Guts for Garters

by Linda Regan

  ‘It’s the only way,’ Peter told her clocking the anxious look on her face. ‘The ladder isn’t low enough.’

  ‘Be very careful,’ Banham said in a tone a lot calmer than Alison knew he was feeling.

  ‘Very careful,’ Peter echoed. ‘And I’ll feel a lot happier when you are both out of here.’

  ‘When Alison’s safely out, I’m going back to get Melek,’ Banham told him.

  ‘We’ll do that,’ Peter told him. ‘I’d like you out now, sir.’

  ‘No point in bringing anyone else down, seeing as I’m here. She’s not far along. Just be very careful of this one,’ he said as Peter scooped Alison up in his arms.

  ‘You can stop worrying about our baby,’ Alison assured him. ‘With our genes, it’ll be a tough little survivor.’

  ‘Gently as you go.’

  He stayed as Peter talked her through the thirty-foot wall that they were going to have to hoist her up. She was to make tiny steps against it, as if climbing, and the rope would do the work. After so many feet there would be a ladder, and then a lot of helping hands to get her onto street level.

  Her stomach pains were back but she kept that to herself. She didn’t want Banham there if she started to miscarry on the way up. ‘Paul, we need to move with Melek, she’s pregnant too, so there’s another little baby deserves a chance.’

  ‘I couldn’t have stood it down there,’ Georgia said quietly to Stephanie as they knelt waiting by the hole. ‘I’ll bet it’s infested by rats.’

  ‘Try not to think about it,’ Stephanie said pulling the bag of sherbet lemons from her pocket and checking there were lots in it. Just as she popped one into her mouth, Alison’s face came into view. Within seconds Alison was lifted up and was sitting lying on the pavement beside them, being greeted by thunderous applause and cheers.

  Two paramedics rushed in, one wrapped her in a foil blanket, the other pulled an oxygen mask over her face. Two more paramedics rushed in with a stretcher.

  As they lifted her onto the stretcher, Georgia was studying the nasty gash on the side of Alison’s head.

  ‘Gently, she’s pregnant,’ Stephanie told the paramedics as they clipped a belt over the blanket on the stretcher to keep Alison secure.

  ‘How are you feeling?’ Stephanie asked her.

  Alison pushed the oxygen from her face. ‘I’ve got pains in my stomach,’ she said, panic clear in her voice. She turned to Georgia. ‘And, in case I don’t make it, Melek Yismaz has admitted all four murders, and there are crates of weapons down there which she said were illegally imported by Harisha Celik.’

  ‘We’re gonna have you in hospital, and checked out within minutes,’ a small female paramedic assured her. ‘Of course you’re gonna make it.’

  ‘I’ve got stomach cramps,’ Alison said, trying not to panic.

  The two male paramedics immediately lifted the stretcher and carried her the few feet to the back of the ambulance. The male paramedic climbed in first and started to clean Alison’s hand. Alison flinched with pain.

  ‘Does that hurt?’ the paramedic asked.

  ‘No, it’s my stomach. Where’s Paul?’ she asked looking out anxiously.

  ‘He’s just coming out,’ Stephanie said, although she could see no sign of him. She turned back to Alison. ‘You get going. Don’t waste any more time. You’ve got a little-un in there, needs an eye keeping on.’

  ‘I want Paul with me,’ Alison said fretfully.

  Stephanie turned back and looked towards the tunnel. Three more firemen were roping up and about to lower themselves down, but no sign of Banham.

  ‘You get going,’ Stephanie told Alison again, ‘He’ll follow you in a few minutes.’

  ‘Where’s Paul?’

  ‘Come on,’ Stephanie said in her usual motherly tone, as she climbed aboard and made the vehicle rock sideways in the process. ‘I’ve done this pregnancy lark, your hormones play up and embarrass you no end. Paul’ll be along in a minute, meanwhile you’ve got me and a bag of sherbet lemons to keep you company.’ She handed the sweets to Alison then yelled to Georgia to let her know what she was doing. ‘Let’s go,’ she shouted to the paramedic sitting in the driving seat.

  As the ambulance sped off Stephanie lifted the oxygen mask from Alison’s face and popped a sherbet lemon in her mouth. ‘That’ll keep you calm,’ she said, smiling.

  Alison reached for Stephanie’s hand. ‘Thanks.’

  Georgia stood watching the ambulance speed out of sight. She was wishing she had a few more grains of compassion in her own make-up, but the trauma of her rape, and then the strong police training, had left her unable to sympathise with anyone no matter what the circumstance. She envied Stephanie.

  Banham and Peter had reached Melek. Peter leaned over Banham’s shoulder with the torch while Banham felt for a pulse.

  ‘Very faint,’ Banham said lifting her up. ‘Let’s make it snappy.’

  Peter lifted her from Banham. ‘Take her legs,’ he said. ‘I’ll go first, and be careful over the boxes. Jim’ll get them when we get her out.’

  ‘No, leave the crates of weapons,’ Banham told him. ‘I’ll get the tunnel secured, and a round-the-clock guard on it. We won’t take any chances until bomb and firearm experts have taken a look.’

  ‘Georgia will be pleased,’ Peter said as he bent himself forward and slowly edged backwards to the exit.

  ‘This girl is responsible for four murders,’ Banham said. ‘And she’s pregnant.’

  It wasn’t easy, but they eased Melek to the exit between them. Peter lifted her on his shoulder and very slowly climbed the wall with a rope attached to himself and Melek, all the while reaching with his feet for the thin steel steps to get them up to the top of the hole.

  Alysha, Panther, Lox, and Tink had moved near the tunnel again and were watching Georgia, who was standing alone, waiting. Alysha gave the three girls the nod and they walked over to join her.

  ‘What luck that we stumbled across all this,’ Alysha said to Georgia.

  ‘It most certainly was,’ Georgia told her.

  ‘It was just a shot in the dark, really,’ Alysha said, ‘but looks as if our find has saved a couple of lives. We heard that the SLRs used it sometimes, and when we passed it and saw it all padlocked we got suspicious. Then, when you gave us your detective’s car registration, and the car was there, it sort of fell into place. Very lucky though. Do you think they’re gonna be OK?’

  ‘I don’t know the answer to that, I’m afraid,’ Georgia said, smiling at her. ‘But it would have been a lot worse without your help. DI Grainger is pregnant, and you may have saved her baby’s life.’ She looked around to each of them. ‘I’m very, very grateful to you all. You’ve all helped this enquiry enormously.’

  ‘That was fate, that was,’ Panther said slyly. ‘But glad we helped such a big amount.’

  Before Georgia had the chance to answer Lox butted in. ‘An’ you don’t have to be grateful to us for it,’ she said. ‘But you do have to keep your promise about sorting the council, and you do have to make sure we get a fat reward.’

  ‘I’ll do my best,’ Georgia told them.

  ‘You promised,’ Lox said in a determined tone. ‘If we’ve saved ’er kid, then you ’ave to help save all ours. Our kids’ park ain’t healthy. And you promised to talk to the council.’

  ‘I said I would do my best.’

  ‘What about Melek?’ Panther interrupted. ‘What’ll happen to her?’

  ‘She’s being charged with four murders.’

  Alysha, Tink, Lox, and Panther turned to look at each other. ‘Holy shit,’ Alysha said. ‘Did you say four murders?’

  Georgia nodded. ‘We have proof, and she’s admitted killing the Wilkinses, Burak Kaya, and Zana Ghaziani.’

  Alysha and the girls looked totally stunned. Alysha was about to ask more questions but the cheer that went up as Peter appeared from the manhole carrying with the unconscious Melek took Georgia’s attention. Paramedics immediately moved in and l
ifted Melek onto a stretcher and into an ambulance. Then Banham’s face appeared, and with help from the firefighters he climbed onto the pavement.

  Georgia went over to him. ‘Are you OK, sir?’ she asked him.

  ‘Yes. Has Alison gone to hospital?’

  ‘Yes, guv. Sergeant Green went with her.’

  ‘I’m on my way,’ he said, starting to hurry over to his car. ‘Can you arrange for uniformed officers to go to the hospital and sit with Melek Yismaz until she wakes up. We’ll need her statement as soon as she does. She has admitted all four murders, to Alison, I want round-the-clock surveillance on her until she wakes.’

  ‘Sir,’ she said.

  He stopped, turned, and looked straight at Georgia. ‘Then I want you to go back to the station, please. As soon as I get back from the hospital I want you in my office.’ His tone was enough to tell her that, yet again, she was in trouble. Her concern for his safety had overridden any hierarchy, and he wasn’t going to turn a blind eye to it. She had overstepped the mark and was in for a big bollocking.

  ‘Sir,’ she nodded, before turning to pass the instructions to the uniformed sergeant.

  Alysha, Panther, Tink, and Lox had walked back over to the bins and were leaning against them, out of hearing distance of any police.

  ‘So, what the fuck …’ Tink said.

  ‘… is Melek up to?’ Lox finished.

  Alysha and Panther shook their heads. ‘Don’t know,’ Alysha said. ‘But she ain’t one of us, that’s for sure. I’d have killed her myself if I’d known she done them old Wilkinses. They was a lovely couple, they never hurt no one, and we gave them our word that we’d look out for them.’

  ‘She was still running with Harisha, and using us,’ Tink said.

  ‘Sure looks like it.’ Alysha nodded. ‘Fucking bitch.’

  ‘If she comes round, I’ll kill her,’ Panther said.

  ‘We’ll all help you,’ Alysha told her.

  ‘From now on, we’re more careful when we take new Alley Cats in,’ Lox said to them.

  ‘Yeah, agreed, but we still need more soldiers,’ Alysha told them. ‘I know you hate us having new girls, but it’s gonna take more than just us four to hold on to what we got now. We are onto something here. Now the feds think we’re the business. We’ve led them to here, and given up that stash of weapons. Other gangs will know that. They’ll either think we’re the shit, not to be played wiv, or they’ll fink we’re turncoats, and they’ll try and take us on.’

  ‘We’re both though, ain’t we? Tink laughed.

  ‘S’right,’ Alysha nodded. ‘And other gangs are gonna wanna be challenging us, so we need to be ready. We gotta protect ourselves, and we gotta protect our estate. We swore we would, an’ we’re gonna hold strong to that. So, we need more soldiers. Feds ’ll give us money for grassing up Harisha. He’ll go down for a long stretch, and we’ve got his contacts and all his territory. But, we ’ave to protect it and ourselves. We don’t let no one blow us off it. We’ll turn that estate good too. If we want chances, outside of crime and prison, for the estate kids, then the fight ain’t over, I’ll tell you, Cats, it’s only just begun.’

  Tink nodded. ‘She’s right. ‘We are gonna do that, an’ be famous, and get respect with a capital R.’

  Yup,’ Alysha nodded and grinned. ‘Everyone on our estate, and for miles around it, had all better watch out, cos anyone who disrespects us, or tries to muscle on our turf, or dirty it with drugs and weapons, will have us to face. We are gonna hold our estate together and make it clean.’ She looked at each of the girls. ‘So we are gonna need to get more girls fighting the fight. Agreed?’

  They all high-fived each other. ‘Agreed,’ they shouted in unison.

  ‘I’ll be happier when the feds pay up,’ Lox said.

  ‘Yeah, won’t we all,’ Tink said. Then she lifted both her thumbs in the air, ‘Cos I’m going to teach all the young girls, so they can do nails an’ that an’ don’t have to go on the game.’

  ‘An’ Georgia Johnson is gonna get the council to re-do our kids’ play area for the rest,’ Lox said.

  ‘We ’ope,’ Alysha said. ‘Our fight’s only just begun.’ She turned to them and became very serious. ‘We have

  so gotta watch each other’s backs now.’

  Twenty

  One month later

  Georgia and Stephanie had been told to finish the paperwork and put the case to bed. Neither Banham nor Alison Grainger had been back in the office in the last four weeks. Banham had been with Alison, in hospital, during the long forty-eight hours when the doctors had tried, and failed, to save her pregnancy. The murder department had all signed a card and sent flowers, and Superintendent Beir had told them both to take at least a month off.

  Georgia and Stephanie had just finished the final press conference and were awaiting forensic DNA results before closing the file on the case.

  ‘Do you think, if you had got there sooner, you would have prevented the death of a pregnant eighteen-year-old girl?’ one insensitive journalist had asked Georgia at the conference.

  Georgia had hesitated, so Stephanie had answered. ‘No, definitely not,’ she said, glaring furiously at the man. ‘We arrived at the scene very shortly after Melek Yismaz had kidnapped one of our detectives. She gave no prior indication that she was a danger to herself or to our officers, nor was it foreseeable that she would be armed, and despite all procedures being followed she was unfortunately able to incapacitate our officer and imprison her in the tunnel – a place to which there was no easy access. While inside the tunnel Yismaz committed suicide by swallowing a cocktail of pills, also trying to force the same death upon our officer. We could not have prevented Melek Yismaz’s death.’ She let that sink in, and then continued. ‘The force, together with the other emergency services, did everything it could to save Melek Yismaz. Four firefighters and DCI Banham risked their lives in the tunnel to get her out. Sadly, she didn’t regain consciousness.’

  ‘How did you find the tunnel? It was well hidden, and no one can find any information on its existence.’

  ‘By doing our job,’ Georgia answered quickly. ‘We are detectives.’

  ‘Did you get a tip-off, or did you stumble across it?’

  ‘As I said, by good detective work,’ Georgia said, glaring at the pushy reporter.

  ‘There were some local girls hanging around, talking to some of your officers when you brought the DI out. Did they help you find the tunnel?’ another journalist asked.

  For a second neither Stephanie or Georgia spoke, then Georgia answered. ‘I didn’t see anyone talking to my officers at the time. I was assisting in the rescue attempt of the women trapped in the tunnel.’

  ‘There are always bystanders, as you know, when a police operation is being carried out,’ Stephanie added. ‘Normally they’re asking questions, not answering them.’

  ‘What can you tell us about …’ another journalist asked, bending her head and checking her notes, ‘about DI Alison Grainger, the detective that lost her baby?’

  ‘I have no comment to make on that,’ Georgia snapped at her. ‘That has nothing to do with this case.’ ‘She stood up. ‘If you’ll excuse us, ladies and gentlemen,’ she said, ‘unless there is anything else relevant to the case, I would like to bring this conference to a close.’

  ‘You said that Melek Yismaz admitted to the murder of four victims before she died, do you have proof to back that up?’

  ‘Yes we do.’

  ‘What about the Ghazianis, and their son, who you originally arrested?’

  ‘Released without charge.’

  ‘Didn’t you find blood on a weapon at their shop?’

  ‘Yes, we found blood,’ Georgia said, ‘but not on a weapon. It’s a dry cleaners and cobblers’ and one of their screwdrivers was found to have blood residue. But it was a match to Wajdi Ghaziani. He cut himself while working. There is no charge against them.’

  ‘And Harisha Celik? What is he charged with?’

/>   Again Stephanie spoke. ‘We have charged Mr Celik with the illegal importation of firearms and other weapons, and with the possession and distribution of Class A drugs.’

  ‘And does the rape charge still stand?’

  ‘Yes, it does,’ Stephanie said, aware of Georgia’s hesitation.

  ‘Thank you for your time, ladies and gentlemen,’ Georgia said, bringing the conference to an end in case she was cornered into admitting that everything wasn’t yet water-tight.

  They were now sitting in Georgia’s office eating lunch. Stephanie had a large McDonalds strawberry milkshake which she sucked noisily through a straw. She put the sticky cup down on Georgia’s desk and Georgia immediately moved the case papers out of harm’s way.

  As Stephanie bit into her double cheeseburger and fries she must have read Georgia’s mind because she picked up her napkin just in time to catch some slippery green pickle as it slid from the burger. Normally Georgia forbade strong-smelling food in her office, but right now she was glad of Stephanie’s company. No matter what Georgia did, or how many mistakes she seemed to make, Stephanie always stood by her and kept her spirits up. Stephanie was a true friend, as well as a first-class detective who was over-qualified for the position of DS.

  Unlike Georgia, Stephanie wasn’t ambitious, so she had been the only one in the team to say Georgia was right in threatening to cuff Banham to stop him going into the tunnel, saying that just because Banham was DCI, it didn’t always make him right. And Georgia appreciated it.

  She shook her head politely as Stephanie offered the paper envelope of French fries to her. She just stopped herself saying she would rather eat the paper. Georgia was edgy, she was worried about the consequences of her actions at the tunnel, and very concerned it would affect her next promotion. Stephanie must have read her mind.

  ‘With everything that’s gone on, I’m sure he’ll have forgotten what he said about reporting to his office as soon as he gets here,’ she told Georgia. Then, in her motherly tone, she added, ‘It’s been four weeks. He’s had time to think about it and he’ll realise you were doing your job.’