‘Come on,’ he said. ‘ We’ll have to go now if we’re going to get any sort of view.’
She followed him, caught up by his mood of expectation and his restlessness. Suddenly it seemed the most exciting thing in the world to be out with him with no idea how the evening would end.
This is it, she thought. This is how Abigail Keene felt when she left her stuffy family and went out into the world looking for adventure.
He drove up the hill away from the river past an old industrial estate. Most of the factories were empty and grass grew in cracks through the concrete. The few units still in production were protected by grilles and covered by spray painted graffiti. John turned into a wide street which Anna recognized immediately.
‘This is the Starling Farm estate,’ she said. She had never been anywhere near the place but she had seen it on the television. There was a small row of shops-a launderette, a bookmaker’s, a general store-which had been pelted with rocks and petrol bombs. Further up the street she saw the boarded-up houses, from which even the roof tiles had been looted. Because she had seen it on television she thought the estate was glamorous. It was like seeing a famous film star walking down the street.
‘Where are we going?’ she asked.
‘I told you,’ he said. ‘ To the races.’ He reached into the glove compartment and took out a cassette. The car was filled with music and she had no chance to ask what he meant.
The roads were quite empty and almost dark. Some of the street lamps had been shattered in the previous weeks’ disturbances. Anna thought it must have been like this in the blitz. She found it hard to believe that behind the blacked-out boarded-up windows families were living normal lives. The association with war-time Britain made the place seem exotic, different from anything she had ever known. It conjured up the nostalgia of an age-big-band music, Land Girls, stolen love affairs before men went away to fight.
John pulled off the road on to a piece of grass, a school playing field. Once it had been separated from the street by a high wire-mesh fence but the fence had been flattened and lay in a tangled heap to one side. In the headlights she saw white football goals, a climbing frame. There were dozens of other cars parked in an orderly line, facing the road. John found a space, switched off the music and the engine. In each of the cars were passengers staring at the darkness. Somewhere in the distance a clock struck ten.
‘We were just in time,’ John said. His hands were still clenched tight on the steering-wheel. ‘Now you’ll see.’
But still the street was quiet and she sat, waiting for something to happen.
She heard the engines first, revving up somewhere to the right of them, shattering the silence. Then there was the sound of a horn, loud as a starting gun, and the race had started. Two cars sped past them, bumpers almost touching so close to the audience that Anna could feel the vibration, smell the burnt rubber as they braked to turn the corner. John leaned forward, tense with concentration. It was as if he were competing himself.
‘This is the finishing line,’ he said. ‘They’ll do two complete circuits of the estate and end up here.’
‘Isn’t it dangerous?’ she asked.
‘Of course it’s dangerous!’ he said, not taking his eyes from the road. ‘That’s the point.’
‘How can they afford that sort of car,’ she asked, ‘living here?’ They had passed so quickly that she had not been able to identify the make but could tell they were big, powerful, expensive.
‘Don’t be dumb!’ he said. ‘They’re all stolen. It’s hotting. Haven’t you heard of it?’
Where do you think I got this one? he wanted to say. I chose it specially because it looks respectable, but it’s stolen just the same. I’m an expert. When I put it back tonight they won’t even have missed it. But he said nothing. Perhaps some faint instinct of self-preservation remained.
Before she could answer him the cars flashed past again. This time there was a gap between them and he said, almost to himself: ‘That’s Baz in front. I knew he could do it.’ Then, under his breath: ‘Hang on, man.’
‘You know these people?’
For the first time he looked at her cautiously. ‘Some of them,’ he said. ‘I went to school with some of them.’ Then more aggressively: ‘It doesn’t make them different, you know, living in a place like this.’
‘No,’ she said. ‘ Of course not. I didn’t mean that.’ But as she watched the tail-lights disappear into the darkness she thought that they were different. Her conventional upbringing re-asserted itself. ‘They’re breaking the law,’ she said. ‘ They’re criminals.’
‘Abigail Keene and Sam Smollett broke the law,’ he said savagely. ‘We think of them as heroes. It’s all a question of perspective.’
As the race reached its climax she expected the audience to leave their cars, to gather together at the roadside to cheer and shout but they remained where they were, insulated from each other by the vehicles. Still she could sense their tension and excitement. John wound down the window to listen for engine noise.
‘They’ll be changing gear at the Community Centre,’ he said, almost to himself. ‘Up the hill to the Keel Row… Here they come.’
Suddenly the place emptied into noise and light with the blaring of horns and the flashing of headlights to make the end of the race.
‘Who was it?’ she demanded. ‘Was it your friend?’
He looked at her. ‘Do you care?’
‘Of course I care.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘ It was Baz.’
‘What does he win?’ she asked.
‘Win? Nothing. He does it for the honour and the glory.’
She stared at him but found it impossible to tell if he was being serious.
‘Will you go and congratulate him?’
‘No,’ he said. ‘Not today. I just wanted to be here to see him do it.’
‘Is that it?’ she said. ‘ Will there be another race tonight?’
‘It depends,’ he said, ‘if they get the chance.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘That,’ he said suddenly. ‘ That’s what I mean.’
In the distance there was the wailing of a police siren and beyond the houses she saw a flashing blue light.
‘Come on,’ he said. ‘We’ll have to get you out of here.’
‘But we’ve done nothing wrong,’ she said. ‘It can’t be illegal to watch them?’
‘Do you think that makes any difference to them?’
All around them the cars were scattering, some driving over the grass towards the school. John switched on the ignition and pushed the gear into place. He drove forward with a jerk, swerving to avoid the battered mesh fence, and down the street away from the flashing blue light. He felt drained and exhausted. Was it worth it? he wondered. For a few minutes of excitement.
‘Look,’ he said. ‘I’d better take you home.’
‘I won’t say anything,’ she said. ‘About tonight. I won’t tell anyone where we’ve been.’
He shrugged. ‘It’s up to you,’ he said. ‘As you say it’s not illegal to watch.’
‘I’d like to come again,’ she said. ‘If you’re going.’
He looked at her in surprise and realized that he was disappointed. He had been hoping to scare her and she had been excited. She had treated it all as a game.
‘All right,’ he said. ‘But next time I go I’ll be racing.’
From the kitchen Prue could not hear the traffic at the front of the house and she went every so often to the front bedroom to peer down the street to watch for her daughter’s return. She found it hard to account for her unease. It was not that she believed John could be involved with the murders but she was unsettled. She told herself that there was nothing wrong with him. He was bright, from a respectable family. Most mothers would be glad to entrust their daughters to a boy like that. But it did no good and she could not relax. Absentmindedly she cooked and ate an omelette.