The smoke started to choke Billy and his eyes began to stream. He coughed as he ran, keeping his head low. He came across Beth, sat on the floor, dazed, her leg bloodied. She looked up at him, her eyes cold. Well to hell with you, he thought, and stumbled towards the window. But something made him stop. As the last of the rioters tried desperately to lift their heavy trolleys out of the window Billy turned and went back to look for her. But when he reached the place where he’d last seen her she was no longer there.
Now the smoke was getting really thick and black as the blaze consumed plastic and rubber. He coughed so much he choked, and his chest was gripped by painful spasms he couldn’t do a thing to control. Ah fuck, he thought angrily. He staggered towards where the windows were supposed to be, pausing on the way to snatch a mobile phone from the shelf. ‘They’re cheap crap anyway,’ he said.
The fresh air outside was welcome. He stood bent over, his hands on his knees, retching and bringing up bitter bile. Blue flashing lights of police cars and fire engines lit up the front of the store like it was a nightclub.
He realised a tiny crowd of his colleagues had also gathered, drawn protectively to each other, and Beth was there, standing with them.
‘Is everyone accounted for?’ asked a fireman of one of the weirdos, who shook his head in shock. ‘Who’s your manager?’ he persisted. ‘Who is in charge here?’ Someone pointed at Slimer who sat on the concrete floor staring at the supermarket flames racing through the building. ‘Who is your fire officer?’ Slimer shook his head. ‘How many staff did you have in there? We need to do a quick count, see if anyone’s missing.’ But Slimer appeared not to understand a single word.
To Billy’s surprise there was a small TV crew and a photographer already on the scene, pointing a camera at Beth and the small group of employees. He noticed she quickly turned away. At that moment there was a series of small explosions as aerosols burst open in the heat and Billy’s attention was diverted.
‘They’ve been running wild through the city,’ explained a police officer when Billy questioned what was happening. ‘The riots just flared up without warning. Started with a guy being shot by police in Tottenham. Then rioting broke out all over London, spread to other cities. It’s happening everywhere,’ he said, his voice slightly panicky, which didn’t do much to reassure Billy. I mean, he thought, you’d expect the police to be in control, but obviously nobody was in control of anything anymore. It was as if the world had gone mad, all order broken down, normal rules ripped up and stamped upon.
The building was quickly turning into an inferno. More fire engines raced onto the scene and hoses were played upon the blaze. Someone put a friendly, reassuring arm around his shoulder and led him away. He heard the tinkling of glass at his back.
The staff of Speed Save — the ones who had not escaped by the rear exit — were herded meekly to a corner of the car park, a shivering, frightened group clearly shaken by their experience.
Billy noticed, however, that Beth Heaney wasn’t amongst them. He looked around and caught sight of her slim dark form, some distance away, hurrying from the scene.
12
‘Yes?’ he said, eyes squinting in the harsh light, speaking through a narrow crack as the door was still on its chain. His face clouded over when he saw the two young men, both wearing flashy suits in charcoal grey, white shirts and neat black ties. One of the men was white, the other black. The black guy clutched a fancy leather briefcase. They both smiled broadly but the smiles cut no ice with him. ‘We don’t like Jehovah’s Witnesses here!’ he said abruptly, about to close the door unceremoniously on them.
‘Neither do we,’ said the white guy.
‘We don’t like people coming round cold selling either. Double glazing, that kind of thing.’
‘A blasted nuisance,’ agreed the white guy. ‘We’re not here to sell a thing, not even God. We came to see your son, Billy. Billy Krodde. He does live here, doesn’t he?’
‘What’s he done wrong now? He said he was sorry for nicking that poxy mobile phone. They sacked him from that poxy supermarket because of it. What else has he been up to? You the law?’
The two men exchanged a quick glance, their smiles not once showing signs of withering. ‘You could say that, in a round about sort of way,’ said the white guy.
‘The police?’
‘Dear me, no!’ said the black guy.
‘Then who?’
A pause. ‘The Church of Everlasting Bliss,’ said the black guy. ‘I’m called Gabriel. My friend here is called Isaiah.’
‘Look, it’s a Sunday, day of rest and all that,’ said Billy’s dad, for whom every day was technically a day of rest, but he felt it was the principle of the thing. ‘We don’t want any churchy people round here, especially on a Sunday, preaching the end of the world or anything. It puts you right off your day.’
‘We’ll pay,’ said Isaiah, and the door stopped in its tracks, ‘to see Billy. It’s vitally important we speak with him, Mr Krodde.’ He fished out two twenty pound notes from his wallet and handed them over to him. ‘And we promise not to mention the end of the world, not even in passing.’ He grinned.
The chain was quickly unfastened. ‘Come on in. I’ll go get him.’ They followed him into the cramped living room. A smell of onions and fat lingered in the air from the night before. ‘So what church was that again? Everlasting Peace, you say? Never heard of that one.’
‘Bliss,’ he corrected. No surprise,’ said Gabriel, wiping a handkerchief across his dark skin. ‘We tend to keep ourselves pretty much to ourselves.’
‘The congregation’s going to suffer,’ he said, stuffing the two notes into his trouser pocket.
‘The congregation’s doing just fine, Mr Krodde.’
‘Billy! Billy!’ he hollered at the foot of the stairs. ‘Come off that bastard Playstation. You’ve got a couple of blokes down here looking to have a word with you. Billy!’ He pointed to the sofa for the men to sit. ‘Cup of tea?’ he asked.
‘Rather not. Pushed for time,’ said Isaiah apologetically.
‘Suit yourself. Where is that lazy, good for nothing boy of mine? Billy!’ he screamed again.
‘What?’ screamed Billy in return.
‘Get your arse down here! Important business!’
Billy Crudd came downstairs, his footsteps laboured and heavy on the treads, and he slowly put his head round the doorway into the living room. ‘Who are you?’ he said.
‘They want to talk to you,’ said his father.
‘In private, Mr Krodde,’ said Gabriel. ‘If you please.’
He rolled his eyes and shut them in the room. Billy regarded the two smartly dressed men warily. ‘Yeah? What do you want?’
‘We need your help, Billy,’ said Isaiah. He signalled for Billy to come in and sit down before them. ‘We need information from you. Information that is important to our church.’
‘Yeah, right, you’re from the Department of Work and Pensions checking up on whether I’m entitled to my dole. Well I’m entitled, ‘cos I ain’t got a job no more, and I ain’t doing any cash in hand stuff either.’
‘We heard. We paid your ex-manager a visit — Mr Pritchard — at the supermarket, or what remains of it,’ said Gabriel. ‘He gave us your address.’
‘Why would he do that? Isn’t there such a thing as data protection?’
‘There are all manner of laws, Billy, that Speedy Save clearly fail to adhere to,’ observed Gabriel. ‘And no, we are not here to check up on your benefit entitlement, interesting though that must be. We are from the Church of Everlasting Bliss.’
‘Bible thumpers! Great.’
‘In a manner of speaking, Billy; but we’re not here to preach.’ He turned to Isaiah and the man reached into his jacket pocket. The sheen on the suit wasn’t your cheap sheen, Billy observed; this was quality, even Billy could see that. Isaiah handed over a piece of paper to Gabriel. ‘My name is Gabriel. My colleague is Isaiah,’ he introduced. ‘And this,’ he added, giving the paper to Billy, ‘is who we need to find.’