BACK AT THE Harrow Road police station, Joel found himself in the same interview room he’d been in before. The same individuals danced attendance on him as well. Fabia Bender sat opposite him in the unmoving chair at the unmoving table. At her side was Sergeant Starr, whose black skin shone like satin beneath the room’s otherwise unforgiving light. A duty solicitor had joined Joel on his side of the table, and this was a new development. The presence of this lawyer—a stringy-haired blonde girl in shoes with foolishly elongated points and a wrinkled black trouser suit—informed Joel of how serious his present situation was.
August Starr wanted to know about the gun, for the Asian woman was a closed book to him. She’d been scraped up around the knees, but otherwise unharmed aside from the fact that a few years had been taken off her life by the terror of what she’d gone through. Nonetheless, she had her bag returned to her, along with her money and her credit cards, so her part of the equation was solved once she identified Joel as the boy who’d mugged her. She was a signed, sealed, and delivered matter in August Starr’s mind. The gun, however, was not.
In a society in which handguns had once been virtually nonexistent among the thieving and murdering classes, they were now becoming disturbingly prevalent. That this was a direct result of the easing of borders that came along with European unification—which was, to some, just another term for opening one’s arms to smuggling into the country everything from cigarettes to explosives—could have been mooted forever, and Sergeant Starr had no time for such mooting. The fact was that guns were here, in his community. All he wanted to know was how a twelve-year-old boy had got his hands on one.
Joel told Starr that he’d found the gun. Back of the charity shop where his aunt worked, he said. There was an alley there with skips and wheelie bins, all over the place. He’d found the gun inside one of them while doing some bin diving one afternoon. He didn’t remember which.
Where, exactly? Starr wanted to know. He was taking notes as well as recording Joel’s every word.
Just in one of the bins, Joel told him. Like he said, he didn’t remember which one. It was wrapped up in someone’s rubbish, in a plastic carrier bag.
What kind of carrier bag? Starr asked him, and he wrote those words—carrier and bag—in a well-schooled script on a new page in his notebook, signaling the expectation that they were at last getting somewhere and triggering in Joel the determination to lead them nowhere at all.
Joel said he didn’t know what sort of bag the gun had been in. It could have been a Sainsbury bag. It could have been a Boots bag.
Boots or Sainsbury? August Starr made this sound like a fascinating detail. He wrote Boots and Sainsbury in his notebook as well. He pointed out that this was quite an odd detail since those bags were so very different from each other. They weren’t even the same colour and, even if that were not the case, you wouldn’t expect to find rubbish inside of a Boots bag, would you?
In this, Joel could sense a trick. He looked at the duty solicitor in the hope she would intervene in some way, as lawyers did on the television when they talked assertively about “my client” and “the law.” But the solicitor said nothing. Her concerns—although Joel would never know this—revolved around the pregnancy test she’d administered to herself that morning, right there in the police station in the woman’s lavatory.
Fabia Bender was the one to speak. Boots bags were too flimsy to pack rubbish into, she explained to Joel. A gun would likely burst right through a Boots bag. So didn’t Joel prefer to tell Sergeant Starr the truth? It would be far easier if he did that, dear.
Joel said nothing. He would tough it out, he decided. The best thing to do was to keep his mouth shut. He was twelve years old, after all. What were they going to do to him?
Into his extended silence, Fabia Bender asked if she might have a private word with Joel. Finally, his solicitor spoke. She said that no one was going to speak to her client—Joel was gratified to hear her use that term—without his solicitor being present. Starr pointed out that there was no cause for anyone to be unreasonable about anything since all they were trying to do at the moment was sort out the truth. The solicitor said, “Nonetheless,” but was interrupted by Fabia Bender, who declared that all anyone wanted was the best for the boy, whereupon August Starr cut in on them both but was unable to make a complete statement since the door to the interview room opened before he said anything other than, “Let’s hang on and consider—”
A female constable said, “C’n I have a word, Sergeant?” and Starr stepped out of the room. During the two minutes that he was gone, the solicitor gave Fabia Bender a short lecture on what she referred to as “the rights of the accused under British law, madam, when the accused is a juvenile.” She said that she’d expected Miss Bender to know all this, considering her line of employment, a remark that set Fabia Bender off. But before Fabia could complete a reply that put the solicitor in her place, the sergeant returned. He slapped his notebook onto the table and said without looking at anyone but Joel, “You’re free to go.”
All three of them stared at the policeman in various stages of what could only be called gobsmacked. Then the solicitor stood. She smiled triumphantly, as if she’d somehow managed to effect this development, and said, “Come along, Joel.”
As the door closed behind them, leaving the other two within the room, Joel heard Fabia Bender say, “But, August, what’s happened?”
He also heard Starr’s terse reply. “I don’t God damn bloody know, do I.”
IN VERY SHORT order, with a hasty good-bye from the duty solicitor and an unfriendly look from the special constable behind the reception counter, Joel was released from custody. He found himself out on the pavement in front of the station: no phone call made to his aunt or to anyone else, no request for someone to fetch the wayward youth home, to school, or to a remand centre.
Joel couldn’t sort out what had happened. One moment he’d been seeing his freedom and his life going up in smoke. The next moment it had all been a dream. Without a slap on the wrist. Without a lecture. Without a word. It didn’t make sense.
He headed up the road towards the Prince of Wales pub on the corner. He walked on psychological tiptoes, all the way expecting a cop to leap out of a doorway, laughing at the trick that had just been played on a very foolish boy. But in that, too, Joel found his anticipation went unfulfilled. Instead, he made it to the corner before a car pulled up along the kerb. It halted next to Joel. Its passenger door opened. Cal Hancock got out.
Joel didn’t need to see who the driver was. He got into the back without question when Cal nodded at him. The car shot into the street. Joel wasn’t so foolish as to believe the Blade intended to drive him home.
No one spoke, and Joel found this an unnerving state of affairs, far more unnerving than if the Blade had railed at him. He’d failed in his mission to mug the Asian lady, and that was bad. What was worse was that he’d lost the gun. But what was the very worst of all was that he’d lost the gun to the cops. They’d try to trace it. It probably had the Blade’s fingerprints on it. If the cops had the Blade’s prints on file for some reason, there would be enormous trouble for the man. And this didn’t even begin to address the money that was lost now that the gun could not be sold in the street.
The tension in the car felt to Joel like a windless, tropical day. He couldn’t bear what it was doing to his stomach, so he said, “How’d I get out, mon?” and he directed the question to either of the two men in the front seat.
Neither answered. The Blade turned a corner too quickly and had to swerve to avoid a colourfully garbed African woman who was using a zebra crossing. He swore and called her a fucking freak show.
Joel said, “Cheers, then,” referring to whatever the Blade had done to get him out of trouble. He knew that such assistance had to have come from the Blade, as there was simply no way he could have walked out of the Harrow Road police station otherwise. It was one thing to be caught trying to snatch a purse or trying to mug
someone out on the pavement somewhere. That sort of thing resulted in an appearance in front of the magistrate followed by a spate of counseling with someone like Fabia Bender or a period of community service at a place similar to the child drop-in centre in Meanwhile Gardens. But it was quite another thing to have been caught with a weapon upon you. Knives were bad enough. But guns…? Guns meant more than a talking-to by a well-meaning but essentially weary adult.
So Joel couldn’t imagine what the Blade had done to get him out of the clutches of the police. More, he couldn’t imagine why he’d done it unless he thought Joel was on the verge of grassing him up, in which case Joel would be in need of the kind of sorting out he’d hoped the Blade would use upon Neal Wyatt.
They headed nowhere near Edenham Estate. This reinforced in Joel’s mind the thought that he was indeed going to be dealt with. Not far away from where they were lay the stretch of land that was Wormwood Scrubs. Joel knew it would be an easy matter for the Blade to march him out there—broad daylight or not—and put a bullet through his head, leaving his body for someone to find in a few hours, a few days, even a few weeks. The Blade would know where to leave his body so that it would be found when he wanted it found. And if he didn’t want it found at all, the Blade would know how to manage that, too.
Joel said, “I di’n’t say nuffink, mon. No way.”
Cal cast him a look from the passenger seat, but there was no degree of reassurance to it. This was a different Cal entirely, a man who moved his upper lip in a way that told Joel he was meant to keep his mouth shut. Joel, though, with his life on the line, didn’t see how he would be able to do that.
The Blade changed down gears, and they turned another corner. They passed a newsagent’s shop, where an advertising placard for the Evening Standard announced “Another Serial Killing!” in boldly scrawled blue letters. That seemed to Joel like a definite message about what was to come in very short order, and he felt a resulting weight on his chest. He struggled against his desire to cry.
He dropped his gaze to his lap. He knew exactly how badly he’d cocked up. He’d forced the Blade to pull in a marker—or perhaps to pay off someone in a very big way—and there was simply no walking off with a “Cheers, mon” for such a favour. It wasn’t, in fact, a favour at all. It was an inconceivable inconvenience, and when someone caused the Blade an inconceivable inconvenience, someone was inconceivably inconvenienced in return.
Cal had certainly tried to warn him. But Joel had assumed he had nothing to fear from the Blade as long as he didn’t cross him. And he hadn’t expected to cross him, least of all when he was in the act of doing what he’d been instructed to do.
The car finally jerked to a stop. Joel raised his head to see the A. Q. W. Motors sign that he’d seen before. Despite it being broad daylight, albeit a grey and rain-threatening broad daylight, they’d come to the Blade’s special secret place. They climbed out of the car and went wordlessly into the deserted alley.
The Blade led the way. Cal and Joel followed. Joel tried to get a muttered word from Cal about what was going to happen next, but the graffiti artist didn’t look his way as the Blade unlocked the gate in the old brick wall and jerked his head to them in a sign that they were meant to enter the yard of the abandoned underground station. There he unlocked the door to the erstwhile motor garage. As if he knew that Joel was considering making a useless run for it, the Blade jerked his chin at Cal. Cal took Joel firmly by the arm, in a grip that was neither warm nor friendly.
Inside the old garage, it was pitch dark once the Blade shut the door behind them. Joel heard the sound of a lock clicking into place and he spoke hastily into the gloom. “I di’n’t ’xpect her to scream, mon. Who would’ve, y’unnerstan? She walked wiv a stick and she acted like she di’n’t even know where she was going. You c’n ask Cal. He picked her for me to mug.”
“You blaming Cal?” The Blade’s voice came from quite nearby. Joel started. The man had moved in perfect silence, like the striking snake tattooed on his cheek.
“I ain’t sayin dat,” Joel protested. “I just telling you anyone could’ve done like I did. When she start screamin, I had to get out of there, di’n’t I?”
The Blade said nothing. A moment passed. Joel could hear himself breathing. It was a wheezy sound which he tried and failed to stop. He strained to hear something besides himself, but there didn’t seem to be anything to hear. It was as if they’d all fallen down a great dark hole.
Then a click sounded, followed by a pool of light that formed on top of one of the wooden crates from which the Blade had taken the pistol the last time Joel had been in this place. Joel saw that the Blade had moved away from him in silence again, that he’d lit the same electric lantern that he’d used before. It cast elongated shadows against the walls.
Behind Joel then, Cal snicked a match against something. The smell of tobacco joined the other scents—motor oil, mould, dust, and wood rot—in the icy air.
Joel said, “Look, mon—”
“Shut the fuck up.” The Blade turned to a second crate. He prised open the top. He removed a mixture of balled-up newspapers, straw, and Styrofoam pellets, tossing all this to the floor.
There were many more crates in this dismal place than there had been before, and this was a fact that Joel noticed, despite his fear. He gave himself a moment to hope that the newness and the number of them might indicate different contents, but in this he would soon be disappointed. The Blade removed an object thickly wrapped in plastic bubbles. Its size suggested in advance what it was.
Joel knew how unlikely it was that, after his wretched performance in Portobello Road, the Blade was unpacking a gun to give him another try at having it taken by the cops. That meant he had another use for it, and Joel didn’t want to consider what that use might be.
His tumbling thoughts led directly to the loosening of his bowels. He told himself in the roughest language he could manage that he would not defecate in his trousers. If he was meant to pay with his life for his inept performance, then pay he would. But he wouldn’t do it like a sniveling little wanker. He wouldn’t give the Blade that pleasure.
“Cal,” the Blade said, “you got lead wiv you?”
“Got it.” Cal brought forth from his pocket a small box, which he handed over. The Blade loaded the bullets into the weapon with the sureness of movement that indicated long practice.
Joel, seeing what he concluded his limited future would be, said, “Hey, mon, hang on.”
“Shut the fuck up,” the Blade told him. “Or can’t you hear?”
“I only want you to unnerstan—”
The Blade slammed home the top of the crate with such force that dust rose around it. “You are one damn stubborn cocksucker motherfucker, ain’t you, Jo-ell?” He advanced on Joel, the gun in his hand. In three steps he was there, and he jabbed the pistol beneath Joel’s chin. “This enough to get you to plug it, mon?”
Joel squashed his eyes closed. He tried to believe that Cal Hancock possessed enough humanity that he would not simply stand there and watch Joel be blown away to kingdom come. But Cal said nothing, and Joel couldn’t hear him move. He could, on the other hand, smell the Blade’s rank sweat and he could feel the simultaneously cold and fiery metal of the gun barrel shaping a coin beneath his chin.
“You know what they gen’rally do with wankers your age get caught wiv weapons?” the Blade said into Joel’s ear. “They send ’em away. Couple years in youth detention start it off. How’d you like it in there, Jo-ell? Tossing off in the toilet for the entertainment of the sixteen-year-olds? Bending over when they tell you to afterwards cos you got yours and now they want theirs. Think you’d like that, mon?”
Joel couldn’t answer. He was trying not to pee, trying not to cry, trying not to lose control of his bowels, trying not to pass out because he couldn’t get enough air to fill his lungs.
“Answer me, fucker! And you best tell me wha’ I want to hear.”
“No.” Joel made his lips form t
he word, although no sound actually came out of him. “I wouldn’ like dat.”
“Well, dat’s what happens, I leave you to the cops.”
“Cheers, mon,” Joel whispered. “I mean it.”
“Oh, fuck you mean it. I oughta blast your bloody face—”
“Please.” Joel despised himself for saying that word. It came out of his mouth, however, before he was able to stop it.
“You know what it took, getting you out ’f there, fucker?” The gun dug more deeply into Joel’s chin. “You t’ink the Blade just picks up the phone and has a word wiv Mr. Chief Constable or summick? You got any idea what dis cost me?”
“I pay you back,” Joel said. “I got fifty pounds and I can—”
“Oh, you pay me back. You pay me back.” With each word the Blade thrust the gun upward, harder.
Joel went with it, rising on his toes. “I will. Jus’ tell me.”
“I’ll tell you, fucker. I’ll God damn tell you.”
The Blade dropped the gun to his side as quickly as he’d raised it. Joel nearly sank to his knees: both with the sudden movement and with his own relief. Cal came up behind him. He led Joel to a crate and pushed him down upon it. Cal’s hands held him there, by the shoulders. They weren’t harsh hands, but they were far from friendly.
“You,” the Blade said, “are going to do exactly like I tell you to do. And if you don’t, Jo-ell, I find you and I deal wiv you. I deal wiv you one way or th’ other. Before the cops get to you or after. Don’t make no difference. You get me, mon?”
What Came Before He Shot Her Page 53
