“Yes.”

“So a friend of a friend says to me he’s heard of a younger who’s just starting running with Pops’s crew, that he’s got some backbone. Sound like anyone you know?”

“I guess.”

Bizness snorted. “You guess.” He looked him up and down. “You’re big for your age.”

“Big enough,” he said defensively.

“That’s right, bruv. Big enough. I like it. It ain’t the size of the dog in the fight, it’s the size of the fight in the dog, that right? You got some balls, younger. I like that. How old are you?”

“Fifteen.”

“Fifteen. Just getting started in the world. Getting a name for yourself. Getting some respect. That’s what you want, right?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“Yeah. You’re at what I’d call a crossroads, right — it’s like Star Wars. You watched that, right, that last film?”

“Course,” he replied indignantly.

“And it’s shit, right, for the most part, except there’s that one bit that makes sense, you know where Anakin has that choice where he can either go the good way or the bad way? The light or the dark? He thinks like he’s got a choice, but he ain’t got no choice at all, not really. It’s an illusion. The dark side has him by the balls and it ain’t never going to let him go. Destiny, all that shit, you know what I mean? That’s where you are, blood. Your teachers, the police, the social, your Mums — they’ll all say you got a choice, you can choose to try hard at school, get your exams, get a job, except that’s all bullshit. Bullshit. Brothers like us, we ain’t never going to get given nothing in this world. Trouble is, a black man loves his new trainers too much. Right? And if we want to get the stuff we like, we gonna have to take it. Right?”

“Yeah.” Elijah laughed, nervously. Bizness was charismatic and funny, but there was a tightness about him that made it impossible to relax. Elijah got the impression that everything would be fine as long as he agreed with him. He was sure that arguing would be a bad idea.

“So we agree that getting busy on the street is the only way for you to get along in this world. It ain’t easy, though, not on your own. Lots of brothers all got the same idea. You want to be successful, you want the kids you hang around with to take you seriously, you need to build up your rep. I can help you with that. You start hanging out with me, your little friends all find out you’re in my crew, how quickly do you think that’s going to happen?”

Elijah could hardly keep the smile from his face. “Quick,” he said.

“No, not quick, blood — instantaneously.” Bizness clicked his fingers. “Just like that. So when I heard that was this new younger on the street, already making a name for himself, getting some respect, I say to myself, that’s the kind of little brother I used to be like, maybe there’s something I can do to help get himself started in life. I’ll do it for you, I guarantee it, but first I need you to prove to me that you’re up to it.”

“I’m up to it,” Elijah insisted. “What is it? What do I have to do?”

“Nothing too bad, I just got something I need taking care of for a little while. You reckon that’s the sort of thing you could do for me?”

“Course,” Elijah said.

Bizness took a Tesco carrier bag and dropped it into Elijah’s lap. It was heavy, solid. It felt metallic.

“Take this home and keep it safe. Somewhere your Mums won’t find it. You got a place like that?”

Elijah thought of his comic box. “Yeah,” he said, “she don’t never come into my room anyway, I can keep it safe.”

“Nice.”

“What is it?”

Bizness grinned at him. “You know already, right?”

“No,” he said, although he thought that perhaps he did.

“There’s no point me telling you not to look, I know you will as soon as I’m gone. Go on, then — open it.”

Elijah opened the mouth of the bag and took out the newspaper package inside. He unfolded it carefully, gently, as if afraid that a clumsy move might cause an explosion. The gun sat in the middle of the splayed newspaper, nestling amongst the newsprint like a fat, malignant tumour. He tentatively stretched out his fingers and traced them down the barrel, the trigger-guard, and then down the butt with its stippled grip. His only knowledge of guns was from his PlayStation, and this looked nothing like the sleek modern weapons you got to use in Special Ops. This looked older, like it might be some sort of antique, something from that Call of Duty where you were in the war against the Nazis. The barrel was long and thin, with a raised sight at the end. The middle part was round and bulbous and, when Elijah pushed against it, he found that it was hinged, and snapped down to reveal six chambers honeycombed inside. A handful of loose bullets gathered in the creases of the newspaper.

“What is it, an antique or something?”

“Don’t matter how old it is, bruv. A gun’s a gun at the end of the day. You get shot, you still gonna die. Go on, it’s not loaded — cock it. You know how to do that?”

The hammer was stiff and he had to pull hard with both thumbs to bring it back. He pulled the trigger. The hammer struck down with a solid click and the barrel rotated. The gun suddenly seemed more than just an abstract idea; it seemed real, and dangerous, and Elijah was frightened.

“You keep that safe for me, bruv, and be ready — when I call you, you better be there, no hanging around, thirty minutes tops. Alright?”

“Alright,” he said.

“Aight. I was right about you — someone I can rely on. Yeah. Aight, out you get, younger. I got to get out of here. Supposed to be seeing my manager, you know what I mean? New record out tomorrow.”

He held out his closed fist for Elijah to bump. Elijah did, everything suddenly seeming surreal. He stepped outside, holding the carrier bag tightly; it was heavy, and the solid weight within bumped up against his thigh. The bass in the BMW cranked back up and the engine revved loudly.

Kidz and Little Mark were sitting on a wall waiting for him. They both wore envious expressions, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

“What did he want?” Kidz said.

Bizness sounded the horn twice, let off the handbrake and fish-tailed away from the kerb, wheelspinning until the rubber bit on the tarmac.

“Just a chat,” Elijah said.

“What’s that?” Little Mark said pointing at the bag.

He clasped the bag tightly. “Nothing.”

18

Milton was in the café again at nine o’clock. The proprietor recognised him. “Scrambled eggs with cream, two rashers of bacon and a glass of orange juice?” Milton nodded with a smile and took the same table as before. He unfolded his copy of the Times and turned the pages as he waited. He turned the page to an article on a shooting in Brixton. A young boy, reported to be sixteen years old, had been shot and killed by another boy. He had passed through the territory of a rival gang to see a girl. The story was backed with a comment, the reporter recouping the deaths in what they were calling the Postcode War. Thirty young boys, almost all of them black, killed this year and it was only halfway through August. Most of them shot or stabbed, one bludgeoned to death with a pipe.

The proprietor brought over his breakfast. “Terrible,” he said, nodding at the open newspaper. He was a Greek, his face grizzled with heavy stubble. He had sad eyes. “When I was growing up, you had an argument with someone you knew and the worse thing that’d happen is you end up having a punch-up, get a black eye or a bloody nose. These days, with them all tooled up like they are, all those guns and knives, you’re lucky if you just end up in hospital. And the only thing most of the victims had done wrong was going out of one area and into another.”

“How many of them were from around here?”

“Three. One of them was just down the road. They shot him. Tried to get into the hardware shop but they finished him off before he could.”