Lone Wolf Page 8

  Abdi smiled. ‘Hagar’s the biggest drug dealer in this part of town.’

  Ryan looked over. ‘So which one’s Hagar?’

  This caused more laughter.

  ‘Hagar’s the top dog,’ Abdi said, snorting with laughter. ‘He doesn’t sit in a crummy youth club all day. Those are his lieutenants. They organise all the street dealers and dish out crumbs to us kids if we’re lucky.’

  ‘What kind of crumbs?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘If they like you, they give out jobs,’ Abdi explained. ‘Maybe twenty quid to take something from here to there, or go to Starbucks for coffees. Once they start really trusting you, you might get a package. That’s when you sell drugs yourself.’

  ‘Shit!’ Ryan said excitedly. ‘Can you make a lot of dough?’

  Abdi nodded. ‘There’s guys our age making seven hundred a week, just for selling a few hours a day after school. But you’ve gotta be careful, ’cos if you mess up, Hagar’s guys will batter you.’

  ‘Maybe kill you even,’ Youssef added, as the black ball rattled into a pocket on the nearest pool table.

  The guy who’d lost handed Ryan a chewed-up cue, while the victor racked up the balls for another game.

  ‘OK,’ Ryan said, as he lined up to break. ‘Let’s play some pool.’

  15. NEBRASKA

  Fay and Ning left Idris STC shortly after noon on Friday. A prison service minibus drove south for an hour and a half before dropping Fay at a semi-detached house in the suburb of Elstree. Her new foster-parents were a couple in their late forties, who had two younger foster-kids and a house filled with china dolls and frilly curtains.

  Ning reached Nebraska House just before five, but a mix-up in the paperwork meant it was nearer to 7 p.m. before she was allocated one of the care home’s dingy single rooms. Dinner was evil and Ning sent Fay a picture message showing curry and rice with the word, EWW!

  Fay texted back a few minutes later, I have a big double bed, the foster-mum makes Victoria sponge cake that’s 2 die 4.

  Once she’d settled in her room, Ning called her mission controller, James, to confirm that everything was OK.

  ‘If you get a chance, pop into room sixteen and see if it still says James Choke on the wall,’ James said.

  ‘Who the hell is James Choke?’

  ‘My pre-CHERUB name,’ James explained. ‘I was in Nebraska House for a while after my mum died.’

  ‘The rooms look like they were painted quite recently,’ Ning said. ‘So how’s Ryan doing?’

  *

  Friday night drew a crowd of more than fifty to The Hangout, and a few of them were even girls. It was officially a disco night, but although Barry had folded up the ping-pong tables to make space, nobody seemed interested in dancing.

  Ryan sat at the back of the room with Abdi, who’d sneaked in an Evian bottle filled with vodka.

  ‘Where’s the rest of the gang?’ Ryan asked.

  Abdi pointed discreetly at the single heavy sitting outside the office. ‘Friday and Saturday are busy,’ he explained. ‘Youssef makes deliveries for a dealer. Sadad’s got a gig as a lookout that pays thirty pounds a night.’

  Ryan smiled. ‘You reckon I can make some money?’

  Abdi nodded. ‘Not right now, but they’ll find you something once they get used to your face.’

  ‘What if I just go up and ask?’

  ‘If you’re lucky they’ll laugh, if you’re unlucky they’ll smack you down. Either way, being pushy’s not gonna help your chances.’

  ‘So how come you’re not working?’ Ryan asked.

  Abdi looked shame-faced at the floor between his legs. ‘A couple of months back I had a little gig selling cocaine and heroin from an alleyway beside my mum’s hairdresser’s shop. Two guys jumped me and stole two hundred quid’s worth of gear. So now I’ve got to pay it back at ten pounds a week for thirty-six weeks.’

  ‘That’s three hundred and sixty.’

  ‘Interest,’ Abdi explained. ‘The only reason I didn’t get stomped is because my mum does hair for a lot of Hagar’s boys’ girlfriends.’

  ‘But you can’t help it if two guys jump you,’ Ryan said.

  ‘Rules are rules, Ryan. If you’re man enough to take merchandise and sell it, you’ve gotta be man enough to look after it.’

  ‘You wanna play pool?’ Ryan asked.

  ‘There’s like twenty people waiting,’ Abdi said, as he took a big slug from his boozed-up Evian bottle. ‘Unless you wanna beat them all up like yesterday.’

  Ryan pointed at a fit blonde girl sitting a few metres away. ‘How do you rate my chances with her?’

  ‘About two per cent,’ Abdi said, as he offered Ryan a slug of his Evian. ‘For courage.’

  ‘Booze breath won’t help,’ Ryan said, as he stood up. ‘Wish me luck.’

  But before Ryan got anywhere near the girl he noticed a big Somali dude coming his way.

  Abdi looked up eagerly. ‘What can I do for you, boss?’

  ‘Where is everyone?’ the dude asked.

  ‘Out and about,’ Abdi said. ‘I’m available.’

  ‘You don’t exist until you’ve paid your debts,’ he said, before pointing at Ryan. ‘Walk with me.’

  A Flo Rida track started up as Ryan followed the thug across the room and out of the main door where it was quiet.

  ‘You wanna earn a fast tenner?’

  ‘Sure,’ Ryan said.

  ‘You know Dirtyburger?’

  Ryan nodded. ‘I’ve never eaten there, but I’ve been past it on the way to school.’

  ‘OK, I’ve got some people on the Pardew estate that need feeding, you see?’

  ‘Sure,’ Ryan said.

  ‘Get five burgers, five fries, five Cokes. Take them up to flat fifty-six. Make sure to ask Clive how it’s going, then you come back and tell me what he says. Understood?’

  ‘Understood,’ Ryan said, as the man peeled twenty-pound notes out of a roll.

  ‘Don’t screw up. If you do, don’t show your face around here no more.’

  *

  Fay went to bed early and set the alarm on her phone for 5 a.m. Her room was comfortable and decorated in neutral shades so that it would suit any short-term foster-kid, from a three-year-old girl to a sixteen-year-old boy.

  After waking and taking a piss, Fay crept downstairs and looked in the cupboard by the front door. All she found were shoes and coats, so she walked through to the kitchen. She checked the cupboards for anything of value and rattled all the canisters to see if there was a hidden stash.

  But the ground floor was a bust, so she walked back upstairs to the room belonging to her foster-parents. She opened the door quietly, then gave it half a minute to see if they stirred.

  There was an encased radiator running along one wall and Fay saw her new foster-dad’s wallet and keys lying on top of it. A floorboard made a noisy creak as Fay stepped forward. She monitored her foster-parents’ breathing as she grabbed the wallet, keys and a travel card and tiptoed back towards the exit.

  After backing into her room and making a relieved gasp, Fay was pleased to discover that she’d nabbed an Oyster season ticket that would let her travel around London. The credit cards in the wallet were of no use without the pin number, so she left them and took what she thought was a slightly disappointing haul of forty-five pounds.

  Fay had prepared her escape the night before. She’d packed a lightweight rucksack with a couple of changes of underwear and some toiletries, and printed off a Google Map showing the fifteen-minute walk from the house to Elstree Station.

  Fay slugged some orange juice and couldn’t resist grabbing a slice of Victoria sponge, which she crammed into her mouth as she opened the back door and walked down twenty metres of garden. Using her foster-father’s keys, she un
locked the shed and stuck her head inside, inhaling a mixture of cobwebs and creosote.

  There was a tool rack against the back wall and she grabbed a shovel, plus screwdrivers and some other small tools that she thought might come in handy.

  The first train south ran at 5:53 and Fay was keen to be as far from Elstree as possible before her foster-parents woke up. She called Ning on her mobile as she strode briskly towards the station, carrying her backpack and a garden shovel balanced on her shoulder.

  ‘Yeah,’ Ning said drowsily.

  ‘You sound tired.’

  ‘It’s twenty-five to six,’ Ning yawned. ‘What were you expecting?’

  ‘I looked on Google,’ Fay said. ‘The nearest underground to Nebraska House is Tufnell Park. You need to travel north to Totteridge and Whetstone. I’ll meet you by the entrance at about seven-thirty.’

  ‘What’s at Totteridge?’ Ning asked.

  ‘You just be there,’ Fay said firmly. ‘We’re gonna have a bit of fun.’

  16. DIG

  Totteridge was a moderately posh suburb, eight miles from the centre of London. Ning reached the underground station a few minutes before seven-thirty, bought a bottle of water from a newsagent and stared at rows of semi-detached houses for long enough to wonder if Fay was coming. She was about to send a where-the-hell-are-you text when Fay finally arrived.

  ‘Nice shovel,’ Ning said. ‘Makes you pretty identifiable if anyone searches for you on CCTV.’

  ‘True,’ Fay said. ‘I ditched Foster-Daddy’s Oyster card at King’s Cross because they can use them to track you. It’s been a while since I’ve been up this way, but I think we need to get a 251 bus from a stop at the top of the hill.’

  They waited twelve minutes for the single-deck bus. It took them on a twenty-minute ride, passing golf courses and mansions before reaching the edge of London’s protected green belt.

  ‘This is definitely the middle of nowhere,’ Ning said, as they stepped off the bus on a road with no markings and hedgerows growing up past head height on either side. ‘What is this place?’

  ‘Not telling,’ Fay said, smiling, as they crossed the road.

  ‘For all I know you’re planning to whack me with the shovel and kill me.’

  Fay raised one eyebrow. ‘Damn, you guessed.’

  After a few hundred metres the pair reached a wooden gate crudely painted with Greenacre Community Allotments – Please lock after entering.

  The dirt pathway inside was rutted with vehicle tracks. As they began walking, they passed a ramshackle shop which had two foul-smelling mounds of manure, on offer at £3 per bag. Beyond this, a network of paths lined with individual parcels of land stretched off in all directions.

  Some allotments were beautifully kept, with painted sheds, neat rows of growing vegetables and greenhouses full of flowers. A few were tangled and overgrown, while the vast majority of plots fell somewhere between the two extremes. Even though it was early, there were already cars parked up and people picking fruit and hosing their plants.

  ‘The British make me laugh,’ Ning said, as she looked around. ‘In China families do everything they can to leave the land and go live in the city. Here they work all week, then come and dig a piece of land like it’s some kind of fun.’

  ‘Don’t knock it,’ Fay said. ‘My mum used to grow the best-tasting tomatoes. And the courgettes and strawberries were amazing.’

  A couple of turns on the meandering tracks brought them to plot sixty-four. The eighteen-metre square was bisected by a crazy-paved path and had two large sheds at the far end.

  ‘Looks neat,’ Ning said, as she looked along rows of runner beans and raspberry bushes. ‘Who’s been looking after it?’

  ‘You’re not allowed more than one allotment, but a lot of people want two,’ Fay explained. ‘The woman on plot sixty-three said she was more than happy to look after it when my aunt got sent to prison.’

  Fay lifted some anti-bird mesh and picked a couple of raspberries from a bush. She popped one in her mouth and offered the other to Ning.

  ‘Nice,’ Ning said as the taste exploded in her mouth. ‘It reminds me of the village I lived in when I was little. Except we’d have ducks and chickens around as well.’

  Fay led Ning along the strip of crazy paving, until she came to a curved reddish piece of stone that looked like it had once been part of a chimney pot. It was pretty solidly bedded into the earth and Fay had to dig with the fingers of both hands to prise it up.

  Beneath the stone were half a dozen woodlice, and more importantly a round metal tin. Fay couldn’t twist the rusty lid.

  ‘Give us,’ Ning said.

  But Ning couldn’t open the tin either, so Fay went down on one knee and prised the lid with a screwdriver. When it eventually popped open, the tin contained a bunch of keys wrapped in thick plastic to keep out moisture.

  One of the keys opened a lock on the smaller of the two sheds. The exterior was tatty, but Fay led Ning into a cosy little space. Grubby windows in the roof and door let in light. There was a camp bed, a small camping stove fuelled by gas cylinders and a metal sink with a single tap that would provide cold water.

  Fay opened a cupboard and found some tea bags. ‘Fourteen months past the sell-by date! I guess I’d better go to Asda and stock up.’

  ‘So you’re planning to stay here?’ Ning said.

  Fay nodded. ‘There’s no heat or hot water, but at this time of year it should be fine.’

  ‘What’ll you do when it gets to autumn?’

  Before Ning got an answer, Fay turned the tap over the sink. There was a violent chugging noise, followed by a splutter of brown water that made her jump backwards. After a few seconds, the pipe settled down and a drizzle of clear water ran out.

  ‘By the autumn . . .’ Fay said thoughtfully. ‘By the autumn, I reckon I’ll either be dead or I’ll have killed Hagar and robbed enough drug dealers to afford better digs.’

  ‘Always planning ahead,’ Ning said chirpily. But on the inside she felt kind of sad because she’d started to like Fay and didn’t like the idea that she might end up dead.

  ‘So I’ll have to go to the supermarket, get some groceries and some cloths and stuff to give this place a good clean. The allotment shop should have gas cylinders for the stove.’

  ‘You came with a shovel,’ Ning said. ‘I assumed we were coming here to dig something up.’

  Fay realised she’d forgotten and nodded excitedly. ‘Yes! Next door.’

  The second shed was larger, but had none of the frills. The windowless interior meant that the only light came through the open door, while the contents were a cluttered mixture of garden tools, pots, netting, and bags of fertiliser and compost.

  ‘Shovels,’ Ning said, laughing as she rattled some garden tools. ‘So much for carrying one all the way from Elstree.’

  Fay sounded narked. ‘Well, I didn’t know what tools I’d find here. I’d never have got the keys to the sheds without the screwdriver.’

  ‘Joke,’ Ning said airily. ‘Don’t blow your stack.’

  Fay took a deep breath and held up her hands. ‘I’ve got a temper, I know. But I’m putting a lot of faith in you, Ning.’

  ‘How come?’

  ‘You could go back home and grass me up,’ Fay explained. ‘Can I really trust you? I mean, how long have I known you? A week?’

  ‘Barely,’ Ning said. ‘But you’re the one who called me at five a.m., asking if I wanted to come and have some fun.’

  ‘Fair point,’ Fay said. ‘I need you to help me drag most of this stuff outside and lift up the floor.’

  It took the girls ten minutes to drag tools and sacks out of the shed. Once the space was clear, Fay told Ning to stand up against the back wall of the shed.

  ‘I’ll lift the floor with the shovel, y
ou grab hold and prise it up.’

  Fay took three attempts before she got the shovel between the boards and lifted a big section of the shed’s wooden floor. Ning struggled to lift it, so Fay threw the shovel down and after some grunting the pair managed to rest it against the side wall.

  ‘Grab a shovel,’ Fay said.

  As Ning went outside for a shovel, Fay began digging. After the first couple of loads, her spade banged the top of a metal box. Ning moved in and the pair gradually unveiled an ex-army ammunition box a metre and a half long and half a metre wide. Fay dug a little hole at the narrow end to reach a handle and strained as she tugged the box out of the earth.

  ‘Give us a hand.’

  Ning grabbed the handle at the other end and the two girls lifted the box out of the earth.

  ‘God that’s heavy,’ Ning said, as the box thudded down. ‘What’s inside?’

  ‘I’m not sure exactly,’ Fay said, as she grabbed the box’s aluminium lid.

  Ning was half scared, half impressed when she looked inside. There was an arsenal of knives, but her eye was drawn to some small rolls of twenty-pound notes, tightly wrapped in clingfilm to keep out the damp.

  ‘There’s a few of these,’ Ning said. ‘Maybe a couple of thousand quid.’

  ‘Enough to keep me ticking over for a few weeks,’ Fay said, as she studied the contents at the other end and pulled out a set of body armour and a nylon pouch full of evil-looking knives.

  ‘Ceramic blades, no rust,’ Fay explained.

  Removing the body armour had unveiled some cardboard boxes, each one vacuum sealed to keep out moisture. Fay used a craft knife to open a box, and Ning instinctively backed up when she saw the contents.

  ‘Is that for real?’ Ning asked.

  Fay nodded as she lifted out a handgun. ‘This is what I was hoping to find. Two Glock 17 police issue handguns and two hundred rounds of ammunition.’ Then she pointed the plastic-wrapped gun at Ning and said, ‘Bang, bang!’

  17. BACON

  Ryan woke up feeling pretty pleased with himself. He’d got in with the right crowd and had even been sent on an errand by one of the heavies from The Hangout. He found James in the kitchen, with a foot on the dining-table cutting his toenails.