What Came Before He Shot Her

Chapter

9 Any reasonable person looking upon the Blade—let alone spending one or two hours in his company—would have been able to draw a few conclusions about what entering into an extended relationship with the man would be like. First there was the matter of his tattoo and what decorating one’s face with a venomspitting cobra suggested about his inner issues as well as about his potential for lucrative—not to mention legal—employment. Next there was his size, so suggestive of a Napoleon-in-the-making, without benefit of the designation emperor to give reason for the less salubrious aspects of his personality. Then, there was his place of abode and all the inconveniences offered by a squat destined for the wreckers’ ball. Finally, there was his line of work, which involved nothing that promised even the semblance of longevity. But for someone to look upon the Blade and have time to consider all these facts about him and what they might imply, that person would also have to be capable of rational and extended thought. The night that Ness met the Blade, she was capable of neither, and by the time she might have been able to look at him more clearly, she was too involved to be willing to do so.

So she told herself that there were elements in her relationship with the Blade that indicated she’d been chosen by him, although what she had been chosen for was something she wasn’t able to identify. At this point in her life, she couldn’t afford to be a deep thinker on the topic of male-female liaisons, so what she did was to leap to premature conclusions based on superficial information. This information was limited to three areas of her life: the sexual, the commercial, and the drug oriented.

She and the Blade were lovers, if such a word could be applied to the Neanderthal manner in which the young man approached the entire sexual act. There was no pleasure involved in this for Ness, but she neither expected nor desired pleasure from it. As long as it continued to happen, she was one step closer to the baby that she claimed she wanted, at the same time as she was reassured that her place in the Blade’s life was as secure as she needed it to be. Thus, his demands on her—which women with a greater sense of self might have found degrading—were transformed in her mind to the reasonable exigencies of “a man wiv his needs,” as she would have put it had someone asked her about the pounding to which she regularly acquiesced without having experienced anything resembling either foreplay or seduction. Since they were lovers and since he continued to behave in a fashion that suggested an attachment to her, she was, if not content, then at least occupied. A woman occupied has little time to question.

When he gave her the mobile phone, she had that which her girlfriends so desired, and this commercial aspect of her relationship with the Blade allowed her to believe in his romantic intentions towards her, every bit as if he’d presented her with a costly diamond. At the same time, it gave her a dominance that she quite liked, raising her in the eyes of her associates.

She remained there—above Six and Natasha—because of the Blade as well. For he was the source of the weed she smoked and the coke she snorted, removing her from having to depend solely upon the neighbourhood’s delivery boys for a handout, as Six and Natasha had to do. To Ness, the fact that the Blade shared substance with her freely meant they were a real couple.

Having all these beliefs, then, and clinging to them because, indeed, she had nothing else to cling to, Ness tried to forget what Six had said about the Blade. She could cope with his past. Good God, he was “a man wiv needs,” after all, and she could hardly have expected him to remain celibate, waiting for her. But she found that within all the information about the Blade that Six had so cruelly passed along in Kensington High Street, there were two facts that she could not dismiss no matter how she tried. One of these was the fact of two children fathered by the Blade: a baby on Dickens Estate and another in Adair Street. The other was the fact of Arissa.

The babies constituted a terrible question Ness couldn’t bring herself to form in her mind, let alone to ask outright about herself. Arissa, on the other hand, represented an easy topic for thought at the same time as she comprised every besotted young woman’s nightmare: betrayal by the man she believes to be her own. Ness couldn’t extirpate the thought of Arissa from her head once Six had planted the seed. She told herself that she had to know the truth in order to know what, if anything, she could do about it. She decided, wisely, that confronting the Blade was an ill-conceived idea, so she went for information to Cal Hancock instead.

Since no one aside from her brother Joel had ever shown Ness the least degree of loyalty, she had no real thought that Cal might actually refuse to betray the man who was the source of everything that allowed Cal to keep body, soul, and mind together. Cal’s own parents having departed the UK when he was sixteen—taking his siblings with them but leaving him behind to fend for himself—he had joined forces with the Blade as a teenager, first proving himself as the most dependable of the bicycle-delivery boys and then rising rapidly through what ranks there were to become part majordomo and part bodyguard, a position he’d successfully held for over four years. But Ness didn’t know any of this. When she saw Cal Hancock, she saw the dreadlocked graffiti artist, frequently stoned but generally close at hand unless he’d been dismissed for those few minutes of privacy the Blade required for the sexual act. Ness reckoned that if anyone knew the truth about Arissa, it would be Cal.

She waited for one of the times when the Blade was, as he called it, “tending to t’ings.” This tending occurred sporadically, and it involved the receipt of stolen property, drugs, or other contraband. All of this came to the Blade at premises unrelated to the squat. Generally Cal accompanied the Blade to this hideaway, but once, having intentions towards Ness that he promised to fulfill, upon the conclusion of his meeting, he told her to wait for him at the squat. To keep her safe in this disreputable location, he told Cal to wait with her. This gave Ness the opportunity for which she had been waiting.

Cal lit a spliff and offered it to her. Ness shook her head and gave him time to toke up. He was lazy with the way he talked when he was stoned, and she wanted him to be less than vigilant with what he said in answer to her questions.

She used an approach that presumed knowledge. “So where’s dis Arissa livin, Cal?”

He was deep into his developing buzz, and he nodded, letting his eyelids droop. He got very little sleep as the Blade’s bodyguard. Any chance for a catnap was a chance he took. He slid down the wall to rest on the futon. Above him a graffito featured a buxom black girl in a tiny skirt, guns drawn in the manner of a shoot-out specialist. The black girl wasn’t a caricature of Ness, and as she’d been there when Ness had first come to this place, Ness hadn’t really given her a second thought. Now, however, Ness looked at her more closely and saw that her scarlet top was cropped to reveal a tattoo, a miniature snake identical to the Blade’s. She said, “Dis her, Cal? You paint Arissa on th’ wall?”

Cal looked up and saw what she was referring to. He said, “Her?

No. Dat ain’t Rissa. Dat’s Thena.”

“Oh? So when you paintin Arissa?”

“I ain’t got plans . . .” He glanced her way, toking up on the spliff as he hesitated. He’d realised what she was doing, and now he was trying to decide how much hell he was going to have to pay for saying what he’d so far said.

“Where she live, mon?” Ness asked.

Cal said nothing. He removed the spliff from his lips and gazed at the little plume of smoke that was rising from the end of it. He offered it to her again, saying, “G’on. Le’s not waste it, mon.”

“I ain’t a man. And I said. I don’t want it.”

Cal took another hit, holding the smoke in deep. He removed his cap. He tossed it on the futon and shook his head to let his dreads fall loose.

Ness said, “So how long the Blade been fuckin her? True he doing it ’fore he fuckin me?”

Cal rolled his head towards her and squinted. She was at the window with the light behind her, and he waved her over to where he could see her better. He said, “Dere’s t’ings you ain’t got a need to know. I ’spect dat’s one of dem.”

“Tell me.”

“Nuffink to tell. He is or he ain’t. He did or he di’n’t. Wha’ you ’scover don’t change what is.”

“An’ ’xactly what is dat s’posed to mean?”

“T’ink ’bout it. But don’t ask nuffink else.”

“Dat’s all you going to say, den, Cal? I could make you talk. If I wanted. I could.”

He smiled. He looked as afraid of her threat as he would have looked confronted by a duckling bearing arms. “Yeah? How you goin to do it?”

“You don’t tell me, I tell him you tried to fuck me, Cal. You know what he do den, I ’spect.”

Cal laughed outright before he took another hit. “Dat wha’ the big plan is? You t’ink you so special to the mon, he kill anyone else who touch you? Darlin’, you ain’t seeing life ’s it is. I fuck you, you gone, innit. Cos you damn bloody easier’n me f ’r the Blade to replace, and dat’s the truth. You jus’ lucky I ain’t in’erested in you, y’unnderstan. Cos if I was, I tell the Blade and he hand you over when he fi nished wiv you.”

Ness had heard enough. She said, “Dat’s it, blood,” and she followed her usual pattern, which was to leave the scene. She made for the door—which had neither knob nor lock—and told herself she’d get Calvin Hancock and she’d get him where it would hurt him good.

She held true to her intentions. The next time she was alone with the Blade, she told him what Cal had said about sharing her. Into her expectation that the Blade would rise in justifiable rage and smite Cal Hancock the way he deserved, however, came the Blade’s laughter instead.

He said, “Dat blood get stoned, he say anyt’ing,” and he gave no indication that he intended to do anything to discipline the other man. When she demanded he do something to defend her, he nuzzled her neck instead. He said, “You t’ink I give dis to any one? You crazy you t’ink dat shit.”

But still there remained the question of Arissa, and the only way to get an answer to this question was to see if the Blade would lead her to one. Ness knew that she couldn’t follow him, however. Cal was good at his job as the Blade’s protector, and he would see her no matter what she did to escape his detection. The only alternative Ness could see was to seek information from Six. She hated to do it since it put her at Six’s mercy, but there was no other way.

Since Six was not a girl to hold a grudge where a potential source of free substance was concerned, she pretended that what had happened between herself and Ness on Kensington High Street had never happened. Instead, she welcomed Ness into the disreputable flat on Mozart Estate, and after insisting Ness join in a karaoke rendition of “These Boots Are Made for Walking”—all the more melodious for the fact that she had drunk a large bottle of her mother’s mouthwash in an attempt to get high prior to singing it—she imparted the information Ness sought. Arissa lived in Portnall Road. Six didn’t know the address, but there was only one block of flats in the street, mostly inhabited by oldage pensioners. Arissa lived there with her gran.

Ness took herself to Portnall Road, and there she waited. She found the building with no trouble and had little more devising a spot from which she could watch the entrance to the building unobserved. She did not have long to wait. On her second attempt to catch the Blade in what she saw as a sexual transgression, he showed up driven by Cal, as always, and let himself into the building. For his part, Cal lounged in the entry. He took out a pad—it looked like a sketch pad from where Ness stood—and he began to use a pencil upon it. He leaned against the wall and only occasionally looked up to make sure the area was still safe for whatever the Blade was up to.

Which could be only one thing, and Ness knew it. So she was unsurprised when the Blade reappeared half an hour later, making fi nal adjustments to his clothes. He and Cal had started down the path to the street when a window opened above them. Cal immediately thrust himself between the Blade and the building, using his body as a shield. A girl laughed from above and said, “You t’ink I hurt dat mon, Cal Hancock? You f’rgot dis, baby,” and Ness followed the sound to see her: perfect chocolate skin and silky hair, full lips and heavy-lidded eyes. She tossed a set of keys down to the men. “Bye-bye,” she said with another laugh—this one sultry—and she closed the window.

What prompted Ness to move from her hiding space wasn’t so much the knowledge of the girl as the expression on the Blade’s face as he gazed up at the window. Ness could see that he was thinking of going back up to her. He wanted more of whatever it was that she could give him. Ness was on the path before she could consider the ramifications of a public scene with the Blade. She strode up to him and made her demand.

“I want to see that cunt who’s fuckin my man,” she told him, for she put the blame not on the Blade but on the girl. It was the only way she could survive the moment. “Dat cunt Arissa, you take me to her,” Ness said. “I show her what happens she put her hands on my man. Take me to her, blood. I swear, you don’t, I wait out here anyways an’ I jump her she comes out dat door.”

Another sort of man might have sought to defuse the situation. But as the Blade did not dwell much on women as human beings but rather as a source of entertainment, he considered the amusement value of a catfight over him between Ness and Arissa. He liked the idea and took Ness by the arm. He shoved her towards the door.

Behind her, Ness heard Cal say, “Hey, mon, I don’t t’ink—” But whatever else he intended for the Blade, it was cut off when the door shut behind them.

The Blade said nothing to Ness. She kept her anger at a high pitch by picturing the two of them—the Blade and Arissa—doing what she and the Blade should have been doing instead. She kept the picture of them so clear in her mind that when the door to the flat swung open, she charged in and went for the girl’s long hair. She grabbed it up in her fist and shrieked, “You fuckin stay ’ way, you hear me? I see you near dis mon again, I kill you, cunt. Y’unnerstan?” She pulled back her fist and punched Arissa solidly in the face.

What she expected then was a claw-and-scratch fight, but that didn’t happen. The girl didn’t fight back at all. Instead, she dropped to the floor in a foetal position, so Ness kicked her in the back, going for her kidneys, and then repositioned herself to kick her in the stomach as well. She connected once, and that was when Arissa screamed. She screamed far out of proportion to the violence.

“Blade! I got a baby inside!”

Before the Blade could move, Ness kicked her again. Then she fell upon her because she could see that Arissa spoke the truth. Not so much because there was a telltale bump on the other girl’s body but because Arissa hadn’t bothered to try to take Ness on. That was indication enough that there was something more at stake for the girl than her street credentials.

Ness beat her around the face and shoulders, but what she was beating was a fact, not a girl. It was a fact that she couldn’t look at squarely because to do so meant to look at herself and to draw a conclusion from her past that would colour her future. Ness shrieked, “Bitch! I kill you, slag, you don’t stay ’way.”

Arissa screamed, “Blade!”

This put an end to the entertainment, which, while it hadn’t gone on long, had escalated quickly enough to sate the Blade’s need for a demonstration of his desirability. He pulled Ness off the other girl. He held her, bent at the waist and panting and trying to get back to Arissa for more. Ness continued to shriek her curses at the girl, which obviated the necessity of asking her any outright questions about the true history of her relationship with the Blade, and she fought savagely as the Blade jerked her back towards the door and in two deft movements opened it and shoved her into the corridor.

He did not follow at once, instead remaining behind to assess the reliability of Arissa’s declaration. To him, she looked no different from when he’d taken her upright in the kitchen a short while before, thrusting and grunting with her back against the cooker, working quickly as was his habit when he had other things waiting for his attention.

She was still on the floor, foetally arranged as before, but he didn’t help her up. He merely gazed upon her and did a few mental calculations. Could be she was; on the other hand, could be she was merely a lying slag. Could be his; could be anyone’s. In any case, there was a simple answer and he gave it to her.

“Get rid of it, Riss. I got two and ’nother on the way. Don’t need no more.”

That said, he went out to Ness in the corridor. His plan was to sort her out in a fashion she wouldn’t likely forget because the one thing a man in his position couldn’t have was a woman following him around North Kensington and causing scenes whenever she felt like it. But Ness wasn’t there.

The way the Blade looked at this development was: could be good; could be bad.

AFTER THAT, NESS decided she was finished with the Blade. The reason she admitted to herself was the lying, cheating, two-faced nature of the man, going at Arissa like a hatchet-faced monkey at the same time he was going at her. The other reason, however, she didn’t get far enough within herself to examine even superficially. It was enough that he had cheated on her. She wasn’t about to stand for that, no matter who he was or how big his reputation.

She chose her moment. The Blade had a past, as she had learned, and what she’d also learned—from careful questioning of Six on the matter—was that the other women who’d been in his life over the years had been dismissed without troubling him further. This included the two hapless souls who’d borne him children. Whatever their expectations had been of the Blade’s future part in the lives of his offspring, he had disabused the two women of them in very short order, although he did drop by the estates on occasion when he felt the need to point out to Cal—or to anyone else he wished to impress—the fruit of his loins as they played in their nappies among the rusting shopping trolleys.

Ness determined that she would not be one of these women, going meekly out of the Blade’s life when he was tired of her. What she told herself was that she was sick and tired of him, and tired especially of his pathetic skill as a lover.

She waited for the right opportunity to present itself, which it did in a mere three days. Again, Six—that font of useful information on the topic of illegal activities in North Kensington—put her in the picture as to where the Blade took receipt of the contraband whose sale allowed him to keep his position of dominance in the community. This place was on Bravington Road, Six told Ness, where it intersected Kilburn Lane. There was a brick wall along a shop yard that backed onto an alley. The wall had a gate, but this was always locked, and even if it wasn’t, Ness wasn’t to go inside for love or money. No one went inside except the Blade and Cal Hancock. Everyone else did business with him in the alley. This alley was in full view not only of the street but of a line of houses that backed onto it. No one would think to phone the police about the furtive business going on outside, though. Everyone knew who was conducting it.

Ness went there when she knew the Blade would be dealing with his underlings. She found him as she hoped she might: looking over the goods provided by two thugs and three boys on bicycles. She elbowed through them. The gate in the brick wall was open, revealing the back of an abandoned building, a platform running along it and upon this platform several wooden crates that were open and others that were not. Cal Hancock was shifting goods around in one of these crates, which meant that he’d left the Blade unguarded. The Blade himself was examining an air pistol he’d been handed, the better to see how much work would be required to modify it into a useful weapon.

Ness said, “Hey. We finished, fucker. Jus’ thought I stop by and let you know.”

The Blade looked up. An indrawn breath seemed to be taken in unison by the group that surrounded him. Across the yard, Cal Hancock dropped the top of the crate back into place. He leapt from the platform. Ness knew his intention. She had to be quick, so she spoke in a rush.

“You nuffink,” she said to the Blade. “You got dat, bred? Act like you a real big mon cos you know you a worm crawl round in the dirt. An’ size of a worm, you got dat, mon?” She laughed and put her hands on her hips. “Blood, I been sick of y’r face wiv dat stupid tattoo since second time I saw you, an’ I even more sick of dat eight-ball head an’ the way it looks when you licking. Y’ unnerstan me? You get what I say? You good for gettin high, i’s true, but, shit, it jus’ ain’t worth it no more, not f’r what you got to offer. So—”

Cal clamped on to her. The Blade’s face was a mask. His eyes had gone opaque. No one else moved.

Cal strong-armed her away from the wall and out of the alley, through a dead silence in which Ness acknowledged her triumph by saying to the thugs and the boys on their bikes, “You t’ink he’s summick? He nuffink. He a worm. You ’fraid of him? You ’fraid of a worm?”

Then she was back in Bravington Road, and Cal was hissing, “You one stupid cow. You one sorry, stupid, bloody-minded cow. You know who you messin wiv? You know what he c’n do ’f he wants? Get out of here now. An’ stay out of his way.” He gave her a push, one that was designed to direct her reluctant feet away from the spot. Since Ness had accomplished what she’d set out to do, she didn’t protest or fight to get away.

Instead, she laughed. She was finished with the Blade. She felt as light as the air. He could have Arissa and anyone else he wanted, she told herself. What he would not have —and could never have again— was Vanessa Campbell.

IN HIS QUEST for physical perfection—which the title Mr. Universe would affirm—Dix D’Court needed financial support, and so he had gathered sponsors. Without them, he would have been doomed to squeezing out time for his power lifting before or after work or at the weekends, and this would be when the gym was most crowded. He’d have had little real hope of attaining his dream of the world’s most magnificently sculpted male body if he had to pursue it that way, so early on he’d gathered around him individuals who were willing to fi nance his endeavour. He had to meet them occasionally, to bring them up to date on the recent competitions he’d entered and won, and he had inadvertently scheduled one of these meetings for the night of Toby’s birthday. Once he learned of this, Dix wanted to cancel his meeting. But allowing this cancellation suggested another step taken towards the sort of commitment that Kendra was trying to avoid, so she told him that the birthday needed to be a private, family affair. The message in this was implicit: Dix was not family. He shot her a look that said Have it your own way. Privately, however, he told Joel he would be there directly after his sponsors’ meeting.

From this remark, Joel knew not to tell Kendra that Dix would be turning up. There were depths between his aunt and Dix that he could not plumb, and he had other worries anyway. Primary among these was his failure to find a “Happy Birthday” sign to hang upon the kitchen window. It was bad enough not to have the family’s old tin carousel any longer to set in the middle of the table, but to have no dramatic way to wish the birthday boy happiness felt to Joel like a more signifi cant blow. For even Glory Campbell had managed to hang on to the children’s birthday sign, resurrecting it—more tattered every year— from wherever she stowed it when it wasn’t in use. This sign with its grommets, which allowed it to be hung with haphazard cheer any which way, had gone the way of most of Glory’s nonsartorial possessions prior to her departure for Jamaica: She’d tossed it in the rubbish without Joel’s knowledge, and only when he looked through his own belongings did he realise it was no longer a possession of the immediate Campbell clan.

He didn’t have enough cash to get another one, so he’d had to settle for making one himself, which he did by using notebook paper. He took one sheet for each letter and he coloured them with a red pencil borrowed from Mr. Eastbourne at Holland Park School. On Toby’s birthday he was ready to hang them on the window, but there was nothing to use as adhesive save a book of first-class postage stamps.

He would have preferred Sellotape or Blu Tac. But he lacked the funds to purchase that as well. So he used the stamps, reckoning they could be glued to envelopes afterwards, as long as he was careful to put them on the window in such a way as to make them easy to get off later. That was how he began to explain matters to his aunt when she arrived home after work on the day in question, exclaiming, “What the hell!” as she saw the handmade sign and how it had been attached to the window. She dropped her carrier bags on the work top and turned to Joel, who’d followed her into the kitchen with his explanation ready. But she stopped him in the midst of it by putting her arm around his shoulders.

“You did a good thing,” she said into the top of his head. Her voice was husky, and it occurred to Joel that she’d softened a bit since Dix had started coming around number 84 Edenham Way, especially since the day they’d all trooped up to the Rainbow Café to meet his dad and his mum, the latter of whom was more than generous with dollops of hot custard when it involved an order of her apple pie. Kendra unpacked the carrier bags, which turned out to be holding takeaway curry. She said, “Where’s Ness?” and then called up the stairs, where the television sounds indicated cartoons were playing, “Mr. Toby Campbell? You get into this kitchen straightaway. You hear?”

Joel shrugged, his answer to the whereabouts of Ness. She’d been around more often in the past few days, a brooding presence licking its wounds when she wasn’t out and about with Six and Natasha. Joel didn’t know where she’d taken herself off to. He hadn’t seen her since yesterday evening.

“She knows what day this is, doesn’t she?” Kendra asked.

“S’pose,” Joel said. “I di’n’t tell her. I ain’t seen her.”

“Haven’t,” Kendra said.

“I haven’t seen her.” He added, “Have you?” because he couldn’t help it. So much still the child, it seemed to him that, as the adult, Kendra could have done something about the problem that was Ness. Kendra eyed him, and she read him as well as if he’d spoken. “What?” she said. “Tie her down? Lock her up in a room?” She removed plates from the cupboard and handed them to him, along with cutlery. He started to set the table. “Time comes, Joel, when a person decides what her life’s going to look like. Ness’s decided.”

Joel said nothing because he couldn’t articulate what he believed since what he believed rose from the history he shared with his sister as well as what he felt about her. What he felt was longing: for the Ness she had been. What he believed was that she missed who she’d been as much as he did, but had even less hope of getting her back. Toby clattered down the stairs, his lava lamp under his arm. He set it in the middle of the table and extended its flex to plug it into a point. He climbed into a chair and rested his chin on his hands to watch the shining orange globules begin their rhythmic rising and falling.

Kendra said to him, “Got your favourite here, Mr. Campbell. Naan with raisins, almonds, and honey. You ready for that?”

Toby looked over at her, his eyes bright at the thought of the bread. Kendra smiled and took from her shoulder bag an envelope with three foreign stamps affixed to it. She handed this over to Toby, saying,

“Looks like your gran didn’t forget your special day, either. This came all the way from Jamaica”—she made no mention of the fact that she’d phoned her mother three times about sending it and had herself included the five-pound note Toby was going to find when he wrestled it open—“so open it up and let’s see what she says.”

Joel helped Toby ease the large card from its envelope. He scooped up the limp five-pound note that fluttered to the floor. He said, “Hey, lookit this, Tobe! Y’r rich,” but Toby was studying a Polaroid picture Glory had sent as well. In it, she and George stood with a string of strangers, arms slung around one another and bottles of Red Stripe hoisted in the air. Glory wore a halter top—not a wise choice for a woman her age—a baseball cap with “Cardinals” written on it, shorts, and no shoes.

“Looks like she’s found her niche,” Kendra said when she took the picture from Toby and gave it a look. “Who’re all these people?

George’s clan? And she sent you five pounds, Toby? Well, that was nice, wasn’t it? What’re you going to do with all that dosh?”

Toby smiled happily and fingered the note, which Joel handed to him. It was more money than he’d ever had at any one time in his entire life.

Ness joined them soon after that, right at the point when Joel was deciding what would do as a special plate that Toby could eat from on his special day. He’d settled for a tin tray painted with the face of Father Christmas, which he unearthed from beneath two pie tins and a baking dish. Dust grimed the edges, but a quick wash would remedy that.

Ness hadn’t forgotten Toby’s birthday either. She arrived bringing what she announced was a magic wand. It was made of clear plastic and filled with sparkles, which glowed brightly when someone shook it. She made no mention of where she’d got it, which was just as well since she’d pinched it from the very same shop in Portobello Road where Joel had purchased the lava lamp.

Toby grinned when Ness demonstrated how the magic wand worked. He said, “Wicked.” He shook it happily. “C’n I make a wish when it’s shook?”

“You c’n do whatever you want,” Ness told him. “It’s your birthday, innit.”

“And since it’s his birthday,” Kendra said, “I got something as well . . .”

She disappeared up the stairs at a trot, returning with a long package that she handed to Toby. This he unwrapped to discover a snorkel and an underwater mask, perhaps as useless a gift as any child has ever received from a well-meaning relation. Kendra said helpfully, “They go with your life ring, Toby. Where is it, anyway? Why’ve you not got it on?”

Joel and Toby hadn’t told her, of course, about the day they’d had the confrontation with Neal Wyatt, the day on which the life ring had taken its near fatal wound. Since that time, Joel had attempted a repair with glue, but it hadn’t held well. Consequently, the life ring was pretty much done for.

Things were not perfect, but no one dwelt on that since every one of them—including Ness—was determined to maintain an aura of good cheer. Toby himself didn’t appear to notice everything that was missing from his celebration: the birthday sign, the tin carousel, and most of all the mother who’d given him birth.

The four of them tucked into the takeaway, revelling in everything from vegetable jalfrezi to onions bhaji. They drank lemonade, and they talked about what Toby could do with his birthday five pounds. All the time the lava lamp sat in the middle of the table, blurping and oozing with an eerie light.

They’d just got to the naan when someone banged on the front door. Three sharp raps were followed by a silence, two more raps, and someone yelling, “Give it over, cow. You hear me?” It was a man’s voice, nasty with threat. Kendra looked up from tearing off a piece of naan for Toby. Joel gave his attention to the door. Toby gazed at the lava lamp. Ness kept her eyes fixed on her plate.

The banging on the door began again, more in earnest this time. Another shout accompanied it. “Ness! You hear me? I say open or I kick this piece of shit door down wiv one foot, easy.” More banging ensued. “Don’t vex me, Ness. I break up your fucking head, you don’t open when I say.”

This wasn’t the sort of language that frightened Kendra Osborne. But it was the sort of language that fired the cylinders of her outrage. She began to get to her feet, saying, “Who the hell is that? I won’t have anyone—”

“I c’n get it.” Ness rose to stop Kendra.

“Not alone, you won’t.” Kendra stalked to the door, Ness hard on her heels. Toby and Joel followed. Toby was chewing on his piece of naan, his eyes wide with curiosity, like someone believing that this was part of an unexpected birthday show.

“What the hell are you on about?” Kendra demanded as she swung open the door. “What d’you mean, pounding on this door like a common—” Then she saw who it was, and the seeing stopped her from saying anything more. Instead, she looked from the Blade to Ness and then back to the Blade, who was dressed like a London banker but who, with a red beret covering his hairless head and a venom-spitting cobra tattooed on his cheek, would never have been mistaken for one. Kendra knew who he was. She’d lived in North Kensington long enough to have heard about him. Even had this not been the case, Adair Street was no great distance from Edenham Way, and it was on Adair Street that the Blade’s mother lived in a terrace house from which—according to gossip exchanged in the market in Golborne Road—she had evicted her eldest son when it became apparent to her that following in an older sibling’s footsteps meant that her younger children would be treading one path or another that led without diversions to places like Pentonville or Dartmoor. Kendra added everything up in the time it took her to digest the Blade’s words, which was no time at all. She said to Ness, “You’ve got some talking to do about this.”

In the meantime, the Blade pushed past her, uninvited and unwilling to wait for an invitation to enter, which he correctly assumed was not about to be issued. He was accompanied by Arissa, black miniskirt riding high on her thighs, black crop top plunging over her breasts, a pair of black boots soaring up her legs to her knees, the heels so high and so tapered they might have been considered lethal weapons. She was the perfect companion for this night’s adventure, and her appearance at the Blade’s side effected the result he’d wanted when he told her to accompany him.

Ness came forward. “What d’you want, blood? I tol’ you b’fore. I ain’t havin no more ’f what you got to offer, ’specially if it means I end up looking like this slag here.”

“Liked it fine last time you had it, though. Di’n’t you, skank?” he asked her.

“Dat’d be summick you’d not likely notice.”

At this exchange, Arissa made a noise that could have been taken as amusement. The Blade shot her a look and her face went blank. She said, to him, “C’mon, baby. We don’t need vexin ourselves wiv dis.”

She ran her hand down his arm to reach his fi ngers. He shook her off. “Fuck it, Arissa. We got business here.”

“You done y’r business wiv me,” Ness told him. “It’s over.”

“You don’t tell me when t’ings’s over, slag.”

“Oh, dat never happen before? No one else got the bot’le to walk away from you?”

“No one else dat stupid. I’m th’ one dat say—”

“I am jus’ shiverin in my knickers, mon. Wha’ you want anyway, bringin’ dis slag to my house? ’M I s’posed to give her a demonstration so she know how to give you what you want?”

“You don’t know nothing ’bout what I want.”

Kendra put herself between them. The front door was still open— with Arissa standing well inside, and Kendra pointed to it. She said, “I don’t know what’s gone on between you two, and I don’t want to hear it just now. This is my house you’re in”—this she directed at the Blade and his companion—“and I’m telling you to leave. Not asking. Telling. Take yourselves back to whatever . . .” She hesitated and then made a wise correction since cesspool you’ve crawled out of was an expression she deemed likely to escalate matters. “Take yourselves back to wherever you came from.”

“Best idea I heard in weeks.” Ness might have let things go at that— indeed, she actually would have done so—had the Blade not come accompanied by Arissa and all that Arissa stood for. She couldn’t let him leave without having the last word. She said with a smile that expressed a depth of insincerity and animosity that was more than evident to the others in the room, “’Sides, now you an’ crackbitch here c’n go do a grind. You c’n even take her up that deluxe establishment you got in Kilburn Lane an’ go for it among the cockroaches, which I expect she’ll like. Cos den she won’t have to take notice dat you, blood, don’t know more’n stickin it in and having it off when it comes to pleasing y’r partner. Like I—”

The Blade surged forward. He caught Ness’s face on the jaw. He held her head in a grasp that dug into her skin. Before anyone else could move, he brought the side of his other fist into her temple. The strength behind the blow knocked Ness off her feet. The force of the fall left her out of breath.

Toby cried out. Joel pulled him away. Arissa sighed, “Oh,” with pleasure fanning across her features. Kendra moved. In an instant she’d shoved past Joel and Toby into the kitchen to get to the cooker. She kept her pots and pans inside the oven, and she snatched up a frying pan as a weapon. She dashed back across the room at the Blade.

“You get out of here, rabbit sucker,” she said. “You aren’t out ’f the door in the next five seconds, this pan’ll be making acquaintance with your skull. And you,” to Arissa, who was grinning inanely at the unfolding scene, “if this is the bes’ you c’n do for a man, you’re a sorrier sight than I’m looking at with my eyes.”

“Shut your ugly gob,” the Blade said to Kendra. He kicked Ness to one side. He faced Kendra down. “Come on, den. You want t’ distress me, cow? You jus’ try it. Come on. Come on. I ain’t going nowhere, so you better come get me.”

“You scare me as much ’s shit on a tissue,” Kendra told him. “I been blowing off divs like you since you was in nappies. Now get out of here, now. You don’t, you’ll be trying your stuff on someone likely to serve your little prong on yesterday’s toast. Y’unnerstan me, blood?”

The fact that the Blade understood Kendra perfectly was demonstrated in the very next moment. From his pocket, he brought out the flick knife that had long ago given him his sobriquet. It caught the light as it flashed open. He said to Kendra, “Your tongue goes first,” and sprang towards her.

She hurled the frying pan at his head. The pan made hard contact just above his eye, splitting the skin. Arissa screamed. Toby wailed. The Blade went for Kendra, who was now weaponless.

Ness grabbed the Blade’s leg as Joel dashed from the kitchen, where he’d huddled in the doorway with Toby. Ness shrieked at him,

“Get summick, Joel!” and she sank her teeth into the meat of the Blade’s calf. He slashed down at her. The knife sliced through her crinkly puff of hair. Ness cried out. Kendra leapt onto the Blade’s back.

Joel scrambled around the brawling bodies, desperately trying to get to the only weapon he could see: the frying pan, which had skittered beneath a chair. As he did this, Kendra locked on to the Blade’s slashing arm to keep him from striking at Ness again. Joel reached for the pan, but Arissa stopped him. She pulled him away. He slipped on the floor. He found himself inches from the Blade’s left leg, so he did as his sister had done and bit deep. Ness was shrieking, both in pain and in fear, the blood from her scalp wound dripping down her face. Arissa was shouting and Toby was crying. The Blade grunted as he tried to dislodge Kendra. All of this whirled around the room, like suds on clothes in a washing machine.

But suddenly, there was another presence as a voice—loud and hot— came from the open front door. Someone yelled, “What the bloody hell . . . !” and Dix was with them, Dix who was far stronger than the Blade, Dix who was taller than the Blade, Dix who saw that Kendra was in trouble and Ness was bleeding and Toby was weeping and Joel was doing his inadequate best to protect them all.

Dix flung his sports bag to the floor. He shoved Arissa to one side and threw a single punch. It snapped the Blade’s head back like a dandelion puff and ended the fray in an instant. The Blade fell backwards, Kendra flew from his back, and both of them landed on the floor with Ness and Joel. The Blade’s prized knife went soaring across the room and into the kitchen. It slid to a stop beneath the cooker. Dix hauled the Blade to his feet, shouting, “Ken, you all right? Ken?

Ken!”

Kendra waved in reply and crawled over to Ness, coughing and saying, “Too many damn fags,” and then to Ness, “You all right, Ness?

How bad’re you cut?”

“You want the cops?” Dix asked her, his grip still fi rmly on the Blade who, like Ness, was bleeding copiously.

“He i’n’t worth the cops,” was the answer. Ness gave it. She huddled in a ball, with Kendra hovering over her. “He i’n’t worth dog piss.”

“You a fucking slag, Ness.”

“Was when I did you. I should’ve took money for all th’ good it did me.”

The Blade tried to get to her once again, but Dix had him in a grip that he couldn’t break. He struggled and Dix said into his ear, “Mess up your jacket nice, bred, you don’t settle down.” He danced the other man towards the door and when he had him close enough, he flung him out onto the steps. The Blade lost his footing and tumbled, landing on one knee on the concrete path from the street. Arissa dashed to his side to help him up. He shook her off. During the scuffle, he’d lost his red beret, and the light from inside Kendra’s house shone on his hairless pate. A few neighbours, hearing the brawl, had come to stand outside. They faded into the shadows quickly when they saw who was in the midst of the fight.

“I’ll have wha’ I meant to have, y’unnerstan?” the Blade said, his breathing harsh. And then in a louder voice, “You got me, Ness? I wan’ dat moby.”

Inside, Ness staggered to her feet. She went to the kitchen where she’d hung her bag on the back of a chair. She grabbed the mobile phone from within and, at the door, she threw it at the Blade with all the force she could muster.

“Give it to her, den,” she shrieked. “Maybe she pop ’nother kid for you. Den you drop her like poison and go t’ the next. She know dat’s what it all ’bout? You tell her dat? Put her up the chute but it ain’t enough cos nothing make you big outside when your insides is so small.”

That said, she slammed the door and fell back against it, sobbing and hitting her face with her fists. Toby fled to the kitchen, where he hid under the table. Joel got to his feet and stood, mute and helpless. Dix went to Kendra but Kendra went to Ness.

She spoke the question whose answer was a nightmare yet too frightening to articulate. “Ness, Ness, what happened to you, baby?”

“I couldn’t,” was all Ness said as she continued to weep and beat at her face. “She could an’ I couldn’t.”