The Cleaner

Milton turned him around so that he was facing the open door and propelled him out of it. He landed on his stomach, scraping his face against the rough tarmac. The man in the tricked-out car looked over, lazy interest flickering across his face.

“You didn’t need to do that,” Sharon said. “It’s best just to ignore them.”

“Good ma

They climbed the stairs to the sixth floor and followed the open walkway to the end of the block. A couple of youngsters were leaning against the balcony, looking out over the Estate below and, beyond that, the streets and houses that made up this part of Hackney. Milton recognised from experience that they had been stationed as lookouts, and that, from their perch, they would be able to see the approach of rival gang-bangers or police. They would call down to the older boys selling their products on the walkways below. The dealers would vanish if it was the police or call for muscle if it was a rival crew. Milton said nothing. The boys glared at them as they approached.

Flat 609 was at the end of the block, where the walkway abutted the graffiti-marked wall. The door was protected by a metal gate and the windows were behind similar grilles. Sharon unlocked the gate, and then the heavy door, and went inside. Milton followed, instinctively assessing the interior. The front door opened into a tiny square hallway, one of the walls festooned with coats on a row of hooks and a dozen pairs of shoes stacked haphazardly beneath it. Post had been allowed to gather beneath the letter-box and Milton could see that most were bills, several of them showing the red ink that marked them as final demands. The hallway had three doors. Sharon opened the one to the lounge and Milton followed her inside.

It was a large room, furnished with an old sofa, a square table with four chairs and a large flatscreen television. Children’s toys were scattered on the floor.

“How many children do you have?” Milton asked.

“Two. My oldest, Chris, fell in with the wrong sort. He has a problem with drugs — we only ever see him when he wants money. It’s just me and Elijah most of the time.”

Milton was a good listener and Sharon started to feel better. Just talking to him helped. Perhaps he was right and there was something he could do. It wasn’t as if she had had any other offers of help. The Social was useless and the last thing she wanted to do was get the police involved. They wouldn’t be sympathetic, and Elijah would end up with a record or something and that would be the end of that as far as his future was concerned.

“Why don’t you sit down?” Milton suggested. “I’m guessing this is the kitchen?” She nodded. “So go on, sit down and relax. I’ll make you a cup of tea while we wait for your son.”

9

When Elijah opened the door to their flat there was a white man he had never seen before sitting in the front room. He was tall, with strong-looking shoulders and large hands, and plain to look at in a loose-fitting suit and scuffed leather shoes. The scar across his face was a little frightening. He was in the armchair Elijah used when he was on his PlayStation, drinking a cup of tea. Elijah’s first thought was that he was police, a detective, and he suddenly felt horribly exposed. Pops had told him to take the gear they had tiefed from the people on the train and keep it safe while he arranged for someone to buy it from them. It swung from his shoulder, clanking and clicking.

His mother was sitting opposite the man. She got up as he came in through the door.

“Where’ve you been?” she said. “You’re late.”

“Out,” he replied sullenly. The man put down his cup of tea and pulled himself out of the armchair. “Who are you?”

“This is Mr Milton.”

“I was talking to him.” Elijah looked up at the man. There was a flintiness in his icy blue eyes. Elijah tried to stare him out but although the man was smiling at him, his eyes were cold and hard and u

“Yeah, whatever.” The heavy rucksack slipped down his shoulder, rattling noisily. He shrugged it back into place and stepped around the room to go to his room.

Sharon got to her feet and stepped in between him and his door. “What’s in the bag, Elijah?”

“Nothing. Just my stuff.”

“Then you won’t mind me having a look, will you?”

She took the bag from him, unzipped it and, one by one, pulled out the mobile phones, watches, wallets and two tablet computers. Silently, she lined them up on the dining table, and then, when she was done, turned to face him with a frightened expression on her face. “How did you get this?”

“Looking after it for a friend.”

“Did you steal it?”

“Course not,” he said, but he knew he sounded unconvincing. He was aware of the big man in the room with them. “Who are you?” he asked again. “Police? Social?”

“I’m a friend of your mother. She’s worried about you.”

“She needn’t be. I’m fine.”

Sharon held up an expensive-looking watch. “This is all tiefed, isn’t it?”

“I told you, I’m just looking after it.”

“Then you can take it straight back to him. I don’t want it in the house.”

“Why don’t you just mind your business?”

He dropped everything back into the rucksack and slung it across his shoulder.

“Who is it?” she said as he turned for the door.

“You don’t know him.”

“Show your mother some respect,” Milton said. “She doesn’t deserve you speaking to her like that.”

“Who are you to go telling me what to do?” he exploded. “I ain’t never seen you before. Don’t think you’re anything special, neither. None of her boyfriends last long. They all get bored eventually and we don’t never see them no more. I don’t know who you are and I’m not going to bother to find out. I won’t ever see you again.”

“Elijah!”

Milton didn’t know how to respond to that, and he stepped aside as Elijah made for the door. Sharon looked on haplessly as her son opened it, stepped out onto the landing, and slammed it behind him.

10

Elijah passed through the straggled group of customers that had gathered outside the entrance to Blissett House. The boys called them “cats” and took them for all they were worth. They passed out their bags of weed and heroin, their rocks of crack, snatching their money and sending them on their way. They didn’t get very far. One of the empty flats had been turned into a crack house, and they scurried into it. When they shuffled out again, hours later, they were vacant and etiolated, halfway human, dead-eyed zombies, already desperately working out where they would find the money for their next fix.

Elijah made his way through the Estate to the abandoned flat that the LFB had claimed for themselves. A family had been evicted for non-payment of rent and now the older boys had taken it over, gathering there to drink, smoke and be with their girls. Elijah had never been inside the flat before but he didn’t know where else he could take the rucksack and the things that they had stolen.

He was furious. Who was that man to tell him what to do? He didn’t look like any of his mother’s boyfriends — he was white, for a start — but he had no reason to come and stick his nose into his business. He told himself that he wouldn’t see the man again, that he’d get bored, just like they always did, and it would be him who told his mother that it didn’t matter, that he would look after her. He had been the man in the house ever since his older brother had vanished. He had been grown up about it all. He’d had to; there wasn’t anyone else.

The flat was in the block opposite Blissett House. Elijah idled on the walkway, trying to muster the courage to turn the corner and approach the doorway. It was on the eleventh floor and offered a panoramic view of the area. He looked beyond the Estate, across the hotchpotch of neater housing that had replaced two other blocks that had been pulled down five years ago, past the busy ribbon of Mare Street and across East London to the glittering Olympic Park beyond. He rested his elbows on the balcony and gazed down at their flat. His bedroom had a window that looked out onto the walkway. He remembered laying in bed at night and listening as the older boys gathered outside, the lookouts that were posted to watch for the police or other boys. They would talk about money, about the things they would buy, about girls. They talked for hours until the sweet smell of weed wafted in through the open window and filled the room. Elijah’s mother would occasionally hustle outside, shooing them away, but they always came back and, over time, she gave up.