by Linda Regan
Nothing.
‘Tell us, and you can go,’ Panther said to him.
Kaya was silent.
Alysha shook her head and turned to the other girls. ‘He’s not answering again, how rude’s that?’ She stood up and pulled a small, but very sharp, knife from her boot. ‘’Fraid you ’ave to learn,’ she said. ‘It’s fingers this time.’
‘No. Don’t! Stop!’ Melek shrieked wiggling desperately trying to release herself from the door-handle she was tied to. ‘He doesn’t know who the contact is in Europe. Neither do I, or I’d definitely tell you. But if you let him go, I’ll give you my word that I’ll find out, from Harisha, and I’ll tell you.’
‘What, you think we was born yesterday?’ Panther said to her. ‘You think we’re gonna believe that you’ll do just that, fuck Harisha’s brains out believing he’ll tell you, and then you’ll come running and tell us.’
‘I swear I will.’
Alysha turned to her. ‘Listen, darling, you’re more stupid than I thought. Harisha ain’t gonna tell you nothing; he ain’t even faithful to you. If his lieutenant,’ she kicked Kaya’s boot, ‘really don’t know, then Harisha ain’t gonna tell no one, ’specially not a skank he’s honking. Which, incidentally, is all you are. Once ’e’s got you up the duff, he’ll cast you aside. That’s the way it is with him.’
‘I know where he keeps his other weapons,’ Melek said after a beat.
Alysha and the girls looked at each other. Alysha turned to Burak Kaya. He had gone a very pale colour. She turned back to Melek.
‘Tell, now. You need to take him away and look after him.’
‘You’ll let us go if I tell you?’ Melek asked.
Alysha clicked her tongue against her teeth angrily. ‘I just said, didn’t I?’
‘They’re in the old war tunnel,’ Melek said, turning to look at Burak. He showed no reaction.
‘Where’s the war tunnel?’ Lox asked her.
‘It’s near Lambeth Bridge, in Keepers Street,’ Melek continued. ‘There’s a big manhole by the steps to the river. Just by that is another drain, a bigger one. It’s at the base of the steps. He keeps a padlock on it. If you can undo the padlock, there’s a rope just inside the grille, on the left, it’s fixed to the inside of the tunnel. You tie that around yourself and then you have to lower yourself down and into the tunnel. It’s narrow and it’s a long drop, but there are firearms and crates of machetes and drugs there. He sells from there. It’s safe, but hard to get in and out of.’
‘Where is the key to the padlock?’ Alysha asked her.
‘Harisha has it. He keeps it in his flat somewhere.’
‘I can pick it,’ Lox said.
Alysha nodded. ‘Yeah, you can pick anything, mate.’
‘Except a decent bloke,’ Tink teased.
‘Let him loose,’ Alysha said to Panther.
She turned back to Melek and looked at her. ‘Your fella is the lowest of the low, don’t you know that? He’s robbing old pensioners, and filling eight-year-olds with crack.’
‘And you are so much better, I suppose,’ Melek spat back. ‘If I don’t get Burak to hospital, he’s gonna die.’
‘We ain’t cut any arteries,’ Alysha told her. ‘An’ we only sell drugs to addicts, not to kids. An’ we look after the elderly on this estate, and help the addicts when they want it. So don’t you give me all your fucking lip.’ She held Melek’s angry eyes, then she said evenly, ‘Lower than your man ain’t born, you must know that. If you get fed up being pushed about, and want proper loyalty, we’re recruiting soldiers. But you’d have to pass a lot of tests, cos you’re well fucked up with that lot, an’ you’re the loser, believe me. So, till we’re sure of a soldier, they stay the enemy, got it?’
‘Fuck off.’
‘Get them out of here,’ Alysha said to Panther.
Albert Wilkins was standing at the side of the window watching the goings on the estate grounds below his first floor flat. He was a nervy man in his early seventies, thin and small, with fine, thinning hair and astute, but frightened, blue eyes. He was holding back the frayed pink and yellow floral-patterned curtain that covered their lounge window. His fingers, nails bitten down to the quick, twitched nervously as he watched Melek Yismaz with Burak Kaya’s arm draped around her shoulders, practically dragging him across the estate grounds.
‘Someone out there looks as if he’s half dead,’ he shouted to his wife. ‘He’s bleeding like a pig in an abattoir. There’s a girl with him. Come and look, Vera! It looks as if she’s dragging him.’
‘None of our business,’ came the reply. ‘Less we see, less we know.’ Vera walked into the room and saw Albert looking out the window. ‘Get away from there before you’re seen! Get away, d’you hear? If someone’s dead, we don’t want to get involved.’
‘They can’t see me.’
‘They can, and they know who lives here.’ She raised her voice yet again. ‘Let the curtain go and move away from the window, will you, or they’ll come after us again.’
Albert ignored her. He pulled glasses from the pocket of his home-knitted cardigan, and pushed them on and moved in closer to the window.
‘I’ve seen them before. I know who that boy is.’
Vera hurried back into the kitchen.
‘It’s one of them Turkish boys,’ he shouted to her. ‘I don’t know which one, but it’s one of the ones that broke all your eggs when they tripped you up and you tore all your tights and grazed your legs. You know, when they stole your pension money and your keys.’
‘For Christ’s sake, Al! Less we know, the better. Who knows what any of them are capable of now? The police never sort anything and we can’t stand up for ourselves.’ Her voice cracked. ‘Al, please, leave the curtain be. They’ve got the car, just leave it be.’
‘He’s being dragged, or half carried, by that dark girl. And that’s blood, or I’m an elephant. It’s leaking all over the ground.’
There was a rattle of china teacups, but Vera didn’t answer.
Two
14:00 Monday
Georgia Johnson enjoyed the challenges of being a DI in South London. The murder department especially was always busy. In this area of London, gang warfare was fast accelerating, and shootings and stabbings over territory were becoming everyday occurrences. When a gang leader was sent down by the police, or taken out by a rival, another gang usually emerged, and the turf, the territory, was taken over. Often, some of the previous gang would reunite and fight for their old turf, which usually resulted in a lot of bloodshed.
Being black as well as female, in a force like the Met, still meant you had to work harder to prove your worth, despite all the race and gender equality pamphlets that were handed out at regular intervals within the department. Georgia ignored the jokes and remarks made at her expense, despite knowing she could pull any of those responsible into a disciplinary, but she chose to let the discrimination wash over her head. She’d joined the force to catch criminals, and she was doing well. She was quite young, at just over thirty, to have made DI, but her sights were set much higher. Murder investigations were all-consuming and usually exhausting, but the feeling of euphoria when her team had tracked and caught a killer, and she stood in court watching the families of the victims seeing justice done for their loved ones, knowing their own lives could move on because of it, was worth everything she had been through to catch that killer.
Georgia was strong and independent. Her Caribbean mother and her Indian father were both doctors, and her four siblings had followed suit; only her sister had also moved a little towards the world of crime, becoming a forensic biologist. Georgia was the youngest of the children. At one time she’d aspired to be a physiotherapist, but had changed her mind at fifteen, after the winter’s night when she walked home, at nine o’clock, across Clapham Common, disobeying her parents’ rule to never walk there alone in the dark. That fateful night changed her life.
The man that raped her could still be alive and free. Geo
rgia had no idea who he was, although she would never forget his voice, or the words he spoke after he brutally stole her virginity. She had been too afraid of the consequences to ever tell anyone what had happened that night. Even all these years later she never spoke of it. There was no point, she thought. No evidence now. But the mental scars had never healed; and even all these years later, if she closed her eyes, she could still hear that voice, and feel her heart beating in terror as the memory of her knickers being torn from her young body jumped back into her brain. Then the reek of stale tobacco mixed with garlic would engulf her nostrils and the ghastly sensation of his foul tongue pushing into her mouth and his penis into her virgin body, as he grunted and bounced like a wild animal, clamping his hand over her mouth while his sweaty unshaven cheek rubbed back and forth over her breast. After he was done, his heavy fingers pinched into her cheeks and he spoke those words that were implanted in her mind: I will kill you, if you tell. I will know, and I will come after you, and then I will really hurt you.
He took her white knickers as a souvenir, pulling what was left of them from between her bare, bruised, and bleeding thighs and pushing them into his pocket, leaving her to get up from the filthy ground and limp home, bruised and terrified. Even now, if a prisoner had grubby nails, or a heavy buckle on the belt of his jeans, or smelled of stale tobacco, she had to go to the loo and wash her hands continually until the memory once again left her mind. Often just the sight of dust or dirt would start her hand-washing ritual. Working in the murder division meant she was constantly called out to dirty locations, derelict murder sites or the crime-ridden high-rise estates where gang stabbings and shootings were far too frequent. She had learned to deal with it. She kept disinfectant hand gel with her mobile phone, and never went out without either.
Having to constantly wash her hands she felt was a small price to pay for keeping people safe and London rid of criminals. Sometimes she resented being born a woman. But if she was a man, could she really do more? She didn’t think so, even if there were some in her department who would disagree. She trained constantly and kept herself in top condition, and could outrun any of the men in her squad. And she was afraid of no one. If someone broke the law, she went after them, and if their crime involved rape, then she was like a greyhound after the hare: on their trail, chasing hard. She’d never let up, not until the perpetrator was caught and charged.
Despite the terrifying ordeal of the rape, Georgia hadn’t shut herself off from sexual relationships. For her, intercourse was like a good massage, It helped her to focus, and unwind, particularly on demanding and difficult cases, but it could only happen in her own bed; she would never sleep in anyone else’s. And she chose her partners very carefully, never allowing any of them to get too close, though she kept the same ones. Currently there were three in her life, all very good friends as well as lovers, and chosen because she knew they wouldn’t get clingy or emotionally needy.
Sergeant Stephanie Green, Georgia’s close friend and confidante, always said Georgia didn’t get laid often enough, but then Stephanie had to bed at least one new man every week. Stephanie collected sexual conquests, she wanted as many as she could have, but then she tired of them, often after one date. Georgia teased her about it, telling her there was Italian blood in her genes. Nothing could be further from the truth; both of Stephanie’s parents were from Stepney in the East End, part of long-established families. Their daughter’s name was a way of keeping in touch with their roots when they moved south of the river and started a family.
Stephanie’s nickname in the incident room was ‘the tube’, as it was a well-known fact that Stepney Green tube station was easily accessible to most of London. Stephanie thought the nickname both funny and complimentary; nothing like that bothered her, she was very much one of the lads, even though she had been intimate with most of them. For Stephanie, once a conquest was bedded she was bored and off looking for her next, although she always kept them as friends – something Georgia found of great value, as Stephanie had bedded at least one man from each of the many departments in the Met, from technical investigation through to pathology and the firearms unit. If Georgia needed help on any enquiry, then Stephanie usually had a special friend somewhere who could be persuaded to assist or get a job done quicker.
Georgia put Stephanie’s appetites down to the suffocating marriage she had freed herself from. She had married young, to a man she referred to as her ‘waste of space’, though he had given her two beautiful children. Her daughter Lucy was planning to join the Met after university; she had already done work experience there and a job was waiting for her, providing she got a good degree. Stephanie was thrilled and flattered that her daughter was following her into the force. Georgia was, too; secretly, she’d always wanted a daughter, and had become close to Lucy. Stephanie’s son, Ben, had just turned seventeen and was almost always out, leaving Stephanie free to run her own life and invite who she wanted into her bed.
Georgia was going from one case to another, and more often than not two or three murders at the same time these days. As far as a DI’s job went, once on a case, you worked on it until it was solved. You worked flat out for results. That didn’t bother Georgia, she was a workaholic. What did bother her though, bothered her quite a lot, was the fact that Detective Inspector Alison Grainger was moving back into the murder department.
Alison Grainger had been away on compassionate leave after a close friend and work associate had been killed on duty. When she first came back to work, she had taken a position in the Sapphire Unit – the South London rape unit – where she had been for a while. Recently, she’d put in for a transfer back to murder, saying she was ready, and now wanted to work in her old department again.
Georgia knew Alison, but not well. She had bumped into her a few days ago, on Alison’s first day back in the murder department, and thought her withdrawn, nervy, and very pale-looking. Georgia wasn’t convinced she was ready to come back and track down murderers but had kept those thoughts to herself. It wasn’t her place to make judgements, and it was also difficult inasmuch as DI Alison Grainger was the girlfriend of the chief, DCI Paul Banham. Everything that was said and done on cases and within the department, when Alison was involved, would now go straight back to Banham. Most things did anyway, work-wise, but Georgia had always been careful to keep Stephanie Green’s private life away from his ears, feeling that it was in the sergeant’s best interests. Georgia didn’t want the DCI thinking that one of his sergeants spent too much time indulging her enormous sexual appetite or distracting any of the team from their work. The truth was, there was no better detective than Sergeant Green in the whole of the department. Stephanie had a nose for it, she was streetwise, uncannily sharp, and highly intelligent. The only reason she hadn’t gone further up the career ladder was by choice: she’d wanted to share her time between her children and her job.
Georgia trusted Stephanie with her life. She was also very aware that Stephanie needed protecting from herself at times, so Georgia always played down the rumours about her, feeling it was in the best interests of the department. However, with Alison Grainger back, and in the DCI’s pocket, things could get complicated. Or, worse still, difficult.
Today, Georgia had told herself, she wasn’t going to think about work. She was having a much-needed day off. She was officially on HAT duty, the Met’s term for being on standby, just in case a murder happened on their patch that couldn’t be covered by a team on duty; if so, she would be called out. But with Alison Grainger newly back, and obviously raring to go, Georgia was confident that her day was her own.
She had chosen to stay at home and clean her flat, really clean her flat. She had a large bucket of sugar-soap mixed with warm water next to her where she stood, on the top step of a high ladder. Soapy water was running down her arms and into her black plastic household gloves as she manoeuvred a mop sponge on the end of the long wooden handle. A flowered plastic shower cap covered her wiry black hair. She glanced up at
her work. The ceiling looked like a zig-zagged pedestrian crossing; from the angle she was working there were certain areas the mop wouldn’t reach. She made her way hastily down the ladder, re-positioning it, so the unwashed part of the ceiling was within her reach. She climbed the ladder again, positioned the mop, and started to clean frantically, just as the pocket of her denim dungarees started vibrating, followed by a loud rendition of ‘Onward, Christian Soldiers’. Her phone was telling her the HAT team had found a body and her presence was required urgently.
Stephanie Green was also on HAT standby, but had taken herself off on a mechanics’ course – another step towards fulfilling her secret dream to build her own motorbike.
She was leaning over the engine of a car. Her voluptuous size sixteen bottom had wiggled its way to the front of the mainly male group taking the one-day course. She more than knew her way around the engine of a car, and the tutor had assigned her the task of tracking down the cause of the engine’s failure to start. She had got as far as the cellanoid. She had taken it out from the steering column, shown the other participants what she was doing, and was about to take it to pieces, when her phone burst into a rendition of the Bee Gees’ ‘Stayin’ Alive’ – the tune she had uploaded to alert her when the HAT team were calling.
As her grease-covered hands speedily pulled her phone from her pocket she caught sight of her face in the wing mirror. Engine grease streaked her nose, cheeks, and chin. Her lank, mousy copper-streaked hair had also absorbed some and, to add insult to injury, she reeked of engine oil. But the HAT team were calling and she had to go; there was no time to go home and change. Not a fitting scenario for a sergeant who was trying to bed her DCI. She made her apologies and hurried out of the garage where the course had been taking place.
As she hurried to her car and settled behind the wheel, she pulled her hair back from her face, securing it with a rubber band and leaving yet more greasy marks. She backed her car out of the car park, congratulating herself on having handed her personal card to her tutor over lunch, and not waited until the end of the day. He was very eligible, and she wanted the opportunity to bed him too.
