Dead Wrong - [49]

‘Joey, you understand who I am and that I’m working for Luke Wallace’s father?’

‘Yeah.’

Now I’d got Joey D I didn’t want to pussyfoot around. As far as I was concerned, the fact that he was here meant he’d talk to me, and I didn’t want to have to drag it out syllable by syllable.

‘Tell me what happened.’

‘I’m not going back,’ he said, ‘I’m not going to be a witness – right? No police, no lawyers. Nothing.’

I felt a flash of anger at all his conditions.

‘Why did you agree to see me, Joey?’

‘I didn’t do it – Ahktar,’ he spoke rapidly. ‘It was my knife but I didn’t kill him. They could charge me, if you tell them about the knife. They’ll think it’s me then. They set Luke up, they can set me up too.’

‘Hang on.’ I rifled in my bag and brought out a small Dictaphone.

‘Oh Christ.’ He shook his head. ‘No way.’

‘Listen,’ I made my voice hard, ‘you telling me that you didn’t do it is not enough. I need an account of what happened and I need it on the record. Especially if you intend to disappear later. If I go back with just your word and no proof to back it up, they’ll be pulling your grandma in for questioning before the week’s out. I need your statement. You say Luke was set up, I need proof. And if you haven’t got the guts to come back and tell-’

‘They’d kill me!’ He became agitated.

I switched on the tape. ‘Who’d kill you?’

‘You don’t get it, do you? They’d kill me. I go anywhere near Manchester, I’m dead.’

‘Who? Why? Look -just tell me what happened,’ I said gently.

He rocked back and forth on the bench a couple of times. Was he going to bolt?

Then he began to talk. ‘We were coming out, been a good night, one of the best. All this energy, you know, no grief. Everyone’s flying. Luke needed to throw up, he’d been mixing it, too much booze. We were gonna meet him outside, on the corner.’

We? Him and Ahktar? I didn’t interrupt.

‘There’s these two guys, this big guy and another one. We’re just going past them and one of them, the shorter one, grabs Ahktar from behind. He’s got his arm up his back and he’s holding his face so he can’t turn round. At first I thought they were fooling around but then they hustled him into the alley. I’m going “Hey, hey, what are you doing, man? Get off him.” They thump him in the guts and I get my knife out, right?’ He swallowed, coughed violently and rubbed his hands on his thighs. The sun was hot. I felt a bead of sweat trickle down my side.

‘This guy turns and he moves so fast, he’s twisting my arm, nearly breaks my wrist and I drop my knife.’

‘Where’s the other one?’

‘Still got Ahktar, he’s got his arms round his neck, holding him up. The one by me, the big one, gets the knife and…shit.’ He squeaked the last word and fished in his pockets. Pulled out a packet of Benson & Hedges. It wasn’t a cigarette he lit up but a small joint. Oh great, I thought. Now he gets busted for smoking dope before I get the full story. But no one blinked an eyelid. He dragged hard, sucking the smoke and holding it deep in his lungs. He erupted in a fit of coughing again.

‘He’s bending down, right?’ His voice was tight. ‘And he’s just got the knife and Ahktar kicks out, kicks him in the face, hard. The guy rears up, he’s screaming and…it happens so fast he sticks the knife in Ahktar. Then, I can’t remember, it was all going off at once.’ He took another toke, held it in, released a stream of smoke.

‘What did Ahktar do?’

‘He smiled,’ there was a note of disbelief in Joey’s voice. ‘The guy lets go of him and starts jabbering on. Ahktar sits down.’

‘What was he jabbering about?’

‘I didn’t get it all. Lot of it was Punjabi or whatever.’

‘They were Asian?’

He nodded. ‘But he was swearing, at his mate. “You fucking prat,” he said, “we weren’t supposed to do him, just a little warning. You stupid cunt, you stupid, stupid fucking cunt.” He’s really going mental. I shouted to them to get an ambulance and I called Ahktar. He’s slumped over. I tried to get near but the guy that done it’s between us. I’m calling, “Ahktar, Ahktar,” and the guy stares at me. I say, “He needs an ambulance, he could die, man.” He just stares at me, really freaky, then the little one starts screeching again, really losing it. “You done wrong,” he’s going, “you done wrong, man. What’s he gonna do when he finds out?” On and on he goes till the big one tells him to fucking shut up. I could see all this blood soaking through Ahktar’s jacket and I legged it. I wanted to get help. The big guy comes after me.’ He shuddered and drew hard again on his joint. ‘He pulled me back into the alley. He got me real close and said he’d find me. if I breathed a word he’d find me and he’d kill me. He asked me if I understood. I said yes. Then he got my hand. He twisted my finger back.’ He rubbed his little finger, looking at it as he spoke. I could see it was slightly crooked. ‘It snapped, he broke it.’ Joey began to shake. ‘He asked me again if I understood and I said yes. Christ, it fucking hurt. Then he broke the other one next to it. I was crying, right, and he slapped me. Told me to shut up. He said if he ever heard of me, any whisper about it, he’d find me and he would kill me very slowly, bit by bit.’ Joey paused. ‘I went home,’ he said flatly, ‘I rang an ambulance up on Oxford Road. Then I went home.’