I felt the endorphins kicking in.
‘We’ll be a family,’ I said.
A family once more, I thought.
Is that really what we would be?
Yes, that is exactly what we would be. Perhaps not the kind of family that any of us was expecting. Perhaps not the kind of family you see in commercials. But a family all the same.
‘I almost forgot,’ I said. ‘I have something for you.’
Edie was looking wary. This was all moving very fast.
I reached into my pocket and took out a set of keys. Two Yale and one Chubb, all of them brand new and gleaming.
I talked her through them.
‘This one is for the front door on Charterhouse Street. These two are for the loft.’
She took the keys and held them in the palm of her hand, the lights of the soft summer evening catching the freshly cut metal.
‘Who else has keys to the loft?’
‘Me. Mrs Murphy. Jackson still has a set. And Scout, although she is too small to reach the lock. I give her another year.’
‘That’s exalted company.’
‘It just makes things easier, Edie. Coming and going. No big deal.’
‘I guess you must like me a little bit.’
‘You’re all right.’
‘Thanks.’
Finally we smiled at each other. She exhaled.
‘I might take Stan for a walk before we put him down for the night,’ she said.
‘But Edie – he can’t walk.’
‘Then I’ll carry him.’
She looked out of the big windows of Smiths of Smithfield at the meat market stirring into life.
‘You told me once that dogs live in a world of scent. So maybe all the smells of the neighbourhood will do him some good. And if it doesn’t make him better, then maybe it will make him happy. Isn’t it worth a try if it makes Stan feel happier?’
‘Yes,’ I smiled. ‘It’s worth it.’
So Edie took Stan in her arms and she held him close as she carried him off in the direction of West Smithfield, where Charles Dickens’ description of our neighbourhood is carved into the stone chairs.
I watched them until they disappeared and then I walked through the market’s great arch, past the line of old red telephone boxes and the plaque marking the spot where William ‘Braveheart’ Wallace was executed, and I kept walking until I came to the small strip of shops on the far side of Smithfield.
Music was drifting from the flat above the one I was heading to. I stopped to listen to it. An old country hit, heartfelt and ironic all at the same time. ‘Don’t It Make My Brown Eyes Blue’ by Crystal Gayle. I looked at the shop but it was closed for the night.
MURPHY & SON
Domestic and Commercial Plumbing and Heating
‘Trustworthy’ and ‘Reliable’
I went round to the back of the shops and up a flight of stairs.
Mrs Murphy answered the door.
‘Guess what?’ I said and she stared at me for a moment before throwing her arms around me, and both of us were laughing, and Crystal Gayle was singing in the background.
‘My Scout’s coming home,’ Mrs Murphy said.
I stood outside our front door, scanning the street for a slightly built redhead carrying a small red Cavalier King Charles Spaniel in her arms.
I wanted to be home safe and sound with the pair of them.
But there was no sign of Edie and Stan.
Perhaps they had already come back. And now of course Edie had her own set of keys.
I had had a cup of tea with Mrs Murphy – ‘You will have a cup of tea,’ she had told me, as always making her invitation sound like a prophecy – and it was quite possible that Edie had given up on reviving Stan with the world of scent and the ten-kilo dog had started to feel heavy in her arms.
They’re already home, I thought, slipping my key into the lock.
I stepped inside, the building cool and dark after the summer night street.
The figure moved quickly from the shadows of the stairwell.
He raised the stubby yellow Taser and aimed it at my face.
And then he shot me.
35
I was slammed back against the door and collapsed on the welcome mat, writhing with the pain of 50,000 volts of power invading my central nervous system.
There was the immediate loss of motor skills and muscle control. I was writhing on my back and then my entire body stiffened and spasmed with a back-arching agony that made me groan and drool and cry out with pain. Five seconds lasted for a hundred years. A century of pure, incapacitated pain. And then the pain was in my eyes, and I saw a slowly shifting universe of tiny white stars. Tick-tick-tick went the thing in the dark figure’s right fist and every metallic-sounding tick was like being hit in the head with my guard down.
I gasped for the breath that would not come.
And I looked up and the first thing I saw was the haircut, the brutal Depression-era haircut, shaved at the back and the sides and shorn to a short crop on top, and I did not understand, because George Halfpenny was sitting in a jail cell.
And then my mind or vision cleared, and I was looking up at his brother, Richard Halfpenny, thick and fleshy and built like a small bull, his surly face staring at the Taser X3 in his hand and cursing it. The X3 model fires three shots and I realised with a sinking heart that he was planning to shoot me again. But I saw now that the Taser was wrapped in brown duct tape and that he must have picked it up during the riots rather than buying it from a reputable weapons dealer.
And it would not fire again.
He leaned over me, this strong, stocky man who stank of junk food, and he easily lifted me to my feet with his large calloused hands, and then those hands were inside my leather jacket, searching for the keys to my home. He found them.
And as he bundled me into the lift, half-carrying and half-dragging my limp body, my frazzled muscles still twitching with a damaged life of their own, I could imagine him slipping into the building when one of my neighbours had let themselves in.
And then I felt my stomach fall away.
Perhaps it wasn’t one of my neighbours who he came in with. Perhaps it was Edie.
He threw me into the lift and I bounced off the far side, sliding to the floor until he grabbed a fistful of my T-shirt and pulled me up.
I watched him press the button for the top floor.
He knew it was the top floor.
He smiled at me.
‘Time to play,’ he said.
We got out of the lift. He fumbled with the keys. The door of the loft flew open. And I was shouting as he bundled me inside.
‘Go! Get out! Go!’
But the loft was empty.
Thank God. Thank God. Thank God.
Halfpenny left me crumpled on the floor of that vast open space and checked both the bedrooms. They must have been empty because I heard no sound. He saw me slowly trying to get to my feet as he came out of my bedroom. He had been heading for the bathroom but now he made a detour. I swayed uncertainly before him.
That’s the problem with any Taser. It disables the victim for just long enough for the arresting officer to apprehend, subdue and dominate. But even 50,000 volts wasn’t going to keep me on my back all night long.
So Richard Halfpenny swiped me backhanded across the face with the duct-taped Taser and I felt it make instant mush of my lip and cheek. I sank down on one knee, my nerve ends flaring with pain. I spat out a gob of blood.
‘You killed Ahmed Khan,’ I said. ‘You stuck that old Nazi knife in his neck. Whitestone was always looking at the wrong brother. Blut und Ehre.’
‘Blood and honour,’ he said proudly. ‘He deserved to die, raising those murdering bastard sons.’
‘And it was you who ran down Ludo Mount,’ I said.
‘I was aiming at you,’ he said. ‘But Sir bloody Ludo would have been no great loss. Because he protected them. He took their side against his own people.’