Gang War

by Graham Johnson

  Dylan becomes delirious. At some point, they move him and put him in a cell. When he wakes up, pushing the scratchy blanket off his face, his head and his kidneys are aching. There’s a little window, high up, but all Dylan can see is the perimeter wall, a stainless-steel Active Topping System running along the edge of it to prevent prisoners from climbing over it. Just like any other nick. He could be anywhere. The inner fence is a fibre-optic weave bolstered with three tiers of coiled razor wire.

  Jay shouts on him from the cell opposite. When he gets to speak to Jay later, he says that he wasn’t waterboarded. Maybe cos he’s too young. But he was tortured, he says. He doesn’t want to say what happened.

  ‘Did you tell them anything?’ asks Dylan.

  ‘No,’ says Jay. But Dylan knows that he’s told them everything.

  Later, in the exercise yard, which is no more than a huge metal drum constructed of wire mesh, Dylan asks Iggo what they did to Jay.

  ‘Stuck something in his arse, put him in a nappy, tied him up.’

  ‘Mad, innit?’

  ‘The Yanks say that he shit hisself.’

  ‘Not good is it? Not good at all.’ He smiles.

  ‘No one knows we’re here, so we’ve had no visitors. All of them are Yanks. But we had one English feller. The Greyrock guards said he was MI5. I kept asking him when we were getting out. He said, “I don’t know. All I know is what’s been on TV. Your case hasn’t been on TV.”’

  Dylan laughs. ‘Mad, innit?’

  CHAPTER 27

  MEMORIAL

  The Greatest Show on Earth. That’s what they’re calling it, Chalina’s memorial tribute concert at Anfield Football Stadium. There are 70,000 mourners, including the Prime Minister. A Beatles reunion is rumoured, Phil Collins, Robbie joining back up with Take That. It’s beamed to an estimated two billion viewers worldwide.

  The lads are watching the wall-to-wall coverage on the big screen in the Canada Dock. Sound turned down, jukebox up. New Loon spikes one of the old alkies, big thick glasses on, pure bottle tops, with a tablet for a laugh. Half an hour later, the alky’s dancing next to the bar and under the dartboard, to ‘Macarena’ and then AC/DC, humiliating himself.

  New Loon’s laughing, shouting, ‘Go ’ead, special.’ Giving the lads a bit of merriment to pull them out of their sinker.

  But Nogger has got a cob on. ‘How come she’s got a fucking big send-off and Lupus and Clegsy got fuck all?’ He’s trying to cover up for guilt, deflect the blame for sending Lupus and Clegsy on his doomed raid on the CPA checkpoint. After their bodies were released, the lads were banned from having a proper funeral. The CPA had issued a statement saying that all ‘sectarian’ events, including funerals, were prohibited under TerrorCrime legislation until further notice. ‘Couldn’t even get a nice car, for them. Can you believe that? Wake banned from every pub in Nogzy. That’s no way to see off proper soljas. But little Chalina’s got the fucking Beatles playing hers. D’you get me?’

  Nogger’s secretly half made up because he didn’t have to splash out on a big funeral for Lupus and Clegsy, didn’t have to fork out for the cortège and the moonshine at the wake. But then playing the big time, he tells the lads, ‘Course, I gave the families some compo, course I did.’ Nogger gave Lupus’s mum £200 compensation for the loss of his life. He gave Clegsy’s grandad £300. He got more because all that was left of his body was his head. The rest of it had been burned to a crisp and fell apart when the ambulancemen took him away. His granddad told them that the body broke into bits like a pile of crispy bacon. The doctors said he’d been hit by a depleted uranium round, a new kind of anti-personnel weapon they were using. Clegsy’s ma blew the compo on cocaine and tablets. His granddad bought a half-size kiddie coffin to save money. Said that the charred remains fitted in ‘no sweat’.

  Outside, the sky starts to fill up with helicopters, TV ones. The pre-concert procession is expected. Crowds are gathering behind the safety barriers. At the front is a Liverpool FC open-top bus, blaring out Robbie Williams’ ‘Angels’ through the PA. A huge framed photo of Chalina is on the top deck, with the family and VIPs: a few Liverpool players, a few Hollyoaks cast members, Chalina’s favourite CBeebies presenter dressed as a pirate. Most of the players are on the bottom deck with their WAGs, talking about villas in Dubai and whether they’re a good investment or not, having a glass of champagne, because Lynda says Chalina ‘would have wanted a celebration’. There are police and redcap escorts, the roads along the route closed down.

  Then come the press buses, eight of them. They’re all pissed and charlied up as well. When the procession’s gone past, all the lads pile back into the Canada Dock to watch the concert. A few lines, a few Stellas, settling in for a good day of free entertainment on the box.

  Lynda has asked the crowd to wear either red for Liverpool or pink, Chalina’s favourite colour. Mariah Carey, Lynda’s favourite singer, sends a video message over the giant monitor from her home in Malibu saying sorry that she can’t be there. She sings an a cappella version of the Jackson 5’s ‘I’ll Be There’. New Loon shouts ‘slag’ when she comes on. Mayonnaise, horny off the bugle, slopes off into the bogs for a wank after seeing Mariah’s tits struggling to escape her low-cut dress. Whizzer throws a load of ale at the big screen then goes, ‘Fucking love to shag her.’

  The satellite link crashes just as Mariah is halfway through her farewell speech, crying. The opening bars of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’ strike up and Gerry Marsden swans onto the stage: lived-in face, orange tan, black polo neck. The crowd go wild, scarves go up, everyone in floods.

  Outside the pub, the crowd turns nasty, lashing the barriers at the police and the redcaps. The police jump into their ARV Volvos and speed off. The redcaps mount their desert-camoed Jackal weapons platform. The driver cuts off-road and races across the rubble of The Boot, laughing cos he’s got all-terrain air-bag suspension. One of them throws a Thunderflash to clear a route through the crowd. The auld ones give a whoop, thinking it’s a firework.

  Several para-reg officers get into a Panther Command and Liaison Vehicle. one of the NCos comes up through the turret, puts down his head-mounted night-vision goggles to see through the smoke from the Thunderflash, then lets rip with two canisters of Purple Haze from an SA80 A2 Underslung Grenade Launcher. The Panther drives off up the rear of the procession. The army’s under orders now not to get involved in policing Gang Exclusion Zones. They come under the strict jurisdiction of the CPA and their private security forces.

  The crowd’s setting bins on fire now. Thick, quick curls of smoke from the burning rubber, township-style, are cutting through the slower-moving Purple Haze from the obscuration grenade. one bus shelter’s already keeled over, too many people standing on the roof, fuelled by the emotion of ‘You’ll Never Walk Alone’. Then the crowd turns on the lads. A few of the alkies attack onion while he’s serving up some powder to the ghouls in the crowd. He’d been doing some good graft out there today. Always does at a funeral or a coming-home cup parade for Liverpool. ‘Best of both worlds, this,’ Onion’s saying before he gets knocked over by a haymaker to the head from an auld feller wearing an azure-blue jacket from Asda, then spat on.

  One of the older ones is saying, ‘It was youse who killed little Chalina,’ blaming them for all kinds, calling them yobs and Asbos. ‘Youse little twats have ruined this neighbourhood.’

  Loads of fired-up ghouls march on the pub, determined but mindless, like zombies, to get revenge on the lads. A few windows go in. A feller in his 30s throws a bottle at Whizzer, who’s standing outside, gets him heavy in the head. Blood gushes from his temple and he feels dizzy. The crowd’s baying for the blood of anyone under 18, anyone dressed in black.

  New Loon runs back into the pub, panicking, shouting for Nogger. ‘Mad out there, lad. All the auld ones saying that we killed Chalina, that we’ve been terroring the estate for years, they’re gonna get revenge.’ A few of the younger lads are panicking because they’ve never been spoken b
ack to, never taken any shit off the auld ones. Even some of the older alkies in the pub are getting a bit mouthy, calling them ‘little shitbags’ and ‘rats’.

  There’s no messing around from Nogger. He stands up, runs over to the auld alky at the bar who’s now sledging off the E New Loon had given him before, muttering under his breath about the lads. Nogger roundhouse kicks him right in his already obliterated kidneys. Then when he goes down, he rags his bottle-top NHS specs off, breaks them and gouges one of his eyes out with the glass.

  ‘Think youse auld cunts are gonna have us off?’ he shouts. Then he grabs a set of golf clubs from behind the bar, takes the driver and launches outside for the cull. He jumps into a crowd of angry bingoites, taking long semi-circular swings at head height, toing and froing, cutting the auld ones down like ears of corn. Blood and blue rinses all over the show. He’s taking on a rhythmical, methodical groove now, wielding his death pendulum with accuracy, laughing like he’s tripping, a big, fat cone hanging out his grid.

  The auld ones at the back, try to turn and run. But can only hobble or wobble away. Nogger, grinning, starts twatting their backs and legs with the driver, which is starting to bend and buckle. New Loon’s mopping up with a putter, tapping their temples softly to knock them out, stopping now and again to dip their pension books and wriggle their sovvies and earrings off their broken fingers and bloody ears, rag their Our Lady pendants and gold crosses from round their necks. Onion’s blasting a CO2 fire extinguisher over their bodies to scare off the able-bodied stragglers. He robs two bottles of Bell’s and a bottle of jarg vodka out of a pensioner’s wheelie shopping basket while she’s lying on the floor mouthing for help. ‘Cheers, girl,’ Onion says, before putting the nozzle up tight to her grid and giving her a good blast of gas, laughing like a hyena now. Mayonnaise finds a bottle of cheap bleach in a bag of shopping, starts pouring it over the pensioners’ nylon clothes and brown tights, lashes some in the eyes of a young mum with her two kids.

  They’re near the end of the contact now, Nogger sweating and smiling, soaking up the victory of the cull. ‘That should fucking shut them up, the cheeky cunts. After all we’ve done for this area, and then they turn on us like that. Talk about us being snides. These people . . . fucking savages.’

  ‘Thing about it is,’ New Loon adds, getting his breath back, ‘with treachery like that, you’ve just got to stamp all over it straight away.’

  ‘Just got no bottle, have they?’

  ‘Always telling us how they fought the war and that. Couldn’t of been a fucking bad one, could it? Cos all these shithouses ran away.’

  US style-sirens can be heard drifting across the estate, getting closer. Onion, head bandaged up with a pair of 12-denier tights, spots the first Suburban coming out of the smoke. ‘Sampon off the port bow,’ he shouts, pointing at the four white Greyrock Suburbans heading their way. Slaloming in and out of the debris in the road carefully, then blocking off the junction at the crossroads. They fire off tear gas into the crowd. Nogger and the lads bomb back into the Canada Dock to drink up, watching the end of the concert.

  The commentator says, ‘Not since the death of Michael Jackson, or perhaps even that of Princess Di, have we seen such an outpouring of emotion.’ They’re doing vox pops in the crowd. One woman who looks like a VIP says, ‘It’s sombre and joyful. Everybody’s hurt. Everybody’s crushed.’ Lynda’s watching from the manager’s box, with Prince Harry representing the royal family. The women in the pub are saying how nice the flowers are. Centre stage is a massive bouquet of tasteful yellows, purples, whites, reds and greens. The finale begins with Ringo Starr singing ‘Octopus’s Garden’ from his house in the South of France, beamed by satellite feed to the giant screen in the stadium. Everyone wanted Paul McCartney singing ‘Let It Be’ or ‘The Long and Winding Road’, but they couldn’t get him.

  On stage, all the other artists shuffle on in a Live Aid-style grand finale to back up Ringo’s struggling vocals. Loads of them are pissed and laughing. Only the little kid off Britain’s Got Talent is taking it seriously. He’s an old hand now, after performing at Wacko Jacko’s funeral.

  The outro is carefully choreographed. Special guest star Robbie Williams sings ‘Angels’ live. The two big screens on either side of the stage show a home video of Chalina at her third birthday party, wearing a pink fairy costume with angel wings and a wand. She’s playing in the back garden, freshly creosoted ranch fencing in the background, a bouncy castle on the lawn.

  Robbie launches into the chorus and suddenly a 3D holographic image of the little angel Chalina leaves the screen, floats out of the home vid and up into the sky. Big gasps from the stands. All the crowd’s in tears, lighters flickering in one hand, phones out filming the spectacle in the other. It’s the resurrection brought to them by Musion Eyeliner HD Projection technology, the corporate logo in the corner of the screen. Tears are streaming down their faces as the spatial image is beamed up to heaven.

  Chalina’s hologram rises into the clouds, ascending out of the stadium lights. Circling helicopters film the ascension to heaven, beaming the virtual reality back down onto the big screen. As it gets further away, the interference causes static distortion. The faint blue line around the hologram gets thicker and it breaks up gradually.

  ‘Boss, innit?’ says New Loon.

  Nogger’s mesmerised. ‘Like Stars Wars, innit?’

  CHAPTER 28

  RELEASE

  A week later, Dylan, Iggo and Jay are released from the detention centre, in secret, at 0500 hours. They’re driven to the gates in the back of a blacked-out Suburban. Jay doesn’t want to go at first, says he’s sick, wants to sit off in the hospital wing until he’s better. Dylan knows what’s going on. Jay wants to stay in the safety of the nick on his own. But he tells him to get his head together. He can’t have Jay going on the numbers cos he’s a grass. He picks up the thick see-through plastic bag containing Jay’s gear, printed with the words ‘Property of Greyrock Correctional Facilities’, and lashes it in the Suburban along with his own.

  They sit there in silence waiting for the massive electrical gates, little steel-mounted lights flashing at the top, to slide to one side. Dylan’s hoping that there isn’t a last-minute fuck-up, that they won’t get rearrested, dragged back in and tortured again. He looks at the raindrops sliding down the windscreen, clocks the Guttermaster anti-climb downpipes, the concealed tamper-proof fixtures running down the side of the modular outbuildings. No escape from this place, for sure, he’s thinking.

  When the gate opens at last he can hardly believe it. ‘Fuck’s sake. Look where we are.’

  ‘Fuck’s sake,’ says Iggo. ‘We’re at Altcourse.’

  Jay’s head is down. ‘Oh no!’ It makes his grassing even worse, folding in the local dispersal prison.

  HMP Altcourse. Twenty minutes’ walk from The Boot. A mile or less from CPA HQ at the old Lower Lane police station. ‘I thought we were miles away,’ says Iggo. ‘On a fucking island somewhere.’

  ‘That’s cos they drove us around for hours in the refrigerator truck,’ says Dylan.

  ‘Just to disorientate us.’

  Dylan clocks a big sign as they turn the corner. The old Altcourse sign’s been replaced with a high-finish plastic sign saying: ‘Welcome to Camp Echo Greyrock. Fighting TerrorCrime. For Freedom. For Justice.’ Underneath, there’s a row of logos, the project’s partners.

  Youth Crime Task Force

  Operation Urban Freedom

  Gang Exclusion Zone Delivery Unit

  TerrorCrime Tribunal Partnership

  The Urban Conflict Redevelopment and Reconstruction Agency

  Civilian Protection Authority

  Then a list of banks, property developers and corporations bidding for contracts.

  They’re driven to CPA headquarters in the Green Zone. News of their release must have got out. Outside the gate, there’s a huge press pack. The Suburban edges through, camera flashes bursting through the tinted windows, rolling thuds
of reporters and cameramen banging on the sides. ‘Which one of you confessed to killing Chalina?’ shouts one reporter. Dylan ignores it, carries on smoking a ciggie. Jay has his head down. Iggo has his hood up, making gun signs and telling them to fuck off.

  Dylan says quietly, ‘Jay, is that true? Did you tell them anything?’ He already knows he did, that that was why Jay hadn’t wanted to leave the detention centre: partly out of shame for being a snitch, partly out of fear, because he knows that Nogger’ll kill him.

  Jay’s ashamed, but now that the reporter has asked about it, it seems a good time to confront it head-on. He doesn’t need to spell it out. ‘Dylan, they were fucking me up. Seriously.’

  ‘I know, yeah. Don’t worry. I would have done the same,’ he says, but he knows that he didn’t, that he stayed staunch.

  Iggo says to Jay, scowling, ‘Know it was bad in there. Me and Dylan got fucked up too. But we didn’t fucking snitch.’

  Dylan flicks his ciggie, staring at it while he thinks. He needs to be diplomatic here, not belittle Iggo’s bottle in taking the pain, in not folding under questioning – the highest honour. But at the same time, he can’t slaughter Jay for being a grass. Who wouldn’t have caved in? Dylan looks at them both and says, ‘Don’t worry. I’ll sort it. Just say fuck all to the lads. Nothing to Nogger, right? Just give us a couple of days on it.’ They both nod.

  Dylan, Jay and Iggo meet the lads on The Strand. Nogger’s in the middle of happy-slapping a toothless crack whore outside the Post Office. She’s jammed her arm in the post box because Nogger told her an old lady posted a birthday card with a tenner in it. The crackhead’s baby’s screaming in its pram, nicely dressed but starving. Her five-year-old boy’s panicking and asking what’s wrong with his mum.

  The crackhead shouts for a girl called Paula to hurry up, then breaks down into desperate sobs, begging for an ambulance. Her cries disintegrate into demonic moans, her face gurning. The baby keeps crying and the boy’s running between it and his mum trapped in the post box. Nogger’s filming the crackhead, keeping out of her reach to avoid contamination, saying, ‘Don’t touch me.’