Brotherhood of Blades

by Linda Regan

  ‘That sister of yours wants to earn, and sure as fuck she’s gonna make me some money. She was begging Mince to give her one yesterday.’ He moved in on her again, and she smelled stale sweat and yesterday’s alcohol. ‘You should be thanking me. I’ve let Mince to do the honours. I usually take care of the pretty ones myself.’ He stroked her braided hair. ‘We want her to like it, see.’ His hands tightened around her braids and tugged them spitefully, pulling her head back. She was used to being hurt, and had learned not to show pain or fear. Bitter experience had taught her that was Yo-Yo’s weakness; fear and pain in a woman’s eyes made him wild with sexual desire.

  ‘There’s a lot of bastards out there with big wads of money,’ he said. ‘Those that like ’em young. Very young.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said turning her head away and dragging hard on the spliff.

  Yo-Yo snatched it from her and passed it to Boot. He pushed Luanne aside, yanked his dogs by their choke chains and went to hammer on Mince’s door.

  ‘Just give them a bit more time,’ Luanne pleaded.

  The clout seemed to come from nowhere. The side of her head jolted against the wall and pain exploded inside it.

  ‘Fucking don’t tell me what to do!’ he spat at her, turning back and aiming a kick at the door. The dogs burst into a terrifying chorus of ferocious barking. Luanne again felt warm urine run down the inside of her leg.

  A couple of seconds later Mince’s face appeared around the door. ‘What’s up?’ he asked.

  Yo-Yo pushed past him, followed by Boot and then Scrap. Luanne was left on the path, her good hand nursing her newly swollen lip. She thought of Chantelle, and almost started to cry, but she took hold of herself. Her sister needed her. She followed them into the flat.

  Jason Young sat bolt upright in his chair, opposite Georgia and David Dawes. Beside him was Clive Bury, the duty solicitor. Bury suffered from dust allergies, a problem which irritated the hell out of all the detectives he worked with. Interview recordings were often ruined because his incessant sneezing or nose blowing obscured vital evidence. Georgia used his presence on the duty roster as a way to ensure the custody suite was properly cleaned, but Stephanie had no patience with him. This morning he sat next to his client with a large maroon and white handkerchief protruding from his cuff and the usual jaded expression across his face.

  David Dawes placed the transparent evidence bag containing the handgun on the table in front of Jason, next to another containing the knife found in his sock. Both had undergone intensive forensic testing, and the police were only waiting on the results before charging him.

  Those results could take another day or more. During the morning meeting Georgia had suggested they push for a confession from Jason. Dawes had still insisted that Reilly was behind it all, which to Georgia seemed irritatingly pointless. They had caught Jason Young red-handed with the weapon; what they needed was for him to tell them why he killed his gran.

  She had asked Dawes in front of the full murder squad if his vendetta against Reilly was personal. Dawes had looked furious, but refused to be beaten down. Everything that happened on that estate, he maintained, had Yo-Yo Reilly behind it; no one dared cross him. He studied this gang and knew everything about them. Georgia pointed out that before Jason Young went down he had been the one who ruled the estate; now he was out, it was highly possible he was going to claim back his turf.

  Their job, she reminded Dawes, wasn’t to clean up the streets of South London, but to solve a fatal stabbing, a cold-blooded shooting, and an attack, which looked as if it was about to turn into yet another murder. And though she wholeheartedly agreed that getting Reilly off the streets would prevent further crime, their current energies should be focused on these murders. She suggested that Dawes ask himself whether his determination to take Reilly down might be clouding his judgement.

  Dawes had come straight back at her. He had been called in to give them the benefit of his expertise about the gangs, and that was what he was doing. His instinct still told him Reilly was behind all the recent trouble. Maybe he had even done it to set Young up.

  That was when Georgia had given up. ‘OK,’ she’d told him. ‘Let’s try for a confession from Young, and see where that leads us.’

  Dawes leaned back in his chair and studied Jason. The boy certainly had motive for stabbing Haley Gulati, and there was no doubt that he was capable of shooting anyone, including his grandma; he had just finished a stretch for armed robbery. But why? Why would he shoot his own gran?

  Jason claimed that the first he knew about the attack on Sally Young was when he was arrested. He had a gun, and had been planning to use it, but he hadn’t fired it. He admitted that he had fully intended to shoot Reilly, because the Brotherhood had put Chantelle in hospital. But he would rather kill himself than his gran.

  He hadn’t had a chance to shave, yet the stubble around his cheeks was faint; but his eyes looked as if they had seen the beginning of time. It was hard to believe he was only nineteen-years-old. The whites of his eyes were clear: evidence that though he had dealt drugs, he wasn’t a user. Dawes thought of his own sister Philly; her hollowed cheeks and sunken eyes had made her look twenty-years-older than her age. It wasn’t until after she died that Dawes discovered she had been using for four years. A whole family of police officers and no one had noticed; they were all too busy helping other people to hear one of their own cry out for help.

  Her premature death had broken his parents. His father had taken early retirement and now spent his days growing vegetables, and his mother barely spoke. Dawes couldn’t remember seeing either of them smile since before Philly died.

  He had traced the heroin that killed her to the Aviary estate. Jason Young was about to go down when it happened; so it was possible he had sold her the heroin that killed her, but it was more likely to be Yo-Yo Reilly who by then had taken over Young’s patch.

  Sitting opposite Jason Young, Dawes realized he might never know for sure which of the two sold his sister her death sentence.

  The boy clenched his fingers into a fist and placed them on the table in front of him, his whole body tense.

  ‘Do you want to tell us why you shot your gran?’ Dawes asked him.

  ‘I’ve been set up. I didn’t shoot my gran.’ He looked up. ‘Why would I shoot my gran?’

  ‘You tell us,’ Georgia said.

  Jason’s fingers splayed, stiff and wide as if they had been spray-starched. His hand cradled his cheek again. He looked at Dawes, then at Georgia, and spoke quietly.

  ‘I’ve done a lot of bad things, but believe it or not, I had given up all that. I was trying to move on.’ He leaned forward. ‘I had a chance to move on. I had a dance scholarship. But I’ve screwed up.’ He took two quick breaths. ‘It’s not a crime to love someone.’ He looked Georgia in the eye. ‘I love Chantelle. I gave up my chance to get away because of what Reilly did to her. I came back to kill him for it. But that’s what he wanted me to do, I see it now. He set me up. Believe me. Please.’

  ‘Give me one good reason to believe you,’ Georgia said. ‘You had a knife and a gun when we picked you up. Why would we believe it’s a coincidence that we’ve been looking for a knife of that size and a .38 pistol? The weapons that killed Haley Gulati and your gran?’

  Dawes interrupted. ‘Why would Reilly set you up?’

  Jason didn’t answer.

  ‘Then you’ll go down for them both,’ Dawes said matter-of-factly. ‘With your record, you’re looking at two lifes, with no parole.’

  There were tears in Jason’s eyes. ‘I had a chance. I had a scholarship to a dance school. Why would I give that up to kill Chantelle’s aunt? And why would I kill my gran?’

  ‘You tell us,’ said Georgia.

  Jason looked at Clive Bury. The lawyer’s face remained as blank as ever.

  ‘I might have known it was too good to come true.’ His voice cracked. ‘If you come from down there, no one lets you go straight. No one ever gives you a chance.’ H
e looked Georgia in the eye again. ‘We were going to give it a go, me and Chantelle, give up all the shit and move on.’

  Georgia stared at him for several seconds. ‘Where did you get the gun?’ she asked.

  He chewed the inside of his cheek nervously. ‘I found it in the bin by the shed.’

  ‘Convenient,’ Dawes said, raising his eyebrows.

  Jason lowered his head. ‘Reilly set me up.’

  ‘What about the knife you had in your sock?’ Georgia asked. ‘The same size as the one that killed Haley Gulati?’

  ‘I didn’t kill her.’

  ‘Your DNA was found in the blood on Chantelle’s door,’ Georgia reminded him.

  ‘I found Haley’s body. I touched her, so I knew I’d left a trace and that you’d pull me for it, so I went to tell Chantelle and then I legged it. I called you guys too, from the phone box by the alleyway.’

  Georgia let out an exasperated sigh. ‘So where did you get the knife?’ she repeated.

  He pressed his lips into a thin line. ‘Someone gave it to me. That’s all I’m saying.’

  Dawes was losing his patience. ‘You’ll have to do better than that. Who gave it to you? And if you’d decided to go straight, why did you need a knife at all?’

  ‘I was on my way up west. I was going to keep my head down till I started at dance school.’ He looked at Georgia and Dawes. ‘Have you ever slept rough on the streets?’ They didn’t answer. ‘I didn’t think so. It’s tough out there. Street gangs patrol their patches. I was walking through their territories. I needed a shank for protection.’

  ‘It’s an offence to carry a weapon,’ Dawes reminded him.

  ‘Where did you get the knife?’ Georgia again.

  He scratched his neck. ‘I had to have protection . . .’

  ‘Where did you get it?’ Dawes almost shouted.

  ‘OK, OK! I found it, right?’

  ‘Found it where?’

  ‘At the side of the alleyway.’

  Dawes leaned back, breathing hard. Georgia tried to catch his eye. This was hard; she and Dawes weren’t in tune the way she was with Stephanie. He tipped his head to one side; she took it as a signal to take over while he collected himself.

  ‘Jason, you’ve told us you were there when Haley was killed, and when we arrested you, you had the knife,’ she said. ‘Why don’t you make it easier for yourself? Admit you killed Haley Gulati.’

  ‘I didn’t.’

  ‘And your gran found out, so you killed her too. That’s what happened, isn’t it?’’

  ‘No!’ Jason half rose from his chair, and sank back when the solicitor put out a restraining hand. ‘I didn’t even know my gran was dead till your man told me. I’m telling you, I’ve been set-up.’

  Georgia pushed on. ‘So how did you get Haley’s blood on your hands?’

  ‘He stabbed her because she grassed him up and got him sent to Wandsworth,’ Dawes said wearily. ‘He found out she was a grass while he was inside, and decided to get even.’ A curl of scorn crept in. ‘Before he left to go up west. To be a dancer.’

  Jason’s fist thumped on the table. ‘No! I didn’t like Haley, but she was Chantelle’s aunt.’ He swallowed hard. ‘I’ve been set-up. I have. Only way out of that estate is in a box.’

  ‘How?’ David Dawes’s eyes bored into Jason’s. ‘How did Reilly set you up?’

  Desperate words began to pour out of Jason’s mouth. ‘I’ve been bad. I know I have. I ran the estate, I dealt drugs, I took all the profits. Everything that went down was on my say-so.’

  Dawes held his breath.

  ‘But I’ve learned my lesson. Prison ain’t no place to be. I was never going back. Me and Chantelle, we were going away together. My probation officer helped me. We were going to start over, live clean and good like ordinary folks. But if you’re an estate kid that ain’t going to happen. I’m telling you the truth here, man.’

  Now even Clive Bury was listening.

  ‘We were so young when it all started, we just wanted what other kids had. DVDs, trainers, phones. We did bad things to get them.’ He blinked. ‘We’ve paid the price for it. Joker, one of my tribe, got shot in the eyes. Pots had his balls – sorry, miss, testicles – cut off by a North London gang when he went over that way to see a girl he’d met. That’s how it is out there. It’s a jungle. That’s why I took a shank when I went up west. To stay alive. I swear to you.’ His eyes fixed on Georgia. ‘Don’t put me back inside for that. Please.’

  Georgia held his eyes. ‘Chantelle is in hospital, unconscious, fighting for her life.’

  He covered his face with his hands. ‘And I couldn’t get to see her because the hospital is surrounded by Feds. Then I heard Alysha was missing.’ His hands dropped into his lap. ‘I was going to kill Reilly. I would have shot him for what he’s done to her.’

  ‘Who got you the gun?’ David Dawes asked quickly.

  He shook his head. ‘I ain’t a grass.’

  ‘Not even to prove your innocence?’ said Georgia.

  His head moved more vigorously. ‘You know as well as I do, I’d be killed if I told you.’

  ‘If you’d kill Reilly for her, surely you’d grass him up for her?’ Dawes argued. ‘If he killed Haley and your gran, you can help us send him down. If you found Haley then I think you saw who killed her.’

  Jason chewed his lip.

  ‘It was Reilly, wasn’t it?’

  There was no reply, and Dawes went on, ‘If you’re innocent, prove it by telling us what you saw. And we’ll see if the CPS will go easy on the firearm charge.’ He paused and held Jason’s eyes. ‘That carries a five year custodial for starters.’

  ‘But if you lie to us,’ Georgia chipped in, ‘I’ll make sure you go down for a very, very long time.’

  ‘You just said it yourself,’ Dawes pressed. ‘It’s hard if you grow up somewhere like the Aviary. This scholarship you talk about is a chance to move on. If you really are innocent, and you help us, we’ll help you in return. You have my word.’

  ‘Things aren’t looking good for you,’ Georgia told him. ‘If you saw who stabbed Haley, you need to help us put them away.’

  Jason looked away and bit down hard on his bottom lip.

  ‘You said you love Chantelle,’ Georgia added. ‘Do this for her.’

  Jason rubbed his mouth. ‘I can’t. I ain’t a grass.’

  ‘Yes, you can. Then you can get away, and start over.’

  Jason flicked his eyes up. ‘Where I come from no one gets away.’

  ‘What do you think?’ Dawes asked Georgia as they walked back along the corridor to the investigation room.

  ‘I think he could be lying,’ Georgia said, ‘but if he is, he’s good at it. If they find a bullet at the post-mortem this morning, and it matches his gun, we can charge him with murder. His DNA in the blood on Chantelle’s wall will put him in the frame for Haley’s murder too, but it isn’t sound. That could go either way.’ She looked at Dawes uncertainly. ‘But what if he is telling the truth. What if has been set-up?’

  ‘We’ll keep pushing him,’ Dawes said. ‘He may give us Reilly.’

  Georgia stopped walking. ‘He may also be lying,’ she reminded him. ‘We’ll know more when we get ballistics report.’

  ‘That will only confirm the bullet and the gun. We’re nearly sure the bullet came from the gun we took from Young, but it’s possible that he did find it by the shed after someone else had shot Sally Young. The shed is next to Sally’s block. But if Young doesn’t tell us what he saw, he’ll go down for Haley Gulati. And those girls are too afraid to give evidence against Yo-Yo Reilly. All we can do is keep pushing Young. Offer to speak up for him with the CPS and he might even give us Reilly’s drug supplier too.’

  ‘This isn’t about drugs. For the moment let’s concentrate on getting the right murderer,’ Georgia retorted.

  ‘Agreed,’ Dawes said, a little too quickly.

  ‘You really want Reilly, don’t you? Is there something you aren’t te
lling me?’

  Dawes looked at her speculatively. ‘You don’t know the story?’

  ‘What story?’

  ‘I’ll tell you over a celebration drink, just the two of us, when we’ve got him.’

  Georgia was stunned. Was Dawes making a pass at her? She never went on dates with colleagues, but this time she actually felt tempted.

  Not enough to create bad feeling with Stephanie, though. She didn’t reply.

  Yo-Yo stormed into Mince’s living room shouting, ‘What’s going down?’

  Alysha jumped up from the sofa, a can of Red Bull in her hand. Mince was sitting on the floor. ‘Nothing, man, nothing’s going down. How ya doing?’ he answered, scrambling to his feet. He read the expression on Yo-Yo’s face and terror crept into his eyes.

  Luanne stood in the hallway trying to keep her distance from the snarling dogs. ‘I’ve told him the truth,’ she shouted over Yo-Yo’s shoulder.

  Yo-Yo took a drag on the spliff he was holding. It was common knowledge that Yo-Yo always smoked a joint before he hurt someone. And Mince had disobeyed his leader’s order.

  Mince swallowed hard.

  Luanne felt a kind of respect for Mince, though she couldn’t see why taking Alysha’s virginity was such a big deal. The sooner Alysha lost her cherry and got out and started earning, the easier life would be for the two of them. Hers had gone when she was ten; everything you had was an asset to earn with. It was like Jason always used to say: you did what you could to survive round here, and the only way out was in a box. Jason was just dreaming if he’d started to think any different.

  ‘I couldn’t do it,’ Mince said in a pathetic voice. His almond-shaped brown eyes threw an appeal to Luanne. ‘She’s twelve years old, you hear what I’m saying?’

  ‘You heard what Yo-Yo said, innit?’ came the angry reply from Scrap.

  ‘I heard, I heard, but she’s a kid, man. She’s a good Younger, and a good look-out when the Feds come, but she ain’t ready for the streets.’

  Luanne watched Yo-Yo raise his hand and wipe his sausage-like fingers across his mouth. Everyone knew those signs. No one in the Brotherhood was allowed an opinion of their own. Anyone that had one got hurt. Usually Yo-Yo would make one of the other Brotherhood damage the offender. That was his way of reminding them who ran things.