Jayden looked pained at the words, but he shrugged.
“Nothing we can do about it,” he said.
Corey knew he was right, but he still felt anger coursing through him, and he wondered if his brother had a plan that he didn’t want to share just yet. He hoped he did, it was what he expected from his older, smarter brother, but looking at Jayden’s face, he was uncertain; maybe he really had just given up hope on justice for Wright.
* * *
Tyrese was annoyed with his sister for not replying to his messages, but he was sure she would come around in time. She was still grieving, and once she’d got over it and got back to normal, she would reconsider and then she’d be in touch.
Tyrese still felt concerned. What if she didn’t? How much time did they have? He couldn’t be sure what the Healy brothers were plotting, but he was sure it was no coincidence that they had started dealing again on the Goldsworth, it must mean they were planning to challenge them, and so far they had been met with no force, no rebuke, and Tyrese hoped they didn’t think to try their luck and overthrow them.
Trent came into the room and sat down in his armchair. He reached for the remote and Tyrese groaned. He wanted his brother to help, not sit and watch television all fucking day.
“Where you been off to all day?” Tyrese asked. His brother had slipped out in the morning and hadn’t said what he was up to, though Tyrese knew it wasn’t anything to do with earning money; he left all that to Tyrese.
“Went to see Sanjay,” Trent replied. He shook his head. “Waste of time.”
Tyrese was instantly weary.
“What did you want from him?”
“Nothing much,” Trent shrugged. “There’s something about that guy I just don’t trust, though. You know what I mean?”
Tyrese didn’t answer, watching his brother. He hoped Trent hadn’t managed to piss Sanjay off. The last thing he needed was for Sanjay to turn against them and align himself with Jayden and the Healys. Not when he was beginning to rely on him.
“I know he’s an old mate of yours, but he’s shifty,” Trent continued, eyes on the television, unaware of the look on his brother’s face. “He’s trouble, I reckon.”
“Just leave it to me,” Tyrese said. Like always, he wanted to add.
Trent could have his uncertainties, Tyrese didn’t care either way. He’d given up trying to appease his younger brother, who never seemed to do anything but still expected the same credit, the same profit, as those who did. Tyrese was tired of it, he’d had enough of his brother.
He liked Sanjay as his deputy, his right-hand man, someone he could discuss tactics with and hopefully formulate a plan with to finally stop the Healy intrusions onto their estate. Tyrese wondered if, deep down, Trent had realized that Sanjay was his replacement.
* * *
Clint knocked on the front door of his parents’ flat and waited. He wondered if his dad would keep up his provocation, and he suspected that he would. His dad could be patient when it came to winding him up, just not in anything else.
His mum opened the door and Clint saw at once her swollen right eye, the eyelid puffy and purple, and Clint shook his head, frustrated. He hesitated as she opened the door wider for him to come in, unsure if he wanted to now.
“What happened to your eye?” he asked pointedly, stood on the threshold.
Femi squirmed at the question, and didn’t answer. There was no use, they both knew who was responsible and Clint felt frustrated with both of his parents, his dad for being a violent twat, and his mum for putting up with his dad.
“Where’s dad?” Clint asked.
“Out,” Femi replied. “Drinking. He went down to the pub, so he won’t be back anytime soon, don’t worry.”
Clint had only come around to talk about Kojo, but he didn’t feel like he wanted to now. He’d actually considered letting Kojo come and stay here with them, but he couldn’t now, not when he knew his father hadn’t changed and his mum still showed no defiance.
“I’ll see you later mum,” Clint said quietly, and left. He knew his mum was disappointed, and he felt bad for her, but she should bear some of the blame, he thought. If she would only stand up to his dad – but she never would, he knew that.
He went down the stairwell at the end of the balcony, kicking pieces of gravel with his trainers, sending them skittering down the steps in front of him. He didn’t much want to be back at Marlena’s flat, but he didn’t have much choice.
At the bottom of the stairs, he turned to cross the courtyard when he heard noise down a concrete passage off to the left. He hesitated; there were all sorts on the estate, and most of them didn’t like to be disturbed or seen. There was laboured breathing, grunting. Clint glanced down the passageway and gasped.
A woman he recognised was up against the wall, her skirt pulled up to her waist. It was Brandy’s mum. A large man was pressed against her, his trousers around his ankles as he pumped away at her, sweat pouring down his face and his eyes screwed up from the effort. He was grunting and she was giving out a pained moan. Clint took a step forward.
“Dad?” he called out, his voice echoing down the alley. “What the fuck dad?”
Rakhul glanced at him, making no effort to hide the fact he was fucking a stranger, cheating on his wife and the mother of his children. His hips kept thrusting as he eyed his eldest son.
“Fuck off out of here, I’m busy,” he shouted.
Deanna Mason’s eyes snapped open and she glared at Clint.
“Unless you want to get in on this, run along kid,” she called to him.
Clint shot them a disgusted look and turned, but his dad had already lost interest in him and his eyes were back on Deanna, whose eyes were squeezed shut. He hurried out of the alley and into the bright courtyard. He shook his head, but the mental picture of them remained.
He had always known his father was a violent drunk, but now he was a cheat too. He wondered how many times Rakhul had been with other women, and knew that this couldn’t be the first time. He thought of rushing back to his mum and telling her what he had seen. Would she finally see sense and leave him then?
Clint dismissed the thought at once. He knew his mum would never leave her husband, even if she knew that he had betrayed her. All that Clint would achieve would be to make her life a little more miserable.
He resolved to keep quiet, for his mum’s sake.
* * *
“Murder?” Troy repeated, his voice a little higher than usual.
He was shocked that he could have guessed so wrong about what crime his cellmate might have committed. He felt blindsided that he had underestimated Dante.
“Yeah, same as you,” Dante said casually from his bunk up top. If he’d heard the surprise in Troy’s voice, he didn’t mention it.
The cell was quiet but there were footsteps and chatter in the rec area, and Troy was embarrassed as he realised he was relieved he wasn’t locked-up with his cellmate for the night yet. Was he scared of Dante now? He tried to shake off his concerns and his shock, reminding himself that he was a Banks brother and his cellmate respected him, almost feared him even.
“Who’d you kill?” he asked, keeping his voice level, as if only mildly curious.
“My best mate,” Dante replied. He didn’t sound remorseful. “His name was Bolton. We were best mates since we were kids, you know. Started working together, and then he stole some money from the boss. I was told to get it back.”
“Did you?” Troy asked.
“I tried,” Dante sighed. It sounded like he regretted that much, at least, Troy thought. “He’d hidden it somewhere; I reckon he gave it to his girlfriend Charley. Thousands of pounds, all for that jumped-up slag who never worked a day in her fucking life,” he snarled. Troy heard his cellmate’s mattress creak above him as Dante shifted on his bed. “I tried to give him a chance to hand it over, to live, but he wouldn’t fucking listen.”
“So you killed him?”
“Yeah man, stabbed him righ
t in the heart,” Dante replied. “He should never have stolen that money.”
Troy considered the answer. He guessed it showed loyalty, if Dante was willing to kill his best mate on his boss’s orders. He wondered if Dante would kill for him if he told him to. Probably not yet, Troy thought, but maybe in time.
“You reckon the girlfriend still has the money then?” Troy asked, remembering the weird phone calls Dante had been making.
“For now she does,” Dante said. “Once I get someone trustworthy on the outside, I’ll get them to get it back for me. My old boss is dead, so the money don’t belong to anyone but me now, and a cut for the one who gets it for me and all.”
“My brothers could do it,” Troy suggested. The thought of some girl sitting on all the cash was too tempting to just let it slide.
“You reckon?” Dante asked, hopeful.
“No harm in asking,” Troy decided.
He went to text his brothers, but remembered Dante had the phone. He would text them later, he decided. Another thought occurred to him. Maybe he’d ask Amal to do it instead. Then his brothers wouldn’t get their hands on that money and it would all be for him. Amal would get a cut, for sure, but he didn’t see why his brothers should share in it. Not when they continued to disrespect him by not visiting. Dante was quiet on his bunk, and Troy considered his cellmate with a new respect.
“So, murder,” he said slowly. “Wasn’t expecting that.”
“What’s the difference?” Dante asked, nonplussed. “You’re in here for murder too.”
“Yeah,” Troy murmured.
“You stabbed that Shaniqua Curtis, right?” Dante asked, and Troy heard him shift his weight on the bunk above. “I heard it on the news, when she died.”
“She cut her eyes at my girlfriend, stupid bitch. She deserved a stabbing.”
“You regret it?” Dante asked.
“No, man, I’d do it again if I got the chance,” Troy said, remembering the power he had felt as he’d watched the fear flash in her eyes. “They ain’t going to find me guilty, no way. Then I’ll be out of here, a free man, and I’ll show those who fucking disrespected me what happens when they try and shaft a Banks brother.”
“Those charges that got dropped, you do them murders too?” Dante asked.
Troy was silent for a moment. He didn’t normally talk of what he’d done, but Dante had trusted him with the truth.
“Yeah, that guy, Wright, worked for the Healy brothers,” Troy explained. “They’ve always been jealous of me and my brothers, wanted some of the respect we got. He overstepped the fucking mark.”
“How come?” Dante asked, sounding intrigued.
“You know, disrespected me,” Troy shrugged. He remembered the weight of the gun in his hand, the way Sasha had jumped in front of the bullet, the sight of the blood spurting from her neck. “The girl he was with, she was fucking hot man, but she was fucking around with the enemy so she got what was coming to her and all, bullet in the throat.”
“Damn, that’s cold,” Dante said.
“Nah man, that’s life,” Troy said, the image of Wright bearing down on him before he’d fired the trigger and blown Wright’s head off. He smiled. “Well, life on the Goldsworth anyway.”
* * *
Dante smiled to himself as he listened to Troy. In his hand, the mobile phone he’d borrowed from Troy was warm against his palm.
He had heard far more than he had dared to hope for, and he was pleased that Troy had been so open with him. As Troy fell quiet, no doubt reminiscing about how it had felt to kill someone, Dante gave out a cough to cover the beep of the phone as he stopped the recording.
Of course, he had only started recording the conversation after he had made his own confession. It wouldn’t do to have his guilt recorded forever; not when he too intended to be found not guilty. It had been enough to win Troy’s trust, though, and now he had a recording of Troy’s confession and that would come in handy.
Troy liked to think he was the boss, that he was the one in charge of the cell and the situation, but Dante knew otherwise. He saved the recording of the confession and made sure that Troy wouldn’t stumble across it by accident.
As Troy chucked him up a small baggie of coke, Dante thanked him and smiled. His cellmate was unaware that he could totally destroy him with just one click of a button.
When the time came to take over this block, Dante had all he needed now to ensure that Troy would fall into line.
CHAPTER SIX
Troy felt his body sway on the metal bench in the back of the van as the police vehicle turned a corner on the road and lurched to a halt. There were no windows for him to see out of, so he had no idea where they might be, whether they were at the court buildings yet.
The van moved again. The guard sitting beside him looked bored, barely even glancing at him. Troy felt the handcuffs digging into his wrists each time the van moved unexpectedly. They had been driving for more than half an hour, so he knew they must be close. His pulse quickened at the thought.
When the van began moving again, it was slow and it quickly came to another stop. He heard a door slamming, though he couldn’t be sure if it was the van doors or from a car in the street somewhere beyond the cool metal walls of his new, moving prison. He jumped when the back doors swung open. He screwed his eyes up at the sudden bright light filling the van and he remained sitting, as he had been told to do when he had been processed out of prison for the first day of his trial and the handcuffs had been snapped on him, just seconds after he had signed the paperwork they had thrust at him.
The guard beside him didn’t move either, whilst an officer secured the doors to the van and then beckoned him forwards. Troy hesitated, shooting a glance to the man beside him, but he wasn’t even looking at him. Troy lifted himself up off the bench and felt the guard’s hand grab his arm, guiding him out and into the waiting arms of another guard. This one he didn’t recognise and he guessed it must be someone who worked at the court rather than the prison.
As Troy was helped out of the van, he looked around. They were in a car park, brightly lit from overhead strip lighting rather than the sun, and Troy guessed they must be underground. All the harder for an escape, he thought without amusement. He wiped his palms on his trousers as the guard who had accompanied him on the drive clambered out and resumed his position beside him. The van was shut up again and in seconds it was driving away, leaving Troy watching it with a sense of loss. He hadn’t been in the vehicle much longer than half an hour, he was sure of that, but it had been a welcome break from prison before the harsh reality of being in the court building had set in.
Troy allowed himself to be led to a lift a few metres away. He kept quiet and made sure he didn’t look too long at the guards, just in case they got a bit jumpy and thought he was trying to picture their faces. The lift doors closed as they got in and Troy tried to steady his breathing, feeling his stomach churning uncomfortably with nerves.
The lift hummed as it took them up two floors and Troy closed his eyes, willing his confidence to return. It was hard to feel positive though, now he was faced with standing in front of everyone and listening to their arguments against him. He hoped his brothers had succeeded in scaring off the witnesses, but even if they had he would still have to listen to the professionals talk, trying to convince the jury that he was a killer, that he deserved to spend years and years locked up.
There was a ping as they reached ground level and the doors slid open. One of the guards stepped out first, and Troy was guided out by the one who remained at his side, the greying man who had been with him since they had left prison.
They were in a long hallway, with shiny wooden floors and windows to one end and double doors in a large atrium at the other end. The area was filled with sunlight and Troy felt the first flicker of hope.
“Just through here lad,” the greying guard said, nudging Troy forward towards a door on the opposite side from the lift. The second guard opened the door and ste
pped inside, holding it open for him.
Troy glanced down the corridor towards the atrium, seeing people passing by at the end. He wondered if his family were waiting there in the entrance, praying that he would be out to join them soon. Another nudge from the guard, and Troy reluctantly stepped through the doorway and into a small room painted in a dull white, with a few chairs and a table.
“This is where we’ll wait,” the greying guard told him, guiding him into a chair and sitting down on the one beside him, whilst the other guard closed and locked the door they had just come through. The greying guard nodded towards a second door, on the far side of the room. “That’s where we’ll be going when they’re ready for you, the court room is just through there.”
Troy glanced at the door and quickly looked away again. He could imagine the court room on the other side, filling with people there to judge him and question him. He tried not to look at the door, to push all thought of the trial from his mind, but his palms dampened again and his eyes kept flickering back to the door that led out to the court room and his judgement.
* * *
Tyrese remembered when he had been up in front of a judge as he walked through the main entrance of the court building. It had been for a minor charge, nothing as serious as Troy was facing. He had only been given a short sentence. He had paid someone off to take the fall for him, so he had not felt nervous when he had taken the stand and recounted his altered version of the truth.
He felt nervous now though. Troy was a liability, but he was still his brother. He wanted to help him out, but he also feared what Troy might say in court. When the pressure got to him, he might start to confess. If he confessed to killing Shaniqua Curtis, that was his problem, but if he started talking about other things, perhaps business that involved him and Trent, then that would become their problem too.
The collar of his white shirt itched around his neck and he felt uncomfortable in a suit. He glanced at Trent and knew that he was feeling it too. They didn’t do suits, not unless they were at court or a funeral.
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