by Rashad Salim
“Yeah!” he said. “Yeah, he would, now that you mention it. So let’s not piss around any longer than we already have, okay?”
“Alright, see you at six.”
He said bye and hung up.
I knew returning to work would be the best thing for me. Somewhere close to home like Ealing would be much more convenient than Islington had been. And definitely more than the hour plus commute to Binford. I had a feeling Bob had arranged better benefits for me at Ealing too.
Yet despite all that I felt empty. As if whatever drive and compulsion I had to excel in my graduate career had died with Mark.
Bob and I sat alone at a table in a conference room at the Bestco Head Office. He ran through all the various aspects of my new role in Ealing. It was the exact same position I had before and I tried to pay attention to the details but I couldn’t concentrate. I just wasn’t that interested anymore.
“You see the news then?”
I looked up at him in surprise. “What?”
“You know what I’m talking about.”
I studied him carefully. He was smiling now.
“Those two boys they found in Binford?”
He nodded. “The police confirmed it that they were the same boys from the CCTV images.”
“And?”
“And now the police are gonna crack down on the gang they belonged to. From what I’ve been told the police think the arson was some kind of test to rise up in their status as members.”
“Why do you think they were killed?”
“Fuck knows, mate,” he said. “And who cares? Good riddance is all I can say.” He didn’t seem to be bothered, as if their deaths meant Mark had gotten justice and therefore, the problem had been dealt with. “You never know with these gangs. For all we know, they were killed by their own gang for attracting all this attention.”
I thought about that. Joe wouldn’t have his own brother killed, would he?
“Could be anything,” Bob said. “Either way, it’s not our problem so let’s get back to business, shall we?”
We continued going over the paperwork for another half hour and I was introduced to a few other company representatives at the Head Office. By the time I left to go home, I had signed on for the Ealing job and was due to start within a few days.
As I was leaving the Head Office, I reached into my pocket and found my little notebook. I pulled it out and flicked through it. I scanned the pages of notes I had written about the Bestco arson.
Now Carl and Marcus were dead and the Bestco arson had been attributed to them. As for their killers the police would eventually get to the bottom of it. None of it was my concern anymore. I had to move on.
I tore out the pages from the notebook, screwed them up into a ball and tossed them into a nearby bin before I entered a Tube station. When I parted with Bob I had decided I would give Ealing my best shot and make this new job the biggest priority in my life. I couldn’t afford to let anything else get in the way.
I woke up in the middle of the night at the sound of my doorbell ringing repeatedly in short bursts. I reached for my phone to check the time and cursed whoever was at the door. It was past one o’ clock in the morning and I wondered who it could have been at that time of night.
I staggered out of bed and went to answer the door. Whoever it was kept ringing the bell again and again which pissed me off even more.
“Hold on! I’m coming!” I grabbed the doorknob. “I’m here!” The bell still rang.
I whipped the door open wide to see DC Barker and DI Martin standing there.
“What do you want?” I addressed DI Martin, ignoring DC Barker because I couldn’t stand him. While I didn’t like talking to either of the police officers, at least DI Martin seemed like a decent person.
“We’ve got some good news and some bad news,” DI Martin said.
“Mind if we come in?” DC Barker said, and walked past me into the corridor before I could say anything. DI Martin followed behind and I shut the door.
“What’s this about?”
“Sit down,” DC Barker said.
“I’ll stand,” I said with my jaw clenched and realised my fists were balled too.
I couldn’t stand him and his accusations and I was sure he had some more for me.
“The good news is that we checked out your alibi. Chantelle Johnson confirmed she was with you last night,” DI Martin said.
My heart began racing as I had a feeling I knew what was coming next. If they had talked to Chantelle, she probably let it slip about how she saw Sajid waving a gun at Anil. And now I was fucked.
“The bad news, my friend,” DC Barker said and took a step closer to me, “is that while we were investigating the murders of Carl Brown and Marcus Smith, another body was discovered in Binford a few hours ago. The body of a young black male.”
I waited for him to continue but he just stared at me.
“And?”
“We were able to confirm the identity of the body fairly easily, which we just did. And you wouldn’t believe our surprise when we learnt who it was.”
“Go on.” I could tell he was setting me up but the build up was getting too much.
“It was Thom Johnson,” DI Martin said. “Chantelle Johnson’s brother.”
34
I felt my breath escape at the sound of Thom’s name. I took a deep breath but it was no use, I felt like my head was about to explode. I looked at DI Martin in shock and shook my head. I couldn’t even talk I was so shocked. I felt my legs go weak and dropped to my knees. I leaned forward and placed my hands on the floor to regain my balance, aware of how I looked to the company I was in.
“I said you should’ve sat down,” DC Barker said.
Thom was dead?
I couldn’t believe it. And Chantelle? She was okay, right? They had spoken to her. But then I remembered they said they found Thom afterwards. Where was Chantelle?
“Chantelle?” I barely managed to say.
“She’s back at the police station, we’re taking care of her,” DI Martin said.
“So, Ali,” DC Barker said. “You can imagine our shock when we realised you spent the night with Thom’s sister while he was lying dead in a local waste ground.”
That jolted me. A waste ground? I wondered if it was the same place I was taken when abducted by those extremists Defenders of Islam.
I looked up at DCI Barker.
“Just a coincidence, eh?”
I stood up. “You think I killed him?”
“Actually we don’t,” he said.
“Preliminary reports state that it was a suicide,” DI Martin said.
“What?”
“It appears he shot himself in the head,” DI Martin said.
“Right now we don’t have much to go on but Forensics have been running tests since the body was found and we should have more answers by the morning,” DC Barker said.
“We’re gonna need you to come forward with any information you may have that might help us solve this,” DI Martin said.
I nodded and looked away. “Of course. I’ll do whatever I can.”
“Do you know if there’s anything we should know about Thom?” DC Barker asked.
I ran everything through my mind to see if there was. But what could I tell these cops? That I had convinced Thom to help me find out more about Carl and Marcus, who were later murdered? And now that I thought of it, did that have anything to do with why Thom killed himself?
35
The second DC Barker and DI Martin left my flat I phoned Chantelle’s mobile number. When her phone rang, but eventually went into voicemail, I left a short message telling her to call me back as soon as possible. I didn’t mention I had found out about Thom’s death.
I had a lot to discuss with Chantelle as it was even before I was told of her brother’s death. I had needed to know if she wanted to see me again romantically and when she had been cold after the night we spent together I wanted to know why. Now I wondered if ther
e was any point bringing up any of that, if and when I did get through to her. I knew all of that had to take a back seat, maybe even buried forever.
Then there was the matter of DC Barker and DI Martin contacting her to confirm my alibi. I wanted to know what happened between her and the police.
I rang Chantelle’s number again fifteen minutes later but the same thing happened – it would ring and then go into voicemail. It was almost two o’clock in the morning now but I knew there was no way Chantelle was asleep. I assumed she was still at the police station while the police went through their procedures in dealing with the next of kin of suicides.
I decided not to leave twenty miscalls on her phone and sent her a short text message telling her I loved her and was worried about her. It was ambiguous enough as to whether or not I knew of Thom’s murder by now.
There was no way I was going back to sleep after all that I discovered but I didn’t know what else to do. It was in the middle of the night and the one person I wanted to be with was out of reach. Then I remembered the one person who I knew would be there for me.
I grabbed my phone and rang Sajid. He answered on the third ring.
“Wassup, bre?” he asked.
“Listen, some really bad shit happened and I don’t know what to do.” As the words fell out of my mouth I realised this was just the kind of call from me Sajid lived for and I didn’t know if that was good or bad. All I knew was I had to tell him everything if I was going to make any sense of any of it.
“What did you do and where are you?” He sounded calm.
I told him about DC Barker and DI Martin visiting me in the afternoon and questioning me - how they thought I had something to do with Carl and Marcus’ murders.
Sajid laughed out loud at that.
I don’t know what it was with Sajid but he could be faced with such heavy problems with the law and still keep his twisted sense of humour. I wondered if he expected me to do that too.
“Thom’s dead!”
Sajid stopped laughing. “...What?”
“Chantelle’s brother.”
“Yeah, I seen him around. Damn, man...what happened?”
“I don’t know but they think it was suicide.”
I told him how DC Barker and DI Martin came back to see me just now and gave me the bad news.
“You talk to Chantelle?” he asked.
“Nah, she’s at the police station right now. I don’t think she knows I know about Thom.”
“I see.”
“What am I gonna do, Sajid?”
I realised then why I had called him. I had called him for his advice as much as I needed him to listen to my problems. And in that moment I never felt so hopeless.
“Don’t do anything,” he said.
“What?”
“Just wait. Call her tomorrow. Go around to see her and be there for her. But that’s all you gotta do.”
I thought about it and realised it was what I had planned to do all along and that I just needed reassurance from someone else. Then I remembered Sajid’s gun.
“Listen, bre,” I said. “We need to talk about that gun of yours.”
“What about it?”
“It ain’t right, man. You can’t be carrying a gun around with you.”
“But I bet you’re glad I had it last night, eh?”
I was but I couldn’t tell him that. It would’ve put a hole in my logic.
“I’m just saying with all these murders and shit,” I said. “Carl and Marcus were shot and the cops think I had something to do with it and if they find out about you and find out about that gun, we’ll both be in deep shit.”
“Relax, bre,” he said. “Nobody knows I got it and it’s untraceable. I made sure of it.”
I was still finding it hard to believe how easily guns were being passed around in society and I wondered how Thom got his hands on the gun he used to commit suicide.
“Thom shot himself in the head,” I said.
“Damn... is that why you’re asking me about the gun?”
It was but there was more to it than that. “Where would he have got the gun from? Where did you get yours?”
“Ah,” he said. “That’s my little secret. Sorry, bre. But the less you know the better, right?”
I gritted my teeth. I did want to know more but he was right. It was best if I didn’t.
36
When I checked the news online around midday I couldn’t believe what I read.
Thom killed Carl and Marcus.
Apparently, Thom was a fully fledged member of the Binford Boyz and had murdered Carl and Marcus. He then committed suicide with the same gun he had used to kill his rivals.
All the news reports said the same thing: the bullets that killed Carl and Marcus matched the gun found with Thom. Police had also found Thom’s hat, which had his DNA fibres, at the alley where Carl and Marcus were found. Not only that but several witnesses claimed to have seen someone who fit Thom’s appearance near the alley before the corpses were discovered.
I had to take a break from all the reading and lie down just to make sense of it. I couldn’t believe Thom had had it in him to commit such a horrific crime – and even worse, that I had read him all wrong.
He had downplayed his connection to the Binford Boyz. It made me think about my conversations with him all over again.
A couple of nights earlier, Thom hadn’t come home because he had murdered Carl and Marcus. That made him a fugitive and so he went on the run until he saw no escape and saw the only way out by taking his own life, the stupid boy.
By the time I stayed with Chantelle the next night, Thom was already dead.
Is that how it all went down? I couldn’t be sure.
The press had gone from whipping up a storm about feral teens attacking high street stores to how a gang war was going on in Binford.
The Binford Boyz versus The Lion Crew.
One thing they were right about was that things were definitely way out of control with no sign of relenting.
The police were quick to reassure the public that they would be clamping down on gangs and how they would end all this violence. But there was no end. It was the same old shit they had been saying for years.
First came the arsons and now there were murders: first Mark, who was killed by Carl and Marcus, who were then killed by Thom – who then killed himself.
Four deaths. So far.
I lay there wondering if there were more to come.
I hadn’t tried phoning Chantelle until I had gathered as much information as I could from online research but after all that I just felt overwhelmed.
I wondered what Chantelle made of all the allegations against Thom. There was solid proof of his crimes. It was undeniable. She had to be overwhelmed too.
I reached for my phone to call her. Her phone rang but it went into voicemail again like it did the night before. Instead of leaving her a message or sending a text message I decided I would just go to see her and hoped she was home now.
“I can’t believe Thom killed those niggers,” Sajid said.
“I can’t believe he killed himself,” I said. “I can’t imagine what Chantelle’s going through.”
We were in his car outside his shop.
Chantelle wasn’t home when I reached her flat. I rang her doorbell but nobody answered. I had waited by her front gate for about an hour before I left her a voicemail telling her I had heard about Thom and that I was at her front door. I hung up after telling her to call me back. Then I came over to see Sajid while I was in town.
“Still you gotta hand it to that boy,” he said. “Who knew he’d be the one to get justice for your mate Mark, eh?” His laugh was laced with melancholy. “I suppose that makes him some kind of hero, no?”
I mulled it over. I had to admit there was some twisted logic there even if I knew it was wrong. I had wanted to them to go to prison for what they did but if I was being honest with myself, I was partly glad Carl and Marcus were dead instea
d of being free.
What bothered me now was the domino effect: their killer took his own life and he was the brother of the love of my life. Even if Carl and Marcus’ fellow gang members decided not to take out their revenge on her, she would be emotionally damaged forever.
“Joe wants to go to war with the Binford Boyz,” Sajid said. “He doesn’t just want revenge. He wants to wipe them out and take their share of Binford.”
It was a hot day but Sajid’s comment sent a chill down my back. “How do you know that?”
“I spoke to a few people,” he said. “When it happens you ain’t gonna want to be anywhere near this town.”
We sat in silence for a while. Sajid smoked his cigarette and I drank my can of Coke.
I imagined the kind of violence Joe and the Lion Crew would hand out and it sent another chill down my back. If Joe wanted revenge and was going to go after all the key figures in the Binford Boyz gang, I knew that included their families. I had seen and heard way too much about the kind of gang violence that happened all over the city, not just in Binford, to know that nobody was safe if they were associated with gang members.
“If anything happens to Chantelle...man...” I couldn’t even finish what I was saying. The thought was too scary to even say out loud.
“Don’t worry, bre,” Sajid said. “I’m sure she’s safe. Especially now that the cops are on her case.”
“You think they’re gonna take down the Binford Boyz and the Lion Crew?” I asked.
“They’re probably raiding all their houses and rounding them up right now,” he said. “If that’s how it is then Joe can forget any ideas of revenge.”
I wished the police had already arrested all the key figures in both gangs and that anyone who escaped arrest was too scared to carry out any revenge attacks. But I knew I was in the dark. I had no clue what the police were doing until they either came knocking on my door at night or when their arrests made it on the news.
“One thing I don’t get,” Sajid said. “Why did Thom kill Carl and Marcus? I mean if Tyrone wanted them dead, why didn’t he get some of the big boys to do it? Why get the newbie to do the dirty work? He could’ve easily fucked up or not gone through with it.”
