The Chain around her Neck

The Chain around her Neck

By:

Goke Akinniranye

Three months ago, Biko’s sister, Obinna, was kidnapped. She was last seen crossing a busy intersection in London one night. A black van pulled up across from her and two men grabbed her kicking and screaming. Everyone said they didn’t know anything, only that she was taken. Biko knew something was wrong because she always came home on time. In the last three months, Biko had no leads except the black van. Everyone said they didn’t catch a look at the men. The police didn’t care. It was only one black girl. They dropped the case in two weeks. Biko and his sister had been living in London for almost a year. They left Nigeria for a better life and because Biko was a wanted man. He wanted to be a good man and he paid for it.

In London, Biko worked as a security guard. He knew how to take orders. He knew how to carry gun. The job was familiar to him, so he took it; Obinna worked as a maid. They were saving money so she could go to school. She wanted to be a doctor. They nearly reached their goal until she was kidnapped three months ago.

Biko asked people who frequented the area about the kidnapping. Some were forthcoming. Some had to be persuaded, sometimes with his fists. She was taken was near the red-light district. Immigrant women had been stolen before by pimps or blackmailed into prostitution, with the fear of being deported. The pimps ruled the area, exerted power with stern hands. No one dared speak against them, even if it meant being beaten by a former soldier. That’s why Biko was a wanted man. That’s why he had to flee the motherland. He had a friend in England who could help him. His grandparents told him to take his sister. She had no opportunities here. At a young age, she was sharp, studious, and frequently. Biko’s grandparents tried to get her into an elite school, but to no avail; They had neither money nor resources to provide her that opportunity. Not even money to bribe the guards to let her peek through the window of the morning arithmetic course. She attended the school around the village, but there was no opportunity beyond secondary school. Biko knew England would provide her with opportunities to reach her dreams, dreams she could barely grasp back home. He took her and they found a flat in Croydon.

Biko was a quiet tenant with diffident eyes. He paid his rent and kept to himself; his landlord adored him. He was enigmatic to many and most would be lucky to receive a nod from him. He was preoccupied with thoughts of the past, present, and future. His sister was kidnapped three months ago.

Biko learned there was a camera at the intersection, but it was dismantled after the kidnapping. He found the man who mounted and dismounted the camera and asked him politely for the tape. He told him he was looking for his sister. The man was jowly and pale with a fat, ham like neck and beady eyes. He spit in Biko’s face and laughed so his brown bean teeth would be in full view. Biko grabbed him by his lapels and pressed him against the wall. The man quickly learned Biko had cracked skulls in the past and surrendered the tape. Biko viewed the tape at home-blurry-but he could tell the two men who captured her were black, one of them probably Nigerian. He could tell.

The biggest clue was the man at the wheel. Like the cameraman, he also had beady eyes along with a ratty mustache. Biko could see him barking at the two men while they struggled with his hysterical sister. He was the boss. He was the pimp. Biko had a lead.

At night, neon light pervaded the streets of downtown London. Rich, white kids escaped their suburban enclaves to venture the notorious clubs where drugs were passed around like candy. Prostitutes were at the corner of every street, as common as houseflies. The screams of beaten women were overtaken by the pulsating beat of the latest track while people blissfully ignored the hell fire around them. The street was dirty and wet that night when Biko entered the area with a tire iron in one hand and a clenched fist in other. Tonight he was going to find answers. Tonight he was going to find his sister.

His friend, Chewitel, an old friend from his war days who had moved to London a few years ago, got him access to the club enclave. This is where the man with scruffy mustache often went. His name was Ralph. He controlled a huge piece of the cocaine distribution and entered the flesh trade a few years ago. In no time, he had already left his mark. A violent, controlling drunk he who was rumored to kill at least one of his girls a month, often in a fit of rage. Biko entered the club through the back door and swam through the mass of people. In the center right, he saw a large, black man with skin like charred meat and one droopy eye in the VIP section surrounded by several scantily clad women of various colors. He looked important. He knew something. The man’s bodyguard tried to stop Biko from entering, but he bashed their skulls with the tire iron before they could reach their weapons. The sound of metal cracking skull was a familiar sound; it sounded like men and women crying at the sight of their loved one’s bashed head painting the pavement crimson red. The fat man tried to grab his gun, but Biko knocked it out of his hand with side of his tire iron and gave him a strong blow in the paunch. The man kneeled over and spit blood. The girls scattered like frightened rats.

“Who the fuck do you think you are?” he sputtered, while spitting up blood.

Biko grabbed him by his collar and shoved the picture of Ralph in his face.
“I don’t know who the fuck that is,” he said bold as brass

Biko clenched his fist and gave him another punch. The fat man groaned again and fell over; his lips were now a cherry red. The commotion of the nightclub masked his screams like those of the prostitutes trolling the corners, desperate for help. Biko was impatient. He had enough. He raised his arm with tire iron in hand, but the man shouted, “STOP!”
“He’s upstairs. That’s where he hides the girls.”

Biko muttered to himself while looking down at the floor. In seconds he looked up with eyes wide and violent. Among the wall of sound, there was a sharp crack. A large heavy set man was lying in a pool of blood while clubbers were dancing to the pulsating beat. Biko found the secret stairs behind the VIP room and went up. It was like a dungeon. Several girls were chained, some unconscious, some still crying for hope. Biko saw Ralph grabbing a girl by the face, squeezing it while screaming at her. Two bodyguards flanked him. She wasn’t eating.

“You know what happens to girls who don’t eat, don’t you,” Ralph said with a rictus smile. He slowly pulled a hammer from his pocket, but one of the bodyguards pointed out Biko’s appearance. Ralph’s smile quickly dropped and he sent the two men after Biko. Biko quickly knocked out the first man with his tire iron, grabbed his gun and shot the other. Biko’s father hated the sound of gunfire. He had been surrounded by it when he was soldier during the Nigerian Civil War. Every time he heard gunfire, violent memories flooded back. The same had happened to Biko once, but not here. He was on a mission. The violent memories that surfaced only fueled his rage, as the place he left for turned out to be worse than the place he left.

Ralph was now alone with a man gripping tightly his tire iron.

Blood ran through the floors of the dungeon, and beady eyes now stared up lifeless. Biko looked around, called for his sister. She screamed his name and he ran to her. She had a heavy chain around her neck that was attached to the wall of brick. She was emaciated; Biko broke the chain with the force of his tire iron. Once she was free, they embraced each other and cried. It had been three months, three months of hell for both of them. Biko and Obinna left the club unnoticed and he called the police. They would raid the club and free the girls. The club would reopen by next week with fresh girls stolen from their homes. He knew she couldn’t stay in London any longer. He would have Chewitel send her off to Scotland. Chewitel had family there, good family. Underneath London’s glitzy trappings was an underbelly of violence and despair that almost swallowed his sister. She would be safe in Scotland. She would finally go to university and decide to become social worker. She wanted to help young women who were forced into prostitution. Biko knew vicious men would be after him. He knew they would find and kill him. He had blood on his hands. He had taken many lives. He was a wanted man here and there. He was ready. His sister was safe. He was ready. Biko sat in his flat, quietly staring at the wall, deep in thought about the furies of his past, the blood on his hands, the piercing sound of gunfire and metal pressed against bone. He then heard a hard knock on the door. He was ready.