The other two looked at me, eyes wide, not saying anything. Then they looked at each other and shifted under the bedclothes.
“What?” I saw the look that passed between them and frowned. “What? Was I really that bad?”
Effie looked away, tears welling in her eyes. Victoria looked searchingly into my face. “Lawrence was stabbed last night, Misha.”
“What?” I gasped, gazing at Victoria, uncomprehending. “Vee, what are you talking about?”
“For God’s sake, Misha, you can’t tell me you don’t remember!”
“I don’t, Vee, honestly!” I shook my head, my mind clouding, crowded with sounds, feelings, emotions, images that didn’t make any sense. “Lawrence... stabbed? By whom? Is he OK? Effie?” I put my hand out to touch Effie’s arm. “Did you see it? Was he with you?”
Effie did not look my way. “Yeah,” she said shortly, wiping her face. “Yeah, he was with me... Listen, Vee, I’d really like to get home. I need to be in my own space, clear my head – and find out what happened to Lawrence. We left in such a hurry last night...” She faltered then, twisting the covers between her fingers. “I don’t even know whether he’s dead or alive.”
“Oh my God, Effie, I’m so sorry...” I was distraught. I reached out to hug Effie but she was already up and out of bed, searching through the piles of clothes on the floor for her jeans, looking for her bag.
“Do you think your driver will be able to take me home?”
“Of course, darling, of course. I’ll just go and tell Mummy. Why don’t you stay and take a shower, have some breakfast?”
But Effie just shook her head. “I just really want to get home, Vee. Sorry...”
“Of course, Effie, it’s not a problem – after what you’ve been through, who can blame you?”
“I’ll go home with Effie then, if that’s all right.” I looked worriedly over at Effie as she got off the bed and started picking her clothes up off the floor.
“Fine,” Victoria shrugged, tying the sash of her white silk dressing gown. “I’ll go and let him know.”
We began to get our things together. But I was puzzled. The silence between us was so thick, you could have cut it with a knife. I kept glancing at Effie. I expected her to be shocked, scared, traumatised – I mean, how often do you see your boyfriend get stabbed right in front of you? But what I didn’t understand was this, the cold shoulder. It was as if Effie couldn’t even bear to look at me.
“Effie,” I said tentatively, “have I done something wrong? Did something happen last night, while I was out of it?”
Effie sighed as she turned away and pulled on her leather jacket. “No, Misha,” she said pointedly, “you did nothing wrong. Let’s just say that some people are not what they seem...”
“Some people? Who, Effie? What are you talking about?” I reached out to grab Effie by her sleeve. “Effie, tell me what’s going on!”
Effie jerked her arm away and spun round to look me in the eye. “It was Dwayne, Misha!” she said, her lip curling, tears standing in her eyes. “Dwayne was the one who stabbed Lawrence.”
I stepped backwards, reeling, as if she had slapped me in the face. “No, Effie...” I breathed. “Y-you you’ve got it wrong,” I stammered, shaking my head. “D-Dwayne, he would never...”
“He would never what, Misha?” Effie’s voice had a hardened edge to it and she glared at me with a new fierceness. “He would never what? You don’t honestly think you know anything about him, do you? After what we saw last night?”
“So he’s from a rough side of town... fair enough. That doesn’t mean that he would ever stab anyone, or hurt anyone!”
Then Effie came up close to me, so close that I could see the tiny hairs of her eyebrows beginning to grow back, the clumps of dried mascara that still clung to her lashes, the red lines that criss-crossed her eyeballs.
“I saw him, Misha,” she hissed. “I saw him with the knife!”
I froze.
“Yes, that’s right, your Romeo was carrying a knife when we left the club and, after he dropped us home, I saw him throw it into the bin outside this house!”
“I don’t believe you...” I whispered. “No... no way.”
“I’m telling you, I saw him with my own eyes, Misha! Wake up! This isn’t some fantasy! Lawrence was stabbed last night. He was bleeding all over the place. Look!” And she snatched my red dress from the floor and held up the bloodstain for me to see. “That is Lawrence’s blood! He could be dead right now, for all we know!”
Shock seeped through my brain, rendering me speechless, unseeing. I sank to a crouch on the floor and my eyes glazed over with tears as I stared at the red dress with the dark patch of blood on the left side. Lawrence’s blood. Dwayne? No, it was too hard to get to grips with. There had to have been some mistake.
“Let’s find the knife then,” I whispered suddenly, looking up at Effie. “You said he put it in the bin outside? Well, let’s go and get it.”
In moments, I was downstairs, outside the front door, down the stone steps, looking around for the wheelie bin. I saw it facing the pavement and dashed towards it, wrenching the lid open.
Empty.
I groaned. The rubbish collectors had been and gone.
Now there was only one way to find out the truth.
“Come on, Effie,” I muttered as I started up the stairs again. “Let’s get our stuff and see where that driver is; I’ve got to pay someone a visit.”
Judgement Day
DWAYNE
I was proper cussing myself all the way home.
‘I should have listened to Tony, man. I should have stayed away. What kind of a Muslim goes raving anyway? I should never have taken Misha there – just look at what almost happened to her! After I promised to look after her and ting.’ I shook my head. ‘Now the whole situation is mash-up. Larkside man will be on our case again – and they saw me! They saw me with Trigger and Jukkie! Ain’t no way I’m going to be able to stay out of the beef now. And what about Lockjaw? What if he doesn’t make it? And who was behind the curtain at Vic’s house? What did they see?’
Too many questions. Just too many questions.
I stayed off school and cotched at Tony’s. I couldn’t risk bumping into Leon or any of those boys. The truth was, I didn’t know how the hell I was going to leave my estate again, not without packing. Not without something to protect myself. I had never been one of dem Youngers who liked to shoot people up, just for the fun of it, just to make a point. For me, it was about the Ps at the end of the day. And if I could make money without stepping on any toes, I was happy.
Tony had offered me a gun ages ago but times had changed. No way Tony would give me a piece now. He’d moved past that mentality, big time.
“You need to pray, bro,” he kept saying. “You did wrong. You need to pray for forgiveness and start again. While you’re still alive, there’s always a way to start again.”
I looked at him like he was crazy. Did he really think that praying was going to solve my problems? I needed a solution. I needed a miracle.
‘Ain’t that what God does?’
‘What’s that?’
‘Work miracles?’
‘Yeah, I guess so...’
‘Then you best start praying for a miracle then, innit?’
I went outside that afternoon. I wore an old hoodie that I hadn’t worn for time and pulled the hood right up. I wore a pair of old trainers and took a bag with me, just in case. I needed to buy some credit from the shop coz I needed to speak to Misha. Victoria had already told me that she had woken up feeling better but I still hadn’t had the chance to call her and hear her voice.
It had started raining a short while before and the estate was deserted. I looked this way and that, trying to spot a car driving past too slowly, a guy on a bike, anything suspicious.
But it all seemed clear.
“Yo, rudeboy!”
I jumped and instinctively whirled round, my guard up, in case of any trou
ble. Then I relaxed.
It was Jukkie.
Jukkie looked proper mash-up, like he hadn’t slept for days. His clothes were crumpled and his skin was ashy. And his eyes were red raw, as if he’d been smoking too much skunk.
“Jukkie, man!” My heart began to knock violently against my ribcage. “You tryin’ to give man a heart attack or somethin’?” My mind flooded with images of the stabbing on Friday night, the feel of the bloodied knife, heavy, on the inside of my jacket. “What’s goin’ on? Where’ve you been? I kept tryin’ to call you...”
“Yeah, I know, I had to keep my head down, innit. Lay low for a while.” He slung his arm over my shoulder and began bopping away from the main road, his head low, his eyes flicking from side to side.
“Where did you go, man?” I let Jukkie steer me past the row of bins, down a narrow alleyway between the flats.
“After I left the club, I came home to check on my mum, tidy up and that.” Jukkie’s voice was hoarse. “Then I went up to Stonebridge to stay over at Candice’s place. Thought it’d be better to stay out of the area.”
We were almost at Jukkie’s building, via the back route we’d always used as kids. We had shared the loot from our first shoplifting trip here. I had smoked my first joint beside these bins. But today there was no one here. The tower blocks that rose on either side blocked out the sun and the shadows were chilly.
“Why d’you come back, blud? Don’t you think it’d better if you stayed up in North-West?” I tried to keep my tone light although my teeth were chattering.
“Yeah, yeah, I’m going back, innit; I just need to check on my mum. You know she’s in a bad way. Plus I wanted to chat to you, bruv...” Jukkie stopped walking, glanced over his shoulder then turned to look me in the face.
“Yeah? What about?”
“My knife, man. I need it back, to get rid of it, y’get me?”
“Nah, man, I took care of it, don’t worry.”
Jukkie eyed me up. “What d’you mean? Where is it?”
“I got rid of it, innit? Don’t worry, the police will never find it.”
“You sure?” Jukkie sounded doubtful. “Did you throw it in the canal or something?”
‘That’s what you should have done, man, not put it in the dustbin!’
“Nah, man, I got rid of it – don’t worry! I took care of it, yeah?”
“All right, safe, man.” At last, I could see him start to relax. He sounded relieved. “Thanks, bro. I owe you one.”
“Nah, don’t worry about it, blud. That’s what we do, standard.”
“Yeah, you’re my bredren still, even though you’ve been going on like a bloodclart with this Islam ting.”
We reached the entrance to Jukkie’s building.
“Listen, yeah,” said Jukkie, punching in the code that opened the heavy steel door to the main entrance. “I need you to look after my mum while I’m in North West. Tony’s planning to move in with his girl – his wife – but I may not be able to keep comin’ down like this. I heard that Lockjaw’s peeps know it was me who shanked him...” Jukkie chewed his lower lip and his eyes darted around as we waited for the lift to come down from the fifth floor. His voice dropped: “Spoonz said he heard that Loc’s in intensive care, that he might not make it...”
And I caught the flicker of fear in Jukkie’s eyes. For all his big-man talk, even Jukkie wasn’t ready to be a murderer at seventeen. But the flicker disappeared when Jukkie scowled and his face closed up. “Serve him right, still!” he whispered fiercely. When we got into the lift, Jukkie screwed up his face and spat into the corner. “This lift stinks, man!”
I didn’t say nothing but looked up at the flickering light on the ceiling of the lift. Something wasn’t right. I felt proper didgy – there was something strange in the air of that lift, a bad feeling I couldn’t name. Something was wrong, I could feel it.
When at last the lift reached the fifth floor, Jukkie flipped his hood back and stepped towards the doors as they slid open. But just as he was about to step out, I reached over and grabbed his arm with a grip like iron. Jukkie frowned at me and was about to shake my hand off when I put my finger up and made a sign for Jukkie to stop and listen.
There were voices down the corridor.
White people’s voices.
“Good afternoon, ma’am. We’re here to see Marvin Johnson... we have a few questions we’d like to ask him...”
5-0.
“Oh, sh...”
Jukkie swore under his breath and I turned to press the keys to close the door of the lift, to get to the ground floor, to get the hell out of there, as silently as possible. My fingers pressed the sticky buttons and the door began to close, scraping as it went.
“Oi!” we could hear the officers shout out just as the doors were closing. “Who’s there?”
In a panic, Jukkie began to press the button that closed the doors, again and again, trying to make them close faster, pure terror in his eyes.
I felt sweat spring up on my forehead, as cold and slick as the fear that gripped my insides. What had happened? How had they known to come looking for Jukkie?
‘Oh my days, don’t tell me they found the knife!’
The lift doors had almost shut when we saw the end of a police baton poke through the gap, banging, banging, from side to side, trying to wedge the door open. Instinctively, we both began to kick at the baton, trying to push it back out again, shouting, the sweat trickling down our backs.
But we were too late. With the baton wedging the doors apart, the policewoman who was holding it was able to get the doors to slide open again. When the doors opened, we both flew out, ready to battle. Jukkie swung his fist and caught the stocky policewoman on the side of her jaw. Then I pushed her and she crashed back against the railings and crumpled to the floor.
It took the other officers a couple of moments to realise what was happening – “That’s him there!” – and they began to run towards us down the corridor, their hands to their sides. I ran toward the fire escape.
‘Just get out of the building, man! Once you’re out of here, you’re laughing – the estate’s too big and there are ‘nuff places to hide and ting. And, even if someone sees you, ain’t no one gonna tell the police nuffin’!’
‘What about Jukkie?’
‘Jukkie’s coming, man! He’s a big boy; he can handle himself!’
But Jukkie couldn’t, not this time. The police got him before he could reach the door and, when I looked back to see whether he was behind me, I saw my childhood friend, the badman, the protector, the avenger, on his belly, his face pressed into the grimy floor, a red-faced policeman straddling his back, putting cuffs on him. His eyes were squeezed shut and I knew, like I knew my own brother, like I knew my own name, that he was struggling not to cry.
It took them a bit longer to catch me. I made it out of the building and was about to gap it through the alleyway when I saw her.
She had just gotten off the bus. She raised her hand to wave at me – then I heard the police siren and the car swung up on to the grass verge in front of me. I dodged madly, turning to run the other way, but I caught my foot in a hole on the lawn and went down.
A couple of seconds later, they had the dogs on me, cuffs, everything.
“Misha!” I shouted out to her as they pushed me to the police car. “Don’t worry! It’s all a mistake! I’ll bell you, yeah?”
But she didn’t say anything.
We drove back out of the estate in a madness of police sirens. But I hardly noticed. All I could see was Misha’s face, all crumpled, her hand over her mouth, crying as she saw Dwayne Kingston, her badboy lover, get arrested for the first time.
‘Damn, you made her cry again.’
‘I beg you SHUT UP, blud.’
‘I’m just sayin’...’
Retribution
MISHA
Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Dwayne on the floor, the police dogs slobbering all over him, the officers slapping the handcuffs
on his wrists. And his voice, his voice, calling to me: ‘It’s not what it looks like! I’m innocent! Please, Misha, please believe me!’
I left the Saints Hill estate in tears. I wandered blindly, numb, not knowing where to go, what to think, what to feel. The only possible explanation for what I had seen was that Effie was right.
Dwayne had stabbed Lawrence, and the police had caught him.
But, at the same time, it just didn’t make any sense at all. Why? How? Was Dwayne really capable of that? Didn’t I know him at all?
I found myself walking in a daze to Gran’s house. When she saw me at the door, my eyes red, my face wet with tears, shivering, she started asking a million questions. But I shook my head – “Later, Gran, please. I just need a moment... just a moment. Can I come in?”
So she opened the door and let me through to lie on her bed while she made me a cup of tea.
“I have a friend visiting, Misha,” she said gently. “You don’t have to come through until you feel up to it.” Gran left me alone with my thoughts, thoughts that swirled in and out of the confused fog of my mind.
How could I have misjudged Dwayne so badly? How could he have fooled me all this time? I had suspected that there was more to him than he let on, but I would never have pictured him as someone capable of attempting to take a life, never. If he had been capable of such heartlessness, hadn’t he changed? Hadn’t he grown beyond that in the time we had been together? Was his new religion just a label? What was the point of all that talk about Islam if he was still the same as Jukkie and the other boys on his estate: violent, mindless, heartless?
Eventually, I found that I had no more tears. My heart was wrung dry. I came out of Gran’s room just as her guest was leaving. The visitor, a middle-aged Jamaican woman wearing a neat headwrap, was speaking on her mobile phone, worry written all over her face.
“Dwayne?” she said, frowning. “Are you sure about that, Mrs Kingston?” The person on the other end of the line was shrieking and Gran’s visitor tried to calm her down. “There must be an explanation, love, just calm down, please. I am in Brixton, I’ll be right over...” She turned to say goodbye to Gran and saw me standing there, my face full of questions.
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