hungry.”
“Oh yes, of course, Nasir, I was just coming now,” his mother replied serenely, and hurried inside, giving me a cheery wave as she went.
I turned my attention back to the bike. The polish had set to a fine white mist and I began rubbing it off briskly with a soft dry cloth.
“It’s a bit of a waste, isn’t it?” Nasir’s voice made me jump. I hadn’t realised he was still in the garden, regarding me over the fence with that brooding stare.
“What’s a waste?”
He looked me up and down with a slow thoroughness that was as insulting as it was intended to be. “A bike like that belonging to a girl.”
It was the way he said the word “girl” that really got my back up. The same way some people would say “whore”.
“I hate to break this to you, Nasir,” I returned sweetly, “but we’ve just hit the twenty-first century, not the nineteenth. Women have the vote and everything now. Much as I’m sure you’d approve, we can’t all be kept permanently chained to the kitchen sink, barefoot and pregnant.”
His head came up, eyes flashing as his mouth set into a line of fury.
“You want to watch your step,” he hissed, raising his finger. “You are an outsider here, and you are not welcome.” With that friendly thought he stepped back from the fence, his body rigid. I heard the back door slam behind him.
Ah well, I thought, so much for maintaining cordial relations with the neighbours. Sorry Pauline.
***
The day after, my morning walk with Friday revealed that the police were back on Lavender Gardens. It was half a dozen or so burglaries this time, which had brought them out. That and, I suspect, a growing realisation that if they didn’t at least make a show of force round the estate, the public’s trust in them was going to break down completely.
As it was, the local families advanced beyond their net curtains and their front doors. Now they came out into their untidy gardens to stand taciturn in their reproof at how little positive action had been taken before.
It wasn’t just the older generation who stood and muttered, and eyed the squad cars suspiciously. There seemed to be more teenage boys in the mix than I’d noticed hanging around before. Angry, cocky, eager to prove themselves in the face of authority.
For the moment they contented themselves with silent posturing, but I wondered how long it would be before one of them crossed the line. For their part, once they’d come back out into the street, the police stayed close to their cars, tense. I know most of them wear body armour as a matter of course these days, but in this instance it seemed like provocation.
To keep out of the way, I took Friday by the long route, out onto the main road via the cycle way that ran alongside the river. As I popped up onto the main road by Carlisle Bridge I spotted another of Mr Ali’s green and purple vans. You generally saw them all over the place, but this one made me sit up and take notice.
For a start, it had pulled up just where the two lanes from over Greyhound Bridge narrow into one under the railway line, and was causing quite a major constriction in the traffic flow. The second thing that turned my head was the man leaning in through the passenger-side window to talk to the driver.
It was unmistakably Langford.
As I watched, he took his last cigarette out, stuck it between his lips, and tossed the crumpled empty pack onto the pavement behind him. Then he opened the door and climbed in, ignoring the annoyed hooting of horns. The van driver pulled straight out into traffic with enough disdain for the Highway Code to have earned him an instant re-test.
I wondered vaguely if Mr Ali knew that the head of the Copthorne vigilante brigade was cadging lifts at his expense.
***
Several hours later, I wheeled the bike out and headed for work. Within fifteen minutes of relatively easy town
“Oh yes, of course, Nasir, I was just coming now,” his mother replied serenely, and hurried inside, giving me a cheery wave as she went.
I turned my attention back to the bike. The polish had set to a fine white mist and I began rubbing it off briskly with a soft dry cloth.
“It’s a bit of a waste, isn’t it?” Nasir’s voice made me jump. I hadn’t realised he was still in the garden, regarding me over the fence with that brooding stare.
“What’s a waste?”
He looked me up and down with a slow thoroughness that was as insulting as it was intended to be. “A bike like that belonging to a girl.”
It was the way he said the word “girl” that really got my back up. The same way some people would say “whore”.
“I hate to break this to you, Nasir,” I returned sweetly, “but we’ve just hit the twenty-first century, not the nineteenth. Women have the vote and everything now. Much as I’m sure you’d approve, we can’t all be kept permanently chained to the kitchen sink, barefoot and pregnant.”
His head came up, eyes flashing as his mouth set into a line of fury.
“You want to watch your step,” he hissed, raising his finger. “You are an outsider here, and you are not welcome.” With that friendly thought he stepped back from the fence, his body rigid. I heard the back door slam behind him.
Ah well, I thought, so much for maintaining cordial relations with the neighbours. Sorry Pauline.
***
The day after, my morning walk with Friday revealed that the police were back on Lavender Gardens. It was half a dozen or so burglaries this time, which had brought them out. That and, I suspect, a growing realisation that if they didn’t at least make a show of force round the estate, the public’s trust in them was going to break down completely.
As it was, the local families advanced beyond their net curtains and their front doors. Now they came out into their untidy gardens to stand taciturn in their reproof at how little positive action had been taken before.
It wasn’t just the older generation who stood and muttered, and eyed the squad cars suspiciously. There seemed to be more teenage boys in the mix than I’d noticed hanging around before. Angry, cocky, eager to prove themselves in the face of authority.
For the moment they contented themselves with silent posturing, but I wondered how long it would be before one of them crossed the line. For their part, once they’d come back out into the street, the police stayed close to their cars, tense. I know most of them wear body armour as a matter of course these days, but in this instance it seemed like provocation.
To keep out of the way, I took Friday by the long route, out onto the main road via the cycle way that ran alongside the river. As I popped up onto the main road by Carlisle Bridge I spotted another of Mr Ali’s green and purple vans. You generally saw them all over the place, but this one made me sit up and take notice.
For a start, it had pulled up just where the two lanes from over Greyhound Bridge narrow into one under the railway line, and was causing quite a major constriction in the traffic flow. The second thing that turned my head was the man leaning in through the passenger-side window to talk to the driver.
It was unmistakably Langford.
As I watched, he took his last cigarette out, stuck it between his lips, and tossed the crumpled empty pack onto the pavement behind him. Then he opened the door and climbed in, ignoring the annoyed hooting of horns. The van driver pulled straight out into traffic with enough disdain for the Highway Code to have earned him an instant re-test.
I wondered vaguely if Mr Ali knew that the head of the Copthorne vigilante brigade was cadging lifts at his expense.
***
Several hours later, I wheeled the bike out and headed for work. Within fifteen minutes of relatively easy town
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