Bizness turned to Elijah. “And my little soldier, how are you doing, younger?”

“I’m good,” Elijah said. He went over to Bizness and held up his closed fist.

Bizness looked around the room, his mouth open in an expression of delighted surprise. “Look at the little hoodrat,” he exclaimed. Elijah ducked his head and shrugged his shoulders. “He got some serious attitude, innit?” Bizness bumped fists with him. “So what happened to you the other night, soldier?”

“Sorry ‘bout that,” Elijah said. He angled his face a fraction, enough to turn his gaze onto Pops, and it was clear from his expression that he blamed him for not carrying out his instructions. “The fight — I lost my nerve. Won’t happen again.”

“That right? You still wanna get involved?”

“Yeah. For definite.”

“Because that problem ain’t gone away. We made our point but the little fassy ain’t listening. Put up another message for us last night. You see it?”

Elijah shrugged again. There was a open laptop resting on the table. Bizness stretched across and tabbed through the open windows to YouTube. The video he wanted had already been selected and he dragged the cursor across and set it to play. Pops had seen Wiley T’s uploads before and this met the usual pattern. The boy was rapping on the streets of Camden as a friend filmed him with a handheld camera. The bars he was dropping were all about Bizness and the brawl at the party. Bizness was right: Wiley was not backing down, and, if anything, the incident had made him even more brazen. It was an escalation, a direct and unambiguous dis. He questioned Bizness’s heritage, his legitimacy and the size of his manhood, all in artfully rhymed couplets. He ended by calling him out for a battle, doubting that the invitation would be taken up. Wiley was good, much better than Bizness, and it was that, Pops knew, rather than the content of his bars, that had upset him so badly.

Elijah watched the video, his face darkening. “He’s got some front,” he said when it came to an end, “don’t he?”

“Fucking right he got some front. Everyone knows I’d take him down if we battled, aight, so what’s the point? Nah, bruv. There ain’t nothing else for it — he’s got to get merked. Can I count on you, young ‘un? You ready to stand up?”

He turned to Pops again, his eyes blazing with purpose. “Yeah,” he said. “Man needs to get dooked, innit. Be my pleasure to do it for you.”

Bizness laughed harshly and, following their cue, the others in the room quickly followed suit. “Little man found his balls, eh? Good for you — good for you. You still got the piece?”

“In my bedroom.”

Bizness extracted himself from the sofa, stretching himself out to his full height. He took a joint from the boy next to him and inhaled deeply. He knelt down, taking Elijah by both shoulders, and breathed the smoke into his face. “We’ll make a rude boy out of you, JaJa. A good little soldier.”

34

John Milton sat in the threadbare armchair in the front room of the house, staring at the stains on the wall and thinking. He had left Blissett House soon after Elijah. Sharon had been upset at the confrontation and, apologising as she did so, told him that it was probably better if he left. She said that what had happened had been a good thing, and that she didn’t regret it, but that she had to put her child first. Milton understood. He had not planned for the night to develop as it had, and he had been surprised at his reaction. There was something about her that drew him in, her endearing combination of quiet dignity and vulnerability, perhaps. She was attractive but he wished he had shown more restraint. Elijah had been making progress and now he did not know how much damage had been done.

His mobile was on the table. It started to ring. Milton picked it up and checked the display. He did not recognise the number.

“Yes?” he said.

“Hello?” said the caller.

“Who’s this?”

“You the man? The man in the park?”

“Who’s this?”

“I met you a week ago. You were looking for Elijah.”

“Which one are you?”

“You gave me your number.”

Milton remembered the boy: older than the others, bigger, a strange mixture of tranquillity and threat in his expression. “I remember,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Call me Pops.”

“No — your real name.”

There was a pause as the boy weighed up whether he should say. “Aaron,” he said eventually.

“Alright, then, Aaron. I’m John. How can I help you?”

The boy’s voice was tight, tense. “You were looking out for JaJa, weren’t you? You wanted to help him.”

There was something in the boy’s tone that made him fearful. “What about him?”

“He’s in trouble. He’s in real trouble, man. Serious.” There was a pause. “Shit, I’m in trouble too. Both of us.”

“You better tell me about it. What’s the matter?”

“Just so I know, you ain’t a journalist, are you?”

“No.”

“And you ain’t no police, neither?”

“No.”

“What do you do, then, you so sure you can help?”

“I can’t tell you that. But all you need to know is that I have a particular set of skills, and that if you’re in trouble, then I can help you. Beyond that you’ll have to trust me.” There was a pause on the line and Milton noticed that he was holding his breath. “Are you still there?” he said.

“Yeah,” the boy said. “I’m here.”

“It sounds like we need to talk.”

“Yeah. Can we meet?”

“Of course.”

“Now? I’m in the park, next to the fountains. You around?”

“I can be.”

“I’ll be here for another thirty minutes, then.”

The boy ended the call without saying anything else.

Milton walked the short distance to Victoria Park and made his way to the fountain. It had been another stifling day, and the grass was parched and flattened in squares from where picnic blankets had been stretched across it. The night was darkening, the wide expanses gloomy between the amber cones from the occasional streetlamp. A jumbo jet slid across the gloaming, its lights winking red as it curled away to the west. The big estate buildings on the southern edges of the park hunched over the fringe of trees and railings, twenty storey blocks of concrete, depressingly stolid, oppressive. It was a changing of the guard: the last joggers, cyclists and dog walkers passed around the outer circle as groups of youngsters gathered on the benches beneath the streetlamps to smoke and joke with one another. Milton noticed all of them, a habitual caution so ingrained that he did not even realise it, but he paid them no heed. He followed the outer circle around from the pub and then took the diagonal path that cut straight to the memorial and the glassy squares of water that attended it. A homeless man sat at one of the benches, massaging the ears of the thin greyhound huddling next to him. There was no-one else. Milton walked slowly around the monument, making a show of examining it, before sitting at one of the empty benches to fuss with a lace that did not need tying. The water was still and flat and perfectly reflective, a rind of moon floating in the shallow depth. He set to waiting.

Twenty minutes passed before he looked up to see someone else turn off the outer path and head towards the monument. Despite the late heat, the figure was wearing a bomber jacket over the top of a hoodie, the hood pulled over the head like a cowl. Pristine white trainers almost shone in the gloom.

Milton got up from the bench and idled towards the monument. As the boy got closer he recognised the face beneath the hood. His skin was black and perfectly smooth, his eyes and teeth shining.

“Aight,” the boy said in a low monotone, angling his head in greeting.

“Hello, Aaron.”

“We can head towards the pond, over there. Ain’t no-one there this time of the day.”

They set off side-by-side. Milton studied the boy through the corner of his eye. He was large, not much shorter than Milton but heavier, and he walked with a roll to his step, his head and shoulders slouched forwards. He dressed like all the others: hooded jacket, low-slung jeans with the crotch somewhere between his knees, the brand new trainers, pieces of expensive jewellery. It was the uniform of the gang, topped off by the purple bandana knotted around his throat. He wore it all naturally. He was quiet and predisposed, his eyes on the path. They continued that way for a minute, Milton happy to wait until the boy was ready to speak.