The Girl Who Wouldn’t Die (4 page)

‘Louder, I said,’ she barked. ‘Who’s the bloody parent in this house?’

Ella said nothing. Ella knew they should keep it low. Ella knew there could still be trouble.

Richard Gere’s friend had just hanged himself when trouble started.

Low voices out back. Dark shapes moving beyond the fence. Then, a broken bottle on the back path. Smash. Footsteps running away quickly. Whistles.

Ella grabbed her hockey stick.

‘Kill the lights,’ Letitia shouted, her cigarette twitching between her shaky fingers.

Loud knocking at the front door, then …

‘Don’t go,’ Ella said. ‘It’ll be—’

Letitia slid silently into the kitchen at the front. Ella followed, keeping low; creeping stealthily. She raised her head above the windowsill but Letitia was already standing tall, flailing her arms around, shouting.

‘Those bastards set fire to my house!’

Ella rushed to the front door ahead of Letitia. The door was open now, flames bubbling up the council’s standard-issue red paint, quickly extinguished with a pot full of liquid flung by Letitia. Letitia always had something fun in the pot standing by the door, ready to throw when the occasion demanded. Now the door reeked of petrol and piss. Glass on the floor out front. And, by the gate, an intact Coke bottle with a singed rag stuffed in the neck that had failed to ignite properly.

‘Petrol bomb! They petrol bombed us!’ Ella said, transfixed by the tableau before her.

She ran inside, heart thudding. She picked up the phone.

‘Don’t call the police!’ Letitia shouted. ‘Are you mad? Think I wanna be labelled as a grass?’

Ella ignored her and dialled 999. She held the receiver to her ear and squatted in the lounge where the flickering screen of the TV was the only source of light. Richard Gere was smiling now. Talking without sound. Lips moving. Carefree. Smart in his uniform. In the seconds she waited to be connected, she heard their voices again at the back. She could see them through the net curtains, moving below the streetlight.

‘Which service do you require, please?’ the woman at the other end asked.

‘Police. Quick. They’re here,’ Ella said.

The gate clicked as they crept into the garden. Right up the back path; brazen now. Ella could see their hooded silhouettes as they skulked by the door. She fired the details of her name and address at the woman on the phone.

‘Come quickly!’ she shouted.

Too late. Ella screamed.

It takes more than one go to smash an entire window in with a crowbar. The crowbar doesn’t do a clean job and glass is much harder to break than people think. Danny and his boy smacked the window hard, twice, and left only small shards stuck to the white UPVC frames. They had had a lot of practice lately.

Oh Danny Boy, Oh Danny Boy, the sirens are calling
,
Ella thought.

Their trainer-clad feet pounded away, accompanied by laughter and whistles. Down through the twists and turns of the alleys they would run, like rats hastening to the sewers. Always knowing where to go to ground. Ella knew this much.

Letitia was standing by the back door, staring down at the wreckage on the carpet.

‘How can they do this? Nearly Christmas, man. Look at the fucking mess. And now the cops are coming. I told you not to bloody ring them.’

Ella stared at the glass strewn at her feet. She looked around at the dismal living room. Sagging three piece suite, peppered with cigarette burns and food stains. Scratched coffee table. Old stereo, a relic from the early nineties. Drunken, balding Christmas tree, perched in the corner like a sad, old glittery tart at a crap party. There was nothing left to steal. There was nothing left to break. She shut her eyes and swallowed hard. She thought about her just-in-case hammer under her pillow. Then she kicked the despair aside.

‘I’ll help,’ Ella said, grabbing a dustpan and brush from the cupboard under the sink.

The wail of sirens heralded the approaching police but something caught Ella’s eye. She looked up from sweeping the glass, wondering what the bright light in the back was. The tree. The tree, the only attractive growing thing in Ella’s garden, was a prunus kanzan – standard council issue that bore racemes of pink candyfloss blossom in May. There was something different about it now.

Ella edged closer so that the icy wind whipped through the empty window frame and made her ironed hair slap up and down on her shoulders.

In the small garden, the tree looked like a bright Christmas message from the Ku Klux Klan. Fire licked along its slender branches. A flaming cherry tree, blooming unnaturally early. Ella spied the dark figure standing behind the fence, admiring his handiwork. One of Danny’s boys.

Oh Danny Boy, Oh Danny Boy,
I hate you so.

Twelve sleepless hours later and Letitia was holding a black bin liner open.

‘Stuff that shit in the bag. Come on! Quickly,’ she said, staring at Ella.

Ella put the handbags into the bin liner one at a time.

‘Grab a pile, for Christ’s sake. We ain’t got all day.’

Ella looked up, checking that they weren’t being watched.

The factory where her mother worked was cavernous. Cardboard box high-rises stretched up to the double-height ceiling, looking like an oversized 3D model of the housing estates in Deptford. Each box was stuffed full of flashy Taiwanese handbags.

‘There’s no one there. I checked,’ Letitia said.

‘Are you sure?’ Ella’s heart was pounding. She scanned the walls for CCTV cameras.

‘’Course I’m fucking sure.’ Letitia started to grab handbags herself and piled them in fast. ‘Everyone wants one of these,’ she cooed. ‘That is some proper bling. Fiver a pop. Easy money, man.’ One of her false nails flipped off and flew across the floor. ‘Bollocks! My Christmas nails. That’s your fault.’ She treated Ella to a withering glance.

Cold fear roiled around Ella’s insides, making her wince. A storm was coming. Letitia had broken a special occasion nail. She knew she needed to do something; say something fast if she was to head off her mother’s emotional hurricane.

‘You just hold the bag, Mum. I’ll work faster, yeah?’

As she stuffed the handbags into the bin liner, her breath came short. She had to get done. Had to get out before they got copped. First Danny’s boys, now this. She hated this life. Last thing she wanted was a criminal record for the sake of PVC ghetto crap adorned with zips and diamanté. Letitia didn’t see it that way.

‘Hello!’ A man’s voice. Cheery but questioning.

Letitia looked up. ‘Out the back with the bags,’ she said.

‘Who the hell?’ Ella said.

‘Now!’

Ella knew the drill. She grabbed both bin liners and flung each one out through the opening that gave way to the loading bay below.

As she did so, she could see Letitia coming out of the back room. Wheeling the mop bucket before her now. Swinging her ample arse from side to side the way the older men like. Singing softly.

‘Oh, morning, Fred,’ she called.

‘Letitia. You nearly gave me a heart attack. Didn’t expect to see you until after New Year, love.’

‘Making up time, you know. I got an hospital appointment early next week. Can’t afford to be short on money.’

‘I’ve got a flask. Would you like a nice cup of tea?’

‘No. I’m finishing up. Them toilets was a disgrace after the Christmas party …’, tutting, ‘… but they’re clean now. See you on the second anyway.’

Ella could hear that old Fred had bought it. She swallowed hard, looking at the drop into the loading bay. It was a good eight or nine feet. Ten even. She knew her knees would jar even if she bent them.

‘Just grit your teeth.’ She jumped to the concrete below and bit her tongue as her legs screamed in complaint. She grabbed the bin liners. They were fat and unwieldy. The booty inside weighed like dead bodies. She prayed they wouldn’t split.

When Ella reached the rendezvous point around the corner, she dumped the bin liners on the ground. Her arms would ache for a week. The icy chill bit into her face and hands but the sweat poured down her back and under her breasts on the inside of her anorak. She took a packet of Marlboro Lights out of her pocket and tapped a cigarette on the side of the pack. Flick flick. She tried to get the weak flame of her disposable lighter to stay for long enough to light up but it was no match for the gusting December wind.

‘I am some Olympic-sized idiot,’ she said, finally getting the cigarette to light. She inhaled deeply and felt lightheaded from the nicotine rush. Fatigue pressed down on her fifteen-year-old body like super-strong gravity. Pulling her down, down, down.

Letitia appeared from around the corner, grinning like she had just won the lottery.

‘Good girl,’ she said, looking at the bin liners.

‘Did he suspect?’ Ella asked.

‘No way. Let’s get these bags home. Check out our haul.’

Ella picked one of the bin liners up and started to walk towards the bus stop.

‘Oi!’ Letitia shouted. ‘Get back here and take the other one. I ain’t gonna lose another nail.’

Ella stopped in her tracks.
Bitch, bitch, bitch, you’re a bitch all day long.
She quickly weighed up the odds. Start a thing in the street and attract attention to bags full of hooky gear? No. She was smarter than that.

Ella listened to the hiss of the kettle while she watched Letitia in the reflection of the cooker splashback. Bags were scattered all around. Counting. Five, ten, fifteen, twenty …

‘I reckon there’s a couple of hundred quid’s worth here. Maybe more,’ Letitia said. ‘I am so going dancing on New Year’s Eve.’

Going out. Leaving Ella alone.
Oh, Danny Boy …

‘Can I stay at Aunty Sharon’s?’ Ella asked.

Letitia sat up. ‘Who’s going to look after the fucking house?’ She looked indignant. Hurt even.

Ella felt anger seething beneath the surface – raw, negative energy. ‘If they come back and you’re out, how the hell am I going to cope on my own?’ she asked.

Letitia was on her feet now, gesticulating wildly, horrible words rattling out of her mouth like carriages on a runaway train.

‘I ain’t asking you much, you ungrateful little cow. I’ve got to flog these down the pub. How else am I supposed to put food on the table? Cleaning? You think that pays enough? You thought of getting a bit of cash in hand yourself instead of keeping on at me with this bullshit about school and scholarships?’

Ella turned her back on Letitia. She squeezed the tea bags out of the cup and opened the fridge.

‘We’re out of milk,’ she said, sighing.

Letitia fell silent. And as though her bitter words had never been spoken, she reached into the back pocket of her jeans. ‘I got two quid here. Get a pint of semi-skimmed at the shop and some chocolate for yourself.’ She smiled at Ella.

Mad cow.

Ella walked quickly through the back streets. She scanned the streets for Them. Daylight didn’t guarantee anything. There was an older guy up ahead dressed in expensive designer gear. He was being taken for a walk by a Doberman and a Staffordshire bull terrier. Instinctively, Ella folded her arms and quickened her pace. Don’t make eye contact. Keep away from the dogs.

As she neared the man, she allowed herself quick scrutiny of his face. Nobody she knew but almost certainly a dealer. Gold teeth. Diamond studded watch. Patterns shaved into his hair. The dogs started to bark and rear up on their stubby hind legs.

‘Get down!’ the man shouted. He looked her up and down. He winked. ‘Don’t worry, love. They’re harmless.’

Shying away from the trio, Ella broke into a run. The shop was near. The shutters were down over the window. A cock and balls spray-painted on them. But the open sign hung in the shatterproof glass of the door. Through bulletproof Perspex, she exchanged cash for milk and a Mars bar.

Voices outside. She peered nervously over to the seating area. Tonya and Jez: two of Danny’s ‘boys’.

‘There she is,’ she heard the girl say.

‘Oi, sweetheart!’ the boy shouted to her.

Ella looked round. Jez held a flaming branch in his hand. He threw it towards her like the devil’s javelin. It landed a few feet away, still burning. ‘See you later, gorgeous!’

Ella sprinted back to the house. Her hands shook as she fumbled with the key in the lock. She flung the boarded door wide and slammed it shut. Lock. Bolts. Safe. For now.

In the lounge she heard a man’s voice. Older by the sounds. She walked through to the kitchen, still shaking and put down the milk.

‘Miss Williams-May, Letitia, can I call you that? We’ve been watching you for weeks. We’ve got it all on camera.’

Another voice spoke. Younger this time. ‘You’re going down, love.’

Then the first one again. ‘Unless …’

There was muffled, clandestine conversation between the three that smacked of tacit agreement.

Ella walked into the lounge. Two large men in plain clothes sat on the sagging sofa. She could tell instantly that they were some kind of police. You just knew, didn’t you? They seemed to fill the room, and her mother seemed to have shrunk.

Letitia looked over at Ella. Tears were standing in her eyes. She wiped them away hastily and lit a cigarette.

‘Ella, make these nice detectives a cuppa, love,’ she said. ‘They need a favour from you.’

He had watched her leave.

The skeleton keys in his possession made light work of the locks. Inside her bedsit, her well-scrubbed lair, he took his time. Touching her things. Licking her toothbrush. Smelling her clothes. Holding her satin knickers like a glove while he pleasured himself onto her pillowcase, imagining her still lying on the bed.

Finally, he left her a souvenir from his visit. A symbol of his potency and poetry. A courtship ritual signifying that he was coming closer to the time when he would take her. He placed a match in the middle of the floor. From the door, there was no way she could miss it.

‘So he wants you to spy? Like a cyber special agent?’ Ad asked, flushed and wide-eyed behind his glasses.

‘Sort of,’ George said, pushing through the drizzle and hoping it wouldn’t put her cigarette out. This cycle back to town after the second lot of end of semester exams was beginning to feel like an interrogation.