Rise and Fall (22 page)

“Get your arses back out there, and don’t even tink about coming back ‘ere til you have some news for me,” Jerell roared. He stood in the doorway, furious at the cheek of Rhys and a couple of the other boys who had just sat down on the sofa, like he owed them a rest. 

“Jerell, man, we've searched everywhere, we’re running out of places to look.” Rhys was exasperated. He was so tired that he could have had a kip standing up. 

Jerell hadn’t let them have any respite since the drama with Louise, two days ago, and they were all knackered from searching for her. Rhys was so tired that he couldn’t think straight, he would never even dream of arguing with Jerell normally.

Seeing Jerell clench his fists at the boy’s response, Reagan stepped in to try and cool the situation down. 

“Have you tried Louise’s mum’s place?” Reagan was mindful that to an outsider he sounded like he was being helpful, but he knew Louise better than any one of these boys, and her mum’s house would be the last place on this earth Louise would go to. He just wished that she would get in touch with him, so that he could speak to her about what she had seen.

“Yeah, there are a couple of boys on it already, they’re watching the front, and a couple are keeping an eye on the other house too. Ritchie and Michael are there, so if she did show her face, they would tell us straight away,” Rhys replied, feeling hard done by that he was going to have to go back out into the freezing cold looking for the girl, when all he wanted to do right now was get some shut eye. He didn’t even know why he was looking for Louise; he had heard a commotion the other night but he had been half-asleep, and by the time he had got to the landing to see what the noise was about, Jerell was having a pop at Reagan and Louise had legged it. Whatever it was that she had done, Rhys was glad he wasn’t in her shoes; he had never seen Jerell so angry. 

Reagan agreed with Rhys; they had all searched long and hard the past few days and, like Rhys had said, Ritchie and Michael were staying on at the house until this mess was cleared up, and they were both doing their best to keep it running as efficiently as Louise had done. The boys needed a break. Reagan looked at Jerell to make a decision.

“Get back out there and keep looking, boy,” Jerell ordered. He didn’t like the way that Rhys had talked back to him, the boy was getting too big for his boots, and if he thought that he could use this place as a doss house while that girl was on the missing list he had another think coming. 

Reagan watched the boys as they wearily left. He prepared to try to reason with Jerell again. 

“You don’t know Louise like I do, Jerell. She ain’t going to say nothing. I promise you, she’ll be shitting herself thinking about what you’re going to do when you catch up with her.”

Reagan was desperate to convince Jerell that even though no-one had seen Louise for two days, she would just be lying low while she sorted her head out. She wasn’t a silly girl, and even though what she had caught Jerell doing with Tyler must have come as a horrendous shock, Reagan was certain that she just needed time to calm down, she wouldn’t blab about it, he would put his life on it because, like himself, she would be more than aware that Jerell would kill her if she talked.

Reagan just wanted to know that Louise was alright. He hadn’t seen or heard from her since that night, and he had thought that by now she would have made some kind of contact with him, but there had been nothing. Jerell had insisted that he hand over his mobile, so that he could keep tabs on it. But there had been no phone call, no text message: nothing. 

Jerell was fuming that Louise had taken off; the last thing that he wanted was her spreading his business about the place: or, worse still, the silly bitch doing something really stupid like getting the authorities involved. 

“Shitting herself? So she should be.” Jerell was going to give her a beating when he found her. She couldn’t leave whenever she felt like it, she had responsibilities, and her not sticking around after what she had seen him doing with Tyler confirmed to Jerell that she would cause him a whole world of trouble. Jerell had seen the disgust and hate in the girl’s eyes when she had stared across the room at him, shocked, as he lay in Tyler’s bed looking like a rabbit that had been caught in the headlights. Jerell knew very well that people feared notorious gangsters, drug dealers, rude boys, but kiddie-fiddlers were not something that people tolerated. If anyone found out about his secret he would be crucified. He was in no doubt that the girl would cause him problems. They had searched everywhere they could think of for her. At first they had assumed that they would find her at her house, but she hadn’t turned up there. Jerell had every one of his boys keeping a look-out for her; he had offered a grand to the boy that found out where she was; that sort of money, to kids around here, would be more than enough to dissipate any of the loyalty that the boys would be feeling towards the girl, she may be one of them, but money always clouded people’s judgement, and he knew the boys would be doing everything they could to find her. So far no-one had seen or heard from her, though. It seemed she had disappeared.

Rubbing his temples, Jerell rocked back and forth on the chair. His body was bursting with agitation, and he couldn’t settle. If Louise went around shooting her pretty little mouth off, he could end up with the police or social services swarming around like flies to a pile of steaming shit, and he would end up losing everything. Jerell would not be a sitting target. He made a decision. 

“We need to get rid of da boy.” Jerell felt calmer after he had spoken. He needed to remain in control and finally after the past two days of tormenting himself with worry, and searching the whole of Lambeth for the daft bitch, he decided that he had no choice but to play it safe. 

“What do you mean: get rid of the boy?” Reagan asked.

Reagan knew that Jerell was desperate; for the past few days he had been a nightmare. He was bad enough at the best of times, with his constant paranoia, but when Jerell got something in his head that made him feel on edge, he was beyond reasoning with. No-one had been able to say anything without getting their heads bitten off, and the atmosphere in the house had been bleak. 

Reagan was exhausted and worried sick about Louise, but he had tried, as always, to keep things running as smoothly as possible, and he had even had a crack at trying to stop the rumours that had started flying around amongst the others. Everyone wanted to know what had happened to make Louise do a runner, and what had made Jerell get so het up about? The more that Reagan tried to diminish the rumours, however, the more the others thought that he was hiding something and became even more suspicious. So in the end Reagan had given up; he would let them believe that she was robbing Jerell blind behind his back: anything was better than the truth getting out.

Jerell looked deep in thought, but Reagan could see that now he had made a decision he was back in control. 

“If there is no boy here, then what can anyone do if they do come looking, huh?” Jerell said. “No-one can prove a thing if there’s no kid here. We hush the others up, you talk to the boys; no-one’s going to say jack shit. Tyler’s walking, talking evidence.”

Reagan nodded. He was pleased that Jerell seemed to be finally getting his wits about him again and agreed that getting Tyler away was not such a bad idea. The poor little sod had turned into a quivering wreck. He wasn’t eating or sleeping, and he had just been sitting in his room for the last forty-eight hours staring at his four walls whenever Reagan had popped his head in. It saddened Reagan to see that it was too late for the poor kid now. Reagan hadn’t stopped Jerell from getting to him, and the boy seemed broken inside. Reagan couldn’t help but feel responsible, he should have done more. He knew that Jerell had been vicious to the boy, and that Tyler was petrified of the man. Getting the kid away from here would be a good thing, and after everything that had happened Reagan felt that he owed it to Tyler to be the one that got him out of here.

“Where are we going to take him?” Reagan hoped that he would be able to be the one that took the kid; he didn’t want to give Jerell the opportunity to inflict one more second of pain on the boy.

“Take him?” Jerell asked, realising that he and Reagan were not on the same page. He leant forward and spoke in a serious tone. “We ain’t taking dat boy nowhere, Reagan. I want him gone. Dealt wid, good and proper. You get me? That boy is nothing but a liability.” Jerell’s eyes were bloodshot from lack of sleep and smoking gear, making him look more menacing than usual, and Regan knew that he was deadly serious.

Reagan tried to hide his shock. Tyler was just a scared kid. Even if Jerell let him walk out of here, Reagan knew that Tyler wouldn’t breathe a word to a living soul: he was far too frightened of Jerell. 

“Nah, man, we can’t do that to the poor fucker… he’s just a kid, Jerell. He ain’t done nothing to us.” Reagan was out of his depth. Everything was getting too much. Jerell was more and more unpredictable, and Reagan was disgusted that he had let things get this far out of control. He was appalled that he had sat back and let this monster abuse Tyler. And now Jerell was sitting here casually smoking a spliff, ordering a hit on a twelve-year-old boy. Reagan felt sick. What the fuck was he doing; this was crazy. When this had all started, the idea had been to make money and gain kudos on the estate. This wasn’t what he had signed up for.

“What’s the matter? You not got the bollocks you born with, boy?” Jerell asked, as he watched the fear grow on Reagan’s face, as he realised that Jerell was really going to do this. “You don’t have to be the one to do it, if you don’t think you can handle it, Reagan. There are plenty more boys out there that will be more than happy to show me that they’re ready to up their game, and prove themselves to me by getting rid of the kid, you know? You just say the word if you think you can’t deal with it.” 

Jerell was talking down to Reagan, making him feel belittled, whilst he challenged him. He always had a way of getting to Reagan. The room was eerily quiet, as Jerell waited for the answer that Reagan knew his fate depended on. If Jerell could do away with a kid to ensure his silence, then he wasn’t safe either. None of them were. He had no choice but to agree to get rid of Tyler; otherwise he could end up dead too.

“When?” Reagan returned Jerell’s cold stare, thoughts of Tyler in his room oblivious to what was being planned, racing through his mind.

“The sooner the better.” Jerell lit another joint and stretched out his legs as he inhaled long tokes of the spliff, continuing to stare at Reagan, not taking his eyes off the boy as he sussed out if he was up to the task. He studied him, taking in his every movement. 

Reagan tried to remain calm, keeping his expression neutral and his body language relaxed so that Jerell would have no idea that his heart was banging in his chest. He put his hand out for Jerell to pass the joint. 

“I’m listening,” he said. 

Gavin was waiting outside the garage when Jamie pulled up in his car. Gavin wanted a heads up on the girl. He was hoping Jamie would be able to shed a bit of light on what this Louise wanted, as she hadn’t giving anything away about herself so far.

“Bloody hell, mate; that was record timing,” Gavin joked, as Jamie jumped out of the motor and walked briskly over. “I only rang a few minutes ago.”

Jamie was obviously in a hurry to see the girl. Gavin had left her inside to finish her tea, while Shay bored the arse off her, spinning a few of his lines, ever a sucker for a beauty. The minute Shay had clocked her, his testosterone had kicked in and all thoughts of him worrying about being a newly found baby-daddy had gone straight out the window, instantly forgotten. The way Shay was drooling over the poor girl when Gavin had left them to it, he had looked like he would have happily impregnated her with octuplets had she asked him to.

The girl hadn’t had a chance to get a word in with Shay banging on, but Gavin still thought that she was acting shiftily. She seemed nervous and on edge, and she was being cagey about why she was at the garage.

When Gavin had rung Jamie to tell him that a girl was insisting on talking to him and only him, he had expected a reaction, but Jamie had gone silent on the other end of the phone and then asked him to keep her there until he arrived. So far, Jamie hadn’t given Gavin any clues about what the girl might want. 

Gavin and Shay were extremely curious. Jamie had never mentioned seeing a girl, let alone one he would allow to come to the garage; there had to be something going on.

“Who is she then?” Jamie asked. 

“You tell me,” Gavin answered. “All she said was that her name’s Louise and she must talk to you, right now. Tell you what, Jamie, she’s a proper sort an’ all…. a blonde.” Gavin could see the confusion in Jamie’s eyes, surely even someone as cold as him would remember a beautiful blonde girl called Louise. Gavin was trying his hardest to read Jamie, but as always it was an impossible task; Jamie was a master at keeping his business private. Gavin found it a bit weird that a girl had turned up out of the blue, asking for Jamie, but wouldn’t say what it was about and insisted that she could only talk to him. Then Jamie turned up five minutes later, like a bat out of hell, and looking equally as shifty. Yet still Gavin had no answers and he knew he should give up trying to get them.

“Come on, she’s out the back, probably dying of boredom listening to Shay droning on, poor girl.” Gavin walked back through to the office, Jamie following. 

“Here she is.” Gavin announced to Jamie, as they stepped into the office, interrupting Shay mid-sentence.

Gavin looked from Louise to Jamie, trying to gauge their initial reactions and hoping that there would be a clue as to what was going on. 

Seeing Jamie’s puzzled expression Louise spoke up. “We haven’t met, but you’re the man I need to speak to. You’re Jamie Finch yeah?” Her voice held more confidence than her body language had earlier implied. 

Jamie didn’t know who she was or what she wanted, but he agreed with what Gavin had been saying: the girl was stunning. Her young-looking skin was flawless, and she had the most gorgeous bright green eyes Jamie had ever seen. Pretty was an understatement.