Power walking toward Camberwell High Street, something other than Dylan's disappearance began to bother me: my hair.
My dual heritage has given me what my mum calls an 'Irish Afro.' I'd washed it the night before and as always post wash it was big and bouncy. It looked and felt great.
But as my springing coils flew about my head and shoulders with a fragrant bounce, I realised my hair wasn't good: for fighting.
The woman at number 13 had grasped madly for my hair, and if she'd have got it, she'd have got me: not good.
So, I made my way to Poundland and used Joshua's money to purchase hairbands and a guys head cap. In the toilets of Maccy D's I scraped my hair back, real tight, winding it into the tightest of coils, before burying it all underneath the tight skullcap.
The brown cap almost matched my skin tone, giving me a shaven headed, androgynous look. I liked it. But more than that, I liked how it made me feel: powerful.
I pondered: perhaps this was the intended use for Joshua's money, to fund our fight; or my fight if I had to go it alone.
###
The café was empty and the guy behind the counter was reading a newspaper. He put it down as I approached, "You've gone all Skunk Anansie, I like it, it really suits you," he said. I assumed he was referring to my hidden hair, but had no idea who he was comparing me to, so I just smiled and said, "Thanks." Then got back to business.
"Any sign of Granny Grace, since I was last in?" I asked.
He perked up, "Yeah, she came in not long after you left, I told her you was looking for her." His words cheered me, at least I knew she was still around and hadn't done a Dylan and disappeared.
Still, I was desperate to find her, "Where was she going going, do you know?" I asked. He laughed and closed his paper again, "I don't know, I'm not her bleeding secretary," he said.
###
Back on the street my frustration mounted. How could I not have exchanged numbers with these people?
I looked left and right, back and forth, and up and down. Busses, ambulances, cars and bikes all jostled for road space; whilst people of every creed and colour did the same on the pavement.
The burden that Joshua spoke of began to weigh me down. I looked at the crowding chaos that is Camberwell and realised that finding Dylan would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.
But I wouldn't, or couldn't give up, that just wasn't an option.
Stepping into a shop front, I tried to think. The possibility that Dylan was being held at 13 Paddock Field was slim, because Joshua had that place under surveillance. What continually kept coming back to me was the dilapidated old party shop, above which The Pastor lived. I was drawn to it, more because it was my only option and I felt I had to visit, if only to dismiss it and move on. And I had another motivation; I had to keep searching, just to keep my mind off two words that haunted me 'incapacitation' and 'decapitation.'
So, I took off, hoping above all else that I might bump into Granny Grace or Joshua on the way.
I didn't.
But Granny Grace's presence made its self-known to me on my journey. I stopped outside a newsagents shop when I saw the sandwich board carrying that evening's headline of the local newspaper, it read: ANOTHER GANGLAND KILLING ON NOTORIOUS SOUTH LONDON ESTATE.
