In the Dark (44 page)

‘I'm looking for T,' Helen said.

‘Yeah?'

The short one glanced up from his phone for just a second. Helen tried not to show any excitement at the fact that they obviously knew who she was talking about.

‘I need to speak to him.'

The baby giraffe grinned. ‘So, bell him. I'll lend you a phone if you like.'

‘I don't have his number.'

Another look from the short boy. Clearly they took it in turns to be the sulky, dangerous one.

‘Listen, I really need to see him. It's urgent.'

For a few seconds, nobody spoke. It seemed as though the conversation had already been forgotten and the boys were happy just standing there, listening to the music. Then the taller one looked at her again.

‘What's so
urgent
?'

She'd known straight away that the warrant card would be the wrong way to go. Just as instinctively, she knew that she should work with what she'd got. She put her hands on her belly and pulled a face. ‘What do you
think
?'

There was laughter and shoulder-bumping. ‘You don't even know where he lives?' The jeans were pushed down even lower. ‘Just a quickie, yeah?'

‘Nothing quick about
this
,' Helen said. ‘He had his fun, so now I'm going to make him face up to his responsibilities.'

The baby giraffe finally stopped laughing and gestured casually towards the block on the far side of the square. ‘T's up there, man. Third floor somewhere.'

The short boy looked up. ‘Fuck you doing?'

‘You seen T's girlfriend, man? There's going to be some
serious
sparks flying when this one comes knocking.'

‘Not your business, you get me?'

‘Going to be majorly hilarious . . .'

Helen turned while they were still arguing and walked towards the block, aware by the time she got near the lift that they had slowly followed her into the square.

The lift was noisy and smelled like she expected. Its walls were scratched but shiny, as though they'd been recently cleaned. Higher up, the wind was that much sharper against her face, a small slap, as she stepped onto the third-floor walkway and moved towards the first door.

The first of thirty or more.

She knocked but got no reply; moved on to the next door and got the same result, although she could hear that there were people inside. The third door opened a few inches, then was slammed shut without a word as soon as she'd asked the question. The old man in the next flat along listened carefully, then asked if she was from Social Services.

She was breathless, and four doors into it.

Maybe she should have made that call. They might not have found the right place as quickly, but a decent-sized squad of officers would have swarmed through the estate quick enough when they had; brought him out a damn sight faster than she could.

Helen stared helplessly along the walkway as she got her breath back. She was just wondering if she should simply stand there and shout, when she was beaten to it.

‘Hey, T! Best get out here, man . . .'

She looked over the wall and saw three of the boys from the garages down below her.

The baby giraffe put his hands to his mouth and shouted again. ‘You've got a
world
of pain waiting out here, T.' He shared a laugh with the others and yelled again, his voice rising above the drum and bass and echoing around the square. ‘Hey, T. Come and meet the family!'

Helen waited. Fifteen seconds later, she heard a door opening and saw the boy step out onto the walkway fifty yards ahead of her. She watched him lean over and shout back, telling the boys below to shut up. He must have caught the movement as she started to walk towards him, because he turned suddenly and stared at her.

She kept walking, watching as he looked away for a few seconds, then slowly turned to face her. The boys were still shouting. A couple of other doors had opened and people had put their heads out to see what was happening.

‘I need to talk to you,' Helen said.

 
‘What's your name?'

He had backed into his flat and Helen had followed, turned off a narrow corridor into a living room. She found him standing by the window. There was a television on in the far corner and she could smell dope. A few seconds later a young girl carrying a baby pushed past her and moved across to join the boy.

Helen asked again.

‘Theo,' the boy said.

‘Who's this?' the girl asked.

Helen walked over and turned off the television. She could see cardboard boxes piled up behind the sofa, plastic bags stuffed with CDs and computer games. The couple watched her and said nothing, but as soon as Helen tried to speak, the girl began shouting: ‘The fuck you think you're doing coming in here?' The boy put a hand on her arm but she shook it away. ‘I'll tear your fucking head off . . .'

‘You need to be quiet.'

‘I swear—'

‘My name's Helen Weeks.' She dug into her bag for her warrant card. ‘I'm a police officer.' The girl didn't bother looking; shrugged like it made no difference. The boy studied his feet. ‘My partner was killed a few weeks ago. He was standing at a bus stop . . .'

The girl looked at her now and hoisted the baby a little higher. He seemed happy enough, nuzzling at her neck. The girl nodded and spoke quietly. ‘I saw that on the news.'

Helen stared at the boy but he refused to raise his head. ‘Theo?'

He angled his body towards the girl. ‘You should go. Get the baby down or something.'

‘I'm going nowhere.'

‘I can't do this if you're here.'

‘That was those boys in the car, right?' The girl looked at Helen. ‘The shooting?'

‘Yes, but it's complicated.'

The girl sniffed and looked as though she was trying hard not to cry. She turned back to the boy. ‘What did you do?' She punched his arm with her free hand and started to shout again. ‘You and your
friend
, what did you do?'

‘He didn't do anything,' Helen said. ‘Theo, you need to listen. You weren't responsible.'

He looked at her properly for the first time. ‘You got the message, yeah? I was the one who fired the shots.'

‘There weren't any shots.'

He shook his head slowly. ‘I don't know what you're doing here. What this is
for
. It's not like I could feel any worse, yeah?'

‘There were blanks in that gun,' Helen said. ‘The woman in the car drove at the bus stop on purpose.'

The girl leaned into the boy, suddenly scared. The baby was reaching across, grabbing at his father's shoulder. ‘What's going on, T?'

‘Remember when you fired into that car?'

‘Yeah, I remember.'

‘The back window was open, right?' The boy nodded. ‘So why was there glass all over the back of the car? The shots had already been fired, and the woman in that car was in on the whole thing. It was meant to look like an accident, OK? Like it was random.' The boy was still, and staring, ignoring the hand of his baby, which was now slapping at his shoulder. ‘Somebody wanted my partner killed.' Helen felt a twinge, like ligaments stretching low down, and sucked in a breath. ‘Wanted . . . Paul killed.'

The room seemed very hot all of a sudden. The front door had been left open and the music from outside was carried in on a breeze that felt like the blast from a hairdryer.

The boy moved quickly, lurching across the room, pushing himself off the far wall and returning to the window. When he turned, his hands were shaking and it looked like he was fighting hard to control his temper. ‘Who else knew?' he asked. ‘In the car, I mean.'

‘I don't know. Errol Anderson, for sure.'

‘He's dead.'

‘I know,' Helen said.

‘They're
all
dead.'

Now the girl looked terrified. ‘T . . .?'

‘You're going away somewhere,' Helen said. ‘You said in the message that—' Helen stopped when she felt it and took a step back. Her hands moved down to her thighs, wiped at the wetness on them, and she watched as the drips hit the carpet.

‘You OK?' the boy asked.

The girl stepped towards Helen. ‘Her waters have gone.' She thrust the baby at the boy and walked quickly out of the room; came back a few seconds later with a roll of kitchen towel. ‘The bathroom's through there,' she said.

Helen took the towel and tore off half a dozen sheets. ‘Have you got a taxi number?'

‘Yeah, if you can wait,' Theo said. ‘They don't exactly break their necks to get here.
Shit
. . .'

‘Can you drive?' Helen asked.

FORTY

It had been a trickle rather than a gush, which meant there was no great urgency. Helen felt unexpectedly calm, knowing it could be another twenty-four hours yet, perhaps more.

The risk of infection was probably a greater worry than imminent labour, and even though the advice in these circumstances was to get to hospital as soon as possible, she was happier trying to stick as close as possible to her birth plan. Lewisham University Hospital was no more than ten minutes' drive from the Lee Marsh Estate, but Helen asked Theo to take her home instead, confident that she would have plenty of time to collect her bag, turn round and get to King's College Hospital in Camberwell.

It took Theo a few minutes to get used to the controls of Helen's Fiesta but, even allowing for the strangeness of the situation, he seemed twitchy and ill at ease. He checked his mirrors every few seconds, and kept looking at his hands clamped around the wheel.

‘Do you drive much?' Helen asked.

‘Not for a while,' Theo said.

The traffic had eased in the previous hour and they moved fairly easily through New Cross before turning south.

‘Somebody wanted him killed, you said. Paul . . .'

Helen had her window open, had been leaning close to it, taking in breaths of warm air. She turned to look at Theo and nodded.

‘Who was it?'

‘It doesn't matter.'

‘You got him, though?'

‘I think so.'

‘What about the woman in the BMW? Why on earth would she agree to, you know . . .?'

‘She's got a drug habit. Owed somebody a lot of money.'

‘Wave?'

‘Looks like it,' Helen said.

Theo's hands tightened around the wheel and he looked away into his wing mirror. ‘Still down to me on one level, then. Maybe I sold her some stuff.'

Crossing Peckham Rye Common, Helen felt a contraction take hold. She clenched against it, but only remembered to look at her watch after the first few seconds. ‘Fuck . . .'

Theo looked across. ‘What?'

She shook her head and waited for it to end; let out the breath and sat back, panting. ‘Twenty-five seconds, give or take,' she said. ‘We're fine.'

‘Sure?'

She nodded, but watched the needle of the speedometer creep a little higher. ‘You said you weren't close to the other boys,' she said. ‘When I saw you before. The ones who were shot.'

‘Some more than others, I s'pose.'

‘That the way it is in a crew? Just people you work with?'

Theo thought about it, leaned on the horn when a motorbike swerved a little close. ‘Depends what happens. I bet you don't get on with every copper you meet.'

‘That's true . . .'

‘It's whether you do it for the money, or if it's a . . . lifestyle, whatever. '

‘I talked to someone who really believed that the government was sending in the guns,' Helen said. ‘That they were happy with what was going on.'

Theo shook his head. ‘People talk rubbishness. So why's the government having them . . . amnesty things for knives?'

‘People need to see them doing
something
.'

‘Nobody cares anyway. They still using blades like pens or something.'

‘You carry one?'

‘Sometimes.' He steered the car left at Herne Hill station and accelerated along the east side of Brockwell Park. Said, ‘I've got a gun on me right now.'

Helen was surprised to find herself nodding - as though he'd simply made some comment about the weather - and leaning back towards the open window.

‘You know who killed them? Wave and the others?'

‘I've got a fair idea.'

‘Is it a secret?'

Helen searched for the words. ‘It was . . . a friend of Paul's.'

‘I could do with a few friends like that,' Theo said.

When they reached the flat, Helen told him that she'd be no more than a few minutes. She got upstairs as quickly as she could and went straight to the toilet, that particular need having been
distinctly
urgent since she'd climbed into the car.

She threw a couple more things into her overnight bag, then called Jenny and told her to come to the hospital.

‘Was it a trickle or a gush?' Jenny asked.

Helen told her how predictable she was. ‘There's plenty of time.' ‘Have you ordered a cab?'

‘It's waiting outside,' Helen said.

They had barely driven away from the block when she felt the wave of another contraction moving across her; a powerful tightening through her stomach and hips. She clenched against it, grunting with the effort, and Theo pulled in hard to the kerb.

‘That one was half a minute,' Helen said, when it had stopped.

‘Is that good or bad?'

‘Was it fifteen minutes since the last one, do you think, or less?' Theo held up his hands. ‘Let's just get there,' she said.