White Riot Read Online Free PDF Page B

speak. He moved his lips as if auditioning the correct words before speaking them. ‘I’ve been getting … phone calls.’
    ‘What kind?’
    ‘The … disturbing kind. The threatening kind.’
    ‘Threatening?’
    ‘Yeah. Well, not in so many words. More … insistent. Veiled threats.’
    ‘Saying what?’
    ‘Saying … enough to worry me. This person knows about me. My background. Knows I’m coming back up here. Wants to make it difficult for me.’
    ‘In what way?
    ‘’Just … difficult.’
    ‘So why are you back up here?’
    ‘The book. I’m promoting it. A few local media interviews, TV and radio, a signing, that sort of thing.’
    ‘And then what? Back home? To London?’
    ‘No, I’m … I took a sabbatical. Staying up here. For a while.’
    Peta leaned forward. ‘Any reason?’ She looked to the kitchen window, where her mother was pretending to do something at the sink. ‘Family? Friends?’
    Whitman shrugged. That irritating smile began to creep across his features again. ‘Not much family left. Friends?’ He followed Peta’s gaze. ‘Maybe. But really I’m just taking in the local colour. Seeing the old town. Logging the changes. That kind of thing. Might write another book about it.’
    He glanced quickly at her, then away, as if his eyes were holding something he didn’t want her to see. She didn’t believe his words but didn’t press him. It had nothing to do with work.
    ‘Right.’
    ‘And judging by the headlines and the TV, I picked possibly the worst time to come back to Newcastle. What with that Asian kid. And the Fascists on the march again. And that Muslim guy trying to make a name for himself.’
    Peta nodded. ‘Not the most stable of times.’
    They both knew the story. A twenty-year-old Muslim college student had been found dead in the street after being set ablaze. Peta could still clearly recall his grief-stricken mother at a televised press conference weeping openly, having a breakdown in front of millions. The National Unity Party, a BNP offshoot, had been blamed but, with local elections in which they were expected to make significant gains upcoming, were strenuously denying it. As a result, Muslim communities, egged on by Abdul-Haq, a local leading radical, were arming themselves, patrolling the streets at night. The city was on a knife edge. Tension was high. And, Peta thought, fanning her neck and chest, the weather wasn’t helping any.
    ‘And the heat,’ Whitman said. ‘Wasn’t like this back in the day.’
    Peta suppressed a smile at the phrase.
    ‘Yes,’ she said. ‘We’re always going on about southerners, how they get the slightest bit of snow and barricade themselves into their houses for a week. We’re the opposite. A bit of heat and we revert to angry cavemen.’
    He smiled. ‘And cavewomen. Let’s be politically correct.’
    ‘OK,’ she said, back to business. ‘This caller. Any ideas. Do you know who this person is?’
    ‘Obviously not. If I did I would be able to do something about them.’
    ‘All right, then. Do you suspect who this person might be?’
    Whitman sighed. ‘I don’t know.’ He took another mouthful of his drink. Refilled from the bottle. Peta noticed the wine was nearly all gone. ‘I used to get calls a few years ago.’
    ‘And it’s the same kind of messages?’
    He nodded.
    ‘So why didn’t you go to the police about them the first time round?’
    Whitman snorted out a laugh, drank down a third of his drink, looked away. ‘A firebomb ripped apart a pub in the centre of Newcastle. A pub frequented by off-duty policemen and women. Over thirty years ago.’
    ‘I read about it. Fifteen people injured, one dead.’
    ‘Then you’ll know we were held responsible for it.’
    ‘And were you?’
    Whitman sighed. ‘We were blamed for it.’
    ‘Did you do it?’
    Whitman took another drink.
    Peta waited.
    ‘The Hollow Men were blamed,’ he said, stressing theword, ‘but the Hollow Men didn’t do it. At least, not as