The Know (14 page)

He looked at his mate as if for the first time; saw the looks from the nurses at his tattoos. His neck had
Cut Here
written across it and small blue lines to indicate exactly where. Someone would one day, and Jasper felt tired once more at the thought. A black nurse with a bright smile and an easy manner walked towards the bed, but one look at Dessie and his cold eyes and she retreated. Jasper felt embarrassed all over again. It was getting to be a habit these days. She had been a star while looking after him; sensing his fear she had gone about her business efficiently and kindly. He was in pain now and the injection she’d been going to administer would have been welcome. He wished Dessie would go away, but of course he wasn’t going to say that.

‘Need her, don’t you!’

‘She’s a fucking nurse and, yeah, I need one at the moment.’

Dessie nodded but he wasn’t happy and it showed. Something wasn’t right, he could feel it. He was waiting to be told the whole score and Jasper kept evading the issue.

Eventually Dessie lost any sympathy he might have had and said aggressively, ‘Look, Jasper, I ain’t fucking about all day. What happened? Your mother reckons it was fucking Jon Jon Brewer.’

He looked slyly at his mate as he spoke but not a flicker showed on Jasper’s face.

‘That’s bollocks.’

‘Not according to your muvver.’

‘What is she then? Mrs Reliable all of a sudden? Don’t tell me she’s sober for a change - they even threw her out of here. She hates poor Jeanette and wants me to aim her out the door. Get a fucking grip!’

His voice was so dismissive that Dessie relaxed. For all his big talk he had not been looking forward to any real confrontation there if he could help it. Jon Jon was an anomaly. He was liked for a start, which was more than they were. But he was also unpredictable. Look what he had done to Carty.

‘Were they coons?’

Jasper shook his head.

‘Nah. Skinheads like you.’

Dessie frowned, his big open face puzzled.

‘Don’t you mean us?’

‘No, Dessie. I mean they were like
you
. Big, pig ignorant and mob-handed.’

Dessie was offended and it showed. It wasn’t the first time it had been pointed out to him that he was not the bravest soul in Christendom when he was on his own. He was purely a mob fighter.

‘That’s nice, ain’t it?’

Jasper smiled.

‘You are such an easy wind up.’

Dessie laughed, but he didn’t think it was funny. The truth never was. They both knew the damage had been done.

‘Where do you reckon they were from then?’

They often fought other skinheads, it was the nature of their particular beast.

Jasper shrugged.

‘Fuck knows. They didn’t exactly introduce themselves. ’

Jasper relaxed slightly. Dessie believed him and the others would follow suit. He had started off the lie, now he had to carry on with it. He hoped Jeanette was faring as well as he was.

He liked her, loved her in fact, but would never say that out loud, of course. He was too hard for that.

 
‘Please, Jon Jon.’

He drank his coffee and studied his sister’s face. She was pretty and she was shrewd - and she was mental over a fucking bullyboy who spent his Saturdays fighting at football matches with the ICF, and the rest of the time preaching about keeping Britain white.

How had that happened to Jeanette?

Whatever else they were, they were a multi-racial family. Her long dark hair came from a Turkish bloke their mother had taken up with for a while. He had left after five months with the telly, the video, and Joanie’s purse. His parting gift to her had been a belly full of arms and legs.

Jeanette was white-skinned enough, but the Turkish side was there if you looked. It gave her that unusual look she had. Her striking eyes were hazel, a greeny-brown. But then his mum was naturally dark-haired too, she streaked hers to get the blonde look she craved. Jeanette did the same except she had low lights, browny-reds that made her strong features look softer.

Jon Jon wiped a hand across his face. He was tired out.

Jeanette tried again.

‘He told the filth
nothing
. To everyone else he is going to say it was a gang of skins, a rival gang. He ain’t grassed you.’

Still Jon Jon didn’t answer her.

‘Everyone else’ was Copes’s skinhead mates.

‘If I go along with this you’ll have to stop seeing him, you know that, don’t you?’

She nodded and he couldn’t look her in the eye. He saw it was what she had expected.

He spoke once more, gently and with emphasis.

‘I mean it, Jeanette. No talking for the sake of it. I mean
stop
,
finished
, once and for all. Or next time I
will
fucking kill him and go down for it with a smile on me face.’

She nodded once more, tears closer than ever now as he said gently, ‘Let me think about it, OK?’

She wiped her eyes. It was more than she had hoped for.

Chapter Seven

Joanie looked good and she felt good.

Her hair was perfect, streaked to within an inch of its life, and her makeup was tastefully subdued, having been carefully applied by a pretty girl in Debenhams Lakeside. She was wearing a tailored black trouser suit with a white shirt underneath. She looked sexy, but also businesslike and smart. Her nails were long and French manicured, her shoes high and open-toed.

She looked at herself in the mirror and was amazed at the transformation. She looked like a woman who was going to work, real work, and the thought of not having to flash her clout for a living any more made her happier than she could have believed possible.

Jon Jon’s look of admiration when he came in was balm to her soul.

‘You look great, Mum.’

Joanie hugged him. He was a handsome man, her son. Even dreads looked good on him. He had an aquiline face that made him look artistic and intelligent, which he was. Jon Jon was as bright as a button. His school, when he had deigned to go, had wanted him to make something of himself. And he could have. Still could - only not in any legal way.

Joanie pushed these thoughts from her mind. This was a good day and she was not going to let anything or anyone spoil it.

‘I feel like I’m starting a whole new life, and it’s because of you, Jon Jon.’

He grinned.

‘Nah, it ain’t because of me, Mum. You just needed the push to get a proper job. Paulie says you may even have to go on the cards.’

She smiled once more.

‘Me having a proper job, eh! I wish I knew where me mother was, that would tickle her no end.’

They both laughed.

‘Knowing me nan, she’d be so drunk she wouldn’t know what you were talking about anyway.’

Joanie nodded her agreement.

‘Kira’s late.’

They both automatically looked at the clock on the wall; it was a market copy of the Taj Mahal, all gold plastic and glitter. A real Brick Lane special. Kira had bought it one Christmas. No one had had the heart to tell her what they really thought of it and it had been on the wall ever since.

Everyone’s eyes were automatically drawn to it as soon as they entered the room. Now they both stared at it, worry clouding their faces. It was nearly five o’clock and she should have been in an hour since.

‘Perhaps she’s gone over Tommy’s.’

‘I’ll go and see, Mum. You make a cuppa, eh?’

Jon Jon slipped from the flat, glad of the respite. He felt stoned, had been puffing all afternoon and he knew he had to clear his head as they had a bit of work on later that needed sensible behaviour.

He was paranoid over Jasper. Had heard that he had nearly split the skinhead’s liver and that Copes was still very ill in hospital. It was funny: Jon Jon could be vicious and he knew it, but wounding Jasper was a different kettle of fish. This was over family and that made it all the more emotive as far as he was concerned.

It wasn’t like clumping someone over work or money - that kind of upset he could put out of his mind. But with the worry over his sister his violence wasn’t calculated any more. He had lost control, that was what bothered Jon Jon.

 
Kira was drunk.

Thanks to Bethany and another girl called Alana, she was paralytic. It was terrible to see her. Bethany was frightened because what had started as a joke was now out of hand.

Slipping a bottle of her mother’s Bacardi under her jacket had been exciting at first, and making themselves a playhouse in the bushes of the park had been great as well. But the Bacardi and Cokes, which had tasted so sweet and nice, had rapidly made them sick. And Kira had carried on drinking. Now she was vomiting everywhere and her face was deathly white one minute and a blazing red the next. The sweet smell of the sick was making Bethany retch herself and Alana had already done a runner home.

Bethany was also aware of the rift between her mother and Kira’s. She knew her mother was not impressed with Joanie’s new job. Bethany wasn’t sure why, all she knew was that her mother’s oldest friend was no longer flavour of the month at home and she had been told to keep away from Kira.

Now she had all this on her plate.

Kira lay back on the grass. It was cool and she felt so hot and feverish. If only she could focus her eyes she would be OK. But every time she tried there were too many Bethanys and they made her want to laugh. Her hair was all over the place and she looked like a demented Dalek.

Bethany was near to tears. She’d been sick herself from what she had drunk, but watching Kira pumping out vile black vomit started her off again and they both retched until their throats hurt.

That was when the park keeper found them.

Twenty minutes later the police were there and Bethany was crying and Kira was once more laughing her head off.

The WPC shook her head at the park attendant, disgusted by what she was witnessing. Kira was still retching, and her clothes were stained with sick. It was in her hair and all over her hands.

The policewoman called an ambulance.

 
Jon Jon had never seen anyone Tommy’s size move so fast in his life. As soon as he heard that Kira was not home from school he was pulling on his jacket and getting ready to scour the streets for her. Jon Jon was impressed by the man’s obvious concern for his little sister. It had taken him a while really to trust Tommy but now he saw him as his mother did - as a nice man, a caring man.

When Tommy picked up the phone and asked his father if he had seen Kira, the urgency in his voice was contagious. Even Jon Jon was getting worried now. The big man kept saying, ‘Are you
sure
you haven’t seen her?’

When Jon Jon told him to calm down he finally replaced the receiver and said, ‘That’s the only number I have apart from yours. And she can’t be far, can she? Kira wouldn’t go missing, she knows how we all worry.’

He was near to tears.

‘I’d better get back to me mum, OK? We’ll keep you posted.’

Jon Jon was glad to get out of the flat. Tommy’s nervousness was rapidly communicating itself to him and he was getting really worried himself.

 
Joanie got to the hospital at just after eight-fifteen. Bethany had eventually given the game away about who they were and Joanie arrived at the same time as Monika. Neither woman spoke until the doctor had explained the situation to them.

Kira had had a minor epileptic fit and was suffering from alcoholic poisoning; Bethany was none the worse for her ordeal and could go home immediately.

‘That bloody Bethany!’

Joanie spoke her mind without a second thought. Monika, however, was not having her daughter blamed for this fiasco, as she described it to herself.

‘Look here, Joanie Brewer, your Kira was as much to blame. She drank the fucking stuff, no one forced her.’

Joanie shook her head angrily.

‘Piss off! You know she wouldn’t have dreamed of doing anything like that by herself, Mon. Bethany is the one who thinks up these kind of pranks.’

Monika, still smarting from Joanie’s newfound promotion, was not in the mood for arguments. She was going to go straight in for the kill.

‘Who the fucking hell do you think you are, eh?’

Everyone could hear her and Joanie closed her eyes in distress at what she knew was to come.

‘You waltz in here dressed like mutton and fucking start on about my little Bethany! Like Kira is whiter than fucking white. Just because you ain’t flogging your arse no more don’t make you better than me, mate. I know all about you, love, remember that.’

‘You know my Kira wouldn’t do something like this, Mon, not unless she was told to. You know what she’s like.’

Joanie was trying hard to keep her temper but it was difficult.

Monika put her hands on her ample hips as she yelled, ‘Why don’t you just say it, Joanie? She’s six seconds behind everyone else, thick as shit, is
that
what you’re telling me at last? Only most people have already sussed that much out for themselves.’