‘Tell me.’
‘Didn’t speak no English when I came from Ivory Coast. Baoulé with my family, and school back home was in French. So I go into the classroom here on day one and start talking French to everyone. Kids was pissin’ themselves laughing. That’s how I got the name.’
‘When did you start rapping?’
‘Age twelve. Them days you had Choong Fam in Brixton. “Pain Don’t Stop”, you know it?’
He shook his head.
‘Talks about trying to find some peace in life when there’s this pain that just won’t go away.’
Boateng swallowed, nodded slowly. That was the reason he was here.
‘They was the early days. When I was a youth, grime was just starting and man hadn’t even heard of “drill” music.’ His mates laughed.
‘Got some bars for me then?’ Boateng smiled, raised eyebrows. He knew it was a tipping point for the encounter.
Froggy didn’t reply, seemed to be weighing something up. Like he might’ve given too much away already, made himself vulnerable. Boateng kept half an eye on the Puffa jacket. Then Froggy’s face cracked a big grin and he glanced around his buddies. ‘Shit. Where’s Ishaq when you need him? Gimme a beat, cuz.’
His white friend produced a smartphone, swiped and tapped a few times before a tinny drum snare started up, staccato, stabbed with a violin sample. The South Asian guy was filming on his mobile.
Froggy began nodding, wrapped the chain leash around his wrist. ‘Yeah, it’s Froggy, straight outta Brikky,’ he paused a beat. ‘Sixteen bars, check it. Man might say I’m crazy, government call us lazy, ca the weed smoke here gettin’ hazy, but you know them haters don’t faze me. See Froggy hustle in the ends, rolled deep from way back when, keep an enemy close like a friend, ca bare man them bring a skeng. Gotta watch your back for the feds, just clap a man bla-bla dead, better know that path that you tread, ’fore the Five-O lick off your head. When the informer get found, then shh don’t make no sound, fill a hole six feet in the ground, with a snake man around A-Town. Brra.’ He continued bobbing his head, the crew making long, low noises of appreciation. One fired an imaginary gun into the air.
Froggy had a decent flow but Boateng wasn’t sure about the lyrics. Were they generic references to violence or a coded warning for him? Maybe that was just paranoia – chances were it was written before the rapper had ever heard of Roy Ankrah. He waited for the excitement to die down. ‘Nice rhymes, you’ve got skills.’ Extended a hand. Froggy stared at it a few interminable seconds, looked up again at the journalist he’d just met and slapped palms, linking thumbs.
‘Is there someplace we can sit and talk?’ asked Boateng. ‘In private.’
Froggy exchanged a glance with the Puffa, nodded almost imperceptibly and turned to Zac. ‘Come on, Roy, my yard’s just across the way.’
Chapter Twenty-Two
Long. Saturdays always were: solid classes till half nine. Finally everyone had gone home, but Trent Parker stayed in the studio. Training time. He closed the door, selected a breakbeat track off his phone, cranked up the sound system. Let the drums and organ riff echo around the room. Got warm with some toprocking moves, back and forth, side to side. Watched himself in the full-length mirror, checked his footwork. Thought about that buff girl from his street dance session earlier. Turned up with those hot pants on. Fitter than his baby mum. Worth getting her number if she came again next week. Had to be eighteen, right? Seventeen, maybe. Imagined teaching her all kinds of extra things…
The thud and tinkle of shattering glass wrenched him back.
Must’ve come from the corridor, since the building was soundproofed. One of the framed photos fallen off the wall? Seemed weird. Then another possibility dawned on him and his pulse quickened.
Parker stopped dancing, walked towards the doorway. Thought he heard movement but the music was too loud to be sure. ‘Who’s that?’ he called. No response. Stepped silently into the dim space outside the studio. Saw the mess of broken glass down to his left. Then his head snapped around and the burst of light in his vision turned to black as his legs buckled.
* * *
Next moment he was awake, head swimming. What happened? Felt like he was pissed, drugged up. Last thing he remembered was warming up in front of the mirror. Same windowless studio he was in now, except he wasn’t dancing. He couldn’t move. Seated, wrists tied down. Ankles too. Hard plastic that bit his skin. Belt around his waist held him to the chair. Side of his head started to throb, blood pulsing inside his right temple. Parker looked up to the big mirrors, clocked himself, then the figure standing behind him wearing a white face mask. Tried to say ‘What the fuck?’ but it came out slurred: ‘Whahefu?’ Brain started processing. He knew who it was.
Darian Wallace’s face came into focus as he lifted off the mask. Teardrop tattoo, lean face, sharp cheekbones, thin smile. ‘Thought it would make things a bit more dramatic, you know?’
Parker stared at his old friend’s reflection in the mirror, swallowed.
‘One ninety-nine from a fancy-dress shop.’ Wallace pushed out his lower lip. ‘Not bad. Like the Jabbawockeez crew wear. You’d appreciate that, Trent, dancers who choose to hide their faces.’
‘Let me go, man.’ Parker pulled his wrists against the chair arms. He was sharpening up now.
Wallace chuckled. ‘No fun being held captive, is it?’
‘Fucking psycho!’
‘Let me give you some advice, mate. Don’t make this any harder for yourself. You’re not in a position to be backchattin’ me.’
Parker’s breathing was quicker; he fidgeted in the chair, drove his legs against the plastic clips at his ankles. ‘The fuck do you want? I’m the one who lost his jewels, his money.’
‘Didn’t lose your freedom though, did you? Your girl. Your name on the street.’ He came closer to Parker, bent down. ‘Didn’t have to defend yourself against some big fat battyman in the pen. Or anyone else who decides you looked at them funny in the lunch queue when no one’s got your back. Man get all kind of shit flown inside by drones.’ Wallace lifted his top, revealed a six-inch scar above the hip. ‘Including a switchblade, turns out. Some guy tried to do me in, God knows why. He smoked a lot of skunk, probably made him hear things. Might’ve died if it’d gone any deeper. I was lucky. You did that. Course, things didn’t work out too well for that kid. I couldn’t risk him having another go, so I got myself on cleaning duty in his wing. Two weeks later he was staring off the fifth-floor balcony outside his cell, high off the smoke again. Didn’t see me. I caught his knees from behind, tipped him over. Man landed head first, it was a mess. But I wasn’t on cleaning rota for the ground floor,’ he chuckled.
Parker was silent.
Wallace’s laugh ended abruptly. ‘That’s before we get to my mum. On her own in a care home for two years. Couldn’t see her. She couldn’t visit me. Didn’t know where I was. You made that happen too.’
There was anger in Wallace’s voice, but not as much as Parker had expected. That worried him. He was detached, calm. Distant.
‘Had to kiss man’s arse, suck up to the screws, do laundry for time. Clean the floors. Go to classes on good behaviour where a psychologist that didn’t know me chatted shit. Then I got a year off. And here I am. You should’ve got out of London while you had the chance, Trent.’
‘Where could I go? You know I got no money now. The feds are on me, too – I’m watching my back the whole time.’
‘Am I supposed to feel sorry for you? You’re a snitch.’
‘Darian, I had to. My kid was only—’
‘Had to? Jesus Christ. We were like brothers, man. And you betrayed that. Like some Biblical shit. You know what the Old Testament says? Eye for an eye.’