I remembered the look Hanzi had given me after. When I shook his hand to try and make friends with him. Sorry lad, I’d said. You can hit me back if you want. Wait till I’m bigger, the look said. Then I’ll hit you back.
I didn’t want to go home till I’d got somewhere. I bought more chips for tea. Ate them on the bench in the middle of the avenue. Walked round the block to stretch my legs. Went back to my spot in the side road.
I zipped up my Bergie and sat down by a fence. A narrow view through the cars, across to the alley.
I sat smoking with the taste of the salt and vinegar still on my tongue.
I nodded off like an old skeef. In my dream I got stuck in a lift at the kids’ baths, at the minus-tenth floor.
The sound of the yard gate woke me up.
I fumbled for my phone in the pocket of my Bergie and looked at the screen. It was two in the morning.
The latch on the yard door squeaked and clicked. A figure came out of the alley. Shortish, stocky feller in a black hoodie and black three-stripe trousers. His hood was up. I couldn’t see his face.
He didn’t see me sitting still there in the dark.
He walked off fast.
I got to my feet.
He took the avenue and turned left at the roundabout. Then a side road on the right. Along, along. I followed him some way back, ducking behind parked cars. He hit Lodge Lane. He turned left and crossed over.
I started feeling sick.
He turned off right, didn’t he.
He was walking down my street.
I ducked down behind a parked Suzuki van and watched.
He stopped in front of my door. Looked up and down. Saw there were no lights on. Tried the door.
He crossed the street and stood there looking up at my flat. Both hands in the big front pocket of his hoodie.
He was facing my side of the road. I was peering over the bonnet of the Suzuki, twenty yards away. His hoodie shadowed his face.
He crossed the road again to my door. Took a gun from his hoodie pouch and let it hang by his side.
He stood on the pavement and looked up at my window.
I crept away from the car where I was crouching. When I was nearly at the corner, I straightened up and ran.
18
I stayed in my room at the pub all the next day. Played with my phone. I even got an app to look at the news, like that’d help me. Got bored after about a minute.
No word from Becky.
I did some press-ups and sit-ups.
I couldn’t stay in. I was going off my head. At nine in the evening I went and got sausage and chips with curry sauce. Ate it standing up in the takeaway there. Looking out of the glass front, up and down the street. I drank a bottle of Lucozade.
As I was crossing the road to head back, I heard a voice.
I slowed my step. Wondered whether to turn round. May as well, eh. If they were going to slot me they could do it just as well in the back.
He was standing by a chippie on the corner. Blue denim jacket over a white sweatshirt.
“Alright, Sanky lad.”
I crossed back to him. Funny. He was the one feller I knew who’d most tried to kick my head in. But he was the one I was least scared of. Almost felt like seeing an old mate.
We nodded and stood there with our hands in our pockets.
“Do you want some chips?” I said. Big puff.
“I’ve had some.”
I thought back to the tunnel. “Did you get back alright?”
He nodded.
“I’ve been looking for you,” he said.
“I’ve had to keep my head down.”
“Someone messing with you?”
“Trying to.”
“Want me to make them stop?”
Best offer I’d had all week. I couldn’t make my mind up if it was a good thing or not. Whether it would help things or make them more tricky.
I thought of how he’d pulled on me at the offie. More tricky for sure. Then I thought of how he’d followed me to the big house.
He’d not let me go, would he.
The past few days had given me a bit of a workout. I’d perked up. Not drunk so much. Got my head together a bit. Got the blood pumping. I’d not be getting decked like that again. I reckoned I could have him. But that wouldn’t help.
I looked at him.
“Did you tell your boss what we found?” I said.
He frowned and started walking away from the chippie. Not cool that, eh. Me blabbing about his boss in the street. I had nothing to lose though.
“Is he going to firebomb the big house an’ all?” I said.
Sanky stopped and turned round.
“Do you think he should?”
I shrugged. I lit up a fag. “Who cares what I think?"
"Pazzer does."
“Eh?”
“He wants to meet you.”
I thought back to Paterson’s spy scum training. Some of the crap they’d tried to teach me. But maybe it was useful. About turning tough spots into chances. Maybe this was one.
“Why does he want me?” I said. “I’m nobody.”
“That’s not how it looked at the big house.”
“So you did tell him.”
“I told him I don’t know what was going on there. But whatever it is, you’re up to your arse in it.”
“He’ll have it in for me then.”
“No he doesn’t. I told him what you told me. That you’re not in it with them. He thinks maybe it’s true. Maybe you can help him go after them.”
I laughed. Everyone wanted to spy on the nutjobs but no one dared to go charging down there after them. No one but me was that daft.
“What?” Sanky said.
“Is he sure he wants to take them on? Doesn’t sound like he’s got a plan.”
“He said Paterson was the one with the plan.”
I stood there for a sec and swallowed that. That canny shit Paterson. He never missed a trick did he. I’d known what kind of feller he was, more or less, or so I’d thought. I’d never reckoned he’d jump into bed with the likes of Pazzer.
But why not, eh? The feller had a lot to offer.
I saw what kind of game I was in now, for real. I’d always thought Paterson had at least one foot on the side of the law. I thought that gave me one foot in it too. Now that he was cutting deals with Park Road, I wasn’t so sure.
“Have they been speaking?” I said.
“You got there in the end, eh? We’re working together.”
“Let’s pick up some tinnies and drink to it.”
“Pazzer’s got a better plan.”
He got out his phone.
A bouncer kind of feller picked us up in a black Toyota. He drove us into town. Great George Street. Berry Street.
“Oh, fuck off,” I said. I groaned. I chuckled. Yeah.
We headed up Seel Street.
We pulled up in front of The Kingston.
19
Pazzer had this little hideaway in the back of the club. Through a door at the end beyond the cleaners’ storeroom.
So Pazzer had that Jala cleaning his club. Did he know who she was?
It was posher back there than the rest of the dump. A lounge painted dark red. Black leather sofa and armchair. Coffee table. Crossbow mounted slantwise on the wall. Not an old Robin Hood job like in one of those Irish pubs nearby. A sporty one in black steel that looked like it really worked.
A door led through to another back room. It was shut. Sanky had me stand in the loungey bit and wait for the door to open.
I’d been cacking myself all the way through the lobby and across the dancefloor, thinking we’d run into that Parksey.
I wondered what he’d say when he saw me. He’d work out I wasn’t from the kebab shop like I’d said. Then what would I say when they asked why I’d been snooping round with flyers?
I was trying to breathe and not think too much when Pazzer came out.
I remembered Frank saying he’d
met Pazzer once. He’d been round Frank’s gym. He liked gyms, did Pazzer. You could tell. He was huge. Neck and nose like a horse. Mousey hair shaved to a number three. Light grey suit and a sky blue shirt and brown leather shoes. Red face. His eyes were so watery blue they were almost see-through.
He had a set of keys in his hand. Leather fob with an enamel BMW badge on it. He slipped them in his jacket pocket and sat in the armchair.
He looked me up and down. Sanky touched my arm and pointed to the sofa. He went and stood in a corner.
Pazzer lit up a fag. I sat down on the sofa, settled back and met his gaze.
He spoke.
“Do you know the fellers who ran that shop?”
“Which one?” I said.
He just looked at me.
“The one on Lodge Lane?” I said. “The one that got that got firebombed?”
Still just looking.
“Yeah,” I said.
“How?”
I glanced at Sanky. I turned back to Pazzer.
“I stacked shelves there,” I said. “He knows.”
“And?”
“They’re all dead, aren’t they?”
Some bird in a black dress came in through from the bar. She handed Pazzer a bottle of Becks and put an ashtray on the table.
He looked at me.
“I heard they all got creamed,” I said. “That day when there was the shootings in Bootle.”
“Did you meet the boss?”
Good job I’d not been at the cherry cider, cos it was a tricky one this. Needed to have my head right. Work out what I could tell him and not tell him, without things getting out of hand.
“Once or twice,” I said. “He never came to talk.”
“The one they said ran the bombers. The one who wanted to do a kiddies’ school. What did they call him?”
“Raz.”
He smiled at me for the first time. “He’s the one.”
“The one what?”
He smiled with his lips tight around the bottle as he swigged from it. He kept his eyes on me. Then he took the bottle out of his gob and looked at Sanky. They both chuckled.
“The one shipping guns into town. Without asking me.”
“Sounds like he had it coming.”
“He does.”
“I thought he got slotted by the bizzies already. Thought they all did.”
He swigged again and shook his head.
“How come you stopped working for him?” he said.
I shrugged. “He gave us the boot. About a month before all the shootings.”
“You never wondered why?”
“He just said the shop was shutting. I guessed it was going bust. Wouldn’t be the first.”
He leaned forward closer to me. His pale blue eyes staring me out. “You worked for a jihadi killer,” he said. “And you never had a clue?”
I shrugged again, higher. “I never said I was clever. He just wanted me to watch the shop.”
Bouncer? In a newsagents?”
“He had trouble, didn’t he? Had all sorts dropping by.”
I glanced over at Sanky. Pazzer turned to him too. Sanky looked at me, then at his boss. He nodded.
“I thought you said you was stacking shelves,” Pazzer said.
“I’m a talented lad.”
He sat back and put his ankle up on his knee. He had these socks with diamond shapes on.
I lit up a Regal. Maybe I was meant to ask first. But there he was chugging away. I didn’t care. He wasn’t my nan.
“What’s this Sanky tells us about a tunnel?”
I shrugged. Had to play dumb. I couldn’t be spilling my load about everything I knew, or there’d be none left for Paterson.
“Sanky told me about the girl,” Pazzer said.
I squeezed the filter of my fag. My belly tightened.
I’d not told Sanky a thing about Maya. He must have been talking about Jala.
The way he said it, he didn’t seem to know who his cleaner was. No reason he should know where she lived. Though you’d have thought he’d look into it. I guessed he left all that to his head man. The same one who’d let in a strange lad from the chippie.
He was sloppy, this Pazzer.
I wondered if that would make him easier to play. Or if it would make him like a wobbly step. More of a risk to be around.
“So tell me,” he said. “Why’s that old woman keeping a girl down there in a bathrobe?”
“Your guess is as good as mine.”
He nodded. “Well my first guess would be she’s a hooker. Another thing they’re doing without asking me first.”
I’d hand one thing to Pazzer. He knew what side his bread was buttered on, didn’t he. He could see things clearly, at least as far as the end of his own street. Beyond that? I was starting to think he wasn’t smart enough to see in his own back yard.
That didn’t make him safe. But it might make him easier to handle. I sucked in my smoke in and prayed that it was true.
“You saw her closer up,” he said. “What do you reckon she is? Ukrainie?”
“Darker.”
“Albanian?”
I shook my head. “More like an Arab.”
“An Arab hooker?”
I scratched my head. “I don’t reckon.”
He raised his eyebrows as he supped his Becks.
“Not a hooker,” he sighed. “Then what’s the point?”
So he did have half a brain, this Doberman. He was looking further than his own street corner at least. Sniffing the piss around the lampost there, wondering if it was worth trotting across the road.
I couldn’t just throw him off the scent, could I. I’d have to give him something. I could give him a bit of the truth, eh. Keep him keen and show him I had a brain too.
I didn’t want to tell him about Becky. Not yet. But I could feed him a bit of what she’d dug up. He’d only end up finding it out for himself.
“Maybe the girl’s on the run,” I said. “Like them ones you hear about on the news.”
He looked at me like I’d farted.
“The bizzies want to send them back where they come from,” I said. “But if they do go back, they’re dead.”
“On the run.” He nodded down at his beer. “Maybe. And maybe she’s here for something worse?”
I did my best clueless scally look. It still wasn’t the time to be telling him about his cleaner.
“Maybe she came running for her life,” he said. “Or maybe she’s come for ours.”
I sucked my smoke in deep and blew it out long.
“Maybe she needs help,” I said.
He leaned over and pointed at me. “Or maybe our city needs it.”
“Maybe.”
He winked at me again. “You’ve got a good heart, Azo,” he said. “But keep your eye on the ball. You’re a cricketer, right?”
“No.”
I leaned over and ground my ciggie out in his ashtray. I looked at his bottle. I fancied a drink myself. Hadn’t earned one yet though, had I.
“I don’t know what she’s here for,” I said.
Pazzer finished his Becks and planted the bottle on the table. He sat back and spread his hands palm-down on the arms of his chair.
Beats had started up in the bar. The bass throbbed through the door.
The bird in the party dress came in like magic and cleared away the empty. I watched it go like a sad puppy.
Pazzer was still looking at me but he wasn’t talking. If the chat was over, I made like I didn’t get it. I lit up again and sat back. Like I was too cocky and daft for my own good. Like there was no way I could be one of Raz’s gang.
“Well done for torching his shop, anyway,” I said. “When I heard what he tried to do, I felt like doing the same.”
He grinned. “You didn’t go around telling anyone you’d worked for him, did you?” he said.
“Too right.”
His grin faded. “Things could get sticky for you, if that got out.”
Nice one. I’d gone in there wanting to do like I did with Raz: let him think I was at his mercy. Let him see a chance to milk me. He was getting there all by himself.
I nodded.
His nasty grin had gone but the frowning was worse. I still couldn’t really tell if he was two steps ahead of me or two steps behind. Or whether he was just about to get up and chin me.
“So you knew nothing about what they were up to,” Pazzer said. “But you carry a key to their dungeon in your wallet.”
I sat frozen to the settee with the smoke from my fag rising in front of me.
I looked at Sanky. He stared back at me with his eyebrows raised.
He’d seen me open the trapdoor, hadn’t he. After that a lot of things had happened. I’d stopped thinking about how we got down there. I’d forgotten all about it. Sanky hadn’t.
Pazzer stood up.
He wasn’t that tall. Maybe an inch higher than me, with less neck. But something about him throbbed and filled up the space. All them hours pumping in the gym without thinking about anything. His strength oozed out of him like it had nowhere to go.
Raz had been big and he’d used it, but that was another kind of big. Long-armed and restless. Hardened and polished by sleeping in the desert and fighting in trenches in the dark. Pazzer was another thing. That moody English stillness like he owned the place. When he did move, he looked like he was filled in with concrete.
He stood in front of me.
I looked over at Sanky. He was turning a key in the lock.
“You’re one of them,” Pazzer said.
His bottle was empty. He switched it round in his hand and gripped the neck.
I held my hand up with the fag in it. He batted it away. The burning butt went flying. In the corner of my eye I saw Sanky stamping around on the floor, putting it out.
My hands were either side of me. No chance to move them before he’d break that green bottle on the side of my head.
Pazzer looked down at me for a beat. He had a tram line shaved through one of his eyebrows. He swung the bottle back.
“Not me,” I gasped. “My dad.”
“Who?”
He held the bottle still.
“Who?”
I told him the whole thing.
How Beshat found me. How I killed him.
It took me about five minutes. But he let me get through it. He stayed standing over me with the bottle in one hand.
House of Birds: Forget who you were before... (The Azo Coke thrillers Book 2) Page 9
