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'I've got the video, Davey,' I reminded him.

'Shit,' he sighed, shaking his head. 'If they find out I talked to you ... I'm fucked.'

'Yeah, well,' I told him. 'At least there's a chance that they won't find out. But if you don't talk to me, you're definitely fucked.'

He thought about that for a moment, then sighed again, and reluctantly started talking. 'It's Yoyo and Cutz mostly, they're the ones who kind of ... I don't know ... get stuff going.'

'That's O'Neil and Adebajo?'

'Yeah ... they've both got older brothers, like Elders, you know ...?'

'Elders?'

'The older kids,' he explained. 'The big guys ... you know? The buyers ...'

'Buyers?'

'Yeah.'

'You mean they're drug dealers?'

Davey shrugged. 'Kind of... I mean, the younger kids do most of the actual street dealing. The Elders don't go near it. I mean, they never even see the gear. They just take care of the business side, you know ... the money stuff.'

'Right. So what's all that got to do with O'Neil and Adebajo beating up Ben and raping Lucy?'

Davey shrugged again. 'Nothing, really ... I mean, it's just all about respect and stuff. Power. You know ...?'

'No,' I said coldly. 'I don't know.'

'You can't show any weakness, all right? If you want to be something, be respected, you can't take any shit.' He looked at me. 'It's simple, really. Ben got beaten up because he said no to Yoyo. Yoyo told him he had to stab this guy, and Ben refused. If Yoyo hadn't beaten him up, Yo would have looked weak. And everyone would have known it, and that would have blown Yo's chance to be like his brother.'

'And what about Lucy?' I said quietly. 'What was the simple reasoning behind ruining her life?'

Davey lowered his eyes. 'It's just. . . it's what they do, Tom. I don't know ... I suppose part of it was to get at Ben, to hurt him, you know? But mostly ... well, it's like a power thing. They do it because they can ... because they know they'll get away with it.' He shrugged again. 'It's just what they do.'

'And what about you?' I said coldly. 'Did you want to do it too?'

He looked at me. 'I tried to help her ... afterwards, I mean. I helped her pick up her clothes ...'

'You helped her pick up her clothes?'

'Yeah.'

'Well, that was incredibly thoughtful of you, Davey. I'm sure Lucy really appreciated it. Did she remember to thank you before you left?'

'Fuck off, Tom,' he said quietly. 'You weren't there. You don't know how it was.'

I didn't say anything for a moment or two. I was sick of talking to Davey now. Sick of all this stuff about power and respect and weakness and shit. It was nothing to do with anything.

I breathed in, trying to forget how I felt, and I said to Davey, 'What are their names? The brothers ...?'

'What?'

'O'Neil and Adebajo. What are their brothers called?'

'Why do you want to know?'

I just stared at him.

He hesitated for a few moments, instinctively wary of telling me, but almost immediately he realized that it was too late for keeping his mouth shut now. 'Troy O'Neil and Jermaine Adebajo,' he said.

'Right. And who do they answer to?'

'What?'

'The brothers and the rest of them. The older guys ... the Elders or whatever you call them. Who tells them what to do?'

Davey's face suddenly paled. 'No ...' he muttered. 'I mean, I don't know ...'

'Just tell me,' I sighed. 'One more name, and then I'm gone.'

'No, I can't... not him.'

'Who?'

'He'll find out. He always does.'

I held out my mobile again. 'It's up to you, Davey. Give me the name, or I send the video.'

He was looking really worried now — blinking his eyes, nervously licking his lips — and I could tell that he was genuinely considering his options. Which made me think that whoever this guy was, the one that Davey was so frightened of, he had to be seriously scary.

Eventually, though, Davey looked me in the eye and said, 'Some people call him the Devil.'

'Yeah? Why's that? Has he got horns or something?'

Davey shook his head. 'It's not funny ... I mean, this is a really bad guy. Yoyo and the rest are nothing compared to him. I mean, if you think what happened to Lucy and Ben was bad —'

'Davey,' I said wearily, 'just tell me his fucking name.'

'Ellman,' he said quietly. 'His name's Howard Ellman.'

1010

Moral relativism is the view that ethical standards, morality, and positions of right or wrong are culturally based and therefore subject to a persons individual choice. We can all decide what is right for ourselves. You decide what's right for you, and I'll decide what's right for me. There are no absolute rights and wrongs.

It was still raining when I left the old sports hall, so there weren't many people around, but as I headed back round the rear of the main building towards the workmen's gate, I saw something going on over by the science block. Two boys and two girls were arguing about something, shouting and swearing, pushing each other around. I recognized three of them — Jayden Carroll, Carl Patrick, and Nadia Moore — and I guessed the other girl was Leona, Jayden's girlfriend. From the way Nadia kept waving her mobile around, shoving it into Leona's face, I assumed the argument was about the text I'd sent last night — the one that had made Nadia think that Carl had been seeing Leona.

I hung back behind a pillar and watched as the argu­ment intensified. The shouting and swearing got louder, the pushing and shoving got nastier, and then I saw Nadia grab Leona by the shoulder and smack her across the face with her mobile. After that, everything really kicked off. Jayden grabbed hold of Nadia and shoved her into a wall, Nadia retaliated, scratching her nails down Jayden's face ... and then, as Jayden yelled out in pain and swung his fist at Nadia, I suddenly realized that Carl Patrick had a knife in his hand. I saw him lunge at Jayden and grab his shoulder with one hand, and then he just kind of pumped his other arm a few times, and Jayden staggered backwards, clutching at his stomach, before falling to his knees in a puddle and slumping slowly to the ground ...

And that was it.

Everything stopped then.

Carl Patrick and the two girls didn't really do anything, they just kind of stood around Jayden, looking down at him, looking at each other ... I even saw Patrick shrug, as if to say — don't blame me, it was his fault...

Which, of course, it wasn't.