Black Sheep (28 page)

It had started raining a short while before and the estate was deserted. I looked this way and that, trying to spot a car driving past too slowly, a guy on a bike, anything suspicious.

But it all seemed clear.

“Yo, rudeboy!”

I jumped and instinctively whirled round, my guard up, in case of any trouble. Then I relaxed.

It was Jukkie.

Jukkie looked proper mash-up, like he hadn’t slept for days. His clothes were crumpled and his skin was ashy. And his eyes were red raw, as if he’d been smoking too much skunk.

“Jukkie, man!” My heart began to knock violently against my ribcage. “You tryin’ to give man a heart attack or somethin’?” My mind flooded with images of the
stabbing on Friday night, the feel of the bloodied knife, heavy, on the inside of my jacket. “What’s goin’ on? Where’ve you been? I kept tryin’ to call
you...”

“Yeah, I know, I had to keep my head down, innit. Lay low for a while.” He slung his arm over my shoulder and began bopping away from the main road, his head low, his eyes flicking
from side to side.

“Where did you go, man?” I let Jukkie steer me past the row of bins, down a narrow alleyway between the flats.

“After I left the club, I came home to check on my mum, tidy up and that.” Jukkie’s voice was hoarse. “Then I went up to Stonebridge to stay over at Candice’s
place. Thought it’d be better to stay out of the area.”

We were almost at Jukkie’s building, via the back route we’d always used as kids. We had shared the loot from our first shoplifting trip here. I had smoked my first joint beside
these bins. But today there was no one here. The tower blocks that rose on either side blocked out the sun and the shadows were chilly.

“Why d’you come back, blud? Don’t you think it’d better if you stayed up in North-West?” I tried to keep my tone light although my teeth were chattering.

“Yeah, yeah, I’m going back, innit; I just need to check on my mum. You know she’s in a bad way. Plus I wanted to chat to you, bruv...” Jukkie stopped walking, glanced
over his shoulder then turned to look me in the face.

“Yeah? What about?”

“My knife, man. I need it back, to get rid of it, y’get me?”

“Nah, man, I took care of it, don’t worry.”

Jukkie eyed me up. “What d’you mean? Where is it?”

“I got rid of it, innit? Don’t worry, the police will never find it.”

“You sure?” Jukkie sounded doubtful. “Did you throw it in the canal or something?”

‘That’s what you should have done, man, not put it in the dustbin!’

“Nah, man, I got rid of it – don’t worry! I took care of it, yeah?”

“All right, safe, man.” At last, I could see him start to relax. He sounded relieved. “Thanks, bro. I owe you one.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it, blud. That’s what we do, standard.”

“Yeah, you’re my bredren still, even though you’ve been going on like a bloodclart with this Islam ting.”

We reached the entrance to Jukkie’s building.

“Listen, yeah,” said Jukkie, punching in the code that opened the heavy steel door to the main entrance. “I need you to look after my mum while I’m in North West.
Tony’s planning to move in with his girl – his wife – but I may not be able to keep comin’ down like this. I heard that Lockjaw’s peeps know it was me who shanked
him...” Jukkie chewed his lower lip and his eyes darted around as we waited for the lift to come down from the fifth floor. His voice dropped: “Spoonz said he heard that Loc’s in
intensive care, that he might not make it...”

And I caught the flicker of fear in Jukkie’s eyes. For all his big-man talk, even Jukkie wasn’t ready to be a murderer at seventeen. But the flicker disappeared when Jukkie scowled
and his face closed up. “Serve him right, still!” he whispered fiercely. When we got into the lift, Jukkie screwed up his face and spat into the corner. “This lift stinks,
man!”

I didn’t say nothing but looked up at the flickering light on the ceiling of the lift. Something wasn’t right. I felt proper didgy – there was something strange in the air of
that lift, a bad feeling I couldn’t name. Something was wrong, I could feel it.

When at last the lift reached the fifth floor, Jukkie flipped his hood back and stepped towards the doors as they slid open. But just as he was about to step out, I reached over and grabbed his
arm with a grip like iron. Jukkie frowned at me and was about to shake my hand off when I put my finger up and made a sign for Jukkie to stop and listen.

There were voices down the corridor.

White people’s voices.

“Good afternoon, ma’am. We’re here to see Marvin Johnson... we have a few questions we’d like to ask him...”

5-0.

“Oh, sh...”

Jukkie swore under his breath and I turned to press the keys to close the door of the lift, to get to the ground floor, to get the hell out of there, as silently as possible. My fingers pressed
the sticky buttons and the door began to close, scraping as it went.

“Oi!” we could hear the officers shout out just as the doors were closing. “Who’s there?”

In a panic, Jukkie began to press the button that closed the doors, again and again, trying to make them close faster, pure terror in his eyes.

I felt sweat spring up on my forehead, as cold and slick as the fear that gripped my insides. What had happened? How had they known to come looking for Jukkie?

‘Oh my days, don’t tell me they found the knife!’

The lift doors had almost shut when we saw the end of a police baton poke through the gap, banging, banging, from side to side, trying to wedge the door open. Instinctively, we both began to
kick at the baton, trying to push it back out again, shouting, the sweat trickling down our backs.

But we were too late. With the baton wedging the doors apart, the policewoman who was holding it was able to get the doors to slide open again. When the doors opened, we both flew out, ready to
battle. Jukkie swung his fist and caught the stocky policewoman on the side of her jaw. Then I pushed her and she crashed back against the railings and crumpled to the floor.

It took the other officers a couple of moments to realise what was happening – “That’s him there!” – and they began to run towards us down the corridor, their hands
to their sides. I ran toward the fire escape.

‘Just get out of the building, man! Once you’re out of here, you’re laughing – the estate’s too big and there are ‘nuff places to hide and ting. And, even
if someone sees you, ain’t no one gonna tell the police nuffin’!’

‘What about Jukkie?’

‘Jukkie’s coming, man! He’s a big boy; he can handle himself!’

But Jukkie couldn’t, not this time. The police got him before he could reach the door and, when I looked back to see whether he was behind me, I saw my childhood friend, the badman, the
protector, the avenger, on his belly, his face pressed into the grimy floor, a red-faced policeman straddling his back, putting cuffs on him. His eyes were squeezed shut and I knew, like I knew my
own brother, like I knew my own
name
, that he was struggling not to cry.

It took them a bit longer to catch me. I made it out of the building and was about to gap it through the alleyway when I saw her.

She had just gotten off the bus. She raised her hand to wave at me – then I heard the police siren and the car swung up on to the grass verge in front of me. I dodged madly, turning to run
the other way, but I caught my foot in a hole on the lawn and went down.

A couple of seconds later, they had the dogs on me, cuffs, everything.

“Misha!” I shouted out to her as they pushed me to the police car. “Don’t worry! It’s all a mistake! I’ll bell you, yeah?”

But she didn’t say anything.

We drove back out of the estate in a madness of police sirens. But I hardly noticed. All I could see was Misha’s face, all crumpled, her hand over her mouth, crying as she saw Dwayne
Kingston, her badboy lover, get arrested for the first time.

‘Damn, you made her cry again.’

‘I beg you SHUT UP, blud.’

‘I’m just sayin’...’

MISHA

Every time I closed my eyes, I saw Dwayne on the floor, the police dogs slobbering all over him, the officers slapping the handcuffs on his wrists. And his voice, his voice,
calling to me: ‘It’s not what it looks like! I’m innocent! Please, Misha, please believe me!’

I left the Saints Hill estate in tears. I wandered blindly, numb, not knowing where to go, what to think, what to feel. The only possible explanation for what I had seen was that Effie was
right.

Dwayne had stabbed Lawrence, and the police had caught him.

But, at the same time, it just didn’t make any sense at all. Why? How? Was Dwayne really capable of that? Didn’t I know him at all?

I found myself walking in a daze to Gran’s house. When she saw me at the door, my eyes red, my face wet with tears, shivering, she started asking a million questions. But I shook my head
– “Later, Gran, please. I just need a moment... just a moment. Can I come in?”

So she opened the door and let me through to lie on her bed while she made me a cup of tea.

“I have a friend visiting, Misha,” she said gently. “You don’t have to come through until you feel up to it.” Gran left me alone with my thoughts, thoughts that
swirled in and out of the confused fog of my mind.

How could I have misjudged Dwayne so badly? How could he have fooled me all this time? I had suspected that there was more to him than he let on, but I would never have pictured him as someone
capable of attempting to take a life, never. If he
had
been capable of such heartlessness, hadn’t he changed? Hadn’t he grown beyond that in the time we had been together? Was
his new religion just a label? What was the point of all that talk about Islam if he was still the same as Jukkie and the other boys on his estate: violent, mindless, heartless?

Eventually, I found that I had no more tears. My heart was wrung dry. I came out of Gran’s room just as her guest was leaving. The visitor, a middle-aged Jamaican woman wearing a neat
headwrap, was speaking on her mobile phone, worry written all over her face.

“Dwayne?” she said, frowning. “Are you sure about that, Mrs Kingston?” The person on the other end of the line was shrieking and Gran’s visitor tried to calm her
down. “There must be an explanation, love, just calm down, please. I am in Brixton, I’ll be right over...” She turned to say goodbye to Gran and saw me standing there, my face
full of questions.

“D-do you know Dwayne?” I asked, my voice scraping against my throat.

“Yes,” she replied. “Yes, I do. He’s a student at my school. Seems to have gotten himself into some trouble. His mother is in a bad way – I’m going over there
now. And you are...?”

“A-a friend of his...” My voice faltered and I blinked away the tears that were threatening to fall.

She looked at me sympathetically. “You’re Lorna’s granddaughter Misha, aren’t you? She’s told me so much about you... and Dwayne. You sound like a smart girl, one
who’s going places. Dwayne is a lovely boy – bright in so many ways – but... don’t let him come between you and your future. That’s my sincere advice to you, woman to
woman.” She smiled sadly and stepped out of the front door.

I didn’t even try to stop the tears this time.

DWAYNE

They took us to Brixton Police Station to book us. The knife that had been turned in ‘by a member of the public’ had Jukkie’s prints all over it.

“You’re going down, sonny,” said the officer in charge, sounding well pleased with himself. “We don’t even need no witnesses now.”

There had been a second set of prints on the knife and, when the police took my fingerprints, they realised that they were mine.

So, not only had I been arrested for the first time but, after years of being careful, I was being charged too.

And it wasn’t grievious bodily harm, like I expected it to be. It was first degree murder.

Lockjaw had died while in hospital.

In the eyes of the law, Marvin ‘Jukkie’ Johnson was a murderer. And I was an accessory.

I almost cried, right there in front of the police officers. Jukkie, on the other hand, just scowled at them all and said, ‘No comment’ to everything they asked. I couldn’t
believe he could be so calm. Didn’t he care that he was about to be sent down, possibly for a very long time?

Alone in the cell with him, I could hardly look at him. This was his fault, y’get me. I had no business here. But man didn’t seem to care. He never said sorry or nothing. He was just
lying on that filthy prison bed where a thousand murderers, rapists and junkies had been before him, his feet against the wall, spitting some bars about jukking the police.

“Yo, I beg you shut up, man!” I couldn’t stand to hear his voice. I needed time to think, to get my head together. I needed to wash myself, I needed to pray.

“What’s the matter with you, man?” he asked, turning to scowl at me. “You look proper scared, bruv!” And he threw the pillow at me.

I ducked and swore at him, disgusted by the musty smell of the prison pillowcase. “Leave off, man, before I bang you!” He couldn’t fool me – I had seen his face when the
5-0 had him on the floor. But if there was one thing Jukkie could do well, it was put on a front.