by Linda Regan
‘I’ll wait for Banham,’ Alison told her, ‘I’ll see you back at the station.’
‘Are you sure?’ Stephanie asked her.
Alison didn’t answer. Stephanie got the message, and turned and followed Georgia.
17:00
The murder room was half empty; it was still ‘golden hour’ in the Burak Kaya murder and most of the team were out making the most of those first twenty-four hours, which were known to be the most productive. Georgia’s brief was to follow all avenues with the female victim, to see if her killing held any connection to the earlier murder. There was a strong possibility that retaliation was on the cards and gang warfare could be brewing, and that would need to be stopped before it turned to rioting. Georgia knew she would be relying heavily on her informant Alysha Achter for information. Alysha had already suggested Harisha Celik could be behind his own lieutenant’s murder, so that was where she intended to start, after she had found out all she could about the murdered woman.
She wrote Zana Ghaziani on the board. Any identification that was still readable in the bag found at the scene of crime had that name on it. A call to the home phone number on her identification had confirmed that the girl was not at home, had been expected an hour since.
‘This is all we have so far,’ Georgia told the detectives that had turned up for the meeting. ‘The body was found on the borders of the SLR patch, by Broad Oak Street and Kennington Hill, which we know, also borders the Aviary Estate. That is as much as I have at the moment. Could all be incidental, but we need to find out more about this girl, and asap. So I need everyone working flat out, we’ll need door-to-door around Broad Oak Street, door to door around where the girl lived.’ She paused then said, ‘But that is on hold until we get confirmation that this was Zana Ghaziani.’
‘Parents are on their way to the morgue, with the brother,’ Peacock told her.’
Georgia nodded. ‘They can identify the handbag and maybe remnants of clothes. Sadly, the body is nearly unrecognisable, we’ll probably need DNA to confirm, unless we get lucky,’ she added.’
Stephanie was eating her second bacon sandwich of the day. She had made Georgia stop at a café on the way back to the station, telling Georgia she needed a bacon sandwich dripping in tomato sauce to calm her after what they had seen. Lunch wasn’t on Georgia’s agenda today, after the sight she had witnessed, but she admired Stephanie’s ability to take it all in a day’s work. She had stopped at the café and while Stephanie was piling the tomato sauce in her sandwich, Georgia had bought two bottles of fizzy water to calm her own queasy stomach.
‘There were remnants from her clothes stuck to the skin,’ Stephanie told them.
‘That might help, although the parents have said they didn’t know what she was wearing, but might recognise it,’ added Peacock.
‘Unless she changed,’ Georgia said. ‘And I’ll bet they didn’t know she had a condom in her bag along with her hijab.’
‘TIU have got the phone, and Forensics have got her brace,’ Stephanie told the team. ‘TIU say tomorrow at the latest, then we’ll have a good idea of what was going on in the girl’s life. If she is Zana Ghaziani, then she’s seventeen years old, so using that condom was legal. And the parents confirmed she wore a brace. So it’s looking likely we have Zana in the morgue.’
‘Uniform have a photo of the bag, and some of its contents to show to the family, including her hijab and one of the shoes she wore. Once the family identify those, then we waste no more time as we have been given the go ahead on this case. And a warning, the press will be all over us with this one.’
Verbal agreement ran around the room.
‘What interests me most,’ Georgia said, a little tentatively, ‘is that if this is Zana Ghaziani, and she comes from a strict Muslim home …’
‘She had a condom in her bag,’ Stephanie finished the sentence. ‘So she was having sex.’
‘Who with?’ Georgia said. ‘Who was she planning to meet and have sex with, when she was killed?’
‘That must have caused friction in the household,’ Stephanie said, looking at Andrew Ubdali, a DC from a Pakistani background.
He nodded. ‘Maybe that’s behind it, and it was nothing to do with gang retribution. We don’t know, as yet, if there was any connection to her being there.’
‘Wrong place, wrong time,’ Hank Peacock nodded confidently.
‘We have information,’ Georgia said, changing the subject. ‘That the consignment of machetes that have come in from Europe, like the Mac 10s that we intercepted last month at Dover, were heading to Harisha Celik, and to the South London Rulers gang.’
She turned to the board and pointed to the picture of the murdered Burak Kaya. ‘Burak Kaya was a lieutenant to the gang. So, another possibility: could this girl be involved with a rival gang? We know that several gangs are vying for that turf and already dealing on the patch where she was found. And there was a notice on it saying trespassers beware.’
‘We should talk to all the small-time dealers too, if we can,’ Stephanie suggested, making notes in her pad with the hand that wasn’t holding the remains of the bacon butty.
‘Do we know which dealers have been active on the Aviary, apart from the South London Rulers?’ asked Grahame, the tall DC. He was puffing on a plastic nicotine replacement cigarette, and everyone had agreed he was hell to work with since giving up his forty-a-day habit. ‘There’s a lot of small-time dealers out there. We could always set up a couple of us to try it, see who moves in on us?’
‘My informant tells us that the Chinese EIB gang is moving this way,’ Georgia told him. ‘And that would tie up with the consignment of machetes, their favourite weapon.’ She looked at Stephanie. ‘Call Serious Crime unit in the East End,’ she said, ‘and find out what you can.’ She turned back to Grahame. ‘I’ll give undercover some thought. We’d have to run it past the DCI, but at the moment we need all our manpower to find out who killed these teenagers, and if gang feuding is brewing.’ She turned to Stephanie, who was now crunching into an apple. ‘We’ll be visiting our informant again tonight, is that all right?’
‘Yes, ma’am,’ Stephanie nodded.
‘I’m hoping my informant may have known Zana, and be able to tell us who she hung out with. As soon as we hear that the parents have identified her and we have confirmation, then Stephanie and I will talk to them.’
Georgia was aware of the looks that passed between some of the detectives. ‘DI Grainger is busy elsewhere today,’ she said, deciding to personally spare Alison the embarrassment of the team knowing she’d fainted at a crime scene. They would find out soon enough. Max Pettifer wasn’t one for discretion.
‘Keep on collecting CCTV,’ Stephanie told them, changing the subject again. ‘Buses around Kennington Hill and Broad Oak Street around the time of the incident, especially. The culprit went somewhere. Someone might be on CCTV carrying an empty container, so keep trying.’
‘It’s been a long hard day today,’ Georgia added. ‘You’ve all done really well. Let’s keep up the hard work, and hope that tomorrow we can find something to link all this to the SLR leader, Harisha Celik, and lock him up where we know he belongs.’
Harisha Celik was back with his gang in their lock-up. Melek Yismaz was by his side, her dark eyes still red and swollen.
At least forty SLR soldiers were standing facing them. Most of them wore the uniform low-slung jeans with inches of their boxers or pants showing, trainers or heavy boots on their feet. All held weapons, bats or knives or guns; some had all three.
‘This is fucking war,’ Celik shouted at them. He was wearing more hair gel than usual, so his black hair stood up from his thin head like a cockerel’s crest. The narrow scar down the side of his neck, from a flick-knife slicing into his skin, was pulsating as his veins protruded with anger. Normally he covered it so it was barely noticeable, but today, he was too angry to take the time. As soon as the news of Zana’s death had reached him he called the meeting.
‘Zana’s death will be avenged,’ he shouted. ‘She was Burak’s girl.’ He took breath, then spat on the ground before continuing. ‘Burak was murdered this morning by those filthy Alley Cat skanks. I want them brought to me.’ He looked at Melek. ‘Tink, Panther, Lox, and Alysha Achter.’
Melek nodded.
‘If they killed Burak, then they would kill Zana, too?’ he asked her.
Melek nodded again. ‘They’ll stop at nothing. They scared the hell out of me.’
Harisha nodded. ‘Reward has just gone up for whoever brings one, or all of them, to me. You’ll be promoted to lieutenant in the SLR. Don’t matter how many of you, you will get a present from me,’ he assured his gang with a nod of his head. ‘We are gonna make them scream for mercy, and then slowly, and painfully, they will die. So, remember, whoever brings them in here is gonna have their respect upped no end. But work together, because together, we are many and mighty, and we’ll use that, and they’ll pay for what they’ve done. There will be as many lieutenants in the SLR as can earn it.’
Tinny, one of the white boys in the gang, raised his voice, ‘What I heard was that Wajdi Ghaziani was out to get Burak, innit.’
‘Who d’ya hear that from?’ Celik asked him.
‘Burak was saying.’
‘What exactly was he saying?’ Celik pushed.
‘That her family had found out about him, and she and him was told by Wajdi that they wasn’t to be seeing each other no more. So maybe we should be paying Wajdi a visit, see what he has to say about all this, what you think on that?’
‘Let’s do just that,’ Celik nodded to him, then addressing all the gang in front of him, he said, ‘I still want them skanky Alley Cats brought in. We know, for sure, that they killed Burak. Torture them all, till we know what really went down, And when we do, we are gonna even that score, no matter how many we have to fucking kill. No one touches SLR family and don’t get evened out for it. Right, brothers?’
All lifted their weapons and cheered.
Celik lifted his knife and raised his voice. ‘This, brothers, is war, and we are gonna win. Remember, there ain’t no rules in wars, don’t matter what, or how, we get them, only rule is we get them and make them pay. Then we are gonna take their territory and make a lot of paper for us.’ He rubbed his thumb firmly against his forefinger. Loud cheers of agreement echoed around the lock-up as he did.
Six
Early evening
Alysha was wearing a black tracksuit with a brown imitation fur gilet over it to keep out the cold. The silver trainers she wore were flashing an intermittent row of pink lights around her feet. She was standing by the side of Sparrow block on the Aviary with Panther, Tink, and Lox. They were talking to a large group of their street girls, who were also Alley Cat soldiers.
Alysha had called the street girls to a meeting after she had taken that recent call from DI Georgia Johnson. Georgia had told her that she was coming round with Stephanie Green again. They wanted Alysha to find out all she could about the girl who was burned in the alley near the estate earlier today. All the street girls had gathered in answer to Alysha’s call, but none knew who the girl was. The street girls were nervous and afraid that a psychopath, or a new gang out to take the ACs’ territory, was on the prowl, and their lives were in danger.
‘You don’t need to be nervous,’ Panther assured them. ‘I’m watching your back. You know you’re OK working with us. You said things have changed for the better since we been pimping you.’
‘Yeah,’ Jacinda nodded. ‘For the first time in ever, we ain’t afraid of the weirdo punters, an’ we know we won’t get beaten no more.’
Panther nodded. ‘We’re gonna look out for you all, an’ I’ll fight for you if anyone threatens any of you, you know I will,’ she told them.
‘She fights better than any bloke,’ Tink said. ‘So you don’t have to worry ’bout nothing.’
‘So if anyone threatens you, or something worries you, just call Panther,’ Alysha told them. ‘We take a good cut of the corn you earn, but that money goes back into building this estate into a better place for our kids, an’ most of you ’ave got kids. So, just keep asking around ’bout that girl that got burned, and don’t worry ’bout nothing, just remember we’re all gonna be OK, as long as no one breaks the rules.’
Alley Cats rules allowed the girls to rob, blackmail, sell drugs to a punter, or hand a punter over to the feds, if it meant making money for their cause. The punters, they felt, were worthless pieces of shit, who were happy to use the girls for warped or weird sex, so the girls saw it fair to use them back; in the end the money was all that mattered. It was a reinvestment, a life for all the kids without parents around the estate who, like them, had to fend for themselves. No more would lowlife dealers get away with feeding drugs and alcohol to kids as young as eight, and turn them into addicts, just to line their pockets. If the kids had already started on the road to drug use then the Alley Cats intended helping them get clean, and for that they needed money. They also needed to give the kids something else, an interest, which was why they had to rebuild the youth centres and rebuild the play area.
There was a lot needed. A youth club was planned, in the run-down halls at the side of the estate. There would be a studio too, for the kids to sing and dance, or DJ, or do sound engineering, whatever they dreamed of. The youth club would have instruments so the kids could learn, and join bands, and they wanted a recording studio to record them. One estate kid, who Alysha knew well, had already made something of himself. He had come out of the slammer and moved on, and was now working as a professional street dancer. He had said that he would come back and give the kids lessons when it was all up and running. Firstly they were concentrating on opening one of the boarded-up shops as a hair and nail salon. Tink would be in charge of all that. Alysha wanted Tink to invest her time in a training course, and then she could teach others on the estate. There were plans too for a sports area, and enough space in the halls for a computer room and a pensioner’s club for card games and bingo. They knew they needed lots of money for all this, but Alysha and the Alley Cats were determined, and they were survivors.
The ACs had few other rules. Alysha insisted no one who took drugs could rise above the role of a soldier in the gang, although smoking weed occasionally was allowed. Tink and Lox had both overcome drug problems. After defeating her pimp Alysha had spent all the money she’d made as a child prostitute to pay the extortionate price the clinic charged to get Tink clean. But it had worked. They’d done the same for Lox. Alysha allowed both girls a little grass, but only now and then. She, herself, never touched it, not after what had happened to her sister.
‘The girl that got burnt weren’t a tom,’ Panther was assuring them, ‘cos none of us know who she is, and it weren’t on our patch, only the borders of it. So this ain’t personal. But we’ll double up your watch tonight, just so you feel better. We still need to know who she was, and why she was there, though, so keep your ears to the ground.’
When Alysha’s phone bleeped, she checked the caller ID, rolled her large brown eyes, then spoke carefully into the phone, before clicking off.
‘That was feds again,’ she said quietly to her lieutenants. ‘I told them I’d meet them at the flat in fifteen minutes. We can’t let too many eyes see them same feds coming in and out my gaff.’
‘I’ll stand guard on the stairs,’ Panther told her. ‘Give you the warning when they’re on way up.’
‘How much money have we got on us?’ Stephanie said, not even bothering to check, this time, if the lift was working. Climbing thirteen flights of urine-smelling, graffitied concrete stairs, in the biting early evening wind, she knew, was preferable for Georgia than travelling in a coffin-sized, shit-ridden lift.
‘I’ve got some cash,’ Georgia told her. ‘I can give her twenty and then I’ll put a form in, and get it back, later.’
‘Hope that’s enough, she’s getting very greedy.’
Georgia half-smiled
. ‘I told her we need this information, pronto, which we do. So, we have to pay for the privilege. We need to know if Zana was involved with any local gangs before we can go any further with her murder investigation. DCI wants that info, and we have to deliver. With Grainger reporting everything we do back to him I feel like I’ve got a CCTV camera glued to my back.’
Stephanie puffed as she turned a corner. ‘I need to get to gym, I’m not getting enough good sex, I’m out of condition,’ she said, then catching the anxious look on Georgia’s face, she said, ‘I don’t think we’ll have Grainger with us for much longer, if you want my opinion. And fingers crossed Zana Ghaziani is connected to our investigation, because, for sure then the DCI will take Alison off the case. He won’t put her on a fire victim for her first one back.’
‘That’s music to my ears,’ Georgia said. ‘It’s not that I mind working with her, even with her nose on top her head, it’s just that I really don’t think she can hack it. Also, she’s shagging the DCI.’
‘Wish I was,’ Stephanie puffed.
‘I wish you were too,’ Georgia said with a laugh. ‘I bet you’d be a lot fitter.’
Alysha was back in her flat. Panther had tipped her off when the feds had entered the estate. She was racking her brains to think what she could tell them. Earlier this morning Harisha’s girl had told her that the stash of SLR weapons was kept in a tunnel under the river. Alysha didn’t want to tell the feds that yet, she might need the weapons for the ACs, or she might make more money selling them on to other gangs. Melek had given the ACs that info so they would stop torturing Burak … or had she? Alysha had sensed that Melek might secretly admire the ACs and might be talked into joining them. That would be big, getting all the SLR info. Alysha pulled her pink phone out. She had taken Melek’s mobile number from her that morning before giving Melek her phone back. She called it. Melek might know something about the burnt girl, and if Alysha could trick her into saying something then Alysha would have something to sell the feds.