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,
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
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
