by Linda Regan
They left the restaurant and got in the car. As Alison got her phone out to call for backup Melek had pulled a gun, a small pistol, and told Alison she couldn’t let her call for backup, it was too dangerous for both of them. She had taken Alison’s phone, made a call, and thrown it out of the car window, then had made Alison drive on with a gun in her side.
Alison’s brain was hurting from the blow to the side of her head, she was racking her brains and thought she remembered driving for only a few roads, left or right, she couldn’t remember, but obviously in the direction of the river. That was definitely where she was now, she could clearly hear water. Then she remembered that Melek made her park. So her car was on the street right now, she thought. That would be a great help if they were looking for her, they would have circulated her registration number, so a local patrol car would be bound to pick it up within hours.
More was coming back. She had tried wrestling Melek to get the gun out of the girl’s hand when they got out of the car. That was when the gas was sprayed. Then she remembered the noise of a lock and the clank of a chain and she thought she heard something like a manhole being lifted. She had been made to kneel down on a cold wet pavement. It was falling into place now. Jesus!. She was in a hole, or a tunnel, She half-remembered Melek trying to get her to tie a rope around her, and going down a rope ladder, when she couldn’t see.
She remembered going mad at her, screaming about her baby, and that was when it all stopped. So either Melek knocked her out with the butt of the gun, or she fell, blindly in the dark, and knocked her head.
Panic ran through her again. She could have harmed her baby! She felt a great urge to cry out, but managed to get a grip. She had to keep it together if she was going to save herself, and Banham’s baby. And she was, that much she was determined. Banham had already lost a child many years ago. She wouldn’t let anything happen to their baby, she just wouldn’t.
She fought back the fear that nearly overpowered her. OK, so this was, more than likely, where consignments of weapons were being stored. No wonder no one, in the two years that it had been happening, could get a clue as to their location. Not sniffer dogs, not anyone, had come close to finding all these highly dangerous weapons that were being filtered onto the South London streets. But now she knew where they were, that was the first good thing about this, or was it? Panic again felt like electricity through her veins. If no one had found the weapons that were hidden down here, where she was, then how in heaven’s name was anyone going to find her? Melek had thrown her phone out of the car window, not that a phone would work under here. Or would it? Phones could be amazing. She remembered a case where someone’s phone rang from a grave where they were buried alive, and saved the victim’s life because of it. But she didn’t have a phone, so she would have to use the time it took to get her sight back to make another plan, because she was going to get out of here, for her and her baby.
‘Oh, so you’re not dead? I was a little worried.’ It was Melek’s voice.
She sat up. Melek was in here with her. Melek, she knew, had her phone on her in the car. She had seen it with her own eyes. So here was her plan. Melek hadn’t tied her hands, they were free, so once she got her sight and her balance back, and she had enough experience of CS gas and head blows to know that wouldn’t be too long, then she would have to overpower the girl and get the gun and phone, and this time she would make sure she succeeded. Meanwhile she was going to play friendly with the enemy.
‘Christ, Melek, what’s all this about? I’m your friend. I came out to help you. You’ve hurt and blinded me.’
No answer.
‘What is this about, Melek? Tell me? I thought you wanted to put Celik behind bars for what he did to you and Zana.’
Still no answer.
Alison started to shuffle to try to get up, but it was slippery where she was, and she lost her balance and fell against the stone behind her. That unnerved her, she became still again.
She sat thinking. She was confident Melek had a phone on her, but not that there would be any signal under here. She had to stay calm. She thought of Banham.
Did he even know she was missing?
Seventeen
15:50
‘Keep still.’ Tink grabbed the can of quick-dry spray, aimed it at Panther’s toenails, and sprayed hard.
‘Blimey, mate,’ Panther said flapping the air. ‘That’s fucking strong.’
‘Well you won’t keep still while they dry so I ’ave to,’ Tink told her, leaning back and admiring the colour on Panther’s toenails. ‘Don’t wanna smudge them.’
Alysha was watching from her position curled up on the floor next to Lox who was busily going through figures on her calculator and writing them down on a piece of paper. ‘What’s wrong? Alysha asked Panther, ‘You’re like you’ve got a spider in your G-string.’
‘I’m all stewed up waiting for news about that Turkish bitch,’ Panther said lifting her hands in exasperation. ‘She’s been gone ages, an’ it don’t feel right to me. The feds were gonna ring us back and tell us where she is an’ we ain’t ’eard not’in.’ She shook her head. ‘I’m thinking she’s double-dealing on us, making bargains with the feds an all that. We give her a gun if you remember?’ She looked around at the three girls, who were giving her their full attention, and carried on talking, ‘I love that we’re together an ’ave got plans to make the estate a good place an ’elp the kids to ’ave a chance wiv life.’ Then she raised her voice. ‘If she fucks this up, or tells the feds we give her a gun, we’ll all be back in youth offenders.’
‘She won’t,’ Alysha said shaking her newly plaited head of cornrows. ‘Don’t worry on that score, mate. We got far too much on ’er, an’ it’s ’er word ’gainst ours. Sides, Georgia Johnson said there’s no word from Alison either, so it means she’s still wiv ’er. They’ll be giving it all this bunnying.’ She lifted her hand and bounced her fingers against her thumb to demonstrate the point, then smiled sympathetically. ‘Try and chill, Panth.’
‘What d’you think of the colour?’ Tink asked, nodding to Panther’s painted toenails, in an attempt to distract her.
‘I fink they’re great, an’ I reckon you’ll earn really well doing nails and hair already,’ Panther told her. ‘You’ve really got the talent, an’ it’s all the rage at the mo.’
‘Certainly beats sucking cocks and selling brown,’ Tink laughed. ‘An’ I like making people look pretty an’ things.’ She smiled a childlike smile. ‘It’s what I always wanted to do. So it’ll be great, an’ when I’ve done college an’ I can teach the kids that wanna learn, an we’ll have done somefing good, if our kids don’t get used like we did.’ She shrugged, ‘But it’s like you said, Queen, we never ’ad no chances, we ’ad to earn a living.’
Alysha nodded. ‘Yeah, well, DI Georgia Johnson better be good for her word, and come up with the corn, and we’ll lean on her till she goes to the council for us. Once that’s done an’ the kid’s playground fixed, then we’re in business.’
‘I’ll make sure she does,’ Lox said ‘She more than owes us. We’re doing all the detective work for her, so she ’as to pay up.’
Alysha nodded. ‘I’ve been finking bout that gun that Melek’s got. We just deny it if she tries to pin it on us, but it’s got me finking bout the weapons that we moved to that tunnel, I said I’d fink on what to do with them.’
‘And?’ Lox asked.
‘What I fink is, that it’s best to do things legal now, when we can, and bleed the feds for everything we need cornwise.’
Lox held Alysha’s eyes. ‘If you say so, then that goes. But we are talking losing serious money if we do that. The North London gangs would pay good for them machetes, an they’d be off our patch,’ she offered.
‘I know.’ Alysha nodded with the authority of someone three times her age. ‘But when other gangs know we stole ’em, an’ they will know, then they’ll fink they have the right to steal ’em too, from us. There’s a lot out there would kill
us for that stash. The WC4s have got over a hundred soldiers to call on, that’s double the SLRs and quads on us, an’ our street girls as we stand.’
‘She’s right,’ Tink said quickly. ‘We only got a reliable dozen or so for backup, at mo. If we took on the WC4s on, or the KFADs, we’d get slaughtered, an’ that’s what we can’t let ’appen.’
‘We wanna lead a good example if we wanna help the tinies around ’ere,’ Alysha added. ‘So, I think we should offer ’em to the feds, get ’em off the streets, but insist we want a big reward. What you fink, Panth?’
‘I’m thinking we should be worrying about Melek not phoning an telling us she’s done what we told ’er to do,’ Panther said again. ‘The feds might ’ave traced her whereabouts by now, and not bothered to tell us, an’ we need to know what she’s up to.’
The other three looked at each other.
‘She’s had too long,’ Panther pushed. ‘Let’s do something?’
Alysha shook her head. ‘Patience,’ she said. ‘Harisha’s still at the nick, and Melek will be with that Alison Grainger. It’ll just be taking longer than we figured.’
‘He ain’t gonna be staying at the nick,’ Panther argued. ‘Not if Melek don’t make them that allegation. What’s to fucking wait for? She was told to meet Alison whatsit, make the allegation, an’ then call us, an’ she ain’t done that. Without that allegation they ain’t got nothing to hold him for.’
‘They’ve found her old phone though, outside his flat,’ Tink reminded her. ‘An’ while they are looking for her, they’ll still hold him, on suspect of kidnap.’
Panther turned to look at Alysha and then back to Tink. ‘The phone being outside his flat don’t prove he kidnapped, or hurt her,’ she said shaking her head. ‘Can’t hold him for that.’
Alysha had started scratching at the roots of the new cornrows that Tink had put in her hair. She lifted a small mirror and looked at them from all angles. ‘You know what, Tink, these are fuckin’ good. I reckon we’ll start hiring you out for beauty stuff before we even send you to college cos I reckon you could make big dough for us doing this already.’
Tink smiled a wide satisfied smile.
‘You do know that if she is double-crossing us, and playing us then she’s gonna have told them SLRs that we moved the weapons to their tunnel,’ Lox interrupted. ‘Then the SLRs will steal ’em back, an’ move ’em somewhere else, an’ then we’ll have lost them and we’ll get nothing, cos they won’t be where we tell the feds they are. So now I’m getting worried.’
‘An if they let Harisha out,’ Panther nodded. ‘Then ‘e’s gonna come after us, big-time.’
Alysha let go of her cornrows and took a big intake of breath. ‘Question is,’ she said narrowing her eyes thoughtfully, ‘is she still doing what we told ‘er to, an’ is it taking longer than we reckoned on? Or is she a turncoat?’
‘Or is she in trouble,’ Tink said, throwing a concerned look at the other three. ‘She’s an Alley Cat now. Makes her family, so I reckon we should find out.’
‘You know I ain’t never liked the bitch,’ Panther said, voice raised.
‘So where do we look?’ Lox asked, looking from Panther back to Alysha.
Alysha slid one of her long, maroon-painted nail extensions in between her two bottom teeth and lifted out a piece of fried chicken. ‘SLRs can’t get the weapons, Lox, cos they can’t get in the tunnel. No one ’cept us can,’ she reminded them. ‘Cos you broke their padlock and put ours on it, and yous got the key, Panth?’
Panther nodded. ‘Yeah, it’s right here in my bag.’ She opened her bag and shuffled through the muddle of personal belongings. Then she frowned and rummaged again before looking up, and then down again, her hands working frantically through the contents. Then she tipped the bag upside down, threw everything on the floor, and again rummaged frantically amongst the contents. She flicked a desperate look at Alysha. ‘It ain’t here. The fucking key ain’t here. I put it here. You saw me, din’t you, Lox?’
‘Yeah,’ Lox nodded. ‘You put it in the inside pocket.’
‘And it ain’t there,’ Panther said, the colour draining from her brown face as she turned back to face Alysha again. ‘I was so careful wiv it, Queen, and it ain’t here.’
‘Try the lining?’ Tink suggested.
Panther pulled at the lining. She lifted the faux fur clutch bag in the air and shook it again. She shook her head again.
‘Is anything else gone?’ Lox asked quickly.
Panther shook her head again. ‘Not that I can see.’
Alysha was now bolt upright. ‘Did you leave your bag anywhere? Like, out of your sight, even for a second?’ she asked her.
Panther shook her head. ‘It’s been in ’ere all the time.’
‘Melek was in here,’ Lox said loudly and quickly. ‘Did we leave her alone, in this room, at any time?’
‘Yeah, we left her when I went in the kitchen to get her Alley Cat mobile and the gun with you, Lysh, remember?’ Panther said.
Alysha nodded. ‘S’right, we did.’
‘When I was getting the fried chicken?’ Lox said.
‘An’ Tink was in the loo,’ Alysha added, throwing her hands in the air. ‘Fuck, Panth, I ’ope you ain’t right, I ’ope she ain’t pulled the key, cos then Lox is right, if she’s turncoated on us with them SLRs we could lose everything.’
Tink jumped up. ‘OK. So what’ll we do?’
‘We check the tunnel, first,’ Lox said, pulling the zip up on her silver puffa jacket, and pushing her phone in her pocket. ‘Let’s get going.’
‘No.’ Tink put her hand in the air. ‘If she’s tipped off SLRs, they’ll have gone to the tunnel, and that’s what they’ll expect us to do. We’ll be walking into an ambush.’
‘Ring round the soldiers for backup,’ Panther said. ‘We’re gonna have about twenty or so of them to take on, at the least, so we need our soldiers. If they want a fight let’s give them one they won’t forget.’ She turned to the others. ‘Get your shanks.’
‘No.’ Alysha shouted and shook her head. ‘That’s what they’ll expect us to do. We’ll get the feds. That’ll foil ’em. They won’t expect the feds, but Tink’s right, they’ll expect us to turn-up with backup from the street girls.’
‘Is that a good idea?’ Lox asked her. ‘To get the feds?’
Yeah,’ Alysha told her. ‘It’s def a good idea. I ring DI Georgia Johnson, tell her we have info on the whereabouts of them machetes and weapons, and we think lots of SLRs will be there to defend them. She’ll round up a load of feds with guns an’ dogs an’ stuff, and if Melek is there with them SLRs, they’ll all go down together, an’ we’ll get the reward. Agreed?’
‘Good thinking,’ Panther said. ‘Let’s do it.’ She smacked her palm against Alysha’s.
‘Yes, by me, too,’ Lox said placing her hand on top of Panther and Alysha’s as they high-fived each other.
Tink stood there, deep in thought.
Alysha turned to her. ‘Tink?’
‘Supposing Melek has been taken hostage by them SLRs, and is in trouble. She’s one of us now, we need to help her.’
‘Then we will help her,’ Alysha said. ‘We’ll have the feds to back us, an’ it’ll be a hell of a lot easier than takin’ on them SLRs ourselves. That’s if she is in trouble, but she’s nicked the padlock key so I’d say it looks more likely she’s a two-timing cunt.’
‘I can’t see that she’d go back wiv the SLRs, or Harisha,’ Tink argued. ‘They killed Zana, her best friend, burnt her alive.’
‘We don’t know that for sure,’ Panther said. ‘That could have been Wajdi done that.’
‘Either way, we need answers, ’Alysha said, grabbing her black puffa jacket and taking charge. ‘Let’s go an’ get ’em.’ She grabbed her cerise plastic bag, jingling the collection of keyrings attached to its zip as she threw it over her shoulder. ‘We go to the river tunnel, on our own, first. We go very careful and we split two-two, look out for SLR soldiers.
If we have trouble, or see any of them SLR pricks guarding the tunnel, that’ll tell us, for sure, they know the weapons ’ave been moved there, and we’ll know that’s down to Melek. Call me, and I get straight on to Georgia Johnson. She’ll get a round-up of feds, dogs an’ all, an’ they’ll hot-foot it down there and catch ’em red-handed.’ She smiled at Lox. ‘An’ we’ll ask for a big reward. It’ll be worth it to them.’
‘Shame Harisha won’t be there,’ Tink said.
‘He might, who knows,’ Panther said. ‘He mighta got himself released.’
‘Let’s go,’ Alysha said. ‘Don’t look like time is on our side.’
The girls headed for the door. When they got outside, Alysha paused before locking the door. She told them to hang on another second. She ran in quickly and within seconds was back out and holding four heavy cricket balls. She handed one to each girl.
‘We don’t use them, or our shanks, unless we’re attacked first,’ she told them. ‘And watch each other’s back. Remember the feds will be with us. We can call them any time, and they will give us strong back up. Better that, than a fight. But, if we don’t have a choice, use the balls and go straight for the jaw. Them cricket balls’ll break a jaw in a second. And a jaw’s better than a nose. They’ll go down if you break their jaw, an if they don’t, then use your shank.’
16:10
Sarah Petts often took the long walk home, passing the large McDonalds on the outskirts of town. The burger bar held memories of when her daughter was a student, and McDonalds had just become the place for teenagers to eat. She was going slowly today, her knees weren’t what they used to be, and she was walking with care; just in case there was anything on the pavement that needed avoiding; there was always something these days that was easy to slip on. Sarah had recently tripped over a burger box and pulled a ligament, which still hadn’t healed properly. She walked slowly with her eyes peeled.