Brotherhood of Blades

by Linda Regan

  Mince bravely continued to argue his case.

  ‘Let her do the running and the Fed alerts, bro, just for a bit longer. But no punters. Not yet.’

  Yo-Yo fixed his hard eyes on Mince. After a few uncomfortable seconds Michael’s gaze dropped. ‘I can’t do it to her, that’s the truth. I see her as a child still, you hear what I’m saying?’

  Everyone waited. Each of them secretly admired Mince for refusing to take the virginity of a twelve-year-old, even though Alysha looked and acted as if she was twenty-five.

  Yo-Yo dropped the spliff and ground it into the carpet. The flat belonged to Mince’s mother. She was still out after working all night in a North London massage parlour; she often wasn’t seen for days. All the same, Mince knew she would go mad when she saw the burn hole. He dug his front teeth into his bottom lip, but said nothing.

  Yo-Yo slowly unbuckled his belt, and Luanne’s glance shifted to Boot, who was trying to look cool, then to Scrap, whose eyes sparked like fireworks from the cocktail of drugs he had swallowed over the last hour. Finally she looked at the dogs, who sensed something was brewing and stood flat-eared and waiting. Just for a moment she wished she hadn’t given Jason the gun. She could have used it herself, to shoot Yo-Yo and then the dogs. As it was, she had no choice but to remain quiet.

  ‘She’s going to earn some money for me,’ Yo-Yo said, flicking angry eyes at Luanne. ‘You’ve had your orders, Mince, and you’ll be punished for disobeying, but right now . . .’ He dropped his trousers, allowing the expanse of white flab that hung over his black boxers to wobble freely. He grabbed Alysha and pulled her toward him. Her round brown eyes widened. ‘You and I are going in the bedroom,’ he told her. ‘And I’m going to show you exactly what you do to earn money from punters.’

  Alysha looked past him at Luanne, and her mouth broadened into a wide grin. ‘OK,’ she shrugged. ‘Fine by me.’

  By the time Georgia arrived at the post-mortem, Hank Peacock and Stephanie Green were already gowned up in green overalls. Georgia quickly pulled on a gown and a white mouth mask. In her hand was the report she had made on the gun they had taken from Jason Young.

  Stephanie was explaining to the exhibits officer exactly how they wanted Sally Young’s skull to be photographed: how to get the exact angle of the victim’s neck where the bullet had entered and lodged in the back of the lower cranium. If they were lucky enough to find the bullet, she told him, they would need a close-up of its resting spot.

  The sound of a zip being drawn back took their attention. Sam, Phoebe Aston’s assistant, opened the body bag and revealed the corpse. Sam picked up the cutting knife and handed it to Phoebe.

  Phoebe traced a clean cut in the waxy skin from the base of the throat down to the groin. She used the same knife to slice open the base of Sally’s neck. Then lifting the greying skin she peeled back the chest area, almost like opening a book.

  The removal of the heart and lungs took only seconds, and while Sam took them away to be weighed, Phoebe opened the top of the head with an electric saw and removed the brain. Sam took it away, and the exhibits officer moved in to photograph the inside of the skull. Sam returned, and shone a torch inside the open head.

  ‘There,’ he said, flicking his eyes towards Phoebe. The camera flashed busily, and Phoebe picked up a pair of tweezers. With great care she lifted out a bullet, which dropped with a chink into a dish which Sam lifted like an offering for the photographer.

  It reminded Georgia of childhood Christmases; she thought she was the luckiest child in the world when she found a sixpence in a Christmas pudding and made a wish over it. Now she reached into her overall pocket for the peppermints she had brought to keep her stomach in check.

  Stephanie took the bullet into the light to examine it. Georgia took the opportunity to lift her mask and pop a peppermint discreetly into her mouth. She sucked hard until the cool scent flooded her nose and the rancid taste of bile slid back down her throat.

  ‘It’s a .38,’ Stephanie said, wiping her soiled rubber glove on the side of her overall. The woman had a constitution stronger than a rhinoceros, Georgia thought, half admiring, half envious.

  ‘We’ve got him,’ Stephanie said. ‘It’s a match to the .38 handgun. This’ll put Young away for a long time.’

  ‘It was trapped in the cerebral nerves and blocked the blood to the brain,’ Phoebe told them. ‘That was what killed her.’

  Georgia had the gun with her. She carefully lifted it from its plastic bag, and held it out for Stephanie to match the bullet to it.

  The sounds and smells as the mortuary assistants sluiced away the blood and debris threatened Georgia’s composure again. Another peppermint came to the rescue, and as she crunched, she silently cursed the dentist’s bill that was surely on its way.

  Stephanie had finished examining the gun. She nodded and grinned. ‘The scoring matches,’ she said with conviction. ‘That’s the gun that killed Sally Young.’

  Back in the interview room, Dawes and Georgia faced Jason Young again.

  ‘It’s been confirmed that the bullet that killed your gran came from the gun we found in your possession,’ Dawes told him.

  Jason visibly paled.

  ‘Are you still saying you’ve been set up?’ Georgia asked, studying him carefully.

  He nodded slowly.

  ‘If you love your gran and Chantelle, as you say,’ Dawes said to him, ‘surely you’ll want the right people to pay for their crime. Help us nail them and we’ll help you.’

  Jason said nothing.

  Georgia let out a long breath. ‘Jason, you’re nineteen. At the moment you’re looking at a very long stretch. When you come out this time you’ll be too old to dance!’

  That hit a spot. He lifted his eyebrows and swallowed hard, but still said nothing.

  Dawes held up the report from the forensic lab, hot off the fax machine. ‘We can also prove that the knife we found in your possession was the one that killed Haley Gulati. So if this was a set-up, talk to us. We’re all ears.’

  Jason leaned towards him. ‘You don’t get it, do you? If I grass up Reilly, and he comes after me, fine.’ He held Dawes’ eyes. ‘But he won’t, he’ll hurt Chantelle again.’

  ‘He won’t get a chance. We’ll lock him away.’

  ‘What about the carrying charge? I’ll go down for that anyway.’

  ‘We’ll talk to the CPS on your behalf. Especially if you help us put the rest of the Brotherhood away too. Then you can get away and prove it’s possible for an estate kid to go straight.’

  Jason closed his eyes. He was thinking about it. Georgia looked at Dawes.

  There was a knock on the door and a blonde WPC put her head around it. ‘Sorry to disturb you, ma’am,’ she said. ‘It’s very important.’

  Georgia was back in less than a minute. ‘Jason,’ she said. ‘I’m sorry to tell you Chantelle has just died.’

  The colour seemed to drain out of his light brown skin before her eyes. His forehead crumpled and his head slowly shook from side to side. Then tears welled and tumbled. He wiped them away on the ragged grey cuff of his grubby sweatshirt, but they kept on pouring down his face.

  ‘No!’ he said softly. Then, ‘No! No! No!’ His voice rose to a scream and he banged his fists on the table over and over again.

  ‘Talk to us,’ David Dawes said.

  ‘She was my girl.’

  ‘So tell us who killed her.’

  Suddenly words flooded from his mouth, through tears and rage. ‘I’m gonna tear that bastard limb from fucking limb. He set me up with that gun. But you know what?’ His curled fist crashed down on the table and snot flew from his nose. ‘It don’t matter. Nothing matters no more.’ He looked Georgia in the face and was suddenly still. ‘You know what? It’ll be me next. But he can bring it on. I don’t care about nothin’ no more.’

  Clive Bury turned his face away in embarrassment. Georgia and Dawes waited patiently for Jason to cry himself out.

  After several min
utes the storm of tears abated and Jason spoke. ‘Is Luanne OK? And Alysha? Are they all right?’

  ‘Luanne’s got a broken arm and a swollen face, but she’ll be OK,’ Georgia told him. ‘Alysha’s just fine.’

  ‘For now,’ Dawes added. ‘Help us, Jason. Help us to put Reilly away.’

  Jason’s nod was barely perceptible.

  ‘OK. Tell us everything you know.’

  Georgia took a clean tissue out of her trouser pocket and handed it to Jason. He wiped his face and blew his nose, then began hesitantly, ‘Reilly’s known as Yo-Yo. He runs the Brotherhood. His lieutenants are Michael Delahaye, known as Mince, Dwayne Ripley, known as Boot, and Winston Mitchell, known as Scrap.’

  ‘We know all that,’ Dawes said irritably. ‘We need to know what you know about the killings.’

  ‘Like what?’ Jason asked, a note of desperation in his voice.

  ‘We need a witness who will tell us he killed Haley and Chantelle, and your gran – or at least that he authorized it,’ Georgia told him.

  ‘I saw them stab Haley,’ Jason said uncertainly.

  Georgia tensed, and glanced at the recording machine to check it was still running. ‘Go on,’ she said quietly.

  ‘They were raping her.’ He lowered his eyes. ‘I didn’t like her, but I . . .’ His breath whistled between his teeth. ‘It was wrong, disgusting, and there was nothing I could do. There were four of them.’

  ‘Four?’ Georgia asked. ‘Who?’

  ‘I can’t say for sure, except for Yo-Yo. The others all had their hoods up.’ He shrugged. ‘But Reilly didn’t dig Haley. He never does the business himself, he keeps his own hands clean. I saw him give the word to one of them to do it. I watched it all, and I watched one of them shank her.’ His eyebrows almost met. ‘I couldn’t do nothing. They’d have done me.’

  He fell silent. ‘Go on,’ Georgia persuaded.

  ‘Suddenly she was on the ground. I had to put my hand over my mouth to stop myself crying out. I knew they’d dug her, but she was making a noise, so it didn’t look too bad. They all legged it. I stood there, trying to think what to do, then one of them came back, and dug her again, then again.’ He looked at Georgia. ‘I had to listen to her scream. I couldn’t do nothing to help her. I waited again, a bit longer, until I knew it was safe. I was praying, that they hadn’t done Chantelle first, that Chantelle was alive.’ He looked Georgia in the eye. ‘I hated Haley, but I wouldn’t kill her.’ He gave a shuddering sigh. ‘When it was safe, I ran over to her. She had no pulse, and there was blood all around and some still coming out of her belly where they’d shanked her. I was going to give her that mouth-to-mouth, that’s how I got her blood all over me, then her body started jerking. I took my sweatshirt off and held it over the wound, really tight like, but there was too much blood and I knew she wasn’t going to make it. No one was around, and I didn’t want to use my own phone, so I ran to the phone box and called 999. I asked for an ambulance and the police, then I ran up to tell Chantelle. We both went down to her, but she was dead.’

  Tears began to run down his face again, but he swallowed them back and continued. ‘Chantelle told me to leg it, and she’d take care of it. I told her I saw Yo-Yo give the word on it. That’s why she told you it was his handprint in the blood on her door. It wasn’t him that shanked her, but he did order it.’ He wiped his face with the back of his hand again. ‘I told Chantelle about the scholarship, that I’d come to get her and take her away with me. She said she’d sort all this first, then come and find me.’ He gulped and dashed his hand across his eyes. ‘I shouldn’t have left her. I should have made her come with me.’

  He fell silent again, and sat with his hands clenched in his lap, staring into space.

  ‘What about the knife?’ Georgia asked him.

  He raised his eyes and looked at her as if he’d forgotten who she was. ‘I found it near Haley’s body.’

  ‘And the gun,’ she added.

  ‘The gun? Oh yeah. I asked someone to get me a gun. So I could go after Yo-Yo. He had Chantelle beaten and I was going to kill him.’ He took a deep breath and seemed to collect himself. ‘That was how he set me up. The gun I picked up was the one that was used to kill Gran Sals.’

  ‘Who did you ask to get the gun for you?’ Georgia asked him.

  He shook his head, and for a moment she thought he wouldn’t answer. Then, ‘Luanne. She’d taken a beating too and wanted Yo-Yo paid back. It wasn’t her fault; she didn’t even know. She’s terrified of him. I told her to leave it in the shed.’ He looked up. ‘I’d never hurt my gran, I swear to you.’

  The silence when Jason stopped speaking was almost tangible. Georgia reached across to the recording machine. ‘Interview terminated at three twenty-five p.m. Jason, we’re going to give you some time with your solicitor.’ She looked at Dawes and jerked her head towards the door. ‘Thank you for your cooperation.’

  She stood up and left the interview room, with Dawes close behind.

  He struggled to keep up as she walked rapidly up the corridor. She said nothing until they reached her office; as the door swung shut behind them she turned to face him.

  ‘He’s giving us Stuart Reilly. Do we believe him?’ she asked Dawes.

  ‘I do,’ Dawes said. ‘But let’s make absolutely sure.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘Send Young into the lion’s den.’

  ‘OK,’ Dawes said, back in the interview room half an hour later. ‘This is the deal. You’re going back to the estate, as if we couldn’t find anything to hold you on. You’re going to find Reilly, and you’re going to make him talk. You’ll be wired, and we’ll be close by. We need him to tell you which of his gang stabbed Haley Gulati and who shot your gran, and who gave Chantelle that beating, and we need to hear him admit he was behind it. No need to tell him Chantelle’s died; we’ll keep that until we have him in custody.’

  Jason gasped and screwed his eyes shut. Dawes gave him a moment before continuing.

  ‘If we get what we need on tape, we’ll tell the CPS it was all down to you, explain why you were carrying and push hard for a suspended sentence. Then you can leave the estate, and take up your scholarship. We can even put you under witness protection and change your identity. But you have to help us put Reilly away first.’

  ‘Everyone says it’s impossible,’ Georgia told him. ‘You said so yourself. But it’s within sight, Jason. You can get away and start fresh.’

  Jason shook his head and looked at the floor.

  ‘Do it for Chantelle,’ Georgia urged. ‘Don’t let her die in vain.’

  ‘Think what you’d be doing for the estate. The Brotherhood will be locked up. The residents can live without fear in their own homes, and you’ll be a hero. At least Chantelle and your gran won’t have died for nothing.’

  Jason lifted his hands in the air. ‘Where are you living, man? Are you in Wonderland or something? If you put the Elders away, their Youngers will take over. You ain’t never gonna stop gang rule. The gangs are bigger than the Feds.’

  ‘No gang is bigger than the Feds,’ David Dawes snapped.

  ‘Man, I wouldn’t take your money on that!’

  ‘All right,’ Georgia said, trying to keep things calm. ‘For Chantelle and your gran, then. Help us get their killers.’

  Jason raised his hands again, palms outward. ‘OK. Makes no odds now, they’ll get me anyway.’ His eyes looked old and sad. ‘It’s how it goes in my world – a bullet, a blade or drugs, or the nick. No one grows old.’

  ‘Be the exception.’ Georgia said. ‘Give the young ones some hope for their future. Be a role model.’

  Jason narrowed his eyes. She waited for him to speak, but he said nothing.

  FIFTEEN

  Jason stepped out of the unmarked police car a few hundred yards from the Aviary estate. He put his hand up to check the tiny mike in his ear. Georgia’s voice came through it loud and clear, making him jump. ‘Keep your hand away from your ear.’

  ‘Can you
hear me?’ he muttered.

  ‘We’re watching your every move.’

  Jason nodded.

  ‘No, don’t nod. Don’t do anything someone might notice. Just walk on down the road and on to the estate, and don’t talk to us again. If you so much as fart we’ll hear you.’

  Jason began to walk. He would have preferred to blow Yo-Yo’s brains out himself, then piss on them as they spilled on the ground. He wouldn’t even mind doing the lump for it, after what Reilly had done to Chantelle. This way the Feds would get Reilly, and the bastard wouldn’t die. With luck, he’d get his face slashed a few times, or his head plunged into boiling water in the slammer. Best of all, he wouldn’t be top dog and he wouldn’t call any shots. In a way that was more satisfying. And the Aviary would be way better off without him.

  Sure, a new gang leader would come up and take over, but maybe it would be someone who looked out for the kids and the older residents, not another who used and abused them.

  Jason himself would be free to take up his scholarship and pursue his dream. What was left of the Brotherhood would never find him, not with the new name the Feds had promised him. And if the CPS agreed on a deal for the carrying charge, his story would be told over and over for years to come, as proof to the estate kids that drugs and weapons weren’t the only way. Maybe sometime he could come back and teach the Youngers to dance.

  But without Chantelle. He swallowed the lump in his throat.

  He looked down at the needles and used condoms, discarded among polystyrene food containers and empty drink cans strewn around the rundown garages. As a kid he used to ferret through those containers for bits of food. No wonder he started thieving. His mum never meant him to go hungry; it was just what happened when drugs took a hold. He remembered the way the dealers banged on the front door when she owed them money. They would hide, shaking, under the table as the heavies kicked the door in and dragged her out to beat her senseless. He used to wet himself with fear.