My Name Is Not Jacob Ramsay (32 page)

Abdul stepped over to Michael and slid his arm under his limp body, aiding Sinatra in propping him up and onto his feet.

Together, they stepped onto a large grassy area with a few trees and bushes. The grassland dipped and sloped into a massive, crater-like space.

"I must go home, Sintra," said Abdul, with concern in his voice and on his face.

"My name is Sinatra. Sin-ah-tra."

"Santra. Yes. Yes."

"Fuck sake. Listen, yeah. You wait. You wait here, yeah. You wait here, Abdul, or I'll fucking kill you, yeah," Sinatra threatened.

His own mobile phone rang and he retrieved the call, crouching down beside a bush, hiding from the view of the road and residents who lived nearby. "What, man?"

"Yo, where you at, blud?" came the voice on the other end of the phone.

"I'm in the pit, man. Where we found that bike, yeah?"

"All right. I'm there, blud. Later." The call ended.

"Who is coming, Santra? The police?"

"Shut up, Abdul, man. No. Not the police. Listen, yeah, don't you dare talk to anyone, yeah? Nuffin happened today. We didn't do anything, yeah? D'you hear me? Abdul?"

Abdul looked at Michael's slumped body amongst the undergrowth. He looked up at Sinatra whose eyes stared past him. Abdul turned around to see a Peugeot had pulled up fast onto the grass and had stopped near them. He squinted to see the driver was a black man, of West African origin. Nigerian, twenty-two years old.

The driver exited the car. He was dressed in dark blue jeans, black roll neck and a black bomber jacket. He was the man from Little Lagos and he paced across the Common to a discreetly hidden Sinatra and Abdul, who had crouched down.

The man loomed above them both.

"What's da emergency, blud?" he said to Sinatra, who parted a section of a bush to reveal Michael's body sprawled on the ground underneath. "Is he dead?"

"Dunno," answered Sinatra.

"What the fuck, man. Are you fuckin' stupid?" said the driver, noticing the gaffer tape in Sinatra's hand and then looking at Michael. "Tear some tape off and stick it over his mouth, yeah."

Sinatra picked at the end of the tape with his fingernails and reeled off a short length, which he bit off with his teeth. He stuck it across Michael's mouth.

"What shall I do wiv dis?" Sinatra asked, holding up the roll of tape.

"Who gives a shit? Throw it, man," replied the young Nigerian man.

Sinatra tossed the gaffer tape across the grassland.

"I'll open the boot, yeah, and we can stick him in my car. I'll take him to wherever you want but that'll be it. You're on your Jack Jones, you get me?" said the young man.

Sinatra nodded his head as the young man stepped to his car, unlocked the boot and returned to Abdul and Sinatra.

"Get him up then. Pricks," ordered the man to Sinatra, who once again gestured Abdul to help and together they propped Michael up and followed the young man to the rear of the Peugeot vehicle.

The white youth Edward was later to question at the police station walked across the Common with a girl. He saw Sinatra and the young man heaving Michael into the boot of the yellow Peugeot. He noticed Abdul with a peculiar expression on his face conducting a very odd dance. He looked away and edged to the end of the road to watch Michael's car.

The boot lid of the Peugeot closed shut on Michael and the young man looked at Sinatra and Abdul.

"Get in. He can bounce," replied the young man with a glance at Abdul.

Sinatra looked at Abdul. "Go home, Abdul. Swear down you won't tell nobody, man. Like I said, I'll kill you. Go home, Abdul. Go home," Sinatra ordered as he rounded the car and opened the passenger door to clamber inside.

Abdul watched the other young man slip inside the car, behind the wheel and start the engine.

The car reversed, then disappeared up the street, towards Woolwich Common.

"Why didn't you tell anybody about what had happened?" Mr Ahmed asked Abdul.

"Oh come on! Why do you think?" chirped Edward.

"Please. No trouble. I'm begging you, sir. Please. I beg you," Abdul cried, reaching out to clutch Edward's hands.

Edward moved himself backwards, still on the bed, but edging away from Abdul's pleading, guilty hands. "Where did they take Michael?"

"I don't know, sir. Please believe me," Abdul pleaded.

"Kidher?" Edward said more assertively.

"Mujhe nahi malum!" cried Abdul. Tears streamed down his face.

"You do know! Not good enough! Where did they take my son?"

"He does not know, sir. Please. Look at him. He has told you all he knows," insisted Mr Ahmed.

Edward thought hard and turned his attention to him, rising to his feet and grabbing his arm.

"You're coming with me," Edward said to Mr Ahmed, glancing round to Abdul, still fixed to the chair. "You stay here. Samajna? Understand?" Edward continued, sending a burning stare into Abdul's eyes.

Abdul nodded with fear as Edward grasped Mr Ahmed tight and gestured to Jason to open the bedroom door.

He did so, quietly.

"Where are we going?" asked Mr Ahmed.

"Quiet," replied Edward, escorting him down the stairs of the house.

"Please do not hurt me. I am a father, too."

"I'm not going to hurt you. Move," commanded Edward, stepping out of the house and up the garden path.

"Then why do you need me?" asked a fearful Mr Ahmed.

"Because if you stayed here, you'd call the authorities, that's why. Come on. Walk."

"Why not take Abdul? He is the cause of this situation. You could take both of us. Abdul may call the police," stuttered Mr Ahmed to Edward, who brought him to a halt beside his jeep.

"Do you really think Abdul will call the police? He's a terrified young man, scared out of his skin who won't dare move from the seat where we left him. That's why I left him there and that's why I'm taking you with me. Shut up and get inside," Edward said firmly, opening the rear passenger door and shoving Mr Ahmed inside.

"Maidenstone Hill?" Jason said, going to the driver's door.

"Yep. You drive," replied Edward, tossing the car keys to his son and clambering inside the back, next to Mr Ahmed.

Jason got behind the wheel and adjusted his seat, scrolling it back for his long legs to be comfortable. He started the car, shifted into first and turned the car into the adjacent street. He switched the headlights on.

Abdul rocked back and forth on the chair. His arms were folded and held tight into his stomach. Tears rolled down his cheeks and he stared at the craft knife lying on the bedside cabinet.

Mr Ahmed sat on the back seat of the jeep next to Edward, as Jason drove down Blackheath Hill.

"Slowly," Edward said, looking out of the window.

"And you think your son will be here?" Mr Ahmed asked, curiously.

"Ssh. I said, be quiet, sir."

"And if he is not? What then?"

"I'll do whatever it takes to find my son. Now be quiet," Edward snapped, flustered by Mr Ahmed's questions.

"And will you be taking me with you on your journey until you find him?"

"He said, shut up! Bloody hell! Just shut up!" yelled Jason.

"There. On the right. Pull in," Edward indicated.

The pale, slim seventeen-year-old-young man called Jack, who was Sinatra's secret boyfriend, crouched by a garden gate. Shaking, he looked at his hands in the light of the street lamp. His palms were blood-stained. His lower lip and jaw trembled with fear. His face was suddenly illuminated as he shielded his eyes with one of his bloodied hands. A car's headlights shone, picking Jack out as he stooped, knees against his shoulders, squinting and saluting a red hand to the oncoming vehicle which had Jason behind the wheel of it.

"Lights off and pull in," commanded Edward to Jason.

"D'you seem him?" Jason asked, doing as he was told.

"Yes. Stay here. Do you hear me?" Edward growled, pointing at Mr Ahmed and then exiting the rear of his jeep. He stepped onto the pavement and trod the few paces to overshadow Jack. "Oi. Look at me. Look up."

Jack rolled his eyes upwards and then arched his neck to lock eyes with Edward, still continuing to shiver.

"What's your name?"

"Jer - Jer - Jack."

"You're covered in blood, Jack. Whose blood is it?"

"Ev - ev - every - everyone's," replied Jack.

Edward frowned as Jack lowered his hands. He noticed patches of blood on the pavement, as well as droplets. He turned and stepped to one side, away from his own shadow, to see more blood, this time a footprint consisting of blood and mud. He looked at the car parked nearby, smeared with blood and a clearly visible bloody fingerprint. Edward flipped out a ruler, laying it near the print and retrieved his digital camera, framing the footprint within the screen as he took a clear photograph of it.

"Are you hurt?" Edward asked.

"Just - just my heart," Jack answered, staring blankly ahead of him into the metal of the car door facing him.

"What happened here? Was somebody stabbed?"

"No. They - they were all - they were shot." Jack's voice became more controlled with every word.

"Shot where? Have the police been here?" Edward asked, becoming frantic.

Jack sneered and looked up at him.

"I haven't called them yet."

"Well, maybe someone else has," Edward suggested, bemused by Jack's slightly cryptic sentences.

"I hardly think so."

"And why don't you think so?" asked Edward firmly, crouching down and putting his staring face closer to Jack's.

Jack did a slow burn of a look to meet Edward's eyes.

"Because only I saw it happen."

Edward suddenly grasped Jack's neck with his gloved hand, digging his thumb into a pressure point at the end of his jaw, applying it harder, causing immense discomfort to Jack as he arched his back, twisting his body.

"Show me where," ordered Edward, rising to his feet with Jack. He saw a shadow on the ground and turned to see Jason.

"You OK?"

"Ahmed?"

"In the car. I've locked the doors."

"Take my camera and match the picture I've just taken to the shoe print I made a cast of," Edward said, handing his digital camera to Jason.

"You're - you're hurting me," Jack whined, awkwardly leading Edward round the side of the house.

"Good. Keep walking."

"I - I can't. It hurts. I feel like being sick."

"Then be sick. Move." Edward was jerking Jack forward when he suddenly threw up over himself.

He coughed and dribbled spit and vomit as he stepped into a dark pathway that ran along the side of the house.

Edward pulled his UV torch and switched it on, shining his light, picking out a path.

"Who else lives here?" Edward asked, warily.

"Nobody. Just me and sometimes - sometimes my sister."

"And where is she now?" Edward looked around his new surroundings, consisting of overgrown bushes, unkempt trees and overhanging branches. His UV light caught traces of blood on some leaves. He was cautious.

"She's with her boyfriend."

"And where does he live?"

"Crissake! I don't know!"

Jason scrolled through the images on the digital camera as he sat in the driver's seat of the jeep. There were several pictures of Edward and Violet. In a country pub. At a beach eating fish and chips. Edward and Michael in the garden of their home. Michael and Rebecca, smiling, with a glass of wine, in the same country pub.

Mr Ahmed peered curiously at the photographs. The next image was the plaster cast taken of the shoe print from the Common, then the new image of the muddy and bloody shoe print from the pavement outside.

Jason flicked back and forth from the bloody footprint to the muddy one from the Common. They looked identical. He turned to Mr Ahmed. "In the back, behind you. There's a plaster cast. Can you get it please?" asked Jason.

Mr Ahmed didn't bat an eyelid as he complied, turning round and reaching over the back seat into the boot, pulling out the plaster cast of the shoe print. He eyed it, briefly, then handed it across to Jason.

"Cheers," said Jason, holding it upright and switching his eyes left to right at the cast and the digital image of the bloody print outside. They were indeed the same.

"They're identical," commented Mr Ahmed.

"Yeah."

"Very clear. Was the bloody shoe outside here, on the street?" Mr Ahmed asked.

"Yep."

"And the plaster cast? Where was this taken?"

"On the Common," Jason replied.

"What does it mean?"

Jack led Edward to the back garden. It pained him to do so, but he arched his neck to jut his head forwards as he gestured to a metal grate. "There. In there."