Gang War Read online

  Dylan. Panicking. Looking for anything to hold onto. Dylan: ‘Maybe that isn’t such a bad thing. Cunt of a thing to say like – but if she’s black, no one will give a fuck.’

  ‘What d’you fucking mean, lad?’ asks New Loon.

  Dylan understands the gravity of the situation now, knows that it’s fucking murder. If they’re collared for this one, it’ll be life sentences all round. ‘What I’m saying is . . . is that if she’s white, it’s twice as fucking bad for us. D’you get me? But if the little fucking girl is black, then it doesn’t fucking matter as much. That’s good for us. Because no matter what anyone says, a white life is still worth more than a black one. As far as the fucking papers and the bizzies are thinking, anyways. That’s just the way it goes.’

  ‘Is right, lad. White power!’ says Nogger, not getting it. Dylan just looks at him.

  Lupus doesn’t get it either: ‘What are you on about, lad? Coons have got more rights than us now.’

  ‘Fucking point is, let’s hope she’s black. Cos if she is, the bizzies might fuck it off and the papers’ll get back to writing about shit again.’

  ‘Well, I reckon she’s fucking white,’ says Karl.

  ‘Why?’ New Loon asks.

  ‘Cos I’ve just heard that there’s all kinds of people from the telly down at the Royal Oak. From the news. And they wouldn’t come in force if she was black.’

  Dylan has to see it for himself. He throws on some civilian wear, a pair of jeans and his green kagoul, Everton scarf over his mouth. He just looks like any other pot-head urchin on the way home from work.

  At the site, there are outside-broadcast vehicles, a couple of space cruisers, a few underpaid reporters in shabby crombies or too-tight North Faces doing pieces to camera. All the locals are giving them a wide berth, fucking them off when asked if they saw anything or, ‘What’s the feeling in the community?’

  Dylan says to New Loon as they mosey past: ‘That’s good. No one’s grassing. If anyone, fucking anyone, says anything to these cunts, I want to know, OK?’

  After a little suss, they find out the vans are from Sky, ITN, Five and the BBC. ‘Well,’ says Dylan, ‘it doesn’t look that bad.’

  He walks home in the drizzle, under a cloud of stress. When he thinks about it – 30 years in the jug – his mind becomes clouded. He tries to stay calm, thinking it through. Just a kid killed in an accident. It’ll all blow over in a few hours.

  But then he gets home and his ma asks him, ‘Have you seen what’s happened round the corner? Poor kid’s been shot. What kind of a fucking world is it coming to? Hope you had nothing to do with that.’

  Dylan fumbles with the remote, trying to put the Sky on. ‘Just turn the fucking sound up, will you, you fucking prick, and fucking shut up?’

  His ma storms into the kitchen for a ciggie and a chase. A school photo of Chalina pops up on BBC News 24. Blonde hair, snub nose, strong glasses with pink frames. She’s dressed in a lime-green Boden coat with a red lining.

  No chat with her mother yet, but the reporter says: ‘Witnesses have told of the moment little Chalina was struck down by a bullet in this car park behind me. Her mother, named locally as Lynda, was, like millions of other families, buying a take-away meal from a chip shop. Witnesses say she heard the shot and ran out. There on the floor lay her daughter. She held her in her arms until the ambulance arrived . . .’

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ mutters Dylan, not feeling sorry for Chalina or her ma but feeling sure that because the victim was posh and white it’ll be worse for them.

  Within hours, the media frenzy has begun in earnest. The road outside the Royal Oak is chokka with TV vans, more than 20 of them. Before long there are at least 60 as foreign correspondents from Germany, France, Japan and the US roll up. It looks like backstage at a concert: electrical generators, rows of cables, massive umbrellas, camping chairs, bright white lights. The fucking OJ/Wacko Jacko circus.

  The regional correspondents, who arrived first, are quickly ousted by heavyweights flown in from London. ITV opts for a mobile news desk; a whole team’s brought up to Liverpool. Their anchor is running the show from the Royal Oak car park. The BBC responds by buying up a whole floor of a hotel for its news teams and technicians. The mobile news desk gimmick spreads. Winnebagos are lined up Hollywood-style for the special correspondents. Most of them are petite, skinny, well-groomed and expensively dressed – tight-fitting jackets, blonde-streaked bobs. They’re led carefully down the steps of the trailers, tottering under umbrellas. Dylan recognises one of them, the girl the lads twatted after Bleeker’s funeral, security all around her. Now she’s ramping up the hype on the telly, getting her revenge. The papers have joined the pack too, trying to outdo each other, buying up space in hotel suites, conference rooms and even an indoor stadium.

  Dylan just sits with the lads, listening, taking counsel from his boys. But he knows that they’re just trying to convince themselves that everything’s OK. Finally, he says, ‘Bin lid didn’t fucking look like a meff to me, lad. On that fucking picture they showed on the telly just then, she looked posh, if you ask me.’

  The late edition of the local paper carries an interview with Chalina’s dad. In it, he says, ‘God must have needed an extra angel. Because he’s taken another one today.’ Dylan says that it’s the final nail in their coffin, that the police’ll throw everything at them now.

  ‘Fuck off with all that bollocks. That’s just paper talk,’ Nogger tells him.

  ‘That’s exactly what it is. And don’t you forget they fucking rule this country. They say what goes. If this blows up in the papers, we’re gonna be hunted down for ever, lad. Worse than fucking nonces, we’ll be. Mark my words.’

  The newspaper reporters and photographers are going round knocking on people’s doors now. The lad from the Mirror’s bald, smartly dressed, in a Ford Mondeo. The Sun reporter’s tanned, his eyes and attention darting about with animal hunger. He’s blagging that he’s a freelancer, because of Hillsborough. They’re all giving it the patter: ‘We’re putting together a tribute piece for little Chalina, looking for people who might have known her.’ But everyone’s onto their graft straight away. They’re just desperate to get their hands on more pictures. When they get fucked off by the residents, they trawl the nurseries, child minders, church playgroups and school photographers offering £500 for a picture. Eventually someone sells some shots.

  The media frenzy explodes the next day. The Sun’s front page reads: ‘GIRL, 3, SHOT DEAD. Victim named – Chalina Murphy.’ The Mirror goes with: ‘Mother Cradles Dying Girl’.

  The Mail talks up the middle-class background of the family. Dylan’s sinkered when he sees that. Chalina’s ma is self-employed, runs a designer curtains company. Her dad’s a manager at a health club. ‘Fuck’s sake. That means the bizzies’ll have to do something about it.’ The story goes on about how the family live in a new build in a good area but describes the nearby council estates as ‘poverty-stricken and blighted by drug abuse, gang violence and single-parent families’.

  Next to it there’s a comment piece written by a famous criminologist talking about ‘boundary crime’ – how the rate of crime goes up on the border between a nice area and a bad area. The article tells of ‘poor criminals preying on rich pickings’. ‘What a load of shit, lad,’ Nogger says. But Dylan, thinking about it, knows it’s at least partly true.

  Nogger and Dylan walk down to the Royal Oak to scope out the latest. They watch as a shock jock from the local radio station moves down the line of TV news crews giving interviews, prodded on by his agent. ‘We’re pulling together,’ he tells the reporters. ‘The city is grieving.’

  ‘Fat cunt,’ says Dylan. ‘Look at him. He was in fucking panto last year.’

  But all hands are running for cover from the press. The wall of silence is going up; witnesses are being threatened.

  ‘Everyone loves this,’ says Nogger. ‘It’s a fucking circus, lad. The telly and the papers are doing good graft out of it. F
ucking Iceland and Currys’ll be made up cos their adverts’ll get read by more people – type of fucking punters who goes there, as well, lad. All the fucking experts queuing up to get on the telly, getting wages out of it, getting famous. Good excuse for the bizzies to clamp down on the shitheads, too. Government’ll bring in more laws. Everyone loves this. No one gives a fuck about the girl. No one gives a fuck about us. You watch, la, it’ll all blow over.’

  But later that afternoon it gets worse. The Prime Minister puts out a statement, saying, ‘Chalina’s murder was a callous act that has horrified the country.’ Dylan knows it’s bad now.

  ‘As if the fucking politicians are fucking arsed,’ says Nogger. ‘What the fuck is the fucking Government saying that for? It was a fucking accident. Jay didn’t mean to do it,’ he says, cutely putting the blame on Jay.

  The next day it gets well worse. The News of the World puts up a £1 million reward ‘for the scum who gunned down little Chalina Murphy’ and launches a ‘Save Our Cities’ campaign ‘to rid Britain’s towns and cities of gun-toting yobs’.

  * * *

  The bizzies have flooded the area. There are roadblocks and increased ARV patrols. Merseyside’s Chief Constable phones the Home Office for permission to designate Croxteth and Norris Green anti-terror zones, and gets it. This means that every person and every house can be searched without even the suspicion of a crime. Riot police are brought in to patrol on foot.

  But it’s not enough. The papers want more. The Metropolitan Police offers Merseyside 100 of its top officers, including some anti-gang Trident teams, to boost the local force. Not since the miners’ strike has the Met deployed so many outside the capital. They arrive in a fleet of coaches in a stage-managed flourish. The London bizzies are billeted at an army firing range near Altcourse.

  A feller from Altcross Way puts a home-made poster in his window, a cartoon of a bizzy giving a Nazi salute, underneath the words ‘Police State’. The next day, he’s slaughtered in the Echo for being pro-gang. His door goes in. An early morning call off the Vaderis unit and Special Branch.

  Even the new measures aren’t enough for some. The Sun calls for British police to be routinely armed ‘on the beat’. The leader says:

  British bobbies are respected around the world for upholding the law with decency and common sense. No one doubts their bravery in the line of duty. But to send them up against the armed gangs that seem to roam freely around some of Britain’s estates is asking too much.

  Would little Chalina Murphy still be alive if the gangs that shot her knew the police were armed?

  Chief constables have long been saying that sending unarmed police into our inner cities is like sending lambs to the slaughter. We know they’re not lambs. They are lions who face danger every day to keep our streets safe. They are heroes – but they’re not superheroes who can fight with their bare hands against enemies armed with lethal weapons.

  Merseyside’s Chief Con responds by thanking The Sun for its support. But he says that he wishes his officers to continue in the tradition of not carrying guns. That’s the line for public consumption, anyway. Secretly, he’s all for arming every single one of his men and women, but he doesn’t want to put his head above the parapet yet.

  For now, he makes do with more specialist units. Other forces send ARVs, armed officers and helicopters to help. They even hire in civilian helicopters and pilots to beef up air surveillance.

  * * *

  The next day, Dylan’s woken up early by banging at his door.

  ‘Have you heard?’ New Loon shouts up to him at the window.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Your name’s being thrown in everywhere. You’re roasting, lad. All over the Internet. You, Nogger, Jay.’

  New Loon makes him a cup of tea, while Dylan gets onto YouTube and searches ‘Crocky Crew – latest video’. He doesn’t even bother watching the vid. Skips straight to the comments: ‘Dylan Olsen. Fucken baby killa. Shot Chalina Murphy. Split her wigg. Wit a Mak 10. Ur ded. Revenje.’ ‘Chalina shot by Little Jay (scruffy twat) Dilan and Nogga u fucken peydohfyle.’

  ‘What the fuck is going on, lad?’

  ‘It’s all over Facebook,’ New Loon tells him. ‘MySpace too.’

  Soon, Nogger and Jay arrive with the lads. They’re worried about their names being thrown in. There are pages and pages of tribute vids to Chalina as well.

  One from an Asian gang in Tower Hamlets. ‘RIP trak out to the phamilee and m8s of Shaleena Moorfie hu was tuk from dem fru gun cryme.’ Dylan plays it, thinks it’s quite good. There are pictures of Chalina and her family cut in with messages on a bright blue background. Just like a Nogzy vid. Then pictures of their crew posing up near the waterfront at Canary Wharf. The lyrics are: ‘Everyone. Yeah. Complicated. Many. Respect.’ That’s it. Those are the words.

  ‘Don’t usually like that MC-ing chipmunk music,’ says Dylan. ‘But it’s all right, innit?’

  ‘Got to watch those sepoys, though, lad,’ Lupus tells him. ‘Might look like little skinny cunts, but they’ll have a go. Especially if there’s a good few of them,’ says Clegsy. Nogger doesn’t like this.

  Dylan scrolls through the comments: ‘Propahh in Tears When I herd bout Herrrrr dieing,’ posted by Emoshaun. Another one saying, ‘Sikenns me wen kidz tayk potshotz at the publickz,’ posted by a social networking rapper who calls himself ‘I can’t keep my nine straight’.

  CHAPTER 20

  AGENDAS

  It goes off all over the estate. Everyone’s buzzing on the news, excitement coursing through the cul-de-sacs and bungalows. All the younger ones are supporting the lads but most of the older ones are hoping that the police will finally steam into the gangs, once and for all. They’re only saying it behind closed doors, though.

  On Dylan’s street, most of the neighbours are stood outside on their paths, sat on the gates and wheelie bins with the kids, looking up the street, pointing at Dylan’s ma’s house. It’s the same at Nogger’s and Jay’s. The pavements are chokka with wheelchairs and electric shopping baskets. Even the people on the sick have come out of their houses to see what’s going on.

  Everyone’s gossiping about how they were dragged up by their mothers, how Dylan’s ma was a brass and she’s still on heroin. Nogger’s ma’s oblivious, shuffling down the street in her slippers, zombied up on psychiatric drugs. Jay’s ma’s only 27. Clegsy reckons he’s got stuck up her a few times when she’s been pissed and had a tablet after Jay’s gone to bed. So he’s told Dylan, anyway. But no one’s seen Jay’s ma for three days now. She went clubbing with her new feller, a cage fighter, left Jay and his brothers with hardly anything to eat.

  The Orange Lodge takes advantage of the carnival atmosphere to whip up support for the cause. They’re out marching in red tam-o’-shanters, blue shirts and red trousers. The Derry Walls band, playing ‘No Pope of Rome’ – an estate classic. But a drunk old woman snatches the mace from the leader as they go past, for a bit of impromptu cane-twirling at the front.

  Someone’s told Nogger that it’s an anti-gang march. So Nogger and Clegsy bomb out of the entry, chase after them with a samurai sword. They twat the old woman with the mace, even though she’s an IRA supporter and was just taking the piss. The rest scatter. Roberto Griffin’s laughing at his front door, holding up an anti-abortion banner, trying to taunt the flute-players with a poster saying ‘Crusaders for the Unborn Child’. Dylan’s brother Will and his mates rob the drums and cymbals and start going mad.

  Dylan’s ma’s in bits. She drags him off to a solicitor when Will shows her Dylan’s name on the Internet, a tweet saying that he killed Chalina. In the lawyer’s office, Dylan, Nogger and Jay are sunk low in armchairs behind the grilles on the windows, saying fuck all, as Kieran Keenan LLB is shining his cufflinks, telling them to say fuck all, especially if they get arrested. Dylan says to him, ‘Are you mad? We know the drill. Just get all that shit off the Internet and get the fucking papers away from outside of me ma’s.’

  Keenan
says that because they’re 17 and Jay’s only 14, they’ve got to be treated as minors and that naming them is a breach of their human rights. He says that he can deal with the legal side but that the papers are a different matter. He says that it’s a nightmare because everyone will use Chalina for their own ends. The police to argue for armed bobbies, the council for some grant money, the Government for tougher laws. The agendas are the dangerous bit, he says.

  Nogger explodes: ‘It’s only some little fucking girl been killed. And it’s got fuck all to do with us.’ Keenan says that it’s got nothing to do with the girl and that it’s all about power. But the lads know that he’s got his own beef with the police. Keenan’s under investigation for washing money for Dean. The police are threatening to get him struck off, but he’s buying them off with tickets to the match because he also represents Rocky O’Rourke.

  All the estate cranks – the bar-room briefs, the conspiracy loons, the letter writers – are coming out the woodwork, wanting to give the lads advice, to get onside with them, to suck-hole them and get in on the action. Gus Reed is a former burglar and pimp turned criminal reformer, makes out he’s a reformed gangster trying to stop the kids from falling into a life of crime, a youth worker and anti-gun campaigner. But it’s just his latest graft, to con grants out of the Government and the council. He just likes to get on the telly and the local radio, making out he’s an expert. He comes round playing the big time with the lads, telling them that if they cough to the bizzies and make a statement, he can guarantee them immunity. Dylan’s like that: ‘What? You want us to go guilty even though we haven’t been questioned? Are you mad?’

  But Clegsy finds out that he’s working for the bizzies anyway. That they’ve promised to sponsor his grant gravy train if he can get a confession out of the lads on the sly. Nogger finds out where Gus’s ma lives the next day, lashes a nail bomb through the front window, blows her arm off below the elbow. She’s 84.

  Even Roberto Griffin’s sucking up to them now. He comes and tells Nogger and Dylan that he’ll act as their enforcer on the estate, lean on any witnesses, go round the older ones telling them to show the lads some support. When the older ones are pissed at night, some of them saying that they’re behind the boys, Roberto stokes up their twisted patriotism towards the area. Nogger and Dylan can’t work out why he’s being their mate. Clegsy says that he’s trying to get in with the younger ones cos he’s getting on now, that he’s an old gangster who’s scared of the new generation coming up.