What I didn’t anticipate was that this phone would ring every fucking minute – bearing in mind I’m someone who likes to take my time getting up in the morning, this was tough. That bloody gold phone rang day and night.
What was I supposed to do? I couldn’t keep up.
The phone started to ring almost immediately, barely minutes after I’d got in the door. The people were hungry.
My first dilemma was where do I keep this shit? The wardrobe seemed as good a place as any, so I stretched up to the top shelf and shoved the bag inside an empty Babyliss box, behind some handbags.
The second dilemma was more pressing. People kept calling. The order list was already adding up. How was I going to give them what they wanted? Do I move back and forth? Do I take it all out in one go? Doing it one by one meant running in and out of the house all bloody day. It’s two flights of stairs up to my mum’s house. I ain’t doing that, I decided.
Clever thing to do here is consolidate. Economies of scale, ain’t that what they call it?
I started bunching them up together, saving myself a few journeys up and down to the Pen, lining up half a dozen people in one spot to save time, handing over plastic bags of fuckery with one hand, taking the money with the other.
By the second or third time, I was beginning to get looks. I began to feel jumpy. This was too bait, too stupid.
The Feds were gonna get suspicious. I racked my brain. What had Winston done? He was always on the move. Not going anywhere quickly, but never stopping anywhere for too long. But doing it that way meant it was gonna be a long day. Why should I be hanging outside in the cold, when I could be inside, on the sofa?
Yeah, that was that decided. The people are hungry enough. I wasn’t going to go to them. I ain’t Avon Calling. If they’re hungry, they can come to me. My new job would involve working from home – business would take place, specifically, through my bedroom window.
People knocked and slipped their cash through the gap above the sill, and we’d make the exchange. Quick, simple and completely out of sight of my mum cooking in the kitchen. They were just people, after all. They don’t hang around for conversation. All these characters cared about was getting their fix. So what was a little extra traffic along the gangway?
The phone kept ringing, like a screaming baby that just wouldn’t shut up. A few days into my new career, and already I was feeling overwhelmed. I toyed with the idea of jacking it all. But then I started to see the money rolling in. Twenties, fifties, hundreds. The notes came flooding in quicker than I could count.
Yeah, once I started getting into the swing of it I began to love my new lifestyle. Klaire had been right. I was self-employed and moving up in the world. I wasn’t out doing bullshit no more. The risk was less, but the respect was greater. I was still top dog.
Yusuf soon cottoned on. “Bring me in, sis,” he’d say. “Bring me in.” I could see why. You’ve got them all lined up, handing something over and getting money back. To kids that seems glamorous. I was getting established.
Yusuf had ambitions of his own. For his 16th birthday he persuaded a friend’s big brother to give him a tattoo.
He pretended it hadn’t hurt, but hours later he was still trembling. He looked like he was going to pass out. Some blood stained the shirt fabric from his freshly tattooed chest.
“Thug Life” was scrawled across his skinny frame, Tupac-style. He had also started going out with a girl aged 20, with two kids.
I worried about him.
The world ain’t your friend. Trust no one. I’d learned that much. But that was Yusuf’s problem. He trusted too many people, too easily.
The dynamic had changed. Drex and I were no longer a couple but that didn’t mean I got cast aside. Hell no, my name was strong enough.
I was an entrepreneur now. I got a phone that won’t stop ringing. I was establishing myself. I had something people needed. That gave me power.
Somewhere, at the back of my head, it had worried me the older heads might have targeted me, unhappy that a new face was manoeuvring on their patch. Had I been a big, bulky character, maybe. But no one seemed to take much notice of the new girl on the block. The block had always been mine. Now I was running my own show. I was just marking my territory.
Real talk, I was missing life inside. I wanted the world to leave me alone. The whole situation with the Man Dem and being a brand-name was fun before I went to prison, but I’d grown up, innit. I was moving over to the other side.
What I was doing required a different kind of postcode celebrity and I was stepping up, and minding my own business. I didn’t need no one to come troubling me.
That applied to the Man Dem too.
From now on, I’d be picking and choosing who I’m socialising with. I liked that mystery. I wanted to be exclusive. I wanted to be the girl that not everyone can get hold of.
So who were my new customers? The mix surprised me. Many were normal men and women who you wouldn’t blink twice at if they passed you in Brixton Market. Sure, some were straight outta central casting – death mask faces and that anxious, arm-jangling walk I call the junkie shuffle. But honestly? Most of them made no impression at all. They came and went, no questions asked. Only one woman pricked my conscience.
She looked like death on legs. She was gaunt, Scottish and looked like somebody’s granny. Her voice was loud and croaky.
She lived upstairs in the same block, and always used to come knocking at my window late at night. Of all the cats, she was the one who woke me up the most.
“Sour, Sour,” she’d hiss, “can you fix me up?” I’d be in bed, or watching TV, or having a bath, when I’d hear that same knock of skinny knuckles on glass, followed by the same croaky voice. “Can you fix me up?”
She always dragged with her a beautiful little kid, man. Red hair and freckles. Seriously cute. Others calling at that time, I’d tell to go away, but this one? I worried if I didn’t help her out, she’d be dragging that boy around in the cold all night. I’d sort her out, and watch her drag him back along the landing and up the stairs, and hoped he was being taken home.
At least that child could go back up somewhere warm and safe. Maybe.
I was lying in bed when I heard the croak.
“Sour …”
I popped my head outside. The child stood quietly beneath the window.
“Fix me up … Don’t have the money this time, luv, but getting it soon, I promise. I can give you these?”
She offered a skanky pair of earrings. Books, jewellery, freshly stolen CDs – there was always something she wanted to trade off.
“No cash, go home.”
“OK, OK,” she fussed, finally pulling out a note from tight jeans. Her clothes were so small, they could have been child-sized.
I leaned over and winked at the kid.
“Alright?”
He nodded slightly, but didn’t say a thing. In fact, don’t think I ever heard him say a word.
I knew she was giving me her last notes. Sometimes I’d made the mistake of giving it to her for free, because I knew that kid was hungry. But it only meant she came more often.
On the bad days, she’d leave her giro book with me as a guarantee. Sometimes took her a whole week to pick it up. If she was giving me this, how could she be feeding that little boy?
Sooner or later, she’d return, poking crumpled rolls of cash through my window, dragging the same silent boy behind her.
Tyrone was the only old face who came to visit. He was doing well. He had studied hard for his exams and was one of the few people I knew who was staying on for sixth form.
“So engineering, yeah? Is that, like, building bridges and shit?”
He explained patiently which courses he was going to apply for, and which universities had the best departments. He was determined, I’ll give him that. Good luck to him, I thought.
That afternoon he came over with some R’n’B CDs and we were listening to them in my room. Post-prison present, he ca
lled it.
He’d got a part-time job too, working week nights and Saturdays at a printing shop, and going on holiday to Ayia Napa.
“You should see it, Sour. The music, the honeys, man don’t know what to do. You should come. Big crew of us going out there again next summer. You’d love it.”
“Yeah, I’ll bear that in mind.”
“Ain’t cheap but worth every penny,” he said, his eyes glazing over with memories of all-nighters at Black & White and Insomnia.
Money was the one thing I wasn’t worrying about, thanks to my new lifestyle. If I carry on at this rate, I thought, I could pay for the whole crew. I made a mental note to book me and Tyrone’s flights to party island.
I checked my phone again, for the millionth time.
“What’s wrong wit you, girl? Keep checking that phone every second. Expecting Tupac to call?”
The phone rang.
“I’ll just be a sec.”
I scurried out to the landing and took the order. I sat back down on the bed. Minutes later, another call.
Tyrone looked confused.
“What’s going on here? How come your phone’s ringing all the time?”
He was looking at me suspiciously.
“Nothing. Wrong number.”
“Both of them?”
Sometimes, in these situations, it’s better just to act like you can’t hear what’s being asked.
“You hungry?”
“Man’s always hungry.”
“Good,” I said, jumping off the bed. “Let’s go to the pizza shop. I’m buying.”
That afternoon, after I’d said bye to Tyrone, I had Winston on my back. I had no choice. It was time to chase up some debts. First on the list was the croaky witch. The thought of having to go upstairs and chase her down made my skin crawl.
I quickly raided the kitchen and headed up the stairwell. She lived three floors up. The flat was easy to spot: it was the one with the cracked, broken-down door and the blinds pulled down in daylight.
When that front door opened, whoof! The smell punched you in the face. It was like the smell of plastic burning. Like someone had set a match to the CD collection, and set alight a bag of rubbish while they were at it. Animal, mineral, vegetable, I had no idea, but it stank. Yeah, you didn’t want to hang around up there.
I knocked on the splintered door but needn’t have bothered. It wasn’t locked. She shouted me through to the living room where she was sitting on a burst sofa with the vagrant bunch of heroin guests who happened to be visiting at the time.
“Alright doll, come and take a seat.”
“Nah, I’ll just stand.”
Occupational hazard. If I wanted to see any money, I knew this had to be done.
The sofa was always full of bodies.
“Sit down, kid,” she’d fuss, as she made a theatrical attempt to look for notes that both of us knew she didn’t have.
There was another reason I wanted to go up there. The little boy wandered down the hallway, barefoot. His hair was matted and filthy, and he clung to a dirty blanket.
“You hungry?” I whispered.
He nodded. Always nodding, never speaking.
If I keep your mum cool, I thought, she’ll keep you indoors.
I pressed the treats from Mum’s kitchen into his hands. Ginger cake, and a packet of salt and vinegar crisps. His eyes lit up. He grabbed the food and ran back down the hall.
“It’s just here, somewhere,” she shouted, kicking her comatose guests out of the way as she searched around the remaining furniture.
“Bingo!”
She stuffed the note into my hand. This game had plenty of perks, but whenever I saw her I felt bad. Then one day, she stopped coming completely. The flat was empty. I still wonder what happened to that little boy.
The other cats were enough to keep me busy. Yeah, all sorts started arriving at my doorstep. One guy, a Scouser known as Ankles, on account of his missing foot, used to crack me up. Always coming up with designer perfumes and things he’d tiefed from music stores. One day he arrived with a bike.
His entrepeneurship impressed me. Here was a guy with character. It just went to show, if you applied your energy to something you could get your hands on whatever you liked.
“Have this,” he said one afternoon, offering up some discount box of perfumes he’d tiefed from Boots. “Take this and a tenner.”
“Are you for real? I can buy my own perfumes, my friend.”
I pulled down the window, laughing to myself.
I must have dozed off for a few hours because it was dark when the phone woke me up.
It was a lady’s voice. A new voice I didn’t recognise. She sounded Caribbean.
“Are you around?”
As a matter of fact I was.
“Can I come meet you? By the bins at the entrance?”
I occasionally went down there when the house was too hot.
I looked at the clock. It was late, and I really didn’t feel like it, but the cash would make up for the money the croaky witch still owed me.
“OK, 10 minutes, yeah?”
The woman hung up.
I pulled the bag from the Babyliss box. There wasn’t much left. I wondered whether to take everything or just a couple bags. I hesitated before stuffing all of it in my hoodie. Then I went downstairs.
It was dark but as I was walking down the last flight of stairs I saw a figure heading towards the caged area where they keep the big communal bins, and disappearing out of sight.
Good, I thought. A punctual chick for a change. At least I wouldn’t be hanging about.
I turned the corner, but there was no woman waiting for me. Just a guy in a ski-jacket, holding a gun to my face.
“Man don’t want to do nuffink serious, understand? Where’s the stuff?”
I was looking down the barrel of a handgun. I felt angry. He could at least have had the decency to press it by my temple. Staring down the nozzle at point blank range, darling, that’s a different threat entirely.
The blocks were well lit, but there were no lights by the bins. I’d never seen him before in my life. He was wearing dark colours, a dark tracksuit, dark hoodie – you know how it goes.
Blood racing, I pulled out the bag and slowly offered it over. He swiped it out of my hand. I didn’t even have time to miss my knife, which was still sitting on my chest of drawers.
“How much is there?”
“About 12 wraps, give or take.”
He seemed to hesitate, as if wondering whether to believe me.
“I don’t have any more. That’s all I got left.”
Then he bolted. I lost him pretty quickly in the dark as he darted through the estate. I ran back up to the house, locked the door behind me and pulled the blind tight, all the way down my bedroom window, until not even a flicker of streetlight could seep over the sill.
I was still shaking when I lay down on my bed.
I replayed the situation over and over in my head. I couldn’t have done anything differently. But this was a serious situation and I was getting into some serious shit. First thing, Winston could never know. He had to believe I was up to the job, that I could protect his lines, just like I said I would. There was no time for amateurishness now.
At first, it was a relief I’d taken it all with me. What would he have done had I only brought two wraps down? He could have marched me all the way into my house.
But the more I thought about all the money I was going to have to work even harder to pay off, the more it made me furious. That chick had fucking stolen from me! I don’t suffer that behaviour rightly.
I could have died! Sour or no Sour, it wouldn’t have stopped me from getting a bullet in the head. I’m not made of metal.
Even worse, now I owed money. I felt deeply disrespected. Having a gun pulled on you does something to you. You lose something. You’ve had the worst threatened and you’ve come out the other side. Some might think it makes you more fearful. I felt the opposit
e. I’d looked down the barrel of a gun and held my nerve. That gave me confidence.
That’s when I realised I need to tool myself up. I needed weaponry. That way I knew if anyone dared threaten my life again, I was in my rights to threaten theirs.
Going Professional
I was always taught round my endz it was the white guys who have the weaponry and ammunition. If you wanted to place an order, you needed to go to one of the older heads, who in turn would make the calls. This was way above the 28s of my age. The Man Dem who were left on the road weren’t ready for this kind of behaviour.
I needed to go higher. Every estate has a postcode celebrity from back in the day, an older head who’s done the crime, served the time and still got fingers in all the right pies.
Badman used to boast about an ex-serviceman he knew in Brixton who offered to take anyone out for £5,000. That was probably beyond my requirements. No, I decided I would ask someone to put me in touch with the right guys – refraining from telling them the reasons why, of course.
All they needed to know was that I was in some serious trouble. They bought it, and through a guy who knew a guy arranged a meeting. It was as if you needed to be OKed by a serious character. Once someone OKed you, that was the Blue Peter badge right there.
Without being vouched for, forget it. It’s like trying to book an appointment with Peter Andre. How you got the money, well, that was up to you.
You place your order, hand over the money, and wait for the call to confirm a time and a place. Of course, the older player holds all the power. They always do.
If you hand over the cash and never hear back, then you’ve been skanked.
Luckily, doing my own thing had proved pretty lucrative – even despite robbery at gunpoint.
Soon enough, I was given the message.
“It’s on. He’ll call you.”
There was only one type of call I received on the gold phone. So I knew straight away when the phone rang a few days later that this one was different.
“Hi,” said the man’s voice. The accent sounded different. Not Cockney, but one of them faraway accents. Manchester, maybe? “I’m going on a shopping spree. Heard you wanted to come. Meet me in the Burberry store on Regent Street on Thursday afternoon. I’ll ring you three times when I’m there.”
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