by Bali Rai
Back in my own neighbourhood I let my ‘screwface’ relax and I sauntered home. I walked down the side street that led to the alley, first dodging a mad ginger tom cat that ran out from behind a pile of old newspapers and cardboard boxes, then noticing a piece of tin foil on the ground by the boxes. I realized that if I had the energy or the inclination to look further, I’d find a hypo and a spoon too, but I didn’t bother. Heroin paraphernalia wasn’t on my shopping list. I walked down the alley, into the constant gloom that darkened the alley year round, regardless of the time of day. There were three large bins just to the right of my back door and as I approached them I heard the soft sound of moaning coming from behind them. I assumed it would be a wino or maybe the junkie who had left the evidence in the alleyway entrance. Not bothering to look, I opened the door to the yard and walked through. Behind me the moaning got louder. Whoever was by the bins was trying to say something. I turned to close the door and a figure stood up in the gloom – a female figure in a blue, denim skirt and a torn, baby blue top. Blood ran from a gash above her eyes and her blonde hair was matted and stuck to her head. I looked again. Her blue trainers were covered in mud and her legs were bruised. Her top was torn open and her bra ripped. There were dark marks on her breasts and her neck. I dropped the bag I was carrying as she reached out for my arm.
‘. . . B-B-Billy . . .’
I started to shake as her face came out of the gloom. ‘Oh shit!’
twenty-two:
tuesday, 5 p.m.
‘WHERE IS SHE?’
My mum had raced back from work straight after I’d called her. She looked flustered and worried. After cleaning the gash on Sally’s forehead and lending her a pair of my jeans and a top to change into, I’d shown her where my bedroom was and left her there. As soon as her head had hit the pillow she’d passed out. I hadn’t known whether to call an ambulance or the police or what, but I was sure that Sally would prefer to see my mum. Taking off her coat in the kitchen, my mum was trying to get everything straight before going up to her.
‘Where did you find her?’ she asked, pacing around the kitchen like an upset teacher.
‘She was in the alley when I got back from town,’ I told her.
‘Has she told you who hurt her?’
‘No, Mum, she hasn’t. All she keeps banging on about is some girl.’
‘Who?’
‘I don’t know. I can’t really understand her.’
‘And you think she’s had drugs?’
‘Yeah, I think so. She was all drowsy and not just from the cut on her head. Her pupils are like pinpricks and—’
My mum cut me off. ‘Let me go and check on her.’
‘Mum, be careful. She’s been beaten up.’
She came over and gave me a quick hug. ‘It’s all right, Billy. I know how to handle it. It’s what I do every day.’ She let go of me and walked out of the kitchen, telling me to make her a cup of coffee.
My mum was up in my room with Sally for about an hour and her coffee had gone cold by the time she came back downstairs. I put the kettle on again and started to make her a fresh coffee.
‘Turn that off, Billy. I don’t want one.’ She looked careworn.
I wanted to go over and give her a hug but I didn’t know whether I could. She looked really upset, sad almost, with a faraway look in her eyes and on her face. I made myself another cup of coffee instead and went over to the table with it.
‘She won’t tell me what happened.’ Mum cleared her throat before continuing, ‘Or should I say, who did that to her. I can see what happened.’
‘She’s been beaten up real bad, hasn’t she?’ It was yet another one of my stupid comments. I was like a Ninja black belt at stating the obvious.
‘Billy, she’s been tortured. She’s got cigarette burns on her chest and neck.’
‘Oh shit . . .’ I had to gulp down anger and tears and—
‘She needs to see a doctor but she won’t let me call an ambulance.’
‘Why not? Surely if she’s that badly hurt, she needs to go to hos—’
‘She’s scared, Billy. Really scared. She keeps on talking about her friend Claire.’
Claire – the young girl who had been left in the empty house with Ellie. The one who had helped her escape by telling Sally where she was. The one who had run past me as I entered the house the night we found Ellie.
‘Listen, do you want me to go talk to her?’
‘Not right now, Billy. She’s out of it. She’s had a lot of heroin by the look of it.’
I shook my head.
‘Right, let me think. I can’t call the police. I can’t call an ambulance because they’ll report her injuries to the police. What am I gonna do?’
She sat and went over the options again and again. Not that there was a lot to think over. We had to call an ambulance. That was the only sensible thing to do. I pointed out that we didn’t have to tell anyone that we had spoken to Sally and I knew that she wouldn’t tell the police anything. It wasn’t like we were betraying her trust, was it? We were doing the only thing we could do. I mean, it wasn’t like a crime novel where the characters always seemed to know dodgy back-street doctors who would remove a bullet for a small fee and all that. It just didn’t happen in real life – well not in mine anyway.
‘Right, that’s settled. Billy, call an ambulance and I’ll go and check on Sally.’
‘OK. Where shall I tell them we found her?’
‘Just say the alleyway. Tell them that you know her because she’s local and that you found her exactly the way that you did. Just don’t tell them that she’s been here for a while.’
‘Right.’
The ambulance took less than twenty minutes to arrive at the house and it was followed a few moments later by a police car. Five minutes after that, two CID officers turned up in an unmarked police car. The uniformed officers spoke to the ambulance crew and then to me while my mum spoke to one of the CID officers. It was DI Lucy Elliot – the one who had turned up when we’d rescued Ellie and I could tell she was incredibly suspicious of what my mum was telling her, even when she gave her the clothes Sally had been wearing – ‘evidence’, I guess. The ambulance crew brought Sally downstairs and put her on a gurney with wheels. Sally didn’t really know what was going on. She was sobbing and moaning about Claire as the crew took her out to the ambulance. A crowd had gathered in the road and two local kids were sitting in the marked police car, messing with the radio. As the ambulance door closed, one of the kids managed to find the siren switch and it went off. One of the uniforms swore and ran over to the car, only for the youths to jump out, calling him ‘bacon bwoi’, and run off up the road and away. The copper didn’t bother to chase them. I think he was used to it. He merely switched the siren off and returned to the house after locking the car.
‘Bloody kids,’ he muttered as he passed me and my mum.
Behind us, DI Elliot was standing looking at her notebook. She flipped it shut and came up to us. ‘Are either of you going to the hospital with her?’
‘No, not yet,’ replied my mum. ‘I might go up later.’
‘Right, can we talk?’ asked DI Elliot. She nodded at the house. ‘Inside.’
We turned and headed into the house, just as the two uniformed officers came back out with the second CID and headed for the alley entrance. The crowd was still there. Young kids were pointing and throwing mumbled insults at the police. A couple of old women stood gossiping and shaking their heads in disgust. Next to the police car another youth lounged, sniggering through his gold-toothed mouth. ‘YOW! BABYLON!’ he shouted at the two uniforms.
They looked up and saw the kid by their car. Somehow he had forced the window down despite the car being locked. One of the coppers unclipped his handcuffs and ran over to the car but the kid had gone by the time he got there, disappearing down the road after his mates in a flash of Nike trainers and Adidas tracksuits. The shouts from the crowd echoed as the copper pulled strips of streaky bacon fr
om his dashboard. Judging by the state of the youths who had left the meat, it was definitely smoked.
twenty-three:
tuesday, 7 p.m.
‘YOUR STORY DOESN’T seem to add up.’ DI Elliot was sitting facing me and my mum at our kitchen table, her notebook open.
My mum looked at me and then turned to Elliot. ‘What’s to add up?’ she said, leaning forward in her chair. ‘It’s what happened.’
DI Elliot softened her gaze and tried to look concerned. ‘I appreciate that it’s been a difficult time for you both. First your friend goes missing and then this happens.’
This time I shrugged. ‘What has that got to do with this?’ I asked her, looking at her directly.
‘Well, it’s a bit of a coincidence, isn’t it? I mean, why did the girl . . .’ She looked at her notes. ‘Why did Sally turn up at your house when you only know her from around the area?’
‘Dunno.’
‘Doesn’t that seem strange to you? A girl who has been badly beaten doesn’t go the police, doesn’t get herself to hospital – she comes here instead.’ Elliot returned my stare.
‘Maybe she was beaten up in the alleyway,’ suggested my mum. ‘She was hardly in a state to get to the hospital by herself.’
‘We must have been the closest place for her to get to,’ I added, supporting my mum.
‘Possibly,’ answered Elliot. She didn’t look convinced but then she didn’t know any more about what had happened than we did. Glancing at her notes once more, she continued, ‘So you do know who she is but you don’t actually know her – as in, you aren’t friends or anything?’
‘No,’ I replied.
‘But you do know that she’s a sex-worker?’
My mum spoke up. ‘Yes, we do. What difference does that make?’
‘I’m wondering whether you’ve seen her with a boyfriend maybe? Or a pimp?’
‘No – no we haven’t,’ replied my mum, frowning. The little creases on her forehead and by the sides of her eyes took on life.
‘How about you, Billy?’ asked Elliot. ‘Do you know where she lives, or any of her friends?’
I waited for a moment before replying, not wanting to tell her anything more than I had to. ‘I’ve seen her around, said hello and that. But I’ve never seen her with a pimp or anything.’ I hesitated, then added, worried about Josh. ‘I think she’s got a kid, but his granny looks after him or something like that. But I don’t know where she lives, or anything.’
‘How about the other girl? Claire? Do you know her?’
I looked at my mum for a split second and then back at Elliot. ‘No, I don’t know her.’
Elliot eyed me with suspicion. ‘Are you sure, Billy? It’s very important.’
‘Yes, I’m sure.’
DI Elliot flipped her notebook shut and put it down on the table. She must have been between thirty and thirty-five years of age and she was quite attractive. She also seemed different to most of the other coppers I had met in my life. For one thing, she was female and not in a uniform. I wondered whether she was part of the new breed of recruits that were used in adverts to encourage applications from women and from ethnic minorities. Part of the ‘changing face of policing’ that I had read about in the papers. Her hair was short and blonde and her eyes were the same colour as mine, almost amber. She was a little taller than me and, if she wasn’t in the police force, I would have said she was quite fit for an older women. But she was a copper. Part of ‘Babylon army’, as Nanny would put it.
Realizing that I was giving her the once-over, she looked away briefly before leaning forward on the table, hands clasped. ‘I know that people round here distrust the police for a number of reasons,’ she said, looking directly at me.
I shrugged.
‘I even understand it, up to a point.’
I looked at my mum and frowned too. I could feel it coming – the speech about rotten apples and shit – but DI Elliot surprised me.
‘The force has got racist officers. Sexist too. There is corruption.’
‘You can say that again. Most of the coppers round here treat us like animals in a zoo,’ I told her.
‘I understand that,’ she continued. ‘But some of us, the vast majority, are here to help people. To stop crime. That’s what we get paid to do.’
‘So, why don’t you do it?’ I asked. ‘Why are you always out chasing kids dealing in weed and persecuting the working girls and that?’
‘Let me—’ she began.
I cut her off. She wasn’t getting out of this one. ‘No, just answer the question, man. I’ve seen the police cars driving around, right past the crack dealers and the heroin pushers. Hassling the youth and leaving the big-time people alone.’
‘We’re trying, Billy. But we can’t get anywhere if the locals treat us like stormtroopers.’ She looked at my mum, who just sat and frowned.
‘Who the cap fit, man,’ I replied. Let them wear it.
She ignored me. ‘This incident with Sally – someone around here will know what happened but no one will ever talk to us. I mean, we still don’t even know who made the call to tell you where Ellie Sykes was being held.’
I had to give her credit – it was a sly move. Trying to catch me with my guard down. ‘We told you,’ I said. ‘It was an anonymous call. Some girl—’
‘And you’ve had no other calls? Or threats?’
‘No. But you know that because you’ve spoken to Ellie.’
‘Yes – she told us that her kidnappers had a young girl keep an eye on her. But she didn’t give us the girl’s name.’
‘I suppose she didn’t know it,’ I replied, looking at my mum.
‘And within a few days a young girl, badly assaulted, turns up on your doorstep, drugged to the eyeballs and mumbling about someone called Claire. I can’t help thinking that there is a link.’
‘So what is the link?’ I asked, standing up.
‘I don’t know,’ confessed Elliot. ‘I’m still trying to find it.’
‘If there actually is one,’ added my mum, finally getting involved.
Elliot looked over at her.
‘Please don’t think I’m being rude,’ continued my mum, ‘but this isn’t getting us anywhere. I don’t understand what you are asking my son.’
‘I’m trying to ascertain what actually occurred.’
‘And we’ve told you: we’ve given statements to your colleagues and answered your questions with patience. But, as I said, to no apparent avail, so if you’ve finished – I wouldn’t mind getting on with the rest of my day.’
Elliot stood up and pocketed her notebook. ‘You’re right, Mrs—’ She stopped when she realized her mistake but didn’t rectify it. Instead she pulled out a card and put it on the table. ‘If you remember anything or have anything further to add, my number’s on the card. It’s direct and it’s totally confidential.’ She was looking straight at me. I looked away.
My mum stood up and opened the kitchen door for Elliot, shaking her hand out of politeness.
‘Thank you for talking to me. I’ll have to arrange a time to go over your statements properly – at your convenience,’ said Elliot, walking towards the kitchen door. ‘I can see myself out.’
twenty-four:
tuesday, 8 p.m.
THE CREW CAME round an hour later and we sat in my bedroom, talking things over. I had been thinking, fretting, continuously since DI Elliot had left.
The facts were pretty clear. We’d found a bag full of money which we had then handed in to the coppers. Someone had watched us. That someone knew that we had been to the police. That same person might have put a brick through my mum’s window – maybe as a warning. After that Ellie, who had complained about seeing a strange man a few times, had been kidnapped. Sally had told us where Ellie was being held after getting a message from the younger girl, her friend Claire. While Ellie was being held we had got a warning about a second bag – the night that Jas was threatened – and then we had found Ellie. Since that n
ight all had been quiet until I had found Sally, badly beaten up. What if she was a message, saying, ‘Hand over the second bag – or else’?
Della and Jas were sitting together on my bed when Will arrived with Ellie. Jas was trying not to make it too obvious that he and Della were seeing each other, even though we all knew. I think he was still feeling a bit embarrassed by it all.
Will grinned at them as soon as he walked in. ‘Ah, the happy couple.’
‘Hush your mouth, Willy,’ replied Della jokingly. ‘There’s a good little lamb.’
Will smirked at her and then plonked himself down next to the both of them, leaving me standing with Ellie, worrying about the maximum strain that could be placed on my bed without it falling apart.
Ellie started things rolling. ‘Why are we all here then?’ she asked, looking at me.
‘We need to have a conference,’ I said. ‘Things have been happening and I think we’re about to get some more trouble.’
Jas perked up at the mention of trouble. ‘Yeah? Who is it this time – not that wanker Busta again?’
I shook my head. ‘No – at least, I don’t think it’s him.’
I pulled out the card that DI Elliot had left for me and twirled it between my fingers and thumb. I wondered where to begin my story and decided to start at the beginning.
‘I found that working girl today – Sally. She was out round the back of the houses.’
‘I heard about something goin’ on earlier,’ said Will. ‘One of the lads up the road from me said that they’d found a junkie – I didn’t think anything of it though.’
‘They found Sally,’ I replied.
Ellie’s eyes grew wide with a mixture of what seemed like fear and surprise. ‘Wh-what was up with her?’
‘She was beaten up, Ellie.’
‘How do you mean?’ asked Della, sitting up straight.
I had their full attention now. I told them about the rest of it – the police and the questions from DI Elliot and all that. They listened in silence, which was a first for one of our gatherings. Man, keeping Della and Will quiet for longer than five minutes was a first – full stop.