4.3.2.1

by Jim Eldridge

  They were going to kill him; Jo knew it. And even though he was a creep, she couldn’t let that happen. Before she was aware of what she was doing, she had dropped down beside the fridge and reached under it. Was the gun still there, or had the police found it? It was still there, under the fridge where Tee had kicked it. Her fingers curled round the handle and she got to her feet, pointing it at the woman and Tee and the two men, who were forcing Tee nearer the door.

  ‘OK!’ shouted Jo. ‘Back the fuck up!’

  The woman and the two men turned at the sound, and saw her with the gun. Tee was still struggling, but he stopped when he became aware of Jo and the gun. A look of desperate hope came into his face.

  The woman glared at Jo.

  ‘This is none of your business, girl,’ she told her, her voice like ice.

  She isn’t afraid of me, thought Jo. Nor are the two men. They just don’t want any complications. Well — now they’ve got one.

  ‘Angelo, get their guns,’ said Jo, her voice firm and calm.

  Angelo just stared at her, shocked. This was no good. If he didn’t move quickly they’d take their guns out and blast her.

  ‘Angelo!’ she repeated sharply, shouting, anything to make him move.

  Angelo came out of his shock and went towards the woman and the two men. Jo could see he was so nervous he was almost shaking, but he did it. Good for Angelo, she thought. He’s got guts.

  The woman and the two men stood impassively and let Angelo search their pockets. The two men kept a firm grip on Tee the whole time. Angelo took guns from the pockets of all three. None of them seemed at all bothered at being disarmed in this way. There’s something I don’t know, thought Jo. They’re too cool about this. They should have punched Angelo, or pulled out a gun and shot him, or me. But they haven’t. She felt a weird sense of satisfaction. It’s this gun I’m holding, she thought. They don’t know whether or not I’m going to pull the trigger. And they’re thinking it might go off by accident if they pull something, and one of them could get shot. So they’re going to stand there and take it. It’s the power of the gun.

  Angelo walked to a bin and dropped the guns into it.

  ‘Shoot them!’ screamed Tee, desperation and panic in his voice. He struggled to break free of the men’s grip, but they held firm. ‘Shoot them!’ he begged Jo.

  ‘Shut up,’ Jo told him. ‘Angelo, slap him. Shut him up.’

  Angelo hesitated briefly, then walked over to Tee and slapped him hard in the face. Then he walked away again, but with the hint of a smile around his bruised mouth. Tee’s face still showed his feelings of panic, but he shut up.

  The woman turned to Jo and addressed her. She still isn’t scared of me, thought Jo. Even with this gun in my hand. She’s like ice.

  ‘Look, we just want to take this guy and get out of your hair,’ the woman said, very matter-of-fact and calm, as though taking people out and killing them was something she did every day, in a commonplace way, and was nothing to be concerned about.

  ‘I can’t let you do that,’ said Jo, still holding the gun firmly in her hand and moving it from the woman to the two men, then back to the woman again. She looked at Tee, who was almost in tears with fear. ‘I mean, he’s an asshole. And yeah, you’re right, this is not my business, and any other day I’d let you take him out and I wouldn’t bat an eyelid. And you know why? Because, since my real dad died, that’s what Jo does.’

  Her voice had changed now, hardened. She could tell from the surprised looks on their faces — on the woman’s, the two men’s, Tee’s, Angelo’s — that they were listening to her, really listening, that there was an edge to her voice, coupled with the fact that she was holding a gun, that forced them take in her words, take in her deep, deep feelings.

  ‘Hey, Jo, will you make a tea? Coffee?’ she said, her tone light and bantering, but with a bitterness to it that showed the deep hurt beneath. ‘Do a charity swim? Sure. Will you work for me? OK. My man didn’t turn up, so will you help me? OK. My dad’s angry, will you lie for me? Yes. Can I have your last cigarette? Sure. Can I put it there tonight? Go for it. Jo, Jo, Jo? Yes, yes, yes!’

  Now Jo could feel all the months and years of frustration welling up within her, pouring out of her. She glared at them, and the gun in her hand felt absolutely right. Power. Power to say no, and she told them all: ‘Well, today for the first time I’m saying no. And, because of my unforeseen change in character, I’m not gonna let you leave. I’m not gonna let you take him, and — although he probably deserves it — I’m not gonna let him die for some shiny rocks that, quite frankly, I don’t think you deserve. Cos you know what I’d like?’

  ‘What?’ asked the woman coldly, but intrigued against her own judgement.

  ‘A fucking thank-you. For everything I do. From just one person. Or at least a “Welcome back to work. Here’s a pay rise.” Instead, I get you.’

  The woman stood, still apparently calm, and now, Jo could see, unmoved by her long speech. She nodded and said, without any true feeling at all, ‘Well, thank you.’ Then her face hardened and she added harshly, ‘And thanks for airing all your angst. Now either shoot us, or get out of the fucking way.’

  With that, she moved slowly towards Jo.

  Fuck, thought Jo. I didn’t expect that. She wasn’t supposed to do that. I’m the one with the gun! Nervously she looked towards Angelo, all the time aware that the woman was moving closer to her, one small step at a time.

  ‘Any ideas?’ she asked.

  It was Tee who answered.

  ‘Shoot them!’ he screamed.

  ‘Shut up!’ everyone yelled back at him.

  The woman smiled.

  ‘Yeah, that’s what I thought,’ she said. She dipped into an inside pocket and pulled out a gun, which she pointed at Jo. Fuck! thought Jo. No wonder she was so cool. A second fucking gun!

  ‘You have ten seconds to drop your gun and let me leave,’ said the woman.

  Jo stood, her gun still pointing, her mind in a whirl. What could she do? Shoot this woman? Shoot the men? If she dropped the gun, would these people just shoot them anyway as witnesses?

  ‘Five seconds,’ said the woman calmly. ‘Four, three, two . . .’

  50

  Jo was aware of sudden bright lights outside, hammering fast towards the window of the mart. They were the lights of a car, its engine revving out of control. The others became aware too, because the woman swung round just as the huge window was smashed in, shards of glass flying everywhere as the car erupted into the store.

  Jo was already throwing herself for cover, the gun falling from her hand, hitting the floor and skidding away towards the car. Sirens sounded. The police were on their way, though whether they were chasing this car, or because someone had seen what was going on with Jo and the gun . . .

  Jo crawled out and looked towards the car. The door had burst open. There, on the floor, and picking up the gun Jo had dropped, was Kerrys.

  ‘Kerrys! What the fuck?’ exclaimed Jo. We have to get out of here, she thought, before the police arrive and want some explanations. ‘Quick, go hide in my car!’ she shouted, chucking her keys to her.

  Kerrys ran off. Jo looked around. The woman and the two men had disappeared at the sound of the police sirens. Tee had slumped to the ground and seemed almost catatonic, frozen to the spot. Jo snatched up a pen and a paper bag and scribbled: ‘Yesterday’s robbery. Ask for Tee.’ Then she pushed the security disc into the bag and put the bag on the roof of the crashed car. She was aware that Kerrys’s brother Manuel was caught inside the back of the car and struggling to get out.

  Right, she thought. Time to go. As she ran for the door a hand grabbed her. It was Angelo.

  ‘Where are you going?’ he demanded.

  ‘I’m sorry, I gotta go,’ Jo told him.

  ‘But . . .’ he began.

  He didn’t finish. Jo gave him a big smile, then grabbed him to her and planted a big kiss, sucking his lips into her mouth and letting her tongue car
ess them. If it hurt his bruises, he wasn’t complaining. She released him, gave him a big wink and then ran out of the mart just as two police officers entered through the huge hole in the smashed window.

  The two police officers looked at the wreckage of the car, and at the whole mess, in amazement. One of them spotted the paper bag on the roof of the car, took it off and read the words on it.

  ‘Who’s Tee?’ he asked.

  Hearing his name seemed to jump-start Tee into action. He leaped up and ran towards the hole in the window. Angelo stepped in his way and stuck his arm out straight like a piston rod. Tee ran into Angelo’s fist and went down like a sack of potatoes.

  Angelo jerked his thumb at the fallen Tee.

  ‘He is,’ he said.

  Jo and Kerrys sat in Jo’s car. Both girls were shaking, Kerrys from having crashed the car through the window, Jo from the experience of looking down the barrel of a gun held by a killer.

  ‘Shit,’ said Jo. ‘This has been some fucking night.’

  ‘It ain’t over yet, babe,’ said Kerrys. She reached into her pocket and produced the white envelope with the word ‘Shannon’ on it, and gave it to Jo, who opened it, and read the letter inside. As she read the note, tears welled up in her eyes, blinding her to the words on the page as she shared the silent pain her friend must have gone through. And they hadn’t known.

  ‘Wow,’ she said at last, shaking her head.

  ‘I know,’ said Kerrys. She picked up the gun and weighed it in her hand admiringly. ‘This is so cool,’ she said.

  Jo looked at the gun with distaste. ‘Throw it away,’ she said. Just then her mobile rang. ‘This might be Shaz,’ she told Kerrys. It wasn’t. It was Cass.

  ‘Cass! Where are you?’

  ‘I’m back,’ said Cass.

  ‘You’re here?’

  ‘Yes. Where are you?’

  ‘I’m with Kerrys. Trying to find Shannon.’

  ‘Because of the note?’ asked Cass.

  ‘That, and some diamonds,’ said Jo.

  ‘Diamonds?’ repeated Cass, confused.

  ‘We’ll explain when we see you,’ Jo told her. ‘Where are you? We’ll pick you up.’

  ‘I’m in Blake Street.’

  ‘Stay there. We’re on our way.’

  Jo hung up, and turned to see Kerrys looking at her, bewildered.

  ‘What diamonds?’ asked Kerrys.

  ‘Oh yeah.’ Jo nodded. ‘You know those diamonds that were stolen the other day and have been all over the news? Well, I think Shannon has them.’

  THE BRIDGE

  51

  Sunday night

  The Thames at night. Beautiful, as the reflections of the city’s lights danced and twinkled on the black waters. The Millennium Wheel, lit up like a fairground. Its lights picked out a small, slight figure standing perilously on the parapet of Westminster Bridge. Shannon.

  Suddenly there was the screech of a car skidding to a halt near her. Car doors opened and there was the sound of running feet. Shannon turned, alarm in her eyes. Kerrys, Jo and Cassandra stood there, watching her. Even from this distance she could see the fear in their eyes.

  ‘Come on down, Shannon,’ said Kerrys. ‘Don’t do anything stupid.’

  Shannon hesitated. She looked at the three girls. She’d trusted them, and now . . .

  Kerrys pulled something from her pocket and pointed it at Shannon. It was a gun, the metal reflected in the lights.

  ‘I said come on down, girl!’ snapped Kerrys. ‘With the stones! Right now!’

  ‘We’ve got what you want,’ said Joanne as calmly as she could. But right at this moment she wasn’t feeling calm. Inside her chest her heart was beating wildly. From her pocket she took an envelope and held it up for Shannon to see. ‘Now give us what we want.’

  Shannon hesitated, then she reached into her own pocket and took out a small black bag. The diamonds.

  But so what? What’s the point? There isn’t one. Life is . . . pointless.

  Shannon slipped the bag with the diamonds back in her pocket and turned away from the other three girls. Below her were the waters of the Thames. Inviting. The end to all her troubles.

  ‘No . . . !’ screamed Jo loudly.

  At Jo’s shout, Shannon stopped herself, bringing her foot back, changing her mind, but it was too late, her weight had already begun pulling her over the edge of the bridge to the dark water below . . .

  Frantically she scrabbled to get a grip on the bridge, but she couldn’t. She was slipping. She felt strong hands grab hold of her legs and body and pull her back. And then she was falling off the bridge, but in the other direction, towards the pavement.

  The four girls crashed to the hard ground, Jo, Kerrys and Cass underneath, with Shannon on top of them.

  ‘Ow!’ said Cass.

  They struggled to sit up. Shannon looked accusingly at Kerrys.

  ‘You had a gun,’ she said. ‘You were going to shoot me!’

  ‘No, I wasn’t,’ protested Kerrys. She looked at the gun, now lying on the ground. ‘It was just having the gun.’ She grinned. ‘I’ve always wanted to say something like that. You know: “Come on down, girl! With the stones!” It was too good to miss!’

  The four girls struggled to their feet. Jo looked at Shannon and her heart went out to her friend. She looked so frail, so defenceless, so vulnerable.

  ‘Why do you wanna kill yourself?’ she asked.

  ‘I don’t,’ said Shannon, shaking her head but unable to look her friends in the eye. ‘I mean, I did. I think I changed my mind just before you got here.’

  ‘Then why you try to jump just now?’ demanded Kerrys.

  Shannon shrugged.

  ‘I’m not sure I did. I started to, but then I didn’t want to, and I slipped.’ She looked at them apologetically. ‘I’m sorry.’

  Jo stepped forward and put her arms around Shannon.

  ‘That business with Dillon,’ she said. ‘It wasn’t what it looked like. I just had to get you out of the store. There was a robbery going on.’

  Shannon nodded.

  ‘I know,’ she said. ‘Not about the robbery, but . . . that something wasn’t right. After all, I was the one who ended up with the diamonds.’

  ‘We all read your mum’s note,’ said Kerrys.

  Shannon looked at them, shocked. All three lowered their eyes, shamed.

  ‘Sorry,’ said Jo.

  ‘Me too,’ said Cass.

  ‘Yeah, and me,’ said Kerrys.

  Jo held out the envelope to Shannon. Shannon shook her head.

  ‘It’s OK,’ she said. ‘I know what it says. I don’t need . . .’ She swallowed as the words caught in her throat. ‘I don’t wanna read it.’

  ‘We didn’t know about the baby stuff,’ said Cass awkwardly. ‘We just thought you were . . . you know . . . sick.’

  Shannon dropped her head again, her hair covering her face, muffling her words slightly as she said, ‘I would have told you. I’ve just been feeling . . .’

  Her words trailed off.

  ‘Alone,’ said Jo.

  Kerrys and Cass nodded in agreement.

  ‘We know,’ said Kerrys.

  ‘And believe me, you’re not,’ added Cass.

  ‘Also, we’re sorry,’ said Kerrys. She took a deep breath and added, ‘We should have been more attentive, but we ain’t exactly had the best three days of our lives. I messed up Jo’s weekend —’

  ‘Other people messed that up,’ interrupted Jo.

  ‘Whatever.’ Kerrys shrugged. ‘And by the look of Cass, she’s having a midlife crisis.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ muttered Cass ruefully.

  ‘So, no proper excuses and we would have been here for you earlier, but —’

  ‘We’ve been a little occupied,’ finished Jo.

  Cass leaned forward and wrapped Shannon in a big hug.

  ‘But whatever happened, we’re here for you now. And for each other.’

  ‘So now would be a good tim
e to give you these, Cass,’ said Kerrys. From her pocket she produced Cass’s keys. Cass looked at them as if she was about to make a sarcastic crack. Then her face softened and she gave Kerrys a smile.

  ‘And now would be a good time for me to do something with these,’ said Shannon, and she took the bag of diamonds from her pocket and opened it. The girls looked at the shining stones in awe.

  ‘Wow!’ said Jo.

  ‘Worth millions!’ added Kerrys.

  ‘I got one too,’ put in Cassandra, and she pulled out the solitary diamond she’d found on the floor of her hotel room and showed it to the others. ‘That guy must have accidentally dropped it in my bag when there was all that going on outside the Cappuccino.’

  They all gazed at the precious haul in awed and reverent silence, until Cass finally asked, ‘What are we gonna do with them?’

  ‘Get the reward,’ said Jo. ‘It’s bound to be big.’ She sighed. ‘And then we can get back to normal life.’

  Kerrys gave a big heartfelt sigh. ‘After the weekend I’ve had, normal will be heaven.’

  They stood in silence, their attention still on the precious stones glittering in the lights that illuminated the river. In that silence was an unspoken thought hanging in their minds. Once again, it was Cass who put it into words. ‘Maybe we shouldn’t get back to normal just yet.’

  The other girls looked at her.

  ‘What’s your idea?’ asked Jo.

  52

  The sound of the car horn tooting outside woke Mr Richards. He pulled himself up off the couch and looked out of the window. A car was just pulling away from the kerb. Someone had sprayed ‘GIRLS RULE. PS I LOVE YOU’ on the side. Mr Richards was sure that was Shannon sitting in the back of the car, looking towards the flat and waving, but then the car was gone, vanished into the night.

  He shook his head. It had to be Shannon and those friends of hers, but why toot like that and wake him up? And the neighbours.

  He was about to slip back down on the couch when something on the table caught his eye. It was a hand-drawn cartoon, with a small black bag resting on it. He wandered over to it. The cartoon was Shannon’s work — he recognised her style — and there was all manner of things going on in it. Part of it looked like a robbery in a convenience store, with two men with guns. The four girls were in the drawing too: Shannon and her friends Cassandra, Kerrys and Jo. There looked to be fights happening, but at the end the four girls were all smiling and in a car together, waving goodbye.