Brotherhood of Blades (28 page)

‘The FME told him his stab wounds would heal, and he’d still be able to dance,’ Stephanie said thoughtfully. ‘And you know what? He cried.’

But Georgia had stopped listening. ‘When did Alysha tell Jason that Reilly had sex with her?’

‘This morning,’ Stephanie said.

‘Jason went round there late this morning. We heard him on the wire. He said she looked a mess. Her clothes were dirty.’

Stephanie jumped up. ‘And she’s still at the hospital with Michael Delahaye.’

‘So she probably hasn’t changed out of those clothes. If we can get them to forensics, we’ve got Reilly for sex with a minor whether she admits it or not. Come on, let’s go.’

‘Where are the two girls who came with him?’ Georgia asked the uniformed officer guarding Michael Delahaye.

‘The doctor told them to go home. He’s going to be OK, and they looked pretty exhausted. They said they’d come back in the morning.’

Georgia threw Stephanie a desperate look.

‘How were they getting home?’ the sergeant demanded.

‘They didn’t say.’

‘They must have taken the night bus. They probably haven’t got there yet. We’re still in with a chance.’

It was one in the morning when Georgia and Stephanie raced into the Aviary estate. Lights were on all over the blocks. It had been a long and eventful day.

Stephanie drove right into the estate and parked by the back stairs to the Sparrow block. The lift wasn’t working. They ran up the thirteen flights of stairs and banged on the door. A few seconds later Alysha’s nervous face appeared.

‘Sorry to disturb you,’ Georgia said gently. ‘I need to talk to you again. Can we come in?’

Alysha hesitated, but opened the door. Georgia and Stephanie exchanged a glance. Alysha was wearing grey pyjamas and slippers, and for once she looked her age.

Georgia said a silent prayer that she hadn’t had a bath or washed her clothes.

‘We need to ask you some more questions,’ Georgia said.

Alysha rolled her eyes, and the kid with attitude was back. ‘I already told you all I know.’

‘Stuart Reilly is in custody,’ Stephanie coaxed. ‘If we have our way he won’t get bail. He can’t hurt you. And if you’re honest with us we can make sure he goes to prison.’

‘What for?’ Suddenly she was terrified again. ‘He ain’t done nothing. I told you, I was winding you up when I said he stuffed me.’

They needed an adult present before they could use anything Alysha said. ‘Is Luanne around?’ Georgia asked.

‘She’s in the shower,’ Alysha said with a bored sigh.

They could hear the water running. ‘Alysha, have you had a shower?’ Stephanie asked.

‘Course I have. I was mingin’ after all that stuff before.’

‘Where are the clothes you were wearing today?’ Georgia asked quickly.

There was a pause, and Alysha looked at them speculatively. ‘In the washing machine. They were covered in Michael’s blood.’

Georgia closed her eyes. Too many TV cop shows, that was the trouble. The kid clearly wasn’t going to cooperate.

‘What about your underwear?’ Stephanie asked.

‘That too.’

The door opened at the end of the hall and Luanne appeared wrapped in a towel. The bruises on her face were subsiding, and the bandage was gone from her arm. Her forearm was red and swollen, but not because someone had beaten her up. On the angry red skin was a new tattoo – a knife with the letters BB written across it. There was a new cut beside it, from the blood ritual. To be accepted into the Brotherhood of Blades as a member of the gang meant the newcomer had to mix their blood with the blood of the other gang members.

Luanne’s fearful face spoke volumes.

As Stephanie stepped forward to grab her, she darted past them quick as lightning, out of the door, around the next flat and on to the fire escape. Alysha was right behind her, through the door before Stephanie could catch her. Georgia gave chase as Steph called for back-up.

Georgia followed them up the stairs. She dashed up the last flight and found herself on the roof of the high-rise. Luanne was standing there, with Alysha beside her.

Footsteps thudded behind Georgia. A team of uniformed officers from the grounds below had arrived at the top of the staircase.

‘Stay back,’ Georgia shouted to them, taking two steps towards Luanne.

Luanne moved nearer the edge of the roof. ‘Tell them to get away from me, or we’re going over,’ she yelled.

A gust of wind made Georgia sway. Luanne had no shoes; all she had on was the towel. Alysha, in her pyjamas, huddled about a foot away from her, terrified.

One of the uniforms stepped forward and Georgia quickly ordered them all to stay back. They retreated to the stairs.

Stephanie moved across the roof and stood in the middle, leaning against the chimney stack. Georgia edged a little closer to the girls. The wind whipped around them, strong enough to knock any of them off balance.

Alysha and Luanne were now dangerously close to the edge.

‘Talk to me, Luanne,’ Georgia spoke over the gusting wind. ‘Why have you joined Reilly’s gang?’

Luanne reached out and pulled Alysha to her. Alysha shrieked. The tough, streetwise girl had disappeared, leaving in her place a frightened child.

‘Come one step nearer and I’ll jump and take her with me,’ Luanne shouted.

‘Don’t!’ she pleaded to Luanne. ‘Please, Luanne.’

‘Mince’ll look after you,’ Luanne shouted to Alysha. She released her hold on her sister and inched toward the edge of the roof.

‘Luanne, please don’t do anything silly!’ Georgia had to shout very loudly over the noise of the wind.

‘What is it they say?’ Luanne said, her voice now trembling. ‘Either you die from drugs or the Feds get you, but you never get out of this crumby estate. Well, I’m getting out.’

Forensics had run more tests on the gun and it was now found to be the one that had been used for an armed robbery – the armed robbery that had put Jason Young in Wandsworth. The gun hadn’t surfaced until now; it looked as if Young had hidden it, and retrieved it when he got out.

Dawes decided to interview Jason Young.

Once Jason began to talk it was as if he couldn’t stop. Yo-Yo had been his rival Elder on the estate, he said. Every time Jason landed a prison sentence, Yo-Yo took over his drug business, but when Jason came out his customers came back to him, because he was fair to them and didn’t sell dodgy gear – something Yo-Yo was famous for.

Dawes’s ears pricked up.

In prison this last time, Jason told him, he had heard about a girl who died from Yo-Yo’s dodgy heroin. It turned out the girl’s name was Philippa, and her older brother was a Fed.

Dawes felt as if he had been hit by a train.

‘That girl . . .’ Jason said to him, ‘she got to me, man. Not because she was a Fed’s sister but because of what had happened to her. Yo had fed her a bad hit, and killed her.’ He shook his head. ‘That started me thinking ’bout what I was doing. I wasn’t up for killing innocent kids. That decided me I wasn’t never gonna sell again. I talked to this probation officer, and I told him I didn’t want no more to do with drugs and that. I told him about the dancing, and how it made me feel. That when I danced, I came alive and it was all different, I was in another world and I wanted to be there and not do any of the bad stuff any more. He got me this, what you call it, an audition for a dance school. The place was called the Sylvia Young Stage School. I told them I didn’t have no money to pay for lessons, but I musta done good at that audition thing, cos they said I could have a scholarship, and that would pay for everything.’

‘You know this for certain, do you?’ Dawes put his hands on the table and gazed intensely into Jason’s eyes. ‘This is really important, Jason. Are you absolutely certain that Reilly fed dodgy heroin to this Philippa.’

Jason nodded. ‘That’s the word around the estate. But no one would ever say nothing. Everyone is frightened of him.’

‘You know Luanne and Alysha are giving evidence against you.’

Jason shook his head. ‘Even them, eh? Everyone’s scared of him. I told you, he gave the word on Haley, and I know he killed my gran.’

‘What about the gun? Tell me about the gun. We know it’s the one you used in the armed robbery, the one you went down for.’

Jason’s face told him he hadn’t known that.

‘The Feds never found that gun,’ he said.

‘So where was it? You must know what you did with it.’

He looked at the floor and shifted in his seat. ‘I expect it stayed somewhere around the estate.’

‘Jason, I need to know. Where did you hide it. Who could have found it?’

For a few moments Jason said nothing. Then, ‘I buried it. See, that’s what I don’t understand. Only people who knew where it was were Chantelle and Luanne.’ He shook his head. ‘I asked Luanne to get me a gun when I heard what he’d done to them. She must have got that one, but she said—’ He looked puzzled. ‘What I can’t work out is how Yo got it first and shot my gran with it.’ He looked at Dawes. ‘I’ve been fitted up, I swear, but he’s fitted me up good.’

He rubbed his eyes and looked across the table. Dawes thought he had never seen such desolation in a suspect’s eyes.

‘I was up for it, you know,’ Jason continued, his tone dull and lifeless. ‘I was gonna help you put him away. But I couldn’t even get that right. So I’m going down for a murder I didn’t do, aren’t I? He’s got me well fitted up.’ He put his head in his hands. ‘And they’ll get me in there for grassing.’

His voice trailed away as someone hammered on the door of the interview room. Dawes stood up and strode to open it.

‘Peacock! What the f . . . ?’

‘I’m sorry, sir.’ The young DC didn’t sound sorry at all; he sounded full of importance. ‘There’s been a development.’

Dawes returned to the table, recorded an Interview Suspended message, and hurried out into the corridor, closing the door carefully behind him. Hank quickly updated him on the situation with Luanne and Alysha.

Dawes went back into the interview room.

‘Luanne’s broken arm isn’t a broken arm, it seems,’ he told Jason. ‘She was wearing the sling to hide her new tattoo.’

Jason looked puzzled.

‘A Brotherhood of Blades gang induction tattoo.’

Jason’s chin nearly hit the floor. ‘Jesus. Now it fits,’ he said. ‘That’s how Reilly made sure I got the blade that stabbed Haley. Alysha gave it to me. She’s Mince Delahaye’s Younger, and she said he gave it to her, and Luanne gave it to me. And I told you Luanne knew where I’d hidden the gun.’ The desolation was back in his eyes. ‘I thought of them as family.’ His hands flew to cover his face, then he took them away and said quietly, ‘Please don’t tell me they had anything to do with Chantelle’s murder.’ He shook his head. ‘Or my gran’s.’

‘I don’t know,’ Dawes said. ‘What I do know is Luanne’s on the roof of the Sparrow with Alysha, and she’s threatening to jump. I’ve got to get over there. Will you come with me? Maybe help talk them down? We need her to tell us all this herself, if we’re going to prove Stuart Reilly fitted you up.’

There was a pause. Jason shrugged. ‘I’ll try.’

‘And when we do I’ll make sure you get witness protection and a new identity.’

‘And my scholarship?’

Dawes hesitated. That was hardly in his gift. Jason looked at him steadily.

He nodded. ‘I’ll do my best.’

What did they call it in the movies? Last Chance Saloon, that was it.

That’s what this was, Jason thought. Climbing the fourteen flights, he had never felt so wretched, so alone and let down. The only girl he ever wanted was dead before her life had begun; his gran was gone, murdered by the scum who now ran the place he used to call his home. Even Aunt Haley, who he’d hated because she nagged them all senseless: she was gone too, and now he saw that all she’d been trying to do was keep them from going wrong.

The Buzzards as well, all gone, mostly dead, just a couple still inside. And now Luanne and Alysha, who he had risked everything to protect, were members of the Brotherhood. That really hurt. He wanted to believe it was because they were afraid and desperate, but deep down he knew there was no one you could trust around here. It was every man for himself. Apart from Chantelle. He just hoped Luanne wasn’t responsible for her murder, or for his gran’s.

Whatever happened now, he had to do this last thing. He had to find out the truth, not for the Feds but so he could sleep at night. Maybe, just maybe, he’d still have a chance to move on and start his life again. Or maybe he’d end up inside. Or dead. He didn’t know which, and at this minute he wasn’t sure he cared any more.

Sparrow block had never been livelier than these past two days. It seemed like all the residents had forgotten how to sleep. People were standing around, some down on the ground, others on their balconies, determined to get a good view of the drama on the roof.

As he emerged on to the roof he saw the woman Fed, the dark-skinned one with the ponytail, by the big chimney. And that wind was really going it. Luanne was very close to the edge, too close for her comfort or his. She looked like she had just come out of the shower; her hair lay in damp strands around her shoulders, and just a towel wrapped round her body leaving her legs and shoulders bare. As he watched, a gust of wind buffeted her and she struggled to stay upright. Je-sus, he thought, anything could happen here. Alysha was sobbing, close to her and to the edge. One strong gust, he thought, and they would both go over.

‘Luanne. What’s going on?’ he said trying to sound calm.

‘Stay away!’ Luanne shrieked.

He tried again. ‘Hey Alysha! Can I come over there with you, babe?’

Alysha sobbed louder.

‘What you doin’? It ain’t safe up here, babe. Come over here, come over to me.’

‘This is all your fault,’ Luanne screamed at him. ‘You shoulda never come back.’