Brotherhood of Blades (13 page)

Another problem was that he’d stink by the time he turned up for the first day of dance classes. The woman that ran the joint had found him somewhere to stay, with a family near the school. He had the address. Maybe he could check that out, ask if it was OK to move in a couple of days early; that way he could get a shower before the first class.

He was optimistic, but nervous. A lot of the estate kids dreamed of being rap stars or athletes, but he had a real chance. One day he and Chantelle would look back, when they were far away and earning their own money, and maybe even had babies of their own.

It was his turn at the counter. He just ordered the chicken, figured he needed the protein at the moment, though there might come a time when he’d have to live on chips. He paid, and took his plastic tray to a seat near the window. There were trees down this road: a real treat. He loved to study their shapes, some of them like dancers’ arms, bending and moving in the wind. He really missed seeing trees during his time in Wandsworth.

A group of boys were hanging out outside, three black and a couple of white. He turned his back to the window. He wasn’t courting trouble; he was going to avoid it at all costs. He bit into his chicken and thought about the last twenty-four hours. How had all this shit happened?

He had hated Haley. She called him a bad boy and told him to stay away. How bad was it to love someone? And what was all that finding Jesus stuff that Haley was into? Where was she when Chantelle was being lured into drugs? On her knees in some church, he had no doubt. Chantelle must have felt so alone and desperate.

He wiped his mouth with a serviette. He needed a shave; fat chance of that for a few days. He picked up his tray, dumped his rubbish and left the shop. A couple of guys weighed him up, but he ignored them. His next problem was how far to walk today, and which was the safest street to sleep in tonight.

Alysha jumped up at the sound of the door. ‘I’ll go,’ she said, swallowing down a mouthful of chips and wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. ‘Mince said he’d bring your stuff.’

‘She’s got it bad,’ Chantelle said, following her.

Winston ‘Scrap’ Mitchell, Dwayne ‘Boot’ Ripley and Michael ‘Mince’ Delahaye, the three lieutenants of the Brotherhood gang, stood framed in the doorway. All three had their sweatshirt hoods up over their heads. It was a bitterly cold morning. Some washing pinned to a rope further down the walkway stood to attention as the biting wind fought to free it from the line.

There were no Feds around. Boot stepped quickly inside the flat, closely followed by the others, and kicked the door shut behind them.

‘Someone’s got a mouth on her,’ he said, taking a step towards Chantelle.

‘I ain’t said nothing,’ she protested, trying to see what he was holding behind his back. It was a cricket bat.

She flicked a glance at Alysha. The kid was by the door and might get a chance to slip out and get help. Alysha was streetwise, and got the message. She’d opened the door and she was about to dash out when Mince Delahaye grabbed her. Mince’s jeans were so low-slung they might have slipped off his bony hips at any second.

Chantelle pushed him. ‘Let go of her!’

‘And there’s us thinking you liked Yo-Yo, and were grateful for the stuff he got you.’ Mince stepped back and kept hold of Alysha, leaving space for Scrap Mitchell to move in behind Boot. Chantelle had to take a pace backwards.

Boot leaned forward till his face nearly touched hers. ‘Cat got your tongue?’ he asked menacingly.

Luanne was standing in the hall in seconds. She grabbed Mince and tried to pull him away from Alysha. ‘Leave her alone.’

Mince released Alysha and grabbed Luanne’s arm. ‘What?’ he spat at her. ‘You want your arm broken, do you?’

Alysha grabbed the opportunity and was out the door and running in a flash.

‘Get the Feds,’ Chantelle screamed desperately after her, then tugged at Mince’s sweatshirt. ‘Leave Luanne out of this, she ain’t done nothing, she . . .’

The head-butt seemed to come out of nowhere, and sent her flying backwards. Her head hit the wall beside the door, and before she registered any pain blood spurted from her nose.

After that it all happened quickly. The bat waved in front of her eyes, and as she opened her mouth to scream a firm hand gripped her face and squeezed her cheekbones. She felt a crack, and her whole head seemed to explode in pain. Then something bounced off the top of her head. It wasn’t till she saw more blood shoot out that she realized the cricket bat had cracked open the top of her skull. Her back thumped against the wall and her head fell against her shoulder as her body slid downwards. Blood spurted in all directions. She tried to speak, but a strange sound echoed inside her brain. A boot ploughed into her face as she stared at the carpet, and a distant voice said, ‘See? Yo-Yo don’t like being set-up by his cunts.’

She tasted blood sliding down her throat and prayed to pass out. Just before she did, she felt her ribs and back rock from side to side and was vaguely aware of being kicked, but her strength had left her and she couldn’t even roll into a protective ball. Her arm seemed to bend toward her face, then there was excruciating pain and a sound like a twig snapping. As she slipped from consciousness her last thought was that if Jason had stayed with her, he would never have danced again.

The next thing she saw was a blurred version of Luanne sitting on the floor beside her. She made out a bloodstained towel and a phone, and Luanne screaming for help and an ambulance. Chantelle hoped she was dying. She didn’t want to live, not the way she’d look after this.

It was a good moment for Georgia and Stephanie. They shut Alan Oakwood’s lowlife legal mouth good and proper when they told him his client’s DNA had been identified in the sperm in the dead woman’s mouth, giving them ample grounds to hold Reilly for further questioning.

David Dawes wasn’t too pleased to be given the job of bringing in Dwayne Ripley and Michael Delahaye; he wanted a go at interviewing Reilly. But Georgia wasn’t having it. She had decided to make it clear from day one that she was running the investigation. She told him she and Stephanie would bring in Jason Young; Dawes said nothing, but she could tell by his face that he wanted a go at Jason Young too.

He gave Georgia and Stephanie his notes on Young’s history with the Buzzards, and told them again that he found it almost impossible to believe Young’s DNA was on the victim as well as Reilly’s. They were confirmed enemies, and wouldn’t work together if their lives depended on it.

Georgia read the notes as they drove along to pick up Young at his gran’s flat. Most of the Buzzards were serving time for armed robbery; that much she already knew. What stopped her in her tracks was the way Jason Young and his gang were caught. There had been a tip-off from an informant, and that informant was Haley Gulati. And now Young was newly out of prison, and Haley Gulati had been murdered.

The pieces of jigsaw were beginning to drop into place. Faced with DNA evidence, Reilly’s excuse was that it was Haley he’d had sex with earlier, with her consent. There was no arguing that one, Haley couldn’t disagree, it was Reilly’s word against no one’s. No court would put him away for that. Forensics had confirmed that Young’s DNA was on the woman, but not his sperm. It was now looking likely that it was Jason Young who had stabbed Haley, after the Brotherhood had gang-raped her.

So they had strong evidence, and this new information from Dawes gave them a motive. Jason Young was now their chief suspect. She needed to get him quickly, or the slippery bastard would do a runner.

The manner of this woman’s death had got under Georgia’s skin. She’d seen many black women murdered, but it was the gang-rape that really preyed on her.

Stephanie’s chirpy voice broke into her thoughts. ‘I wonder why Dawes is so interested in South London gangs?’ There was a pause, then Steph said, ‘Are you OK, ma’am?’

Georgia blinked herself back into the present. ‘Yes, course. And you only have to call me ma’am in front of the others, you know that.’ She blew out a breath. ‘I’m thinking about Haley Gulati,’ she said. ‘She was the informant that got Young sent down for armed robbery, so now we have a motive for both sets of DNA. It’s starting to look like the Brotherhood raped her first, and then Young murdered her. Dawes is adamant that they wouldn’t work together on anything, though.’

‘Could be coincidence,’ Stephanie offered. ‘Both were after her and both got to her on the same night. It does happen.’

‘Chase up the footprints around the murder from forensics. Let’s see if we can place any of these lowlifes at the actual scene.’

‘Will do.’ Stephanie stuck her hand in her pocket and pulled out a Twix bar. The lights changed and she drove off, one hand on the wheel, the other ripping at the wrapper.

‘If only we could find the weapon,’ Georgia said. ‘That would tell us a lot more.’

‘A bit like finding a needle in a haystack on that estate,’ Stephanie said through a mouthful of chocolate. ‘Peacock’s in charge of that. So far they’ve turned up eleven knives, and a treasure trove of other weapons around and about, but none of them match the cuts.’

Georgia looked down at the notes Dawes had given her. Anything to avoid watching Stephanie with chocolate all over her chin. There was one sure way to stop her eating that rubbish, Georgia thought mischievously.

‘I’ll bet you a tenner that you bed Dawes during this enquiry.’

Stephanie laughed raucously and licked chocolate from her fingers. ‘By the end of the enquiry? We’ve got a suspect, we’ve found a motive, all we need is a confession. It could be in the bag before the end of the day.’

‘We need proof,’ Georgia offered.

‘Not if we get a confession.’ A grin split her face. ‘Why are you asking me to try and seduce Dawes? Not that I’d say no given a chance.’

Georgia smiled. ‘Go for it,’ she said, ‘I want all the gossip on him.’

Her mobile rang. It was DCI Banham, and he had breakthrough news.

‘We’re on our way to pick him up,’ she said into the phone. She hissed to Stephanie, ‘The blood from the door at the Gulatis’ is Haley’s, and the DNA from the perspiration is . . . Jason Young’s!’

But the DCI hadn’t finished. She stiffened. ‘No, sir.
No!
You can’t let him out!’

Stephanie threw her eyes northward and sighed.

Georgia listened powerlessly as DCI Banham told her they had no grounds for holding Reilly. He admitted having sex with a woman whose name he didn’t remember. He said it was consensual sex, and there was nothing to prove otherwise. Banham depressed her even further; the dangerous dog charge hadn’t held up. A canine expert had been called in, and confirmed that Yo-Yo’s dogs were crossbred. There were no charges to answer to, and Reilly’s solicitor had insisted he was released. Reilly was out and free again, and the police could do nothing about it.

Georgia clicked her phone off and repeated the news to Stephanie.

‘With a bit of luck they’ll kill each other,’ Stephanie said. ‘They’re both the lowest of lowlife.’

They drove in silence for a few minutes, then Stephanie said, ‘You’re on.’

‘On what?’

‘Your bet. A tenner. I’m going to give it a go. The case is definitely not cut and dried.’

Georgia smiled, nodded and gave a thumbs-up. This would be interesting. Dawes had got the DNA pushed through very quickly. She wanted to know more about him, or all about him, and she certainly wasn’t going to seduce him to find out. Thankfully, Stephanie wanted to.

Dawes walked into the Aviary estate alone. At least a dozen uniformed police moved in behind him as he headed toward the Sparrow block.

He was afraid of none of the lowlife on the estate. The dealer that had sold the fatal hit of heroin to his sister came from this hellhole, and he was going to find him and make him pay. He spent his spare time studying every available piece of information about gang members for that very purpose. A lot of the squad up west called him a sad trainspotter but he didn’t give a damn; he was on a mission.

Over here on attachment, he had a chance to get another lowlife off the street, but more importantly to get closer to the pond-scum who sold his fifteen-year-old sister that heroin. If he could save other vulnerable young girls from being seduced by drugs, that was a bonus.

He felt partly responsible when his parents’ marriage broke up. Philly went to live with their father; he was extremely high up in the Met, and very strict on Philly, and she became very unhappy. David had let her come to live with him, given her the spare room, but his job, like his father’s, meant he wasn’t home enough, and he didn’t really know how to look after a teenager. He allowed her too much freedom, and she made friends with the wrong people.

How he wished a law would be passed allowing drug barons to be done for first degree murder. He knew no one who didn’t agree that they were worse than the worst kind of killers; they knowingly sold poison that sucked the life out of their vulnerable prey.

He didn’t present much of a threat as he walked towards the Sparrow block, where he knew Boot and Mince hung out. He wasn’t particularly tall, broad or muscular; but anyone who thought they could take him on would find they had made a mistake. He had learned a lot growing up in a family of police officers: first how to look out for himself, and more recently to use what he had to full advantage. He wasn’t big but he was quick, and after intensive training at the new Gravesend police centre, he wasn’t afraid to take on youths who flashed knives. He was angry too, and determined to win his private battle.

Trainee DC Hank Peacock stood on the corner. Peacock looked far too young for his twenty-three years, another reason he’d be an asset to the squad working on gang crime. Hank could pass for late teens, and his low-slung combat jeans and trendy trainers blended in well. He leaned against the edge of the building, smoking a cigarette and taking in the surroundings.