A brief silence followed, broken by a few youths from the crowd, who made gun shapes with their fingers and shouted, ‘Bang!’
‘Pack it up,’ the uniformed sergeant warned them.
‘Reilly, if anything happens to Delahaye, or to the other hostage you are holding, the charge will be very severe. Open the door, and let us in. Now.’
‘No one’s being held hostage. And Mince says he don’t want no ambulance. That ain’t a crime, is it?’
Dawes was staring at her. She changed tactics. ‘He’s a suspect in a murder enquiry. Lock the dogs away and let us in, or let Michael Delahaye come out.’
‘You don’t seem too interested in Young, your grass. You think he’s innocent, is that it? My, lady, you are so wrong about so many things. Listen. We ain’t got no gun. It’s only Young that says we have. He’s lying, like he lied and wound you up about his gran and the other woman he killed. If I let you in you’ll take my dogs again, and I ain’t letting that happen.’ Yo-Yo was getting angrier. ‘What, you think I’m stupid or something?’ he shouted. ‘You lot have set us up and it’s backfired on you. You’ve got it fucking wrong again.’ His voice rose. ‘The dogs ain’t done nothing, and neither have I, and Mince don’t want to go to hospital. So can you just fuck off.’
‘Last chance,’ Georgia shouted. ‘Come out or we’re coming in.’
‘Why would I trust you? You’ve just sent a murderer in here to set me up. He’s killed three people and you think he’s innocent. What kind of a Fed are you?’
A couple of flying sticks narrowly missed Georgia. She had been working flat out for nearly two days without sleep, and her nerves were jangling. And it looked as if she had allowed Dawes to persuade her into a wrong judgement. It was still on the cards that Young had killed both Chantelle’s aunt and his own gran; they’d found the knife and the gun on him, and DNA evidence placed him at Haley’s murder. They only had his word that he hadn’t committed both murders.
Had he played them? Or was this Reilly turning the tables? At this moment she really didn’t know. If anything happened to Jason Young, she was responsible. When the wire was active they had all heard him tell Reilly to put the gun away. But what she didn’t know was who was playing who.
A bin full of rubbish came flying in their direction. David Dawes ducked, but some of the garbage landed on Georgia and Stephanie. Dawes flicked some mouldering vegetable from her shoulders. ‘Not a great perfume for you,’ he said softly.
She brushed the remains of the rotten food from her leather coat, flipping his hand away with the same swift move. He irritated the hell out of her, he was so sure he knew how these gangs thought. He wanted Reilly so badly he was past seeing anything else, and she had agreed to put lives at risk by going along with his plan. Even if Jason Young was guilty of murder, she wanted him to be brought to justice, not out in a box.
She had been ready to believe Reilly had set Young up, because Dawes told her that was how he worked, but it was perfectly feasible that it was the other way round. Young was a dangerous, manipulative criminal with a long history of violence. It was more than possible he was lying, and they would look very foolish when CO19 turned up if they found no firearm in the flat. But she still wasn’t prepared to risk anyone getting hurt.
‘Check on CO19,’ she said to Stephanie.
In the few seconds it took Stephanie to make the call, a couple of youths were arrested, making the other troublemakers around them even more aggressive. Uniform were now struggling hard to keep the ever-growing crowd behind the cordon.
Stephanie clicked her phone shut. ‘A few more minutes,’ she told Georgia.
‘Decision time,’ she said to Dawes.
At that moment the door of the flat opened and Yo-Yo Reilly stood holding two angry, red-eyed dogs straining at their spiked leads. He looked around at the mob, which was shoving and jeering the police. His mouth curled in an approving half-smile.
‘Seems Mince don’t wanna come out,’ he said, flicking his nose with a finger. ‘Says he’s feeling better. And I ain’t got no shooter in there.’ He shook his head. ‘All this fuss. I’m flattered, but no need. We ain’t got no drugs here, neither, by the way. This place is clean. See, Young is a bit . . .’ He tapped the side of his head. ‘He tells porkies, like he’s gonna be a dancer and all shit like that.’ He tightened his grip on the dog leads. ‘I would invite you in, to check for yourself, but, see, my dogs are a bit protective. They don’t like strangers . . .’
‘You’ve got three seconds to lock those animals away, or we’ll stun-gun them,’ Georgia snapped. ‘We’re coming in, like it or not.’
Yo-Yo pushed the dogs behind the door and kicked it shut behind him.
‘You don’t fucking touch my dogs,’ he shouted angrily from inside. ‘They’re guarding my property. Ain’t no law against that. This is harassment.’
A voice came from the back of the flats: one of the uniformed officers. ‘There’s a child climbing in the back window.’
Georgia and Stephanie dashed around the back just in time to see Alysha’s glittery trainers disappear.
‘Oh shit,’ Stephanie yelled. ‘Alysha, please don’t! Come back!’
Georgia opened her mouth wide to let her frustration out. Alysha must have heard them saying that Michael Delahaye was injured, then waited her opportunity. When Reilly came out and all attention was on him, the kid must have run from the stairwell and in through that small window before any of them noticed.
Georgia ran her fingers through her tousled hair, pulling some of it from its ponytail so it hung loose around her shoulders. She rubbed the back of her neck to ease the tension.
David Dawes was staring at her. She dropped her hands, embarrassed.
‘The girl’s got a crush on Delahaye,’ he said. ‘If anyone can help us get him out it’s her.’
Georgia closed her eyes. ‘So now we’ve got a minor in there, as well as a man with a gun. And a knife. How can a twelve-year-old girl possibly make the situation any better?’
‘CO19 will be here any minute,’ Stephanie soothed. Another stone landed inches away forcing her to jump back. She swore under her breath.
‘We have to protect that child,’ Georgia said. ‘Reilly isn’t sane. We all heard her say he had sex with her.’
‘He has a gun and four dogs,’ Dawes reminded her.
‘No. We
think
he has a gun.’
Jason watched Alysha creep past the growling dogs. That kid really was something. He was pinned against the open lounge door with Dwayne Ripley on one side of him with the gun in his hand, and Yo-Yo on the other with the serrated knife glinting in his hand. Jason was wearing only his beige combat jeans, spattered with his own blood. The few small knife wounds on his bare chest were only bleeding a little, but they stung furiously as perspiration broke out all over his body. A small cut on his forehead smarted too, the wound in his shoulder was bleeding, and his face was swollen and aching.
‘What’s going on?’ Alysha said, not waiting for a reply. She hurried over to Michael, who still lay on the floor, his hand clutching his stomach, where blood had seeped through the cut in his black T-shirt and on to his light-skinned palm. It dripped towards the brown carpet, reminding Jason of jam being squeezed over a chocolate cake.
Alysha knelt down and cradled Michael in her arms.
‘Good timing,’ Yo-Yo replied. ‘We need you to get rid of this gun.’
‘Don’t do it,’ Jason warned.
‘You’ve got to let them take him to hospital,’ Alysha told Reilly in a tone no one else would dare to adopt. ‘This is worse than you think.’
‘Dump the gun and they can have him,’ Yo-Yo said to her. ‘But get a fucking move on. It’s all going up any second.’
Yo-Yo turned his attention to Jason. He rubbed the jagged blade of the knife across the end of one of his own fingers. Dark blood appeared, and he licked at it as if it was a rare delicacy. ‘Shame,’ he said to Jason. ‘Too many Feds around. I’ll have to catch up with you another time. Get dressed and fuck off.’
As Jason leaned over to pick up his sweatshirt, Yo-Yo’s boot connected with his balls, sending a pain like a bolt of electricity through him. It robbed him of both breath and balance, and as he steadied himself another kick followed. He toppled to the floor, and as he hauled himself up he made a quick decision. He was well outnumbered in here, but the Feds were about to burst in, which had to put them at a strong disadvantage. This bastard had killed Chantelle and raped Alysha. He wasn’t getting away with it.
He tugged his sweatshirt over his head, and sudden and fast as a bull charging he landed a punch in Yo-Yo’s temple; then, before anyone registered what had happened, he head-butted him.
A click of metal froze him to the spot. Dwayne had released Yo-Yo’s dog.
The beast flew at Jason, and he rolled in a heap as the animal sunk its malicious teeth in his leg.
‘Stop that!’ Alysha screamed. ‘Don’t let him bite, or they’ll have your dog destroyed.’
Yo-Yo hauled the animal off Jason and held him back. ‘You and me have got unfinished business,’ he spat, clicking the chain back on the dog one-handed. The other hand pressed his cracked nose in a vain attempt to stop the pumping blood. ‘You’re a cunt of the first degree and I am gonna kill you. But not now.’
‘I’ll sort the gun,’ Alysha said to Yo-Yo. ‘I’m taking Michael out to the ambulance?’
Jason ignored his smarting cuts and bitten leg. Alysha’s quick thinking had just saved him from a savaging; if he did get away, which at this moment looked very unlikely, he was taking Luanne and Alysha with him. He wanted to take good care of them. Alysha was completely out of her depth and didn’t realize it. She reminded him of himself when he was younger; she’d had no kind of childhood either, and learning to fend for herself had made her believe money was the way to happiness.
He had made a big mistake turning grass; all he’d done was swap being banged up for a terrible death, which would surely come as soon as the Feds were out of the picture. He would be remembered as a Fed informant, if anyone remembered him at all. The police had used him to get to Reilly, and he had failed; they wouldn’t care what happened to him now. And he had been stupid enough to think he could get away, change his name, and take up a dance scholarship. An estate boy like him? How stupid was that?
So now the police would raid the flat, and he’d get arrested again. They had enough to send him down for murder, and in prison the penalty for being a grass was death.
Yo-Yo, one hand still cradling his bleeding nose, was staring at him. The others were running around, clearing and hiding things, and the police were still shouting outside.
‘I can’t fucking wait till next time,’ Yo-Yo said.
‘You’ll have to hope there’ll be a next time,’ Jason replied.
‘Oh there’ll be a next time. You’re the worst kind of toerag – a fucking grass. Next time I’ll hurt you a lot, then I’ll tie you up and leave you for my dogs.’
Jason believed every word. Torture was Yo-Yo’s speciality. He said nothing.
Michael was on his feet, leaning heavily on Alysha. They made their way towards the door so slowly it hurt to watch.
‘Get rid of the gun and the knife, and tell the Feds someone attacked him in the street,’ Yo-Yo told her.
Alysha barely reached Yo-Yo’s chest. Her plaited braids bounced as she turned her head and looked at him, her eyes hard, sad and determined. ‘You had sex with me. I’m twelve years old. If I told the Feds, it wouldn’t look good for you. Seems to me I make the terms around here.’
Yo-Yo grabbed her braids and tugged them hard. ‘You don’t make no terms, missy, not if you don’t want a taste of what Mince’s had. You say he was shanked by someone in the street, got it? And you hide the gun. And you need to remember the penalty for grassing.’ He gave her hair another vicious tug.
‘She’s cool,’ Michael said quickly. ‘She’ll do it, bro.’
Stephanie Green clicked her phone shut. ‘CO19 are at the end of the road,’ she told Georgia.
‘We’re going in.’ Dawes gave Georgia a thumbs-up.
Dwayne Ripley didn’t seem concerned that Yo-Yo had shanked another Brotherhood member or that Mince was now struggling to breathe. Winston Mitchell cared even less; he was only interested in his dogs.
Jason’s Buzzard gang had been so different. The Buzzards were like brothers; no one had ever harmed another gang member, although more than one had lost his life defending one. Jason, as their leader, never bullied any of them. They all held together, looked out for each other, like a family. A wave of longing for his own gang washed over him. He really missed them.
Scrap was checking the windows. ‘They’re moving round the back,’ he told Yo-Yo. ‘I’m gonna lock the dogs up.’
‘Leave ’em,’ Yo-Yo said.
No one was paying Jason any attention; he could have walked out the door. But what was the point? They were all going to be arrested at any second.
‘You do as you’re fucking told,’ Dwayne Ripley reminded Alysha as she opened the front door. ‘They’ll put you in a home if you open your mouth.’
‘I’ll do what I want,’ she snapped back.
That set Yo-Yo off again. He grabbed her braids and dragged her backwards, leaving Michael slumped against the wall.
‘I ain’t scared of you!’ Alysha squirmed and wriggled to free herself. ‘I’m dealing with the gun and the knife for you, aren’t I? I’ll give you a blow job later if you like.’
Yo-Yo released his hold on her hair and burst out laughing.
The banging on the door was sudden and loud. The dogs started barking and snarling, over the top of their noise came the voice of Jim Blake, the CO19 team leader.
‘Armed police. Put your hands on your head and walk out slowly. If you don’t we are coming in. Muzzle your dogs, or lock them away. If they attempt to attack we will shoot to kill.’
Alysha jumped away from the door and looked at Yo-Yo.
‘Lock the dogs away and walk out with your hands in the air,’ came the order again.