LITMIR.BIZ

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10

      Nikki needed to unwind after the emotionally charged business of telling the heavily pregnant Stevie Blake what had happened to her wife. She forced her shoulders to relax as she drove round the Listerhills Estate streets. This was something she often did before heading home for the evening. Keeping an eye on her patch as she drove had two benefits. One, she kept her finger on the pulse and two, she didn’t take as much of her work home with her as usual.

      Fliss! For God’s sake, Fliss? Who’d have thought jagged, cold Springer would be called Fliss? She frowned. Who’d have thought jagged, cold Springer would have a pregnant wife? Shit, Nikki had suspected she ate children for breakfast but that whole scenario was turned on its head. Now that she’d met Springer’s pregnant partner and liked her, it was even more imperative to get Springer home. She was invested in this now.

      Her headlights picked up figures scurrying into the darkness of the ginnels. That was something else to worry about. Franco and Deano, the dealers she’d got rid of last year, may be gone, but there was always another rat ready to pop up from the sewers … no wonder she hated the vermin so much. Deliberately, she turned off the side street and into the cobbled back alley that separated two lines of terraces, and trawled down it in second gear. It was three streets over from her own home yet this was always one she kept an eye on. It backed onto one edge of the Rec and was prime land for drug deals, besides, there had been a worrying increase in machete attacks nearby in the last two weeks. Where there were machete attacks, Nikki’s experience told her there were also Class As, other weapons and gullible kids to get caught up in the bravado and cheap sell of a Lamborghini, a snazzy wristwatch and posh mobile. She’d spoken to the drug squad before and although they were keeping an eye open and supposedly receiving intel about the new kingpin, nothing seemed to be confirmed. Well, nothing her contact, Joe Drummond, was willing to share. In the meantime, there was an air of expectancy, like a toxic cloud hovering over her estate and Nikki wasn’t going to stand for that. She reached the bottom of the ginnel, hoping her exhaust wouldn’t fall off – she’d no spare cash to replace that, not if she was going to replace the battery – and waited, looking to her right and left.

      A figure dodged out from a back yard further down, didn’t even look in Nikki’s direction and loped off down the ginnel, dodging the puddles, shoulders hunched and hood up. As he dipped under one of the few still-working streetlamps she cursed. ‘Fuck’s sake Haqib. Do you never learn?’ and she was out of her car, leaving the engine running and her door open as she darted after him. ‘Haqib?’

      He hesitated, seemed to consider whether to speed up or turn and face the music. Thankfully, for him, the latter instinct won.

      ‘Whassup, Aunt Nikki?’ He splayed his hands in front of him, sulky mouth drooping, attitude in the way he hunched his shoulders.

      ‘What you doing out at this time? It’s after ten and you, I believe, are still grounded after Fingergate.’ She was well aware that she was being harsh. The lad’s finger had been amputated and reattached nearly a year ago. Sometimes though, it paid to remind him of what his last brush with drugs had resulted in.

      Haqib winced and flexed his little finger. ‘That’s a bit tight, innit? That were last year. I’ve not been grounded for months now.’

      Hands on hips, Nikki inhaled slowly. ‘I’ll tell you what’s tight, Haqib Parekh. Skipping out of the house behind your mum’s back – that’s what’s tight. Breaking your word – that’s tight too, hanging out here—’

      ‘Yeah, yeah, I get it. That’s tight too.’ Haqib mimicked his auntie’s tone.

      Nikki reached over and gently cuffed the back of his head, ‘No, that’s not bloody tight … that’s stupid. S.T.U.P.I.D. Stupid – got it?’

      ‘I ain’t doing drugs, you know. I’m not that mental.’

      Nikki raised an eyebrow, not caring how harsh she was being. Haqib worried her. A young Asian lad trying to be cocky, trying to be a big man, was a worry for her. Her sister Anika, Haqib’s mum, seemed content to leave it up to Nikki to sort her son out. Not that she had a reliable good male role model to offer Haqib. But that was another story. She studied the bloom of red that spread across his cheeks. That was guilt all right, but not the sort of blasé, fast-talking guilt she was used to from her nephew. ‘So, spill!’

      A voice from behind her had Nikki spinning on her heel.

      ‘It’s me he came to see, Mrs Parekh.’

      The girl was tall – taller than Haqib, skinnier than was healthy, blonde with blue eyes and a dimple in the middle of her chin. At present her eyes looked worried as she darted glances towards Haqib and each hand worried at the sleeve of her jacket. The girl looked familiar, but it took a minute for Nikki to place her and when she did, she groaned inwardly. Fuck’s sake Haqib, if it’s not drugs, it’s inappropriate relationships. ‘You’re Glass’s sister, aren’t you?’

      The girl nodded. ‘Michelle – Chelle-to-my-mates.’

      The words ran together and for a second Parekh thought she was telling her she had a different surname to her brother. Chelle-to-her-mates indeed. Who did she think she was – bloody royalty?

      ‘Haq isn’t doing drugs. He knows it’s for idiots, don’t you, Haq?’

      Haqib, mouth hanging open, looking exactly like an idiot himself at that precise moment, nodded. Lovestruck, that’s what he is. But did he have to be lovestruck over Adam Glass’s sister? Of all the girls on the estate, her nuisance of a nephew had to go for the one most likely to have him losing another digit – if not something worse.

      ‘So …’ Nikki chewed her lip, trying to come up with something auntie-ish to say, but could only manage, ‘You’re both bloody stupid. Do you really think your white-supremacist brother, office holder in Albion First, Yorkshire’s answer to the EDL, is going to sit back and let you date an Asian boy … a Muslim boy?’

      Michelle’s eyes darted to the ground and then almost immediately straight back up again. She met Nikki’s gaze. ‘We love each other, me and Haq. We’re like Romeo and Juliet, aren’t we, Haq?’ Her face flushed, her lips turned up, her eyes full of love as she looked at her boyfriend.

      Looking a little embarrassed, Haqib managed a mumbled, ‘It’s not like I’m proper Muslim anyway, is it? Dun’t go to mosque or owt.’

      Nikki somehow managed to swallow her snort of laughter, but one look at Haqib’s hurt expression told her that her face had given her away. The lad was right, he wasn’t Muslim, apart from when Anika decided to try to impress her married lover and Haqib’s dad. ‘Look, I’m sorry. Really, I am. I can remember being your age and thinking I was in—’

      ‘Told you she wouldn’t understand and if she dun’t understand, Chelle, then my mum won’t stand for it either. We’re doomed.’ Haqib looked ferocious, his eyes flashing, and Nikki sighed. There was no need for her to be such an arse. No need at all. Especially when she should be pleased that Haqib wasn’t involved with the druggies. Still, going out with Adam Glass’s sister wasn’t a whole lot safer for him. Glass was an upstart thug … but he was an upstart thug with friends – organized friends!

      Aw, for goodness’ sake. Nikki was beginning to wish she’d gone straight home and not done her usual trawl of the area. She hated this sort of crap. Marcus, on the other hand, was good at this. Maybe she could get him to have a word with Listerhills’ answer to Titanic. She scowled, wishing she’d opted for a simile that didn’t involve the male lead losing his life. Mind you, Michelle’s analogy to Romeo and Juliet was no more promising.

      Using every reserve of patience she had, and channelling a little of her memory of the feelings she’d once had for her deceased husband, Nikki smiled. When the girl took a step closer to Haqib and grabbed his arm, angling herself slightly behind him, Nikki realized her ‘smile’ was less reassuring than she’d hoped. ‘Look. I can’t be all warm and fuzzy about this. Your brother is a racist

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