by Rashad Salim
“You’ve always seemed like a bright lad, Ali. Before all this madness I thought you had a bright future.”
“Don’t worry about me, I’ll get over this.”
“You think Jermaine will? Or Elroy? Or any of their friends who’ve got it in for you?”
“What do you expect me to do? Run away?” I said, heavy on the sarcasm.
“That’s not actually a bad idea for someone in your shoes.”
“I ain’t running.”
“Chantelle might. After all, she’s going to have to deal with all these boys too. Wouldn’t surprise me if she doesn’t stick by you for much longer after what’s happened.”
“But that’s none of your business, is it sir?” I wanted to tell myself he was just pushing my buttons and trying to scare me but his comment had made me wonder.
He smiled. “I just don’t want to see you ruined. And wouldn’t it be a shame if she broke up with you after all the stupidity you’ve got yourself into over her?”
I clenched my jaw and tried to remain calm. “We’ll be alright.”
“All I’m saying is it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve seen all this over a girl end up bad for both sides.” He looked at his watch. “Well, I think that’ll be all for today. I hope you can go home and have a long think about your future and the choices that you’ll make.”
I nodded and headed for the door. I couldn’t wait to get away from him.
“Love can get you killed,” he said as I opened the door.
It felt like he was never going to stop telling me shit – shit I had to admit I needed to give more thought to after the day’s events.
“And despite what you may have heard it’s not always worth fighting for.”
18
“You can put your hands down now,” Flat Cap said. When I did, he said “Start walking.”
They walked me to Tyrone. When I reached him they stopped and waited for his instructions.
“You can never be too careful these days,” Tyrone said. “You never know who might be strapped or wearing a wire.”
“You think I’m a cop?”
“I don’t know who the fuck you are,” he said. “You could be anyone. All I know is you wanted to talk to me.”
I looked around at my surroundings. I wondered if we were being watched by someone legit. Someone who might call the police. I doubted it.
“Thom here says you worked for the Bestco store.”
“That’s right,” I said.
“He says you had a few questions for me.”
“Yeah...”
Tyrone moved forward. “Let’s take a walk,” he said and gestured for me to join him.
The two of us walked away for some privacy while the others watched. When we were out of earshot he stopped.
“So your store goes up in flames and that naturally brings you to me, does it?”
“Not really. But I had to wonder...”
“You thought it was us?” Tyrone said. A smile spread across his face. “The Binford Boyz?”
“Thom told me another crew, Lion Crew, were behind the arson. A rival crew. If you’re as smart as I think you are, maybe you’ll do whatever you can to point me in the Lion Crew direction. Am I right?”
He smiled and began clapping. “Bravo, Mr Bestco.”
“Do you have any real reasons to believe the Lion Crew were responsible for the arson? Or is that what you tell gullible people like Thom, just to divert the attention away from your crew?”
Tyrone nodded but did not speak.
“So which is it?” I asked. “If the Lions really did it then I’m gonna do everything I can to fuck them but I’ll be damned if I’m gonna run around doing your dirty work.”
Tyrone scratched his bandana and squinted up at the sun beating down on us. “Oh, the Lion Crew angle is legit,” he said. “You can bet on that.”
“What makes you so sure?”
“I’ve got boys on the inside,” he said. “They fill me in. Tell me all about what the crew gets up to.” He sat down on a low wall nearby. “Let me tell you something about the Lions. Their leader, a guy named Dwayne is in prison. Dwayne’s second in command, Joe, who took over recently is an absolute nutter. And I don’t mean like he’s fronting for a rep. He’s sick in the head. When he was twelve he set his school on fire. He’s obsessed with fire.
“I can also tell you for a fact that his crew burnt down a club and a barber shop last year. Everyone knows it but is too chicken shit to do anything about it. So when I heard about the Bestco fire, I checked in on my spies. They told me Joe was playing his cards close to his chest. Everything is hush hush, know what I mean? And let’s not forget Bestco was petrol bombed the exact same way as the club and barber shop.”
It was quite a theory.
“So it’s just a matter of time before that crew crumbles and the truth comes out,” Tyrone said. “My boys have nothing to hide when it comes to Bestco. The police won’t find nothing on us and I doubt they’ll find any other crew was involved because we all know who did it.”
Tyrone waved at Flat Cap and the others, beckoning them to come over.
I turned to see Thom approaching me. He had my phone and wallet is his hands.
“Sorry about that,” he said and handed me my belongings.
“Thom can walk you out now,” Tyrone said. “Good luck and take care now.” He began walking away but paused when he passed Thom. “By the way, Thom, say hi to your sister for me, okay?”
That caught my attention and I felt myself tense up again.
“Sure,” Thom said.
“Tell her I’ll call her when I’m free,” Tyrone said, while walking away from us.
I did my best to calm my breathing.
Thom said his byes to the crew and we walked out of the estate grounds in silence.
When we were on the main road I could barely contain myself any longer and turned to face Thom. “How long has he known Chantelle?”
“Not long,” he said. “She does his hair for him.”
I was fuming at the thought of something going on between Chantelle and Tyrone and tried to get it out of mind.
“Did you find out what you wanted to know then?” Thom asked.
I thought it over.
Tyrone had no proof, just suspicions he was confident would be confirmed soon enough by the police. But that wasn’t good enough for me. The way I saw it, the police could take forever building the case against the Lion Crew.
It made me wonder of the club and barber shop arsons they had allegedly committed in Binford. Based on my internet research around local attacks on businesses I didn’t recall any gang being charged of those crimes.
So how could I expect them to be charged for the Bestco arson?
19
I made my way straight from the housing estate to the fast food shop where Sajid had said he’d meet me. I was still on edge about this reunion and hoped it would not be as awkward as I feared.
I didn’t just cut ties with Sajid because of the school riot. There was more to it than that.
In fact, I severed ties with him a full year after the school riot.
And now that Sajid had agreed to meet me after work at Chicks Chicken on Binford Lane later in the evening, I had to take everything into consideration before we met.
I doubted there was anything I could do to make up for all the years I had stayed away from him but I felt getting back in touch with him was necessary. I had no other friends left in Binford and I needed someone local to help me make sense of what I learnt surrounding the arson. There was Chantelle but I was also still working on her.
I wondered what I would say to Sajid when I met him. He had seemed his usual jovial self over the phone but meeting him in person would be different. I knew it could get uncomfortable and had to be prepared for it. He had been defending me when Elroy was stabbed and I was grateful for that but I had still severed all contact with him.
Contrary to what everyone else – families and
friends – were led to believe, Sajid’s tendencies to attract violence towards himself and anyone else who happened to be around him had little to do with what why I got away from him.
After the GCSE exams, I had considered enrolling at the school’s sixth form but did not feel too good about spending another few years at that place because of the bad memories. My parents were also concerned about the fallout from the riot and eventually it was decided that I would go to a college in another East London town.
I moved out of Binford and moved into that town too. I lived with my mother’s brother’s family. My mother thought being under my uncle’s watchful eye would help straighten me out too.
I had barely hung out with Sajid during my first year of college. We spoke over the phone every now and then but when we did meet up outside Binford the few times that we did that year, it was never for more than an hour.
I was busy with my studies and he was busy getting up to no good. Then during the summer holidays before my second year of college started I decided to take a chance and hang out with Sajid one night.
This ended up being a massive mistake and convinced me there was no place for someone like him in my life.
The night started out okay. He had recently gotten his first car and we drove out to a bowling alley and had a few good games. Then we went to the cinema and watched a dopey action film. So far so good. But then it all turned to shit during the drive back to my parent’s home, where I was staying for the weekend.
We were on the motorway and he wasn’t speeding or anything – Sajid was a good driver – but for some reason the brakes on his car failed him when the car in front came to a stop. We ended up slamming into the back of the car. The collision wasn’t extreme and neither was the damage to either car but the crash left us sore and the driver in front suffered whiplash.
She was a middle aged woman - around fifty years old - and when she stepped outside her car and we saw her I nearly shat myself, thinking we were in deep shit. Luckily she wasn’t injured much, just shaken and when we got out of the car to check she was okay, she seemed to be calm.
Sajid was very attentive to her, checking she wasn’t hurt or anything like that and reassuring her that everything would be sorted out. Once again I was impressed by how he handled a crisis in ways that were beyond me. And when the poor woman’s son showed up at the scene in his own car, Sajid’s charm worked its magic on him too.
The son was just a few years older than us and at first he was in more of a state than his mum had been. I could tell he was worried sick about his mother’s condition and when he spoke to us alone, while his mother sat in his car, he could barely hide how distraught he was.
Sajid reassured him that it would all be sorted out soon and exchanged all the necessary details with the guy. Throughout all this I was shaking in my shoes at how we had narrowly managed to avoid a fatal accident. I wondered if my parents were going to find out about it if the police got involved and worried I might have to go to court with Sajid.
When the guy left and we got back into Sajid’s car, we barely spoke for the first few minutes of the drive back home. I looked out the window and thought about how lucky we were to have survived the car accident and how unlucky we were for it to have happened in the first place.
And then I heard Sajid giggle.
I didn’t think anything of it at first but then he started up again and this time the fit of giggles escalated into full blown laughter. I stared at him wondering what the hell was wrong with him.
At first I thought it was just nerves but then I realised he was laughing at me.
“You should’ve seen your face, bre,” he said, without taking his eyes off the road.
I didn’t say anything. I just wanted to go home. And even then I was mulling it over about cutting ties with him. But whatever doubts I had about doing that vanished after what happened next.
“You don’t think they’re gonna tell the police about this, do you?”
“Nah,” he said. “Wouldn’t make a difference anyway.”
I thought nothing of that at first but then I got curious. “...Why’s that?”
“Because the car’s not legit and I gave ‘em fake details.”
For years I had tolerated Sajid’s immoral ways and his total lack of regard for others, partly because he had never let me down and I could always trust him and because he always managed to get us through whatever problems I couldn’t fix myself. But at that moment when confessed to his latest crime, I lost all respect for him.
I was so disgusted with him that I couldn’t even talk. I just stared at him.
I sat there and recalled the look on the woman’s son, how worried he had been, how he was almost in tears telling us how his mum was a vulnerable woman and I remembered how smooth Sajid’s bullshit had been, how he had convinced both mother and son that the insurance companies would sort it all out and how they shouldn’t hesitate to call him on his mobile phone number.
Sajid’s phone number was a Pay As You Go disposable number. Soon there would be no way for the woman to contact him. It also turned out that he never had car insurance and the car, which he later told me he had dumped, was never registered. To top it off he told me he was aware the brakes were fucked up before the accident. So not only had he lied to the other accident victims, but he had lied to his best friend too.
He had put my life at risk by keeping his shady ways a secret.
When he dropped me off, he waved at me with a smile before driving off like nothing had happened. It was there and then I decided I never wanted to see him again. He wasn’t safe to be around anymore.
During the years that followed, throughout my final year of college and all of university, I never called him and I assumed he realised why I had parted ways with him.
I assumed he understood and decided not to get in touch with me because I never heard from him again. That was until I reacquainted myself with Binford all these years later.
I believed we had an understanding long ago and by accepting his proposal to meet now I was about to go down a road I had hoped was behind me.
Half an hour after I arrived at the fried chicken shop, I was still waiting for Sajid arrive. I was at a table facing the window when I saw Anil enter the shop accompanied by Rishi and Vinod. It seemed as if he never went anywhere without them. Anil walked straight to the counter without looking in my direction but Rishi looked at me.
Rishi’s bloodshot eyes gave away nothing. He struck me as a cunning man, someone who wasn’t just a yes-man to validate Anil’s ego. The fact that he was roughly forty years old in my estimate - almost two decades older than Anil and me - only made it seem odder for him to be hanging around Anil so often. It was clear their relationship was a lot more than that of employer and employee. Rishi seemed to be his bodyguard.
Unlike Rishi, Vinod appeared to be less threatening and more of a lackey.
There were a lot of customers seated at tables around me and I was sure to notice this in case there was any need for witnesses. Not that I thought Anil had the balls to do anything in front of everyone present.
I watched Anil have a little talk with the guy behind the counter. The guy looked in my direction and said something to Anil. I wondered what Anil wanted.
There were over fifteen fried chicken shops on Binford Lane. If it was chicken Anil wanted, he could’ve gone to any of the ones closer to his dad’s superstore a good distance from here.
Finally, he spun around and looked at me.
“Hey, man,” I said, as if he was a long time friend instead of the bitter love rival he had been back in secondary school.
He glared at me. “What the fuck are you doing here?” he said with his teeth clenched and his arms flexed. He wore a tight fitted T-shirt again to show off his muscles but it made him look like a hobbit on steroids.
He took a few steps away from the counter but not too close to where I sat. “I don’t get it,” he said. “First I don’t see you for years and
now I see you everywhere. What’s up with that shit?”
“You know that new branch of Bestco?”
“Yeah, yeah... You were the manager or some shit, right?” He let out a chuckle.
“Something like that.” I put my feet up on the chair beside me. “Anyway, I just thought I’d have a look around this shithole of a town while I’m waiting for them to re-open it.”
“Is that right?”
“Yeah, if you want I could put in a good word for you... or Seema.”
I couldn’t stop myself.
Anil’s eyes went wide and he took a deep breath. He pointed his finger at me furiously. “Don’t you dare fucking mention her!”
That brought the noisy shop to silence with the exception of the music coming out of the speakers. Everyone stopped whatever they were doing and looked up at Anil. I could feel their eyes on me too, waiting to see my next move.
Rishi had been leaning against the counter but now came forward a little until he was almost beside Anil. I half expected them both to lunge at me there and then.
I raised my hands in the air in mock surrender. “Alright, alright.”
I felt a little bad for bringing up Seema and riling Anil. He was a dickhead but I didn’t really hate him all that much. I just felt he was annoying and wished he would just stop bothering me.
“You ever mention her or talk to her or anything ever again and I’ll fucking kill you!”
He had always been too insecure about himself and jealous of me and used every opportunity to get the upper hand when there was no need for it. It was pitiful.
I had let him get away with plenty but now that he was threatening me I had to put my foot down. It didn’t look like any of the customers were going to save me from a beating if that’s what happened next.
I stood up, reminded of how short he was and how ridiculous it had been for him to cause a scene.
“You are one dumb motherfucker,” I said. “You know that?”
Anil didn’t do anything. Neither did Vinod or Rishi. There was about five feet between me and Anil.
