"We'll take it a day at a time," O said. "You'll create new work soon enough, and you can stay with me until we find you a new studio. The insurance will cover it, although I know the money won't replace your art." She paused, gazing into the ruins that lay before them. "What do you think they'll do with this site? Rebuild the studios?"
Magda stiffened as realization dawned. "This block is owned by the same corporation that has been trying to turn the social housing into luxury flats. They've been trying to get us out for years. Now there'll be no more annoying tenants to deal with."
"You don't think –" O's words trailed off, her blue eyes clouding. "Oh no – what if this isn't the only place under attack?" She dug through her bag. "I haven't been checking my phone." She pulled it out. There were ten missed calls and texts.
O stood up, her face pale. "I need to get to the Kitchen."
Chapter 23
They came before dawn, black balaclavas over their heads to hide their faces from the ever-present CCTV cameras and matching black clothing with no identifying marks. One of them carried a baseball bat, another one hefted a tire iron, banging it against his palm. The other two held no obvious weapons, but their meaty hands were clenched into fists. They all wore thick-soled work boots. "The uniform of the militia," their leader called it. They were working together to clean up the city and as long as the police powers were curtailed by bureaucracy, this was the only way the deviants could be dealt with.
They were silent as they approached the Kitchen, their steps deliberate, single-minded. One of them jimmied the lock, breaking open the door and allowing them into the space. The smell of roasting meat hung in the air, a homely smell that made one of the men briefly reconsider what they had come to do. The leader took charge, gesturing as he spoke.
"You and you – get to work on the cooking facilities. I want everything destroyed so it can't be easily fixed. No fire here though, only damage. You – with me out the back."
Two of the men got to work in the kitchen. One unplugged the chest freezer, opening the lid to reveal containers of stew, cuts of meat and bags of vegetables. He grabbed a huge bottle of bleach from the cleaning supplies and poured it over the food. No dinner for the dole bludgers, he thought. Then he turned to the double fridge, swinging the baseball bat as he walked. Time to break some shit. The man smiled with pleasure.
Another man began to systematically destroy the inner workings of all the equipment in the large kitchen. With his electrical and engineering background, he understood it wasn't about brute force and smashing things. It was about twisting wires and cutting supply lines and melting specific elements that were hard and expensive to replace. It would take them weeks to get this place running again.
In the storeroom, the leader opened the back doors to reveal the small truck they'd arrived in.
"Everything needs to go," he said, pointing at the shelves full of canned and packaged food, boxes of fruit and vegetables. "Empty the place and we'll dump it all on the way home."
They began shifting the pallets, loading them into the truck as sounds of muted destruction came from the kitchen.
It soon began to rain, the overcast skies breaking. The leader looked up at the clouds. It would be heavy enough to help firefighters calm the flames from the studio they had torched earlier.
"Let's get a move on," he said. "We need to get out of here."
As they finished packing the last of the boxes into the van, a young man rounded the corner, approaching the entrance to the Kitchen. He was blonde, with a blue streak through his hair. He had his hands in his pockets and a half smile on his lips.
The men in the shadowed parking area stood still as he approached. The leader held his hand up, waiting to see whether the young man would pass on, just another local out for a morning walk.
But he stopped at the door of the Kitchen and pulled a set of keys from his pocket. As he reached for the lock, his face fell. He saw the broken lock and reached for his phone.
The leader nodded at two of the men.
They burst from the shadows with no words, only heavy footsteps thumping on the pavement. The young man looked up and saw them, dropping the keys and sprinting away.
The first man was on him in seconds, pushing him to the ground.
"No you don't, you little fag."
He kicked out viciously, slamming his boot into the young man's stomach.
The beating was swift and deliberate, the men knowledgeable on the various subcategories of assault, battery and grievous bodily harm. Within a minute, the young man was unconscious, his beautiful face a bloody mess, his body curled in on itself in pain.
They left him there and ran back to the van, jumping in as it roared off down the road. The rain pooled around the young man's body, washing the blood from his broken skin.
***
O jumped out of the cab and ran towards the door of the Kitchen dodging the puddles. Magda paid the driver and followed her, shielding her face from the heavy rain. As she approached the door, O slipped, dropping her bag. Magda bent to pick it up and as she did so, she saw the body on the pavement further down the street.
Magda dashed to the young man's body, O running after her. Magda felt for the pulse at his neck. It was weak and sputtering. She pulled out her phone and called for an ambulance, giving them the location.
"It's Ed," O said quietly, kneeling by his body, uncaring of the puddles. "He works the morning shift." She bent to his ear. "Hold on," she whispered. "We're here now and help is coming. Hang in there, Ed – please."
Magda reached out a hand and laid it on the young man's chest, willing life into him. Above her, a flock of crows began to gather and circle, their feathers dripping in the rain. Their harsh cawing joined Magda's whispered chant of ancient power as O looked on, her eyes fixed on Ed's pale face.
Within minutes, a yellow and green motorbike swerved around the corner, the distinctive shades of the ambulance service marking it out. In central London, they were mostly on scene faster than the larger vans. The single responder grabbed her bike pack and knelt by Ed's side. As Magda lifted her hand and moved back, the crows settled in a nearby tree, silent now as they watched the scene with narrow black eyes.
"We only recently found him," O said, as the paramedic expertly assessed the wounds, calling on her radio for a full ambulance crew.
"We can't move him," the paramedic said. "And I'm worried about internal bleeding after an assault like this. The police will be here soon to take your statements."
Magda held O's hand as they watched her work. The ambulance arrived and they soon had Ed on a gurney and in the van.
"Where are you taking him?" O asked.
"St Thomas," the paramedic said. "But it will be a while until he comes round."
The police arrived as the ambulance drove off. Two officers emerged from the patrol car, gesturing to O and Magda to stand in the shelter of the nearby houses.
"Didn't we see you earlier?" one of the officers said. "At the fire near Borough Market."
Magda nodded.
"It's been a busy night."
"How about we do the statements inside the Kitchen?" O said. "We can get out of the rain."
They walked back down the street. The door was open a fraction.