Gerald Seymour - Rat Run

In front of Dawn the crowd parted. Few of the residents who lived in the flats overlooking the plaza dared to look direct into the faces of the two youths who were escorted by the ambulance crew and police officers through the opening that the residents made.

Dawn recognized Leroy Gates and Wilbur Sansom – everybody on that part of the Amersham knew them.

They sold; the vagrants bought. It went through her mind fast: because they sold and the vagrants bought, her best friend, the closest, was in hospital with an operation scheduled for that evening – the swelling would be down enough – to pin or plate a broken arm, and her face was a bright mass of bruises. The thought of Leroy Gates and Wilbur Sansom swinging upside down through half the night, and no help coming, was sufficient to bring a smile to Dawn's face, the first time she had allowed herself that little luxury since the call had come and she had rushed out – no night buses – to tramp all the way to the hospital by the river. She did what none of the others in the split crowd did: she fastened her eye on them. But they didn't meet her gaze: they shivered. If the ambulance crew had not held them up by the arms, they would have collapsed. She spat in front of them – had never done anything as crude in her life before. They came past her and she looked away from them and up towards the roof of block eleven. The third was being pulled up by firemen towards the angled edge of the flat roof. She heard what was said.

An ambulance girl spoke to her boss: 'First signs are, and it's extraordinary, there's not a mark on them.

They were traumatized when the fire guys lifted them up on to the roof, but we did quick checks on their bodies and we didn't find anything. They weren't beaten, nothing like that. They can't speak, in a state of terror. I've been here before, when there's been war between the High Fly Boys and the Rough Track Boys, and there's been blood. Not this time. I hope they've put them on plastic, because they've wet themselves and shat themselves – God, do they stink! My opinion, they should go to hospital for a check-over, maybe stay for a day's observation, but it's not medical help they need. They're in shock. I doubt anything in their charming little lives has been like this. Don't know how I'd be if I'd been hung out to dry like a bloody piece of washing – makes you think, doesn't it? – and wondering whether the rope would hold. Different, isn't it? Not that I'm complaining, but it's not what usually happens when these dysfunctional creatures scrap. Just different.'

The last group came through the crowd and headed for the cluster of vehicles. Dawn saw Danny Morris.

His face was pale grey and she could see where tears had streamed from his eyes and had run up by the bridge of his nose and over his forehead. He was carried. His Nike suit had been pure white but the crotch was stained and the fabric over his buttocks.

She rejoiced. The barricades on doors such as Millie had, the fear of old people about going out into the night, the need to clasp at a handbag and try to keep it safe from being snatched were because of the likes of Danny Morris. If it had been the day before, if she had seen him and the others walking on the pavement towards her, she would have backed away into a recess and hoped she wasn't noticed. She did not look into his eyes but, with purpose, stared at the groin stain, and hoped he would see. It was a pity if it was what the fireman had called 'blue on blue': it would have been better if those on the Amersham had set aside their fear and struck back… Not possible. If the Rough Track Boys had done this there was still cause to rejoice. Behind Danny Morris, a policewoman carried the plastic evidence bags: small ones contained wraps, the larger ones lengths of rope and cut sections of heavy masking tape. Dawn saw that Danny Morris, who was hardly capable of walking and whose arms were held, was handcuffed.

A policeman briefed his sergeant: 'It's bizarre and it leaves me confused. Doesn't seem right for us to put this down to the other gangs. Any sort of fight and there would be blood, mayhem, noise, chaos. None of that. Not a word, not a call. And not a sound…

Somehow somebody got them up on the roof having broken down the entry door up there, trussed them like bloody chickens, fastened the ropes to the TV aerial stanchion, lowered them over the edge and walked away. That's not the Rough Track Boys or the Young Walworth Boys. They haven't the wit for it. For them it would have been knives and, perhaps, a shooter, if there was that much aggravation between them. It's sort of vigilante stuff, but we've never had that all the time I've been on the Amersham. There aren't the sort of people here who're up for i t… I just don't understand. Looking on the bright side, and there's reason for that, they each had a wrap – and I guarantee it'll be a wrap of heroin – in their pocket. At the least we can do them for possession of a class-A drug. If the sun shines on us we can probably add

"intention to trade". They were so scared… That little rat Morris, he clung to my legs when we got him up and safe, like I was his guardian angel. It's made my day. Only one cloud. If the High Fly Boys are out of business, lost too much face, and there's a hole, then more scumbags'll be lining up to fill it. Still, someone did the business and did it well, if you know what I mean.'

The ambulances drove away, then the fire engines and the police numbers scaled down. As the crowd thinned, Dawn glanced down at her watch and started to run. She needed to be lucky and get a bus quick on the Walworth Road. As she puffed out of the estate, she thought of the excuses to be concocted for her supervisor, and what she would tell Millie later.

She would be at the hospital straight after work, be there when they took Millie down to theatre and be in the ward for when she came back from the operation.

She ran well, happy.

They should have gone at midnight, but the assault had been delayed till five in the morning. Then more delay.

It was now past eight and Polly saw Ludvik stride along the pavement towards her. He was grinning, hand lifted, thumb raised. About damn time too.

Behind him, at the end of the alley, the storm squad, backs flat against the wall, edged towards the outer door – big men, black overalls, helmeted, and enough fire power in their fists to start a war. The first postponement had been about the other occupants on the staircase leading to the top-floor apartment under the roof: should they be moved to safety, and how much noise would that make – how much warning would it give? There had been a debate, and at two in the morning, as she had shivered under her coat, a minister had come to add his opinion, and Justin Braithwaite – her station chief – had pitched up to add his pennyworth, but by five o'clock it had been agreed that the other occupants would be left to their beauty sleep. Then the second postponement: did they need a probe, audio or visual, drilled up from the floor underneath into the apartment, and how much noise would that make and how would they get into that apartment without waking the dead throughout the building? With his second pennyworth, Braithwaite had been succinct: 'For fuck's sake, just get on with it.'

Then there had been interference on the radio links between the storm squad and their control.

Braithwaite had gone back to his bed, a second minister had come and there was the question of what would happen to the building – historic, part of the city's heritage, dating back to the fifteenth-century rule of Wenceslas the Fourth – when the top-floor apartment was stormed. They had waited for more fire-tenders to reach Kostecna. Then other occupants had started to leave for work and had had to be grabbed and silenced at gunpoint – more arguments.