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&039;It?&039; I say &039;What&039;s &039;it&039; supposed to be?&039;

He points at the screen

&039;The trouble,&039; he answers, &039;the violence the people&039;

The statistics have gone and we&039;re left watching footage of a row of burning houses Desperate, screa held back by a police blockade All they can do is watch as their lives go up in fla,&039; he whispers secretively, &039;is people are panicking and overreacting to the slightest thing because of what they&039;re seeing and what they&039;re being told The whole situation has been allowed to get out of proportion People are seeing the death and the destruction on the television and it&039;sthem want to become a part of it too It&039;s like those bloody awful horror fils They put ideas in your head and they s They&039;re even giving these people a label now Calling thela it Almost makes it sound like a club you&039;d want to join, doesn&039;t it?&039;

He&039;s saying the sa just yesterday But I&039;ve already begun to accept that I rong, and when I look at the TV screen tonight I&039;ed the situation badly when I was ra is really beginning to scareabout small minorities but thousands, possibly even tens of thousands of people are involved in this violence Hundreds of lives are affected by every incident in so, old, male, female people from every section of society are involved This is farthings up

&039;I don&039;t want to join any club,&039; I tell him, &039;and no-one&039;s put any ideas in oing to go out and attack anyone than you or Lizzie are&039;

&039;I know that We&039;ve got h, haven&039;t we? We know the difference between right and wrong We knohat&039;s acceptable and what isn&039;t&039;

&039;Are you trying to say that everyone who&039;s been affected by this is just immature? Come on, Harry, do you really think&039;

&039;There are plenty of people out there who couldn&039;t give a datrouble, and putting it on the television like this has justit&039;s all right, that it&039;s acceptable&039;

&039;Bullshit! They&039;re not saying that at all&039;

&039;They&039;re i that because so ht as well join in&039;

&039;Bullshit!&039; I say again

&039;There&039;s no need to swear at ,&039; I try to explain &039;It&039;s got nothing to do with&039;

&039;And that&039;s just the kind of thing I&039; his voice and still not listening to any of what I&039;o you&039;d never have used that kind of language in everyday conversation Now every other word you hear is a curse Standards have slipped and that is what&039;s happening out there on the streets&039;

For a moment I can&039;t answer The old itated His face is flushed red with anger and a terrifying thought flashes intoto become like those people we&039;ve seen on TV? Is he about to attack et ins?

&039;No-one has any respect for anything or anyone else anyrace It&039;s been co for years Before you knoe&039;ll have total anarchy and you&039;ll see&039;

&039;I knohat you&039;re trying to say, Dad,&039; Lizzie interrupts, returning to the rooree Danny and I had this conversation last night, didn&039;t we? I&039;ve never seen anything like the things I&039;ve seen over the last few days I&039;ve seen plenty of trouble before, but never anything like this&039;

I relax Liz&039;s sudden arrival seeer in Harry&039;s face has gone

&039;What do you mean? What&039;s different?&039; he asks Liz stands in the doorway and thinks for a few seconds

&039;Out there tonight, after they&039;d beaten that man, you could almost taste it in the air&039;

&039;Taste what?&039; I wonder

&039;The fear,&039; she replies &039;People are scared People are already starting to expect trouble and they&039;re tensing up ready for it And when it happens they react, most of the time completely out of character fro any of this, Dad, but I do know there has to be a definite, physical reason for it People are bloody frightened and the situation&039;s getting worse by the day&039;

&039;Things will start to calm down&039; Harry starts to say instinctively Lizzie&039;s shaking her head

&039;No they won&039;t,&039; she says, her voice treroup of ht I don&039;t knohat he&039;d done, but it couldn&039;t have been any worse than the way they retaliated There was asfrom them as anyone else&039;

WEDNESDAY

vii

Daryl Evans sat at the back of the top floor of the bus as it wound its way through the streets towards the city centre He leant against theand looked down as he headed towards the council offices where he worked and yet another day of grind and grief He didn&039;t feel like working today Maybe he&039;d try and leave after a couple of hours, he thought Maybe he&039;d tell Tina, his supervisor, that he didn&039;t feel well and that he needed to go hoht now he didn&039;t think she&039;d try stopping him

Evans wasn&039;t particularly interested in the rest of the world He didn&039;t paythat happened outside his iood night last night and thatHe&039;d spent some time with a friend he hadn&039;t seen for a while They&039;d spent the evening drinking beer and eating junk food He still felt bloated and a little hung-over this h his alar for his watch He&039;d eventually found it under his bed but by then he was already late leaving for work He just kneas going to be one of those days where everything takes ht

Evans didn&039;t have any time for news and current affairs He didn&039;t knohy the streets were quiet thisas usual for a bus which was half-es felt different today, but he really couldn&039;t be bothered to try and work out why

There were seven other people on the top floor of the bus Five of therey and daether towards the front, laughing and joking with each other and ers coht at the back and watched the up with condensation He wiped theclean so that he could see how far he&039;d got left to travel His sudden ht the attention of a pencil-thin, wiry-hairedts of seats ahead who nervously turned round to see as happening behind hier and froze

Theany trouble - quickly turned back and faced the front of the bus again, praying that nothing was going to happen It was too late Evans, filled with a sudden uncontrollable fear and coer out of his chair He shoved him down into the aisle between the ts of seats and he landed with a heavy thuh to be heard by everyone on the lower floor He looked down at the ed between the seats on either side Evans raised his foot and sta the skin under his right eye Then he sta any resistance al theto crack beneath the force of his relentless attack

The driver looked up in herup fro down the steep staircase blocked her view She brought her bus to a sudden halt in the oto help, but not today Terrified and fearing for their own safety they ran as quickly as they could, spilling out onto the street and looking up at the occasional flashes of movement they could see from the bloody and violent attack which continued on the top floor

Two police officers who had been patrolling nearby were inside the bus before the last passengers had scrambled out They climbed the stairs at speed, batons raised and ready Daryl Evans threw hile well-aimed smash of a truncheon across the side of his head knocked hi just inches away from the lifeless feet of the body of the man he&039;d just beaten to death