White Riot Read online

  Peta nodded. ‘Not the most stable of times.’

  They both knew the story. A twenty-year-old Muslim college student had been found dead in the street after being set ablaze. Peta could still clearly recall his grief-stricken mother at a televised press conference weeping openly, having a breakdown in front of millions. The National Unity Party, a BNP offshoot, had been blamed but, with local elections in which they were expected to make significant gains upcoming, were strenuously denying it. As a result, Muslim communities, egged on by Abdul-Haq, a local leading radical, were arming themselves, patrolling the streets at night. The city was on a knife edge. Tension was high. And, Peta thought, fanning her neck and chest, the weather wasn’t helping any.

  ‘And the heat,’ Whitman said. ‘Wasn’t like this back in the day.’

  Peta suppressed a smile at the phrase.

  ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We’re always going on about southerners, how they get the slightest bit of snow and barricade themselves into their houses for a week. We’re the opposite. A bit of heat and we revert to angry cavemen.’

  He smiled. ‘And cavewomen. Let’s be politically correct.’

  ‘OK,’ she said, back to business. ‘This caller. Any ideas. Do you know who this person is?’

  ‘Obviously not. If I did I would be able to do something about them.’

  ‘All right, then. Do you suspect who this person might be?’

  Whitman sighed. ‘I don’t know.’ He took another mouthful of his drink. Refilled from the bottle. Peta noticed the wine was nearly all gone. ‘I used to get calls a few years ago.’

  ‘And it’s the same kind of messages?’

  He nodded.

  ‘So why didn’t you go to the police about them the first time round?’

  Whitman snorted out a laugh, drank down a third of his drink, looked away. ‘A firebomb ripped apart a pub in the centre of Newcastle. A pub frequented by off-duty policemen and women. Over thirty years ago.’

  ‘I read about it. Fifteen people injured, one dead.’

  ‘Then you’ll know we were held responsible for it.’

  ‘And were you?’

  Whitman sighed. ‘We were blamed for it.’

  ‘Did you do it?’

  Whitman took another drink.

  Peta waited.

  ‘The Hollow Men were blamed,’ he said, stressing the word, ‘but the Hollow Men didn’t do it. At least, not as far as I was concerned.’

  ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘There was one of our group. Alan Shepherd. Always wanted to push things further. The most extreme of all of us. He talked about doing something like that. Really up for it. We argued, said it wasn’t the way forward. Next thing we know, the pub’s gone up. And Alan’s disappeared.’

  ‘So it was him?’

  Whitman took another mouthful of drink. ‘We always assumed he was behind it and that he’d been caught up in the flames. We never heard from him again.’ Another sigh. ‘And we were blamed. That was the turning point for me. I left soon afterwards.’

  ‘And that was when the phone calls started?’

  He nodded.

  ‘To all of the Hollow Men or just you?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’d cut ties with them by then.’ He sat back. ‘So you see why I couldn’t go to the police.’

  Peta nodded. She sensed there was more; that Whitman wanted to open up. She waited.

  ‘I assumed that those calls were from a member of the dead copper’s family,’ he said. ‘His brother, I thought.’ He shook his head, back in the past. ‘Very distressing. Abusive. Late at night. Presumably when he’d been drinking. I know they made me drink.’

  ‘Saying what?’

  ‘Saying … I should never relax. That they would never forget or forgive me for what I had done. That one day, when I had forgotten, they would be there, waiting for me.’

  ‘And you did nothing?’

  ‘Yeah, I did. I moved away. Changed my phone number. Got a new life. The calls stopped then.’

  He took another drink.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said, waving his hand wearily as if trying to dismiss the memory, ‘it’s all in the book.’

  ‘And the calls stopped until recently?’

  He nodded.

  ‘And what did you do then?’

  ‘I knew I had time owing at the university, asked for a sabbatical, planned a trip up here to coincide with the book launch. Phoned Lillian. And as luck would have it, she mentioned you. Not a detective as such, and perhaps that’s the appeal. No cop vibe.’ Another drink. The bottle had been drained. ‘So that’s it. What d’you think?’ Whitman leaned forward, tried to hide the desperate edge in his voice. ‘You want to take me on?’

  Peta looked again at him. His earlier suave demeanour all but disappeared. In its place was a fidgety, anxious-looking middle-aged man. Very un-rock ’n’ roll.

  Peta looked at her sparkling water. The bubbles were rising, breaking on the surface, disappearing. Condensation had formed on the outside. She stroked her finger slowly down it, feeling the cold wet tingle it left. A tiny thrill went through her.

  ‘I’ll need your complete cooperation. Don’t withhold anything. If I ask you a question I want a straight and honest answer. Right?’

  He nodded. ‘Right.’

  Peta rummaged around in her handbag, produced her notebook. ‘Good. So these calls you’re getting now. Where do they come to? Home? Mobile?’

  ‘Both.’

  ‘Right. And what was the name of the policeman who died?’

  ‘George Baty. It’s all in the book. A matter of public record now.’

  She wrote it down. ‘As good a place as any to start. Now, what about other people? Contacts, friends. From the old days, perhaps?’

  ‘I don’t know … I don’t think so.’

  ‘The Hollow Men were based up here, right? In Newcastle?’

  Whitman nodded.

  ‘Any of them still around?’

  He shrugged, head back under the shade of the umbrella where Peta couldn’t read his face. ‘I don’t keep in touch with any of them. Only one that I know of. Abdul-Haq.’

  ‘The radical Islam guy? He was a Hollow Man?’

  Whitman nodded. ‘Changed a bit since I last saw him. Couldn’t have been more surprised when I saw him on the news.’

  She pushed her notebook and pen over to him. ‘Give me a list of the rest. If there are any still up here I can talk to them, see if anything jogs a memory.’

  He smiled. ‘I can do better than that.’ He reached down to the side of the table, produced a hardback book, handed it over. ‘All in there.’

  Peta looked at it. Angry Young Man: The Rise and Fall of Radical Politics in the 1970s. His name underneath it. A slightly blurred news picture of a much younger Trevor Whitman hurling a rock during a demonstration. Looking angry but something more. Vibrant, alive. Charismatic.

  ‘Thank you,’ she said.

  ‘My pleasure. Let me sign it for you.’ He took out a pen, scribbled something in the front, handed it back. ‘So what are you going to do? Phone taps? Traces? That kind of thing?’

  She thought of Amar. ‘Albion had a very good surveillance expert. The best I’ve ever worked with. He’s … not been well recently, but I’ll see if he feels up to it yet.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘No problem.’ Peta told him how much she would charge and what he could expect. Whitman accepted everything. She stood up. ‘Well, I think that’s it for now. You staying here?’

  He looked back to the kitchen window. ‘No.’ He gave her the name of his hotel, stood also.

  ‘And if you get a call in the meantime, tell me. Straight away. Any time.’

  ‘I will.’ He had regained some of his earlier composure; the twinkle had returned to his eye. ‘I look forward to seeing you again, Peta.’

  He extended his hand; she took it. As they shook she experienced a frisson, like a static electric charge. Not unpleasant. Just discomforting. She was sure
he must have felt it too. He smiled, let go with a certain amount of reluctance.

  Lillian, as if on cue, emerged from the kitchen. ‘Finished chatting?’ she said, smile in place, earlier upset seemingly forgotten. ‘Are you taking her on?’

  ‘I am,’ said Whitman, smiling. ‘I’m sure Peta is the answer to all my problems.’

  Lillian smiled. It seemed brittle. ‘I’m sure.’ Her hand again fell on to Whitman’s shoulder. He made no attempt to remove it.

  Peta felt it was time to leave. Her mother made protestations, but Peta got the feeling that she was secretly relieved to have her go.

  Peta got in the car, put the book on the passenger seat next to her, opened it to see what he had written.

  To Peta: Cool name for a cool gal!

  Looking forward to working with you,

  Love

  Trevor Whitman

  ‘Jesus,’ she said, shaking her head. But smiling, all the same.

  As she drove away, Whitman and Lillian came to the door, waved. Both smiling, but Peta sensed a tension beneath the smiles. She would have to speak to her mother on her own some time. Find out what was going on.

  Driving away, Peta turned the radio on. The news. Police were saying they had no new leads in the murder of Sooliman Patel. Rick Oaten, the leader of the National Unity Party, was strenuously denying they had anything to do with it, despite his party’s leaflets found at the scene. He had fully cooperated with the police, he said, and there was no evidence that linked him or his organization with the attack. Reports were coming in of an increase in racially motivated attacks throughout the city.

  ‘National Unity Party,’ she said under her breath. ‘National Union of Pricks, more like.’

  A soundbite from Abdul-Haq followed. He was angry. ‘How much longer must our young men be slain? What more needs to happen before the police will act? How bad do things have to get before we legitimately take steps to protect ourselves? Our communities?’

  She switched channels.

  She looked in the rear-view mirror, back at the house. A cloud seemed to be hovering over it.

  A song came on the radio, the Arctic Monkeys’ hectic chug bringing her back to the present.

  Despite all her misgivings, she felt the familiar tingle. It was good to be working again.

  Whitman and Lillian watched Peta pull out of the driveway. Lillian turned to him.

  ‘How did that go?’

  ‘Fine.’

  Lillian stared ahead, looking at the space Peta had disappeared into, breathing heavily. ‘I should have been with you. Made sure you said the right thing.’ She turned back to Whitman, fire still in her eyes. ‘And what were you doing out there? Flirting with her?’

  ‘No, Lillian, I was just …’ He shrugged. ‘She’s a lovely girl. You should be proud.’ He smiled.

  ‘You were flirting. With her. Jesus Christ, what’s wrong with you?’

  ‘I was admiring her. She looks like you, Lillian. The image of you. At that age.’

  Lillian said nothing, the anger in her eyes cooling slightly. She sighed. ‘Hope we’ve done the right thing.’

  ‘We have.’

  ‘My little girl …’

  Whitman placed his hand on Lillian’s arm. ‘Let’s go back inside.’

  Lillian looked at him. Made no attempt to remove his hand. ‘Oh, God … Trevor …’

  He stroked her arm. ‘It’ll be OK. Come on.’

  Lillian said nothing.

  Just allowed him to guide her back inside the house, close the door behind them.

  3

  ‘There. Look closer. Now. Do you see him now?’

  Joe Donovan squinted through the binoculars, saw the house, trees. A car; some big, silver, planet-destroying 4×4. People emerging from it, slamming the doors loudly behind them. He zeroed in: a couple, well dressed, late thirties. And a boy.

  Donovan focused in on the boy.

  ‘You see him?’

  ‘I … I see him.’

  Donovan zoomed in as close as he could. The boy was dark-haired, tall. Ten, eleven years old. Wearing casual clothes – jeans, T-shirt, trainers. Either top-end high street or designer. The boy closed the car door more carefully than the couple had, picked up his sports bag, followed them inside.

  ‘Well?’

  Donovan put down the binoculars, expelled a deep breath.

  ‘I … don’t know. Just don’t know.’

  Amar Miah was in the car next to him, telephoto lens in his lap. Sitting awkwardly, his back rigid, like his body was giving him discomfort. He moved, grunted in pain.

  ‘You OK?’

  ‘Yeah,’ said Amar. ‘Just a bit uncomfortable if I sit in one place for too long.’ He moved about, tried to find an easier position. ‘Anyway, what d’you think? Is it him?’

  Donovan stared at the house again, willing the boy to emerge, wanting one more look.

  Be him, thought Donovan, be David.

  Be my son.

  It started with a phone call from Francis Sharkey. The solicitor had been working on Donovan’s behalf to find David, had people out chasing down every lead, every half lead, every whisper.

  ‘It’s your son,’ he had said simply and succinctly. ‘It’s David. We’ve found him.’

  And Donovan’s world had caved in. He hadn’t been able to answer. Sharkey had continued.

  ‘Or at least a very strong possibility that it’s him. And he’s alive.’

  Questions had tumbled through Donovan’s mind too fast for him to articulate. Emotions also. He felt his heart would explode.

  ‘I’ve got to go to him … got to see him … now …’

  ‘It’s not that simple, Joe.’

  ‘Why not?’ Donovan had replied. ‘Why … What’s … Why … What’s the matter with him?’

  ‘I’m on my way,’ said Sharkey. ‘Don’t go anywhere. I’ll be straight there.’

  Donovan put his mobile down, looked round. He was alone in the Albion office, standing among the debris of a recent break-in, bottle of whisky before him. He couldn’t remember who had broken in, why, or what he had been so upset about. Couldn’t remember anything. Before the phone call was now another time, another place.

  It was a moment he had been in preparation for, in dread of, for four years. Since his then six-year-old son had disappeared.

  That day in the shopping mall played and replayed in his head obsessively. David standing behind him, queuing up to pay for a present for Donovan’s wife, David’s mother. He turned and …

  There, then gone.

  There, then gone.

  Without a trace. As if he had never existed. Every avenue explored, every possibility considered. Nothing.

  And Donovan had never stopped looking for him. Even though it cost him his marriage, the love of his daughter, his job and, in bringing him to his own personal abyss, just about his sanity.

  During those years, in the dark, haunted times, in those loneliest hours, dancing on the edge, mind spinning from alcohol, playing Russian roulette, he had examined every imagined outcome, ghost-played every possible scenario.

  David alive. David dead. David alive but worse than dead.

  Every one he could think of, no matter how horrific. Steeling himself for when that day came. If that day came.

  Now it was here.

  Perhaps.

  But he couldn’t plan for how it felt when he heard those words.

  Sharkey turned up within the hour. Donovan had made substantial inroads into the whisky. He paced the floor, unable to sit, his movement booze-blurred and unsteady. But his thoughts were in sharper relief, his mind roiling.

  ‘Why won’t you let me see him? I’ve got to, I’ve …’

  Sharkey sighed. He was sitting on an office chair, legs crossed, immaculate as usual. ‘There are complications.’

  ‘Complications? What d’you mean … what?’ Donovan was slurring. Standing before Sharkey, breathing whisky into his face.

  Sharkey’s nose wrinkled fro
m the smell. But he didn’t dare mention it.

  ‘It’s a delicate situation. This boy and his possible identity have only emerged as a result of long-term surveillance.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘It’s part of an ongoing job. With wider implications. It can’t be compromised.’

  ‘Fuck off. This is my son.’

  ‘And I can understand that. But let me just say, as far as we can tell, he’s been well treated, not been harmed in any way. In fact, if anything he’s been pampered.’

  ‘By who?’

  Sharkey hesitated. ‘Why don’t you put the bottle down, Joe?’

  Donovan threw Sharkey a murderous look. ‘Keep talking.’

  Sharkey kept talking, every word hitting Donovan with the force of a brick.

  ‘The good news is,’ said Sharkey, his smooth lawyer tones kicking in, ‘he’s not been picked up by a gang of paedophiles, sold into slavery, anything like that. As far as we can tell.’

  ‘What d’you mean, as far as you can tell?’

  ‘Sit down, Joe. It’ll be easier.’

  ‘Fuck off. Don’t tell me what to do.’ Donovan kept pacing, whisky bottle in hand.

  Sharkey continued. ‘Finding him has been a mammoth task. We’ve had feelers out all over the country and abroad. Looking for any sightings of—’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, cut to the chase.’ Another swig from the bottle.

  Sharkey opened his briefcase, took out a slim file, flicked through it, carried on talking.

  ‘A couple came to our attention. Late thirties, well-to-do. He works in the London media in some capacity, she spends most of her time in the gym or on sunbeds. Own an old farmhouse with land just outside a small village in Hertfordshire. A perfect couple. Living the dream, one might say, if one were that way inclined. Perfect except for one thing.’

  ‘No children,’ said Donovan, still walking.

  ‘Precisely. Then they go on holiday. And when they return, they have a boy with them. Their neighbours are far enough away not to notice at first, their friends and colleagues mostly London-based.’

  Donovan stopped pacing. ‘And this boy’s about, what? Ten years old? And matches what we think David would look like at that age.’

  Sharkey nodded. ‘Exactly.’

  Donovan looked at the file on Sharkey’s lap, like a hungry dog slavering after a bone. ‘You got photos?’