Fair Game (12 page)

‘They are Muslims,’ said Crazy Boy. ‘The same as us. Al-Zahrani is right. These days it is not good enough to do the minimum. These are dangerous times for our people and if we don’t show our strength now they will drive us from the earth.’

‘Not here, not in England,’ said Two Knives. ‘That is why we’re here. Here we have rights and laws to protect us.’

‘And what about our Muslim brothers who are dying around the world? Who protects them? You can see what the infidels are doing to Muslims in Iraq, in Afghanistan. What about our brothers and sisters in Palestine? And closer to home, in France, where Muslim women are persecuted for protecting their modesty. You think that won’t happen here? They hate us, brother, they hate us and they hate Islam.’

‘He’s a Saudi,’ said Two Knives. ‘You can’t trust a Saudi. Everyone knows that.’

Crazy Boy put a hand on the man’s shoulder and squeezed it gently. ‘He’s a Muslim. And so are we. And you heard what he said, by helping him we help ourselves.’

‘And afterwards? After we have done what he wants?’

‘That is up to him. Our part in it will be over.’

‘And all hell will be let loose.’

‘We can move.’ He waved his hand dismissively. ‘I have no love for this place. Or this country. We can move to Germany. To anywhere in Europe. We are British citizens, and as you said there are laws to protect us.’

‘I don’t have my passport yet, brother. Don’t forget that.’ There was a buzzing sound and Two Knives pulled a Samsung mobile from his pocket. He walked away, talking in Somali.

Crazy Boy grabbed a handful of khat leaves and chewed them as he flopped back on the sofa. He picked up the Xbox controller and was just about to restart the game when Two Knives finished his call. ‘I’ve got to go,’ he said.

‘What’s up?’

‘The two guys from the
gar
, we’ve got them. I’ll be back in a couple of hours.’

‘I’ll come with you,’ said Crazy Boy. His lips were tingling from the khat and he could already feel the stimulant coursing through his bloodstream. He tossed the controller to the side.

‘You said you wanted me to handle it. You said you wanted to keep your distance.’

‘Yeah, well, I’ve changed my mind. You get the car, you’re driving.’ He headed for the stairs.

‘Now where are you going?’ asked Two Knives.

‘I’m gonna get me a gun,’ said Crazy Boy.

Crazy Boy tapped his fingers on his knees in time to the Eminem track that was pounding at full volume through the speakers. He looked over at Two Knives, who was nodding his head back and forth in time with the music. ‘He can rap, for a white guy,’ said Crazy Boy. ‘But he isn’t a patch on 50 Cent.’ He checked the action of his Glock and tucked it into the waistband of his jeans. Two Knives checked his rear-view mirror and then the two side mirrors. ‘What’s wrong?’ asked Crazy Boy.

‘Just checking,’ said Two Knives.

‘Who’d be tailing us?’ said Crazy Boy. ‘Nobody fucks with us in Ealing.’ He patted Two Knives on the knee. ‘Chill, brother, all’s well with the world.’ He took an envelope from his pocket. It was full of fifty-pound notes that he’d taken from the walk-in safe in his study. ‘Let’s swing by the bitch first,’ he said.

Two Knives looked at his watch and frowned.

‘Now what?’ said Crazy Boy.

‘I told them I’d be right over.’

‘Who runs this gang, brother?’

‘You do. I’m just saying . . .’

‘Well, don’t say. I say, you listen.’ He pulled his Glock out of his waistband and pressed the barrel against the side of Two Knives’ head. ‘Unless something’s changed. Has anything changed, brother? I’m still running this gang, right?’

‘You know it,’ said Two Knives.

Crazy Boy’s finger tightened on the trigger. He seemed oblivious to the fact that they were driving along at almost forty miles an hour and that he hadn’t fastened his seat belt.

‘You’re sure, because it seems to me that you’re second-guessing me a lot lately.’

Two Knives kept his eyes on the road. Crazy Boy was a loose cannon at the best of times but once he started chewing khat he became almost impossible to reason with. ‘This isn’t Somalia, brother. This is London. And in London they put people in prison for carrying a loaded gun.’

‘I ain’t scared of no cops,’ said Crazy Boy, tapping Two Knives on the shoulder with the gun.

‘Scared or not scared don’t make no difference,’ said Two Knives. ‘I’m just saying that we’ve got to be careful here. Sometimes it’s better if you keep your distance when there’s shit going down.’ He looked across at Crazy Boy, no trace of fear in his eyes. ‘I’ve got your best interests at heart, brother. You know that. And if anything happens to you it makes me look bad, like I didn’t do what I was supposed to do, you feel me?’

‘It’s my gang, brother. When the shit goes down I want to see the shit going down.’ He took the gun away and tucked it back in his waistband, then patted Two Knives on the knee again. ‘It’s gonna be good, brother. Do not worry. I’m bullet-proof.’ He began nodding his head in time with the track and Two Knives nodded along with him.

The house where Crazy Boy’s wife and son lived was a ten-minute drive from his mansion but he rarely visited more than once a month. He didn’t feel that he was married to Haweeya Bergman, and while the boy definitely shared Crazy Boy’s DNA, he had no paternal feelings towards the child. The marriage and the birth had nothing to do with feelings or emotions and everything to do with what Crazy Boy had needed – a British passport and the right to live in Europe.

Two Knives parked the car and was about to get out when Crazy Boy put a hand on his arm. ‘You stay here,’ he said. ‘I won’t be long.’

Two Knives stayed in the car as Crazy Boy went up to the front door and rang the bell. The woman who opened the door was as tall as Crazy Boy but twice his weight, with heavy jowls and a belly that looked like a late pregnancy but was only fat. She had greasy dreadlocks that reached halfway down her back and was wearing a pink tracksuit that was stretched to its limit and gleaming white trainers, even though it was clear that she never went anywhere near a gym.

‘Simeon, where you been, I been calling you for days,’ she said. There was a glassy look to her eyes and a line of scabs running along the vein in her left arm. ‘You got my money?’ There was a hint of German in her accent, a relic of the five years she’d spent with her first husband.

Crazy Boy pushed past her into the sitting room. There was a cheap plastic sofa in front of a huge plasma television which was tuned to a shopping channel. A blonde not unlike the one that Crazy Boy had back in his house was enthusiastically extolling the benefits of a food blender. The remote was sitting between two Domino pizza boxes and he used it to mute the sound.

‘My money, did you bring it, honey?’

Crazy Boy took the envelope of cash from the back pocket of his jeans and tapped it against her forehead. ‘Don’t call my house asking for money again, do you understand?’

She grabbed at the envelope but he moved it out of her reach.

‘Do you understand?’

‘Yes,’ she said, still trying to take the envelope from him.

He opened the envelope and threw the notes up into the air. They fluttered around her and she grabbed at them, her mouth open as if she wanted to eat them. She dropped down on to her knees, scooping up the money. Crazy Boy saw a disposable cigarette lighter and an oblong piece of silver foil that had been folded down the middle. He picked up the foil and saw the telltale residue of burnt heroin at one end.

‘Why do you need this shit?’ he asked.

She looked up at him on all fours. ‘What do you think I do all day? I take care of your son and I watch television. Why shouldn’t I have something to make me feel better?’

‘You’ve got the khat. I can get you weed if you want to smoke weed.’ He waved the strip of silver foil in her face. ‘You don’t need this.’ Crazy Boy sniffed it and frowned. ‘Who do you buy it from?’

‘Here and there,’ she said. She stood up, clutching the banknotes to her chest.

‘Tell me,’ he said.

‘Down the road. A Jamaican guy.’

‘You buy drugs from a Yardie?’ He screwed the silver paper into a ball and threw it at her. It bounced off her head and landed in front of her big-screen TV. ‘Who the fuck do you think you are, buying drugs from a fucking Yardie?’

‘He’s OK, he doesn’t cheat me.’

‘Cheat, not cheat, I don’t care about that. What I care about is you buying drugs from my competition. Does he know who you are? Does he know about the child?’

‘He doesn’t know anything. He sells, I buy. We don’t talk.’

‘You don’t buy from him again. Ever. Understand.’

She nodded. ‘Yes. OK, honey. Whatever you say.’ She began stuffing the money into the pockets of her tracksuit as if she feared that he was going to take it back.

Anger flared inside Crazy Boy and he rushed towards her, slapping her across the face, left and right, then pushing her in her chest so that she fell back on to her plastic sofa so hard that one of the legs broke. ‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry,’ she said, holding her hands up to protect her face. The money that she hadn’t shoved into her pockets scattered across the carpet.

Crazy Boy stepped back, his hands balled into fists. He wanted to beat her face to a pulp, to feel her warm wet blood on his hands, but he took deep breaths and forced himself to calm down. Killing her or even putting her in hospital would cause him all sorts of problems, problems that he didn’t need. He glared at her. ‘Why do you do this? Why do you make me angry?’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said. The sofa had buckled at one end and she had to grab hold of one of the arms to stop herself sliding down it.

‘I give you everything, I pay for your house, for your car, and you repay me by buying drugs on the street like a crack whore?’

‘I’m sorry,’ she said again. She wiped tears from her eyes. ‘Do you want to see your boy?’ she said. ‘I can wake him up.’

‘Why would I want to see him?’

‘He’s your son.’

‘I have many sons,’ said Crazy Boy.

‘He misses you.’

‘He doesn’t know me.’ He pointed a finger at the woman’s face. ‘I mean what I say. You buy drugs from anyone else and I’ll scar you for life. You want drugs, you call Two Knives and he’ll hook you up.’

The woman nodded fearfully.

‘Do you understand me, bitch?’

She nodded, her lower lip trembling. ‘I understand.’

Crazy Boy sneered at her and let himself out of the house.

‘No problems?’ asked Two Knives as Crazy Boy climbed into the front passenger seat.

‘Not any more,’ said Crazy Boy. ‘Now let’s go take care of business.’

Two Knives prepared to drive them to one of Crazy Boy’s restaurants in Ealing. It served Somali cuisine utilising the talents of two chefs who Crazy Boy had found working as cleaners in a Bayswater hotel. Both had claimed asylum and weren’t supposed to be working but Crazy Boy paid them in cash and allowed them to live with their wives and children in a flat above the restaurant.

‘We’ve shut the restaurant for the night,’ said Two Knives, as he put the car in gear.

‘What about the cooks?’ asked Crazy Boy. ‘I don’t want them involved.’

‘No problem, brother,’ said Two Knives. ‘They’re out this evening, taking their families to the movies. They’ve been told not to come back before midnight.’ He drove to the restaurant, which was about two miles from the house in a busy shopping street. They parked at the rear of the restaurant and went in through a back door that led straight into a large kitchen. The two teenagers were kneeling on the floor, blindfolded and gagged, their arms tied behind their backs. Four of Crazy Boy’s men were standing behind them wearing black Puffa jackets and baggy blue jeans. One by one they high-fived Crazy Boy and hugged him. They were all young, three of them still teenagers, and all had been born in England, but they owed their allegiance to Somalia, and to Crazy Boy. ‘Good job, brothers,’ he said.

He picked up a large cleaver from one of the metal preparation tables and moved it so that it glinted under the fluorescent lights. ‘Take off the blindfolds,’ he said.

Two of the teenagers hurried forward and removed the strips of cloth from the faces of the bound boys. The captives blinked up at Crazy Boy. Tears were streaming down the younger one’s face. They both began to try to speak but the gags were tight and all they could do was grunt.

‘Shut the fuck up!’ Crazy Boy shouted, waving the cleaver in their faces. ‘There’s nothing you’ve got to say that I want to hear.’ He looked over at the four young men who were huddled together by one of the big stoves. ‘I want you all to remember this,’ he said. ‘That is what happens when you cross me.’ He lashed out with the cleaver and sliced through the shoulder of the older of the two captives. The boy screamed in agony but the gag muffled most of the sound. He fell to the side and tried to curl into a ball, his back to Crazy Boy. ‘If this was Somalia, you know what I’d be doing?’ asked Crazy Boy. ‘I’d have them tied down and cut and then I’d let dogs loose on them. That’s what I’d do. They’ve behaved like dogs so getting dogs to kill them is what they deserve. This is what happens to anyone who hurts my people. You hurt my people, you die. They need to know that out there on the streets.’ He waved his cleaver at the back door. ‘Those are my streets out there. Anyone fucks with me or with my people, this is what happens.’

He strode over to the younger of the two captives, who was rocking backwards and forwards with his eyes tightly closed.

Two Knives took out his phone and started videoing.

Crazy Boy swung the cleaver from side to side. ‘You put my boy in hospital,’ he said. ‘You hurt one of my boys, you hurt me. You attack them, you attack me.’ He glared at the bound and gagged teenager. ‘How fucking dare you!’ he screamed. He raised the cleaver and brought it down hard against the teenager’s neck, slicing through the flesh as easily as cutting through a steak fillet. The teenager grunted and fell to the side as blood poured from the gaping wound. Crazy Boy raised the cleaver again and brought it down hard, carving through the back of the neck and embedding it in the spine. Then in quick succession he hit him again half a dozen times, hacking at the head, the neck and the shoulder until the body went still and blood had pooled around it on the tiled floor.