The Aden Vanner Novels

by Jeff Gulvin

  ‘Not any more it isn’t.’

  Ryan took a long draught from his beer. ‘It’s worse than the bleedin’ Flying Squad. They don’t talk out of the side of their mouths — they keep the bastards closed.’

  ‘Get a transfer then, Slips. I could do with my minder back.’

  ‘You don’t need him, Guv. Morrison is on my back.’

  Morrison. Vanner had hardly seen him this year. But they went way back and as always Morrison liked to watch him.

  ‘What’re you doing in here anyway?’ Ryan said. ‘I thought you’d be tucked up with your totty.’

  ‘You mean Ellie?’

  ‘The nurse, right?’ He looked at Jimmy Crack. ‘I thought you’d have warned him about nurses.’

  ‘Tried to, Slips. But she’s a babe and twenty-five and you know — he wouldn’t listen.’

  Vanner laughed at the sullen expression spreading across Ryan’s face. ‘She’s got big green eyes, Sups. And her cheeks dimple when she smiles. And you know what? I think she loves me.’

  ‘That’d be a first.’ Ryan shook his head. ‘Impossible, Guv’nor. You’re too much of a bastard.’

  They moved to a table and Jimmy fetched more drinks. Vanner looked at Ryan. ‘I wanted to talk to you.’

  ‘What about?’

  Vanner nodded. ‘Your snout on Shoot up Hill?’

  Ryan furrowed his brow. ‘You mean The Coalman?’

  ‘Right.’

  ‘Haven’t seen him in ages.’

  ‘He’s still on the books?’

  ‘I never took him off.’

  ‘You got a number?’

  ‘Somewhere maybe. Why?’

  ‘He’s top man in Kilburn right?’

  ‘He was. Well, he knows every pub if that’s what you mean.’

  ‘And every club?’

  ‘Most of them yeah.’

  ‘Jimmy Carter,’ Vanner said.

  Ryan stared at him now. ‘Had his snooker hall shot up.’

  ‘Right. Young Young did it. He’s the body armour for the posse we’re chasing. By rights he ought to be dead. He only got a kicking. I want to know why.’

  Eleven

  YOUNG YOUNG SAT IN his flat. The ashtray on the coffee table brimmed with gold-filtered butts and a bottle of Rolling Rock sweated on the arm of the chair. He scraped fingers over the glass and dabbed his forehead with his fingertips. No music played. Outside somebody shouted and he heard the clink clink of a can rolling in the gutter. His jaw was stiff and ached when he tried to chew. The swelling had receded under his eye, but the missing teeth troubled him. They changed the way he looked, left his smile crooked and empty. On the floor at his feet his gun lay broken in pieces.

  He lit another cigarette, exhaled lazily and thought through it all once again. The hint of betrayal, bitter now on his tongue. Stepper-Nap and Eilish and the Irishman — Jimmy Carter. They must think him really stupid, some dumb fuck to kick over and leave in the dirt. The amount of times he had stood in front of Stepper when shit was going down. The amount of heads he had broken on account of that fat bastard nigger. Stepper’s problem was he liked to mix it up too much, the Jamaicans in Tottenham, giving them little sweeteners instead of sorting it once and for all.

  The cold of the beer hurt his teeth but he swallowed from the bottle anyway. It wasn’t over, not by a long way it wasn’t. But his ribs still ached and every now and then when he coughed he spat blood. His teeth needed fixing but one day soon he would be ready. He thought of his brother then, Little Bigger, dodging between Stepper-Nap and Pretty Boy depending on who he thought might be winning. He thought of their mother, the first time in a long while. He ought to go visit her. Little Bigger went now and then but he didn’t. He missed Eilish, white flesh in his bed. The best part of that was she was Stepper-Nap’s woman.

  James dressed Kerry for church, like his mother used to dress him all those years ago. Sunday morning, Eilish still asleep after rolling in at four o’clock in the morning.

  ‘Is Mummy coming with us, James?’ Caran tugged at his arm and he realised he had not noticed her come in. He looked down at her, clear dark skin with her hair rising in crinkles from the top of her head. He had to admit she was pretty. Both of them were pretty.

  ‘Will she?’ Caran asked him again.

  ‘Will she what?’

  ‘Come to Mass with us?’

  James shook his head.

  Outside the sun was in his eyes and the first hint of spring scented the air. The girls were wrapped up still, scarves about their necks but Caran’s gloves hung from the elastic James had sewn in her sleeves. The sky glistened, emerald almost in colour and the air would be clean if it was not for the exhaust fumes of buses. They walked, James holding each of their hands. A group of lads kicked a ball about in the park and they crossed the grass behind piles of coats laid out for goal posts. For a moment James was reminded of the past, playing football with Tommy.

  Ten o’clock Mass with Sunday school for the girls. He took them as often as he could although it was not every week. He did not know quite why, he doubted if he really believed, but it was something he and Eilish had done with their mother.

  He dropped them at the church hall door then took his place in the pew at the back and stared at the statue of the virgin alongside the pulpit. Christ hung battered and bloody amid the crystal of the stained-glass window. James stared at him and for a moment he seemed to stare back through the blood that dripped in his eyes. Tommy, a memory. Once he had seen him in church, seated in a pew during the week; head in his hands, as if atoning for the things undone in his life. James looked to his left and the memory became the present. Mary-Anne Forbes smiled at him.

  After the service he collected the girls and was walking out to the street when Father O’Halloran called to him from the door. James waited while the priest said another goodbye and then he walked back up the path. O’Halloran bent to the girls. ‘And how are you, my beauties?’ he asked.

  Caran giggled, tugging at James’s hand. The priest stood straight again and smiled at him.

  ‘What about you, lad?’

  ‘Fine, Father. Just fine.’

  ‘And your sister — how’s Eilish?’

  ‘She’s fine too.’

  ‘Home is she?’

  ‘Aye.’

  O’Halloran stuck his hands under his robe and nodded. James knew he was feeling for cigarettes but would wait till everyone was gone before lighting up. ‘You thought any more about what we talked about?’

  ‘I have, Father. But I’ll need to talk to Eilish.’

  The priest nodded. ‘You’ve not had a chance yet then.’

  James looked at him. The girls’ first communion. ‘She’s been away, Father. Went home to see our mother.’

  ‘How’s she doing?’

  ‘Not too bad. Been a bit poorly mind.’

  The priest looked at the girls and winked, then he laid a hand on James’s shoulder. ‘Talk to her, lad. Eh?’

  ‘I will, Father. I will.’

  James led the girls down the path and saw Mary-Anne waiting for him on the pavement. She chewed the end of her fingernail.

  ‘What about ye?’

  ‘Not bad, Mary-Anne. You?’

  ‘Fine. Your sister home is she?’

  ‘Aye. Got back the other day.’

  ‘I’ll walk on back with you then.’

  At the park the girls ran off and James walked with Mary-Anne. The sun was warm on his face and for a second he closed his eyes.

  ‘Nice day,’ Mary-Anne said.

  ‘So it is.’ James glanced at her then, slightly smaller than he was but not much. He wasn’t tall himself. Her black hair hung about her jawline and she looked lithe and fit in her sweater and jeans.

  ‘What was it like inside, Mary-Anne?’ He said it before thinking. She stiffened a fraction, did not reply, then just shrugged and looked at him. ‘I’m out now, James. I don’t think about then.’

  Vanner watched his father sleeping, face tw
itching every now and then, the skin loose at the corners of his mouth. Sunlight streamed through the window, setting the dust particles dancing. The house was quiet, Anne and Ellie taking a walk in the garden. His father’s bed was made up in the study, warmer than the draught of their bedroom. Vanner thought how old and pale he looked and he knew then he was not going to get any better. Weak, the doctor had said. That’s the trouble with a man of his age.

  Age. Years, so many of them. All his lifetime, the only certainty Vanner had known; with no woman to soften the space between them. His father had known it, more than once he had spoken of it. Then Anne had come along when he was sixteen and after that — Jane, his former wife. Ellie had found the single last photograph of the two of them on honeymoon in Calvi when he had watched French Legionnaires on manoeuvres in the bay. He had destroyed the picture. The past. He no longer needed to be reminded of the past. He glanced to the bed once more and his father’s eyes were open.

  ‘Where were you?’ Even his voice had lost all its strength. Vanner felt the life dribbling away before his eyes and he fought to quell the panic that reared in his gut.

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘Thinking?’

  Vanner nodded.

  His father rolled his head to one side and craned to see the window. ‘Sun’s shining, lad. You should be outside.’

  Vanner said nothing.

  ‘Where’s Anne?’

  ‘Walking with Ellie.’

  His father looked back at him and his voice was firmer than before. ‘Good girl that.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Fond of her are you?’

  Vanner looked beyond him.

  ‘Come on, son. I’m your old man. You can tell me.’

  Vanner smiled then. ‘Yes, Dad. I’m fond of her.’

  ‘Ever tell her?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Do you ever tell her? Women need to hear it from their man, Son. Makes them feel worthwhile.’

  Vanner got up and moved to the window. He could see them, Ellie with Anne talking together under the sycamore tree. His father moved and cursed under his breath. Vanner looked back quickly. ‘You okay, Dad?’

  ‘Not used to being in bed, Son.’

  Vanner sat down again. ‘You’ve never been in bed. You spent your life wandering through deserts, trying to make soldiers think beyond their bayonets.’

  His father grinned then. ‘Is that what I did? And which bayonets d’you mean?’

  ‘The sharp ones.’ Vanner chuckled. ‘Both. Whatever.’

  ‘And did I do a good job, Aden?’

  ‘I don’t know. Did you?’

  ‘I’m asking you.’

  There was an edge to his father’s voice as if he knew now that his time might be short and he really needed to know. Looking back over life attempting to piece together whatever sense could be made of it. How many people talked of lying on their deathbed and thinking over their days. His father’s eyes, though liquid at the edges, were still dark and they still had the power to penetrate.

  ‘You did a good job, Dad.’

  His father grunted, half-closed his eyes and opened them again. ‘And you?’

  ‘Me?’

  ‘What about you — did I ever make you think?’

  Vanner pushed out his lips. All at once he had a craving for a cigarette. ‘You made me think, yes.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Everything.’

  His father smiled. ‘Well that’s something then.’

  Vanner shifted his hard-backed chair closer to the makeshift bed. His father’s hand lay on the coverlet and Vanner wanted to lift it. He did not though. Instead he folded his arms and said: ‘What about you, Dad — did I make you think at all?’ As he said it he realised he was talking in the past tense.

  His father gazed at him then. ‘Yes you made me think.’

  ‘About what?’

  ‘Lots of things.’

  Vanner stared at him for a moment. ‘Am I what you thought I’d be?’

  His father half-shut his eyes as if he was fighting with sleep. He blinked a few times and looked evenly back at him. ‘You’re just about what I thought you’d be. How could you be anything else?’

  ‘You’re a priest.’

  ‘Yes. And you’re a soldier. Oh you might wear a different uniform these days, but fundamentally that’s what you are. How could you have been anything else, Aden? The army. Men fighting wars. It’s where I brought you up.’

  ‘Why did we move to Norwich when we did?’ Vanner had often wondered what the answer to that question was but this was the first time he had asked it.

  His father fluttered his eyes again, then his gaze fastened once more. ‘You needed some stability. You were twelve then, Aden. Twelve years of Africa and the Middle East and Germany. Army camps. Raucous foul-mouthed men. When the Norwich School post came up it was time to hang up my khaki.’

  ‘For me or for you?’

  ‘Both of us. It did you a lot of good that school. Probably kept you on the straight and narrow.’

  Vanner laughed then and thought about hitting a suspect two years previously. He thought about the other men he had hit or wanted to hit in his life. Now, as he sat there he bunched his knuckles into a fist until they whitened against his thigh. ‘It was where I learned how to punch.’

  ‘Box,’ his father corrected him. ‘Boxing, son. Nothing wrong with that. Boxing has rules. Nothing at all wrong with that.’ He chuckled then, a liquid sound in his throat. ‘Heck, you were pretty good at it.’

  ‘Light heavy, Dad. I might’ve been a contender.’

  They both laughed then and Vanner told him about boxing in the Met Lafone championships. He had never articulated it before. He had won the title in 1987. A year later he defended against Jimmy Crack, who was three years his junior. It had been a great fight, biggest turnout in years. Vanner was the ex-soldier, only five years’ service under his belt. The loner, SB recruit with the Sandhurst education. Jimmy was an ex-builder from the Isle of Wight and master of the sucker punch. He used to spar against Super heavyweights and the only way he saved his face from a mashing was to lean into the jab and deliver the killer blow right under the rib cage.

  Vanner had danced and boxed and jabbed for eight rounds, watching for Jimmy’s special. Then in the ninth just as he thought he had him, Jimmy looked him in the eye, leaned in close and took him under the ribs. Vanner saw it coming and closed up his elbows but the punch got through. He didn’t go down at first, then Jimmy piled in with two left hands and a right hook that almost took off his head. He woke up with smelling salts under his nose and Jimmy wearing his belt. ‘Always someone tougher than you are, Son,’ his father said. ‘Jimmy isn’t tougher. He just punches in the right place.’ His father cracked a grin. ‘What happened to him?’

  ‘Nothing. He’s in the Area Intelligence Unit. I’m working with him now.’

  ‘So you don’t hold it against him then?’ Vanner grinned. ‘Only when he pisses me off.’

  He drove back to London that evening more at peace with himself than he ever felt he had been. Ellie sat next to him with her hand resting against his thigh.

  Webb and Swann from SO13 had a Sunday night drink in the Spanish bar where Webb had met the dark-eyed beauty from the sherry company. They had been working all weekend, a cell gone live in West London. The call to stand down had come only an hour ago. Swann yawned and swigged from his bottle of beer. The chef came through from the kitchen with a plate of steaming chicken pieces soaked in garlic and placed it on the bar between them.

  The barman set up two more bottles and snapped off the tops. Beer bubbled up the necks and frothed over the lip. Webb dusted one bottle with his finger and felt his pager vibrate at his waist.

  ‘Here we go,’ he said. ‘Gone live again.’

  Swann watched him go to the telephone by the steps that led up to the street. Webb dialled the office and was put through to the Special Branch cell on their floor. The sergeant answered.
<
br />   ‘Where are you?’

  ‘Licensed premises where I always am.’

  ‘Thought you’d gone home. Your wife must wonder who this stranger is that shows up once in a while.’

  ‘What you got, Harry?’

  ‘Thought you’d like to know — Silverbridge possible.’

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Word just came in from Box. They’ve got a snout who saw her on the 11th. She was over the water, Webby. She’s alibi’d.’

  Webb sucked breath, the weariness of another weekend without sleep. It was time he went home. ‘Okay,’ he said. ‘So now we’re down to just one.’

  ‘She’s a ringer, Webby. And the word is she gets about. She’s over our side right now.’

  ‘Got a plot on the roll have we?’

  ‘We have. I’ll let you know as soon as I can.’

  Webb hung up and went back to the bar.

  Swann was putting on his coat. ‘What’s the story?’

  ‘Job’s still off. That was SB. Ealing. Dervla Finn’s alibi’d.’

  Sid Ryan should have been at home. Frank Weir had organised a seven-thirty briefing for Monday morning. SO13 were silent and their own inquiries were about as tight as a three-year-old’s knitting. But he was not at home: he was drinking Irish whiskey in a hotel room off Brompton Road with The Coalman, his informant from Shoot up Hill.

  He had brought the bottle of Jameson’s. The Coalman’s favourite tipple. Ryan hated Irish whiskey but he drank anyway. The Coalman always insisted. He had arrested him four years ago, only a month or two after he started with 2 Area Drug Squad. He was a Belfast man, transplanted to London. Ryan had nicked him for selling gear out of a bedsit near Brondesbury Park station. The Coalman had prattled on about his erstwhile wife and seven children living in a rancid council house in west Belfast as Ryan cuffed him and placed him in the back of the troop carrier. Later, he found out the man had never been married; instead he left a string of Catholic girls in his wake. The only reason he was in London at all was because the brothers of one pregnant sixteen-year-old were looking for him with hurling sticks.

  The Coalman was Ryan’s age, but short and chunky with heavily calloused hands. His day job had been delivering coal to the house in west and north Belfast and even now his fingers were black under the nails. The Coalman was the pseudonym he had taken when Ryan set him up as a snout. He had been good for a year or so and then he dropped out of sight. But Vanner was right about him: he was known in every dive and drinking hole from Maida Vale to Cricklewood. He had even shown up one Christmas at the Flying Squad do in the Trade Hall because he heard the beer was cheap.