by Linda Regan
The cousins nodded.
Harisha then turned to Melek. ‘I’m gonna buy you a nice big diamond for those pretty hands of yours, ’cos you are going to do just fine when those feds catch up with you, aren’t you?’
She nodded, and then sniffed.
‘No matter what they say, and how much they push you, you never saw no one, you don’t know nothing, and that’s all you say, ain’t it, my angel?’
Melek lifted her pretty hands and wiped the snot from her running nose. ‘Yeah,’ she assured him. ‘I’ll say that. I won’t say nothing else.’
He smiled and raised his voice, his mean dark eyes narrowing. ‘Cos we are going to do the punishing, ain’t we?’ he said to his soldiers. ‘We are gonna tear their pussy-arsed heads from their bodies and cut them into slivers of pig food. We are going to do that for Burak.’
The noise of the gang high-fiving their retaliation for their fellow soldier’s death rung around the garage. One by one blue bandanas and hoods were pulled up as they turned to leave.
‘I want them dragged in here,’ Harisha shouted as they were all leaving. ‘No one kills them, right? They’ll learn who runs the fucking turf on the Aviary Estate, and that no one messes wiv us.’
Hooded heads were nodding their agreement as they made their way from their hideout.
‘And watch out!’ he shouted after them. ‘The feds are sniffing.’
When all the crew had left Harisha moved to Melek. He had a hard-on that he had no intention of suppressing. He removed his sunglasses and stared into her frightened eyes. She was watching him back.
His body was now only inches from hers, and the wall was behind her. He could feel the fear in her breath. That was making him harder. He stroked her tiny waist and then moved his hand and tugged down the zip of her jeans. As he felt her body tense he knew he had to get inside her, he could hardly contain himself. He stroked her hair and then her face, very tenderly, and then he tugged her jeans down to her ankles.
‘Step,’ he commanded. His fingers now under her white lace G-string
She obeyed.
‘Turn round and get on your knees,’ he told her.
He allowed himself one second to stare at her perfect bottom with the white lace snaking between her buttocks.
‘Open your legs,’ he commanded, pulling her G-string across to one side as he unzipped his throbbing cock. He pulled his jeans swiftly down, stepped out of them, and entered her from behind. Within seconds his cock felt better.
‘He’s definitely dead.’
Three of the girls were curled up on the large, fluffy animal print rug, in the living room of Alysha’s thirteenth-floor flat. Alysha was sitting on the uneven sofa talking to them. ‘That tent in the grounds says there’s a stiff in there, and they’re knocking on doors, and asking who saw what.’
‘No one will squeal,’ Tink said. ‘We know that.’
‘Nothing to squeal,’ Lox said. ‘We was in the lock-up. No one saw nothing.’
‘We didn’t cut him that much,’ Panther said. ‘He might of needed stitching, and he was bleeding from all that, but we didn’t know the weak fucker was going to go and die.’
‘Well, he has,’ Alysha said. ‘One less bastard to do wrong on our patch. So for that I’m glad he’s dead, but I don’t want us to go down for it. We never meant to kill him and if we go down who’s gonna fix the playground and rebuild the community centres, and keep them South London Rulers from selling drugs to our tinies? We can’t take a lump, we vowed to help our residents and make this a safe place to live.’
‘What we gonna say then, when the feds knock? Lox asked.
‘It’ll be the black fed, Georgia Johnson,’ Alysha told her. ‘Cos she’ll want information. We’ll give her info and charge her as usual, but it’s what we tell ’er, that’s what we gotta decide.’
Panther had an afro comb in her hand. She was bent over, dragging the afro through her wild, unruly mass of badly dyed thick orange hair. ‘We need a plan,’ she said from her upside-down position.
‘An’ you need your hair sorting,’ Tink said to her. ‘I’m gonna put it right for you. She was sitting against the ancient upright wooden dining chair, her pale face worried as she watched Panther. ‘Let me do that, mate,’ she said stretching her arm out for Panther’s comb. ‘You are making such a mess of yourself.’
Panther handed her the comb. ‘Ta, babe,’ she said, sitting the right way up. ‘What they got on us?’ she asked Alysha as Tink combed through the orange knots. ‘Nothing, cos we never killed ’im. Ain’t our fault the fucker couldn’t take a bit of a shanking. We’re saying we know nothing, ain’t we?’
‘Yeah, course,’ Alysha said as confidently as she could manage. ‘We tell Georgia Johnson that SLRs was running this patch, and they’ve got a beef with them old Wilkinses, cos SLR stole their car and then stole the lock-up.’
‘We ain’t gonna get the Wilkinses involved, they’ve got enough beef as it is,’ Lox interrupted. ‘They’re just a sweet, frightened old couple.’
‘We’re gonna help them,’ Alysha assured her, leaning in and stroking her cheek. ‘ACs are about a new tomorrow for the Aviary. Safety for our old residents. We’ll keep standing up to them bastard SLRs, and anyone else who tries it on wiv our pensioners or kids. They’ll all learn if they mess with ACs, they’ll pay.’
‘As long as ’e don’t kill them,’ Lox said. ‘They’re on our patch, we look after them, ain’t that right?’
‘Course,’ Alysha said leaning over and stroking her face. ‘This is ’bout protection, and a new tomorrow for the Aviary. Don’t matter what it takes, we ain’t gonna let anyone take our territory. We’ll clean it up, and if that scum Burak Kaya is dead, then that’s what it takes to get the Wilkinses what they deserve. We’ll keep standing up to them SLRs until they learn they can’t mess wiv our people.’
‘You think we can make enough to rebuild the play area and start on the burnt down community halls this year?’ Panther asked, lifting her bushy eyebrows, and nodding her thank you as Tink passed the comb back.
Alysha nodded. ‘We’re gonna try. Lox is in charge of money,’ she turned to Lox.
‘The street trade’s making us good corn,’ Lox said. ‘All the girls pay up, and they all earn well, and we’ll get corn from the feds for informing on Burak. We got the regular corn coming in from dealing to the addicts, and how’s about we tell the feds that if we help them find their killer, then they have to agree to get the council to rebuild the kid’s playground.’
‘Good idea,’ Alysha nodded. ‘But we gotta tell them something or they won’t agree nothing.’
‘What do we say then?’ Panther asked.
‘That the SLRs are selling on this patch, and putting the frighteners out on some of the residents.’
‘So someone must have killed Burak Kaya cos of that?’
Alysha nodded. ‘We’ll say other gangs are trying to move in on the area and the SLR are fighting anyone that tries. That Burak Kaya is cousin to Harisha and so they done him to warn SLRs off the patch.’
‘And that’ll keep the feds off our case, you reckon?’ Panther said.
‘I reckon it will,’ Alysha said. ‘No one saw us shank him, if they did, no one around here will squeal.’
‘Wilkinses won’t say nothing to the feds nor no one else,’ Lox said. ‘Bless them, they are shit scared of everyone.’
‘Except us,’ Alysha said. ‘We’ll do whatever it takes to keep this estate under our rule. Not SLR scum, not no one’s gonna take our estate from us. We’ll fight till death for it, and we’re gonna turn it round and make it a better place for all who live on it, with protection if you need it, and opportunities for the kids so they get a better deal than we did. We’ll keep doing the selling round here, but only to users. The profits will get a youth centre up and running, and Tink’s hair and make-up school going. Look how good Tink is at hair and beauty stuff, an’ that’s before she’s been to college.’
‘Yeah,’ Tin
k brightened, looking at Panther’s orange afro locks proudly. ‘We’re gonna build the studio site back up too, so the kids can make music and do dance classes again. Lox could produce girl bands, she’ll be the next Simon Cowell, as well as doing the accounts, and Panther can teach self-defence.’
‘After I’ve killed them South London Rulers,’ Panther said.
‘And all the other gangs that get in our way,’ Lox agreed.
‘We only kill if we ’ave to,’ Alysha said sharply. ‘Cos otherwise we’ll get locked up, and too many people round here need us, and need what we’re gonna build them.’
‘We gotta frame Harisha Celik, then,’ Panther said.
‘Let’s lead the feds to the lock-up,’ Tink suggested, ‘and give them the machetes, that’ll include the one we used to punish Burak. It’s all clean now, there’s nothing in there says we’ve been there. I bleached everything. We tell the feds the lock-up has been taken by Celik, anything in there is his, and he will go down for all those weapons for sure.’
‘No, that ain’t smart,’ Panther argued. ‘The SLRs would come after us then, and the feds would have taken all the weapons, so they’d slaughter us.’
‘The SLRs are gonna come after us anyway,’ Alysha told them. ‘That Turkish bitch will have grassed us up to them by now.’
‘So we need them weapons to fight,’ Panther argued. ‘They got heavy weapons, mate. They are gonna try and slaughter us.’
Alysha shook her head. ‘No, Tink is right. It is a good idea. Remember that the Turkish bitch told us about the tunnel in Keepers Street. There’s gonna be loads of weapons down there already. So let’s go and steal them, and when we got them, then we’ll give up the lock-up to the feds, and then when Celik gets arrested his soldiers can’t come after us cos all their weapons will be gone from the tunnel.’
Tink nodded her agreement. ‘And the feds will be on side wiv us.’
‘We’ll need them if them SLRs have got other weapons,’ Panther said. ‘Cos if we grass Celik up, they ain’t gonna let that go, not never.’
‘They gotta know that it was us who grassed ‘im up,’ Lox said. ‘Feds won’t tell ’im it was us, so how will they know?’
‘What you think of Melek?’ Alysha asked the girls. ‘D’you think she’d screw Harisha up if we made it worth her while?’
‘I think she would,’ Tink said nodding at Alysha. ‘She knows we’re a better bet. Harisha hurts her. She ain’t happy with him. She’ll see the light. I’ll lay money on it.’
Lox picked up a joint. ‘Shall I light this for us?’
Alysha caught Panther’s eye. Panther had her bushy eyebrows raised in disappointment.
‘If you must,’ Alysha said with a shrug. ‘But you know you can only ’ave one a week now.’ She registered the disappointment on Lox’s face. ‘You’re doing real good. You’ve been clean for six months. One joint every week, and then after this year, none ever again, that’s the deal.’
Lox high-fived Alysha, and then the other two, then put the joint in her mouth and struck a match to light it. Then she hesitated and suddenly took the joint from her mouth.
‘I can do without,’ she said.
15:00
The investigation room was filling up. The team had been picked and the first meeting for Operation Aviary was starting.
The dead boy had been identified as Burak Kaya by detectives who recognised the tattoo, the lizard with ‘SLR’ graven between its eyes, from previous arrests. They were waiting now on DNA confirmation, as neither of his parents could be found at this time. Two uniformed officers were outside their house waiting for them to return home and break the news, and ask them to go to the morgue and identify their son.
Another team of uniformed officers, along with Trainee Detective Constable Hank Peacock, were out searching the surrounding area of the Aviary for anything that might help with their enquiries. There were sniffer dogs working too, following the blood trail as far as they could. So far they had all drawn a blank.
Georgia was sticking photos on the whiteboard with Blu-Tac. Alison Grainger had perched on the nearest desk. She was sifting through the pictures that the exhibits officer had printed out, and was choosing which ones to pass to Georgia to put up.
‘How are you feeling?’ Georgia asked her. ‘I imagine you must be slightly apprehensive after your long break.’
‘No, I’m ready to get back to this work,’ Alison said.
Georgia held her gaze for a brief second. Alison looked tired. Her pale, slightly freckled face was devoid of make-up, and her long wavy hair was pulled into an untidy ponytail. Georgia would have liked to give it a good brush. Georgia always wore make-up, and if she tied her hair back, which she often did, she also used gel so it stayed in place. Alison wore Levis with a chunky navy jumper over them. Her long body was very slim. Georgia remembered DCI Banham raving about this woman on many occasions, telling Georgia how beautiful she was. Georgia wasn’t convinced; she thought she had a pleasant face, but that was it; the DCI was clearly besotted. She would have to tread carefully. Georgia knew he would have all his attention focused on Alison, and she’d half thought that would leave her and Stephanie with more freedom to get on with the job. That now seemed less likely, given that he had given breathtakingly beautiful and ultra-sensitive DI Grainger the position of joint senior investigating officer on this enquiry. All fine, she thought, as long as Alison held her own. Georgia had already made it quite clear that she was no nursemaid, and if Alison proved to be a problem, or held the case back, then, lover to the DCI or not, Georgia would take her to task, and in front of the DCI if necessary. A killer was at large and she intended to find them.
The murder team were coming into the room, in ones and twos, coffee and sandwiches in hand, a hint that the briefing was minutes away.
‘You may not have heard of Burak Kaya,’ Georgia said to Alison. ‘Or indeed the SLRs?’
Alison looked blank. ‘South London Rulers,’ Georgia said. ‘They’re a growing gang, and are causing havoc in this part of South London.’
Alison shook her head. ‘It was the Buzzards running that territory when I was last around,’ she said. ‘Which seems like an age ago; you think this is a gang retribution killing?’
‘I think it’s too soon to tell, but it’s looking that way. There’ve been a few takeovers since the Buzzards, and currently there’s a lot of gang feuding in that particular area. Various postcode gangs are dealing, running prostitution and protection rackets, and laying claim to the Aviary Estate and its surrounds. It was run by a gang called Brotherhood up until a year or so back, but no more. According to my informant no one has sole claim to it as yet, so many are vying for the territory.’
‘So this is just the tip of the iceberg, we’re expecting a lot more violence, is that what you’re saying?’
Georgia sensed DI Grainger was a little tentative, and wondered if she was ready for this case. Everyone knew gang retribution could turn very nasty, and the body count could mount quickly. Why, then, had Banham thrown her in at the deep end? The woman wasn’t even clued up on the gangs around this area and it was a tough call to handle as a joint SIO.
‘We know there was a delivery of Mac 10 machine guns, which came in from Jamaica, about a month back,’ Georgia told her. ‘They were intercepted at Dover, and as far as we know no more have hit the streets. If those Macs had got onto the South London streets there would have been a massacre. And here’s the gem: we think that the information we had on the Mac 10s came from one of the gangs fighting to takeover of that part of South London.’
‘So this could well be a retaliation killing?’
Georgia nodded. ‘I intend to find out. I have an informant on that estate.’
Most of the team had now arrived and were standing or sitting with a good view of the video screen and the whiteboard. Others were eating their sandwiches as they walked up to the whiteboard and inspected the pictures of the murdered boy at close quarters.
‘We bel
ieve his name is Burak Kaya,’ Georgia told them. ‘He was a lieutenant in the SLR gang.’
‘One down,’ one of the detectives mumbled with a grin.
‘Not our business to pass judgement,’ Alison Grainger told him sternly.
The room became silent.
‘I’m sure most of you will know DI Alison Grainger,’ Georgia said cutting into the atmosphere that had suddenly sharpened. ‘DI Grainger and I will be heading this investigation. You all have been briefed. We know no more than a boy, who we believe is Burak Kaya, an SLR lieutenant, and a cousin to Harisha Celik, leader of the same gang, was stabbed to death just inside the borders of the Aviary Estate this morning. No witnesses, of course. We need everyone out there. Get hold of any bit of CCTV you can lay your hands on. There isn’t much working on that estate, but try the roads around it. Chase up the buses that pass through. We haven’t got time of death, but we know it was only a few hours ago, so get the bus depot to hand over all their CCTV for that area. And, keep on with the door to door.’
‘So nothing at all, no weapon, ma’am?’ Bill Perry, an older DC, asked her.
‘Not as yet,’ she told them. ‘But I have an informant who lives with her father on Sparrow block. Sergeant Green and I will pay her a visit.’
Stephanie Green was sitting next to Georgia scribbling in her notebook and munching on a carrot. She stood up with her notebook in one hand and her carrot in the other. ‘Ma’am,’ she said joining Georgia at the front of the room.
‘I would like to go too,’ Alison said to her.
‘Probably not a good idea,’ Georgia told her. ‘This girl is young and vulnerable. She knows and trusts Sergeant Green and myself. I would expect her to clam up in front of a stranger.’
Alison stared at Georgia.
‘Why don’t you oversee the house to house,’ Georgia suggested before turning back to the team. ‘Sergeant Green will give you all your jobs,’ she said to them. ‘So let’s get going.’
‘Shouldn’t we be waiting for DCI Banham?’ Alison said to her. ‘He said he was coming to the briefing.’