Edgy:

I’m thinking about giving Louise a ring, wondering if she’ll be back from the hospital, feeling bad about Little Bobby and yesterday, coming back to Janice and getting fucking stiff, and then it all comes down.

HARD:

Glass smashing, brakes slamming, a red car careering down the road, zig-zagging, its windscreen gone, hitting one kerb, flipping over at the foot of a lamppost.

‘Christ,’ shouts Ellis. ‘That’s Vice.’

We’re both out of the car, running across Spencer Place to the upturned motor.

I look up the street:

There’s a bonfire on a piece of wasteland at the top of the road illuminating a small gang of West Indians, black shadows dancing and whooping, thinking about finishing off what they’ve just started, sticking the boot in.

I stare into the black night, the barricades and bonfires, the high flames all loaded with pain:

A proud coon steps forward, all dreadlocks and Mau Mau attitude:

Come and have a go.

But I can already hear the sirens, the SPG, the Specials and Reserves, our sponsored fucking monsters let loose on the wind, and I turn back to the red car.

Ellis is bending down, talking to the two men upside-down inside.

‘They’re all right,’ he shouts to me.

‘Call an ambulance,’ I say. ‘I’ll stay with them until cavalry get here.’

‘Fucking niggers,’ says Ellis, running back to our car.

I get down on all fours and peer into the car.

It’s dark and at first I don’t recognise the men inside.

I say something like, ‘Don’t try and move. We’ll have you out in a minute.’

They nod and mumble.

I can hear more cars and brakes.

‘Fraser,’ moans one of the men.

I peer in and over at the man trapped in the passenger seat.