Blood Rush (Lilly Valentine) (28 page)

‘Don’t mind us, we’re in a terrible muddle.’

He climbed the stairs to the tiny landing. One door was shut tight so he tapped with his knuckle.

‘Go away,’ came a muffled voice from inside.

‘Demi, it’s Jack McNally,’ he called. ‘I’m the copper who was with you last night.’

She didn’t answer but he could hear the sound of sobbing. He pushed the door open and stepped inside. There were two single beds. One fully made, the duvet freshly laundered and pulled tight. Demi lay on the other which was crumpled and dirty. She looked up at him with eyes swollen from crying.

‘What do you want?’ Her voice was a harsh rasp.

‘To speak to you about what happened.’ Jack kept his own voice low and gentle.

‘You were there, you know what happened.’

Jack edged closer and bent down so he was at her level. His knees gave a rebellious crack. ‘I’m afraid Chika had been stabbed, Demi, that’s why she fell.’

Demi blinked at him. ‘What?’

‘Someone killed her,’ said Jack. ‘She was knifed in the back.’

Demi pushed herself up. The imprint of the pillow clear on her cheek.

‘Do you know who did it?’

Jack shook his head. ‘That’s what I wanted to talk to you about. She told me she was meeting someone. Do you know who?’

‘No. She got a text. I thought it was from you, about the stuff with the court case. Have you spoken to the girl who attacked Malaya?’

‘She says she was home.’

‘Do you believe her?’ Demi asked.

‘I don’t know,’ he replied. ‘Tanisha McKenzie says a lot of things, if you get my drift.’

He stood with a groan and placed his card on Demi’s
tear-stained
pillow. ‘If you remember anything at all, call me.’

As he got to the door he remembered something Cheney had asked him to do.

‘While I’m here, can I just take a quick swab?’ He pulled out a plastic container.

‘What do you mean?’

‘Nothing to worry about.’ He uncapped it. The plastic cheek scrape was attached to the lid, like a child’s tube of bubbles. ‘You and I were at the scene so forensics need to eliminate our DNA.’

‘Okay.’ Her voice was small.

‘Open wide, it doesn’t hurt a bit.’

From the walkway outside the Ebolas’ flat, Jack caught sight of a SOCO van. He made his way over and flashed his badge at an officer who was methodically labelling evidence bags.

‘There’s a lot of crap covered in a lot of blood up there,’ said the officer.

‘Cheney around?’ Jack asked.

The officer nodded to the stairwell at the base of the block where Chika lived.
Had lived
. The entrance was blocked by several strips of police tape. If the lift was broken the residents were buggered.

Jack peeled off the top strip, stepped over the others and stuck it back to the wall. The stairwell stank. Not standard issue piss and beer. It had the hot, meaty stench of death.

‘Phil,’ he shouted up, into the dark concrete, ‘you there, mate?’

‘Come join the party,’ Cheney’s voice echoed down.

Jack climbed the stairs to the tenth floor, sweating by the time he reached the entrance to the walkway. Cheney was on his hands and knees, measuring blood splatter patterns and making careful notes.

‘You must really love your job,’ said Jack.

‘The ladies tell me it turns them on.’

‘The sort of munters you go for, it probably does.’

Jack studied the wall and floor. The scene was covered in blood. He’d learned at the academy that the human body contained five litres of the stuff. What no one ever mentioned was how much escaped during a stabbing or a shooting. Maybe if they brought kids here, showed them the resulting carnage, they’d stay away from trouble. Maybe not.

‘What can you tell me?’ he asked.

Cheney closed his notebook and stood. ‘There is no blood lower than this level, well only a few drops that flew out during the attack. The majority of it is here.’

‘So this is where she was stabbed?’

‘Almost definitely. I’d say she was here,’ he placed Jack on the top step, his body turned towards the exit, ‘and the assailant came behind her.’

‘Took her by surprise?’ asked Jack.

‘I’d say so. There are no defensive wounds, only three punctures moving downwards.’

‘Why down?’

Cheney stood behind Jack. ‘The first cut is here.’ He jabbed Jack with the corner of his notebook in the sternum.

‘I’d turn immediately,’ said Jack.

Cheney shook his head. ‘You’re in shock, in pain, your instinct is to fall forwards.’

He pressed on Jack’s shoulders, so that he bent, and jabbed Jack with the book again, this time slightly lower.

‘Actually if you’d managed to get away, you might have lived at this point,’ said Cheney. ‘The first wounds were deep but not fatal.’

‘But she didn’t run,’ said Jack.

‘No,’ said Cheney. ‘I think she fell forwards.’

Jack reached all the way until his hands touched the ground. He felt the edge of the book nudge him hard.

‘Remember the entry site above the victim’s bra strap? That was the killer,’ said Cheney. ‘Straight into her heart.’

‘While she was down.’

Cheney didn’t answer. Instead he skirted around Jack and through the exit, pointing to a faint trail of blood that last night’s rain had tried to wash clean.

‘Then she must have staggered along the walkway.’

Jack followed Cheney. They stopped at the point Chika fell from.

‘She saw me,’ said Jack. ‘Leaned over to try to tell me something.’

‘I doubt it, Jack. I’m surprised she even made it this far to be honest.’

But Jack wasn’t the least bit surprised. Chika Mboko had been a fighter all her life. Even at the end, she had still been fighting.

They’re sitting at a bus stop eating Rice Krispies Squares. They sort of melt in your mouth and Trick says the sugar rush helps his come-down.

They’re not waiting for a bus. Just sitting. Watching.

Trick likes buses. He says his granddad used to be a coach driver.

‘What happened to him?’ Jamie asks.

‘Dunno. We moved to get away from Dad.’ Trick knows all the numbers and where they go. ‘I’ve always been able to memorize timetables and that.’

‘You should come to my school,’ says Jamie. ‘We never stop learning stuff. French verbs, lists of dates, lines of poetry. It’s endless.’

‘Do you think they’d have me, then?’ Trick asks.

The thought of him in a blazer and tie, doing his prep, cracks Jamie up.

‘I’m sure they’d be very glad to have you,’ he laughs.

Soon they’re both in hysterics, imagining Trick in the choir and chess club. Without warning, Trick’s face drops and he mumbles something to himself. Three boys are walking towards them. Their heads are shaved under their baseball caps and they stop in the bus shelter.

‘All right batty boy.’ The largest, three thick gold chains
swinging
around his neck, kicks Trick’s foot. ‘This your new ride?’

The other boys laugh, showing an array of missing teeth. Trick smiles, but in the same way Jamie’s mum smiles when she thinks she should, but underneath can’t see what’s funny.

‘You got something for me, batty boy?’ The boy scowls. ‘Don’t tell me you’ve forgotten.’

Jamie watches Trick’s face. It’s easy to know what he’s
thinking
. What’s the saying? He wears his heart on his sleeve. That’s Trick. He’s open, like a little puppy or a small child. And right now, Jamie can see Trick is frightened.

‘I ain’t forgot,’ he says.

The boy bends down, his face right in Trick’s. ‘You sure, queer boy? Cos I’m happy to remind you, pour a little battery acid on your mum’s face.’

Jamie’s heart crashes around his chest. He can’t believe what the boy just said.

‘I said I ain’t forgot.’ Trick squeezes his eyes shut.

‘I want the lot,’ says the boy. ‘You got one hour.’

Trick nods.

Satisfied, the boy straightens and moves away. When he’s a few feet away, he turns. Jamie holds his breath, too scared to breathe. The boy holds up his hand, makes the shape of a gun and fires. All three laugh and leave.

Once they’re out of sight, Trick leaps to his feet. ‘Shit, shit,
fucking
shit.’

‘What’s wrong?’ Jamie asks.

Stupid question. A maniac has just threatened to disfigure Trick’s mum, and okay, he often calls her a fat slag and steals her benefits, but she’s still his mum. Trick doesn’t notice, his panic is too thick.

‘I owe them money.’ He hops about.

‘How much?’

‘I dunno.’

‘What do you mean you don’t know?’ Jamie asks. ‘How much did you borrow?’

‘They’re not a fucking bank, Jamie.’ Trick is shouting now. ‘There’s no bit of paper to work out the interest rate.’

Jamie must look as clueless as he feels because Trick sighs. ‘They gave me a few wraps on the never never. I told them I’d give them our telly.’

‘And you didn’t?’

‘I tried, didn’t I? But Mum caught me and called the police so I had to leg it.’

Jamie thinks fast. Trick owes some crazy people a telly. Right now he doesn’t have a telly. But does it really matter? The boy with the ugly chains has probably got a flat-screen plasma at home, like all the rest of the scroungers. He just wants to be repaid. Jamie pulls out the cash he took from home. They’ve spent a bit, but most of it’s still there.

‘Here’s forty quid at least,’ he says.

Trick shakes his head. It won’t be enough. In Jamie’s other pocket is his iPod. He offers it to Trick.

‘This has got to be worth something.’

Trick’s hand quivers as he inspects it. It’s a good one, the
latest
model.

‘Let’s see what we can get for it,’ he says and they hurry off in the direction of Solomon Street.

Jack’s stomach flipped as Phil Cheney unlocked the door to the rubbish chute and began scooping out the contents. A black
plastic
sack split open, spilling rotting meat bones and dirty nappies on to the road.

He put his hand across his nose. ‘I’ll leave you to it, mate.’

‘Lightweight,’ Cheney laughed.

Jack headed back to the SOCO van and looked in the foot well of the front passenger side. As expected he found a flask of coffee. Cheney might look like he lived in a yurt but his
organizational
skills outstripped Jack’s. He would never come out on a job without provisions.

Jack poured himself a cup and took a sip. He felt bruised purple by the ferocity of the last twenty-four hours. He needed to rest. Sleep wouldn’t come, he knew that, but a lie on his bed would be welcome. He’d finish the coffee and head home. Cheney would call him if he found anything.

As he drank, his eyes wandered back to the place where Chika had landed. Someone had placed a bunch of flowers next to the police cordon. They were the cheap kind that you could pick up in a garage. The sort he used to grab for Lilly on the way home from work.

A group of girls arrived. All hair extensions and PVC bomber jackets. They hovered at the tape, hugging one another. Jack guessed they’d be CBD, but knew, if approached, they’d be struck deaf, dumb and blind.

A car pulled up and hooted its horn. As one, the girls sloped over to it, peering in the window, speaking to the passenger. It was a man. Black. Young. Nothing out of the ordinary, yet
something
in the way the girls behaved told Jack to pay attention. He went through his pockets but couldn’t find paper or pen. In the end he took out his phone and saved the registration plate in his contact list.

The girls were nodding now, agreeing with something the man had said. Then his window closed and the car sped off. The girls too disappeared.

Jack sighed and finished his drink. There was nothing more he could do here, he might as well get off and at least try for some kip. He shook the coffee dregs on to the road and was screwing the cap back on the flask, when Cheney materialized from the rubbish chute, his forensic suit brilliant against the backdrop of gloomy breeze blocks. He was holding something at chest height. Jack squinted. It was an evidence bag.

He jumped out of the van and the two men met in the shadows.

‘This might just be what you need, Jack,’ Cheney grinned.

Inside the bag was a kitchen knife, the blade, unmistakably, covered in dried blood.

Trick is talking. Non stop. It’s a stream of consciousness that has lasted the entire journey and Jamie’s head is breaking in two
trying
to keep up.

After he’s paid off the nutters, he wants to take a break from all this. Get clean of the gear. It’ll be hard, he knows, but he thinks he’s strong enough. He’s tried before. Locked himself in his house, barricaded the door. His mum had a fit about the nails and that but he explained it was the only way. After eight hours, he sold his mum’s microwave for ten quid. This time, though, will be different. He’ll score some benzos. Put himself to sleep for a day or two. Job done. Then he’ll live his life. He’ll pack his bags and take off. Get a job. Get a place of his own. Sure, he’ll still have the odd dabble, but not this twenty-four seven thing he’s got into.

‘What time is it?’ he asks.

Jamie checks his watch, forgetting he’s already sold it. There’s a white mark on his wrist where it should be, from his holiday in Antigua at half term.

‘It hasn’t been an hour has it?’ Trick babbles.

Jamie has no idea. Time has stopped having any meaning.

By the time they get to Solomon Street, Jamie is exhausted. He needs to sit down.

‘No offence, Jamie,’ says Trick, ‘but let me do the talking.’

He’ll get no argument. Jamie couldn’t, even if he wanted to.

The guy on the wall has been replaced. There’s no pit bull gnashing its teeth, but the new man is every bit as aggressive. He’s got a bandage around his foot and is rubbing it.

‘Is JC in?’ Trick asks.

‘Don’t speak to me, junkie,’ the man snarls. ‘Just go inside and do your thing.’