Blood Rush (Lilly Valentine) (10 page)

From the look at the medical evidence, there was no doubt that the attack on Malaya was a GBH, possibly an attempted murder. He knew which one the chief super would plump for. If there was going to be any chance of the right result on this one he needed to keep his wits about him, and lying awake in the early hours fretting about Alice and Lilly wasn’t a good start.

He reached for his bottle of Diet Coke and took a long glug.

The only lead was the girl, Chika Mboko, but Malaya had given nothing more than the name. Jack needed to know how and why she was involved.

A quick look on the database told a colourful story. There was a kid called Mboko living in the next block to Malaya’s. She had been in and out of care since the age of ten, when her mother claimed to be unable to control her. She’d been in trouble with the police for almost as long. Last year she had been arrested on a robbery charge where the victim had been pulled to the ground and stamped on. The case had fallen through, but not until a psych report had been completed.

Jack read it with a shudder.

A few years ago, Jack would have been tempted to just bring Chika in. She fitted the profile exactly. But these days he knew it paid to be canny. Malaya had only said Chika’s name. She hadn’t accused her of anything. And since he could be guaranteed to get sweet FA out of Chika herself, he needed to see if he could find out anything that might help.

‘Hello, Jonjo, fancy seeing you here.’ Jack smiled at the skinny kid snaking out of the flats, his eyes darting from side to side.

Jonjo clocked Jack and sighed.

‘Nice to see you too,’ said Jack.

Jonjo hunched his shoulders and scowled. His jacket was too thin for the weather and had a large red stain down the front which could have been ketchup, but could just as easily have been blood.

‘I’m a bit busy right now, Jack.’ Jonjo dithered in the drizzle. ‘I’ve got my routine. You know how it is.’

Jack nodded. He did know how it was. They’d met five years ago when Jonjo smacked a stolen Fiat Uno into the side of Tesco’s. He was lucky that it was four in the morning and the only injury was to Jonjo’s front teeth, which got left in the
dashboard
. Jack had sat with him while he got his lips sewn up in A&E. Jonjo’s parents didn’t even turn up.

For the next couple of years, Jack kept an eye out for Jonjo, bollocking him when he got arrested, slipping him the odd fiver, but it was only a matter of time until he slid into the gear. Now Jonjo did the same as every other junkie: whatever he had to. And that included providing information to Jack.

Jack gestured with his head. ‘Get in.’

Jonjo groaned and hugged himself. He badly needed his
morning
fix.

‘Give us ten minutes, Jack.’

Jack shook his head. He knew Jonjo was suffering, but if he let him score first, he wouldn’t get any sense out of him for an hour. Jonjo swore and circled the car. He stepped in and slammed the door shut.

‘Fucking hell, man, I’m in agony here.’

Jack exhaled slowly. Jonjo was only eighteen but looked a decade older and weighed less than someone half his age. His fingers were coated in the black residue left from smoking rocks, and the thumb on his right hand was swollen from too many digs with a needle in the same spot. His life was spent getting high and dealing with the comedown. Jack wondered how long he would actually last.

‘Tell me about Chika Mboko,’ he said.

Jonjo shrugged. ‘Nasty little bitch.’

‘Violent?’

‘Man, these girls are all violent. It’s fucking mayhem on these estates.’

‘What about Malaya Ebola?’ Jack asked. ‘The girl who was attacked in the rec.’

Jonjo paused for a moment, a thick sheen of sweat breaking out across his forehead.

‘Is she the fat kid?’

Jack winced but nodded all the same.

‘Haven’t seen her about much,’ said Jonjo. ‘She ain’t dealing, I know that much.’

Jack nodded. If anyone knew all the local dealers it was Jonjo.

‘I heard she was on her jump in,’ said Jonjo. ‘They always send the youngers to other gangs’ areas, to prove what they’re made of. Fucking suicide, really.’

Jack thought about Malaya’s swollen face, the eyes closed over. Suicide was about right.

‘Was Chika Mboko part of it?’ Jack asked.

‘Oh, she was part of it, for sure,’ said Jonjo.

Jack suppressed a smile. Jonjo’s word wasn’t hard evidence of course. No jury in the world was likely to believe what a sweaty addict was prepared to say for the price of a bag. But it was something Jack could build on. A start. And where there was a start there was always a finish. He held out a twenty and Jonjo snatched it.

Jack watched Jonjo get out of the car and didn’t waste his breath advising him to try for a place in rehab.

‘Take care,’ he called through the window.

As Jack watched Jonjo scuttle around the bonnet, his back bent like an old man, he decided to head back to the hospital. Whether Mr Stephenson liked it or not, Jack needed to ask Malaya if Chika Mboko was one of the perps. If the victim confirmed it, he was halfway there.

Jonjo was about to head off to his man when he stopped and turned, leaned towards Jack’s open window.

‘She never done it though.’

‘Who never done what?’ asked Jack.

‘Chika,’ said Jonjo. ‘She never hurt the fat kid.’

Jack felt as though he’d been slapped. ‘You said she was part of it.’

‘Yeah. She was part of the jump in.’

‘I don’t understand.’

Jonjo muttered something under his breath. ‘Malaya was on her jump in for the CBD. Chika’s one of the olders so she would have been part of that, you know, helping to set it up and that.’

‘How can you be sure Malaya was joining?’

Jonjo spread his arms wide so that his dirty top rode up,
exposing
painful hip bones.

‘This is Clayhill, man, Clayhill Bitches Dem rule these streets.’

The road outside Lilly’s office was clean and bright. Always well tended by Harpenden Council, it sparkled in the morning frost.

Lilly unlocked the door and smiled. It was a far cry from the sink estate where she grew up, the pavements littered with empty fag packets and dog shit.

‘You look happy.’ Karol dropped his briefcase next to the
computer
and slid off his coat.

‘Alice slept for five hours last night,’ said Lilly.

Karol pursed his lips. ‘Five hours is good?’

‘Five hours is cause for celebration,’ Lilly answered.

She slipped into her office and sighed with pleasure. Karol had cleared the decks, repatriating loose papers with their files and housing those files in the correct drawers. Her desk was empty apart from a plastic pot filled with pencils and biros and a typed list of things to do. Outside in reception she could hear him whistling as he went through her emails.

She pulled the laptop from her bag and placed it at the dead centre of her desk. A feeling that anything was possible filled her.

Even the situation with Tanisha could be resolved. The police were under pressure to get a result, but they had nothing on her.

‘These gangs have ruined your sister’s life.’

Gran grunts as she buckles up her shoe. It’s been years since she could reach her feet by bending forwards and she’s devised a way of doing them up by stretching her leg out to the side and
flicking
the strap with her finger.

Demi sits at the kitchen table, stirring sugar into her tea with one hand, resting her chin on the palm of the other.

‘But now she’s awake, the doctor said she could make a full recovery.’

‘I pray to Lord Jesus that is the case.’ Gran crosses herself, and attempts her other shoe.

‘Well then,’ says Demi.

Gran lifts her head and fixes Demi with one of her looks. Demi has never been able to beat the look. It makes her feel like a small child. She concentrates on her tea, sucking up a spoonful noisily.

‘I just mean we should try to stay positive,’ she mumbles.

‘I suppose that is what your new friends are telling you,’ says Gran.

Demi moves back slightly in her chair. Chika says the streets are dangerous, that sisters get hurt all the time. That’s why they have to stick together.

‘I suppose they say that what happened to Malaya is all right,’ Gran pushes herself to her feet and reaches for her coat which is hung on the back of her chair. ‘That these things happen.’

Demi shakes her head, stung. ‘They’re gutted. Really upset.’

Gran buttons up her coat and lets out a little snort through her nose.

‘You don’t know anything about them,’ Demi says.

‘I know that Malaya was a good girl before she got involved with them and started wearing rings in her nose like a cow.’

‘What’s that got to do with anything?’ asks Demi.

‘Good girls don’t put holes in themselves or cover themselves in tattoos.’ Gran reaches for the door handle. ‘And good girls don’t get involved in gang fighting.’

Demi feels her cheeks go hot and she pushes away her tea, sloshing it over the table.

‘You don’t understand what it’s like, Gran. Things aren’t easy for us.’

Gran kisses her teeth. ‘You young ones don’t know how much you have here. Back home there is real suffering, people have real problems.’

‘We have problems here, Gran.’

‘I’m talking about life and death, Demi, not whether you can afford new trainers.’ Gran raises her hand to show the
conversation
is at an end. ‘Let’s not forget the reason why we came here in the first place.’

Demi looks down at the table and chases a pattern in the spilled tea with her thumb. There’s no point trying to talk to Gran. She doesn’t understand.

‘Clear that up, Demi, and go to school,’ says Gran and closes the door behind her.

When she’s sure Gran is safely off the walkway, Demi lets the tears spring into her eyes and smacks down her hand, spraying tea across the table. She’s so angry. Gran of all people should know that you have to protect yourself.

She checks her watch. It’s time to leave for school. Instead, she puts on her new D&G hoodie and pulls the baseball cap low over her eyes.

Then she heads out for Dirty Mick’s, leaving the mess on the kitchen table behind her.

Jack drained the last dregs of the bottle of Diet Coke and wiped the back of his hand across his mouth.

From what Jonjo had said, it was clear that Malaya Ebola and Chika Mboko were members of the same gang, which in turn meant it was highly unlikely that Chika had anything to do with the attack. So why had Malaya named her?

Maybe she didn’t know the names of her attackers and thought Chika might. But did Malaya really believe Chika would help the police? Perhaps the poor girl couldn’t think straight. It was hardly surprising in the circumstances.

Jack turned the key in the ignition. He’d go back to the
hospital
, try to get more information.

He was about to pull out when his mobile rang. Caller ID told him it was the chief super. Shit.

Jack snapped open the phone. ‘Sir.’

‘Any progress, Jack?’

Jack sighed. He hated having the boss breathe down his neck. The report of the interview with Tanisha had been typed and sent to the chief super. He knew the score.

‘The victim has given me a name, but it doesn’t look like she had anything to do with it.’

‘Are you sure?’ asked the chief.

‘Not one hundred per cent, but I don’t think she’s our perp,’ said Jack.

‘Have you brought her in?’

‘No reasonable cause, sir,’ said Jack.

The chief coughed. ‘The victim named her.’

‘Not as her attacker.’

‘The clock is ticking here, Jack,’ the chief snapped. ‘You know the serious pressure we’re under.’

Jack sighed. He did indeed know the score. The police needed to be seen to be following every lead, even those that would lead nowhere.

‘There ain’t nobody that can tell me what to do, you get me?’

Chika takes the straw out of her milkshake and wags it at Demi. It’s green and white striped. Demi and Malaya always argue over who gets the red one. Gran tells them to stop being so silly, but it doesn’t seem silly at the time.

‘I especially ain’t listening to no teacher chatting their shit at me.’ Chika sticks the straw in her mouth and chews the end flat.

Demi smiles and takes a slurp of her own milkshake. She could listen to Chika’s stories all day.

‘Battle of Hastings, blah, blah, blah.’ Chika opens and closes her hand like a beak. ‘Capital of China, blah, blah, blah. Tell me
something
I need to know and I might fucking listen.’

The workmen on the next table look over. They’re big, with shaved heads and dirty hands, but Chika’s not scared.

‘What are you staring at?’ she shouts.

They shake their heads and go back to their bacon sandwiches.