Good Bait

She punched in Ramsden’s number.

‘Been trying to raise you,’ he said, ‘since early this morning.’

Karen had deliberately switched off her mobile.

He gave her the address. One of a row of terraced houses, cramped together east of Wood Green High Road. When she saw Ramsden, he looked as desolate as the scene before him. Brickwork blackened, windows shattered and shorn of glass; front door badly charred and hanging from a single hinge. The last wisps of soot, restless on the air. Inside, a glimpse of hell.

There were two fire engines still in attendance, men and women inside, still damping down.

The last vestiges of smoke in the air.

Bunches of flowers, a few, clustering along the pavement to either side.

‘When did it happen?’ Karen asked. Vestiges of smoke catching at her throat, smarting her eyes.

‘Two in the morning, give or take. Petrol bombs through both downstairs windows. Some kind of accelerant through the front door. Poor bastards inside never stood a chance.’

‘Payback.’

‘Without a doubt.’

Three young men, aged between fifteen and seventeen.

A girl of sixteen; another just twelve.

One thing to withhold names from public scrutiny, maintain reporting restrictions in place; another within the world in which they lived: holding them back for further questioning, even if they were later released, like painting a target on their backs.

‘Witnesses?’ Karen asked.

Ramsden laughed and shook his head.

There had been a fire in New Cross, Karen knew, some thirty years before. Thirteen young black people killed. Part of her history. A racist attack? An accident? Revenge for some uncharted wrong? At the inquests an open verdict was twice returned. To this day, no charge in relation to the fire had been brought.

And if those lives lost had been white …?

She remembered her father driving her past the spot when she would have been no more than seven or eight years old.

‘Remember what happened here,’ he had said, removing his hat. ‘Don’t forget.’

She did remember, a small part of her, every day. And if ever it looked as if she might forget, there was something like this.

Or this …

Just five days later, what had happened in Wood Green and the events that had led up to it faded from the news, the head of the Trident independent advisory group issued a statement proclaiming a very real fear that, due to further government cuts, the unit, despite its successful record of building trust and solving gun and violent crime within the black community, was, as previously rumoured, facing imminent disbandment.

Sure, Karen thought, why not? Just a few black kids, capping one another for fun, why not put the money where it’s really needed? Where the votes are.

59

She hadn’t meant to be back again, but there she was. Almost a habit, but not quite. Not yet summer but the trees in full leaf, or so it seemed. Karen wearing no topcoat today, just a light jacket, sweater, jeans. Swimmers at the far end of the pond, a few; one lowering himself from the board before striking out, arms carving the water with ease.

This time, the young woman was standing just a short way along the path, and without her hood now, easy to recognise.

Karen waited for her to come closer.

‘Sasha.’

A nervous smile.

‘That was you, before?’

The girl nodded.

‘How did you know I’d be here today?’

‘I didn’t. Not really. But I’d seen you here, a couple of times. I don’t think you saw me.’

‘Just the once.’

‘Yes.’

‘You come here a lot?’

Sasha pulled at a stray length of hair. ‘More and more.’ She shook her head. ‘I don’t even want to. I just …’

Karen nodded. ‘I understand.’

‘Do you?’

‘I think so.’

Sasha waited a moment longer, then reached out towards Karen, and when she opened her fingers slowly, there in the palm of her hand was a ring.

‘What’s that?’ Karen asked.

But, of course, she knew.

‘That’s the ring he was wearing,’ Karen said. ‘Petru, the night he was killed.’

‘Yes.’ A breath more than a word.

‘You’ve had it all along?’

Sasha gave a fierce shake of the head.

‘Tell me,’ Karen said.

‘My dad, we was having this row. A few nights back. Awful. I’d come in late. A party. Just friends, that’s all. But he started calling me these names. Bitch and whore and all of that and then he … he took this from one of his pockets, like he’d been keeping it there special, and threw it in my face and said, “Don’t think I won’t fuckin’ do it again, ‘cause I will.”’

Her hand was shaking now and Karen reached out and covered it with her own, feeling between them the small hardness of the ring.

‘I just need to ask you, Sasha — there’s no doubt in your mind what he meant by that, is there?’

‘No.’ Sobbing. ‘No.’

‘And you’d be willing to make a statement, repeat what you just told me?’

‘Yes.’ The word barely heard.

Karen moved closer and held her tight, for those short moments a bulwark against her tears.