"Ali, hey whats up? You know its like 8 in the morning right?" I might enjoy hearing his voice but still it was 8 in the morning and I came in late. He knew that.
"Nilly they have raided the base Tyrian was taken by the police I don't know where Myrtle or Indigo are. Whether they have gotten away or if they have been caught. Nilly I don't know what to do." I heard a small sob on the other end of the phone. I can't believe this was happening everything was going wrong.
"Ali come straight here we can talk about what we are going to do. Please don't do anything drastic. Just come" I heard him put down the phone. I hoped he was on his way. This is bad. I didn't think that it could get so bad.
Looking around my room I could see everything that I stole or bought with the money from items we fenced. I have to get rid of at least the items that were stolen. I cleared out my locked box which held a few things and put them into the nearly full backpack from last nights fiasco and waited for Ali to come.
It felt so long by the time I heard the knock on the door I was worried he did a runner and left me. I ran over to the door to let him in. He looked terrible as if he hadn't slept at all. I brought him into my room so we could speak more privately.
"What did you see?" I let him sit on my lounger he deserved the rest.
"I went back to the base after dropping you off and there were police cars everywhere. I hid in a bush across the road. I saw them drag out Tyrian and lead him into a car. He broke free and ended up fighting the cops. I don't know how many officers went into the base but a few came out with boxes of our loot that we were going to fence. We can never go back there again. That was my home and they took everything." He looked so down trodden, I can't believe this.
"Ali I know this is hard but I have to ask..." I took a deep breath before continuing, it felt like I had been holding my breath for a while. "What happens if Tyrian snitches." I already knew the answer I could see it in his eyes.
"If he snitches then the police will come knocking won't they." He started crying I have never seen Ali this vulnerable before. " I am so sorry I shouldn't have dragged you into this. Nilly I don't want to lose you."
I had to think what could we do. I looked around my room my eyes landing on my chest where I stashed my rucksack.
"We need to get rid of this stuff maybe we can dump it somewhere" I tried to think of all the places we could dump this stuff. At the pier, bury it out in the woods. So many places ran through my mind that I didn't notice that Ali had stood up.
"Nilly there is no way to be sure that you won't get in trouble with the police, But if I took the loot that we had gotten from the Tussock's and handed myself in. I can at least make sure that they leave you out of it." This was going way to fast. He wanted to sacrifice himself for me.
"You can't do that Ali. It's my fault I wanted to do a house. I wanted more than I could handle. If it is anyone's fault then it is mine. Please don't do this Ali I just couldn't bear it."
It was too late he had made up his mind there was nothing that I could have done to change his mind. I relented and gave him my rucksack. I asked him if he wanted me to come with at least to the police station but he just kissed me and told me to wait.
He looked back at me with such sad eyes.
"Nilly don't ever forget that I love you!" He turned and walked out of my door. That was the last I saw of Alizarin Crimson.
I wasn't allowed to go see him at all whilst the trial was on. He kept true to his word and I was never questioned. The papers where up in arms about the 'widespread' crime spree. Anzac was fine he was in hospital for a while with injuries from the fall but he didn't die. They treated it as if Ali had pushed him down the stairs. How I wanted to scream and shout to tell everyone what really happened.
Several weeks after after Ali handed himself, I read the morning newspaper. Ali was charged with burglary and assault he was given 7 years.
I ran to the toilet the stress of the trial had made me ill and hearing his sentence was the final straw.
Oh dear :/ At least he's keeping her out of it. I guess he had just been feeling too sure of himself and didn't know how to handle it when things started falling apart? Silly boy - you always expect something to go wrong in this business, Ali! :/ Seven years... He might see her after that, right? Or surely she can visit him? It's not like he killed someone, he's hardly going to be forbidden to have any human contact oO
ReplyDeleteYou never know it could start raising questions after keeping her out of it. As if Albus (her dad) would let her go to a prison to visit a criminal.
DeleteA lot can change within seven years so who would know ;-)