Twelve Days

by Mark Dawson

  “Can I come in?” she asked.

  “Course,” he said. “I’m just finishing up.”

  She came inside, closing the door behind her. McCauley turned and made himself busy with the rest of the equipment.

  “You looked amazing,” she said. “I was listening to what the others were saying next to me. They were saying how you were better than they thought, how you were going to be a world champion, all that. I loved it.”

  She beamed at him again. He felt a buzz in his stomach, an emptiness that he usually felt when he was nervous, and he realised that the prospect of trying to get with her was scaring him more than going into the ring with someone like Connolly. She was so fine; older than him, too. He had never had much luck with women, not as a kid and not really up in Sheffield. He had been useless when he was younger, and there hadn’t been time for it since he had moved. He had been concentrating on his training for the most part. There had been a couple of things that had never gone anywhere, a little fun but nothing serious. He had never been with a girl—not properly, all the way—and the prospect of it was making him sweat.

  “What are you doing now?” she asked him.

  “I got the after-party,” he said, his mouth dry. “You want to come?”

  “You sure?”

  He nodded. “It’s in Bethnal Green. Only if you can—if you’re not busy, I mean.”

  “I’d love to,” she said.

  42

  M ilton called Sharon and asked if she knew what Elijah was planning on doing following the fight. She told him that there was a party and that she would arrange for his name to be left at the door. Milton thanked her and said that he would see her there.

  He finished the call and then dialled Hicks.

  “Everything okay?”

  “Seems fine,” Milton said.

  “What’s next?”

  “There’s a party,” he said. “It’ll probably be easier to get to Elijah there than it was here.”

  “You still worried?”

  “I am.”

  “Where is it?”

  “Bethnal Green,” he said, giving Hicks the name and address that Sharon had provided for the club.

  “You want me to come?”

  “I’d appreciate it. His mother put me on the guest list, but it’d be good to have someone on the outside, just in case.”

  “So you get to go to the party while I’m shivering in the cold?”

  “You know you’re going to heaven.”

  “I doubt that,” Hicks said. “I’ll set off now. Call me if you need me.”

  Milton made his way out of the Olympic Park to Stratford underground station. The Central Line ran to Bethnal Green, and he pressed himself into a busy carriage and waited for the train to set off. He wasn’t ready to relax, not just yet. He had known that it would be difficult for Pinky to cause trouble at the venue, and getting to Elijah would have been almost impossible. A club was a different matter altogether. He hadn’t had the chance to reconnoitre the venue, but he guessed that it would be much simpler to get inside compared to the significant security that had been put in place before the fight.

  He would be much happier once the day was done and Elijah and his mother were on their way back north to Sheffield.

  * * *

  The after-fight party was at Oval Space in Bethnal Green. Elijah had never been before, but was quickly impressed. It was a large venue that was itself dominated by the disused gasholder that loomed over this part of Hackney Road. The club was situated within a large hangar; part of it had been sealed off for this event, but Elijah guessed that there would still have been more than enough space for a thousand revellers. Porter had booked it and invited all of the fighters and their entourages, together with a guest list of industry movers and shakers.

  McCauley kept pace with Elijah and Alesha as they were ushered around the queue to a VIP entrance.

  “Be on your best behaviour,” McCauley said.

  “You know me.”

  “I just heard. A couple of executives from HBO were over to watch the fights. You impressed them. They want to say hi.”

  Elijah led the way into the venue. The roof soared overhead, and the pulse and throb of bass rippled the canvas. Lasers whirled up and around, and strobes exploded over the dance floor, freezing the men and women on the floor in staccato poses.

  “Mustafa!”

  Elijah stopped as the promoter muscled his way through the crowd.

  “Happy Christmas!” he said. “You were amazing.” He turned to Alesha and put out his hand. “Tommy Porter.”

  “This is Alesha,” Elijah said, feeling awkwardly possessive.

  “Nice to meet you, Alesha. What are you three doing out here? The party’s in the VIP room. Your tickets will get you in.” He pointed to a roped-off area on the other side of the dance floor. “There’s food and a free bar. I’ll be over in a minute—see you then? We need to chat.”

  “See you there,” McCauley said, stepping up between the two of them.

  He nudged Elijah forward. Alesha reached for his hand and he gave it a squeeze.

  “Be careful with him,” McCauley warned. “He’s as bent as a nine-bob note. If he starts talking about the next fight, tell him to come and talk to me.”

  “A’ight,” Elijah said.

  He wasn’t really paying attention, not to Porter nor McCauley. He was adrift in a delicious sensation of euphoria: the fight, the music, the softness of Alesha’s skin against the calluses that had toughened up his palm.

  Tonight was going to be a good night.

  43

  T he VIP area was behind a velvet rope. They approached the bouncer who was guarding it and showed them their tickets.

  The man didn’t even look at them. “It’s okay,” he said. “I know who you are. You looked good tonight, son.”

  Elijah couldn’t stop grinning. This was unreal: people he had never met before knew who he was. They respected him and what he could do.

  He turned to Alesha and saw that she was smiling, too.

  “Get used to it,” she said. “You’re prime time now.”

  Elijah looked around to see if his mum was here, but there was no sign of her. He thought about texting her to see where she was, but Alesha gripped his hand and dragged him to the bar.

  She aimed away from it, heading towards a pair of plain double doors.

  “Where are we going?” he asked her.

  She turned back and smiled at him. “I’ve got something for you.”

  * * *

  Milton walked from Bethnal Green station to the venue. The road was busy with people enjoying a night of entertainment before the reality of Christmas set in. Groups of men and women made their way from venue to venue; Milton saw a young woman in a party dress slumped on one of the benches that lined the grassy margin of Paradise Row. He passed York Hall and thought of how much had changed for Elijah since the workout there just a few days earlier. He had done everything that he needed to do in the ring. His fate was in the hands of his trainer and promoter now. He was too young to understand the business and the politics that drove it. Milton hoped that he had surrounded himself with competent people, but then remembered Sharon; his mother was smart and wouldn’t let her son be exploited. Elijah was in good hands.

  He passed his hotel and kept going, turning left onto the narrow one-lane road beyond The Hare pub and continuing beneath a railway bridge as a late-running train rumbled overhead, the golden lights from the carriage casting their glow down onto the cobbles. This was an old industrial area, with warehouses and manufacturing businesses occupying the buildings that shouldered up against the banks of the Regent’s Canal. He heard the thud of bass and followed the noise to a warehouse, newly refurbished, that bore a sign announcing it as Oval Space. The road was The Oval, its name derived from the island around which it split, cars parked tight up against each other atop it. There was a queue of men and women outside a flight of steps that led up, Milton presumed, to the
entrance. Taxis and luxury cars fought for space along the narrow road, disgorging their passengers and then crawling away. The people were dressed in suits and cocktail dresses, many of them evidently brought here directly from the fight.

  Milton continued on, scouting the street. The opulence and luxury were at odds with the surroundings: the cobbles, the derelict buildings with weeds spilling down from the roofs, the graffiti on the walls. Someone had tagged a large expanse of brick with BLACK AND WHITE UNITE—SMASH THE NATIONAL FRONT and another had added EAT THE RICH. It was new money butting hard against the area’s old industrial heritage. He continued to the end of the road and a stretch of rusting iron railings that protected against the drop down to the canal. Colourful narrowboats had been moored there, lights glowing in their windows indicating that their owners were aboard. One of the boats had a Christmas tree on the roof, the branches swaying in the breeze, baubles clanking as they bumped up against each other.

  Milton dialled Hicks’s number, then added Ziggy to the call.

  “Where are you?”

  “Hit a bit of traffic,” Hicks reported. “We’ll be there in fifteen minutes.”

  Milton opened a map on his phone. “It’s busy,” Milton said. “Come off the road opposite Vyner Street, go under the bridge and park there. There’s a barrier there—it’s the closest you’ll be able to get to the venue without getting boxed in.”

  “Will do. I’ll let you know when we get there. What do you want us to do?”

  “Stay outside and keep your eyes open.”

  Milton ended the call and went back to the venue.

  44

  A lesha didn’t let go of his hand. She tugged him with her, leading the way through the VIP area, through a pair of double doors, and then into a large kitchen.

  “Where we going?” he asked her again.

  “Somewhere quiet,” she said, smiling at him. “Can you spare ten minutes?”

  “Why?”

  “I want to show you how impressed I am with what you did tonight.”

  She pulled him on and he didn’t resist. He knew what she was suggesting, and his heart quickened. The whole night had been ridiculous: the fight, the party, a girl like Alesha showing interest in him. She was peng —banging hot—and the thought that she would want to spend time with him was something that Elijah was struggling to get straight in his head. His mum and McCauley had told him to be careful, that there would be gold-diggers who wanted a part of him now, who might think he could make them rich or famous, but he didn’t think that Alesha was like that. She had been interested in him before tonight, before he had knocked out Connolly and guaranteed his future. Maybe she actually liked him; maybe it was time he allowed himself to think that that might be possible.

  She pushed open the doors on the other side of the kitchen and led him into a corridor.

  Elijah saw him, but it was too late.

  Pinky.

  “A’ight, JaJa?” Pinky said.

  He turned back to the door. Kidz had been there, hiding against the wall, and now he was blocking the way back to the club. Elijah turned in the other direction and saw another man—Chips?—standing in an open doorway that led outside.

  Pinky reached into the pocket of his padded jacket and brought out a pistol. He held it up, then lazily levelled it so that it was pointed straight into Elijah’s gut. “You’re coming with us.”

  Elijah swallowed down a gulp of fear. “No, I’m not.”

  Pinky lurched at Elijah, bringing the butt of the pistol across his cheek. The metal clashed against his cheekbone, and, with his head ringing, he reached up and saw fresh blood on his fingertips.

  Pinky took his advantage, pressing the gun against Elijah’s head. “I’ll do you now, right here, you diss me again. Don’t fuck me around, blood. You’re coming outside with us.”

  He felt the swoon of dizziness, leaned down and spat out a mouthful of blood onto the floor. There was a flash of white amid the red. It was funny, and he almost laughed at the foolishness of it: he’d been in the ring with Connolly, but it was now, afterwards, that a tooth had been knocked out. He put out his hand and supported himself against the wall of the corridor.

  He looked back for Alesha. He didn’t know what to say, whether he should tell Pinky to leave her alone or just say nothing and hope that whatever it was he was going to do, he would do it and forget about her. His concern curdled when he saw her face.

  “What?” she said, her arms spread. The warm smile and the playful tone in her voice were gone.

  “What’s going on?” he said through a bloodied mouth.

  “Payback,” she replied.

  “What?”

  “You gonna pay for what you did. For what you took from me. From me and my family.”

  She stepped forward and spat in his face. He wiped it away, his fingers covered with commingled blood and saliva.

  Pinky grabbed him by the collar and yanked, sending him towards the open door. He followed close behind, and Elijah could feel the muzzle of the pistol in the small of his back. They exited the building and made their way around a narrow passage between the wall on the left and a wooden fence on the right. The venue butted up against a larger square building, and to Elijah the path looked like a dead end. He was almost sick with the fear that he was going to be put up against the wall and shot. But it wasn’t a dead end; there was a gate in the fence and Chips opened it, leading the way into a space between the buildings that had been used to park cars.

  One of the cars had its engine running, its headlights glowing against the side of the building opposite. The lid of the boot was open.

  Pinky kicked him on the backside. “In.”

  Elijah went to the car and turned around, his eyes on the tiny black hole in the muzzle of the pistol, his mind spooling up his memories of Pinky, of what he had been capable of as a boy.

  “Get in the car, JaJa. I don’t wanna ask you again.”

  Elijah hooked his leg over the lip of the boot and hopped up, lying flat and drawing his knees up to his chest.

  Pinky and Alesha stepped up to the back of the car, looking down at him.

  “You gonna get proper dooked, bro,” Pinky said, grinning at him.

  The boot slammed shut.

  45

  M ilton ignored the grumbles of those waiting in the queue as he made his way up the stairs to the front of the line and told the bouncer that his name had been left at the door. The man grunted, nodding to a woman with a clipboard who was standing by a smaller, secondary door.

  “My name is Milton,” he said. “I should be on the list.”

  She ran her finger down a piece of paper until she found his name. “There you are,” she said. “In you go.”

  The venue was large. The room had been cordoned off halfway down its length, but it was still a big space. There was a dance floor, a DJ booth and several bars. A projector hung down from a scaffold, and it was projecting the bouts onto a large screen. Milton looked up to see a ten-foot-tall Elijah covering up and then uncorking the big uppercut that had nearly knocked Connolly out of his boots.

  Milton heard Ziggy’s voice in his ear. “Milton—you there?”

  “I’m inside,” he said. “What is it?”

  “I got a hit.”

  Milton felt a shiver pass down his back; he found a corridor and made his way through a pair of double doors and into the gents, the sound of the PA fading just a little. “Go on.”

  “You sent me a picture—a girl coming out of the dressing room? I only just got it.”

  “I sent it two hours ago—”

  “There was limited capacity in the park. Look—it doesn’t matter. You need to know this. You know the girl?”

  “I don’t know anything save that I think she’s involved with Elijah.”

  “Her name’s Tiffany Brown. Currently unemployed, but was taking a media degree before she was expelled six months ago. She was interning at Vice, but something happened and they sent her back. She has a cr
iminal record for wounding, theft and possession. She’s also the sister of Solomon Brown and Israel Brown—”

  “Oh shit,” Milton said. “Oh shit .”

  He turned back, pushed the door, and went back out into the noise of the club.

  “Milton—you still there?”

  Milton scoured left and right, looking for Elijah.

  “Milton?”

  “I’m here,” he said, only half listening.

  “Israel Brown was the real name of Risky Bizness, shot dead in Hackney three years ago. Solomon Brown is Tiffany’s older brother. He’s never been convicted of anything, but the Met police have a file on him as long as your arm. He’s suspected of running a local drugs syndicate, and he’s been implicated in at least three murders. He’s—”

  Milton saw Sharon. He ended the call and intercepted her on her way to the bathroom.

  “Hi, John,” she said with a wide, happy smile. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m fine,” he said, working hard to keep the edge of panic from his voice. “Have you seen Elijah?”

  “He was in the VIP room,” she said. “Why? Is everything okay?”

  “Yes,” he said, forcing out a smile of his own. “I just wanted to check up on him. Where is it?”

  She pointed behind her. “Over there. What’s up?”

  “Nothing,” he said.

  “I mentioned you were there tonight. He said to say thanks.”

  Milton wanted to get over to the room, to check that Elijah was okay, but he didn’t want to frighten Sharon unnecessarily, either. “That’s great,” he said, starting to move to the side so that he could get around her.

  She reached out and took his elbow. “He asked if you’d like to see him tomorrow. I think he wants to apologise.”

  “I’d love to,” he said, gently removing her hand and sliding around her. “Tell him that’d be great. I’m just going to the bar. I’ll see you in a minute.”