by RJ Dark
‘I was just visiting Arthur – he’s a friend.’
‘Right,’ said Jug Ears. ‘A friend … Billy, grab him, like.’
Billy sauntered forward. He didn’t look particularly worried by me, why would he be? A tall, skinny guy already out of breath from a short run.
When he spoke, his accent was so thick I could barely make out the words. ‘I will hurt youse if youse don’t tell him what he wants,’ he said. Or at least I think he did.
‘Sorry,’ I said. ‘Not sure I speak that language.’
A flash of irritation in his eyes.
‘I said, I will hurt you.’ He was fighting to make each word very clear. ‘If youse don’t do, what we want.’
‘No, sorry,’ I said. ‘Not getting it.’
A flash of anger in his eyes and he reached for me with one hand. Jackie had taught me a number of things about violence. The one he said was most effective was: ‘strike first and strike hard. Do as much damage as you can and then get out of there. Most people aren’t prepared for pain, and pain is great leveller when people are bigger or more skilled than you.’
He reached out for me. I grabbed his little finger and twisted it, hard. I either broke it or dislocated it, but the effect was immediate, he screamed in pain. I didn’t stop to observe. I ran for the way out.
Jug Ears caught me.
He was much quicker than I expected. As I ran, he got near enough to kick out at me, catching me in the back of the leg. I lost my footing, had to concentrate on regaining my balance, but put too much thought into that and not enough into where I was going and ran straight into a fence. A moment later, he had his arm round my neck and was pulling me backward.
‘Aww, man,’ he said. ‘You were just going to get a bit of a kicking, for fun like, but now you’ve hurt Billy, and he won’t stand for that. So, you’ll tell us why you were at that house, like, and we’ll hurt you to make sure you’re telling the truth, and I’ll try and make sure Billy don’t cripple you too much, man.’
Billy walked toward me, holding his mangled hand with the other. He grimaced, then straightened his finger. Shouting ‘Fuck!’ as he did it. I’d drastically miscalculated; he was a hard enough man to shake off pain. Which meant I’d broken Jackie’s second rule of violence: ‘don’t miscalculate.’
‘I am going to break every one of your fucking fingers, lad,’ Billy said.
I had no reason to doubt him, and the thought of it made me feel like throwing up. Maybe if I vomited on him, it would scare him away. I’d heard that worked for seagulls.
‘Put him down, boys.’
They turned at this new voice. Jackie stood in the entrance to the old allotment, smiling as he used a toothpick to clean his nails. He looked like he’d come straight from a rehearsal for Saturday Night Fever, wearing a wide-lapelled suit in deep red and a purple shirt open to his navel, exposing the smooth brown skin of his well-muscled chest. I think he’d oiled it.
‘Fuck off,’ said Billy. ‘We’ve a score to settle with this bastard – don’t need some Paki queer interfering.’
The smile fell from Jackie’s face. He walked forward, shaking out his arms, rolling his neck.
‘Why do you have to make it racist, mate? And homophobic? It could just have been a bit of a ruck, innit?’ he said. With every word his accent became more Bradford Asian, the words staccato and cut short. His head moving with the rhythm of his words, eyes wide. ‘Now I’m gon need hurt you, mate, right, innit?’
‘Go back to fucking Islam,’ said Billy.
As Jackie came within reach, Billy threw a punch. Jackie ducked and delivered two return punches to the man’s kidneys that made him grunt in pain. Billy threw another punch and Jackie swayed out the way, still smiling, and then punched Billy on the nose. I heard the bone break, saw the explosion of blood. Then Jackie was in even closer, delivering one, two, three quick punches to Billy’s head with a right hand thick with gold rings. And the man was down.
‘You can’t go back to Islam, you daft bastard,’ he said, the accent gone now. ‘It’s a state of mind, not a place.’ Billy didn’t answer so Jackie turned to Jug Ears. ‘I hope your theology is better than your friend’s.’
Jug Ears threw me to one side and drew a knife from inside his jacket.
‘I am going to cut you up, like.’
‘Oh, for fuck’s sake,’ said Jackie, and he held his head in his hands. ‘Don’t draw that now.’ He pointed at the knife. ‘The time for drawing the knife was when I was occupied with Captain Geography here.’ He pointed at Billy who was lying on the floor, groaning.
‘What?’ said Jug Ears. Plainly, the knife had not got the reaction he’d expected.
‘If you’re the type of guy that was going to use that,’ said Jackie, pronouncing each word slowly and clearly as he pointed at the knife again, ‘you’d have done it when it was two against one and you had the advantage. Now there’s two of us and one of you so we have the advantage. For instance, my mate Mal is about to clock you from behind.’
I wasn’t, of course, but Jug Ears didn’t know that and turned around. As soon as he did, Jackie moved, came forward, grabbed the same arm Jug Ears was holding the knife with and twisted it behind him, making him drop the blade. Then he pushed the arm further up Jug Ears’s back and used the pressure on the joint to march him forward and shove him up against the fence.
‘Who sent you?’ said Jackie.
‘I’m not …’
‘Oh, fuck this. Look, mate, I’m just going to dislocate your arm so you know I mean business then we’ll talk.’
‘No, wait—’ The words broke off into a scream as Jackie did exactly what he said he was going to do.
‘Now, who sent you, or shall I do the other one?’
‘Don’t fucking touch me.’ He was crying, tears streaming down his face.
‘Then tell me.’
‘Trolley Mick sent us.’ Jackie let go of him and stepped back.
‘This, Mal, is a lesson in why when you want something done, you either do it yourself or you pay enough to get people who know what they are doing.’ He shook his head and gently turned Jug Ears round. ‘If you’d told him you were from Trolley Mick at the start’ – he pointed at me, then dusted down the front of Jug Ears tracksuit – ‘he’d have told you what he was doing there.’
‘But …’
‘No buts,’ said Jackie. ‘Violence is the first resort of the idiot, mate. Tell Mick that what he wants is not in that house, then go back to Geordieland. Alright?’
Jug Ears nodded.
‘Come on, Mal.’ Jackie walked away, and I jogged to catch up with him.
‘You need to update your local knowledge. The fence had been fixed – there was no way out.’
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘they did it a couple of months ago.’
I grabbed his arm and pulled him to stop.
‘What?’
‘They fixed it a couple of months ago – Mrs Jillings at number seven is very security conscious because she smokes a lot of weed and it makes her paranoid.’
‘Why did you tell me there was a way out if there wasn’t?’
‘Well, you wouldn’t have brought them here if I’d told you there was no way out, would you?’
‘Of course not.’
‘Exactly,’ he said, and walked off, as if it was the most logical thing in the world. I followed him back to the road.
Jackie was waiting in the driving seat of a blood-red Ferrari and I slipped into the bucket seat beside him. We were moving before I even got my seat belt on.
‘Why are you dressed like that, Jackie?’
‘Like what?’
‘Like John Travolta.’ Which he was.
‘I’m not.’
‘I think you are.’ He really was, though the colour was different.
‘You did just see me take down two armed men, right?’
‘Only one was armed.’
Silence. ‘You are in no position to give fashion advice, Mal.’
&n
bsp; ‘Fair enough.’
More silence.
We listened to the roar of the engine as he short shifted it through streets never designed for low-slung high-performance cars.
‘What happened back there doesn’t make sense, Jackie.’
‘That Trolley Mick doesn’t trust his daughter-in-law?’
‘No, that he brings in people from outside to watch her. Why not use his own people? He has enough – you can’t move for Stanbecks on the Edge.’
‘Thought Benny Callaghan would answer that one for you.’
‘Eh?’
‘Think about it, Mal. Eight million pounds.’
‘He doesn’t trust them?’
Jackie stared ahead and brought the Ferrari to a halt at a red light. A group of teenagers ogled the car and Jackie waved.
‘But they’re his family,’ I said.
‘One of them could be mine,’ he said, staring at the kids.
‘They look a bit, pale.’
‘You are so racist, Mal.’
‘I am not …’
‘Course he doesn’t trust his family. Mick’s not big on trust, never has been. He can barely trust most of his family with a tenner bag of gear. Eight million pounds – that’s just too much temptation.’
‘But everyone’s frightened of Trolley Mick.’
‘He’s getting old.’
‘So, he’s bringing people in.’
‘Not good people, though,’ said Jackie. ‘He’s always been cheap. Might change now though.’
He dropped me back at my office before driving off to do whatever Asian men dressed like John Travolta did on a Tuesday night.
9
WEDNESDAY
Jackie used to hit me in the face.
‘Mal, I’m going to hit you in the face.’
‘Please don’t.’
‘I’m going to hit you in the face, and I want you to try and stop me.’
‘I don’t know how.’
‘I’ll show you.’
And he did. At first, he threw the punches slowly. He didn’t teach me to block, not yet, just taught me to dodge as the punch came in. Sway to the right or to the left. Slowly, he built up the speed of the punches and I built up a little muscle. Sometimes, he’d surprise me with a swing. At first, I got a lot of bruises, then gradually fewer and fewer. I don’t remember when he started putting in the second punch. I remember my jaw aching for days though. He never taught me blocks; just said to avoid the punch.
So, I learned to avoid it. My reactions speeded up. He said that would help with the rest; I told him I didn’t really want the rest, and Jackie just smiled.
Wednesday was Beryl’s day off, so I had to make my own tea, which meant I had coffee which Beryl said was a ponce’s drink. I spent the morning doing admin, which was also Beryl’s job, but she hated admin and very rarely did it, so I put Wednesday aside to get it done. Then she couldn’t hover about in the background complaining that I was ‘doing her job’ and ‘trying to get rid of her’ or feel smug that she was getting me to do work that she was paid for. I know that those two ideas seemed diametrically opposed, but Beryl is a complicated woman.
I’d had one coffee and was starting to put my expenses onto the spreadsheet when the Stanbeck twins arrived. They didn’t knock, only rattled the door more and more loudly until I answered. It was like the concept of a door being locked to them just wasn’t in their minds. I didn’t really want to let them in after yesterday’s adventures with Mick’s Geordies, but the fact the Twins were, in their own way, knocking rather than just kicking the door in probably meant they weren’t coming to do me harm.
Probably.
I opened the door, and they entered. They still had that wariness about them, as if they knew they weren’t really welcome. I suppose they rarely were.
‘Still no TV,’ said Kray One.
‘It’s not conducive,’ said Kray Two.
‘Can I help you, boys?’ I said. ‘Or did you just come to see if I’d bought a TV?’
‘Are you going to get one?’ said Kray One.
‘Not for the office.’
‘It’s not conducive,’ said Kray Two. He put a lot of effort into the word ‘conducive’ and I think he was a little hurt that his brother wasn’t complimenting him on his expanded vocabulary.
‘Da sent us,’ said Kray One, a little sulkily.
‘To say sorry,’ said Kray Two.
‘Sorry?’
‘For the guys,’ said Kray One.
‘Guys?’
‘Who were gonna hurt you. Da said that wasn’t their job. They’ve been dealt with,’ said Kray Two.
‘Dealt with?’
‘Sent back, you know,’ said Kray One. He pointed out the door. ‘To wherever they came from.’ He stopped and his brother filled in.
‘London,’ said Kray Two.
‘I think,’ I said, ‘that they were from Newcastle.’
‘Is that not London then?’ said Kray One. Two pairs of pale eyes locked on to me, as if I was challenging everything they believed.
‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Yeah, it is London.’ Some battles aren’t worth fighting.
They nodded in unison.
‘Da wants to know what you found at Janine’s mam’s,’ said Kray Two.
‘Nothing.’
They nodded thoughtfully again, as if they needed to chew over that revelation.
‘Da wanted us to say that he won’t make the same mistake twice,’ said Kray One.
‘What mistake?’
‘Next time he’ll get good people in,’ said Kray Two. They looked a bit sad about that.
‘Not you two.’
‘Da doesn’t want us to go to prison,’ said Kray One.
‘He loves us,’ said Kray Two.
‘Well,’ I said, ‘I better get on if I’m to find your dad’s money, right? I need to get some work done.’ I pointed at the back room.
‘You got a TV in there?’
‘Just a computer.’ They looked to each other, evidently decided there was something wrong with me, and turned and left. I watched them go, then went to Mr Patel’s shop and bought an overpriced and slightly stale sausage roll that I only ate half of. I put it to one side just as Beryl walked in.
‘It’s your day off,’ I said.
She ignored me and stared at the sausage roll for a minute.
‘Take it, Beryl.’
She did, then shuffled off to the back room to do whatever Beryl did back there when she wasn’t helping me. I took a notepad from one of the desk drawers and started to write down what I knew. I would probably never look at my notes again, but I found it helped to get my mind in order.
I knew a lottery ticket bought by Larry Stanbeck from Mr Patel, who he called on regularly, had gone missing after Larry was killed on his bike. I knew his death wasn’t an accident, but the police were keeping that quiet. I knew his wife wanted the ticket. I knew Mick Stanbeck wanted the ticket. I knew the Russians wanted the ticket. Benny Callaghan also wanted the ticket, and he didn’t want his son to become a mechanic, and he had the van that had run Larry Stanbeck off the road, which he had got from Mick Stanbeck.
Killing your own son was cold, even for Trolley Mick.
Anything else?
Oh, I knew Janine Stanbeck’s upbringing had probably been miserable but couldn’t see how that would fit in, other than encouraging her to run off and set up with the Stanbecks in the first place. And I knew from the accounts I’d seen that Janine and her husband were skint, which was odd. I picked up the phone and rang Lucy, a friend at a credit reference agency who had access to too much information and an obsessive need to share. She checked out Larry’s credit rating and made the sort of sound I usually associate with someone watching a particularly nasty fall involving bones twisting the wrong way and a lot of blood.
Me: Bad?
Lucy: Car-crash bad. Looks like he was credit-carded up to the hilt. Which is fine, if you can keep up.
Me: He didn’t?
Lucy: No. I suspect he got to the point where he was juggling cards to pay off the minimum on each one, which you can do if you’re organised. But not forever. Looks like his attempts collapsed about five months ago and he was midway through multiple county court judgements for debt. You didn’t hear this from me though.
Me: Okay, thank you.
Lucy: We should do lunch sometime.
Me: We will.
I put the phone down, knowing full well we never would. I’d known her years ago when I was couch-surfing; she’d been escorting to fund her habit, and I was stealing what I could from chain stores because I was too wasted to run a decent con. We’d hooked up for a while when we were clean but both of us had a past we didn’t want to revisit, and when I looked into her face I saw echoes of that life. I imagine it was the same for her. We had teetered on the abyss of addiction and knew how easy it was to slip back in. Going backward was never the answer; you learned that. Those people, those places, they were just weight, and the more weight you carried, the more likely it was you would overbalance and fall.
Didn’t want to fall.
I shook my head, ran my hands through my hair and stared at the paper in front of me. Then felt like kicking myself and wandered back into Beryl’s room. She was staring at her computer, playing spider solitaire.
‘Beryl, how do I find out if Larry Stanbeck’s life was insured if I don’t know who the insurer was?’
‘Complex. That’s police or IFIG – the fraud people – stuff,’ she said, and moved a virtual card across the screen without looking at me.
‘Do we know anyone?’
‘Leave it with me,’ she said.
I returned to my desk, trying to make the words I’d written on the pad make a sort of sense, but they stubbornly refused to. I took a pair of scissors from my drawer and started cutting the sentences out so I could move them about, see if I found anything in my subconscious that my conscious mind had missed.
I didn’t. I just ended up with a lot of useless bits of paper that I swept into the bin.
‘He was insured.’
I turned. Beryl was standing in the doorway to the back room.
‘How much for?’
She stared at me, sighed, then went back into the back room. I went back to staring at a page in my notebook that now had lots of holes in it. Five minutes later, she returned.
