Traffic was light and I reached Canterbury Close in fifteen minutes. It was drizzling, the soft, steady veil of damp that Manchester does so well, creating balls of diffuse orange light around the street lamps.
I could see a huddle of people outside the Ibrahims’. There was a van parked outside Mr Poole’s house so I drove on and found a space further down the Close. The fine rain made it hard to see clearly what was going. I fiddled with my rear-view mirror and pretended to mess with my hair. Though there’s not a lot to do with a plain grey wig. I could see the Brennan twins and Micky Whittaker, no sign of the two adults or Darren. A fourth boy was bouncing a football from one knee to the other.
I got out of the car and locked up. I felt the attention swivel my way and a silence stretched the seconds. My shoulders tensed up and my stomach contracted. The football slammed against the far side of my car.
“Hey,” I shouted, “pack it in.”
Someone echoed me in a falsetto voice. There were jeers from the group. It would be unwise to antagonise them further. I needed to get inside, set the camera up, do my job. I walked quickly towards Mr Poole’s. One of the twins intercepted me at the gate.
“Where you think you’re going?” He dripped insolence.
I moved to side-step him and he shadowed me. I was close enough to see the fuzzy hair on his upper lip, the cold sore at one corner of this mouth, to smell the cooking fat on his clothes. I avoided eye contact: common sense, don’t challenge him.
“Those glasses are well sad, you look like Elton John, anybody ever tell you that?”
“Let me past,” I said, “or I’ll report you to the police.”
“Yeah,” he raised an eyebrow, “got a mobile phone in there have you?” He made a grab for the sports bag. I swung it backwards out of his reach.
Mr Poole’s door swung open and light spilt across the path. “What’s going on?” he barked. There were two women close behind him in the doorway.
“Aw, fuck off, grandad,” yelled the boy who I’d not seen before.
“Clear off,” shouted Mr Poole, “go on, clear off. We’re sick of the lot of you.”
“You should be ashamed of yourselves,” one of the women spoke up.
Catcalls and clapping. The twin inched out of my way. Mickey Whittaker gave us two fingers.
I hurried into the house. Mr Poole shut the door. There was a hard thump from outside. It made me start.
“Football,” said Mr Poole, “they’ve been kicking it over the road against the door for the last ten minutes.” He closed his eyes momentarily, shook his head. “Are you alright?”
