by Linda Regan
Suddenly he was afraid and he knew he didn’t want to die. He stretched out one hand to Alysha and the other to Luanne. ‘Come away from the edge. Please.’
Luanne looked at him sadly. ‘Don’t feel sorry for me, Jase. I set you up. I killed your gran too, and Haley, but I swear I didn’t mean for them to die.’
Suddenly Alysha stepped closer to Luanne and grabbed her hand.
‘Let go, Alysha.’ Jason heard the woman Fed echo his words.
Alysha ignored them, clinging to Luanne’s wrist.
‘What did Sals do wrong?’ Jason asked, partly to distract Luanne.
‘She told Yo-Yo she’d go to the Feds. He broke her fucking stall up, and she still wouldn’t back down.’ He was close enough to see her legs trembling. She was inches from the edge of the roof. ‘I wasn’t supposed to kill her. The bullet was just meant to graze her, give her a scare, you know?’
Out of the corner of his eye Jason saw movement at the other side of the roof. He turned his head slightly; two firemen had come to join the Feds. The woman put a finger to her lips to keep them quiet, and her arm out in front of her to keep them from moving any closer. She herself began to inch very slowly towards the three of them.
Jason was growing desperate, his anger swallowed up by fear now for all their lives. He reached Alysha and put out a hand. She took it, and he tugged her towards him. But Luanne didn’t let go of her other hand.
‘Let go of Alysha, Lu,’ he shouted. ‘And move away from the edge.’
‘They told me to hit her in the shoulder.’ Luanne was growing hysterical. ‘But I killed her. I don’t want to go to prison. I’d rather die.’
A shout came from behind them: Dawes. ‘Who told you to hit her in the shoulder?’
The wind whipped up again and snatched Luanne’s towel. She dropped Alysha’s hand and tried to grab it. It danced almost like a kite in the wind, flapping and balancing, before tumbling over and over and heading for the ground. Luanne stood completely naked.
Jason looked behind him. The woman Fed was taking her coat off. ‘Here, Luanne, take this.’ She held it out and took a step closer. ‘Don’t catch hypothermia on top of everything else. Alysha needs you. You can explain everything to us.’
She took careful steps forward and held her coat out at arm’s length.
‘You stay away,’ Luanne shouted at the Fed.
‘Take my hand,’ Jason pleaded stretching his arm to her.
‘Stay back, Jason.’
Alysha started to panic and reached out for Luanne’s hand again.
‘Don’t,’ Jason shouted. ‘Let go, Alysha!’
The female Fed took another step nearer.
The wind suddenly picked up, and everything seemed to happen at once. Luanne pushed Alysha away. Alysha stumbled towards Jason and he caught her and shoved her towards the woman Fed.
There was a beat. He looked back at Luanne and Luanne looked at him and lifted her hand, and for that moment he thought she was going to take his. Then the wind rose again, and in the second it took him to regain his balance it was over. A desperate chorus of ‘Luanne! No!’ was followed by a moment’s silence before the sickening thud as she hit the ground.
EIGHTEEN
Five days later, Georgia sat upright in the round-backed wooden armchair in Dawes’s temporary office. Dawes himself was gathering papers and stacking files and his few personal belongings into a box.
Stephanie had perched herself on the side of the desk. A black file balanced precariously on her lap, and she was chewing a piece of gum. Georgia was familiar with the chewing gum phase; it was part of Steph’s diet regime. The only thing that made her diet was being turned down by someone she had been trying to get into bed.
Georgia had wanted Stephanie to win their bet; she wanted to find out why Dawes had such a keen interest in the street gangs. Stephanie would have delivered too; the detective in her never switched off, no matter how good the sex was.
But it wasn’t to be. They were in the gum chewing phase, which Georgia loathed. In a day or two she would find stale, concrete-hard gum-balls in her office and her car, as if they were bugged. But she was too conscious of Steph’s bruised feelings to say anything. At least both car and office would be free of crumbs and chocolate wrappers for a while. Not that Stephanie’s diets ever lasted more than a few days.
Dawes’s briefcase and laptop lay open on the desk, and his jacket hung on the back of his chair, but everything else had been packed up. Georgia had seen the files as they went into the box; they were all named for a street gang: The Brotherhood, Big Cs, FDB, Buzzards, At Your Perils. There was a large stack of them; the problem was clearly growing.
Dawes checked a few last papers, deciding which ones to take and which to dump. He had already made it clear that he wasn’t satisfied with the result, even though they had put the case to bed. He was incensed that no charges were being brought against Stuart Reilly, and Georgia couldn’t really quarrel with that. Even though Luanne had admitted killing both Haley and Sally Young in front of witnesses, Reilly, they knew, was ultimately responsible.
‘One of these days he’ll trip up,’ Stephanie said, as Dawes took a final glance inside the Brotherhood file. ‘And when he does, we’ll be there.’ She gave him an encouraging smile and popped her gum. The broken bubble stuck to her top lip.
Dawes managed a small smile, but said nothing.
‘We know he’s behind everything that goes down on that estate,’ Georgia assured him. ‘We’re not giving up.’
Dawes shrugged. ‘My remit was to bring him in.’
‘We did solve the case,’ Georgia reasoned. ‘Luanne Akhter killed both those women, she admitted it in front of witnesses. And there’s the new DNA evidence too. So there’s no doubting she did it.’
Dawes said nothing.
‘We won’t get an accessory charge to stick,’ Georgia added. ‘Reilly’s brief would make mincemeat of us.’
‘And no one will give evidence against him,’ Stephanie added. ‘Look what happened to Chantelle when she tried.’
‘He raped a child of twelve,’ Dawes snapped.
‘Yes,’ Georgia agreed. ‘But there’s no DNA, and Alysha swears she made it up to shock Jason.’ Georgia ran a hand through her hair. ‘End of, case closed.’
‘For now,’ Stephanie said. ‘The DCI won’t give it any more man hours for the time being. But Reilly’s only off the hook temporarily; a hint of trouble and we’ll be down on him like a ton of garbage.’
Dawes’s computer whirred and flashed as it closed down. ‘You can’t blame me for not being thrilled,’ he said. ‘I was sent here because it was gang-related crime. And Chantelle Gulati’s murder isn’t really solved.’
Georgia was as disappointed as Dawes with the result, but she dared not show it. ‘Alysha has given us a written statement. It says she recognized Sally Young at her door wearing a black balaclava, and it was Sals who attacked Chantelle. She reckons she heard Sally’s voice accusing Chantelle of breaking her stall up, and getting Jason mixed up in crime again. Chantelle’s supposed to have lured him on to the estate so he could get the blame for a murder he had nothing to do with. According to Alysha, Sally called Chantelle a troublemaker, and hit her with a cricket bat.’
Stephanie pulled a sheet of paper from her file and handed it to her. Georgia read, ‘“Don’t s’pose Sals meant her to die. These things happen around here; that’s the way we live. Luanne got Sally back, anyway. She didn’t mean her to die either, but she did, like Chantelle. It’s what happens around here.”’
‘And you believe that?’ Dawes looked at Georgia with sad eyes.
‘Not a word. But we never found any DNA on the cricket bat to prove otherwise.’
Georgia was a little annoyed with herself for noticing how attractive Dawes’s wide-set grey eyes were. Normally Stephanie’s taste ran to anything in trousers, but this one had something. Even though he was stubborn, and driven, and difficult to work with. She couldn’t remember noti
cing any man’s eyes before. Sex was something that she needed every now and again, to ease her tension and her migraines. She enjoyed it, but she didn’t allow anyone to get close. But not for the first time, she found herself wondering what Dawes would look like without clothes, and if he was a forceful or tender lover.
‘The cricket bat that forensics found in the shed behind Sally Young’s flat was covered in Chantelle’s blood,’ she said, giving herself a mental shake. ‘But there were no prints, so that took us nowhere.’
Dawes threw the last bundle of papers into his case.
‘Yes, of course the attack was Reilly’s payback,’ she added quickly. ‘And no, Sally Young didn’t kill Chantelle. But Alysha’s the only one who can say for sure, and she’s given us this load of rubbish. Sally Young is dead, so we can’t question her. We have to go with the evidence we have, however misleading it is. The DCI won’t give us any more time, so – case closed.’
‘And Reilly’s celebrating,’ Dawes said dryly.
Poor bugger, Georgia thought; he wanted Reilly so badly, it was eating him away. ‘We’ll keep a watching brief, and I’ll keep you informed,’ was all she said.
‘All this has made me mindful of how little time I spend with my kids,’ Stephanie said, taking the chewing gum from her mouth, rolling it into a ball and flicking it across the room. The sticky gobbet hit the black metal bin Dawes had just emptied, and clung to the outside like a snail on a wet night. Stephanie was oblivious; she was busy undoing the silver foil from her next strip. The foil followed the dead ball of gum, but landed inside the bin.
‘At least Jason Young got his new life,’ she said, munching on the fresh gum. ‘I’m glad for him.’
‘As far as you can with his kind, I quite took to him,’ Dawes said.
Stephanie smiled. ‘Me too. He may have form as long as my arm, but with no parents, no stability, what chance has he had?’
‘There speaks a mum,’ Georgia said lightly, watching the eye contact between Dawes and Stephanie.
‘Oh, Young isn’t fundamentally bad. Reilly is, though, and I think I hate him more for what he tried to do to Jason.’
‘You do think like a mother,’ Georgia teased. She looked across at Dawes for support. ‘We cynical singles just see Young’s scholarship as a small hope that it’ll keep him out of the overcrowded prison system for a year or two.’
‘Is that all sorted? Jason Young’s change of identity?’ Dawes asked Stephanie.
Stephanie nodded. ‘He is now officially Laurence Dunning. He starts life as a scholarship student at Sylvia Young’s Dance Academy in two weeks.’
‘And we’ll be keeping tabs on him too,’ Georgia added.
Stephanie’s gum cracked. The sound was as sharp as a cap in a child’s gun. Georgia could feel one of her migraines brewing.
‘I’ll be surprised if he sees the inside of a cell again,’ Stephanie said. ‘He so nearly lost his chance, and he knows it. I think he’ll give it a good shot.’ She turned to Georgia. ‘Every kid deserves a chance. You must agree with that.’
Georgia felt her insides turn, and a familiar sense of burning in her heart. Thanks to the sex predator that damp, dark evening on Clapham Common, she had been denied the chance to mother her own child. That was the reason she had joined the force in the first place – to do her bit to stop other impressionable fifteen-year-olds having their life stolen by someone who would never know the pain he caused. She wanted more from the force now though: these days she wanted to see justice done for all victims. But that was where it began, and the young ones still struck a particular chord with her.
‘It’s Alysha that worries me,’ she said. ‘She’s obviously lying about having sex with Reilly. She’s kept him out of jail, and she has no idea what a big mistake that is. We can’t even get her into care because her father is still around. He’s a drunk, and hardly ever there, but Social Services won’t intervene. What kind of future does she have?’
‘She’ll survive,’ Dawes said. He looked away. ‘It’s not our concern anyway, that’s not what we do. Our job is to uphold the law. Social work is someone else’s job.’
Georgia and Stephanie exchanged a long glance.
‘With all due respect, sir,’ Stephanie said, ‘you’ve made it very clear where you stood from the first moment on this case – how much you wanted Reilly. And now you’re not happy because we didn’t put him away, even though we got a result. If that’s not personal, I don’t know what is.’
Dawes face reddened. ‘Stuart Reilly thinks he’s above the law,’ he snapped. ‘Reilly ordered Luanne Akhter to kill two women, as an initiation into his Brotherhood gang. That makes him responsible for murder, and he’s walked free.’
Georgia sighed heavily. ‘We’re going round in circles here.’
‘He runs the gang, so he says who joins it.’ Dawes lifted a hand. ‘OK, we can’t prove it. But there’s a verbal statement from Luanne, and the tattoo to back it up. It should be worth pursuing him just for that.’
‘Not a chance.’ Georgia shook her head. ‘It wouldn’t even get to court. His bent brief would claim she had the tattoo done herself, and Reilly knew nothing about it.’
‘But we know different!’
The file on Stephanie’s lap slid to the floor, and papers spilled everywhere. Georgia bent to help her gather them up. ‘Knowing and proving are two different things,’ she said.
‘Without some hard evidence, the DCI won’t let us take it any further.’
Dawes picked up the file. ‘You better believe I want that bastard,’ he said handing it back to Stephanie.
‘You’ll have to get past his bent brief then.’
‘You know what?’ Stephanie pushed her bottom back on to the edge of the desk. ‘Something tells me there’s more going on here than we’re seeing.’
There was a second’s silence, then Dawes said, ‘He gives naive young girls drugs and puts them on the streets.’
‘Plenty of drug pushers do that, and a lot of girls go wrong as a result,’ Georgia agreed.
‘Jason Young did it too,’ Stephanie pointed out. ‘OK, he regrets it now, but in a way, you can’t blame him. They grow up on those estates, with no one to teach them right from wrong. Maybe we should be addressing that. The crime’s just the result, not the cause.’
‘But Reilly didn’t grow up on an estate,’ Dawes told her. ‘He lies about that too. He had two parents – a normal family. He’s a bully, plain and simple. You’ve seen what he’s like with his animals.’ He clenched his fist, and his face began to flush again. ‘The serious crime unit want him behind bars, and I was brought on to this case to help to make that happen.’ He paused. ‘And I’ve failed. I’ve studied him for years. I really thought I had him this time. He killed his own mother, did you know that?’
Both shook their heads.
‘But no one can prove it.’ Dawes looked at Stephanie. ‘You’re right. It is personal. I want him more than I’ve ever wanted anyone. How much do you know about me?’
‘Enough,’ Georgia said. ‘I know your father was a top dog at Scotland Yard.’
Stephanie looked at her in surprise. Normally they shared what they knew. She hadn’t passed this on because the DCI had only told her this morning, with a warning that it wasn’t for station gossip.
‘But nothing about my sister?’ he asked.
‘No.’
‘She was a model. Talented and beautiful,’ he said quietly. ‘She became addicted to drugs, and was put on the game to pay her debts to her dealer. We got her into rehab, and it worked for a while, but she went back on the stuff, and back on the game.’ He turned away and looked unseeingly at the window. ‘She died of an overdose of dodgy heroin.’ He spoke as if each syllable brought acid with it. His jaw worked, and he paused for a beat before adding, ‘I know she got it from Reilly, but I can’t prove it.’
His voice was clear and controlled. ‘So yes, it’s personal. I won’t rest until he’s rotting somewhere very unpleasant.�
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Georgia swallowed a lump in her own throat, surprised at how emotional she felt. Normally she allowed nothing to get to her, but suddenly she could smell the dirt and feel the pain from all those years ago. When the memory of that ordeal caught her unawares, she could taste the vomit as if it had happened yesterday.
She understood only too well how Dawes felt. In a way, every crime was personal when someone lurked like that, deep in your subconscious. She wouldn’t recognize her attacker’s face, but she’d know his voice, and certainly she would always know the smell of stale sweat and rancid fat and garlic; and she could never forget the taste of the filthy leaves and earth against her face. She liked to think he had died an agonizing death, but she would never know for sure. If he was alive, she hoped he would be in jail for the rest of his days.
But that was her secret. She would never speak of it to anyone; it was personal. It took Dawes a lot of courage to speak of his own pain, and she deeply sympathized. But she dared not show it.
‘We will get him,’ she said quietly. ‘Be patient.’
‘I’ve been patient for too long.’
‘I’ll be watching every move he makes. The slightest hint that we’ve got something and I’ll be on the phone. That’s a promise.’
‘Thank you.’
Stephanie slipped off the desk. ‘Keep in touch. That’s my mobile on there.’ She handed him her card.
Georgia caught Stephanie’s eye and twinkled at her. She knew Stephanie better than she knew herself sometimes, and Stephanie so wanted to bed David Dawes. She would look forward to the gossip.
Right now Georgia was more concerned for Alysha Akhter. The girl was only twelve, she had been raped, and her sister had just killed herself. Alysha was alone. How would she cope? Social Services wouldn’t take her case up. Dawes’s words echoed in her ear: Our job is to uphold the law. Social work is someone else’s job.
Georgia hoped with all her heart that someone else would make Alysha their job.
Only time would tell.