The Cleaner (14 page)

“You’ve no idea?”

“None at all.”

“What about the house––did you look inside?”

“Couldn’t. I couldn’t be sure he wasn’t at home. I didn’t try and get any closer than the street. I can come back for that.”

As he walked back along the fringes of the Estate he noticed that he was being followed. Two older teenagers on BMXs were lazily trailing him, kicking the bikes along on the other side of the road.

“What about his car?”

“You can tell Tech that the tracker has been fixed.”

Callan took a right turn off the main road and watched as the two boys bounced down off the kerb and crossed against the flow of the traffic. The two started to close the distance between them.

“Sorry, sir. I’ll have to call you back.”

He pressed the toggle on the headphones to end the call. The road turned sharply to the left and Callan stopped to wait for the boys. They rolled up to him. They both wore baseball caps pulled down low with their hoods tugged up so that the fabric sat on the brim. The bottom half of their faces were covered with purple bandanas. Only their eyes were visible. It was impossible to guess their age but they were both large and rangy, their bikes almost comically small for them.

“Got the time, bruv?” the first boy said with insouciant aggression, putting his foot down and stopping. If he replied to the request, no doubt the next step would have been for him to have been relieved of his watch, together with his phone and wallet.

“Time you got off home, I reckon.”

The boy rolled a little closer. “You want to watch who you’re giving lip to, lighty. You could end up in a lot of mess.” The second boy got off his bike and walked forwards. He hawked up a ball of phlegm and spat it at Callan’s feet. “Give me your phone.”

Callan felt his skin prickle and his muscles tightening. The sensation was familiar to him. The surge of adrenaline. Fight or flight. It was rarely flight with him. “I don’t want any trouble,” he said, meekly.

The second boy took his hand out of the pocket of his jacket. He was holding a kitchen knife in his fist. “Give me your phone and your cash, aight, else you’re gonna get jooked.”

The boy came closer, and Callan let him. When he was within arm’s reach he lashed out suddenly with his right hand, the fingers held out straight, the thumb bracing them from beneath. The strike landed perfectly, and forcefully, Callan’s hard fingertips jabbing into the boy’s throat, right into the larynx. He dropped the knife and clutched his throat as he staggered back, choking, temporarily unable to draw breath. The first boy tried to hike up his jacket so that he could get to the knife he was carrying in his belt but he was impeded by his bike and was far too slow. Callan closed the distance between them with a quick hop and, bending his arm, struck the boy in the face with the point of his right elbow. The pedals tripped the boy as he staggered away and he fell onto his back, blood already running from his broken nose. The boy Callan had struck in the throat was still gasping for breath, and Callan almost lazily cast him to the floor, sweeping his legs out from beneath him. He crouched down and grabbed the boy by the scruff of his collar. He raised his head six inches from the pavement and then crashed it backwards, slamming his crown against the edge of the kerb, fracturing his skull and knocking him out.

Callan stood, brushed himself down and set off again.

23.

ELIJAH RETURNED to Pops and his woman after Bizness had finished talking to him. Pops looked surly, brooding over his JD and casting careful glances out across the room to where Bizness and MC Mafia were talking with two good-looking girls dressed in crop tops and obscenely short skirts. Elijah watched them too, unable to concentrate. He felt a dizzying mixture of emotions: fear, that he had been asked to do something that he did not want to do, but also pride. He knew it was foolish to feel that way, but he could not deny it. Where were his friends tonight? Where were Little Mark and Kidz, Pinky and the others? They weren’t here. Bizness had chosen
him
for the task. Surely that must mean something. He trusted him. He could not help visualising a future in which he was a member of BRAPPPP!, too. The newest member. The youngest. The one with the reputation, the one no-one would doubt. He thought of the lifestyle, the money. He would drag his family up with him, away from the Estate. His mum would not need to work three jobs to make ends meet. They would buy a little house, with a little garden. Perhaps he could help Jules, too. Rehab, or something. Things would be better than they were now.

He knew the price for all of this, but he tried not to think about it.

If he did, he would run.

A stir of interest rippled through the crowd as a small group of boys passed in through the entrance to the club. There were four of them, and, at their head, Elijah recognised Wiley T. He knew that he was only two years older than him; he was a mixture of youth and experience. His face was fresh, and he still walked with a lazy adolescent lope, but his body language was confident. He punctuated his sentences with exaggerated gestures designed to draw attention to himself and he smiled widely at a nearby group of girls, a confidence that Elijah could not begin to hope to emulate. Elijah knew enough about him from his YouTube profile. He was a street boy, like him, and their education was the same. He recognised the flicker of furtive watchfulness in his eyes. Boy was older than his years.

Elijah felt a nugget of ice in his gullet as Bizness approached Wiley and offered his hand. The younger man sneered and did not take it. Bizness moved forwards in an attempt to draw Wiley into an embrace but he stepped away, a derisive expression on his face. He said something and then, as Bizness backed away, he threw a punch that rattled against his jaw. The fight that followed flared quickly and viciously, with members of both entourages folding into one another, fists flying.

Elijah watched from the other side of the room. His rucksack was at his feet, the zip half undone and as he looked down into it the dull metal of the gun sparkled in the light from a glitterball overhead. Bizness separated himself from the melee and glared at Elijah, his face twisted with fury. He mouthed one word: “Now.” Elijah felt his life folding down into that one small, awful point. It was over for him. He picked up his bag and lifted it to his waist, just high enough that he could reach his right hand inside for the gun. His fingers brushed the metal, encircled it so that the cold was pressed into his palm and his finger found the trigger guard and, within it, the subtle give of the trigger.

The noise of the party seemed to muffle and fade as Elijah started across the room.

Everything slowed to a crawl.

He glanced into the faces of the people around him but nothing registered.

He felt completely alone.

He closed the distance to the brawl. He squeezed the gun into his palm and started to bring it up to the open mouth of the bag.

Pops took him by the arm and pulled him aside. “Don’t be an idiot.”

Elijah looked up at him dumbly.

“Be clever, younger. Do that and your life is finished. You think the Feds won’t find out? You think he won’t rat you out to save his own skin?”

Elijah was unable to speak.

“Go home, JaJa. Go on, fuck off, fuck off now, take that bag with you, drop it in the canal and don’t ever tell no-one a word about it.”

On the other side of the club, the fight was getting worse. A dozen men were brawling now, and, as Elijah watched, one of them fell to the ground. Bizness was onto him quickly, kicking him again and again in the head. Pops gently turned him towards the exit and pushed him on his way.

Elijah kept going. He did not look back.

24.

POPS SAT in the front of his car, his forehead resting against the steering wheel. He had driven aimlessly for an hour, trying to arrange his thoughts into some sort of order, and had eventually found his way to Meynell Street, the sickle-shaped road that hugged the edge of Well Street Common. It was a middle-class area with big, wide houses that cost the better part of half a million pounds each. The boys rarely came up here. It wasn’t worth the risk. It was a good distance from the Estate and they knew that if they started causing trouble the police would respond quickly, and in numbers. Far better to stay in their ends, on the streets that they knew, and where their victims were not deemed important enough to demand the same protection.

He looked out over the small park, pools of lamplight cast down at the junctions of the pathways that cut across it. He had switched off the car’s engine but the dashboard was still lit, casting queasy green light up onto his face, illuminating his reflection on the inside of the windshield. He examined himself, and thought, again, that he looked older than he was. His skin looked almost grey in the artificial light and his eyes were black and empty, denuded of life, of their sparkle. Pops was nineteen but he felt older. He had seen things that he could not forget, no matter how hard he tried. He gave it big with the others because there was nothing else he could do. You showed weakness, you got eaten, that was the way it was. The rules of the jungle, he thought again. Just like the Serengeti.

But Pops was different. He was smart. He had a plan and he would leave on his terms, when he was ready. He was careful with his money, saving every month, and he wanted twenty grand in his account before he called it a day. He had been a decent student at school before he had been sucked down into the LFB, and he wanted to finish his education. And then, who knows, maybe he would go to college. You needed paper for that. Until then, until he had enough, there was no choice but to keep up his front. If he let down his guard, even for a minute, there were plenty of youngers who would seize their chance. There would be beef, there would be hype, and it would end up badly for all of them.

His mind flicked back to the end of the party. The fight had ended almost as quickly as it had begun and yet it had curdled the mood, like poison dripped into an open wound. Wiley and his boys had taken a terrible beating, with one young boy left unconscious on the floor, his face kicked into a mess of blood and mucus. Pops watched as his body jerked and twitched and knew that he needed a doctor, and quickly. He quietly went into the toilets and called 999, leaving an anonymous message that an ambulance was required. By the time he returned outside, the lights had been turned on and people were starting to go. He had heard police sirens in the near distance, too. Definitely time to leave.

He looked over at the passenger seat. Laura’s handbag was resting against the cushion. Pops had bought her the bag for Christmas after she mentioned that she liked the designer. It had cost plenty but she was worth it. He had searched the club for her but she had already gone. He did not know where she was now, but he knew she was with Bizness. He had known that he wanted her. He made no secret of it, joking with Pops about the fact that one day he’d just take her and that there was nothing he would be able to do about it. Pops would laugh it off most of the time, making sure that he kept his seething anger to himself. As long as he kept her away from him everything would be alright. But that had not been possible tonight. Bizness had suggested before the fight that the party would eventually relocate to his studio and that she should come. The invitation had not been extended to Pops. She had been drunk and high and she knew that Bizness was offering her more of the same. He had lost her. He had always known it would happen, eventually, and now it had. He had gone to his car and driven away.

He looked out into the darkness, staring through his own reflection as the light of a bicycle bounced up and down, a rider passing across the park. He thought of JaJa and how close the boy had come to ruining his life. The party had made his mind up for him. Bizness was a bad man, he was out of control, and Pops knew it was insanity to think otherwise. He did not care about anyone other than himself. JaJa, young and pliable and vulnerable, the boy was just a tool to him, a means to an end. He would have used him to dook Wiley and then, when the Feds came knocking, he would give him up.

Yes, Bizness was out of control, and he had to do something.

He reached into his pocket for his wallet. Inside, hidden beneath his credit cards, was the business card that the man in the park had given him. There was something about him that stuck in his head. Pops could not put his finger on it, but there was something that said he might be able to help. He had not been able to throw the card away and, while the others had sent him off with a barrage of abuse, he had quietly slipped it into his pocket.

He took out his phone and switched it on, the display coming to life. He carefully entered the man’s number. The call connected but, after ringing three times, went to voicemail. Pops listened to the bland message, then the beep, and ended the call without speaking. What was he doing? He knew nothing about this man. How could he trust him? What was he going to say?

He put the phone away, started the engine, reversed the car and rolled slowly back towards the Estate.

25.

MILTON WAS NOT ALONE in the waiting room. A portly middle-aged woman was slumped into one of the plastic seats, her expression bearing the marks of frustration, helplessness and anger. Her eyes followed Milton as he sat down on one of the chairs opposite her but she did not speak. The police station smelt the same as all the others he had visited, all around the world: the same mixture of scrubbing soap, disinfectant and body odour. It had the same weary atmosphere, the sense of a heavy relentlessness. He gazed at the posters tacked onto a corkboard that hung from the wall; young black men staring into police cameras with expressions of dull, lazy violence. The crimes they were alleged to have committed were depressingly similar: an assault with a knife; an armed robbery at a betting shop; a shooting. There were two murders with the same police task force––Trident––dealing with them both. Black on black. A poster showed a young boy staring out from behind a lattice of bars, the message warning that this was the inevitable destination for those who got caught up with gangs. The boy in the poster was young, in his middle teens. The same age as Elijah. He looked small, vulnerable and helpless.