What Came Before He Shot Her

t’ings sorted between us. We’re cool.”

            “He don’t sort t’ings, spee. He i’n’t like dat.”

            “He was straight wiv me. Like I said, you weren’t there. And anyways, I done what he asked. He c’n see I’m straight wiv him. We c’n go on.”

            Cal, whose eyes had been cast down on his shoes during this, raised his head. He said, “Where ’xactly you t’ink you’re going? The Blade sort dis bloke, you owe  him, y’unnerstan? You got family, bred. Whyn’t you t’ink ’bout dem?”

            “Dat’s what I am doing,” Joel protested. “Wha’ you t’ink I’m doin dis for?”

            “Dat’s a question you best start asking,” Cal returned. “What you t’ink he  doin dis for?”

            Chapter

      22 When he made the turn into Edenham Way, Joel saw that Dix D’Court’s car was parked in front of his aunt’s house. He was cold, wet, tired, and hungry, and all he wanted was to fall into bed, which made his ability to fast-talk his way through the coming encounters sadly reduced. He took a moment to duck behind a wheelie bin and there he stayed for several more minutes, trying to work out what he was going to say to his aunt when he finally faced her. The truth would hardly do.

            He thought at first that he might stay there behind the bin until Kendra left the house to go to work for the day, which would be sooner rather than later. She’d have to get Toby off to his school and Ness would be off as well, which would leave the house empty at that point, since Dix surely wouldn’t hang about once Kendra was gone. Joel would have the day, then, to cook up something . . . if only he managed to wait.

But waiting was exactly what Joel was not able to do. Seven minutes behind the wheelie bin was enough time to tell him he could remain outside in the cold no longer. He eased his way out and trudged to the front door. He hauled himself up the four steps like a dead man walking.

            He used his key on the lock, but this was enough noise to alert his family. The door jerked open. He expected to see his aunt there, furious and ready to pounce, but it was Ness who had her hand on the knob and Ness whose body blocked his path. She took one look at him and said over her shoulder, “Aunt Ken, the lit’l sod’s home.” And then to Joel, “You in for it, mon. We got cops callin round, we got school on the phone, we got Social Services involved. Where you been, ’xactly?” And then in a lower voice, “Joel, you dopin up or summick?”

            He didn’t answer, and there was no need, for the door was jerked more fully open and there Kendra stood. She was still dressed in the clothing she’d had on two days ago. Red rimmed her eyes, and bruised flesh half-mooned beneath them. Like Ness, she cried out, “Where you been? What’s been . . . Who’ve you been . . . ,” and then she simply wept. It was a release of pent-up stress, but as Joel had never seen his aunt cry before this, he did not know what to make of it. She grabbed him and hugged him fiercely, but the hug turned into fists beating against his back, although with all the force of a hummingbird’s heartbeat.

Over her shoulder, Joel saw Toby come out of the kitchen in his cowboy pyjamas, clattering across the lino in his cowboy boots. Beyond him, Dix D’Court stood in the centre of that room, his face expressionless. He watched for a moment before he came to the door and gently disengaged Kendra from Joel. He turned her to him and took her into his arms, giving Joel a disgusted shake of the head before he led Kendra in the direction of the stairs. Before he mounted them, he said to Ness, “Best phone the cops and tell ’em he’s back.”

            Ness shot the front door home and went to the phone to make the call. She left Joel where he was, experiencing a form of solitary confinement that he hadn’t expected, one that he found far worse than being left in a tomb for two nights. It felt unfair to him that he was being treated like some sort of pariah instead of being welcomed home with celebration and relief. He wanted to say, D’you lot know  what I been through for you?

            Toby inadvertently added to Joel’s sense of indignation. He said unnecessarily, “Dix come back, Joel. Aunt Ken phoned him up to help when you di’n’t come home cos she thought you might’ve been wiv him at the gym or summick. Ivan said he di’n’t know where you were—”

            “What? She rang Ivan?”

            “She rang ever’one. It was late when she phoned Ivan. She thought he took you to a film or summick but he say no. Den she thought you got in trouble wiv the cops, so she phoned dem. Af ’er dat, she thought maybe dat bloke Neal set ’pon you an’—”

            “Okay. Shut up,” Joel said.

            “But I wanted—”

            “Hey. I said shut up. I don’t care. Shut up.”

            Toby’s eyes filled. This was a Joel he did not know. He came to him and tugged on the sleeve of his anorak, saying, “You got wet. You wan’

            to change your clothes, innit. I got a jersey from the charity shop when Aunt Ken come to school to fetch me an’ you c’n borrow—”

            “Shut up shut up shut up!” Joel pushed Toby to one side. He went through to the kitchen. Toby ran for the stairs with a sob. Joel hated himself for having hurt his brother’s feelings, but he also hated Toby for being so dim that he couldn’t take an order without having to be shouted at.

            Ness was completing her phone call as Joel went to the kitchen table and slumped into a chair, pillowing his head into his crossed arms, which he folded upon a mass of tabloids that lay open on the table’s surface. He wanted only to be left alone. He didn’t understand why everyone was re act ing so much, as if he’d committed the crime of the century when Ness had been out all night more than once without coming home to a scene like this. He told himself that the lot of them were acting like he’d faked his own suicide or something.

Ness said to his bowed head, “You really done it, blood.” She lit a cigarette, and the acrid scent of sulfur from the match and then from the burning tobacco came to Joel and made his stomach churn. “Fabia Bender stopped by, talkin ’bout time to send you some place to be sorted out ’fore you really  get into trouble. Cops went crawlin through ev’ry room like we murdered you. Some detective even went and tried to get some sense out of Mum, innit. I say dis: When you shit, mon, you do it like an elephant. So where you been?”

            Joel shook his head, but he didn’t raise it. He said, “Why’d she go off the nut?”

            “You ain’t heard?”

            At this Joel wearily raised his head. Ness came to the table, cigarette dangling from her lips, and gestured for him to move his arms from the tabloids. She closed one of them—it was the Mirror—and she flipped it so that its front page faced him. “Have a look at dis,” she said. “Aunt Ken thought . . . Well, I ’xpect you got brains enough to sort it out.”

            Joel dropped his gaze from his sister to the tabloid. “Another Body” blazed across the top of the page. Beneath this, three photographs showed a railway arch obstructed by sawhorses and crime scene tape, a clutch of people in earnest conversation, and a lone blond man in an overcoat, talking on a mobile and identified as a Scotland Yard detective superintendent. Joel looked up from this to his sister, saying, “I don’t get it. You saying Aunt Ken was t’inking . . . ?”

            “‘ Course  she t’inking,” Ness declared. “What else you ’xpect? You aren’t home when you say you home being sick. She rings dat bloke Ivan and he  says he ain’t seen you, but dat’s after she been tryin to get him on the line for hours and she t’inks he did summick to you cos of these newspaper stories, innit. So she gives the cops a bell, and they drag dis Ivan to the station and grill him—”

            “Ivan? ” Joel groaned. “Cops talked to Ivan?”

            “Hell yes, what else you t’ink? So they give him aggro and all the time you’re . . . where?”

            Joel stared at the tabloid. He couldn’t believe so much had happened simply because he was gone for two nights. And what had happened couldn’t have been too much worse: the involvement of the local police, Ivan being harassed, the Youth Offending Team becoming alerted through the person of Fabia Bender upon whose radar Joel already had a position. He felt light-headed with all of the information. He brought the tabloid back into