*8*
The fight that broke out inside the warehouse was a bloody affair, started by one of the more aggressive schizophrenics who decided the man next to him wanted to kill him. He pulled a flick-knife from his pocket and plunged it into his neighbor's stomach. The man's screams acted on the other inmates like a strident alarm, bringing some to his rescue and driving the rest to stampede in fear. Terry Dalton and old Tom snatched up pieces of lead piping and waded in to try to break up the affray but, like a fighting dog, the aggressor ignored the rain of blows that descended on his back and concentrated his energy on his victim. It ended, as so many of these fights ended, only when the man's stamina ran out and he retired, bruised and battered, to nurse his wounds.
Tom knelt beside the pathetic curled figure of the man who'd been stabbed. "It's poor old Walter," he said. "That bastard Denning's done for 'im good an' proper. If 'e ain't dead now, 'e soon will be."
Terry, who was shaking from head to toe in the aftermath of heightened adrenaline, flung his piece of pipe to the ground and stripped his coat from his thin body. "Put this over Walt and keep him warm. I'm calling the ambulance," he said. "And get yourselves ready for when the cops get here. This time I'm having Denning put away good and proper. He's too fucking dangerous."
"You can cut that kind of talk, son,'' said Tom, laying the coat over the body. "There's no one gonna thank you for dropping the Law on us like a ton of bricks. We'll shift Walt out and let the coppers think it 'appened in the street. The poor bastard's leaking like a stuck pig, so there'll be enough blood on the pavement to persuade 'em it were a gang of louts what did for 'im."
"No!" snapped Terry. "If you shift him you'll kill him quicker." He clenched his fists. "We have rights, Tom, same as everyone else. Walt's right is to be given his chance and our right is to get shot of a psycho."
"There ain't no rights in 'ell, son," said Tom dismissively, "never mind Billy filled your 'ead with claptrap about 'uman dignity. You bring the bizzies in 'ere, and it won't be just Denning for the 'igh jump. You think about what's in your pockets before you go calling in the filth." He touched a gnarled hand to the wounded man's face. "Walt's 'ad it, anyway, so it won't make no difference where 'e dies. We'll get shot of Denning ourselves, send 'im back on the streets where 'e'll likely die of cold before too long, anyway. 'E's tired 'isself out with this so 'e won't be no trouble."
He spoke with the authority of a man who expected to be obeyed for, despite Deacon's impression that Terry's quick mind allowed him to dominate the group, it was Tom who governed the warehouse, and there was no place in Tom's philosophy for sentiment. He'd seen too many derelicts die to care much about this one.
"NO!" roared the youngster, making for the doorway. "You move Walt, and you'll answer to me. We're not fucking savages, so we don't fucking behave like them. YOU HEAR ME!" He pushed his way furiously through the crowd around the door.
The phone rang in Deacon's flat as he emerged from a shower. "I need to speak to Michael Deacon," said an urgent voice.
"Speaking," he said, rubbing his hair dry with a towel.
"Do you remember that warehouse you came to a couple of weeks back?"
"Yes." He recognized his caller. "Are you Terry?"
"Yeah. Listen, are you still after information on Billy Blake?"
"I am."
"Then get yourself down to the warehouse in the next half hour and bring a camera with you. Can you do that?''
"Why the hurry?"
"Because the cops are on the way, and there's stuff in there that belonged to Billy. I reckon half an hour tops before the barricades go up. You coming?"
"I'll be there."
Terry Dalton, muffled inside an old work jacket and with a black knit hat pulled down over his shaven head, was leaning against the corner of the building, watching for Deacon's arrival. As Deacon drew into the curb in front of an empty police car, Terry pushed himself off the wall and went to meet him.
"There's been a stabbing," he said in a rush, as the older man got out, ' 'and it was me called the coppers. I reckoned it wouldn't do no harm to have a journalist in on the act. Tom reckons they're going to use this as an excuse to evict us and maybe charge us with other offenses but we've got rights, and I want them protected. In return, I'll give you everything I've got on Billy. Is it a deal?" He looked down the road as another police car rounded the corner. "Move yourself. We ain't got much time. Did you bring a camera?"
Confused by this babble of information, Deacon allowed himself to be drawn into the lee of the building. "It's in my pocket."
Terry gestured along the wall. "There's a way in through one of the windows which the old Bill don't know about. If I get you inside, they'll think you were there all the time."
"What about the policemen already in there?"
"There's just the two of them and they didn't get here till after the medics. They won't have a clue who was inside and who wasn't. It's too bloody dark, and they were more interested in keeping Walt alive. They didn't start asking questions till five minutes ago when the ambulance left." He eased aside a piece of boarding. "Okay, remember this. It were Walter what got stabbed and a psycho called Denning what did it. It's something you'd know if you'd been here awhile."
Deacon put a hand on the boy's shoulder to restrain him as he prepared to climb through the window. "Hang on a minute. I'm not a lawyer. What are these rights you're expecting me to protect? And how am I supposed to do it?''
Terry rounded on him. "Take pictures or something. Jesus, I don't know. Use your imagination." His expression changed to bitterness when Deacon gave a doubtful shake of his head. "Look, you bastard, you said you wanted to prove that Billy's life had value. Well, start by proving that Walt, Tom, me, and every other damn sod in here have value. I know it's a fucking shithole, but we've got squatters' rights over it and it's where we live. It was me as rung the police, not the police as had to come looking, so they've no call to treat us like scum." His pale eyes narrowed in sudden desperation. "Billy always said that press freedom was the people's strongest weapon. Are you telling me he was wrong?"
"Okay, you lot, out," said a harassed police constable pushing resistant bodies. "Let's have you in the light where we can see you." He grabbed at an arm and swung the man to face the doorway. "Out! Out!"
The flash of Deacon's camera startled him, and he turned openmouthed to be caught in a second flash. A sudden silence descended on the warehouse as the light popped several times in quick succession.
"They'll be mounted in a series across the front page," said Deacon, swinging the camera towards another policeman whose foot was nudging a sleeping man, "with a caption like: 'Police use concentration-camp tactics on the homeless.' " He pointed the lens at the first policeman again, zooming in for a close-up. "How about a repeat of the 'Raus! Raus! Raus!' That should stir a few worrying memories among the great and the good."
"Who the hell are you?"
"Who the hell are you, sir!" said Deacon, lowering the camera to offer a card. "Michael Deacon and I'm a journalist. May I have your name, please, and the names of the other officers present?" He took out his notebook.
A plainclothes policeman intervened. "I'm Detective Sergeant Harrison, sir. Perhaps I can be of assistance." He was a pleasant-looking individual in his thirties, solidly built and with thinning blond hair which lifted in the breeze from the warehouse doorway. His eyes creased in an amiable smile.