The Crew

by Bali Rai

  ‘So that copper, Idiot or whatever – she thinks that we know more than we’re sayin’?’ asked Jas when I had finished.

  ‘Her name’s Elliot, Jas, and yeah, she’s well sus’ about the whole thing, man.’

  ‘This is starting to feel a bit like a dodgy film plot,’ added Della.

  ‘No, little girl,’ replied Will, ‘this is real.’

  ‘Who you callin’ little girl?’ Della flashed him a look that said, Shut up or else. Will just laughed.

  ‘I don’t see what’s so funny,’ I said, wondering whether I was the only one of us who thought things were getting a little bit serious.

  ‘I’m scared,’ Ellie said, looking at me. ‘Sally was dumped in our alley. What if she was a warning . . .?’

  ‘It’s all right, Ellie. Nothing else is gonna happen to you. I promise.’ I was trying to be reassuring but my words came out as bravado and did nothing to calm Ellie’s fears.

  ‘What if they come after me again? What if they hurt one of us – seriously this time? Like they have with Sally.’

  ‘They won’t,’ I said calmly. ‘They’d have to be stupid to come after you again. The police would be all over them in a flash.’

  ‘How, Billy? How would they? The police don’t even know most of what’s happened because we haven’t told them,’ argued Ellie.

  Della sat back down on the bed. ‘Well maybe it’s time we did tell the police,’ she said quietly.

  ‘Tell them what?’ interrupted Jas. ‘That we all lied to them – even Ellie’s dad, though he didn’t know it?’ He hammered home his point. ‘Man, we go to them now and they are gonna take us in – including Ellie’s old man.’

  ‘So what do you suggest, Mr Detective? We go after them ourselves?’ said Will, earning a glare from Jas for his trouble.

  ‘And who exactly do we go after? We don’t even know who they are?’

  ‘Has this girl, Sally, told you who attacked her?’ asked Della.

  ‘No – she was completely out of it. In a real state. All she came out with was one name – Claire – the girl—’ I began.

  ‘— who they had watching me?’ added Ellie, finishing my sentence for me with a question.

  I looked at them both in turn. ‘Yeah. Kept saying that they’ve got her.’

  ‘But not who “they” actually are?’ Della was thinking along the same lines as me. Know thy enemy.

  ‘You want me to ask her, don’t you?’ I said. ‘When she’s recovered enough to talk.’

  ‘Makes sense. Either that or get her to tell the police,’ she replied.

  ‘She won’t talk to the police,’ I told her. ‘No way.’

  ‘Then she has to tell you, Billy. It’s the only way we’ll know who is doing all of this. And then we can do something about it.’

  ‘Which is what exactly?’ asked Will, just beating Ellie and Jas to the same question.

  Della looked at him and shrugged. ‘I dunno,’ she admitted.

  ‘It’s better to know who we are up against than not, though,’ I said, supporting Della.

  ‘In that case, you had better go and talk to her,’ said Will.

  ‘Oh, this is getting stupid,’ moaned Ellie. ‘We aren’t the police. One of us will end up getting hurt. Can’t we just hand it all over to them?’

  I twirled the card DI Elliot had given me, getting an idea. ‘Yeah, Ellie . . . we can. Let’s just find out who we are dealing with first and then I’ll give DI Elliot a call.’

  ‘Nah, dread,’ countered Jas. ‘We’s comin’ like grasses, man.’

  ‘Yeah, but we ain’t stupid,’ replied Della, shutting Jas up quick time.

  ‘Honour amongst thieves and all that? You’re living in cloud cuckoo land, Jas.’ Will backed Della. ‘Besides – whoever kidnapped Ellie is an effin’ nonce,’ he continued. ‘It’s our duty to grass up a nonce, man. Them nuh matter.’

  ‘And from when they kidnap my sister here, then they got to pay.’

  Della’s eyes flashed with a look that I had only ever seen when she was really angry. It was a warning, a sign. It said, I’m not joking. It said we had better believe it, too.

  twenty-five:

  wednesday afternoon

  THE WARD WHERE they were keeping Sally was full to breaking point with patients. The staff that were around looked tired and pissed off – as much in need of medical attention as the people they were looking after. The ward Sally was in was in a Victorian building that was part of the old hospital. All around it new buildings towered into the sky, blocking the sunlight and causing a deep gloom to cover the building I was standing in. The place smelt of age and death and disinfectant. The staircases were built of stone and looked as though they had been removed from a country manor and brought to the hospital, the banisters painted in a dirty dark green colour to add to the general air of depression. I hated hospitals anyway, but this one took the biscuit as far as doom and gloom were concerned.

  Sally was dozing in her bed, a drip feeding its way through her hand and into her bloodstream. There were dark bruises on her face and neck and her bare arms showed signs of heroin use. She looked fragile, as if she would break if she tried to sit up or get out of bed. I had told the nurse at the desk that I was her boyfriend when she challenged me. She had given me a look that sat somewhere between contempt and pity, pointing to the end of the ward and not showing me to where Sally was. As I approached her bed, I’d felt like a real scumbag, eyes taking in my appearance and silent whispers behind my back from the other patients and their visitors. Did they think I’d been responsible for her injuries? But I had no time for feeling self-conscious. I had to talk to her. I had to find out who had hurt her.

  She’d opened her eyes when I’d first approached, taking me in and then closing them again. Now she began to stir again and her eyes flickered open and shut, like they do when you’re in a deep sleep and it gets interrupted. I pulled a chair up to the bed and sat down, leaning in. The smell of disinfectant and body odour mingled as I got closer to her and a tear worked its way down her cheek. She turned her head towards me, opening her eyes as wide as she could manage, smiling a bit, then coughing. I moved back through instinct and then, realizing what I had done, I leaned forward and stroked her forehead. It seemed the right thing to do somehow.

  ‘Hi . . .’ Her voice was like a croak, as if her mouth contained no moisture whatsoever.

  ‘Hey, kid, how you doing?’ Another stupid question.

  She shifted in the bed and then opened her eyes fully, smiling a little more.

  ‘I’m . . . well, you can see for yourself,’ she said, after clearing her throat.

  ‘I know. What have the doctors told you?’

  She tried to laugh, but not in jest. It was a rueful laugh. ‘They want me to talk . . . the police. I can’t . . .’

  ‘They can wait until you’re ready.’

  ‘No, Billy . . . I just can’t tell . . . anything.’

  I picked up a plastic beaker of water from a side cupboard by the bed and, tilting her head slightly, helped her to drink some.

  ‘You don’t have to tell them anything,’ I told her, putting the beaker back in its place.

  ‘I can’t . . . even if I . . .’

  ‘Why, Sally? Who did this?’

  A look of terror overtook her. ‘One of them . . . one of . . .’

  ‘Who? A gang? Someone you know?’ I didn’t want to push her too hard but I had to find out. For everyone.

  ‘No, Billy . . . one of them . . .’ She looked away.

  ‘Them who, Sally?’ I asked, looking at her arms and seeing bruising of recent needle-tracks.

  ‘. . . can’t . . . sleep.’

  She dozed off for about half an hour as I sat with her, thinking about what she had meant by ‘them’. After about fifteen minutes a nurse walked up and checked Sally’s charts and the drip by her bed. The nurse was young, African I think, and she smiled at me and then looked at Sally.

  ‘Your friend – she is lucky,’ the
nurse told me, smiling broadly.

  ‘I know,’ I replied, looking away.

  The nurse walked away and left me sitting there, wondering what was so lucky about having to sell your body to make money and being tortured by someone. Of course the nurse had meant that Sally was still alive and for that small mercy, we should be grateful. I thought back to some of the stuff that Nanny had told me about, the things he believed in. I didn’t really believe in God as such, but I would have given thanks and praise to Jah if he’d only make it all better and sort the mess we were in. I suppose that made me a bit of a hypocrite.

  I thought some more and then Sally came round again, asking me for some more water. I helped her to swallow a few mouthfuls and then she lay back again. I put the water back. She turned her head towards me.

  ‘. . . put drugs in me,’ she said, in a whisper.

  ‘Who?’ I asked, moving my head closer to her.

  ‘They . . . injected me with . . . brown.’ She had started to cry. I grabbed a tissue from a box next to the water and dabbed her face with it.

  ‘I . . . I . . . off it . . . been th-three months. They made me . . .’

  I found it hard to hear what she was saying at first but as she drank more water, her voice became stronger and after a while what she was saying became clearer and clearer. She had kicked her addiction to heroin three months ago, she told me, with the help of her son’s grandmother. She said that she had felt proud of herself and had decided to get a proper job and stop working out by the church, only her attackers had ruined it all. They had beaten her up and injected her with heroin. I don’t know why she chose to tell me everything they had done to her, but she did, and I was in tears by the end, horrified at what human beings can do to each other. It made me angry and sad at the same time. How could they have done that to her? She was only a young girl. A girl.

  I sat and listened to her for an hour and in that time she told me, again and again, what they had done but not who they were. I told her that she had to tell the police what she had been put through, if only to stop them from doing it to someone else. That was when she told me I was too late. That they had Claire. That Claire was dead. I asked her, over and over, who she was talking about. Who had hurt her and Claire? And then she told me, through tears and saliva, asking me to promise not to tell a soul. I really wanted to promise but I couldn’t.

  Not once she’d told me who they were.

  I let her cry herself to sleep and then ran out of the hospital, lighting a fag as soon as I hit the street, my head spinning. I pulled out the card that DI Elliot had given me and looked at it before making a decision, pulling out my phone and dialling a different number . . .

  twenty-six:

  wednesday, 4.00 p.m.

  ‘SO, HAVE YOU and Jas – you know . . .?’

  I was in my bedroom with Della, trying to get her to tell me all about Jas. I wanted to know everything – every last detail – but Della wasn’t playing. She was being all serious and womanly and adult. Boring.

  ‘Please tell me . . .’ I pleaded, sticking out my lower lip so that she’d feel sorry for me and tell me everything. And do you know what she did? She laughed at me and told me to try harder, just like Billy always did.

  ‘You ain’t catching me out, little monkey. That only works with Billy and that’s only cause he fancies you,’ she told me, smirking.

  I pouted. ‘No he doesn’t . . . does he?’

  ‘Ellie! Don’t play with me, man. I’m your sister.’

  ‘What?’ I said, trying to hide the smile that was making its way across my face.

  ‘See, you is even smilin’ – what’s up wid that?’

  ‘Nothing, Della. Honest. And anyway – when did you become an American? Talking like that. Is it any wonder that I never understand a word you say?’

  ‘Ellie . . .’

  ‘Oh, all right. So I like to gossip. Please tell me, Della. Please . . .’

  ‘Only if you admit that you know Billy likes you.’

  I thought about it and smiled. Of course I knew Billy liked me. I liked him. But it wasn’t like it was a big deal or anything. I mean, we didn’t make it an issue. We didn’t have to. Everyone else did that for us. My mum, my dad, Chris De Burgh. The rest of the Crew, Billy’s mum and especially Della. She was always making little comments about it . . . drove Billy mad. Silly old man.

  ‘Yeah, OK. But you can’t tell him or I won’t stop sulking for a year, all right?’

  ‘Deal.’

  Got her.

  ‘Jas and me, we ain’t actually done anything . . . well not that, anyway.’

  I was on cloud nine. Major gossip alert.

  ‘He keeps telling me that he’s not ready yet. Says it’s a big step and we should wait.’

  I grinned at her. ‘And you don’t want to?’ I asked.

  ‘Sack that, man. ’Course I wanna. But only if it feels right y’know?’

  I was still curious. ‘So what have you been doing then?’ I was hoping that she would tell me it all now that I had her guard down but she just went back to being an old woman.

  ‘That’s enough for now, young lady. You ain’t old enough.’

  ‘Don’t be like that, Della. And I’m not that much younger than you. Legally, you’re not old enough either.’

  She just looked at me like I was a child. I was about to have a paddy. ‘Your mum will kill me, Ellie. I can’t corrupt you . . .’ Now she was taking the piss out of me.

  ‘Oh – old woman! I’m not going to tell my mum.’

  ‘Well, let’s just say, and this is between sisters, you understand, let’s just say that him have all de machinery an’ ev’ry piece a work, man!’

  We both started laughing. I was shocked. Della and Jas were . . . well, you know, and she was telling me! Result or what?

  ‘Tell me more, Dell. Please . . .’

  ‘No, that’s enough for now. But I’ll do you a deal, Ellie . . .’

  That wasn’t part of the plan.

  ‘I’ll give you the details as and when things, y’know, happen, and you can make me a cup of tea.’

  ‘What – now?’ Cheeky old woman!

  ‘Yeah, come on – I’m parched.’

  We were in the living room watching telly and drinking the tea that I had persuaded my mum to make for us when my brother walked in, whistling Lady in Red as usual. It was beginning to get boring, but I let it go for once. Christopher came and sat down next to me and Della and asked us what we’d been talking about in my room.

  ‘I heard you laughing. Like those witches in Macbeth.’

  ‘Christopher! Don’t call Della a witch. How rude is that?’

  ‘Well? What were you on about?’

  ‘Nothing for your young ears, my boy,’ answered Della. Christopher began to speak but Della held up her hand. ‘Call me a witch again and I’m gonna kick yo’ ass, honey.’

  He smiled at her. A wide, annoying I-don’t-care kind of smile. ‘You won’t ever catch me, you old woman!’

  ‘CHRIS DE BURGH!’ I shouted, as he ran off out of the room, chuckling to himself.

  ‘Little bugger,’ laughed Della as the local news started on the telly. The first headline made us both stop in our tracks and stare at the screen.

  ‘. . . found beaten to death in an alley. The young girl, whose real name we cannot disclose due to her age, was a local prostitute known only as Claire . . .’

  I looked at Della and started to shake. She sat wide-eyed, listening to the rest of the report.

  ‘. . . Detective Inspector Elliot would like to hear from anyone who was in the vicinity of the community centre around the time of the discovery and also from anyone who may have known the victim. Any information will be treated in the strictest confidence. The number to call if you have information is . . .’

  Della looked at me and then, seeing that I was shaking, took hold of my hand. ‘It’s OK, Ellie. You’re safe, Baby.’

  ‘It’s her . . . it must be . . . the girl from the
house . . .’

  I tried to calm down, to think rationally, only it wouldn’t happen. Didn’t work. All those feelings of being scared came flooding back into my head and I wanted my dad.

  ‘Ellie, stay here. I’m going next door. I’m gonna find Billy and the others. We’ve got to go to the police . . .’

  twenty-seven:

  wednesday, 5 p.m.

  NANNY WAS IN the kitchen doing his house-husband routine when I got back from the hospital. A reggae tape was playing as Nanny stirred some onions, beginning to make a curry. Culture – singing about Marcus Garvey and two sevens clashing or something. The smell took over the entire kitchen and reminded me of being a little kid – watching Nanny in our old flat as the telly flickered away, on but unwatched, and I asked him again and again where my mummy was. Then, as now, Nanny waited until he was ready before he spoke to me, despite what I had told him over the phone. He waited until the onions had softened, then added some finely chopped garlic and ginger before pouring in a touch of diluted tomato purée and starting on the masala. As the spices sizzled and popped, he raised the pan and twirled it in slow, flat half circles, making sure that the garam masala, turmeric and red chilli powder didn’t stick to the bottom. Then, as I started to grow impatient, he added the purée mixture and set the pan back on the heat, turning the flame up until it reached boiling point before lowering the temperature, stirring the sauce and finally joining me at the table.

  He sighed as he sat down, scratching his beard just under his chin. He waited for a moment longer and then asked me to tell him everything – in detail.

  ‘I spoke to Sally,’ I told him.

  ‘She tell yuh who hurt her?’

  ‘Yeah. It was Busta.’

  He shook his head slowly and scratched his beard again. ‘Why?’ he asked, looking right into my eyes.

  ‘It’s a long, long story, Nan,’ I replied, trying to get all the bits straight in my head.