Brotherhood of Blades (25 page)

‘Yeah, end of my life.’

Jason took a deep breath and walked down the path.

The front door opened before he had time to knock. Yo-Yo stood in the doorway. His dark T-shirt was stained with perspiration, and other stains marked the front of his jeans.

‘So. The snake crawls back.’ Yo-Yo crossed his tattooed arms. ‘I heard you were around.’ His dark, cropped hair stood erect, making the veins in his temples look more prominent. His eyes bored into Jason’s.

If Jason had had a knife, he would have stabbed him right there. He wanted to shoot him between the eyes and kick him in the bollocks as he lay bleeding on the ground. But with neither knife nor gun, he had no choice but to play it out as he’d been told.

‘You’ve got front, I’ll give you that,’ Reilly said. ‘You’re on my territory. What d’you want?’

‘You put my girl on the streets, after you gave her a taste for the brown. And you beat her to death this morning.’

‘Your girl?’ Yo-Yo said. One side of his cruel mouth slid into a humourless smile. ‘She wanted drugs.’ He gave a dismissive shrug. ‘A habit has to be paid for, and she was fuckable. I tried her out to be sure, then I sent her out to earn.’

Jason’s eyes searched around for weapon: a stick or a piece of broken glass, anything. He was going to give this bastard a beating, no matter what the consequences. There was a piece of concrete like a small rock within his reach; he took a step toward it.

‘Steady.’ Georgia’s voice in his ear halted him. ‘Don’t lose it. You’re doing well.’

A crowd had started to gather. Word had gone round that two rival gang leaders were facing up, and everyone wanted to see who would come out alive.

That half-smile still played on Reilly’s face and his hand stroked his pocket. He was tooled.

‘You had my gran shot too. Why d’you do that?’

Yo-Yo raised a hand. ‘Don’t pin that one on me, sonny. You did it yourself.’

Jason swallowed hard. Yo-Yo pushed open the door of the flat. ‘If you got a bone to pick, come inside. And leave the stone where it is. My dogs don’t like no one having a pop at me.’

The snarling and barking grew louder as Jason approached. He stopped. ‘I ain’t going in there.’

‘If they bother you I’ll lock them up.’

‘I don’t trust you. I ain’t going in there.’

‘Like you got a choice. You wanna talk to me, you come inside. Out here there’s too many ears.’

Jason hesitated.

‘Go ahead,’ said David Dawes’s voice. ‘We’re within yards of you.’

‘You get a five-minute truce,’ Yo-Yo said, turning towards the building. ‘After that, you’re off my territory, or you leave in a box.’

Jason followed him inside.

Yo-Yo kicked the door shut and pulled out a revolver. ‘In there!’ He pushed Jason into the kitchen. Jason stumbled over Mince Delahaye, who lay bleeding and barely conscious on the floor.

Jason knelt down beside him. ‘You need to call someone,’ he said. ‘You’ve shanked him and he’s bleeding hard. He could be dying.’

‘That ain’t none of your fuckin’ business,’ came the reply. A kick from Yo-Yo’s steel-capped boot knocked him to one side.

Jason looked cautiously round to check for an escape route. There was none. Winston ‘Scrap’ Mitchell stood in the doorway with two Rottweilers, which looked ready to tear into someone as soon as he gave the word. In the hallway another Brotherhood member held a flat-headed dog, which was trying to pick a fight with Scrap’s two. He kicked it in the balls until its eyes moved so far into its head that only the whites were visible.

Terror suddenly seized Jason. If these dogs attacked him, his dancing career would be over before it began.

Yo-Yo’s menacing smile had spread.

‘He needs an ambulance,’ Jason repeated, jerking his head at Mince.

Yo-Yo folded his arms. ‘Now see, you’re like your gran. She wouldn’t have it that I make the fucking rules.’ The smile disappeared as fast as it had come. ‘I say who gets punished, and I say who gets an ambulance. Got it? Mince has been punished, and you’re gonna be next. But you know all that, don’t you, Buzzboy?’

The dogs were still spoiling for a fight. One word from Yo-Yo and his throat would be torn out. Question was, would the Feds realize how much danger he was in, or would they only go in when he got them their evidence? Was this the end of the line for him?

‘I ain’t a Buzzboy,’ he said quietly. ‘I ain’t running the Buzzards no more.’

‘None of them to run, my old son.’ Yo-Yo cocked the gun and pointed it at Jason’s face. ‘Those that ain’t been shot are serving time. Ain’t that the truth, Buzzboy?’

‘You gave me your word,’ Jason said. ‘A five-minute truce.’ He dropped his head a little closer to the mike inside his vest. ‘You don’t need to point a gun at me.’

‘He’s got a firearm,’ he heard Georgia’s voice. ‘Make the CO19 call. I want the building surrounded.’

Dawes’s voice spoke in his ear. ‘Hold it together. Push him on the murders.’

The dogs had started fighting, and hair and flesh was flying. The gun bothered Jason less than the snarling animals; they were seriously unnerving him.

Yo-Yo kicked out at one of them. ‘Shut your fucking noise.’ The dog leaned on his front paws and whimpered, then eased itself down on to the carpet and became quiet.

Jason leaned over Mince again to check his wound. ‘This is bad, man,’ he said. ‘What did he do to deserve it?’

‘None of your fucking business,’ came the reply.

Jason persisted. ‘Why did you stab Haley?’

Yo-Yo opened his mouth to speak, but closed it again as Mince struggled to raise himself to a sitting position. His hand clutched the bleeding wound in his stomach and he spoke with difficulty. ‘I want my mum, you hear what I say now?’

Jason had seen more knife wounds in his time than he wanted to remember: enough to know that this one was serious. Mince might have been a rival gang member, but right now he was a vulnerable boy who needed help.

‘Man, that needs seeing to,’ he urged Yo-Yo.

‘What the fuck’s it got to do with you?’ Yo-Yo shouted, moving toward him with the gun pointing at his belly. ‘What are you, some sort of reformed freak?’ He grabbed the front of Jason’s sweatshirt and hauled him to his feet. Then he froze as the penny dropped.

Yo-Yo slowly raised his eyes and looked Jason in the eye. After a second that seemed like an eternity, he said quietly to Boot Ripley, ‘Hold his hands. He’s wired.’

He laid the gun on the kitchen table and pulled a knife from his pocket, holding Jason’s eyes with his own. Jason waited, still as a statue.

Yo-Yo used the edge of the knife to lift the hem of Jason’s sweatshirt and the T-shirt underneath. The cold steel prickled against Jason’s bare skin and Jason fought not to flinch. Yo-Yo’s lips widened into an ugly sneer. He turned the knife so the sharp edge touched Jason’s chest, then pressed it against his heart, where the wire was secured with duct tape. Jason closed his eyes, counting the seconds of life he had left.

The pressure eased and there was a sound like a zip opening. He opened his eyes to see Yo-Yo slowly run the knife from the tail of his T-shirt right up to his neck. The thick black tape was now in full view.

The knife cut into the wire and a warm dribble of blood rolled down Jason’s stomach. His life was in Yo-Yo Reilly’s hands.

‘He’s found the mike,’ Dawes whispered to Georgia.

‘How near are CO19?’ Georgia asked Stephanie.

‘A few minutes away,’ came the reply from Jim Blake.

Jason’s chest felt as if half a dozen wasps had landed on it. Yo-Yo’s heel ground the remains of the wire into the green lino beneath them.

‘So, you’re an arse-licking grass,’ he said, poking the knife under Jason’s balls. ‘I had you down as cleverer than that.’

Everyone knew Yo-Yo Reilly was half mental when he was sane. When he lost it, no one knew what he was capable of.

He bent his head towards Jason’s until their noses almost touched. ‘Penalty for grasses is death and looks like I’ve got the pleasure.’ He hacked the knife into Jason’s shoulder as if he was testing a joint of meat for tenderness. Jason tried not to scream.

‘You think I’m stupid or something?’ Yo-Yo yelled. ‘You come in here bleating about your gran and that slag Chantelle. They got what was coming to them.’ He ran the knife across Jason’s chest. A trickle of blood rolled out. It stung like hell and his legs were growing weak. This was going to be a slow and painful death. He wondered if the Feds would save him.

Boot, Scrap and three dogs moved in behind Yo-Yo. Jason’s vision was bleary, but he heard those dogs, spoiling for someone’s blood.

Yo-Yo smashed a fist into his head, once, twice, three times. Then he butted him, and blood spurted from Jason’s nose. He was pinned against the wall, and all he could see was a galaxy of stars, but still the noise of snarling dogs was crystal clear. He wondered if Chantelle felt this bad as she prepared to meet her maker.

A hard kick in his balls buckled his legs, and he toppled to the ground.

A blurred hand waved in front of his face, and he heard Yo-Yo say, ‘I’m having this bastard myself.’

Not the dogs then. He saw a glint as the knife caught the single shaft of light from the window. It was a long blade with jagged edges. The edges would catch on his skin as it entered his body.

Police surrounded the flat. Stephanie Green stood at one side with David Dawes; Georgia Johnson and Hank Peacock were at the other. A couple of uniforms struggled to keep the swelling crowd back. Chants of ‘Feds, Feds, out the Feds,’ warned the Brotherhood members inside the flat.

‘That’s enough,’ Georgia shouted. ‘Keep your distance, or we’ll arrest you for obstruction.’

The crowd didn’t move. ‘Let’s move in,’ she said to Dawes.

He shook his head. ‘Wait for CO19.’

‘We can’t wait. There’s someone in there with a serious knife wound. And we don’t know what’s happened to Young. We gave him our word we’d look after him.’

‘It’s not safe,’ Dawes pointed out. ‘Someone in there has a gun.’

Stephanie caught Georgia’s eye. ‘Surround the building,’ she told the waiting uniformed officers.

A dozen or more police spread out across the entrance and round the side of the flats.

‘There’s no back entrance, only a tiny window,’ one shouted.

‘The last thing we heard was Jason saying a knife wound needed urgent attention,’ Georgia repeated. ‘We haven’t time to wait for CO19.’

SIXTEEN

A
round the estate, the usual array of missiles and foul-smelling liquids were raining down from the high-rises. Stephanie Green tried to make herself heard over the clamour of dustbin lids and shouts of, ‘Out, Feds, out!’

‘Keep everyone back. Try to keep this area clear,’ she shouted to a uniformed sergeant who was trying to control a gang of youths.

Georgia picked up the loudhailer and turned to the flat. ‘Listen up inside,’ she shouted. ‘This is DI Johnson. Everyone in flat number three walk out slowly, keeping your hands in the air.’

There was no reply.

‘We know you have an injured man in there. We have paramedics waiting to help.’ A rotten apple landed on her back and she shrugged it off. ‘An ambulance is ready. You need to release him, and come out with your hands up.’

A stick landed on the ground close by, and the uniformed sergeant shouted up into nowhere, ‘Pack that up!’

‘We have the building surrounded,’ Georgia continued. ‘We know you are in possession of a firearm.’

No answer.

‘For your own good, throw out any weapons, and come out with your hands above your head, or we will come in.’

Still silence from inside the flat.

Dawes moved up beside her. ‘Wait for CO19,’ he said. ‘We can’t risk any officers getting hurt. We already have three murders to account for.’

Georgia was too angry with herself to look at him. This was her responsibility; she should never have agreed to this pantomime. It had turned into a mess, and she was going to carry the can. DCI Banham had made it quite clear that no risks were to be taken, and they had disobeyed that direct order. It was clear Dawes was only interested in bringing in Yo-Yo Reilly; the man was completely blinkered. He wasn’t even thinking of her officers’ safety; all he cared about was losing Reilly. She had never been a hundred per cent sold on Jason Young’s innocence, or Reilly’s guilt for that matter, but right now lives were at stake, and their job was to make sure they saved them.

She lifted the loudhailer again. ‘Reilly, every moment you hesitate is a threat to your friend’s life. Throw your weapons down and come out.’

No reply.

Stephanie approached, breathing hard. ‘It’s getting to crisis point, ma’am. We need to stop threatening or go in. Someone has just thrown custard over two uniforms and called them yellow bellies.’

‘They’ll live.’ A bubble of hysteria almost escaped Georgia’s mouth.

‘There’s at least one gun in there,’ Dawes argued. ‘Maybe more. We have to wait for CO19.’

‘And while we’re waiting, what if Reilly shoots Young and Michael Delahaye bleeds to death?’ Georgia snapped. ‘How many deaths do you want on your hands?’

Stephanie instructed Hank Peacock to get uniform to cover both sides of the flat. As they moved around the building, Reilly shouted through the window. ‘We ain’t got no gun in here. That’s Young, lying as fucking usual. And I ain’t done nothing neither. The dogs ain’t dangerous, and Mince was cut when he came in here. He says ’e don’t want no ambulance.’

A takeaway carton of curry landed not far from Georgia’s feet. ‘Then let the paramedics check him out,’ she shouted, kicking at it angrily.

A filled nappy landed on the ground next to a group of uniformed police. It was impossible to see which balcony it came from; they had no choice but to ignore it.

‘At the moment you are suspected of possessing a firearm with intent to cause harm,’ Georgia shouted, keeping her temper with an effort. ‘Unless you let us in to see for ourselves, we will continue to believe you are holding a gun. If you have no firearm, why not come out? Delahaye can be checked out by a paramedic, and if all is well, we will leave you alone.’