The Common Enemy. Paul Gitsham

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СКАЧАТЬ Officer spoke up.

      ‘I’ll get it, Mary.’

      As the officer busied himself in the kitchen, Warren mentally changed tack. He’d been anticipating a hostile reception from Mrs Meegan – a woman who it was reported had experienced more than her fair share of run-ins with the police, albeit indirectly through her late husband and wayward sons. An offer of a sit down and a cup of tea was the last thing he’d expected.

      ‘You know, they aren’t bad boys. Not really.’ The old woman’s voice was gravelly and slightly wistful, but it had lost its dreamy quality. Warren detected no slurring and he suspected that whilst Mary Meegan may have had a glass of whisky to settle her nerves, most of the bottle had been consumed by her visitors.

      She indicated towards a picture on the wall. ‘It was him that made them the way they are.’ The photograph of Ray Meegan enjoyed a prominent place above the three-bar electric fire. On the mantelpiece, flanked by yet more porcelain statuettes, a colour wedding photograph showed far younger versions of the man in the portrait and somebody immediately recognisable as Mary Meegan. Whilst Ray Meegan was never what you would call handsome, something that his lank moustache and purple velvet suit hardly helped, Mary Meegan had been a real head-turner back then. Even her thick-rimmed NHS glasses could do little to hide her pretty features; in the same way that the large bouquet of flowers barely concealed her large bump. A shotgun wedding, it would seem.

      ‘I knew he liked a drink with the boys when he went to the football on a Saturday, but it wasn’t until he was arrested that I realised the truth, silly bastard.’ She shook her head. ‘The first time, it was for knocking a policeman’s helmet off. He thought it was all a bit of a laugh. A night in the cells and that was it.’

      She sighed. ‘Or so I thought. The next time he got arrested, it was more serious. He glassed someone in the pub. He claimed it was self-defence. He and his mates were celebrating a win when the losers attacked them.’

      Now her expression turned to derision. ‘I took his word, if you can believe that?

      ‘I went to court expecting him to get off, but the prosecution produced a dozen witnesses, some of them supporting his own team, who claimed that Ray and his mates started the fight. That they’d spotted the two lads on their own and started calling them names. One of the lads was Asian and he reckoned Ray called him a “Paki” and told him to go home. Nobody else heard that, so the magistrate dropped the racially aggravated bit, but he still got six weeks for assault.’

      Warren had only skimmed the file on Ray Meegan, since he was more interested in his son, but his gut told him that Mary Meegan had things to say worth listening to.

      ‘When he came out, he claimed he was done with the football and the violence, but it didn’t last. He used to be a taxi driver, but the council were tightening the rules and didn’t think he was suitable. He drove minicabs for a while, but there were too many foreigners prepared to work for peanuts and he couldn’t earn enough to put food on the table.’

      Warren could see where the story was going now.

      ‘I guess it colours your view of folks when you think they’re out there taking your job. It certainly did for my Ray.’

      She sniffed. ‘By the time the boys were at secondary school a load of immigrants had turned up to work on the building sites. My Ray kept on applying – he was a big bloke and not scared of a hard day’s work – but they turned him down. Reckoned he was too expensive. The Asians would do it cheaper.’

      She sniffed again. ‘At least that’s what he said. I reckon it was because he had a criminal record. Besides, these young lads were half his age and twice as fit. Still, he blamed it all on the Indians or the Pakistanis. He used to talk about it all the time at the dinner table. I told him not to use the P word in front of the boys, but he ignored me.

      ‘And then he started taking the boys to the football. I didn’t want him to, but he promised me he’d keep away from any trouble and said that he wouldn’t be a real dad if he didn’t take the boys to the footie. For some of his mates Saturday at the match followed by the chippie was the only time they spent with their kids. I was just glad that we weren’t like that.’

      She paused again, taking a mouthful of her tea, grimacing at the cold temperature.

      ‘Let me get you a top-up, Mrs Meegan,’ interjected Hastings.

      She smiled at him and handed him her teacup, which he carried back to the kitchen.

      ‘Do you think their father’s employment situation helped form the boys’ political views?’ Warren asked carefully.

      Mary Meegan laughed throatily. ‘By “forming their political views”, do you mean “is that why they are nasty racists?”’ She answered her own question. ‘’Course it is. I believed Ray when he said he was keeping the boys away from any trouble at the football, but you tell me where the hell a nine-year-old learns to throw a banana at the TV when a black player comes on the pitch? I threatened to tan Tommy’s backside if he ever used that language again, but Ray laughed and said it was just a bit of fun.’

      Mary Meegan slumped into her seat, as if the wind had been let out of her, and for the first time Warren saw the pain in her eyes.

      ‘Mrs Meegan, do you have any idea who might have attacked your son?’

      Warren wasn’t expecting any great insights, but Mary Meegan was a lot more clued-in than she might at first seem.

      ‘It’s like Jimmy said – take your pick. They think I’m a fool, that I don’t know what they get up to. Until today they’d never really made the news and I don’t think they had any idea how much I know about them.’ She smiled sadly. ‘I don’t exactly bring it up over Sunday lunch – not that I ever see them for Sunday lunch these days.’ The smile disappeared and her bottom lip trembled. ‘I just want my boys with me. The way it used to be.’

      She cleared her throat loudly and fished a handkerchief from out of her sleeve. Warren picked up his own teacup and joined Hastings and the Family Liaison Officer in the kitchenette. Mary Meegan was a proud woman and would want a few moments to compose herself. By the time they returned a minute later, it was as if nothing had happened. She took the fresh cup of tea from Hastings with a grateful smile.

      She pointed at the laptop on the dining table.

      ‘They think I just use that for online shopping. It was an old one that Tommy gave me. But there’s a silver surfer club at the library. One of the boys that helps out upgraded it. Now I can use it for looking at Facebook and surfing the web.’ Her face darkened. ‘I’m not an idiot. I know exactly what they’re involved in. I even follow them on Twitter. I see what people post on there. The language they use… the threats…’ Again, her bottom lip trembled. ‘They used to try and hide it from me – still scared of their old mum,’ she barked. ‘But by the time they’d both been to prison it was obvious. They started showing off their tattoos, horrible things.’ She shuddered. ‘It’s as if they want to be unemployed. They’re supposed to be painters and decorators, but who’d let someone looking like that into their house?’

      ‘So they aren’t working?’

      ‘Not really. Tommy moved down to Romford about five years ago, the last time he was released. He said it was to set up as a decorator – he completed a City and Guilds in prison – as a mate had some work on. But I’m not daft. That part of Essex is full of right-wingers. Jimmy joined him three years ago when he got out and СКАЧАТЬ