What Came Before He Shot Her

  Dix marched Joel out of the station. Toby followed. Joel continued to protest. Dix said nothing. Toby grabbed Joel’s arm, needing the reassurance of something solid that represented something he understood.

  At his car, Dix stuffed both boys into the backseat. Looking into the rearview mirror, he said to Joel, “You know the state you put your aunt into? How much more you ’spect she’s goin to take off you?”

  Joel turned his head away and looked out of the window. Hopes dashed, he was in no state to accept blame for anything. He mouthed Fuck you.

  Dix read the words. They were match to tinder. He got out of the car and jerked open the back door. He pulled Joel out. He shoved him against the wing and barked, “You want to take me on? Dat’s wha’ you lookin to happen just now?”

  “Hey,” Joel said. “Lemme alone.”

  “How long you t’ink you last wiv me, mon?”

  “Lemme the fuck alone,” Joel said. “I di’n’t do nuffink.”

  “Dat’s how you see it? Your aunt out searchin, phoning the cops, gettin told there’s no help, fallin into a state…And you di’n’t do nuffink?” In a disgust that was only in part directed at Joel, Dix shoved him back inside.

  The drive to North Kensington was not a long one. They made it in silence, with Dix incapable of seeing past Joel’s external animus and Joel incapable of seeing past Dix’s reaction to what lay at the core of it.

  In Edenham Way, Joel flung himself up the steps to his aunt’s house. Toby rapidly followed. He clutched his skateboard to his chest like a life ring. When inside the house Dix snatched it from him and tossed it to one side, he began to cry.

  It was too much for Joel. He said, “You fuckin leave Toby alone, mon! You got summick to say or summick to do, you do it to me. You got dat, blood?”

  Dix might have responded but Kendra came from the kitchen. So instead of speaking, he pushed the boy towards his aunt, saying, “Here he is, den. He’s a big mon now, hear him talk. Cause of all th’ trouble and him wivout a care in th’ world dat he worried anyone.”

  “Shut up,” Joel said. He said it in exhaustion and despair.

  Dix took a step towards him. Kendra said, “Don’t.” And then to Joel, “What’s going on? Why’d you go out there without telling me? You know the school phoned? Yours? Toby’s?”

  “I wanted to see Mum,” Joel said. “I don’t get what the big deal’s all ’bout.”

  “We had rules. School. Toby. Home.” Kendra ticked off these items on her fingers. “Those’re your limits. That’s what I told you. The hospital isn’t among them.”

  “Whatever,” Joel said.

  “And where’d you get the money for tickets?”

  “It was mine.”

  “Where’d you get it, Joel?”

  “I tol’ you. It was mine, and if you don’t believe me—”

  “That’s right. I don’t. Give me a reason to.”

  “I fuckin don’t have to.”

  “Joel…,” Toby cried. All of this was beyond his ability to comprehend. One moment they had been on the train, gazing out at a landscape shrouded in mystery through the means of freezing fog, and the next moment they’d been in trouble. So much trouble that Joel was cursing, Dix was angry and ready to bang people about, and Kendra’s face was looking like a mask. The burden of all this was too heavy to carry in his mind. Toby said, “Mum wanted hearts on her fingernails, Auntie. Tell her, Joel. ’Bout them gold hearts.”

  Kendra said thinly, “Right,” ignoring Toby’s fruitless attempt to alter the course of what was happening. She said, “Let’s just have a check of things, then,” and she headed up the stairs. Joel followed her. Toby tagged along, and Dix trailed Toby.

  It was obvious what Kendra’s intentions were. Joel didn’t protest. Indeed, he found he didn’t much care. There was nothing for her to discover in his room because he was telling her the truth, and he knew she wouldn’t find the gun he’d been given by the Blade. This was tucked in the space between the floor and the bottom drawer of the clothes chest. The only way to get it out was to tilt the chest up, and his aunt was unlikely to go to that extreme once she realised there was nothing to find elsewhere in the room.

  Kendra dumped out his rucksack and pawed through it, a woman on an undefined mission. She was looking for something without knowing what she was looking for: evidence that he’d mugged someone successfully, gobs of cash to indicate he was selling some kind of contraband—weapons, drugs, cigarettes, alcohol…It didn’t matter. She just wanted to find something that would give her a sign of what she was meant to do next because, just like Joel but with different cause, she was finding herself running out of options.

  There was nothing: in the rucksack, under or in the bed, inside books, behind posters on the walls, in the chest of drawers. She went from all this to shaking Joel down, and he removed his clothes for her in an indifferent cooperation that infuriated her.

  The only answer was Toby, she thought, and she wondered why she hadn’t considered it before. So he was made to undress as well, and this in turn infuriated Joel.

  He said, “I told you! He don’t have nuffink to do wiv…” He said nothing else.

  “What?” Kendra demanded. “With what? What?”

  Joel would have liked to stalk from the room, but Dix was in the doorway, an impassable object. Toby was, if anything, crying harder than ever. He fell onto his bed in his underwear.

  Joel was inflamed, but he did nothing. There was nothing to do, and he knew it. So he told his aunt the truth. “I won it, okay? I won the fuckin money at Wield Words. Fifty pounds. Dat’s it. You happy now?”

  She said, “We’ll see about that,” and she left him, crossing the corridor to her own bedroom where she placed a phone call that she made certain her nephews could hear.

  She told Ivan Weatherall Joel’s claim. She even used the word claim to indicate her incredulity. Governed more by anger than by wisdom, she told him more than he needed to know. Joel had to be watched, she said. He had fractured her trust in him. He’d sneaked off without permission, he was responding to her questions with insolence and defiance, and now he was claiming he’d got some unaccounted-for money off the poetry evening. What did Ivan know about that?

  Ivan, naturally, knew quite a lot about it. He confirmed Joel’s story.

  But more than one seed in more than one breast was planted through this conversation. It would not take long for that seed to sprout.

  WITH A CLEAR understanding of what would happen should she fail to cooperate, Ness went to counselling in Oxford Gardens. She sat through three appointments, but since she was there under duress, that was the extent of her participation in recovering from the assault made upon her: sitting in a chair that was faced towards the counsellor.

  The counsellor in question was twenty-five years old, in possession of a first-class degree from a third-class university, and of a solid middleclass background—clearly evident in her choice of clothing and her careful use of words like loo instead of toilet—which put her in the unfortunate position of believing she had most of the answers required to navigate encounters with recalcitrant adolescent girls. She was white, blonde, and squeaky clean. These were not faults, but they were disadvantages. She saw herself as a role model instead of what she appeared to be to those who were supposed to be her clients: an adversary incapable of relating to a single element of their lives.

  After those three meetings with Ness, she decided group counselling might be an efficacious approach to achieve what she termed “a breakthrough.” To her credit, she did a considerable amount of homework on her client, and it was on this subject that she approached Fabia Bender, a manila folder in her hand.

  “No luck?” Fabia said to her. They were in the copy room, where an antique Mr. Coffee was delivering a viscous-looking brew into a glass carafe.

  The counsellor—whose name, for reasons known only to her parents, was Ruma, which the well-travelled Fabia knew very well meant “queen of the apes”—recounte
d what her sessions with Ness had been like so far. Tough, she said. Indeed, Vanessa Campbell was a very tough nut to crack.

  Fabia waited for more. So far, Ruma was telling her nothing that she didn’t know.

  Ruma drew a breath. The truth of the matter was that they were getting absolutely nowhere, she said. “I was thinking about a different approach, like a group,” she offered. “Other girls who’ve gone through the same thing. God knows we’ve got them by the dozens.”

  “But…?” Fabia prompted her. She could tell there was more to come. Ruma had not yet learned to obscure her intent through the use of careful intonation.

  “But I’ve done some digging around, and there’s information here…” Ruma tapped her fingernails—well-groomed, French manicured, uniformly shaped—against the folder. “I’m thinking there’s a lot more than meets the eye. D’you have the time…?”

  There was never enough time, but Fabia was intrigued. She liked Ruma, she knew the young woman meant well, and she admired the tireless way Ruma pursued every avenue for her clients, no matter how ineffective her efforts might prove to be. Where there was breath, there was life. Where there was life, there was hope. There were worse philosophies for someone who’d chosen the profession of counselling the unfortunate, Fabia thought.

  They repaired to Fabia’s office once the coffee was brewed and Fabia had filled herself a cup. There, Ruma shared the information she’d come up with.

  “You know Mum’s in a psychiatric hospital, right?” Ruma began. To Fabia’s nod, she added, “How much d’you know about why she’s there?”

  “Unresolved postnatal blues is what I’ve got,” Fabia told her. “She’s been in and out for years, as I understand things.”

  “Try psychosis,” Ruma said. “Try severe psychotic postnatal depression. Try attempted murder.”

  Fabia sipped her coffee, watching Ruma over the rim of her cup. She evaluated the young woman, heard no excitement in her voice, and approved of the level of her professionalism in the matter. She said, “When? Who?”

  “Twice. Once she was prevented—evidently just in the nick of time—from chucking her youngest out of a third-floor window. This is from a flat they lived in, in Du Cane Road. East Acton. Neighbour was there and she phoned the cops once she got the kid away from her. Another time she parked the same kid’s pram in the path of an oncoming bus and did a runner. Clearly out of her head.”

  “How was that determined?”

  “History and examination.”

  “What sort of history?”

  “You said she’s been in and out for years. Did you know it’s been since she was thirteen?”

  Fabia didn’t know this. She considered the fact. “Any precipitating event?”

  “And then some. Her mum committed suicide just three weeks after being released from a facility herself. Paranoid schizophrenic. Carole was with her when she took the leap in front of a train in Baker Street underground station. This would have been when Carole was twelve.”

  Fabia set down her cup. “I should have known this,” she said. “I should have found out.”

  Ruma said quickly, “No. That’s not why I’m telling you. And anyway, how much digging are you supposed to do? It’s not your job.”

  “Is it yours?”

  “I’m the one trying to make the breakthrough here. You’re just trying to hold things together.”

  “I’m putting on plasters where surgery’s called for.”

  “No one knows till it’s time to know,” Ruma said. “Anyway, here’s my point.”

  Fabia didn’t need to be told. “Ness slipping into psychosis? Like her mum?”

  “It’s possible, isn’t it? And here’s what’s interesting: Carole Campbell tried to kill the youngest because she believed he’d inherited the affliction. I don’t know why, because he was a baby, but she singled him out. Like a mother dog who won’t nurse a newborn pup because she knows something’s wrong with it. Her instincts tell her.”

  “Are you saying this is inherited, then?”

  “It’s the old nature and nurture thing. The predisposition is inherited. Look. This is a brain disorder: proteins not doing what they’re supposed to be doing. A genetic mutation. That sets someone up for psychosis. The person’s environment does the rest.”

  Fabia thought about Toby, what she’d seen and heard, and how the family attempted to shield him, about everything they’d done from the first to see to it that he would not be evaluated by someone who might pinpoint an illness that could spell misery for him. She said, “There’s clearly something wrong with the youngest. That’s evident enough.”

  “They all need to be tested. Evaluated by a psychiatrist. Have a genetic history taken. What I’m saying is that my idea for Ness to enter group counselling is a load of bollocks. If she’s heading for a psychotic breakdown—”

  “If she’s in one already,” Fabia offered.

  “Or if she’s in the midst of one, then we need to get on to this before something else happens.”

  Fabia agreed. But she wondered how Ness—both uncommunicative and uncooperative in sessions with a counsellor—was going to take having her mind probed in one way or another by a psychiatrist. Not well, she decided.

  A visit to the magistrate was in order, then. What Fabia and Ruma could not effect in the girl would surely come about if the magistrate’s court gave her the word. And more than the word: the option between cooperation or incarceration. The mere threat of an increase in her community-service hours would hardly make an impression upon her.

  “Let me talk to some people,” Fabia said.

  IVAN WEATHERALL, BEING neither an idiot nor a fool, had quickly put together a number of pieces to the puzzle of Joel Campbell once he’d taken that phone call from Kendra. Most of these pieces had to do with Joel’s talent and with Wield Words Not Weapons, but some of them related to the attempted mugging in Portobello Road. This, he’d earlier concluded, was so far out of character in the boy that only a case of mistaken identity could possibly explain it. In conjunction with Joel’s quick release from custody, there seemed to be no other answer.

  But Kendra’s call had forced him to consider the possibility that there was a Joel he didn’t know. Since there were two sides to every coin—a ghastly cliché, but one that had an apparent application in this particular case as far as Ivan was concerned—it stood to reason that Joel had kept part of himself hidden from Ivan, and the truth was that the facts supported this conclusion.

  Ivan didn’t know about Joel’s dealings with the Blade. As far as the less wholesome individuals who populated parts of North Kensington went, Ivan knew only that Joel had rubbed metaphorical elbows with Neal Wyatt. And Neal was someone whom Ivan mistakenly saw as troubled, but not essentially dangerous. So while Ivan understood that something worrisome was brewing within Joel, he thought in terms of the home itself instead of the streets.

  What Ivan knew was this: The aunt’s boyfriend was a live-in. The father was dead. The mother was gone. The sister had been sentenced to community service. The younger brother was…well, rather odd. Change in the form of a new home, new school, and new associates was difficult for anyone to endure. Was there any wonder that Joel occasionally lost his grip on the ability to cope? The way Ivan saw things, Joel was a perfectly good lad. Surely, then, any potential for serious trouble could be nipped in the bud if the adults in his life all agreed on how to deal with him.

  Ivan himself had grown up under the firm but loving thumbs of his parents. Thus, firmness was what was called for, he decided. Firmness, fairness, and honesty.

  He decided to visit Joel at home. Seeing Joel in situ, as he described it to himself, would gain him further information on how best to help the boy.

  Joel admitted him to the house—obviously surprised but quickly altering his expression to shield whatever else was going on within him—and cartoon noise from upstairs suggested that the little brother was present as well. Beyond the entrance and in the kitchen, Ivan co
uld see Joel’s sister. She was at the table, one foot propped up on the edge as she painted her toenails metallic blue. An ashtray sat next to the bottle of varnish. Cigarette smoke plumed upward in a lazy spiral. A radio playing on the work top added to the general cacophony of the household. Rap music issued forth, most of it grunted indecipherably by a singer later identified by the DJ as someone calling himself Big R Balz.

  Ivan said, “Could I have a word, Joel?”

  “I ain’t written nuffink lately.” Joel glanced beyond Ivan as if wishing him to leave.

  Ivan wasn’t about to be dismissed. “This isn’t about your poetry, actually. Your aunt phoned me.”

  “Yeah. Know.”

  “I’d like to talk about that.”

  Joel led him into the kitchen, where Ness looked Ivan over. She didn’t say anything, but she didn’t have to. Lately, as she’d managed in the past, all Ness had to do was to fix her great dark eyes upon people to discomfit them. She was scornful on the surface but something else beneath it. That something else made people uneasy.

  Ivan nodded a hello. Ness’s full lips curved in a smile. She gave him a head-to-toe and made an evaluation of him that she didn’t bother to hide, taking in his lank grey hair, his bad teeth, his worn and countrified tweed jacket, his scuffed shoes. She nodded but not in an exchange of greeting. Rather, her nod said Man I know your kind, and she lit another cigarette from the dying end of the one in the ashtray. She held it between her fingers with the smoke coiling around her head. She said to her brother, “Dis’s Ivan, eh? Di’n’t t’ink I’d ever see him over here. ’Spect he i’n’t round dis part of town very often, innit. So how you like it, mon, seein how us ethnic types live?”

  “He ain’t like dat,” Joel said.

  “Right,” was her laconic response.

  But Ivan wasn’t put off by Ness. He said, “Good heavens, I’ve seen you before, but I’d no idea you were Joel’s sister. You’re in the drop-in centre, aren’t you? Playing with the children? You’ve obviously got a real gift for working with them.”