Free White Riot by Martyn Waites

had happened was awful, a nightmare, and going on with life was difficult, but why couldn’t her dad be content with her? Just her?
    He was, he wanted to tell her. He still loved her and her mother with all his heart. And he wanted them all to be together. The four of them. A full family. A proper family. So he kept looking.
    And Annie and Abigail had never been able to accept that. But that was OK. Because he wasn’t sure he could accept it himself.
    She walked down the path to the gate. Tall and confident. He gave a choked-sob smile, pride and guilt inextricably linked.
    He had the car door open, heart in mouth, legs shaking and ready to get out, when another figure appeared. A man, late thirties. Casually dressed with short hair, glasses and designer stubble. Michael, he presumed. Annie’s new partner. Donovan closed the car door, sat back.
    Michael pointed his keys at the Fiat Multipla in front of the house. It responded, unlocking to allow Abigail in. Michael walked to the driver’s side, said something toAbigail that made her laugh, got in too. The front door closed. Annie was double locking it. She put her keys in her bag and walked towards the car, flicking her dark hair out of her eyes. Just like she used to do.
    Donovan felt a knife stab his heart. He wanted to rush out, grab hold of Annie, tell her he was here, tell her who he’d found.
    The knife twisted. His hand was on the door handle, ready to fling it open, run into the street, jump in front of that stupid fucking car …
    And twisted, thrust in deeper. Tell Abigail he loved her, she didn’t have to hate him any more, he’d found him, they were a family, a real family …
    The Multipla drove past him. None of them even glanced in his direction.
    Thoughts of Annie and hope disappeared like a half-remembered dream exposed to daylight. His face was wet. He didn’t know he had been crying. He felt a weight on his chest, like hands shoving him.
    Backwards.
    He sat in the street, head on his steering wheel, openly sobbing, hands held as fists to his forehead. His tears eventually dried up. But not their cause. He waited until his hands had stopped shaking. Drove away.
    Stuck a CD into the player, the first one that came to hand – Richmond Fontaine:
Post to Wire
– to drown out the noise in his head. Listened to Willy Vlautin tell him that not everyone lived their life alone, not everyone gave up.
    But knew from the sadness in his voice and the funereal tune that he didn’t mean it.

6
    Rick Oaten walked through the hospital like a Hollywood star on a red-carpet premiere. Waving hello to this one, blowing kisses at that one, smilingly ignoring another one who spat angry words at him. Basking in the fame of being the NUP leader. Two slabs of awkwardly suited, shaven-headed muscle lumbering in his wake just added to the effect. Medium height, balding and getting jowly and paunchy, in his mind he was a six-foot-plus well-thatched Adonis. He stopped outside a closed door, greeted two young men who were waiting there, one with a notebook, one a camera.
    ‘Now here, Mr Coulson,’ he said to the one carrying the notebook, ‘you will see the reality of the situation without the spin of political correctness. What we’re really up against.’
    Coulson the reporter nodded, stifled a yawn. Tried not to let his distaste of Oaten show. Too much.
    ‘And you, Mr McKean, can get some excellent pictures to show to your readers. Bring the horror into the homes.’
    McKean ignored him, pretended to be fiddling with his aperture.
    Oaten flicked his thinning floppy fringe back from his forehead, hoping it covered his bald spot, turned and opened the door with a flourish. Kev Bright lay in the bed, propped up on pillows, drip attached to his arm, pyjamas covering his torso, eyes open, watching. A heavy-set woman in her mid-thirties was sitting in an armchair reading
Take a Break
. Hearing the door, she threw the magazine aside, jumped upand almost ran to the bedside, where