‘Murderers are not heroes,’ I said.
‘Depends who they murder,’ she said, and they all laughed.
Whitestone was waiting for me in MIR-1.
‘Max,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry. I couldn’t do it.’
‘It doesn’t matter. I’m happy to do it. I don’t care if they love me or not. I don’t care what they write. I’m beyond all that now.’
‘It’s not that,’ she said. ‘I saw him.’
I stared at her.
‘Who?’
‘Trey N’Dou. The Dog Town Boy who blinded my son. He lives a mile from us. Can you believe that? I saw him in the street. I will always see him. When my son comes home – he will be there.’
She started for the door.
‘Come,’ she said. ‘I’ll show you.’
It was the other Islington.
Not the Islington where politicians eat their organic chicken and plot world domination, not the Islington where you can’t even think about buying a house for less than two million, and not the Islington that is handy for a job in the City.
This was the other Islington, where the council estates stretch on forever, rolling all the way down from Angel to King’s Cross, where the people with nothing live next door to the people with everything, and they don’t enjoy it very much.
I parked up across the street from a kebab shop on the Holloway Road. A purple VW Golf was parked outside.
‘They live in these streets,’ Whitestone said. ‘The Dog Town Boys. They’re walking around. I will see them. And they will see me, Max. They will see me with my beautiful boy. The one whose eyes they stole. Trey N’Dou and his friends will see him and they will laugh at us, Max. I know it. I know it. I know it. I’ll do something. If they laugh at us, I’ll do something, Max, I swear to God I will.’
‘Listen to me, will you? If you’re inside, you’re no good to your boy, are you? So you’re not doing anything, all right? Stop talking like that, Pat.’
She jabbed a finger at the shabby street.
‘That’s him. That’s the Dog Town Boy who did it. That’s Trey N’Dou.’
A man-sized youth swaggered out of the kebab shop, eating with his mouth open.
‘He’s the one who did it? You’re sure? You’re absolutely sure?’
Hot tears were streaming down her face.
‘How are we to live, Max?’ she said.
I stood at the windows of our loft and watched Jackson coming home from Fred’s gym. He was clutching a pair of my old worn fourteen-ounce Lonsdale gloves to his chest.
It was late in the evening, still very light, and the good weather meant the pubs all had crowds outside them. Directly below me, down on Charterhouse Street, there was a group of lads, maybe about a dozen strong, larking about right in front of the entrance to our loft. Jackson was heading straight towards them. Four storeys down, I heard the sound of breaking glass and laughter.
I watched Jackson.
I watched the lads.
I steeled myself to go down and help him.
But he didn’t need my help.
They parted to let him through. They didn’t look at him and he didn’t look at them. But there was something about him that made them step out of his way. At the sound of his key in the door Stan got up and padded off to greet him.
The dog was all over him.
‘Hello, little buddy,’ he said, scratching Stan behind his extravagant ears. Jackson looked at me and saw my face and waited for me to speak.
‘I need your help,’ I said.
He nodded.
‘Fine. Have I got time for a shower?’
Not – Is it dangerous?
Not – What’s all this about, Max?
He just wanted to know if he had time for a shower. Just a calm acceptance that I needed him by my side tonight. I smiled to myself. He had never felt more like the closest thing I ever had to a brother. And I had never loved him more.
I looked out of the loft’s huge windows, the last of the summer day’s sunshine streaming in.
We wouldn’t have to make a move until after dark.
‘You’ve time for a shower,’ I told him.
23
It was knocking on for midnight when we drove north.
The traffic was light but there were still plenty of people on the streets, squeezing the last juice out of the hot summer night, rolling home from pubs and bars dressed for the beach. But on the Farringdon Road the postal workers were filing into Mount Pleasant, the Royal Mail sorting centre, for the graveyard shift and the sight of them going to work made it feel as if summer was nearly over. Jackson stared out at them as I told him the story.
‘A boy was blinded,’ I said. ‘Sixteen years old. Somebody put a broken bottle across his eyes. Over nothing. No reason. No witnesses. Nobody arrested. Nobody punished. His name is Justin Whitestone and he’s the son of my boss.’ I swallowed down something hard and bitter. ‘And the doctors have told his mother that he is never going to see again.’
Jackson nodded. ‘Who did it?’ he said quietly.
‘There’s a little mob called the Dog Town Boys,’ I said. ‘They’re on the estates between King’s Cross and Upper Street. The closest thing they’ve got to a leader is this Trey N’Dou. A reliable witness pointed a finger at him before she was frightened off.’
Jackson looked at me.
‘And you want to even the score?’
I shook my head.
‘I just want this Trey gone. I want him out of town. He’s never going to go down – all the people who saw him blind that boy are too scared to talk. So what I want is to make him go away so that my friend never has to look at his ugly grinning face when she is out with her son.’
‘And what do I do?’
‘You watch my back.’
We were driving past King’s Cross station. I turned onto the Pentonville Road. Ahead and above us we could see night lights of the Angel.
‘I can do that,’ Jackson said.
We were in a car park off the Liverpool Road.
It served a supermarket that stayed open twenty-four hours a day, but now it was almost empty. I parked a discreet distance from the purple Ford Escort. On the far side of the street was a bar called Dabs, the only sign of life and light in a bleak row of shuttered shops. It was impossible to tell if the shops were closed for the night or until hell froze over. A distant bass line rumbled from somewhere deep inside Dabs. There were youth on the street, most of them black, chatting with a bouncer. I wondered if the bouncer might be a problem.
‘That’s Trey’s ride,’ I said, indicating the purple Ford Escort.
‘Are we going in or waiting outside?’
‘We’re waiting.’
‘All right,’ he said, and closed his eyes. He had the soldier’s ability to sleep when he was presented with the opportunity. But we didn’t have to wait long. Trey N’Dou came out of the club in the company of a skinny girl in a short skirt. I lightly touched Jackson’s arm and he was immediately awake. We watched Trey and the girl walking towards the car park.
‘What happens if he’s not alone?’ Jackson said.
‘Then we leave it,’ I said.
But Trey and the girl veered off towards a dark corner of the car park. They found a patch of scrubby grass and she sank to her knees. Trey stood above her, checking his phone.
No, he was not checking it.
He was taking her picture.
When she had finished, she got up and Trey zipped up and they walked back towards Dabs. As the girl disappeared inside, Trey turned and started towards the purple Ford Escort, its light flashing twice as he unlocked it. We waited for him to get close enough that he had missed the chance to run away.
Then I nodded to Jackson and we got out of the car.
‘Hey,’ I said, and as Trey N’Dou turned towards me I shoved him backwards into his car. He hit it hard and as he bounced off it, I turned him around, throwing his hands on the roof and kicking his legs apart. I began to pat him down.