Broken Windows by Janet Pywell

Author:Janet Pywell [Pywell, Janet]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Kingsdown Publishing
Published: 2020-06-29T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 10

“There are crimes that, like frost on flowers, in one single night destroy character and reputation.”

Henry Ward Beecher

Outside, I gasp in lungfuls of air. I’m wired, and my body is tense. We jog away from the lock-up, my shoulders hunched against the continuous rain and my hair soaking wet. I’m breathing heavily, and I’m shaking. We slow our pace, and I dig my hands into my pockets. I’m shivering.

‘Was that what you wanted?’ Adam asks.

His wet hair is plastered to his forehead, and his pale eyes look eerily translucent. ‘Can you use it in your documentary?’

‘Maybe.’

We walk in silence until we get back to the familiarity of Regent’s Canal and my breathing returns to normal.

‘Do you want a drink?’ I ask him.

‘No.’

‘Aren’t you cold?’

‘No.’

‘Aren’t you afraid, Adam?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’m not in their gang.’

‘How come?’

‘I’m protected.’

‘Why?’

Adam doesn’t answer, and we walk in silence.

‘How are you protected, Adam?’ I insist.

He stops outside the tube station. ‘This is as far as I go,’ he says.

‘Why did you take me to meet Badger?’

‘It’s for your film.’

‘What about Ali? Why wasn’t he protected?’

‘Take the tube,’ Adam says. ‘Go home.’

‘Why won’t you speak to me?’

‘I don’t know anything.’

‘I think you do.’

He shakes his head and won’t look at me.

‘Are you filming tomorrow?’

‘Yes.’

Without another word, he turns on his heel and walks away, disappearing into a flood of people carrying Christmas packages and heading home in the rush hour.

* * *

Peter is furious. He stomps around Josephine’s penthouse, his prosthetic foot clanking on the wooden floorboards.

‘What on earth possessed you to do such a stupid thing?’

‘It wasn’t stupid—’

‘Do you know how dangerous these people are?’

‘It was Adam who—’

‘I don’t care who it was, Mikky! You’re making waves in the community, and we’re not supposed to be doing that.’

‘I’m not making—’

‘You are! Matt told me that you’ve been speaking to the Parks about the dagger tattoo. All it will take is for one of them to report back to their boss, or gangland head honcho, or the Asian, and you’ll be dead!’

‘I won’t be dead—’

‘Mikky!’ Peter stops and stands in front of me. ‘You’re delusional. Joachin asked us to go to Morocco and investigate the dagger, that’s all. Punto! Nada mas!’ he emphasises in Spanish. ‘We have no jurisdiction over here.’

‘But what about you—’

‘I’m helping on the film set as we originally agreed. We were making a documentary about the Parks and how parkour has turned their lives around, and I’m trying to keep our cover authentic, and you were supposed to be researching the dagger, but now I find that you’re running off and you’ve disappeared with—’

‘I don’t want to be on set – I don’t like heights.’

‘That’s not the point, and you know it!’ Peter pulls out a dining chair and sits opposite me, our knees almost touching. He takes a deep breath and says in a quieter voice, ‘We are not here to bust this cult, or this drugs gang or whatever they are. That’s a matter for the Metropolitan Police, Mikky. All we have to do is to find out about the dagger, and we’ve done that.

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