London Noir - [Anthology]

by Edited by Maxim Jakubowski

  Alfred Kirk was number three, was that morning’s catch, hauled out of the river at low tide by one of the lower bridges. Pale under his skin of mud he must have been, no blood left to colour him lively. A frenzied attack, the papers said. Multiple stab wounds or slashed to rags, depending on your preference. Me, I prefer a choice, I like the rounded picture.

  I liked the next bit, too. All the reports came together for once, even the tabloids’ prurience turning oblique now, all quoting the same source: clear signs of repeated sexual abuse, they all said.

  Abuse, they called it.

  With Alfie, I’d have called it nothing more than right and proper use; but perhaps you had to know him.

  Or perhaps not. Flesh is flesh, and it’s a market economy. What you’ve got, you sell. Alfie did, they all do. That’s not abuse, it’s exploiting a resource.

  Alfie Kirk. Dark, stocky, willing little Alfie. Take the boy out of the valleys, and you can sure as hell kick the valleys out of the boy.

  Fresh meat he’d been when I met him, newly run from the Rhondda. Alfie ‘I’m sixteen’ Kirk, at least two years ahead of himself there; but he was hungry, he learned quick. Joined the Crew, sharpened up and settled in.

  Now he was sliced meat, someone had been sharpening their blade on his bones. The Crew was disbanding fast, was being dissected.

  Three down, two to go.

  And I knew where to find them.

  * * * *

  Or thought I did.

  At half six I left the office, heading for the tube. Passed the girl in her doorway, heard her inevitable croak, ‘Spare some change, please?’

  Didn’t check, didn’t even turn to smile at her, to say no. I do that sometimes, tease them with a little humanity, remind them of just how far they’ve gone.

  Today, not. Today I was buzzing, my mind was crowded, I was almost in a hurry; I couldn’t make the space for a sideshow.

  There was a milling crowd at the entrance to the tube station, mobbing a man in a peaked cap, going nowhere. Over their heads I glimpsed steel grilles pulled half shut, empty passageways beyond.

  The man was gesturing, trying to speak; stress lifted his voice an octave so that I could hear something above the crowd’s murmur. No words, nothing useful - just the harassed tone of it, the swearing he could barely manage to suppress.

  I didn’t stay to find out what had happened, didn’t join the crush. No point. There weren’t any trains, that was all I needed to know. A bomb, a strike, a suicide - who cared?

  * * * *

  Piccadilly was maybe twenty minutes’ walk from where I worked. Head down and moving fast, I might even have done it in fifteen that day; but only because of the chill in the wind, no other reason. I was keen, yes, but I wasn’t urgent. Two lads, they weren’t worth that much. They weren’t actually going to make me hurry.

  Walking, I wondered if the police had made any connections yet, whether anyone had told them they were dealing with a single unit here. If not, they’d be lucky to work it out for themselves. The Crew had been a rare bunch, almost a phenomenon.

  If the police weren’t on to that yet, it left me still one step ahead.

  I could hope, at least. I wasn’t going to hurry, but I allowed a little hope.

  * * * *

  No sign of the boys down the Dilly, but I wasn’t expecting that. They had to be pretty sussed or they wouldn’t have it this good, they wouldn’t have me out looking for them. They’d be keeping off the streets for sure, keeping their heads well down.

  I’d only come this way to hear what the word was, how many understood what was happening; and I read my answer in the silence, and on the faces of frustrated punters. No one was working tonight. Universally, it seemed, heads were being kept down this hunting season.

  No major surprise, with a crazy on the loose. I was a little disappointed, perhaps, some lads at least should have worked out that they weren’t in any danger - Christ, a child of six could have worked that out, counting on the fingers of one hand - but better safe than sorry, that was always the rule. Low profiles and don’t take risks. Touting for trade with a knifeman out and about definitely counted as risk, as sticking your head above the parapet. Even if you knew the Crew, seemingly. Maybe five won’t be enough for him, maybe he’s got them already and he’s hungry for more . . .

  I could do that no trouble, I could think their thoughts for them, these lads. Transparent as glass, even in their absence.

  Him, too. The crazy, the killer. He was bright like a target in my head. I could make him dance when I wanted, whenever I chose.

  What I wanted now was food. I might be going on to Mickey’s but I wouldn’t pay Mickey’s prices and he wouldn’t feed me at cost, never mind the amount of trade I put his way; so I ate at Burger King, reading whatever book it was I had in my jacket pocket that day. Spent a while longer in a pub, washing the taste of what I’d eaten out of my teeth; and then up to Oxford Street and just a little further.

  * * * *

  Mickey’s is in the basement, and where the hell else would you expect to find it? Low, low life.

  Hard to find it at all, mind, if you don’t know where to look. No neon signs to light this club, no flashing arrows pointing. Just go down the area steps into purpose-built sinister shadows, knock and smile nicely at the peephole.

  Or don’t bother with the smile, it won’t help. Strictly members only, at Mickey’s. If they don’t know you, you don’t get in. They won’t even open the door, they’ll just leave you standing. Knocking till your knuckles bleed.

  Do them a courtesy, wipe the blood off the door before you go.

  * * * *

  I took the steps three at a time, pounded the door with my fist, shuffle-danced impatiently on the spot until Gordy opened up. Not in a hurry, of course; only to get out of the cold.

  ‘Jonty. Hi, how’ve you been?’

  ‘Busy. The man in, is he?’

  ‘Sure.’

  Nothing more certain, actually. If the club was open, the man was in.

  Matter of fact, the man was in his corner already, though the night was too young yet for his clientele. Coming through into the complex nest that was Mickey’s - half a dozen small rooms with doorways knocked through, whole walls knocked out to link them into a single multi-cornered, many-pillared space - I glanced down to the bar at the end and saw him slumped on his stool, hands folded across his belly. The faintest movement of his head acknowledged me; if there’d been anyone else in, or anyone that counted, they might have envied me so much recognition.

  The place wasn’t exactly empty, but it might as well have been. A few unfamiliar faces, sitting quietly in twos and threes, talking in whispers: I checked them off as I passed, decided none was worth even being curious about.

  There was a new lad serving, didn’t know me; I had to ask for a Dos Equis, instead of it being already opened and waiting for me when I reached the bar. I even had to tell him not to bother with a glass.

  A polite tilt of the bottle towards Mickey, and then the cold bite of beer in my throat, welcome even in this coldest of weather. Half the bottle, chug-a-lug, and I stopped purely for its own sake, because I could.

  And hitched myself onto a stool at the bar and beckoned the boy over, told him what I wanted. A saucer of salt, here; quarters of lime, here. A shot-glass of the good tequila, refilled when I tapped; and the Dos Equis replaced whenever it was empty. And all of it down on my tab, of course, no tedious fumbling for cash.

  The boy looked for Mickey’s nod, and got it. Of course, he got it. Mickey and I, we’re like that. Go back too far, know each other too well.

  It’s what you need when you’re young, when you’re starting: someone older, someone who’s been around. Someone to drop a word in season, lend a bit of knowledge here, a bit of money there, take it back with interest later. And after a while you don’t need them any more but they’re still there, they’re embedded, you can’t shift them.

  In my life, that’s Mickey. Other people
have their own, but not like Mickey. There isn’t anyone like Mickey.

  Every night he sits in his club, in his corner, squat and heavy on his stood, his flesh overflowing. Doesn’t stir, unless there’s trouble. He’ll be charming if he needs to be, or else he’ll be offensive; but mostly he’s neither, mostly he just sits. And drinks tonic water, and Lord only knows where he gets his weight from, I’ve never seen him eat.

  Never known him sleep, either. Daytime, if you want him, he’s upstairs. In his charity shop, looking after his boys.

  * * * *

  I was there for a reason that night; but no hurry. I sat at the bar till the bar got busy, and for a while after that. Testing the service, see if I still got the lad’s quick attention even with half a dozen queuing. Letting Mickey see. He’d want to see me looked after.

  Eventually, though, I pushed myself to my feet and walked around the bar.

  Peeled a twenty from my back pocket, handed in it to Mickey. No special favours, that was how we ran it; and entrance fees never went on the tab.

  He took the note, held it up to the light, pursed his lips; for a second I thought he might run it through the machine he keeps by the till, to check for bad paper. But he nodded, tucked it away, tilted his head in permission. I went through the door he sits beside.

  It’s a heavy door, with a safety light glowing dimly above and ‘EMERGENCY EXIT’ in big letters; but it’s not an exit, except in an emergency. It’s just a way upstairs.

  * * * *

  His charity shop, he calls it. Police, social services, everyone else calls it a hostel for runaway boys. Bed, meals, no questions asked; and no one ever asks Mickey any questions.

  Actually, he runs it straight. If a lad wants to doss, if he wants to use the bed and eat the meals and nothing more, that’s fine. No pressure. Mickey’s not losing out, he gets funding from all over.

  If a lad wants to work, that’s fine too. Mickey doesn’t even take a cut, the entrance fee is his percentage.

  * * * *

  This was the Crew’s home base, the roof they always came back to. And this was crisis time; I expected to find them here.

  What was left of them.

  Up the stairs, cold and dimly-lit, just a fire exit, officer, no one uses it; through the door at the top, and into a different world. The club is soft shadows and carpet, alcohol and smoke, all the fringe activities of sex. The hostel has lino underfoot and fluorescent tubes overhead, the music’s cheap and loud and confrontational and so are the kids. No fringe activities, no skirting, no seduction.

  No conversation, either. You come up from the club, you mean business. So do they.

  In the common room that night, as every night, there was a group of lads clustered around the pool table. Others perched on the radiators. Some were talking, some were very much alone; but I walked in and they all looked round, looked interested.

  Ready to trade, they were. They might not be working the Dilly just now, but here they were under Mickey’s eye. In the common room, that time of night, anything I saw would be for sale.

  If I’d been wanting to buy. The boys knew me, though, most of them. They looked, nodded recognition, turned away. Pool balls clicked, voices rose against the thudding beat from a ghetto-blaster on the window-sill.

  The faces I was looking for weren’t there, the Crew not on duty tonight. No surprise. I thought they’d be up in the attics, sharing a room, sharing a bed perhaps for comfort and security, and the door wedged shut. No locks on the boys’ rooms, but they’d improvise, they’d shut the world out somehow.

  Shut out the world, maybe, but they’d open up for me.

  I made my way over to the pool table, and goosed a lad just as he was bending to take a shot. He jerked, screwed the shot, glared furiously over his shoulder as his audience giggled - and blinked, and smoothed the glare into an effortful smile, swallowed what he’d been going to say. Said, ‘Skip, hi. Want me?’

  Hiding his surprise, playing it cool for the sake of the other lads watching, listening in. See how easy I turn a trick? he was saying. Even Skip, that you’re all scared of. No worries, he was saying. I’m a class act, me.

  They call me Skip sometimes, picked it up from Mickey. They don’t know what it means, but they like it.

  ‘No,’ I said, ruining his evening for him, wrecking him for the night. ‘I’m looking for Dex and Tony. They in, are they?’

  He shook his head, ‘Not seen’em, Skip, not for a couple of days,’ but I was ready for that. They’d be primed, they’d be ready for the question, and even these kids had a kind of pack loyalty. With a knifeman out in the world, they were going to need it.

  I wouldn’t want them overdoing it, though. Not to the point of misleading me. So I knuckled that young blood’s skull for him, made him yelp, really hurt his credibility; and said, ‘Try again. Which room?’

  ‘Straight up, Jonty,’ he whined, squirming against the grip I had on his elbow. ‘They’re not here, ask anyone. Ask Mickey.’

  This time I believed him, let him go. He rubbed his arm, aggrieved; I tipped him a crisp new fiver and said, ‘Where else would they be, then?’

  ‘Word is, someone’s after them,’ a breathy voice from behind me. Everyone was watching now, tuned in to this.

  ‘I know that. Where would they go?’ Where would they feel safer than here? It was a question I couldn’t answer; and neither could the kids, apparently. At any rate, none of them did.

  Then a man came in, a customer. I didn’t know him, nor did they; but no danger, if he’d got past Mickey. The lads lost interest in me and the pool both, offered him a beer, turned on a vulnerable, electric charm.

  They’re good, Mickey’s boys. Two minutes later I was still killing balls on the abandoned table when the newcomer left with a boy leading him, taking him out the other way. Deal concluded, trick duly turned. The boy would come back in an hour, perhaps, or else in the morning; in the man’s car, or else in a taxi. That was one of Mickey’s rules, that they always got a lift back. It made the boys feel good, it let everyone know they were safe; and, of course, it meant they were back in the shop, back on the shelf for another customer. The lads came and went as they pleased, or thought they did, but Mickey had the system well rigged.

  I slammed the black off three cushions and into a middle pocket, heard someone whistle and applaud at my back, walked out without looking round.

  On my way back down I heard sounds that weren’t music, from behind a closed door. Remembered the television room, and put my head inside.

  There were a couple of youngsters slumped on separate sofas: newcomers, nervous, flushing under my gaze, their eyes jumping between me and the TV screen. I didn’t think they were that interested in a news bulletin. Waiting for what came next, perhaps; or more likely just watching telly because they were numb and scared and at least it was something familiar, something they knew how to do.

  I was on my way out again when I caught something, Alfie’s name mentioned.

  Suddenly there was at least one interested viewer in that room, there was me coming right inside now, pushing the door to behind me and never mind the way those kids jumped, never mind what they thought.

  News conference on the screen: long table, microphones, policemen and women and one nervous civilian between them. Alfie’s older brother, they said, and a lot older too, he looked thirty at least. And short and dark and very Welsh, twisting his hands together and making the usual useless appeals. ‘Whoever did this, for God’s sake give yourself up, isn’t three dead boys enough?’

  To which the answer was obviously no, and I didn’t know why he was wasting his breath. Five had to be a minimum here, there was no getting away with anything less.

  The brother was going on, pleading for information now, for any information. ‘You don’t have to go to the police. You can come to me, I’ll be an intermediary. I came to London to find my brother; I’ll stay as long as I have to, to find his killer. I’m staying at the Prince Consort Hotel on Church Str
eet, contact me there if there’s anything you can tell us, anything at all . . .’

  Nothing I could tell him; nothing Mickey could tell me either, or nothing he admitted to. No, he didn’t know where Dex and Tony had buggered off to; he didn’t know they’d gone till just that morning, when he checked their rooms. And no, they’d left nothing behind, obviously nothing with him for safe-keeping. Usually they did that, so probably they’d gone for a while, wherever it was they’d gone. Out of the city, even, maybe . . . ?

  But I didn’t believe that, and neither did he. You don’t do that; you don’t leave London so easily, a snap of the fingers, one fright and you’re gone.

  No, the city grips tighter than that. They were still around, those boys. And I’d find them.

  If there were luck or justice in this world, I’d find them first.