Riot Act Read Online Free PDF Page B

of a spurt of anger. “Fariman’s half dead in the hospital, and this kid is sitting at home watching TV?”
     
    O’Bryan looked wary. He pushed his glasses up to his forehead so that he could try and squeeze the stress out of the bridge of his nose with a finger and thumb. When he finished the glasses dropped back into place as though on elastic.
     
    “It’s not quite as simple as that,” he said, speaking quickly as though afraid I’d cut him off in mid-sentence. “We’ve found that keeping these wayward youngsters out of the justice system for as long as possible seems to stop them re-offending, and the feeling is that it might work in this case. Roger’s basically not a bad lad, but he’s had problems at home.”
     
    I rolled my eyes. What teenager didn’t?
     
    O’Bryan missed the gesture, too busy snapping open the briefcase on his knees and rifling through the contents. “It’s all here,” he said, tapping the manila folder he brought out. “He’s only fourteen. The youngest of three kids, two boys and a girl. Violent father who died in a drunken road accident. Older brother got involved with a pretty rough crowd before he left home. Sister’s one step up from prostitution, if the rumours are to be believed. She’s got a bit of form for shoplifting, and she’s just got herself knocked up, too.”
     
    “Where’s he from?”
     
    O’Bryan’s hesitation was only fractional, but there, all the same. “Copthorne,” he said.
     
    I nodded. It figured. Living in Lancaster for a few years, I thought I knew all about Copthorne. Living on Kirby Street for a few weeks, I’d found out a whole lot more. None of it good.
     
    The Copthorne estate had the undesirable local reputation of being an open remand centre. If O’Bryan wanted to take his Mercedes through that particular battle zone, he’d have to keep the wheels spinning to stop them undoing his wheelnuts as he went past.
     
    Copthorne and Lavender Gardens faced each other with sinister normality across a derelict piece of wasteland that had once been three more streets of houses. When they’d been built in the late fifties, there’d been a waiting list to move in. By the time the council engineers sent in the bulldozers, the rush to leave had become something of a stampede.
     
    It was an area long scheduled for redevelopment, but so far the only thing that had developed there among the crumbling brickwork were the weeds. They hadn’t even finished knocking the houses down properly, and half of them were still clinging on, boarded up and vandalised.
     
    “So,” O’Bryan said hopefully now, pushing his glasses up his nose with his forefinger. “Do you think you might be able to put a good word in for the lad, help him get off with just another caution.”
     
    I glanced at him sharply. “Another one?” I said. “Why, how many has he had already?”
     
    O’Bryan looked momentarily frustrated, though whether at himself or me, it was hard to tell. He checked the file again, stalling for time. “One or two,” he admitted. “Breach of the peace, vandalism, that sort of thing. Minor stuff, you know how it is.”
     
    No, I didn’t. “And how long did each of those keep him out of trouble for?”
     
    “Oh, well,” he cleared his throat and gave a sort of nervous laugh, “not long enough, I suppose. I see your point, but—”
     
    “No, Mr O’Bryan,” I cut across him, “to be quite honest with you, if the first caution didn’t stop him, he’s not going to be stopped, is he? Maybe he needs something like this to bring him up short.”
     
    Besides, I’d been on the receiving end of an official caution myself. A stern lecture of sorts delivered by a senior police officer, telling me in no uncertain terms why I couldn’t go around clouting WPCs just because I didn’t agree with them. True, I hadn’t hit a police officer since, but then, the need for doing so hadn’t really arisen.
     
    When O’Bryan didn’t answer, I