by Ray Banks
Phil leaned in to inspect the nurse's handiwork. "You're going to have a belter of a scar there."
The nurse smiled. "They add character."
"He doesn't need any more of that, love."
Gav smiled this time, and it tightened into a grimace as he felt sick again. He looked at the floor. Saw brown spatter and hoped he wasn't responsible for it. Looked away. Hadn't seen his arm since they'd stripped his sweater. Didn't need to see the wound to know it was snarled with stitches, and the thought of it brought an acid taste to his mouth. He swallowed, fought the nausea. No spewing in front of the nurse. Not like she was pretty or anything, but it was the principle of the thing. A man was supposed to have control.
Besides, Phil was watching.
"Gav."
He looked up. Phil had a toon strip in his hand.
"Ready to go."
Gav blinked, looked around. The nurse had left. He put a hand on his face. His skin was cold, clammy. He breathed deeply, took a second to centre himself, then nodded. Phil helped him off the bench and they left.
The sky was approaching dark blue by the time they made it back to Derwent Hall. The streets were dead. No ambulances. No police. No screaming dealers. It was as if nothing had happened.
Phil caught his eye in the rear view. "You going to be all right, Chief?"
Gav breathed out. His head was clearing. The pain was there, but subdued. He realised how hungry he was. He chanced a small smile. "Nowt but a scratch, man."
Phil laughed. "Champion." The laughter subsided into a chuckle and a cleared throat. "So what about your mate?"
"Now's not the time, Phil."
"Just saying, if it was me, I wouldn't have put you in that position."
Gav shook his head. "You don't know what happened."
"I know the result."
"Leave it, will you? I'm knackered."
Phil nodded, but Gav could see him brooding as he turned the cab onto Kielder Walk. "You trust him?"
Gav didn't answer. Didn't know what to say. Didn't want to say yes – that would make him out to be an idiot. You trust a bloke after this happens? But then, say no and it was opening a door to a conversation he wanted locked up tight. A conversation that, yes, maybe he needed to have, but not now, and not with Phil. He looked out of the window. He waited until the cab stopped in front of his house. The lights were on in his front room. He'd hoped that Fiona was asleep. Fuck's sake.
Gav put his hand on the door. "Thanks for the shirt."
"Nae bother. See y'after."
Gav got out of the cab, shut the door and slapped the roof. Phil pulled away. As he walked to the front door, Gav dug around in his pocket for his keys. The door opened before he had a chance to put key to lock. Fiona stood in the doorway, a mess of anxiety in her sloppy dressing gown. She hugged herself against the cold. Her hair was pulled back in a ponytail and her face was tight with worry.
He got in there before she could speak. "I know, all right? I know."
"Where—"
"Let us get in first, will you?" He moved past her into the house. "Fuckin' hell ..."
She closed the door behind him. Made a noise when she saw the bulk of bandages on his arm in the light, the dried blood on his neck and face. "Oh my God, Gavin, what happened?"
"Shh. Just ..." Waving a hand at her to keep it down, he went into the front room. He thought about having a sit, but the settee was cream and he didn't want to leave marks. The telly was on, dull and quiet, the kind of programme you only ever watched when something awful had happened in the middle of the night and you wanted to keep your mind off it. Open University, something like that. The presenter had the look of a part-time lecturer, all V-necks and cords and the kind of hair that meant he didn't work somewhere where appearance was important. Gav watched it for a few seconds – equations on a blackboard explained by a man with Brillo pad hair – before Fiona killed it with the remote.
"Gavin."
He sighed. "I got mugged."
She moved closer, focusing on his arm. "Let me see."
"It's fine." He pulled up his sleeve to show her. "There."
"Jesus, how many—"
"They didn't get nowt. I kept a hold of the money."
"I'm not bothered about the money."
"I bloody well am. Had a decent night."
"You're hurt."
"Ach, it's nowt. Looks worse than it is." He let the sleeve of the strip fall back down over the bandages. "You know what cuts are like. They start bleeding, they look like your arm's going to fall off. Just a couple of stitches, really."
"You were at the hospital?"
He nodded. "Phil took us."
"You didn't call."
"I wasn't in long enough. No point."
Fiona pushed her hand deep into the pockets of her dressing gown, and wrinkles appeared between her eyes. "Where were you before you got mugged?"
Kind of question was that? "I was on shift."
"No, you weren't."
Gav didn't reply. He felt caught. He wondered what kind of noise they'd made over at the squat. Fiona was confused. Something didn't ring true for her. And if his own dear, sweet, trusting wife didn't believe his story, then he and Phil were fucked.
"You weren't on rota."
"It was overtime."
She didn't return his smile. Her lips thinned. She shook her head.
"What?"
"I don't know."
"Where did you think I was, like?"
She glanced at his arm. "Did you call the police?"
"Phil did." He watched her, saw the shifting embarrassment. She thought he'd been out with some tart. That was it. That he'd been fucking around and got caught. Or that he'd been fucking around, lied about being on shift, and then this – the wound, the blood – had caught her unawares and she didn't know what to think. And looking at it from the outside, he could see her point, even though it wasn't like her to be suspicious. Wasn't like him to feel suspected.
His stomach yawned. "We got owt in?"
"I'll make you something."
"Nah, it's all right. I'll just do a sarnie."
He went through to the kitchen, pulled a heel from the bread bin and then went over to the fridge. He peeled a cheese slice out of the cellophane, folded it into the bread and shoved both into his gob. His stomach reacted with another growl. Hadn't realised how hungry he was until he started eating, so he went back to get more bread. When he turned, he found Fiona leaning against the doorway, watching him with pink eyes.
"You sure you're okay?"
He nodded. "Might not go in tomorrow, like. Might have delayed shock an' that. I don't know if it's going to start hurting again. Don't want to answer their questions, either. I'll let Phil take the reins."
"You'd tell us if there was something wrong, wouldn't you?"
"Course I would."
Her nostrils sucked flat, then she breathed out. Looked as if she was about to start crying. "Because I was worried."
Gav put the bread on the counter and came over. He half-hugged her with his one good arm. She leaned against him. He felt her shake so he hugged her a little tighter. She made a snottery noise and shook again. He tried to bring his other arm up to comfort her, but he felt the stitches pull.
"It's all right." He kissed her scalp.
Over her shoulder, he saw one of Kevin's comics lying open on the kitchen table. The panels showed Commissioner Gordon getting his arse handed to him by a bunch of blokes with baseball bats. He pulled Fiona a little closer, felt her tears soak through the front of his strip.
"It's all right." Quieter this time. "It's okay. It's all going to be fine."
20
If Joe listened hard enough, really concentrated and wiped his mind of everything else, closed his eyes and listened, he could hear the bairn breathing and the creak of the bed in the other room, and even the low-key industrial rasp of the old man's snores, but despite all that, the house still felt like a tomb. He looked at his hands in the strip of
moonlight that sliced through a gap in the curtains. Dried blood under the fingernails. It looked as if he'd been trying to dig up the back yard with his bare hands. He focused on the floor between his legs. Nestled against one foot was enough gear to keep him right for a good six months. There was blood on the bags. He didn't want to touch them again until it had dried.
Joe ran a hand over his mouth, breathed out through his nose.
It had been a simple plan, and once Gav had it settled in his head, he was hooked on the idea. The house next door to number thirteen was derelict, had been for a good long while, and everyone knew that the place was used as a shooting gallery. Activity peaked in the evenings, but there was a moment in late afternoon where there was nobody about, and that was when Joe decided to make the move. He told Gav to come dressed in dark clothes and meet him round the back at five o'clock. When Gav turned up, he looked like the Milk Tray man. He'd even brought shoe polish with him.
"What's that for?"
"Camouflage."
"We're not putting on a fuckin' minstrel show, Gav. Get rid."
"Serious?"
"Only thing you need is a bat."
The same rounders bat he'd offered to Brian. The weapon of choice, heavy enough for Gav to feel like he was armed, but not too dangerous that he'd accidentally kill someone. Joe relied on the Bowie knife he'd twocked off the fat lad. Again, it was more for show than anything else, but he knew that a good show was worth more than a jab when it came to this lot. Just the gleam of the thing, the horror of the invasion, would be enough to make 'em shit their pants, or else freeze up long enough to level a kick at their bollocks. And either outcome was good enough for Joe. "We’re not here to kill anyone, Gav. Idea’s to shake them up, show them they're not safe. Make them think twice about their position. So don't go thinking this is going to finish the job, all right? This is a first strike."
Gav understood, and went at the plan like a kid playing out after dark. Tugged his balaclava and ran. He was first round the back of the derelict house. The pair of them dropped and waited for a couple of seconds, listening for anything out of the ordinary, then Joe tugged the loose board off one of the windows and held it open for Gav, who pushed in and immediately recoiled at the smell. It reminded Joe of the time the water mains went out in the barracks and they weren't allowed to flush the bogs for three days.
However bad the place reeked, it didn't bother those dossing inside. Joe guessed that most of them were blokes judging by the beards that poked out of the bundles of rags that littered the floor, along with torn-up newspapers and rat shit. When one of them coughed, Gav whirled round, bat at the ready.
Joe put a hand on his arm. "They're here to nod. Move on."
They went round to the best vantage point on the ground floor, a boarded window with a wide enough gap that they could see right into the garden next door. Joe squatted and got comfortable. Gav tried to crouch, leaned against the wall and scratched his face under his balaclava. He kept shifting his weight, muttered something about pins and needles, but he tensed too much at the sound of movement behind for it to be circulation problems.
So Gav was jumpy. That was fine. Jumpy meant alert, which meant he'd have the advantage when they went in. From what Joe had learned already, the lads in the squat favoured downers above all else. There were uppers in the building, yes. And yes, they were used, but they were used as pick-me-ups rather than recreation, something to keep them awake on the long shifts, and awake didn't necessarily mean alert. When you spent most of your nights down out of your head, when your eyes were wide they were also often bleary and blind.
"So we wait."
Gav shifted, ground newspaper against the grit and floor. "Until when?"
"Until it's nice and dark and they're good and lazy."
"And then?"
And then, after six hours of waiting and watching, sitting in a room that stank like shit and slow death, it was time. Joe tapped his wrists, rubbed his legs, then nodded towards the back of the house. They moved out through a filthy kitchen – they knew it was a kitchen because it still had the sink unit, albeit one brown with age and God knew what else – and then dropped to a crouch by the back door. Joe had already done a recce on the place a couple of days prior, broke the lock on the door and oiled it so he could now nudge it open silently and slip out into the back yard. They made it to the broken fence and edged through without making a sound, navigating the wet grass that went up to their knees, towards the back door of number thirteen Kielder Walk. Joe had guessed that the drug house had the same layout as the derelict building but flipped, which meant they were headed for the kitchen.
Joe reached the back door and stopped. Gav’s knees cracked as he went into a crouch. Inside, the telly blared from the front room: Strike It Lucky. Michael Barrymore marching up and down those disabled ramps like a lanky Nazi, taking the piss out of the half-dead and terminally simple biddies who’d come on the show in the hope of winning a fridge. Joe had always wondered what kind of twat watched that show, and now he knew.
Voices inside. Unintelligible, though it wasn’t through want of trying – the voices were loud enough but the words just seemed to stumble around their mouths.
Joe put one hand up to the kitchen door, the other tight around the knife. He tested the door handle once – down and then back up – slow, quiet and clean.
The door was unlocked.
He nodded to Gav. Brought the blade flush against his thigh and showed three fingers.
Then two.
Then one.
And at the sound of the Hot Spot – weeoo, weeoo – they went in screaming.
First bloke they saw was Asian, stood in the middle of the kitchen, back to them. He turned, fork halfway between the Pot Noodle and his mouth, caught in a bleary-eyed gape. A welt on the side of his head marked him as the one Gav had smacked with a brick a couple of weeks prior. Joe whipped the blade across the bloke’s hand, made him drop the Pot. It bounced and span on the lino, showering hot beef water across the kitchen floor. Joe swooped in with a sharp left to the bloke’s gut and sent him tumbling after his dinner. Gav moved in to make sure the bloke stayed down. He brought the bat down hard on the back of the bloke’s knees just as he'd been told: "Doesn’t matter if you don’t feel them break. Just make sure it's hard enough to make 'em think twice about getting up again."
Judging by the scream and the slow curl that left the bloke foetal on the floor, Gav already had the hang of it.
Joe pushed up the hall, Gav bringing up the rear. Into the front room. Joe saw a longhaired bloke getting to his feet, another one – the former pretty boy, still wearing the scars of Brian Turner’s handiwork – on the settee.
"Left." Joe grabbed the standing bloke and shoved him into the wall hard enough to make him bounce. The bloke was pale, hair in matted ropes over his face, looked as if a good long piss would lay him out for a month. Joe heard Gav smack the pretty boy a couple of times. Then he heard a wet moan coming from somewhere on the carpet. He turned the longhair round so he could see the knife.
"You holding?"
"No."
Joe grabbed hair and tugged until something cracked in the dealer's neck. "Don't fuckin' lie to us."
"I'm not."
"Where?"
"Upstairs."
"How many up there now?"
The longhair flapped his mouth. There was a series of thumps upstairs that sounded like someone running. As soon as Joe looked away, the longhair made a break for it, slipping out of his grip long enough to veer towards the settee. Gav ducked in there, brought the fat end of the bat across one of the bloke’s knees and sent him staggering into a mouthful of carpet.
Joe went to the settee and pulled the cushions, scattering coppers, crumbs and fluff over the two prone men. "What you going for, eh?"
"No, no."
"What’s in here you’re so fuckin’ anxious to get a hold of?"
"Please."
More noise upstairs.
"Hobb
le the cunts." Joe went out into the hall. He heard Gav bring the bat down. Another Asian lad, stripped to the waist, appeared at the top of the stairs and, seeing Joe, stumbled so he took half the stairs on his arse. Then he showed ribs and turned on his heel, tried to scramble back up to safety. Joe lashed out with the blade, sketched a line from shoulder blade to kidney that quickly thickened with blood. The lad twisted and screamed, throwing hands back to try and stop the bleeding. Joe grabbed him by the belt and hauled him off the stairs. The lad rolled down into the hall just as Gav came out of the front room. He didn’t need telling twice. He was getting the hang of it now.
On the landing, Joe could almost taste the mildew. The wallpaper had peeled, revealing large dark stains. He blinked in the gloom – the one source of light was a slit of sickly yellow under the door up ahead. He felt along the wall for a switch but when his fingers came back damp he didn’t try again. As he approached the door, he could hear someone sobbing behind it.
Joe pushed open the door.
He couldn’t see much at first, the light glancing straight into his eyes. He held up the knife and shifted position, then saw the shuddering outline of the fat dealer, on his knees in the middle of the floor. Beyond him, a girl, couldn’t have been older than fourteen, sat on a single bed, her knees pulled up to her chest and pushing out an oversized Garfield T-shirt. Joe pointed the knife at the fat man.
"I warned you. I warned you in particular."
The fat man moved his head in what Joe took to be a nod of recognition. Joe approached him, shoved the angle-poise so it wasn’t shining in his face, then poked the bastard’s forehead with the tip of his knife. "Get up."
The bloke struggled to his feet, his faded jeans fighting a losing battle with the white expanse of his arse. He tugged at his cowboy belt as he stood in front of Joe, more angry than ashamed.
"You know what I’m after, don’t you?"
"Aye."
"Lead the way."
He led Joe out onto the landing, then along to the next closed door. In the new light from the room, he could see a metal brace and padlock. The dealer felt around for a key, then opened the padlock just as Gav came up the stairs, breathing heavily. Joe gestured to the back room. "Check on the girl."
