‘It might not be enough,’ I said.
‘Oh, it will be enough if these little herberts keep it quiet,’ the sergeant said confidently. ‘And if they don’t, we’ll just bell for some back-up.’ He indicated the crowd. ‘They think they’ve got a big gang?’ The sergeant chuckled. ‘We’ve got the biggest gang in town.’
We walked down the empty street to the house.
There were jeers from the crowd when they recognised Layla.
‘They really hate us, don’t they?’ she said. ‘All of us. They just want us gone.’
Edie put an arm around her shoulders. ‘Nobody’s going to hurt you, OK?’ she said.
Layla snorted with disbelief. But she made no attempt to shrug Edie off.
The ground floor of the house on Borodino Street was an abandoned ruin. There was blackened brickwork around the boarded-up windows. The old wooden door was gone and had been replaced by what looked like a stainless steel slab behind a locked metal grille.
A few dim lights were burning upstairs. A Porsche 911 was parked right outside.
‘I’m surprised they didn’t move you out,’ I said to Layla.
‘My grandmother wouldn’t move,’ she said.
‘I thought the council would tell her to move,’ Edie said.
Layla laughed with something like pride. ‘They don’t tell her what to do. She tells them what to do.’
A man opened the door. He was young, fat, with the scant remains of his hair plastered across his gleaming skull. He said something to Layla in Urdu.
She brushed past him without replying and went upstairs.
We showed him our warrant cards. He stared at them blankly. He tapped his chest.
‘Husband,’ he said. ‘Husband.’
Edie and I exchanged looks.
The grandmother came shuffling down the stairs.
‘Husband,’ the man said, indicating the stairs. ‘New husband.’
‘You’re getting married again?’ Edie said.
Mrs Khan showed us her teeth. ‘Yes, yes, yes,’ she laughed. ‘Taking a new husband now the old one is gone. Ha, ha, yes!’
There was suddenly a roar from the crowd beyond the police tape. They were surging forward, trying to get past the line of officers. The tape had already been shredded. A policeman’s helmet careered like a skittle across Borodino Street. The cops from the vans were racing down the street to reinforce their colleagues.
‘Inside now,’ I said.
The fat young man locked and bolted the stainless steel door behind us.
I went into the front room. It still stunk of fire and sodden wood and blackened brickwork although the worst of the damage was all close to the hallway and front door. All three of the bay windows at the front of the house had been boarded up but there were gaps in the wood where shafts of light came in. I pressed my face against the largest crack in the boards that covered the middle bay window and saw it afforded a good view of the full length of Borodino Street.
A few dark figures with their faces obscured by ski masks and hoodies were already moving around the abandoned convoy of police vehicles.
As I watched, one of the empty police carriers suddenly burst into flames. One of them must have sprayed something on the side of the burning vehicle before it was torched because it was suddenly there in rough black characters, the single word and the four numbers, shining out of the flames like a thought for the day.
EXODUS 20:13
Edie was on the phone calling for back-up as Sir Ludo Mount came into the room.
‘This continuing campaign of intimidation against my clients is outrageous,’ he said. ‘The institutionalised racism of the Metropolitan Police must—’
‘Do you believe in Bad Moses, Sir Ludo?’ I asked him.
He stared at me.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘Do you think this Bad Moses is real? Because if Bad Moses exists, then he is here tonight.’ I indicated the boarded-up window. ‘Look out there.’
He pressed his smooth pink face against the crack in the boards and I saw his body stiffen. When he turned away from the window, I saw the terror in him.
‘I’m getting out of here,’ he said.
‘I strongly advise against it,’ I said.
‘This Bad Moses will lynch me from the nearest lamppost if he gets a chance!’
‘That’s why you are better off staying in here,’ I said. ‘There’s back-up on the way—’
But Mount was no longer listening to me. He was screaming at the fat young man who still held the keys in his hand.
‘Open it! Open it!’
The fat young man opened the front door and Sir Ludo pushed roughly past him. The door was quickly locked and bolted again. From the boarded-up window Edie and I watched Mount get into his Porsche and gun the engine.
‘Is this a good idea?’ Edie said.
‘If he makes it,’ I said. ‘And if he doesn’t, it’s a lousy idea.’
The police were pushing back the crowd at the far end of Borodino Street and the Porsche containing Mount sped off in the opposite direction, towards the abandoned police vehicles, swerving up on to the pavement to avoid the blazing van with the word and the numbers sprayed on its side.
But suddenly more dark figures were at that end of the street, as if drawn by the fire, faceless shapes with their features hidden by ski masks and scarves. There were a dozen of them, then twenty, then too many to count.
The engine of the Porsche gave a throaty roar as it hurtled towards them, but they blocked his exit now and Sir Ludo did not have it in him to plough through them.
He jammed on his brakes and began reversing down the street. Then he stopped and fell out of the car, on his hands and knees and then rising and running, as if it was his car that they wanted and not his skin, not his head, not his life.
And perhaps he was right because the masked crowd cheered as Sir Ludo fled but they did not give chase as he ran back towards the house.
The outnumbered police had fought the crowd to a standstill at the far end of the street while at the other end, the faceless figures capered and danced and cheered as they began rocking the abandoned Porsche, attempting to turn it over.
And then there were sirens in the distance, getting closer with every second, and at both ends of the street, the mob was melting away as if of one mind. Cursing them, the bruised and battered Police Support Unit gave chase.
Borodino Street was suddenly deserted.
Sir Ludo was standing bewildered in the middle of the empty street as Edie and I came out of the house.
‘Is it safe?’ he said. ‘Is help on the way?’ And then he squealed with pain. ‘My bloody car!’ he said, marching towards it. ‘Those animals!’
The Porsche had been flipped on its back.
I looked at Edie Wren and she smiled at me with the relief that comes when you know you are finally safe and sound.
And then my phone vibrated.
NO CALLER ID, it said.
And then the promise.
I will make you crawl
And at that moment the headlights of a scaffolding lorry came on at the end of the street.
‘We’ve been set up,’ I said as the scaffolding lorry’s engine fired up.
It was coming towards us, moving rapidly down the deserted street, gaining speed with every second, the headlights dazzling, the big diesel engine roaring.
Sir Ludo Mount was standing by the side of his flipped-over Porsche, looking at his phone.
The scaffolding lorry struck him a glancing blow, catching him low on the back, and it was enough to spin him around and toss him screaming into the air, his hands clawing at his broken spine before he even hit the ground.
And it just kept coming.
‘Go,’ I said, but Edie did not move. And for a long sickening moment, neither did I.
Then I shoulder-charged her off the pavement and over a low, scrubby bush into a neighbour’s garden that had long ago exchanged its grass for concrete. And when I saw her feet in the air and I knew she was out of harm’s way, I ran. I ran for my life.