Brotherhood of Blades (29 page)

Jason stretched our a hand to Alysha. ‘You told me to come,’ he reminded Luanne. ‘You rang me and told me what happened to Chantelle. To all of you. I wanted to help you. Because I care about you. All of you.’

Luanne took another step.

He took a deep breath. This could all go up any second, and he had to find out what she knew. ‘Was Chantelle one of Yo-Yo’s gang too?’ he shouted at her. ‘Did Chantelle go over to the Brotherhood with you?’

‘No.’

‘Why Luanne, why d’you join them? Why that bastard?’

Luanne teetered as another gust of wind caught her. ‘He helped us escape. He gave us stuff that made this stinking life bearable.’

‘And he made you work to pay for it,’ Jason shouted back. ‘I wanted to take you away from here. I’m moving on. I’ve got a chance of a new life. I wanted you and Alysha to come too.’

‘Dream on, boy.’

The wind whipped up and she fought to steady herself. Alysha yelped in terror.

‘Alysha, come away from the edge.’ Jason raised his voice and stretched out his hand. ‘You too, Lu. There’s nothing to be frightened of. It’s over. They’ve got Yo-Yo.’

‘Jason Young, the Buzzards boy, turned Fed grass,’ Luanne yelled at him. ‘No one trusts a grass.’ She staggered, and Jason closed his eyes, unable to watch. When he opened them again she had steadied herself, but she was even closer to the edge than before. She was half-turned towards him.

‘No one wants you around here no more. You’re as unwelcome as the Feds,’ she shouted. ‘They’ll get you for what you done.’

A fire engine roared into the estate and pulled up below Sparrow block. A team of fire officers descended from the truck and started unloading equipment.

‘Give it up,’ Luanne shouted down to them. ‘There’s only one way I’m coming down from here.’

Jason took the opportunity to get a step closer. ‘Luanne, I need to know what happened to Chantelle,’ he said. ‘Did you hurt her? Please tell me the truth.’

‘We didn’t know she was gonna get a brain clot,’ Alysha shouted defensively.

‘Alysha, don’t go there,’ Luanne warned.

The warning fell on deaf ears. ‘It was only a set-up,’ Alysha continued, ‘So Luanne could wear the bandage to cover her tattoo. Lu didn’t mean her to be hurt that bad. They were only pretending to jump us. Lu was supposed to get a black eye and I was to make a run for it. Chantelle fought back.’ Alysha’s voice rose. ‘She shouldn’t have fought back. they hit her too hard. We were only . . .’

‘Shut it!’ Luanne yelled.

Jason took another step. ‘My gran, Lysh, who shot my gran?’

An edge of hysteria had come into Alysha’s voice. ‘She had a big mouth. Lu didn’t have no choice . . .’

‘She wasn’t supposed to die,’ Luanne wailed. ‘I didn’t mean to kill any of them, Jason. I didn’t.’ She wailed again into the air. ‘I didn’t know Haley would die. I was only gonna stick her.’

Behind him, Jason was aware that the three detectives were creeping closer. He struggled to take in what the two girls had just told him, and stared as the woman Fed shouted, ‘Luanne, did you kill them all?’

Luanne raised one bare foot and dangled it over the edge of the roof. Alysha shouted something incomprehensible and then screamed to Luanne. Luanne drew her foot back and put it on the roof.

‘Did Reilly make you do it?’ That was Dawes.

Luanne shook her head and faced outwards again.

‘Don’t, Luanne!’ Jason pleaded. ‘Think of Alysha.’

‘I stabbed Aunt Haley. It was for my induction into the Brotherhood. But I didn’t mean to kill her.’

‘Were you there when she was raped?’ he asked desperately. ‘With the crowd that gang-raped her. Were you there?’

‘Yup. I stuck her after that. But she wasn’t supposed . . .’

‘Did Yo-Yo Reilly tell you to?’ Dawes shouted.

He wasn’t helping. Jason wanted to tell him to shut up. A hot anger began to rise inside him.

‘Let me get this right. You shot my gran? And you knew they were going to beat up Chantelle?’ Jason felt his own anger bubbling.

Luanne inched forward.

‘OK, Jason,’ the woman Fed shouted. ‘Cool it now. Luanne, we can talk about this.’

‘Luanne, I need to know.’ Jason fought down the anger, determined not to let it get the better of him. Bad things happened when he got riled.

He was only a few steps from Alysha now, and not much further from Luanne. The wind punched him sideways and lifted the edge of Luanne’s towel. It seemed to be getting stronger. All three of them could end up over the edge, and it could happen any second.

He risked a glance over the edge at the ground. The fire brigade were rushing around, but he couldn’t see what they were doing. Were they coming up, or putting something in place to give them a soft landing if they fell? And how long would it take?

Suddenly he was afraid and he knew he didn’t want to die. He stretched out one hand to Alysha and the other to Luanne. ‘Come away from the edge. Please.’

Luanne looked at him sadly. ‘Don’t feel sorry for me, Jase. I set you up. I killed your gran too, and Haley, but I swear I didn’t mean for them to die.’

Suddenly Alysha stepped closer to Luanne and grabbed her hand.

‘Let go, Alysha.’ Jason heard the woman Fed echo his words.

Alysha ignored them, clinging to Luanne’s wrist.

‘What did Sals do wrong?’ Jason asked, partly to distract Luanne.

‘She told Yo-Yo she’d go to the Feds. He broke her fucking stall up, and she still wouldn’t back down.’ He was close enough to see her legs trembling. She was inches from the edge of the roof. ‘I wasn’t supposed to kill her. The bullet was just meant to graze her, give her a scare, you know?’

Out of the corner of his eye Jason saw movement at the other side of the roof. He turned his head slightly; two firemen had come to join the Feds. The woman put a finger to her lips to keep them quiet, and her arm out in front of her to keep them from moving any closer. She herself began to inch very slowly towards the three of them.

Jason was growing desperate, his anger swallowed up by fear now for all their lives. He reached Alysha and put out a hand. She took it, and he tugged her towards him. But Luanne didn’t let go of her other hand.

‘Let go of Alysha, Lu,’ he shouted. ‘And move away from the edge.’

‘They told me to hit her in the shoulder.’ Luanne was growing hysterical. ‘But I killed her. I don’t want to go to prison. I’d rather die.’

A shout came from behind them: Dawes. ‘Who told you to hit her in the shoulder?’

The wind whipped up again and snatched Luanne’s towel. She dropped Alysha’s hand and tried to grab it. It danced almost like a kite in the wind, flapping and balancing, before tumbling over and over and heading for the ground. Luanne stood completely naked.

Jason looked behind him. The woman Fed was taking her coat off. ‘Here, Luanne, take this.’ She held it out and took a step closer. ‘Don’t catch hypothermia on top of everything else. Alysha needs you. You can explain everything to us.’

She took careful steps forward and held her coat out at arm’s length.

‘You stay away,’ Luanne shouted at the Fed.

‘Take my hand,’ Jason pleaded stretching his arm to her.

‘Stay back, Jason.’

Alysha started to panic and reached out for Luanne’s hand again.

‘Don’t,’ Jason shouted. ‘Let go, Alysha!’

The female Fed took another step nearer.

The wind suddenly picked up, and everything seemed to happen at once. Luanne pushed Alysha away. Alysha stumbled towards Jason and he caught her and shoved her towards the woman Fed.

There was a beat. He looked back at Luanne and Luanne looked at him and lifted her hand, and for that moment he thought she was going to take his. Then the wind rose again, and in the second it took him to regain his balance it was over. A desperate chorus of ‘Luanne! No!’ was followed by a moment’s silence before the sickening thud as she hit the ground.

EIGHTEEN

F
ive days later, Georgia sat upright in the round-backed wooden armchair in Dawes’s temporary office. Dawes himself was gathering papers and stacking files and his few personal belongings into a box.

Stephanie had perched herself on the side of the desk. A black file balanced precariously on her lap, and she was chewing a piece of gum. Georgia was familiar with the chewing gum phase; it was part of Steph’s diet regime. The only thing that made her diet was being turned down by someone she had been trying to get into bed.

Georgia had wanted Stephanie to win their bet; she wanted to find out why Dawes had such a keen interest in the street gangs. Stephanie would have delivered too; the detective in her never switched off, no matter how good the sex was.

But it wasn’t to be. They were in the gum chewing phase, which Georgia loathed. In a day or two she would find stale, concrete-hard gum-balls in her office and her car, as if they were bugged. But she was too conscious of Steph’s bruised feelings to say anything. At least both car and office would be free of crumbs and chocolate wrappers for a while. Not that Stephanie’s diets ever lasted more than a few days.

Dawes’s briefcase and laptop lay open on the desk, and his jacket hung on the back of his chair, but everything else had been packed up. Georgia had seen the files as they went into the box; they were all named for a street gang: The Brotherhood, Big Cs, FDB, Buzzards, At Your Perils. There was a large stack of them; the problem was clearly growing.

Dawes checked a few last papers, deciding which ones to take and which to dump. He had already made it clear that he wasn’t satisfied with the result, even though they had put the case to bed. He was incensed that no charges were being brought against Stuart Reilly, and Georgia couldn’t really quarrel with that. Even though Luanne had admitted killing both Haley and Sally Young in front of witnesses, Reilly, they knew, was ultimately responsible.

‘One of these days he’ll trip up,’ Stephanie said, as Dawes took a final glance inside the Brotherhood file. ‘And when he does, we’ll be there.’ She gave him an encouraging smile and popped her gum. The broken bubble stuck to her top lip.

Dawes managed a small smile, but said nothing.

‘We know he’s behind everything that goes down on that estate,’ Georgia assured him. ‘We’re not giving up.’

Dawes shrugged. ‘My remit was to bring him in.’

‘We did solve the case,’ Georgia reasoned. ‘Luanne Akhter killed both those women, she admitted it in front of witnesses. And there’s the new DNA evidence too. So there’s no doubting she did it.’

Dawes said nothing.

‘We won’t get an accessory charge to stick,’ Georgia added. ‘Reilly’s brief would make mincemeat of us.’

‘And no one will give evidence against him,’ Stephanie added. ‘Look what happened to Chantelle when she tried.’

‘He raped a child of twelve,’ Dawes snapped.

‘Yes,’ Georgia agreed. ‘But there’s no DNA, and Alysha swears she made it up to shock Jason.’ Georgia ran a hand through her hair. ‘End of, case closed.’

‘For now,’ Stephanie said. ‘The DCI won’t give it any more man hours for the time being. But Reilly’s only off the hook temporarily; a hint of trouble and we’ll be down on him like a ton of garbage.’

Dawes’s computer whirred and flashed as it closed down. ‘You can’t blame me for not being thrilled,’ he said. ‘I was sent here because it was gang-related crime. And Chantelle Gulati’s murder isn’t really solved.’

Georgia was as disappointed as Dawes with the result, but she dared not show it. ‘Alysha has given us a written statement. It says she recognized Sally Young at her door wearing a black balaclava, and it was Sals who attacked Chantelle. She reckons she heard Sally’s voice accusing Chantelle of breaking her stall up, and getting Jason mixed up in crime again. Chantelle’s supposed to have lured him on to the estate so he could get the blame for a murder he had nothing to do with. According to Alysha, Sally called Chantelle a troublemaker, and hit her with a cricket bat.’

Stephanie pulled a sheet of paper from her file and handed it to her. Georgia read, ‘“Don’t s’pose Sals meant her to die. These things happen around here; that’s the way we live. Luanne got Sally back, anyway. She didn’t mean her to die either, but she did, like Chantelle. It’s what happens around here.”’

‘And you believe that?’ Dawes looked at Georgia with sad eyes.

‘Not a word. But we never found any DNA on the cricket bat to prove otherwise.’

Georgia was a little annoyed with herself for noticing how attractive Dawes’s wide-set grey eyes were. Normally Stephanie’s taste ran to anything in trousers, but this one had something. Even though he was stubborn, and driven, and difficult to work with. She couldn’t remember noticing any man’s eyes before. Sex was something that she needed every now and again, to ease her tension and her migraines. She enjoyed it, but she didn’t allow anyone to get close. But not for the first time, she found herself wondering what Dawes would look like without clothes, and if he was a forceful or tender lover.

‘The cricket bat that forensics found in the shed behind Sally Young’s flat was covered in Chantelle’s blood,’ she said, giving herself a mental shake. ‘But there were no prints, so that took us nowhere.’

Dawes threw the last bundle of papers into his case.

‘Yes, of course the attack was Reilly’s payback,’ she added quickly. ‘And no, Sally Young didn’t kill Chantelle. But Alysha’s the only one who can say for sure, and she’s given us this load of rubbish. Sally Young is dead, so we can’t question her. We have to go with the evidence we have, however misleading it is. The DCI won’t give us any more time, so – case closed.’

‘And Reilly’s celebrating,’ Dawes said dryly.

Poor bugger, Georgia thought; he wanted Reilly so badly, it was eating him away. ‘We’ll keep a watching brief, and I’ll keep you informed,’ was all she said.

‘All this has made me mindful of how little time I spend with my kids,’ Stephanie said, taking the chewing gum from her mouth, rolling it into a ball and flicking it across the room. The sticky gobbet hit the black metal bin Dawes had just emptied, and clung to the outside like a snail on a wet night. Stephanie was oblivious; she was busy undoing the silver foil from her next strip. The foil followed the dead ball of gum, but landed inside the bin.