Roxy thinks, when she reads that text, of the different firms that could have it in for them, and what ‘hurt’ means. If it’s war, they need her home for sure.
But it’s Barbara who’s waiting for her in the front garden when she gets there, smoking non-stop, lighting the next one from the embers of the last. Bernie’s not even home. So it’s not war, it’s something else.
Barbara says, ‘Ricky’s been hurt.’
Roxy says, knowing the answer, ‘Was it one of the other firms? That Romanian lot?’
Barbara shakes her head. She says, ‘They fucked him up for fun.’
Roxy says, ‘Dad knows people. You didn’t need to call me.’
Barbara’s hands are shaking. ‘No, it’s not for them. It’s a family thing.’
So Roxy knows exactly what kind of thing has happened to Ricky.
Ricky’s got the TV on, but the sound’s off. There’s a blanket over his knees and bandages under that; doctor’s been and gone, so there’s nothing to see, anyway.
Roxy’s got girls working for her who were held by blokes in Moldova. She saw what one of them had done to the three men who’d taken turns with her. Down there it was just burned flesh, fern patterns on the thighs, pink and brown and raw red and black. Like a Sunday roast. Ricky doesn’t seem that bad. He’ll probably be fine. This kind of thing heals. She’s heard that things can be difficult afterwards, though. It can be hard to get over.
She says, ‘Just tell me what happened.’
Ricky looks at her, and he’s grateful, and his gratitude is terrible. She wants to hug him, but she knows that’d just make it worse for him somehow. You can’t be the one that hurts and the one that comforts. She can’t give Ricky anything but justice.
He tells her what happened.
He was pissed, obviously. Out with some mates, dancing. He’s got a couple of girlfriends, Ricky, but he never minds finding someone new for the night, and the girls know not to bother him about it, that’s just how he is. Roxy’s the same these days; sometimes there’s a bloke and sometimes there isn’t, and it doesn’t matter much to her either way.
This time, Ricky got three girls, said they were sisters – but they didn’t look like sisters; he thinks it was a joke. One of them sucked him off by the kitchen bins outside the club; whatever she did, it made his head spin. He looks ashamed when he says it, like he thinks he should have done something different. When she was finished, the others were waiting. And he went, ‘Give me a minute, girls. Can’t do you all at once.’ And they were on him.
There’s a thing you can do to a bloke. Roxy’s done it herself. A little bit of a spark in the back passage and up he comes, neat as anything. It’s fun, if you want it. Hurts a bit, but fun. Hurts a lot if you don’t want it. Ricky kept on saying he didn’t want it.
They took their turns on him. They were just trying to hurt him, he says, and he was saying, did they want money, what did they want, but one of them got him in the throat and he couldn’t make another sound until they were finished.
The whole thing took half an hour. Ricky thought he might die there. In between the black bags and the thick grease coating the paving stones. He could see them finding his body, white legs marked with red scars. He could see a copper turning out his pockets and saying, ‘You’ll never guess who this is, only Ricky Monke.’ And his face fish-white and his lips blue. Ricky kept very still until it was over, and didn’t say nothing and didn’t do nothing. Just waited for it to be done.
Roxy knows why they haven’t called Bernie home. He’d hate Ricky for this, even if he tried not to. This is not what happens to a man. Except now it is.
The stupid thing is that he does know them. The more he thinks about it, the more he’s sure. He’s seen them around; he doesn’t think they know who he is – you’d think they’d’ve been scared otherwise, to do what they did – but he knows people he’s seen them with. One of them’s called Manda, he’s pretty sure, one of them’s Sam. Roxy gets an idea, looks at a couple of people on Facebook. Shows him some photos, until he starts to shake.
It’s not hard to find them. It doesn’t take Roxy more than five phone calls to someone who knows someone who knows someone. She doesn’t say why she’s asking, but she doesn’t need to; she’s Roxy Monke and people want to help her. They’re drinking in a pub in Vauxhall, they’re tanked up, they’re laughing, they’ll be here till closing.
Roxy’s got some good girls here in London now. Girls who run the business for her, and collect the profits, and knock the heads together that need knocking. It’s not that a bloke couldn’t do the job – some of them’d do it handy – but it’s better if they don’t need a gun. They’re noisy, draw attention, they’re messy; quick barney ends up with a double murder and thirty years in prison. For a job like this, you take girls. Except when she gets dressed and comes downstairs, there’s Darrell waiting by the front door. He’s got a sawn-off on his arm.
‘What?’ says Roxy.
‘I’m coming,’ says Darrell.
She thinks, for a moment, of saying, ‘Sure,’ and knocking him cold when he turns away. But, after what’s happened to Ricky, it wouldn’t be right.
‘You keep yourself safe,’ she says.
‘Yeah,’ he goes. ‘I’ll stick behind you.’
He’s younger than her. Only by a few months. That’s one of the things that’s always been so hard: Bernie knocking up both their mums at the same time.
She grabs his shoulder and squeezes it. She calls another couple of lasses to come, too. Vivika, with one of those long, pronged conductive batons, and Danni with a mesh of metal net that she likes. They all take a little bit before they head out the door, and there’s music playing in Roxy’s head. Sometimes it’s good to go to war, just to know you can.
They follow that little knot of girls from the pub at a bit of a distance till they walk through the park, shouting and drinking. It’s past 1 a.m. It’s a hot night; the air feels damp, like there’s a storm brewing. Roxy and her gang are dressed dark; they’re moving smoothly. The girls run towards the merry-go-round in the kids’ playground. They lie back on it, staring at the stars, passing the vodka between them.
Roxy says, ‘Now.’
Merry-go-round’s made of steel. They light the thing up, and one of the girls falls off, frothing and twitching. So now they’re two on four. Easy.
‘What’s this?’ says a girl in a dark blue bomber jacket. Ricky had pointed her photo out as the leader. ‘What the fuck is this? I don’t even know you.’ She makes a bright warning arc between her palms.
‘Yeah?’ says Roxy. ‘You bloody knew my brother, though. Ricky? Picked him up in a club last night? Ricky Monke?’
‘Oh fuck,’ says the other girl, the one wearing leathers.
‘Shut up,’ says the first girl. ‘We don’t know your fucking brother, all right?’
‘Sam,’ says the girl in leathers. ‘Fuck’s sake.’ She turns to Roxy, pleading. ‘We didn’t know he was your brother. He never said nothing.’