Why face danger when you could chug along, causing no ripples on the surface of life? But this wasn’t a ripple, it was a fucking tsunami. His life was about to change, and it was up to him to decide if it was to be for the better. He looked at himself in the mirror above the electric fire in his poky living room.

He knew exactly what he would do with the contents of the bag.

Chapter 22

Tyrone Fenton relaxed on a dirty sofa, contemplating his next deal. As he listened to Lil Shane, one of the many drill-rap artists from Chicago that filled the bedrooms and lounges of ninety per cent of the flats on the estate, he repeated the lyrics without thinking about them. Analysis wasn’t necessary: the songs spoke of sex, violence, knives and drugs. The usual. His lips mumbled the complicated rap lyrics, learned verbatim from hours of exposure. Lil Shane was a current favourite because he’d been arrested in the USA for drugs and murder charges. A rival had had his head blown off and Lil Shane had been at the scene. The content of his music gained the attention of the state troopers straight away, but fans knew that it was just an excuse to put another brother behind bars for fucking the system. Riots had erupted on the streets of several US cities and the President had made an unprecedented speech about closing in on the violent subculture threatening to ruin respectable society.

It was a revolution. Fuck the state.

Tyrone’s body moved with the beat, and he banged the sofa, getting up to pace up and down when he grew impatient with stillness. He wore his hood up, even indoors, as if someone might spot him through the walls. The room was thick with sweet smoke and he was hungry. He went to the kitchen to see if he could find something to eat, but the TV caught his attention when he heard Keira’s name.

He wiped his nose on the sleeve of his black sweater. Cocaine crystals sat inside his nostrils and he ran his finger round them and rubbed the residue on his gums. He’d been tidy. He’d done his job and taken the weapon and the clothes to a safe place until the heat died down and they could be disposed of. He still daren’t go out around the estate, though; he knew the cops were looking for him. Of course they were: he’d been fucking Keira not an hour before she died. It looked bad, and he had no way out.