The men bounced off one another rhythmically, as though in a synchronised dance. There were grunts and groans as fists and elbows were swung in different directions. The shorter of the two darker-skinned Black men, Tyrone, stumbled backwards. He cursed out loud and stepped back towards the others, hands raised in front of his face like a boxer in a ring. Emmett, the lighter-skinned Black boy, tugged his shirt to pull him back but Tyrone slapped him away. He glared at him and Emmett knew what this look meant: if he wasn’t willing to support his friends at a time like this, he wasn’t ‘a real one’.
Emmett took a deep breath and raised his own hands. He stepped back in. One of the two white men growled and clutched his calf. He wobbled back, stretched his leg out and combed the sweat on his forehead through his reddish hair, pausing for a brief second before returning to the commotion. A ray of light bounced off something metallic and then disappeared. The other white man, with darker hair, let out a loud, pained cry.
A knife dropped to the floor.
The other bodies dispersed like pigeons as the dark-haired white man fell to his knees with a thud. He clutched his chest. His hands slowly changed from peach to red as the blood seeped through his clothes and stained his skin. His knees held him for just a few seconds before he rocked back and collapsed onto the earth. Splashes of scarlet scattered across the green blades of grass before a river of deeper red oozed through and tinted it all.
Emmett looked back at the man on the ground and exhaled heavily. He scanned the park around him. The red-haired man was limping away. Tyrone and Jayden had already reached the entrance to the park and were calling out and beckoning him to follow. He could barely make out their faces, but could see their deep brown skin against their brightly coloured tracksuits. He imagined the desperation and fear on their faces before looking back at the man bleeding out on the grass.
Emmett stepped towards the man on the ground. He’d never seen so much blood and wasn’t sure what to do; he could see people walking towards him and heard a woman scream – perhaps the one with the baby. Instinctively, he tugged his jumper off and scrunched it into a ball, pushing it against the man’s body, against where the blood appeared to be leaking from, and applied pressure, as he had seen people do on television.
He leaned closer to the man and lifted his heavy head, cradling it in his left palm like a newborn baby. With his right hand he gripped the man’s shoulder and shook him firmly as if waking him from a deep sleep. The man’s expression had slipped away, and his jaw hung slightly ajar.
‘Come on, bro,’ he whispered. ‘I’ve got you. Come on.’ His voice was quivering but he continued to plead.
‘Stay awake, pl-pl-please, man.’ The words left Emmett’s lips but drifted away in the air.
He felt a tear trickle down his cheek and wiped it with the back of his hand. Something was warm and sticky – his hands were coated in blood.
People had swarmed around them. A couple were crying, others on their phones – some of them pointed at him. Emmett glanced back down and saw that his once white jumper was a saturated crimson.
A stocky woman in a bright fluorescent jacket asked him to stand to the side as she and her colleague approached the now limp body. Emmett froze, paralysed by the shock. Someone tugged on his shoulders and pulled him behind the crowd that was slowly being cleared. The face bent towards his and asked his name, a male voice. He answered. Slowly, emphasising the hard ‘T’ sound at the end.
The man paused and gripped Emmett’s shoulder more tightly.
‘Emmett, you do not have to say anything … ’
Emmett looked up at the person speaking, and slowly let his eyes scan down the body. Now he noticed the police uniform, the body-cam, all the way down to the hard, black boots. His gaze settled on his own stained fingers, which he rubbed desperately against his trouser leg.
‘But, it may harm your defence if you do not mention when questioned something which you later rely on in court. Anything you do say may be given in evidence.’
Rosa scrubbed her naked body with a discoloured pink loofah. She pulled it closer to her face and saw small hairs embedded in the netting but knew she didn’t have time to clean it. She discarded it on the shower shelf and rubbed the shower gel in her palms, spreading it methodically all over her body. Her wide-toothed comb had knots of hair trapped at the base and congealed shampoo in the corners. She ripped the hairs off with her nails and ran the comb under the water for a few seconds. Placing the comb at her roots, she attempted to tug it through to clear the knots, but the ripping sound of the clumps of tangled hair made her discard the comb with a huff. The hot water began to scorch her skin. She twisted the tap off and stepped out onto the fluffy white bathmat.
A matching snow-white towel hung from the radiator, and she pulled it towards her, draping it around her body. She tapped the mirror that hung evenly above the sink, and it lit up. Her fingerprints remained on the glass, and she noticed other smears that hadn’t been properly cleaned. Her own bathroom mirror at Nana’s flat was dated and lopsided, but the glass was always perfectly polished. Nana was immaculate.
A white T-shirt bra hung from the bathroom door handle and Rosa leaned to grab it, wrapping it around her chest. It felt slightly too tight, and she adjusted it to the loosest hook. She trotted into Tristan’s room with the towel still wrapped around her waist.
They swapped places as Tristan departed for a shower. Rosa stared at herself in the full-length mirror and was horrified by her reflection. Her skin still looked scarred and uneven. Dark, tired circles were stretching around her eyes like a panda’s and her lips looked cracked and dry.
She’d been working ridiculously late recently, being instructed as a junior on an ‘advice on appeal’ in a fraud case being led by Gillian Folkestone KC. Gillian merely performed the advocacy that Rosa worked late into the night scripting, and the appeal was no different. She’d admired Gillian for a long time and was delighted to be working alongside her role model, but so far she had been sorely disappointed. Gillian had no time to speak to her as she spent a large amount of her day pretending to be busier than she actually was. She brunched with solicitors she had known for years and met others for drinks after court. But worse than her constant intoxication was the fact that Gillian was impatient and shouted ferociously when she was unhappy, like a spoilt child. She expected things to be done at least a week before the deadline she’d set. When Rosa had delivered the work, it was already late.
She squirted a heavy dollop of moisturiser into the palm of her hands and rubbed it into her skin. She placed the bottle on the side but quickly picked it back up and put it into her bag, conscious that she might need it throughout the day. Whenever she was stressed, her eczema would flare up and there was nothing worse than the urge to scratch her flaking skin while trying to concentrate in court. Next was hair oil. She drizzled a generous amount into her already greasy hands and massaged it into her scalp.
Rosa didn’t take as much pride in her appearance as Nana did. It was something that irritated her grandmother. Rosa remembered that when she was younger, she would try to rush her showers, barely washing and forgetting to put cream on her body so that an ashy white layer of dead cells would show on her brown skin. Nana would mutter to herself, ‘Wa de goat do, di kid falla.’ As a child she hadn’t understood the saying. She remembered foolishly questioning how not moisturising or not plaiting her hair had any bearing on goats or their offspring. As an adult she now understood what Nana was insinuating. Rosa didn’t want to be anything like her mother.
With nimble fingers, Rosa divided her hair into two sections and plaited it backwards away from her face. It was still knotty, but it looked neat to the naked eye. She massaged her concealer under her eyes to hide the growing dark circles and dabbed it across the various spots across her cheeks. Brushed some chestnut-coloured powder over her cheeks. Better. It almost masked her acne-scarred complexion.
She picked up the television remote from the floor beside the bed and switched on the breakfast news. The presenter appeared solemn at the desk while the news jingle played, and the cameras slowly focused in. Rosa reached into her handbag, retrieved a pair of tights, and stretched them over her feet, pulling them up towards her knees.
‘The Metropolitan Police say that they are investigating a serious incident that took place yesterday, in a park in Walthamstow, where a man has been stabbed.’ The presenter spoke with conviction, his tone measured and his pace slow. Each word was enunciated carefully.
Walthamstow? She glared up at the television and waited, still clutching her tights with both hands.
‘There are reports that a man, said to be white and in his twenties, is seriously injured.’
Rosa hoisted up the tights, flexing her foot and adjusting the dark fabric around her toes. Tristan had already turned off the shower in the bathroom leaving a suffocating silence to fill the room each time the news presenter paused.
‘The police have arrested a man named Emmett Hamilton in connection with the stabbing.’
A young Black man’s photo flashed across the screen. His hair was styled in a short, untidy afro and he wore a grey sweater, which had an uncanny resemblance to prison attire. The jumper swamped him, like a child forced to wear clothes they would ‘grow in to’. The photograph had clearly been cropped but it was impossible to identify its context. Aside from another Black hand on Emmett’s shoulder, the background was dark. Perhaps it captured a moment with friends and family, or maybe not. It didn’t really matter. There must have been a better photo available; he was squinting as though the flash was too bright and although she presumed his skin colour was similar to her own, the photograph showed it as an ashy brown. The person behind the camera had clearly paid no attention to the lighting. Worse still, his index and middle fingers were up by the side of his face, palm facing the camera. While this hand gesture was a widely recognised ‘peace’ sign, performed by the hands of a young Black man, it would likely be misunderstood.
Her phone rang loudly. It was her chambers.
‘Hello, hello,’ she answered, slightly flustered. ‘Oh, hello, Steve, yes, I’m well, thank you.’
Steve spoke quickly. He told Rosa that a solicitor, Craig Rowling, had called and asked her to cover a case for him, today.
‘Craig Rowling?’ she said, with slight astonishment. She knew who Craig Rowling was, and had even met him a few times, but she had never been instructed by him before. Coincidentally, Nana used to clean his home when she was still working, and he had been the last of Nana’s clients to go.
Steve confirmed the name and emphasised that he had specifically asked that she covered it. He said that he’d be happy to ask someone else, but Steve said he’d like to give Craig his first choice. Apparently, the solicitor sent a lot of work to chambers and always rewarded people who helped him out.
‘Erm, I’d be happy to, but I have a PTPH in Snares—’
He interrupted her to tell her that he’d already found someone to cover that case. He needed an answer now. The case was in Harlesden Crown Court, starting at 10 a.m.
‘Yes, erm, yes, of course. Can you send the papers?’ She’d have to read them on the way to court.
He thanked her and ended the call.
Tristan walked back into the bedroom and glanced at the television. He still had his toothbrush in his mouth and droplets of minty spittle sprayed outwards as he spoke.
‘Isn’t that where you grew up, Rose?’
She hated that he called her Rose, but just nodded silently, her eyes remaining fixed on the screen. He patted her shoulder sympathetically and walked towards his chest of drawers.
‘Do you know him?’ he called out. ‘It’s awful, isn’t it? So much Black-on-Black crime nowadays. It’s so sad,’ his voice trailing slightly as he bent down to thread his feet through the legs of his boxer shorts.
Rosa shook her head slowly before realising that Tristan wasn’t looking in her direction. She didn’t know either man, not the white victim nor the Black suspect. To be fair to him, Tristan had missed the beginning of the report but why had he assumed both men were Black? For someone who purported to be intelligent he sometimes irritated her with his ignorance.
‘No, I don’t know them. And, Tristan –’ she inhaled deeply, simultaneously filling her diaphragm and rejuvenating her confidence – ‘the victim was white. You can’t assume that it’s “Black-on-Black crime” just because it’s a stabbing.’ She spat the words out.
‘Babe. Rose. I didn’t say anything about his skin colour. Please, listen. It’s your area, I just thought you might have known him.’ He shifted his weight between each foot, standing awkwardly and obediently like a dog awaiting instruction.
It had been a slip of the tongue. He hadn’t meant to be malicious. Rosa looked at his wide eyes and for some unknown reason a wave of empathy swept over her. After all, there was a constant stream of media articles criminalising young Black men. If she hadn’t seen the whole report, perhaps she too would have assumed they were both Black. Tristan wasn’t a bad guy, not really. In the past, in her twenties during law school and her training years, Rosa had dated ‘bad’ guys. Without even being her official partner, Tristan already treated her much better than many of her exes. He was just a product of his upbringing. That wasn’t his fault any more than it was her fault that her grandmother had been left to raise her and Toby. At least she was aware of this; sometimes Tristan just showed such little insight into how privileged he was.
As if reading her thoughts, Tristan seemed to detect the sea of frustration churning between them and reached out his arms. Rosa stepped towards him, grateful for his embrace. She rested her head on his bare chest, letting the small, soft hairs tickle her cheeks. They held each other for a moment. Tristan released his hold and gently lifted Rosa’s head, placing a soft kiss on top. She smiled.
‘Look at us!’ he chortled. ‘Are we OK now, Rose? You know I hate arguments. We don’t want all of that, we just want to have fun, right?’
She felt a slight pain when he mocked them and another when he used the word ‘fun’, but she reminded herself that this was what she had wanted. No strings attached. She didn’t have time for a serious partner, she barely had time for her friends.
‘Of course,’ she eventually responded. ‘But seriously, Tristan, please stop shortening my name. It’s Rose-ah, there are two syllables.’ How would he like it if she called him ‘Trist’ or just ‘T’? She realised before he answered that he would be unlikely to care. His friends all called him Hughes, his surname. It seemed that there was a pattern in his friendship circle of them only being able to manage one syllable, never using a person’s actual first name.
‘Sorry, Rose-ah!’ He smiled and planted a kiss on her forehead. ‘I didn’t realise you hated it so much. I promise I’ll stop. It’s just, you’re so beautiful, like a rose, my little rose.’
His compliment was a little trite but made her chuckle.
‘I’ve brought croissants for breakfast, if that helps you to forgive me,’ he said, his blue eyes glistening in the sunlight as it crept through his blinds. ‘They’re not just any croissants either, they’re Marks and Spencer’s ones. I know they’re your favourite!’
She tried to hide her grin.
The contents of her overnight bag were sprawled out across the sofa in the living room. Scrunching her dirty knickers into a ball, she stuffed them alongside yesterday’s clothing in the side of her bag. Hopefully the security staff at court wouldn’t require her to empty her belongings into a tray. Wouldn’t that be excruciating? She imagined pulling each item out, unravelling her worn underwear to demonstrate that there was nothing concealed inside.
Delicately, she slipped each foot into her high-heeled leather shoes and headed towards the front door, almost forgetting to say goodbye before turning back.
‘Trist, Tee, Tristy … ’ she hesitated, having run out of shortened versions of his name. ‘I’ve got to go.’
‘Ha. Ha. Very funny,’ he called out in response. ‘See you soon, my sweet rose.’
A smile crept across her face, and she felt a little warm. She was far too old to be feeling like this.
Rosa tapped her foot impatiently. It was 9.30 a.m. and the line for security checks stretched out of the doors to Harlesden Crown Court, and slithered down the steps and on to the street.
Her rhythmic foot taps had no effect on the pace of those in front of her. Feeling hopeless, she continued trying to read the papers for her last-minute case on her phone – defending a Mr Adebayo – just as two messages arrived, both from Orissa. The first was a small picture of Michelle Obama with white calligraphy writing over the top. Rosa pressed on the image to enlarge it.
Here’s to strong women. May we know them.
May we be them. May we raise them.
For a successful and extremely busy thirty-one-year-old businesswoman, Orissa could be exceptionally cringeworthy. It was supposed to be sweet, but Rosa was not in the mood for exchanging quotes like teenagers. She took two large steps forwards, mirroring the person in front of her, and double clicked on the picture to revert back to her messages.
This made me think of you. You deserve the world. Miss you.
Rosa felt a pang of guilt. Orissa was only trying to be kind. She typed in reply.
Miss you too. Let’s catch up this weekend.
She knew that was a false promise, but it felt appropriate. This weekend she had far too much work to do to fit in a gossip-filled catch-up. Maybe next week? Surely it didn’t really matter, it was the thought that counted. Rosa stepped forward in unison with the people in front of her.
Yes, definitely. Let’s! I have loads to fill you in on. Have you been on any dates since breaking up with Tee-who-we-shall-not-name?
Her message forced a small snort. She’d forgotten that she hadn’t updated Orissa on the latest. There was no rush. Yes, of course Orissa was her best friend, but they were adults. They both had private lives and didn’t need to share every bit with each other.
Not yet! Give me a chance! At work but speak to you at the weekend. X
The kiss was to emphasise the end of the conversation. The queue ahead of her shuffled forward and she opened her bag to put her phone away. It buzzed again.
It’s been WEEKS Rosa! This isn’t like you. Let’s get cocktails at the weekend! XXX
The queue continued to move, picking up speed, and she climbed the concrete steps up to the huge arched doors. There she waited. The man in front of her sported a black rubber bracelet around his ankle, adorned with greyish plastic on the outside of his leg. He made no effort to hide his electronic tag, wearing tracksuit trousers cropped just above his ankle. She couldn’t see his face but as he scratched his head small flakes of dandruff floated to the ground like snowflakes.
Once through security, she charged to the advocate’s robing room and tipped her blue bag out onto the table. Another female barrister turned to look at her and smiled kindly. The woman had glossy straight blonde hair, combed back into a perfect bun. Her eyebrows were tamed into tidy arches and her eyes framed with dark mascara and a soft honey eyeshadow. Her face was unmarked by either wrinkles or blemishes, and she was clearly a lot younger than Rosa. Perhaps she was newly qualified, yet to suffer the stress of this job, or maybe she was even a pupil barrister. There was no doubt that she looked a lot more put-together than Rosa and it made Rosa’s cheeks feel hot. She returned a friendly smile and rushed to wrap her bib collarette around her neck. The bib stuck to the droplets of sweat forming on her chest as she desperately tried to tuck it neatly into her dress. Her attempt to straighten it out was futile. She tugged, but her dress was slightly too tight, and she regretted the previous weeks of comfort eating. It was impossible to pull the bib down and flat without taking off her entire dress.
‘For fuck’s sake!’ Rosa muttered under her breath.
She reached for her gown – at least this would go some way towards disguising the bulge of her gut – and the ornate tin encasing her wig, on which gold lettering spelled out her name. She tipped the lid open and retrieved the ringleted, horse-hair prop. Placing it gently on her head, she strode towards the mirror. Another barrister, who she recognised but could not recall the name of, was significantly closer and stood up at the same time. It was a race towards the mirror. Rosa didn’t have time for this today. She used her phone camera as a make-shift mirror and tried to even out her wig via the small screen. Tiredness crept through her. It crawled through her weak feet, where her shoes pinched swollen toes. It clambered up her legs and spread through her whole torso, making her crave the breakfast she’d missed, and trickled into her head, forcing her to blink and shake her head from side to side as though it could be shed through her ears.
She sat for a moment to catch her breath and found herself scrolling through news websites on her phone. Her polished fingernails scratched at the plastic screen protector, thumb gliding from the bottom to the top of the screen and then repeating the motion again as she exhausted the stream of articles. The headlines were repetitive, as though the journalists were competing to reword the same sentence in as many ways as they could.
Man stabbed in a park in Walthamstow.
Walthamstow stabbing: Police arrest 18-year-old man.
Paramedics rush to the scene of a stabbing in East London.
The stories had been published over the past few hours. She refreshed the page and the stack of headlines disappeared into a blank ocean of white, a small circle of dots dancing in the middle of the screen. Rosa rubbed her thumb smoothly around the black silicone casing of her phone as the bold, black-lettered words slowly re-emerged. A new article popped up. Her finger hovered over it and in a small grey font besides the headline she read the words ‘one minute ago’.
Breaking news: Man confirmed as dead after being brutally stabbed in East London park.
Her eyes darted back and forth over the words, each time tripping on four letters in the middle of the sentence. D-e-a-d. This was now a murder. The news story had a small square image of a reporter embedded within the text, with a grey triangle hovering over the top showing that the video was ready to be played. Turning her volume down to zero, she pressed it.
The image jolted and began playing, showing the sealed-off park, emptier than Rosa had ever seen it. Crowds of enquiring people surrounded the secured greenery, seemingly trying to find out what had happened. The image froze and Rosa tapped her screen repeatedly to nudge the video back into action, but her attempt was futile. She paused, giving the signal a chance to catch up, but it stayed still. At the top of her screen a revolving arrow offered her a chance to refresh the page, which she did obligingly. She waited again and the page reloaded. She dragged the slider to where the video had previously stopped and clicked play. The image jerked again and Nana’s block of flats now appeared, an unsightly dull grey concrete high-rise building sticking out sorely among the neighbouring properties. The roof of the building stabbed through the. . .
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