by Bali Rai
‘Hey, make sure you two leave the sweetie man alone,’ replied Gary. ‘There are enough sweetie fiends around here already.’
We said goodbye and left, heading for our next destination, the front line, home of the man with the sweets.
We turned up nothing about Ellie but thankfully we didn’t bump into Busta or his gang either. The last thing we needed was more trouble. What we needed was a break. Jas and Della turned up at mine around half seven that evening. They’d had no luck. No one had seen Ellie or anyone else who might be suspicious. No one knew of anyone who had suddenly become loaded. They had spoken to lots of the younger kids who hung around the streets during the summer holidays. Nothing.
Looking at Della, I noticed that she had changed her clothes from earlier. I was getting to be a regular little Sherlock Holmes. ‘You been home?’ I asked her, not thinking too much of it. Della raised her eyebrows and then shot a glance at Jas. He looked away.
‘Er . . . yeah. We . . . I mean, I had to change. I bought a drink and spilled it down my top.’
I looked at her and winked, nodding in Jas’s direction. ‘Naughty you.’
‘What you trying to say?’ she replied, but not angrily. She was smiling. Like a cat. Devious. I just laughed as Jas turned a shade of red that I didn’t think it was possible for Asian people to turn.
And then I chastised myself for making jokes when things were so messed up. The Crew was one very important person short and we were going to move heaven and earth to find her, if that was what it took. We just had to continue asking around the ghetto. Someone must have seen Ellie. They had to have.
thirteen:
tuesday, 8 p.m.
WE WALKED UP towards the ring road that encircles the ghetto and followed it past Burger King and Kentucky Fried Chicken towards the city centre, before heading left towards Victoria Park on the outskirts of the centre. There was a long road that led to the park and it was full of takeaways, Indian restaurants, pubs and bars. There was also a sex shop, about five newsagents’ and three off-licences. Along the way we stopped at a couple of taxi-cab offices and asked questions of the drivers. Nothing. Further up, outside a student pub we talked to a group of Asian lads who told us that they weren’t from the city. They were in town to find accommodation for the new term, which was still a month and a half away. Again nothing.
Jas and I called in at one of the off-licences. The owner, Mr Sharma, was an old Asian man who had been there for years – we knew his kids. There was a poster tacked to his counter, a police notice about a recent robbery with an appeal for information.
‘You had some trouble, Uncle-ji?’ I asked, pointing but not really looking at the poster. They were a regular feature in most of the off-licences in the ghetto.
‘Oh – you knowing, beteh. Nothing that bad.’ He shrugged his shoulders.
‘When was that?’
He sighed. ‘Other night. Bloody kids, them, innit. Telling me they eighteen when they not even sixteen.’ He looked out of the shop window and then at the door – as though he were expecting them to come back any minute.
‘What did they steal? Money?’
‘No, they not stealing money. Just kids, innit. They stealing few cans of beer.’
I shook my head. ‘Were they local kids?’
‘’Course – always local ones doing worst. Bloody know the boy’s name too. Divinder bloody Kooner. I even knowing his old man.’ Mr Sharma shrugged again.
I thought about the name. It rang a bell. He was a local lad, about two years younger than me. Jas had had a ruck with him a while back over a dodgy mobile phone or something.
Then I saw the date on the poster. It was the same night that Ellie had gone missing. ‘This happened last week? Last Wednesday? The same night as the girl went missing?’
‘Girl in newspaper? Yes, same night. I opening paper next day, see if my shop mention, evening edition, and I’m seeing picture of young girl. Bad thing, that, beteh.’ He shook his head slowly. ‘Seen her too . . .’ he added.
I looked at Jas and then straight at Mr Sharma. Result! ‘You saw her? That night?’
‘Yes. She walking bloody great animal up road. I think animal walking her . . .’ he said, chuckling to himself.
‘Look, Uncle-ji, it’s really important. She’s our friend. What did you see?’ I was excited. Out of nowhere we had got a lucky break.
‘I calling police and the lads start the running and I’m going out to street, behind them. Police car come quick and when the policemans get out, I point out Divinder to him. Divinder running up road past your friend but bloody police running in other direction, after other boys who not stealing anything. Bloody typical, innit?’
‘And you saw Ellie?’ I continued excitedly. Jas and Della had come into the shop by now and they were listening intently.
‘Yes. She walking dog up towards park and then she take left. Gotham Street, I think. That Divinder, him running in same way.’
‘Did you tell the police?’ asked Della, beating me to it.
‘They not bloody asking and they not coming back after they leaving the poster.’
I grinned at the rest of the Crew. ‘Thanks, Uncle-ji,’ I said as we left.
It was a break. A small break, but important all the same. What we had to do now was find Divy Kooner.
The precinct that Will and I had visited earlier in the day was now shuttered up, save for the off-licence. There was a crew hanging around outside the open shop – the kind of crew that, if you didn’t know them, would probably make you think twice about going anywhere near them. There were about thirty kids in all, some of them drunk and one or two smoking weed. They were noisy and feisty but they were basically harmless. The shop itself was the kind where everything was behind glass and you had to ask the owner to fetch you what you wanted. It had been robbed at least five times that I could remember. The security measures were understandable.
The owner was another old Asian man, Mr Singh, and he worked there with two of his sons and kept a huge Alsatian dog for extra security. The thing was mad. Whenever anyone walked into the shop it would start to snarl and smash against the glass and Mr Singh would have to shout at it and hold it back.
We had already spoken to Mr Singh, so we didn’t go in, but said hello to a few of the kids outside instead. Besides, we knew who we were looking for. Divy. And according to Jas he would be in the community centre, playing pool or chilling out. The centre stayed open until ten-thirty every night and as the day progressed so did the quality of its crowd. Downwards. There were some older lads standing around outside the doors – dealers waiting for their customers – and a couple of cars were parked to the side of the building.
Jas and Della went in to see if Divy was around while Will and me went around to the car park. He wasn’t exactly hard to miss, Divy. Years of getting involved in other people’s business and generally being too cheeky had left him with a boxer’s nose, so flat that it might as well not be there. He was about my height and heavily built and his hair was cut into a fade like Jas’s – only Divy had a red streak running through his. On the way over, Jas had joked that Divy’s red streak should have been yellow.
As we walked round to the side of the building Will pointed at the occupants of one of the cars. It was two of Busta’s crew. ‘Right, let’s see how brave they are when the numbers are even, man,’ he said, moving towards the car.
I grabbed Will and held him back. We didn’t need any more trouble. ‘Leave it. We’re here to find Divy. They can wait till later.’
Will grinned. ‘Don’t worry, Billy. I only wanna play with them.’
He pushed me aside as though I weighed nothing and walked up to the car, kicking the driver’s side door as he reached it. The door crumpled slightly – enough to leave a costly dent. It flew open and the smaller of the two lads who had beaten me up got out. Will started to grin – only his grin was kind of sardonic.
‘Yo! Yo! What the raas . . .?’ began the driver.
&nbs
p; He didn’t finish because Will grabbed his leading arm and twisted it behind his back, making him cry out in pain. Then he leaned in close to the lad’s face. ‘Never mind messages fe my Crew. Tek one fe Busta. Tell him I never like his ugly face from school. And now I ain’t no nine-stone weakling him can push around, unnerstand? Tell him Will says hello.’
‘I . . . I . . . I’ll tell him, man. Leggo my arm – you’re gonna break it, man . . .’ His voice was unnaturally high-pitched for his age.
‘Tell him we got a lickle problem, me and my Crew – but when we done with that, he’s next. Yuh gets me?’
He released the lad’s arm. The lad took a step back and began to rub his arm. And then bravado began to return to his face. ‘I got it. But trust me, bad bwoi – you is getting messed up, man. Busta ain’t—’
As he spoke Will took a step towards him and he shut up, cowering again as bravado went back to where it had come from.
‘Just tell him,’ growled Will.
And with that he turned and headed back towards where I was standing, watching. As he approached a chorus of shouts erupted behind me and then the sound of Jas’s voice, swearing. I turned to see Divy Kooner running through the precinct shops towards the main road, trying to get away.
I looked at Will, who shrugged his shoulders and then grinned at me. ‘What the hell, man. Be like lions chasing down their prey,’ he said.
‘You what?’ I shouted, as we set off after Divy.
‘Fun!’ roared Will as we ran.
The kids by the off-licence whooped and shouted and cheered as we ran past them and on to the main road, turning left and heading for the streets round where we lived. Divy was out of sight but I saw Jas run over the road and turn right, down a side street, with Della in hot pursuit. Will cut across the road ahead of me, narrowly avoiding an oncoming car. I waited for it to pass before I followed.
The side street we ran into went up a hill towards an adventure playground and park at the top. It was narrow, cars parked on both sides, and ahead of me I saw Jas again, gaining on Divy, with Della being caught up by Will. My lungs were aching. I saw Divy turn right into another side street, closely followed by Jas. There was a street to the right, ahead of me, which would lead me in the same direction. I took it and ran up towards the park. It was a cobbled street, pedestrianized. The incline was less steep too and I knew that if I reached the top before Divy crossed ahead of me, we had him.
But just as I got to the top he raced past me, avoiding my attempt to lunge at him. Jas flew by a second later and I caught him instead, both of us hitting the ground. We got up quickly and went on but Divy was nowhere to be seen. Will and Della caught us up and we stopped for a moment.
‘Where is he?’ demanded Will.
‘Lost him. This dick here . . .’ Jas told him, pointing at me . . . ‘knocked me over.’
‘Nice . . . so where do we go now?’
‘I was trying to catch Divy. I just missed him, that’s all.’ Well, I had to defend myself, although I did feel like a right idiot.
Della was standing with her hands pressed to her sides, taking deep gulps of air, trying to catch her breath. She began to say something and then coughed for about a minute.
‘Yo, sister, looks like you need to come down the gym with me,’ laughed Will.
‘What? So I can come check out all those muscle Marys in their little shorts?’ She shook her head. ‘And don’t smile, William. We just lost that ugly bwoi.’
Will stopped smiling and cursed Della under his breath.
‘Let’s not squabble, kids,’ I said, trying to take control. ‘He’s gotta be around here somewhere.’
Jas raised his eyebrows. ‘Nah, he’s long gone, man.’
As he spoke we heard some dustbins rattle down the side passage of a house. It might have been a rat. Maybe someone’s pet. But it wasn’t. It was Divy. He had been crouching behind two large bins and something had obviously spooked him. And then I saw the biggest rat I have ever seen come hopping out from the passage and across the road to the cover of some bushes. Della shrieked and Will nearly jumped onto me. I laughed at them, telling them it was only a rat before turning to find that Jas had pinned Divy against the passage wall and was slapping him gently around the face. Playing with him like a cat with a mouse.
fourteen:
tuesday – and wednesday
IN THE END Divy couldn’t really tell us very much about Ellie and why she had disappeared. He did say, though, that he had seen a metallic green Saab driving up and down the road on the night she had gone missing. He had noticed it while he was hanging around by Mr Sharma’s off-licence. In itself it wasn’t that much of a lead, although it was suspicious. Most of the dealers around the area drove souped-up sports cars with blacked-out windows and big tyres – something I could never understand. I mean, they might as well have put a big neon sign on their cars – DRUG DEALER, THIS WAY PLEASE.
The thing was, the car that Divy had described wasn’t one that any of us had ever seen around the streets. Generally we knew who drove which car, locally. Everyone did. The only ones we didn’t know were those that belonged to the kerb-crawlers. But it hadn’t been a hot summer night either – not with all that rain – certainly not hot enough to warrant driving around the streets like most of the lads here did whenever the sun came out, whistling at any girls they passed. So why would a car be driven around, again and again? Divy had seen it pass by at least ten times that night. In that weather, it had to be some desperate kerb-crawler looking for a girl.
Or someone else. Looking for one of us.
‘Come on, man,’ urged Jas when we got home. ‘It is a lead – like in them crime novels that you read, Billy.’
‘Man, you read enough of them,’ added Will.
I thought about what my crime novel heroes would do in our situation. What would Matt Scudder and John Rebus and Dave Robicheaux do? Go to their police contacts, pay a snitch for information, lean on someone for a clue. But we didn’t have their options. We weren’t really detectives. We were a bunch of teenagers looking for our friend and hoping that she wasn’t dead – we were playing at being detectives. We didn’t have their contacts, their powers and we weren’t characters on the pages of a crime novel. We were real and we didn’t have a chance.
I started to get angry. ‘This ain’t a novel, Jas. This is real. We ain’t the sodding Famous Five!’
The rest of the Crew looked at me in surprise. I hadn’t realized how abruptly I had spoken.
‘This is real effing life and our friend is out there somewhere and we don’t know whether she is alive or dead and all we can do is pretend we are detectives and sit around listening to CDs!’
Della looked startled and Jas lowered his head. Will whistled silently. I waited for a moment and felt a hot tear fall down my cheek. And then I said sorry.
Della leaned over and gave me a hug. ‘It’s all right, Billy,’ she said, wiping my face.
‘No it ain’t,’ I replied. ‘Ellie ain’t here. We should have looked out for her. We should have . . . I should have taken that bloody animal out myself. It’s my fault.’
‘No, it’s not. You didn’t know what would happen. We don’t know what has happened.’
‘Come on, Dell,’ I continued. ‘How many times do we see this shit on the telly. It might have nothing to do with the money. Girls go missing and no one sees them and then they turn up in a ditch five months later . . .’
Della looked to Jas for support but all he did was sit and stare. Will got up and left the room.
‘Look, Billy, we are all upset here,’ she said finally. ‘I ain’t slept since my Baby went missing. I wanna cry and I wanna hit someone and I wanna scream, but who is that going to help?’
I looked into her catlike eyes.
‘It don’t help anyone if we shout at each other and sit and feel sorry for ourselves. We are doing what we can and it may not be enough and we might only be kids but I ain’t losing another member of my family. I done that
too many times already.’
I hugged her back and then Jas joined in.
It was like we had all just bottled up our real feelings and as each day passed we had grown more and more tense. Until that point. I was missing Ellie and I was scared and upset and angry but Della was right. We were all feeling it and we weren’t helping matters by sitting around moaning about it. I got up and went downstairs to find Will. He was in the living room, leafing through a paper. I went in and looked at him.
He just nodded. ‘I know, man,’ he said. ‘I know.’
And then I began to feel guilty for calling Zeus ‘that bloody animal’. I went into the kitchen and saw him sitting in his basket. He had hardly moved since that night and he still hadn’t eaten properly. In fact he actually looked ill. I went over and knelt down to pet him. He whined a couple of times and then licked at my hand.
‘Hey, kid,’ I told him, ‘it wasn’t your fault, was it? It wasn’t mine either. You missing Ellie, kid?’
Zeus shifted his head at the mention of her name and then he whined some more. I was crying again and petting him.
‘I know, Zeus . . . I miss her too.’
The police came back round to Ellie’s the following evening – one week now since Ellie’s disappearance – and my mum went next door to be with Ellie’s parents. They said they’d had no luck finding her. Ellie’s mum was distraught and her dad had taken time off work to stay at home. When my mum got back she made a big pot of chickpea curry, telling me that maybe someone could take some over to Ellie’s parents when it was made.
‘They can’t live on takeaway food,’ she said. ‘And Ellie’s mum can’t cook at the moment.’
I nodded slowly.
‘Will you take it to them later, Sleepy boy?’ she asked as she stirred the pot.
‘Yeah, ’course I will, Mum. I want to go and see how they are anyway.’
‘Thanks, Billy. How are you today?’
She came over and put her arm around me. I told her about how I’d felt the day before and she told me that Della was right.