by Bali Rai
‘So which one is he in?’ asked Della, nodding at the row of houses opposite the churchyard.
Ronnie raised his eyebrows at her and then looked at Nanny, giving him a reply to her question, making Della’s eyes blaze with anger. ‘It’s hard to say,’ he told Nanny. ‘The whole block is joined up like an effing rabbit warren. The crackheads have knocked the bastard walls through and everything. Right little community they’ve got going. Could be he’s anywhere in there.’
Will looked at me and Della and then swore.
‘Is you actually sure dem in deh?’ asked Nanny after telling Will to cool it.
‘Yeah – one of the girls saw Ratnett go in. Apparently he’s been using the place as a second headquarters – one his bosses don’t know about.’
‘What about the rockheads?’ I asked.
‘They’ve been moved on somewhere else,’ laughed Ronnie. ‘Probably by our friend Busta.’
The young girl who was standing just inside the churchyard approached and told Ronnie that the coast was clear. She pointed at a window two floors up on a house across the road. The house was on the corner of the main road and a side street called Seymour Road. There was a front door onto the main road but Ronnie told us that we were going in by an entrance in Seymour Road. The row of houses to which Ratnett’s hideaway belonged had an alley running behind it, just like the ones on our street, and I asked Ronnie if we would be better going in via the back.
Ronnie shook his head. ‘Nah. The entrance in Seymour is better. The house used to be a knocking shop called Liberty’s and the side-street entrance was the way in.’
‘But surely Ratnett will know about it?’ I asked.
Ronnie shook his head again. ‘It ain’t been used as an entrance for years,’ he said. ‘One of the girls told me about it.’
‘So how are we supposed to get it open?’ asked Della.
‘It’s already open, sweetheart. One of the girls checked it out.’ Ronnie grinned at her, looking her up and down.
‘And it gets us to the floor Jas is on?’ asked Will.
‘Yeah, through the door there’s a flight of stairs. There’s a fire door at the top. Past that door you’re into a corridor, with about four rooms off it.’
‘And you know which one Ratnett is in?’ I said, beginning to feel anxious. Surely he’d hear us coming? Or see us?
‘Yeah, kind of,’ smiled Ronnie.
‘Kind of? What de raas does that mean nuh, man?’ Nanny gave his friend a puzzled look.
‘Chill out, Nanny. The place is empty. It’s a disused crack den.’
‘Oh well, that’s all right then,’ I said, not caring whether Ronnie might take offence at my sarcasm. He just ignored me.
‘Well, what we waitin’ for?’ urged Della.
‘We just gonna walk right in?’ asked Nanny, holding Della back by her arm, a stern look calming her down slightly. She was up for it.
‘Yeah,’ said Ronnie. ‘He won’t be expecting that – will he?’ Gripping the red bag, he set off across the road and into the side street. We followed close behind. I wondered what Ronnie was on. Some plan. As we approached the door, I started to get a bad feeling, worried that Ratnett would hear us. Scared that he might hurt Jas. Where were the effing police? As we went through the side door and onto a dark, smelly wooden fire escape, I started praying that DI Elliot would show up soon. My heart started pumping fast and sweat broke out on my forehead . . .
thirty-seven:
thursday, 2 a.m.
WE CLIMBED THE stairs slowly, trying not to make any noise. It was an impossible task because the stairs were old, the wood rotten and flaking away underneath our feet. Halfway up I felt a step give and I fell forwards, cracking my head against the steps above. The jolting pain made my eyes water and for a moment I thought I was going to black out, but as I stood up I tried to steady myself, shaking my head.
Nanny turned and put his hand on my shoulder, whispering, ‘Yuh all right, Billy?’
‘Yeah,’ I whispered back, feeling foolish.
Ronnie was standing in front of the fire door, trying to pull it open, but having no luck. It was stuck fast. He turned to Nanny.
‘Bloody thing in’t movin’,’ he whispered.
‘So is how we gonna get inside?’ asked Nanny.
Ronnie smiled and went inside his long, leather coat, pulling out a short crowbar. ‘We’ll use this,’ he said, brandishing the tool and smiling at us.
‘You just happened to have that on you?’ Della asked out loud before realizing her mistake and lowering her voice.
‘What else you got in there, Ronnie – chainsaw?’ Will looked at me, his eyes asking why we were relying on this nutter.
Ronnie didn’t notice. ‘Nah, but it might be a good idea for the future,’ he replied, still smiling.
‘So why have you got a crowbar?’ I insisted, wanting to know why he was carrying it. He wedged one end of it into the gap between the door and the frame, splintering the wood.
‘In my game, you need a bit of protection,’ he answered, as he leant his full weight into the tool, cracking more wood.
‘Ssh,’ whispered Della.
Ronnie looked at her like she was mad. ‘Whaddya’ mean “ssh”? You try an’ get it open without making no noise.’
‘Just open the raas ting,’ said Nanny, giving Della a look that told her to shut up. She did.
Ronnie worked on at the door, pulling out small splinters of wood before a larger piece of the frame fell away. The door moved outwards from its resting place by thirty centimetres or so, its base scraping against the wooden floor, leaving a gap just big enough for me or Della to squeeze through but way too small for Nanny, Will or Ronnie. As Ronnie eased the door back some more, I beat Della though the gap, finding myself in a dark corridor. Pushing the door from the inside, I helped force it open some more, enough to allow the others through.
The smell in the corridor nearly made me throw up. It was damp and musty smelling, and somewhere there were rats or mice, possibly cat shit. I put my hand to my mouth and looked at Nanny, shrugging. He whispered for me to stay quiet and pointed down the corridor. Out of the gloom, we could make out about six doors, three on each side of the corridor. At the very end was a glass door, through which I could just make out a banister. The last door on the right had a light coming from it. Nanny looked at Ronnie, who nodded.
‘That’s gotta be where he’s holding the kid,’ said Ronnie in a whisper.
He gestured towards the door with his head and then started down the corridor, as much on tiptoe as a man of his height and weight could manage. For some reason, in the middle of all my nervousness, the image of a hippo in a tutu came to mind and I nearly burst out laughing, holding back at the last second. Luckily.
We followed Ronnie down the narrow corridor, which can’t have been more than eight metres long. Nanny tried the first door on the right but it was locked shut. Will tried it again and it still didn’t budge. There was a lock at the top and one about midway down, by the doorknob. The second door was pretty much the same so none of us attempted to open it.
As we reached the third one, the one with the light showing underneath the door, Ronnie held up his hand, putting the money down and motioning for us to stop. We did. He turned and handed Will the crowbar he had been carrying, then pulled a baseball bat from his coat and handed that to Nanny, who just smiled and shook his head. Turning to Della and me, he whispered that we should hang back. Della began to argue. Began to, but then he picked up the bag again – and produced a gun.
My heart took a bungee jump down into my bowels and then back up into my throat. I looked at Nanny, my eyes wide. Nanny put a finger to his lips and then pulled Ronnie by the arm, pointing to the gun as Ronnie looked up. Ronnie smiled. Smiled! He was standing in the middle of a dark corridor, holding a gun, about to face a potential killer and policeman, and all he could do was smile. That was when I worked out that my mum and everyone else had been right. Ronnie really was as mad as
everyone said and we should have called the police. My heart was racing by then and I got an urge to just turn round and go home, but the thought of Jas holed up in that smelly building stopped me. Ronnie had his own problem with the crooked copper, Ratnett. All I cared about was getting Jas out of there. And fast.
Ronnie tried the last door, slowly. The doorknob turned a little and then stopped. He tried harder and it began to turn again. There was a click from inside the mechanism and then the door opened, creaking and groaning. The light from inside the room flooded into the corridor and from nowhere a ginger tom cat that I kept on seeing around the neighbourhood wailed and ran out of the room and down the corridor to the fire escape. Della jerked backwards, startled, and bumped into me, neither of us noticing one of the doors behind us, to the left, open slightly. Ronnie edged into the room – gun first, money in the other hand, followed by Nanny and Will. I braced myself for the sound of gunfire or shouting but nothing happened. Instead the three of them entered the room untroubled. Della and me followed slowly.
Jas was sitting, tied to a chair, by a bricked-up window. Flashes of Ellie in the same predicament flooded back and I got a sense of déjà vu. By Jas’s chair was a roll of masking tape and a glass of water that had been there a while, tiny bubbles floating inside the glass. Nanny and me rushed to untie Jas; Ronnie just walked over to the table and, putting his gun and bag down, dipped a finger into some powder residue, tasting it.
‘Man,’ he said, running his tongue along his gums. ‘This is some serious shit.’
Underneath the table he found an Asda carrier bag. He emptied it out and three small balls of white powder, wrapped in cellophane, fell to the floor. Ronnie picked one up, and taking a knife from his pocket he slit the plastic and dipped the blade into the powder. He looked at it closely and then snorted it from the blade, shaking his head as he did so. He smiled. ‘Tut tut,’ he said, shaking his head again. ‘What a silly place to leave a stash.’
No one was facing the door. The only person who could see the door was Jas and his eyes were about to pop out of his head. With Ronnie busy having an affair with someone else’s narcotics, and the rest of us trying to untie all the tape round Jas’s mouth, only Jas himself saw someone edge through the door, gun in hand. The voice from behind caught us all by surprise.
‘TURN AROUND! SLOWLY!’
I looked at Nanny, who shrugged and then mouthed a few obscenities. We all turned slowly, finding Ratnett standing in the doorway, holding a gun. Ronnie was still bent over the table and instead of turning he tried to reach his own gun.
‘LEAVE IT!’ shouted Ratnett, aiming in Ronnie’s direction.
‘OK! OK!’ Ronnie replied, turning to see Ratnett. ‘Ah, Mr Ratnett,’ he said, smiling like a maniac.
‘Shut up and get over there with the rest of them!’
Ratnett gestured with the gun towards us. My heart did another bungee jump, but Nanny didn’t even flinch. His eyes were set hard, staring straight at Ratnett. Will moved slowly in front of Della, like a protective wall. Ronnie grinned like an idiot and walked over to us.
Ratnett edged closer, all the while keeping his gun levelled at Ronnie’s face. He eyed us all, one by one, before addressing Ronnie. ‘Is this the best you could come up with?’ he asked. ‘A few niggers and half a Paki?’
‘Times are hard,’ replied Ronnie, smiling still.
I shot him an angry look but he just winked, gesturing with his eyes towards the gun on the table. I looked away.
‘Well,’ laughed Ratnett. ‘They just got harder.’
And with that he smashed the butt of the gun in Ronnie’s face, sending him falling backwards. He turned to Della and smiled. ‘You – get your pretty self over here!’
Will almost lunged for Ratnett but the gun in his face told him to stop.
‘Don’t get clever, boy. No girl is worth dying over.’
I panicked, not knowing what to do. Nanny spoke up. ‘Yuh nuh need de gal,’ he said quietly.
Ratnett sneered. ‘What I do and don’t need is my business, Rastaman!’ he said, snarling almost, spitting out the last word like it was dirt.
‘It’s all right,’ said Della, surprising us all. ‘I’ll do what he says.’
I wanted to tell her ‘no’, to hold her back, but she just walked over to Ratnett calmly, showing no fear. Police sirens wailed in the distance. I looked up at Ratnett, wondering where DI Elliot had got to. Hoping, praying that she was outside with the rest of the police force . . .
thirty-eight:
thursday, 2.30 a.m.
‘YOU IN’T GETTIN’ away, Ratnett,’ said Ronnie, spitting blood onto the bare floorboards.
‘No?’ he replied, sneering at Ronnie, and trying to hold Della still as she struggled in his one-armed grip.
‘No,’ I said, looking up at him.
He’d made us sit down on the floor – hands underneath us. Jas was still sitting in the chair, half untied, his eyes running from us to Ratnett and Della; to the gun on the table and back again. He looked wired and I began to wonder whether Ratnett had doped him up too, like Busta had with Sally.
‘And what would you know about it?’ Ratnett asked me.
‘More than you, Babylon,’ I said, looking away.
Ratnett held Della even tighter, around her mid-section. ‘What exactly?’ he asked.
The glare that Nanny gave me told me to shut up. ‘Nothing,’ I said defiantly, looking at the policeman.
‘Don’t be a clever little shit,’ warned Ratnett. ‘You won’t like the trouble you could get into.’
‘Why yuh nah just let the girl go, man?’ said Nanny. ‘Ain’t nuttin’ she got dat yuh wan’ anyway.’
Ratnett smiled. ‘You wanna say that in English, dread?’
‘You don’t need her. Let her go.’
Ratnett sneered again and then moved his hand so that he had Della by her breasts. She struggled – trying to get away – but it was no use. I could see tears of anger welling in her eyes. Ratnett held her in the same way for a few more moments before moving his hands. I looked at him in disgust, wanting to tear his head from his shoulders. He was dead for that move.
‘What I need is my money. And these kids have got it.’
‘No they ain’t,’ said Ronnie. ‘Yer boy – Busta – he ripped you off. The kids didn’t have the second bag. Busta did.’
Ratnett looked at Ronnie, easing his hold on Della ever so slightly. ‘Yeah? Well, I’ll deal with him later,’ he said, before eyeing the red bag that Ronnie had brought with him. ‘So what’s in that?’ he asked.
Ronnie looked towards the red bag. ‘It’s the same amount of money that Busta nicked from you,’ he said.
‘What – you were just going to give me money, Maddix? Now, why would you want to settle Busta’s debt?’ asked Ratnett.
‘In return for lettin’ the kids off,’ answered Ronnie. ‘And as part of a little deal.’
Will and I looked at Nanny, who shrugged. He knew as much as we did. ‘What deal?’ I said, looking at Ronnie.
‘Shut up, kid.’ He gave me a death stare. I shut my mouth.
‘Well?’ asked an impatient Ratnett. ‘What deal?’
Della struggled a little more and Ratnett wasn’t paying as much attention to his hold over her as he was to Ronnie’s words.
‘Simple,’ explained Ronnie. ‘You get all yer money back plus a cut of my profits, but only if you leave the dealers and the street trade to me.’
I couldn’t believe it. Ronnie didn’t give a shit about Jas or the rest of us. It was all about his business. His profits. Man, I felt stupid. I sat there in shock, anger welling up inside of me. Anger at being duped by Ronnie. Anger at not listening to my mum. But mainly anger at the fact that I was shocked by Ronnie’s actions. I should have known that he was only here for himself. I turned to Nanny but he avoided my stare. Instead, he was focusing on Ronnie, trying, I think, to work out what Ronnie was up to. Whether he was being serious or just bluffing Ratnett – trying to get
his guard down.
‘You want me to let you have everything?’ asked Ratnett.
‘Yeah,’ smiled Ronnie.
‘But I don’t need you,’ he replied. ‘I’ve already got my own people out there – dealing and collecting. Where do you come in?’
Ronnie thought for a minute as Della looked at me, trying to tell me something with her eyes.
‘That’s easy too. I let your crews carry on selling – if you agree. And if you don’t – well then, your main men might have to go on a little trip. Out of town.’
‘You’re threatening me?’ asked Ratnett, incredulous. ‘I’m the one holding the gun. Why don’t I just kill you all – that way I get the lot.’
‘Like you did Claire?’ I said angrily.
‘Shut up, kid. I’m not telling you a third time.’
‘Oh go f—’
‘You see – that’s what my deal is all about,’ said Ronnie, shifting his hands so that they were now by his side. Ratnett didn’t notice. Ronnie carried on talking. ‘You don’t need to get your hands dirty, Mr Ratnett. You just leave all of that to me.’
‘I don’t need you – I just told you that.’
‘Think about it,’ insisted Ronnie. ‘No more having to deal with all those bloody monkeys and that. No more having to take care of little problems – like the tart that grassed up your boy, Busta.’
‘How’d you know about that?’ asked Ratnett, startled and increasingly unable to hold Della still.
‘How do I know anything, Mr Ratnett? Come on – I run this city – in’t nothing happens without my knowledge.’
‘You don’t run anything, Ronnie,’ sneered Ratnett. ‘You used to . . .’
Ronnie shifted some more and from behind where I sat, Jas shifted in his chair, the creaking wood giving him away. Ratnett glanced at him and then turned back to Ronnie. Will began to edge towards me.
‘Now, sit still all of you while I collect my money and my drugs,’ ordered Ratnett. He looked at me. ‘You stupid bastards. You could have just left the money alone. None of this would have happened then, would it? That tart would still be . . . Well, let’s just say she’d still be selling her bits to anyone with a tenner to spare. And your mate there wouldn’t have had to drink GBH like some date-rape bitch . . .’