by Bali Rai
‘It ain’t got nothing to do with her being white,’ I said, confused.
‘You don’t think? Think about how many news stories you see ’bout children gone missing. How many of them stories are about black or Asian kids? How many newspaper campaigns you see about ethnic kids?’
‘I’ve seen loads,’ I said, lying. Nanny had a point. I’d seen a few recently but only after the stories had been taken up by the national press.
‘Little black kid gone missing and you might see two, maybe three reports. White kid and you see the reports all day, every day for time. You see celebrity appeal ’pon television and newspaper set up campaign.’
‘Yeah . . .’
‘I man ain’t saying that it all right to kill white kids or nothing like that. I just sayin’ that every child have the same worth. Them colour nah matter. But it does to dem media and police. So dem nuh care if they hurt I feelings – or yours.’
‘You don’t think Ellie is dead, do you?’ I shivered at the thought.
Nanny shook his head. ‘Nah, man, I nuh say that. But we need to find her soon, man.’
‘How are we gonna do that? The police are doing it anyway. And if you’re right, cos she is white, they’ll be doing everything they can to find her so that’s good, isn’t it?’
‘Listen, from when she get kidnap in we neighbourhood then some man mus’ know something. Man can’t fart around here without someone hear it.’
‘So what do we do?’ I asked, getting up from my chair.
‘We nah do nothing. I man will go ask some questions. Just let me get a little meditation. Help me think straight.’
And with that he sparked up a spliff and sat back, thinking. I wanted to tell him that I didn’t think getting stoned would help but I didn’t want a lecture about weed being a herb from Jah and how it was the healing of the nation. In fact I probably would have smoked some myself if I had stayed there. But I went up to my room and my own thoughts.
eleven:
five days later . . . monday
ELLIE’S PARENTS MADE appeals on the local TV station and the radio on the second and fourth days after she had gone missing and the police liaison officer came by every day. They were desperate for some kind of news and each hour that passed without any word of Ellie saw them grow a little more anxious. They were normally a really happy family, making little jokes about each other and doing the kind of family stuff that me, Jas and Della had never done. Christopher, Ellie’s brother, had this annoying habit of whistling the tune to Lady in Red by Chris De Burgh – that was his joke name, one his dad had given him to wind him up – and he had even stopped doing that. It was horrible to see them become so sad.
It was one of the worst periods of my life. I couldn’t eat or sleep or stop thinking long enough to do anything at all. The Crew had been out asking questions of the local kids and gangs, me included, but we had gleaned no information at all. Apart from the message that I was given about Busta and how he was going to kill me and Della for ‘dissin’’ him. The message was delivered by two of Busta’s gang, down an alleyway in their part of the ghetto. It was the local front line and I had been asking the kids around there about Ellie, trying to make sure that I avoided Busta. I didn’t. As I was walking down an alley between two streets I found my path blocked by two lads. One of them had three teeth missing and hands like shovels. The other one was skinny but looked more scary than the big one. The alley was damp with the rain and it smelt of cat shit and rubbish. I had nowhere to run. The big one held me against a wall and the smaller one punched me in the face and stomach, delivered the message and then hit me again.
I must have passed out because I found myself waking up in a puddle, with a ginger tom cat licking my face. I got to my feet and slowly made my way home, helped part of the way by the local imam, the priest from the disused mosque at the back of the train station. He was a local man and I had seen him around for years. He asked me if I wanted to call the police but I told him to leave it. He shook his head and smiled kindly, before telling me that I was always welcome at the mosque when it eventually reopened, regardless of my religion. I smiled weakly back at him and walked into my house. As I entered the kitchen, relieved that my mum was at work, my phone started to vibrate in my pocket. It was Della.
‘I’m fine,’ I told Della as we sat in my kitchen. She had come straight round after her phone call and we were waiting for Jas to join us.
‘We can’t let Busta’s crew get away with what they did,’ she replied. She had been scowling since she’d arrived but still managed to look pretty with it, something I had always found amazing. Man, Della was even pretty when she cried and there aren’t many people you can say that about.
‘We can’t do anything. They’ve got serious back-up.’
‘So just because they sell drugs, that means they can do what they like?’
I nodded. ‘Since when has it been anything else round here, Dell?’
‘It’s lame, man. I feel we should just go and—’
‘I’m fine. It ain’t the first time I’ve had a beating and it won’t be the last. Man, let it go. You and me better try and avoid Busta, but more importantly we need to find Ellie – that’s all that I care about.’
‘Yeah but . . .’
‘Yeah but nothing. Where’s Jas got to? Call him, will you.’
Della got out her phone and sent Jas a text message. Within a minute her phone bleeped at her in reply. As she read the message, Jas himself knocked on the kitchen door and walked in.
‘Yo, what up with your face, man?’ he asked, looking at me.
‘Nothing. Just a little run in with Busta’s boys.’
‘So let’s go and deal with them,’ he replied angrily.
‘Forget it, Jas. Let’s concentrate on finding Ellie if we can.’ I really couldn’t be arsed with Busta and his crew – not when Ellie was missing. Man, I was missing her like mad.
‘They ain’t getting away with this, man. Believe.’
‘It can wait,’ I told him.
In hindsight I should have listened to Jas, but that’s the thing about hindsight. It’s about as useful as a mobile phone with no charger.
We sat and talked about what we were going to do to help find Ellie. Jas had already been round and spoken to a couple of lads who liked her, just to see if they knew anything, but to no avail. Della had called all her friends at school and asked some of the local girls but none of them knew anything. I hadn’t had any joy either. It was like Ellie had just disappeared from the face of the planet. No trace. But I was sure that someone knew something. Nanny had been right about how everyone round here knew everyone else’s business. And then something hit me. Something that I’d dismissed earlier but which should have been obvious. I looked at Della.
‘It’s got to have something to do with the money,’ I said, almost in a whisper. ‘Ellie’s disappearance.’
‘What you on about, man?’ Jas looked unconvinced. ‘Ellie didn’t find it.’
‘Yeah, and we gave the money back, Billy.’
‘We gave it back to the police. Not to the actual owners.’
‘The strange man that Ellie saw,’ I went on. ‘You and Will saw him too, man. They were watching us. And if Ellie saw him, he’d have seen her. What if they don’t know we gave the money to the police, but reckon Ellie has it? Or me?’
‘Oh shit,’ said Della suddenly. ‘The brick through your mum’s window. That was the same night that we gave the dough back.’
‘Exactly,’ I replied.
It made sense. It was too much of a coincidence that we had found the money, handed it in and within days Ellie had disappeared.
‘They might have followed us all at some point,’ continued Della.
‘And it isn’t that hard to do. How many cars drive around these streets slowly? It’s a red light area.’
Jas thought about it for a while before agreeing that I could have a point. Then he pointed out that, if I was right, then there was a cri
minal gang in the area that knew what was going on. Knew where Ellie was. And we couldn’t just walk up to them and ask. So how were we going to find out which gang had Ellie – and why? We didn’t have the money any more. Surely they’d know that by now? So why would they have taken her? It was a scary thought.
It was a thought that I passed on to Nanny later that day. He sat and listened before nodding slowly and telling me that I should be a copper, a suggestion that I took with the tonne of salt with which it was offered. He then asked me about the bruise that had appeared on my face and I told him about Busta and his crew.
‘De yout’ dem round’ ere is too feisty,’ he said, shaking his head.
‘It’s cool, Nan. I’ll deal with it after we’ve found Ellie.’
‘Maybe you could leave Busta fe me to deal wid. I know a lickle ting ’bout that bwoi mek him cry with shame, y’know?’
I smiled. ‘Man, is there anyone round here you don’t know?’
‘You forgetting, Sleepy. Before me find my callin’ in Rastafari, I was doin’ all dem t’ings that yuh see badman doin’ now. I sell drug. I even hold a gun.’
‘No way! You never told me that.’
‘Well, is like yuh man Horace Andy a sing. Yuh see a man face but yuh can nevah see him heart.’
‘You’re telling me, man. Did you ever shoot anyone?’ I asked.
But Nanny shrugged off my questions, telling me that he was talking about a man called Norris Grant, a man who had died long ago. Norris Grant was the name Nanny had been given at birth.
As we were talking my phone shrilled out its Mary-J ring tone and revealed Will on the other end of the line. He was out of breath and I assumed he had just finished at the gym but his voice gave the game away. Something was wrong.
‘It’s Jas . . . some lads got him and held him down . . .’
‘Who?’ I felt a chill run down my spine.
‘He doesn’t know. He just said that there were two lads and an older man. The older one told him to give back the other bag.’
‘What other . . .? ‘The first chill was joined by another.
‘There were two, Billy. One that we handed to the coppers and another one . . .’
‘What other one . . .?’
twelve:
tuesday, 4.30 p.m.
‘ARE YOU SURE you didn’t see another bag, Will?’
The Crew had gathered at Will’s house the next day. Jas was shaken but not hurt and he was angry – humiliated – because he was a kick-boxer and they had still got him. And he had been riding over to Della’s on his skateboard, which they had broken. And the worst of it was that he didn’t have a clue who had jumped him. It was getting a little hot for us, what with my run-in too. There was something weird going on and we had to figure out what it was. There had been no news of Ellie and the police hadn’t found out anything either.
We were all playing the waiting game, hoping that something would give. That someone would come forward. At least my suspicions about the money had been confirmed, even if they hadn’t been totally accurate. Whoever had left that money in the alley had left two bags, which meant that there was one still out there somewhere. And we were getting the blame for it. The money had to be linked to Ellie’s disappearance. The warning that Jas had been given said as much. The question was what we were going to do about it. Were we supposed to go to the police or not?
‘There was no second bag, man,’ replied Jas. ‘If there had been, we would have grabbed that too.’
‘Yeah, why would we take one and not the other?’ added Will.
Della looked at Jas and shrugged. ‘I wish you hadn’t grabbed that bag at all, Jas,’ she said in a whisper.
‘Yeah, so do I,’ he replied, looking worried.
I told them that it was too late to worry about the money now. We had to come up with a plan of action.
‘Well, we can forget the police for a start. They ain’t exactly being helpful,’ continued Della.
‘But they can use the information to find Ellie,’ argued Will.
‘Yeah, and they can use the same information to give us more grief. I mean, they ain’t stupid, are they? First we hand in a bag full of dough and then Billy’s house gets attacked. And now . . . Ellie,’ concluded Jas.
He was right. The police knew all about the bag of money we had found already, and the second bag didn’t change that. It would just mean more interviews for us with DI Griffin and his ilk. After the way they’d treated us before – all nasty and sus – I knew they wouldn’t believe us if we told them there was a second bag and we hadn’t taken it. They’d think we had kept the second bag and would pressure us to give up money we never had. Worse still, it would probably mean they’d ease off on other ways to try and find Ellie. If it would have helped Ellie, we’d have been down there like a shot – Babylon or no Babylon – but there was nothing new that would help. Nah, it was up to us to decide what to do.
‘Someone has to know something,’ I said.
‘Yeah, but who?’ asked Jas.
That was the key question. It was obvious that whoever had left that money in the alley had been watching us and knew that we had handed in a bag of money to the police. They also thought that we had another bag – but we didn’t. However, if two bags had been left in the alley, then one of them must have been taken by someone else – another gang or maybe even a wino or junkie. If we could find whoever that was, get the second bag and let it be known we had it, surely whoever had Ellie would come for it and we’d get Ellie back. After all, that’s what the message to Jas meant, didn’t it? The money for Ellie. Or we could let the police handle it. But they wouldn’t want to give the second bag – if they found it – back to any owners. Not if it was dodgy money. I was sure of that.
Finding whoever had the second bag would be difficult, regardless of whether it had been taken by another gang or some lucky individual who had happened to stumble across it. But then, if there had been two bags together, why hadn’t the first person to see them taken both? It just didn’t make sense. Who would leave all that money in an alley? And if we went to the police . . . Man, my thoughts were just moving round in one big circle.
We decided to split into two and go out again. Someone had to know something. Maybe a crew who had suddenly come into a suspiciously large amount of money recently?
This time Della and Jas went together and I stuck with Will. I told Jas to steer clear of the area round the front line, just in case Busta was about, and to keep a lookout for anyone suspicious – which could have meant a thousand people in our area. I didn’t want him or Della to have another run-in with Busta. We didn’t need any more complications. Will and I would go round the more dangerous parts of the neighbourhood, including the precinct by the community centre and the underground concrete car parks that sat at the base of every tower block, like ready-made lairs for modern-day Fagins. They housed young black, Asian or white lads withered by heroin and crack abuse, shadows that leapt out as you passed, sticking you with blades and taxing your mobile and money. It was like Victorian London transposed to modern British inner-city life. Only Oliver Twist was a junkie rent-boy who would beat and rob your granny – and brag about it to his crew.
It was cold out again, although at least it was no longer raining, and we made our way to the community centre, past the post office, an off-licence and a halal butcher’s. Will stopped at the butcher’s to talk to the owner’s son, Mohammed, who was our age. Mo told Will that he had seen Ellie with Zeus on the day she had gone missing. But he had seen her coming out of the alley and that was it. He couldn’t remember which way she had gone or if anyone was following her, either on foot or in a car. Will told me what Mo had said as we walked through the precinct and over to the community centre. A gang of kids were hanging around the entrance, boys and girls, smoking cigarettes and drinking from cans of strong lager. One of the girls gave me the eye as we walked in and then, when my back was turned, made a lewd comment about me and what she’d do to me if
I’d let her.
I pretended not to hear but Will pounced on it. ‘That girl wants you, dread. You should go get her number.’ He grinned at me.
‘Maybe when she’s legal,’ I replied. The girl must have been all of fourteen going on twenty-one.
The centre had an inner hall that was a gym and indoor football pitch. It was used to stage reggae and ragga sound systems and garage nights at the weekend. I hadn’t been a regular visitor for a couple of years but I knew the community worker who ran the place, Gary. He was yet another old friend of Nanny’s and he shook his head when I asked if he had seen Ellie recently, telling me Nanny had been round already asking him that. I asked him if Busta’s crew still dealt drugs outside and he shook his head about that too.
‘We moved them on a few months ago – me, Nanny and a couple of other youth workers.’
‘Bet that made him happy,’ laughed Will, talking about Busta.
Gary just shrugged. ‘No, it didn’t. But all he did was move on up the road.’
‘And no one else has been in asking about the gangs round here?’
‘Funny you should mention that, Billy. The only other person who’s been in is Nanny, as I said, and he was asking the same questions as you two. He told me about your friend. The missing girl that’s been on the telly.’
‘Oh, right.’ I wondered what Nanny was up to. I almost expected him to come flying to the rescue wearing a cape and his underpants on top of red, gold and green tights, like a Rastafarian super-hero.
‘You know, regardless of your feelings about the police – and they don’t exactly ingratiate themselves with the youths around here – you should let them deal with it. They have better resources and more people.’
‘Yeah, but we’ve got the ghetto super-hero on our side,’ I replied, grinning at my image of ‘Nanny-man’.
Gary looked at me as if I was mad and shook his head. ‘I hope you’ve not been eating those magic mushrooms again, Billy.’
Will laughed out loud. ‘They ain’t magic round here,’ he said. ‘Not unless you buy them from the man with the sweeties.’