Rise and Fall (25 page)

Tyler glanced up, expecting to see a look of disgust on Reagan’s face. Instead, his eyes met the barrel of the gun. 

“No, Reagan, please.” Tyler realised what this outing had been about. Jerell had kept his promise, it seemed, Tyler wouldn’t be able to tell a soul now. 

“Are you sure it was him?” Jamie asked Louise again, hoping that she had been right about her sighting. They had been heading over to Jerell’s house, when she said that she had spotted the bright yellow Corsa belonging to one of his boys driving in the opposite direction.  

Louise nodded. The car was so gaudy it stood out like a sore thumb, and Louise had recognised it as soon as she had seen it. Rhys’ car was one of a kind; it had been modified so much beyond its original state that there wasn’t another one around that remotely resembled it. Louise had ducked down initially, when she had first seen the car drive towards them on the other side of the road. She hadn’t wanted to chance being spotted by any of Jerell’s boys, she was sure that they would be looking for her, Jerell never let anything go. Too inquisitive for her own good, though, she had taken a peek in the car’s direction, unable to help herself. The last thing she had expected was to see Reagan in the driver’s seat. Luckily, he had seemed too distracted, staring at the road ahead, to notice her puzzled face staring straight at him.

“And you definitely think it was Tyler that you saw?” Jamie repeated. 

Louise wasn’t a hundred percent sure that it had been Tyler, Reagan had been driving so fast, and the surprise of seeing him had thrown her, so she had only managed to get a quick glimpse in the passenger side. She could almost swear that it had been Tyler’s little face that she had seen squashed up against the window, though.

“I’m certain it was Tyler,” she said, trying to sound convincing. She hoped that forcing Jamie to do a dramatic U-turn in the middle of the busy Clapham Road, and almost killing them both in the process, as another car had been forced to swerve out of their way, would be worth it. But she was almost certain that it had been Tyler she had seen.

“And you definitely don’t think that Jerell was with them?” Jamie continued to interrogate Louise, trying to determine who else had been in the car, to work out what he might be up against once he caught up with them.

“No, it looked like there was just the driver and Tyler,” Louise answered.

“Did you recognise the driver?” Jamie realised that he sounded like he was reeling off the Spanish inquisition to the poor girl, but he had to find out whom Tyler was with.

“It was just another one of Jerell’s skivvies, his name’s Reagan. He’s probably been sent out on an errand. He’s not anyone to worry about. The bloke's fucking gutless.” She surprised herself that she had managed to voice Reagan’s name out loud without spitting.

They had been tailing Rhys’ Corsa for the past ten minutes, and although Jamie’s car was much faster than the boy-racer car that they were following, Jamie had deliberately held back behind a few cars, so that they wouldn’t be spotted. The last thing he wanted was for the lad that was driving to think that he was being chased and to speed off in a bid to try to lose them. Jamie’s plan was to drop back, until he knew for certain that Tyler was definitely in the car. He hoped that at least this way, he would get the opportunity to get to Tyler without the drama of dealing with Jerell at the same time. This way, things should be a lot less messy.

“Jesus Christ!” Louise watched, horrified, as the yellow car swerved, dipping in and out amongst the traffic. 

“He’s probably pissed, or on something,” Jamie said, “either that or having some kind of epileptic fit at the wheel.”

“He hasn’t passed his test,” Louise said. 

The car snaked from one side of the road to the other. Reagan’s driving was so bad that Louise was surprised he hadn’t been pulled over by the police. He clearly wasn’t the competent driver he had made himself out to be. He had boasted to her the other night that he had only needed two driving lessons to get him started off, and that after that he had taught himself to drive whilst out joyriding; he said he was like a pro. 

Louise wondered what the hell Reagan was up to; it just didn’t add up. She knew better than anyone how precious Rhys was about his poxy car: the boy never stopped harping on about it. The fact that Reagan was driving it only confirmed Louise’s suspicions that there was something going on. There was no way Rhys would have handed over his prize possession willingly, knowing that Reagan hadn’t even passed his driving test. And why did he have Tyler with him? 

Apart from the constant questions, Jamie hadn’t said much else to Louise. He didn’t really speak much, she found. However, the bouts of silence were refreshing rather than awkward. She was normally surrounded by gobby little shits, who were fluent in bullshit and eager to run their mouths off to anyone who would listen. Jamie’s quietness was endearing and alluring, it gave him an air of mystery. He reminded her of someone from a film, one of those strong, silent types. 

Louise still didn’t even know why Jamie was actually looking for Tyler. Jerell, she could understand, there were a lot of people who had a score to settle with him, but why Tyler? 

“So, how do you know Tyler?” Louise didn’t want to sound like she was prying into his business, but her curiosity was once again getting the better of her. She seemed to remember Jamie giving off the impression earlier that he already knew Tyler was in danger, but he still hadn’t let on how he actually knew him or why he was trying to find him. Jamie seemed like a man who knew exactly what he was doing; his competence made Louise feel like she was in safe hands. Whatever this bloke’s reasons were for trying to find Tyler, he was on his side and that was all that mattered. Jamie was the only real hope that Tyler had of getting away from Jerell, she suspected. 

Jamie shifted in his seat, not taking his eyes off the road. “It’s a long story.” He cut the conversation dead with his abruptness. He had only known Louise for about half an hour, and as nice as she seemed, Jamie just didn’t want to get into the whole thing with her. 

Louise picked up on Jamie’s caginess and, not wanting to push the discussion any further, she let the matter drop. Glancing past the two cars in front of them, she made out the back of Reagan’s head. 

Louise despised Reagan now. The more she had thought about it over the past few days, after replaying all the conversations that she had with him about Tyler, the more she was convinced that he had known all along what had been happening to him. To her, Reagan was as bad as Jerell. How anybody could turn a blind eye and allow someone to abuse a child, Louise would never know. As far as she was concerned, they were both equally sick in the head. She shuddered at the thought of what had been going on just a few feet away from where she slept. Just thinking about what Jerell had been doing to that boy disgusted her. Reagan was nothing to her now. She had been through worse things in her life, and this was something that she had decided that she was just going to have to draw a line under. The only thing that she was really fuming about was the fact that she had been gullible enough to let her guard down; she couldn’t believe that she had fallen for yet another loser. She should have known that Reagan had been too good to be true. From now on, she would go it alone. No more men; they couldn’t be trusted.

“For fuck’s sake,” Jamie shouted. He put his foot on the brake and the car screeched to a halt. Up ahead, a skip lorry had pulled out into the middle of the road and almost collided with the car in front of them. Jamie had seen the car slam its brakes on and he had managed to follow suit just in the nick of time, luckily, or else him and Louise would both be joining the big dribbling dog that was sat in the boot of the four wheel drive in front of them. The lorry was taking its time to reverse into a side road. Jamie watched irritably, willing the driver to hurry up so that they could pass by; he had already lost sight of the car Reagan had been driving, and every second counted as far as Jamie was concerned.

Jamie tapped his fingers impatiently on the steering wheel. Then, after a few more minutes of watching the incompetent lorry driver slowly backing up, he whacked his hand down hard on the horn, his tolerance had long gone.

“Keep your fucking hair on, mate.” The bald driver leant out of his window and shouted in response to the honk. His wheels slammed into the curb. He pulled back out onto the main road again, lining up the car to give the corner another attempt.

Jamie restrained himself from punching the steering wheel. If it hadn’t been for Louise sitting next to him, he would have really lost his temper.

The car in front of them was completely blocking his way. Jamie would have tried to nip around the side but could only wait for the lorry to move so that the road was clear.

“Some people shouldn’t be allowed on the fucking roads,” Jamie muttered angrily. He glared at the lorry driver as he finally moved past him. He drove further onwards down the road, but there was no sign of the bright yellow car.

“I can’t see them,” Louise said, searching the road ahead for a sign of Reagan. They had travelled almost a mile further up Wandsworth Road and the car was nowhere to be seen.

“Keep looking, Louise; check the side roads. They may have turned off somewhere.” Jamie was furious; they had followed them all this way and been so close behind. They couldn't have lost them now.

Louise could see at least fifteen cars ahead of them, and Rhys’ Corsa wasn’t one of them. Where the fuck had they gone?

Jamie continued to drive, but he knew it was pointless: they had lost them. Pulling into a Sainsbury’s petrol station, Jamie tried to decide what to do. He should have fucking battered that bloody lorry driver for blocking up the road. There was nothing more they could do now, there was no point driving around looking for them, they could be anywhere in London by now. The best thing to do, Jamie decided, was to revert back to the original plan of going straight to the main man himself; it was their only lead on Tyler’s whereabouts. Wherever the boy was now, it would only be a matter of time before he went back there anyway, Jamie reasoned to himself. They needed to go to Jerell’s house.

Hearing Louise’s stomach grumble, Jamie realised that she probably hadn’t eaten all day. The lads had told him that she had been waiting around outside the garage for the past couple of days. And chances were, if she had slept rough the previous night, she would be starving.

“Do you fancy some food from in there?” Jamie nodded over to the garage-forecourt shop.

“A sandwich would be good,” Louise replied; she didn’t want to put him out, but at the same time she was really hungry.  

Jamie got out of the car and jogged into the shop. He bought a selection of sandwiches, a bottle of water and an orange juice; he figured that if she was hungry and thirsty, then she would probably wasn’t going to be too fussy about what he had picked anyway.  

“Right then, get that down ya,” Jamie said, when he returned a few minutes later, and passed the carrier bag of food to her. 

As Jamie drove the other way along the Wandsworth Road, Louise tucked into one of the sandwiches, barely chewing it in her hunger and washing it down with orange juice. As she unwrapped a second, Jamie glanced at her.

“What?” she asked. “I’m bloody starving.” She laughed, realising that she must sound like a greedy pig; she had been shovelling the food into her mouth so fast that it had barely touched the sides. She didn’t normally eat like an animal, but the last time she had any food had been the day before, and the fact that she had fished a half-eaten breakfast wrap out of the bin outside McDonalds was information that she would be keeping to herself.

All Louise had thought about up until now had been Tyler; she had pushed her own situation – the fact of having no money on her, nowhere to stay and Jerell Morgan searching for her – to the back of her mind. Right now it seemed too much to cope with; concentrating on Tyler was a welcome release from her problems.

As they sat at a set of traffic lights, Louise caught a glimpse of a bright yellow car parked on one of the side roads. “I think that’s them.” Louise sounded hopeful, not quite believing she might have spotted them just when they had both been ready to give up. 

“Union Road.” Jamie wondered if Louise would recognise the name. “It leads to Larkhall Park.” 

“Of course.” Reagan must be doing a drop: the boys used Larkhall for them. 

“Do you know where they might be?” Jamie knew how large the park was.

Louise shook her head, regretfully. It was a large park, and the boys did drops all over the place; it would be like looking for a needle in a haystack. 

“They’re going to come back this way at some point,” she reasoned, thinking that searching the park might mean that they missed each other if they did come back this way. They could be lurking anywhere in there, it depended on what sort of drop they were doing.

“We can’t take the risk of waiting about; what if someone sees us or, more importantly, sees you? Jerell will be down here in a shot. We need to keep moving. Come on.” Getting out of the car, Jamie walked fast; he was not prepared to lose Tyler a second time.

“Shoot me then,” Tyler said, with the newly found recognition that he no longer cared if he lived or died. The realisation had hit him while Reagan had been pointing the gun at him. Tyler could see everything for what it was. He was no longer scared. After everything he had been through, Reagan – his friend – had just committed the ultimate betrayal, stooping lower than Tyler could ever have imagined. 

“Go on, Reagan, if Jerell’s told you to kill me, then you'd better get on with it. He’ll slaughter you if you don’t go through with this. You know that, don’t you?” Tyler had been pushed to his limit already; Reagan setting him up like this was the final nail in his coffin. Whatever happened now, Tyler would accept his fate, but he would also have his say. 

Reagan’s hand trembled; tears trickled down his cheeks. It was hard for Tyler to imagine that he had once looked up to the man.