by Mark Dawson
“It’s garages,” Ziggy said. “Lock-ups. Here.”
He clicked across to another screen that showed a listing on Gumtree. It was titled ‘Garage for rent, north London next to M11, storage/eBay/goods/etc.’ and a series of nine pictures showed an almost derelict line of garages with houses visible behind them.
“Is this recent?” Milton asked.
“A year ago.”
“How long to get there?”
“Thirty minutes,” Hicks said. “It’s Christmas. The roads are clear.”
“Faster,” Milton said, and exhaled impatiently as Hicks pressed down on the accelerator.
Milton looked out of the window. They were on the A12 and had just crossed the River Lea. The area on either side of the dual carriageway was industrial, and, given the hour, it was quiet.
Time to talk to the girl.
She was still staring out of the window.
“I’m going to take out your gag,” Milton told her.
She glared at him.
Milton took out the chamois.
She stared at him with icy, frigid eyes.
“I know who you are,” Milton said.
“Yeah?”
“You’re Tiffany Brown.”
“Big whoop,” she said.
“Do you know who I am?”
Doubt flickered across her face, but she brazened it out. She shrugged. “You ain’t the police.”
“No,” he said. “I’m not—but you might wish that I was. My name is John.”
“Nah,” she said, dredging up some bravado. “Don’t know no Johns.”
“I killed your brother. That help?”
He watched her face: confusion became anger, which then deformed into fury. She lurched across the cabin in an attempt to get at him, forgetting that her hands were secured and overbalancing, falling onto the seat between them. Milton grabbed her collar and levered her back to a sitting position.
She spat at him. Milton wiped it from his cheek.
“Finished?” he said.
“You’re a dead man.”
“Not tonight.”
She looked ready to fire back, but, instead, she breathed out sharply and looked away.
“You’ve got a choice,” Milton told her. “The easier way out of this is to help us. What happens next to you and your brother won’t be nearly as bad as it will be if you don’t.”
“I ain’t scared of you, battyman.”
“You should be. I’ve got everything on your phone. My friend in the front”—he nodded to Ziggy—“has already downloaded everything on it. Shall I ask him to tell you what he’s found out so far?”
She clenched her jaw so tightly that Milton could see the tendons knotting in her neck.
“Ziggy?”
“We know about Solomon,” Ziggy said. “We know you’ve been plotting with him to kidnap Elijah. You’ve not been very careful with your texting. Lots of evidence that the police will be interested in seeing if anything happens to him.”
She shrugged. “You’re bluffing. There ain’t no messages.”
Milton sighed. He didn’t want to play his hand, but she hadn’t given him much of a choice.
“We know you have a daughter,” Ziggy said. “Violet.”
“You son of a—”
“She’s with your parents tonight,” Ziggy said. “And I know where they live.”
“You threatening my girl?”
“No,” Milton said. “I’d never hurt a child. But she’s going to grow up without a mother if you don’t help me. No one will ever see you again. You will just disappear.”
She laughed, but it was nervous and uncertain. “You’re bluffing,” she repeated, but with less conviction than the first time.
“Your brother thought I was bluffing,” Milton said.
Her eyes burned with fury, and Milton could see that she would like nothing more than to dig her long painted nails into his face. That wasn’t going to happen, though; she was helpless, and Milton knew that he was convincing. He had meant it, too. If anything happened to Elijah, he would punish her and her brother. He would burn through them both. She was angry, but she wasn’t stupid.
When she spoke again, her voice was quieter. “What do you want?”
“We know where they are,” Milton said. “I want you to tell me what we’ll find when we get there.”
50
P inky could still feel the sting of the slap from where Sol had struck him. His cheek was hot, not from the impact, but from the blood that had rushed up to suffuse it. He felt the rush of anger, so fast and so powerful that there was nothing he could do to slow it down. It was as if he were lifted out of his body, looking down at himself as Sol turned away from him and went to stand in front of JaJa. The anger pulsed and throbbed and pounded, and he clenched his teeth together so hard that they ached. He reached his hand into his jacket pocket.
“Don’t,” Elijah said.
Too late for that , Pinky thought.
Sol turned around just as Pinky raised the pistol.
“What are you doing?” Sol said, looking down at it.
“You and your brother, you’re just the same.”
Sol smiled at him as if he still could not, not even now—not even with a nine pointed at his gut—think to take him seriously. “Put it down, Pinky.”
The anger rolled over him, impossible to stop. “He treated me like I was nothing, like I was worse than nothing, just someone he could tell what to do. You’re the same. Well, fuck that, Sol. Fuck that and fuck you .”
There must have been something in his expression that gave him away, because now—but too late—Sol lifted his arms, palms out, a gesture of supplication. Pinky was consumed by the fury, all of the old slights and disparagements running through his head like a video playing at ten times speed. He pulled the trigger and the gun barked, the recoil kicking against his hand. Sol was close and Pinky had spent hours practising his shooting; there was no possibility that he might miss. The bullet landed square in Sol’s chest, slamming into his sternum. He took a step back, his balance disturbed by the swat of the impact, and then looked down at the blood that was already saturating the tracksuit top that he was wearing. He looked back up at Pinky, frowning, his mouth opening and closing as if he was trying—and failing—to find the words that he wanted to say.
Pinky was overcome by rage and disgust and hatred. He stepped closer and pulled the trigger again, then took another step and pulled it for a third time.
“Pinky!”
He wheeled around, following the sound of the panicked voice, the gun finding Kidz, freezing him to the spot.
“What are you doing, man?” Kidz said, his hands jerking up as he stepped back.
The anger dissipated, but it left something in its wake: there was a peacefulness, a sense of calm. Pinky found that he was breathing quickly, but that was all. Shooting someone dead? It ain’t no thing , he thought. His hands were steady and he wasn’t shaking.
“You shot him!” Kidz said.
“Yeah,” he said. “I did. So?”
“That’s Sol, man. Jesus! It’s Solomon fucking Brown.”
“I don’t care who he is. Man’s still gonna bleed when he gets shot, right? He’s just the same as me and you.”
Pinky looked down. Sol was on the floor, his hands fluttering over his chest, blood draining out of the trio of holes that the bullets had made.
Kidz started to back away. Pinky looked over at him and shook his head. “Where you going, blood?”
“Nowhere, man. I ain’t going nowhere.”
“S’right. You staying right there where I can see you.”
Pinky walked forward, stepped around Sol’s body, and went over to Elijah, who was staring up at him, his eyes bulging. Pinky winked at him.
“That ain’t the first time I pulled a trigger. You know that? You know who I topped before?”
“Pops,” Elijah said.
“That’s right.” Pinky looked down at him. “You know t
hat? I know you and him were tight, but he was just the same, just like Sol. Never gave me credit. Always talking down to me like I was this piece of shit on his creps.”
There was a clamour as someone opened the door. Pinky turned as Chips came inside the lock-up.
“What’s going on?” he said. “I heard…” The words trailed off.
“Come in and shut the door,” Pinky said.
Chips saw the body on the floor. “What the fuck, man?”
Chips and Kidz exchanged a glance. Pinky could see how frightened the two of them were. He loved it.
“What have you done?”
“Yeah,” he said. “Him, Pops—they think they’re special, that they’re badmen, but they ain’t. They ain’t nothing. And now they’re both dead.”
Pinky could feel his anger rising again, flames flickering across the tinder of all the humiliations and indignities that he had suffered throughout his life. Growing up with no dad. His mum bringing home a new man every Friday night. The men who hit him, who hit his mum. The jokes that he heard in the playground. Never respected, never taken seriously.
“What the fuck, man?” Chips said. “What’s the matter with you?”
No respect, not even now.
Pinky turned, aimed at Chips, and pulled the trigger again. Chips went down, dead before he hit the floor, a neat hole drilled in the centre of his forehead. It was even easier this time. Kidz gasped, but fear had nailed him to the spot, and he hadn’t taken a step before Pinky swivelled, aimed, and fired again.
Two minutes, three dead men.
Easy .
Pinky turned back to Elijah. “Just me and you now,” he said. He stepped a little closer. “You all right?”
Elijah gaped at him, his eyes white.
“Still think you’re a big shot?”
Elijah mumbled something.
Pinky reached down and rested the gun against his head. “What’s that?”
“No,” Elijah said. “I don’t.”
“Good—you’re not. You heard Sol. Your boy tonight—Sol and me paid him a visit the other day and persuaded him to go down in the third. So don’t be thinking that everything they’re saying about you is true. He put out his chin and you hit it. That’s all you did. You ain’t nothing. You never were.”
51
E lijah felt the gun against his head. The barrel was hot and he could feel it burning him, but he closed his eyes and did his best to ignore the pain. He tried not to think about what Pinky had just done, how easily, almost reflexively, he had aimed the pistol and pulled the trigger. Each pull seemed easier than the last. Three dead men lay on the floor. He didn’t know Sol, but he had grown up with Chips and Kidz. Pinky had grown up with them, too, and he had dispatched them without a second’s thought. Elijah knew that Pinky would do the same to him.
“What do you want?” he said, his voice cracking.
“Sol wanted to make some bread off you, but I don’t care about that. I remember what you did before you and your mum disappeared. She called the po-po on me, man. I know you know that. They came and arrested me in my mum’s house. You know how that made her feel? The neighbours was watching when they took me out. They had me in cuffs. She didn’t speak to me for a week. Said I’d embarrassed her in front of all her friends.”
“I’m sorry about that,” Elijah said.
“You gonna be sorry,” Pinky said, laughing. “I ain’t like Sol. I ain’t like his brother. I don’t care about money. I want respect . I want people to look at me and think there ain’t no way they want to mess with me. I want people to cross over the road when they see me coming. I want them to piss their pants when I come around. People gonna know that I shot those three. And people gonna know that I dooked you, too. But I ain’t using a strap for that.” He reached into his pocket and took out a butterfly knife. He flicked his wrist and the blade snapped out. “A strap’s too good for a pussy like you. You and me, JaJa, we gonna spend some time together first.”
Pinky grabbed hold of Elijah’s chin and forced his head back, exposing his throat. He leaned closer. Elijah felt the cold of the blade against his skin.
Pinky laughed. “One slice, blood, and you’re done. ”
Elijah thought he saw movement behind Pinky. It was the door. He thought that it had opened, but it was a miniscule movement, so slight that he discounted it as a trick of the light.
And then it moved again.
“I didn’t mean to diss you,” Elijah said.
“Too late for that.”
“I didn’t ask my mum to call the police.”
“But she did. Now she’s gonna have to bury her boy because of it. I heard about your brother. She’s gonna bury both her kids.”
The door opened slowly, and, as Elijah watched, he saw a figure slide through it, merging into the shadows. It was gloomy over there and Pinky was partially blocking the way; he couldn’t see who it was.
“Come on, man,” Elijah said. “I said I’m sorry. You don’t need to do this.”
The figure slipped out of the shadows, moving silently, passing from the gloom and into the fringe of the light thrown down by the single naked bulb.
It was Milton.
Elijah tried to keep his face neutral, but the surprise and the hope must have been written across it. Pinky looked down at Elijah and frowned. He spun around. Milton was halfway between the door and the chair.
Still too far away.
Pinky dropped the knife, shoved his hand into his jacket, and yanked out the gun, the frame catching against the pocket. Milton came forward, but it was too late; Pinky had the gun aimed at him and Milton froze.
“Put the gun down, Shaquille.”
“This gets better and better,” Pinky said. “I get you, too, old man.”
Milton looked beyond Pinky to the three dead bodies strewn around the lock-up.
“This isn’t going to end the way you want it to.”
Pinky’s rage detonated. “Shut the fuck up! I had it up to here with people telling me what I can and can’t do. You blind, blood? You ain’t seeing this?” He proffered the gun. “You see who’s got the strap and who ain’t? You don’t get to tell me shit. You get to beg for your life.”
Pinky had unconsciously taken a step back, moving away from Milton. He was closer to Elijah. Close enough, perhaps. Elijah looked across the room, caught Milton’s attention, and held his gaze. Milton saw him, but didn’t react. Elijah hoped he knew what he was going to try to do.
Pinky aimed.
Elijah kicked, his right leg straightening all the way out, just enough for his foot to butt up against the back of Pinky’s right knee. Pinky’s leg folded inwards, his right shoulder dipped, and his arm jerked out to the right at the moment he pulled the trigger.
The round missed, cracking into the door, wood chips and brick dust punched out.
Milton moved, lunging ahead, closing the distance between himself and Pinky in three steps, fast enough that Pinky didn’t have time to aim again. Milton locked his left hand around Pinky’s right wrist and then turned around, maintaining the grip so that he had his right shoulder beneath Pinky’s right elbow. He took Pinky’s wrist in both hands, twisted the arm so that it was elbow down, and then wrenched on it. Pinky screamed as the joint hyperextended and then dislocated; Elijah heard it pop as the elbow pushed and rotated out of its socket.
The gun fired again, the round cracking into the brick wall.
Milton held onto Pinky’s wrist with his left hand and reached for the gun with his right. He took it out easily, tossing it to the side. Elijah watched with a mixture of relief and horror as Milton backed into Pinky’s body, reached up over his head to grab the back of Pinky’s jacket with his left hand, and then pivoted at the same time as he yanked. Pinky flipped over Milton’s shoulder and landed on his back. Milton stepped to his left, pivoted and then fell onto Pinky, a knee on either side of his torso, pinning his arms to his sides. Milton leaned forward and closed his hands around Pinky’s throat and sque
ezed.
Pinky was younger than Milton, but Milton was heavier and stronger and, as Elijah watched with mounting dread, it was evident that this was something that he had done before.
Pinky started to choke.
“Don’t,” Elijah said.
Milton ignored him.
“Please,” he said. “Don’t. There’s been enough of that.”
Milton’s face was a mask: impassive, resolute, his eyes icy blue and without life or feeling.
“Please , John. Don’t.”
Milton’s face flickered with indecision. He held on for a moment more, then released his hands from Pinky’s throat and straightened up. He leaned back.
Elijah exhaled.
Pinky’s right arm was disabled, lying loose at his side, the forearm bent at an unnatural angle from where Milton had dislocated it. His left hand flashed up, clutching the butterfly knife that he had discarded earlier. Elijah guessed: Pinky must have fallen on it when Milton had put him to the floor.
Pinky stabbed out with the blade, the point scoring across the back of Milton’s hand as he raised it, deflecting it from his throat. Instead, the knife landed in Milton’s shoulder. Pinky tried to pull it out so that he could stab again, but Milton reached up with his left hand, grabbed Pinky’s hand, and held it there, the blade still lodged where it was. He leaned out, scooped up the discarded pistol, put the muzzle against the side of Pinky’s head and fired.
The blast echoed back from the arched ceiling and bounced off the walls. A spray of blood and brain scattered out, splattering across the brick. Pinky’s legs twitched once and then twice, and then he lay still. His fingers slithered off the knife and his arm flopped down.
The door opened and a second man, one whom Elijah did not recognise, came inside.
Milton pulled the blade out of his shoulder.
The radio changed. Bing Crosby’s version of ‘Little Drummer Boy’ started playing.