notes and pocketed them.

“Remember your place,” he said. “You ain’t nothing to me. You think you a gangster, but you ain’t shit. Give me lip like that again and I’ll shank you.” He took out a butterfly knife, shook it open and held the blade against Elijah’s cheek. “One jerk of my hand now, bruv, and you marked for life. Know what it’ll say?”

“No,” Elijah said, his voice shaking.

“‘Pinky’s bitch.’”

Elijah lay still as Pinky drew the cold blade slowly down his face. Pinky took a bunched handful of his jacket and pulled his head up and then, with a pivot, slammed him down again. The surface was soft but, even so, the sudden impact was dizzying. Pinky got up and backed away. He pointed at Elijah’s head and laughed. Elijah felt a dampness against the back of his crown and in the nape of his neck. He reached around, gingerly, expecting to find his own blood. He did not. Pinky had pushed him back into dog mess. The shit was in his hair and against his skin, sliding down beneath the collar of his jacket.

“Later, little man,” Pinky laughed at him. He left Elijah on the floor.

He bit his lip until the older boy was out of sight and then, alone, he allowed himself to cry.

15.

MILTON WAITED until the sun had sunk below the adjacent houses before he went out to scout the area. It was a humid, close evening, the stifling heat of the day had soaked into the Estate and now it was slowly seeping out. Televisions flickered in the front rooms of the houses on his street, most of the neighbours leaving their windows uncovered. Arguments played out of open doors. The atmosphere sparked with the dull electric throb of tension, of barely suppressed aggression and incipient violence.

The area seemed to come alive at night. There were people everywhere. Youngsters gathered on street corners and on weed-strewn playgrounds. Others listlessly tossed basketballs across a pock-marked court while they were watched by girls who laced their painted nails through the wire mesh fence. A lithe youngster faked out his doughty guard and made a stylish lay-up, the move drawing whoops from the spectators. Music played from the open windows of cars and houses. Graffiti was everywhere, one crude mural showing groups of children with guns, killing one another. Milton carried on, further along the road. A railway bridge that bore the track into Liverpool Street cast the arcade of shops below into a pool of murky gloom. A man smoking Turkish cigarettes levered rolls of carpet back into his shop, drivers gathered around a minicab office, the sound of clashing metal from the open windows of a gym with a crude stencil of Charles Atlas on the glass. The arcade carried the sickly smell of kebab meat, fried chicken, and dope.

Milton took it all in, remembering the layout of the streets and the alleyways that linked them. Two streets to the east and he was in an area that bore the unmistakeable marks of gentrification: a gourmet restaurant, a chi-chi coffee shop that would be full of prams in the daytime, a happening pub full of hipsters in drainpipe jeans and fifties’ frocks, an elegant Victorian terrace in perfect repair, beautifully tended front gardens behind painted iron fences. Two streets west and he was back in the guts of the Estate, the ten-storey slabs of housing blocks with the nauseatingly bright orange balconies, festooned with satellite dishes.

Milton crossed into Victoria Park, a wide open space fringed by fume-choked fir trees. A series of paved paths cut through the park, intermittent and unreliable streetlamps providing discreet pools of light that made the darkness in between even deeper and more threatening. The area’s reputation kept it quiet at night save for drunken city boys who used it as a shortcut, easy pickings for the gangs that roamed across it looking for prey.