Read Online Payback by Graham Lancaster - Free Book Online Page B

good.’
    Bolitho turned his back as he approached, drawing his knife. Banto watched impassively, knowing exactly what was going to happen. It did not occur to him to warn Chancey. This was a battle between two tribes. Neither of them his own, and so none of his business. Not yet...
    Bolitho was swift and clinical, despatching Chancey silently in front of Banto, severing the windpipe to prevent any screams. Satisfied with his work, Bolitho looked down again at Banto. ‘You people are just like the Vietcong gooks to me,’ he spat, as if in some perverse attempt at justification.
    But he saw that Banto was already back on his haunches, rocking himself in his trance. Banto was somewhere else. His own battle with the big man was not yet. For the moment he was safe. This he knew. But that battle would certainly come. It must. He would have Payback. Soon the big man would have to face a real warrior. Then Payback.

 
    Chapter Four
     
    This time the Animal Freedom Miltant Warriors met at a dingy bed-sit in Clerkenwell. Lydia had never been there before and had some difficulty finding the place. Having been buzzed in on the entryphone, she climbed the poorly lit staircase to the third floor of the pre-war conversion. The once elegant Georgian townhouse had long since been broken up into as many flats as some greedy absentee landlord could create. The hall had been cluttered with bikes and prams, and reeked of a cocktail of garlic, cabbage and the unwashed. Now as she ran up, holding her breath against the stink, she imagined cockroaches being crushed under the rush matting with her every step. Outside each paint-chipped door were bags of festering rubbish. Some even had unwashed tall milk bottles waiting to be collected by a milkman who had stopped calling a decade earlier.
    As she passed one flat, the door opened at the sound of her footfall, and she glimpsed the frightened eyes of a black man. Frightened of what? she wondered. The immigration authorities? DHSS inspectors? This certainly had the air of a place steeped in social security fraud. Or in milking local authority accommodation payments for asylum-seekers and homeless families. A used condom lying on a stair in front of her pointed to yet more murky possibilities.
    At last she reached flat six, knocked, and was let in by Sam Thrower. ‘I see we’ve dressed down for tonight,’ he sneered at her, nodding to her denims. ‘Wise move.’
    Lydia did not rise to the bait. She pushed past him, nodded to the rest of the group, and sat at the kitchen table. A woman offered her a can of beer, but she refused. ‘Am I late, or were you all early?’ she asked, immediately suspicious that Thrower had been holding a pre-meeting without her. There were several empty cans on the table, and a full ashtray.
    ‘ We started half an hour ago,’ Thrower said, unabashed. ‘Some of us were still worried about your commitment on this one. Seeing as how it’s your father’s place and all.’
    Lydia could feel her short temper rising as she looked accusingly at the four others. All avoided eye contact, except Thrower. ‘And?’ she demanded.
    ‘ And...we trust you. We really do. On a majority vote...But then you know how democratic we are.’ He made it clear that he was the dissenter.
    ‘ Look, I don’t need all this!’ she exploded. ‘If you want to go ahead without me, that’s just fine with me.’
    The others squirmed in embarrassment, all social non-confrontationists. All except Thrower. ‘Don’t get your Victoria’s Secrets in a twist, your ladyship. Like I said, we trust you. In fact, we’ve even decided to show it, by letting you actually plant the bomb. Your very own torching,’ he sneered. ‘Think of it as a coming-out ball. You’ve posed around holding my coat often enough. Now it’s your turn. Time to cross the line.’ He watched, goading her into bottling out in front of the others. ‘If we get caught, you’ll make real nice jail bait for all the sisters in