Her chopsticks rolled off the bowl’s lip and twinkled over the concrete floor. Imany landed in the real world, aware of the cooling dinner on her lap, mounded with rice she didn’t want.
Someone stopped outside her door. A few seconds delay. A hesitant knock.
Kasia. What did she want? Imany opened the door and found Sermon with her, wearing a principled frown. She tutted.
“Off to play cowboys and revolutionaries against the landlord or something, is that it?”
They both looked down. With a disappointed exhale Imany left the door open and arranged somewhere for them to sit. Kasia found the room messier than usual; full of uneaten food and unwashed laundry. The Taoist shrine’s offering bowl fought for space with a can of cockroach spray. In it’s incense burner, cigarette butts.
The guests sat on the bed. Imany stood over them, arms folded, and waited.
“You basically sussed it out…” Sermon nodded thoughtfully, “we know where she is, we know how to get to her, and there’s no other way.”
“I’ve been stewing over her too, silicon-faced little bint....” Imany sighed, “but if you turn up at her door so much could go wrong, no matter how well you behave.”
“Ideally we’d have someone with us who could handle confrontation,” his brow raised, “someone old school who can regulate without creatin’ a scene.”
“Can’t set your Red mates on her then, gotta rely on some old bird with no social media?” Imany pondered, “go on. Where is she?”
Sermon grit his teeth. His head cocked sideways.
“Islington.”
She flapped her about up and scoffed. Sermon tried to calm her down.
“Jason’s sortin' us a cab. We’ll take it offline for a few hours and go for a spin.”
At once Imany laughed and shivered. Sermon turned to Kasia for help.
“Imany you know this shit better than anyone! Do one more job for the road! If this works you’ll help the entire estate. And you told me I should ask for help more, so…” Kasia reached inside her hoodie, pulled her knife out, and offered it to Imany, “are you with us?”
Sermon’s eyes bulged at the weapon in Kasia’s hand. Imany pushed it aside with the back of her fingers.
“I gave you that to defend yourself and your girl, not to shank landlords.”
“You gave that to Kash!?” Sermon scoffed, “Gwarn’ Imi let’s have one as well! The three of us together, we’ll turn that bitch’s mansion into Samurai Champloo!”
Imany glared. Her arm reached under the sink and pulled out a cardboard tube. Out of it slipped a lacquered scabbard. She drew out a katana, hissing against its cover, serrated with glittering black and silver.
It whirled around the room. A metallic note sang flat in the air. The blade’s tip stopped at Sermon’s face, and as he reeled back it pursued, pressing a dimple in his chin.
“Is this what you want, is it?” Imany sneered, “spill some blood but it’s alright if it’s for poor people?”
“All we wanna do is have a word with her!” Sermon made a gesture of surrender, “the sword can stay in the glove box.”
“‘Ave a word… Why the fuck would she listen to you either of you? Hmm!? She’s been raised from birth to believe she’s better than you, and she is.”
Sermon turned to stone. Kasia tried to help.
“We’ll just talk… if she refuses to help us, maybe then we try something else. Make her help…” Kasia realised how amateur she sounded. Imany’s sneer twisted into a smile, shaming her. The katana swung right and lifted Kasia’s chin, until she faced its wielder.
“You’re gonna make her… She’ll have enough solicitors on this estate to bury you under it. Even if all you did was talk, she’d still string you out for daring to.”
“But we wouldn’t be breaking any -”
“Who’d give a shit!? Better women than you have been punished without breakin’ the law. People like Ali Hogarth ain't like vagrants. If you threaten her sense of power and control she’ll wanna destroy you.”
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Imany raised the sword and rested it on her shoulder. Her gaze wandered off.
“When those vagrants attacked our homes I got one of them as they fled. Young-ish lad, one rung of the ladder below you Kasia. I pinned him to the floor and cracked his skull against it - took him out in one. Those detectives knew I did it and didn’t care; the locals saw me do it and never spoke up; no one cared. If someone gets you Kasia, that’s all you will be to everyone above us.”
“So what do we do then!? Rise above it!?” Kasia stood up, taller than Imany but still inferior, “you’ve always looked out for us, you can handle yourself like no one I’ve ever met. So you either join us, or we are gonna try on our own.”
Sermon watched cautiously. Imany rotated the katana in a semi circle and sheathed it.
“I’m gonna talk to the letting agency. Online, the proper way. Without you two pissin’ around behind my back. If I get no reply, I promise,” she shook her weapon, “we’ll start speakin' in Japanese.”
Free of any sword hanging over his head, Sermon pulled himself up and tutted.
“Yea and by that point she’ll be prepared for us, whereas now -”
“You two need stop actin’ like heroes, 'cause you ain’t!”
“We can’t do nothin’!”
“I’m not sayin’ that though am I!”
“Bull shit! Do it the proper way… has your own life not taught you yet Imi?” he held his finger aloft and made a line with it, “you take that high road you ain’t findin’ any friends up there...”
Imany rolled her eyes, “the thought of you two, lost in Islington, hidin’ under your hoodies like some knock-off Opus Veda. Listen carefully: you gotta escalate this kind of thing piece by piece. If you turn up on her door straight away she’ll have your guts, but if we can evidence we tried to do things normally, and got ignored in response, then maybe the police - and the public - will take our side when we get more violent.”
Sermon exhaled through his nose and shook his head with disbelief, “one email?”
“One. Then you can both die on your landlords doorstep,” she held the door open and ushered her guests out, “assuming the revolution doesn’t kill you first. Either way you ‘re startin’ to fuckin’ deserve it.”
* * *
Being at her fiancé’s workplace like this felt strange to Scarlett. She didn’t know what to wear, surrounded by volatile police officers at a time when suspicions were high. To try fitting in she had opted for some of Gemma’s clothes - muted everyday staples - and hidden her messy dyed hair under a slouch beanie.
Southwark Police Station was busy with staff, but chilly with tense silence. With the ongoing security risk their casualties had been kept on-site, cordoned off in a triage ward in some shadowy corner of the brutalist old building. Brandishing her visitor pass like a shield, Scarlett followed the reception officer around gloomy corridors stacked with office furniture and ancient hardware, until they reached a door draped with plastic flaps. She marched ahead of the officer and pushed into the ward.
Two rows of teal curtains greeted her, joined by a corridor of huddling, gowned medical staff. A nurse opened one of the curtains. Behind it two orderlies folded up an empty hospital bed.
A fatality? Scarlett's heart thumped. Her mind questioned the worst for a second. The reception officer grabbed her attention, pointing to where she needed to go. She stepped ahead and slipped between the curtains.
"Oh Christ..."
Gemma craned her neck. Her narrow eyes forced themselves open. She was lying flat, bundled under blankets and attached to machines. An oxygen mask covered her face. Her olive skin had turned ashen.
Scarlett pecked Gemma's forehead with her lips, then pressed her nose against it. Gemma's chest rose in response. They held together for a minute, until Scarlett noticed the clutter over the bedside table. She sat on the chair and began arranging everything just as Gemma would like.
“I know what you would say right now: I should have stayed at uni, you didn’t need me to visit. The thing is, today’s lecture is ‘diversity struggles in early 21st century cinema’, which will be us watching clips of smug Hollywood liberals getting savaged by sexless autistic men. Even hanging out with you is less depressing, so I blagged this visitor pass and came to bother you.”
Gemma’s eyes squinted; wrinkles spread from their side. Behind her mask she was smiling. She tried to push her hand up. Scarlett caught it with her own hand and intertwined their fingers. Before she could say anything else, Gemma was unconscious.
The curtain rustled. A hunched figure limped through it, bruised and leaning on a crutch. Scarlett pouted.
“Life is indeed cruel, if someone like you comes out of a terrorist attack better than my future wife did.”
Luis held his free hand to his heart, “Scarlett it's so nice to see you. Been a while.”
She stood up and offered the chair, “I came as soon as I found out but... what the hell actually happened?”
Luis sat down with a wince.
“The good news is our Superintendent is having the shittest week of his career. Possibly his last. He chose to have us go after that exposed terrorist, in that whimsical, spur-of-the-moment way middle managers like do to things. One of the bastards must have slipped a bomb in our car. Four dead. Seven in serious condition. Gemma's lucky to have her limbs attached; some of our teammates won't be walking again," he frowned, "did you not even hear the blast?”
Scarlett looked down and shook her head, "it wasn't even on the news. If you hadn't messaged me I wouldn't have known."
“It was a warning. Opus Veda kept it away from the public and media, got their spy back undercover, and made it clear to our department that if we keep coming after them, we’re fucked.”
“And are you?” she gripped Gemma’s flaccid hand, “going after them again.”
“Better not be… apparently it’s gone back up to the Home Sec. We're waiting to find out our boss's fate, then we'll learn ours.”
The reception officer opened the curtain. It was time for Scarlett to leave. She kissed Gemma's hand, nodded to Luis, and left.
Luis propped himself up with his crutch and ambled back to his own bed. His battered overcoat hung over the bedside table. It's inner pocket bulged. He reached into it and pulled out the evidence bag - a stack of photos telling the story of a sister doomed by cancer and poverty, and a brother one tragedy away from terrorism.
He groaned. Bored, alone, and powerless to change anything. He wanted this limbo to end.