What Came Before He Shot Her

to dat word t’ing Ivan put on. The Blade know everyt’ing go down in dis place. Dat’s why he’s the Blade. And listen”—he showed off the pistol tucked into his waistband—“you wonder why I carry dis piece wivvout worry bout the cops haulin me into the Harrow Road station? T’ink bout dat one, too, m’friend. It ain’t rocket science, innit.”

            This point seemed irrelevant to Joel. He chose to bypass it, which would not be the first of his mistakes. He said, “It ain’t a poem I got for him. I ain’t stupid, y’know.” He dug the flick knife out of his rucksack. He clicked it open, then closed it on his thigh. Cal looked impressed enough. “Where’d you get dat?”

            “He used it on Ness. Cut up her head and lost it in a bang about wiv Dix D’Court right after. You give him dis, okay? You tell him I need his help wiv summick.”

            Cal didn’t take the knife, which Joel held out to him. He said with a sigh instead, “Blood, wha’ c’n I tell you? You got  to keep the Blade out of your life. Dat’s it.”

            “Didn’t hurt you none to have him in yours.”

            Cal gave a soft laugh. “Lemme tell you summick. You got Ness, right? You got your bruv. You got Auntie an’ Mum, an’ I know ’bout her being in the nuthouse, but still she’s Mum. You don’t need  dis blood here. Trust me, you don’t need him. An’ if you want him, mon, he’s gonna name a price.”

            Joel said, “Jus’ give him the knife for me, Cal. Tell him I give it back cos I need his help wiv summick. Tell him I could’ve kept it and that means summick. I di’n’t set up no trade wiv the knife. I handed it over. Take it and tell him, Cal. Please.”

            While Cal thought this over, Joel considered yet another approach to his problems—that Cal himself might help him—but he dismissed this quickly. Cal without the Blade nearby would intimidate no one. He was just Cal: right-hand man and graffiti artist, spaced on weed. If he had to fight, he probably would, but going at Neal Wyatt wasn’t about fighting. It was about drawing a line in the sand. Cal couldn’t do that for Neal Wyatt or for anyone else. The Blade, on the other hand, could do it for everyone.

            Joel thrust the knife at Cal once more. “Take it,” he said. “One way or ’nother, you know the Blade want it back.”

            Reluctantly, then, Cal took the flick knife. “I ain’t promising—”

            “Jus’ talk to him. Dat’s all I’m asking.”

            Cal put the knife in his pocket. “Be in touch ’f he want to help out,” he said. And as Joel prepared to walk off, he went on, “You know the Blade do nuffink wivout there being a price attached to it.”

            “I got dat,” Joel said. “You tell him I’m willin to pay.”

            Chapter

      19 The seed of Ness’s millinery idea did not bear immediate fruit. Things were not easily arranged, and she’d not anticipated facing difficulties. She wanted the courses; they would be hers for the taking. Anything else was inconceivable to her. Thus, at the first stumbling block—a considerably sized monetary one—she did just that: She stumbled. She shimmered with hostility, and she directed it at the children with whom she was supposed to be making jewellery at the drop-in centre.

            Making jewellery was an umbrella term, a euphemism for stringing brightly coloured wooden beads on equally brightly coloured plastic cords. Since the children engaged in this activity were all under four years of age, with the limited eye-hand coordination that one might expect of this age, making jewellery consisted largely of spilling more beads than stringing them, and an expression of frustration at such spillage consisted largely of throwing beads rather than replacing them in their containers.

            Ness didn’t handle any of this well. She grumbled at first as she scrambled around the floor, rescuing beads. Next, she smacked her hand on the table when the uplifted arm of a child called Maya indicated another palmful of beads was about to be launched. Finally, she resorted to swearing. She snapped, “Fuck  it all, you lot. ’F you can’t hold on to ’em beads, you c’n just forget ’bout stringin ’em at all cos I ain’t playin dis stupid game wiv you,” and she began to gather up containers, cords, and round-nosed scissors.

The children reacted with shouts of protest, which attracted Majidah from the kitchen. She observed for a moment and picked up on some of the more colourful mutterings emanating from Ness’s mouth. She strode across the room and put an end to the jewellery making herself, but not in the way Ness intended. She demanded to know what Miss Vanessa Campbell thought she was doing: swearing in front of innocent children. She didn’t wait for an answer. She told Ness to get herself outside, where she would deal with her directly.

Ness took the opportunity outdoors to light up a cigarette, which she did with no little pleasure. She wasn’t supposed to smoke anywhere near the child drop-in centre. She’d protested this rule more than once, telling Majidah that these kids’ parents smoked in their presence—not to mention whatever the hell else they got up to in front of them—so why couldn’t she smoke if she wanted to. Majidah had refused to engage her in this discussion. The rule was the rule. There would be no bending, breaking, adjusting, or ignoring it.

            Ness didn’t care at this point, on this day. She hated working at the drop-in centre, she hated rules, she hated Majidah, she hated life. She was thrilled to bits when Majidah—having reestablished the four-yearolds at their activity with larger beads this time—joined her outdoors, pulling a coat around herself and narrowing her eyes at the spectacle of Ness outrageously inhaling from the forbidden Benson & Hedges. Good for you, was what Ness thought. See what aggravation feels like, bitch.

            Majidah had not raised six children to find Ness’s behaviour offputting. She also had no intention of addressing it at the moment, which she saw as something that Ness clearly wanted. Instead, she told Ness that as she was unable to work in peace with the children on this particular day, she could instead wash all the windows of the centre, which were sadly in need of the attention.

            Ness repeated the order, incredulous. She was to wash windows? In this bloody weather? First off, it was fucking too cold and second off, it was probably going to fucking rain before the bloody end of the fucking day, so what the hell was Majidah thinking because no way was Ness going to fucking wash any fucking windows.

            In reply, Majidah calmly assembled the equipment required for the job. She then gave detailed instructions, as if she’d heard nothing of what Ness had said. Three steps were involved, she informed her. So were water, detergent, a hose pipe, newspapers, and white vinegar. Wash the windows inside and out and afterwards they would talk about Ness’s future at the drop-in centre.

            “I don’t want no future at dis fuckin place,” Ness shrieked as Majidah headed back inside the building. “Don’t you got nuffink else to say?”

            Of course, Majidah had plenty to say, but she wasn’t about to engage Ness when the girl was in such a state. She said to her, “We shall speak once the windows are clean, Vanessa,” and when Ness said, “I c’n walk straight out ’f here, you know,” Majidah said serenely, “As is always your choice.”

            That very serenity was a slap in the face. Ness decided to give Majidah what for when she had the chance. She told herself she could hardly wait  to do it, and in the meantime, she’d rehearse her comments and show the maddening woman some window washing that she would never  forget.

            She hosed, she scrubbed, she polished. And she smoked. Outside the centre. She did not have the courage to do so when she began seeing to the windows inside. By the time the day was at its end—with the windows sparkling, the children gone, and the first drops of rain beginning to fall, just as Ness had thought they would—she had been in mental conversation with the Asian woman for a good four hours and was burning to take her on in person, given the opportunity.

This opportunity grew from Majidah’s inspection of the windows. She took her time about it. She looked over each one, ignoring the rain that was spotting them. She said, “Well done, Vanessa. Your anger, you see, was put to good use.”

            Ness wasn’t about to admit to anything resembling anger. She said, with a meaningful curl of the lip, “Yeah. Well, I ’spect I got a real  exceptional career in front of me, eh: window washing.”

            Majidah glanced her way. “And of course there are worse careers to have, when one considers the