by Ray Banks
He was nowt, was he? He was fucking nowt?
He wasn't nowt, son. He was someone.
He was Gavin Scott, the King of Derwent Hall.
SUMMER, 1987
25
Saturday night down the Long Ship, one of the many that followed the night Gav Scott and his men turned number thirteen Kielder Walk from a noisy, drug-addled squat into a silent lump of charcoal. Gav didn't know how many weeks it had been, how many months – this Saturday was just one more in a long smear of them, one more bellowed round of drinks, bought by people whose faces blurred into one flushed, grinning, half-awake mess. It was a celebration that refused to end, and it was all in his honour.
Number thirteen still stood at the end of the cul-de-sac, albeit blackened and officially abandoned. It and number fourteen stood as a charred monolith, the pair of houses welded together by soot and scorch marks. Sooner or later the council would have to do something about it, but everyone agreed it would probably be later rather than sooner, and until then the houses stood as a warning to anyone thinking of moving into the dealers' old market. As for the rest of the world, it was a different story: word was that some junkie left a candle burning, or fell asleep with a cigarette burning between his fingers, and the firetrap settee caught light, the junkie went up like the paper-skinned prick he was, and the rest of the house was quick to follow suit.
That was the story everyone agreed on, anyway. That was the story told verbatim to any stranger who looked as if he had an official reason for being on the estate. And there'd been plenty of official-looking strangers visiting the Hall over the last month or so. The fire brigade and the police first of all – a medley of sirens and shouts, hissing water and crackling flames – and of course Gav and the boys were ready for them. They'd already cleared the road of cabs and taken their places in the crowd of onlookers, all folded arms and clucking tongues. The dealers were long gone by then, hobbled off to parts unknown, hopefully never to return, and the screaming woman had been dumped off by the flats on the other side of the motorway, after Phil told her to fuck off and keep it shut if she knew what was good for her.
When the police arrived, Gav found out why she'd been screaming.
The bairn.
And it came to him like dry heave – Gav hadn't considered that the bairn might still be in the house when they torched it. But then, where the fuck else would it be? And if he'd been thinking, he would've recognised the woman that came screaming out of the house. And yet, she wasn't the same one, was she? Last time he'd seen her, he thought he'd knocked her out on the stairs. Did she manage to get back in somehow? He couldn't remember. And his mind hadn't been on the details, had it? He'd been all about the big picture, the statement, and the possibility of a bairn burning to death never entered his mind.
Besides, by the time they brought out the remains, the story had already been told. Nobody saw anything until the place was on fire. No, there'd been no disturbances at the house beyond what the residents of Kielder Walk endured on a day-to-day basis. Nobody knew what started the fire, though if they had to guess, they'd say it was an errant candle, nodding junkie etc., and wasn't it a terrible shame that the bairn was caught up in it? The Social should've done something about that shower of bastards ages ago – not right bringing a little bairn up in that kind of environment. And that would be when the women – especially the likes of Brenda Purdie at number ten, fat Brenda with her three cats and long, garish nails – would get emotional, their voices breaking, wattles shivering and eyes pink at the thought of that "poor, defenceless babby".
That emotion looked genuine, because it was genuine, although its roots were more in guilt than in grief. Brenda Purdie and all the rest of them were trapped in a lie, and there was nothing they could do now but repeat that lie until it became a misremembered, but desperately believed, truth. This was the kind of lie that bonded dysfunctional families the world over; there was no reason to think it couldn't bond a community too.
And so far, so good. Gav had taken up one of Phil's suggestions and asked for volunteers to patrol the estate. It was a Neighbourhood Watch on wheels, a roving taxi patrol whenever drivers weren't on shift or on a fare, engineered to keep an eye on the place, making sure that the dealers – and especially that woman – didn't return. It was a cosmetic project more than anything else – Gav didn't think the dealers would be back for a long time yet, and the woman had be told in no uncertain terms what would happen to her if she set foot on the Hall again – but it made people on the estate feel secure knowing that there was someone out there looking out for them. With the summer coming in, parents were less rigorous about bringing their kids back in, safe in the knowledge that if they were up to any mischief, one of the drivers would grab them. So even if people weren't exactly walking around with sunshine in their shoes, there was still some positivity about the place.
It was all working out. It was all fine.
And so what if Gav's three in the morning mind regurgitated images that meant sleep was impossible? And so what if those images burned into his mind's eye and followed him sometimes to work? So what? Those were as much scars as the one he wore on his arm, the one that made Andy look at him like he was Michael Dudikoff. The one that told Kevin his dad was Batman. The one that even Fiona had grown to find attractive.
In the meantime, he drank. He went to the Long Ship where he never had to pay for a drink as long as someone who lived on Kielder Walk was there to buy it for him. And it was never long before his feet were lead and he'd lost track of Fiona – if she was with him – as a small gaggle of women swallowed her up in the corner of the room. It was also only a matter of time before Phil Cruddas came in, roaring with the other lads, keeping them in check – and the lads had been good and quiet after the burning of number thirteen, mostly because Phil reassured them that nothing would happen to them, that they wouldn't lose their jobs, or go to prison, that the police weren't fucking interested in some toasted smackheads. And of course it had turned out to be that way, hadn't it? For all Gav's worries and the underlying belief that the police – just like they were on the telly – would always find their man through diligent investigative work, the local bobbies had done fuck all in the pursuit of whoever had started the fire. Thing was, they must have known that it was arson and not a dropped tab, mustn't they? It would have been obvious, wouldn't it? It wasn't as if Gav and his drivers were looking to cover their tracks – they'd gone in there with buckets of fucking petrol, hadn't they? There must have been some trace ...
In the end, he had to shake his head, shrug his shoulders, and drink a little more; the more he drank, the more the questions faded into the back of his mind. The truth of the matter was that the police were like everyone else. They had a job to do, and the easier that job, the better. A quick, simple close? Yes, please. Stamp that and move on.
Beyond that, there were more pressing concerns. Phil grabbed Gav later on that Saturday night – sweating and stinking, eyes rolling in his head – and told him exactly what those concerns were.
And what they were boiled down to one man: Neil Bigelow.
"Aye, I know, I know." Gav nodded, pushed out his bottom lip. "You're right."
Phil leaned in and breathed hard. "You can't keep on like this."
"I know."
"All this fuckin' time—"
"A long time. Since before Christmas."
"All this fuckin' time, he's done nowt. He's not said owt to you, has he?"
"No."
"No?"
"Not a peep, mate."
"He's not bothered his arse to get back to you about the business? See, that's not on, that. That's not right."
"Ah, but he's ill, though-but."
"Fuck that."
"No, you've got to give the man time—"
"I say fuck that." Phil shaking his head, one eye half-closed. "A man, a businessman ..." He jabbed Gav in the chest. "You know, one day you're going to have to ask yourself, what stories do I want people to tel
l about me, you know? How do I want to be remembered? What do I want future generations to think of me? Because that's all through other people, that. That's all other people doing your marketing for you. So what do you do? You make sure you act when you're supposed to; make sure you're the kind of person you want to be. Even if you're not, you pretend. You understand?"
Gav thought about it before he answered. "No."
"He's .... lookuh, I like Neil."
"I like Neil, too."
"I like him. He's a good lad. Deep down. And he's never been nowt but sound with us and the rest of the lads."
"That's right. Can't fault him there."
"Don't fuckin' miss him or owt – don't get us wrong – but he wasn't the worst fuckin' boss in the world. But at the same time – and there's no disrespect here, none at all – he's spinning you a cunt's yarn, man."
"Ah, how many times do we need to go through this, eh?"
"I don't know. How many times before you pull your head out your arse?"
"Howeh, Phil, I've already told you—"
"I'm fuckin' serious."
"I know, I know ..." Gav hung his head. He felt tired. "I know you are."
"How much work have you put in since Christmas?"
"I know you're serious."
Another jab with Phil's thick index finger. "I'm asking, though – how much?"
"A lot."
"A lot. This is what I'm— He was taking the piss in February. Now he's itching for a fuckin' smack."
"Tell you what, I'll give him a ring."
Phil shook his head. Slobber on his chin. "Nah, nah, fuck that."
"Phil, howeh, now isn't the time."
"We're beyond that now." Phil wiped his chin. Swallowed. "No, you need to go round there."
Gav started nodding. Of course, of course. He needed to go round there. That sounded fine, even though he had no intention of doing anything of the sort. He was going to call. He was going to speak to Bigelow first before they did any face-to-face—
"I'm not joking. You want to go round there and have a word, man. Man to fuckin' man." Phil slapped his chest, then poked Gav in the shoulder. A growl in his voice. "Get right in there, make him fuckin' well account for hisself. Ask him what the fuck he thinks he's playing at."
"I will."
"Oh aye?"
"Aye."
"When?"
"Soon."
Phil regarded him with one beady eye, the other screwed shut. "Fuck off."
"All right, when?"
"I don't trust you. You're just going to put it off. You're going to get all caught up in the day-to-day fuckin' ... bollocks of that office, you're going to keep working for The Man when The Man is exploiting you. So no, you're not going to do it."
"Then you know what? Fuckin' tell us, Phil." Gav was smiling, but it was tight on his face. "Tell us what I have to do to make you happy, eh?"
"I'm coming with." He nodded loosely. "Sort it out for you."
"No. You're not coming with. You said yourself—"
"It's the only way."
"—that I had to do this man-to-man, right?"
"Aye, but that's not going to happen, is it?"
"I just told you it will." Gav laughed.
"Aye, but you won't do it properly." Phil leaned in closer, appeared to block out everything else in the pub – the other drinkers, Fiona, even some of the sound, condensing it to Phil's puffy, sweaty face and the sound to a rising hiss and rumble of blood in his ears and the sound of Phil's voice. And it became obvious that whatever Phil had to say now wasn't a suggestion anymore. "I'm coming with. We'll do it together. We'll get that bastard telt, eh?"
Gav watched him, his gaze swaying. He needed to go home and get some sleep, and suddenly felt the weight of Phil's hand on his shoulder.
The hand shook him out of his thoughts.
"It's not just you anymore. It's all of us. What d'you say, marra?"
Gav started nodding and felt sick. "Aye, all right. Let's do that, then."
26
"I'm not going to say anything. It's not my place. This is your business, son." The old man moved his mouth like he was chewing something. "I know it's not been easy. I know you had a rough time of it over there—"
"No, you don't." Joe was half gone, caught, and caring even less than he had the first time. Last thing he wanted to deal with was this, but there it was. Sitting on the bed and gazing out of the window at the overcast sky, all Joe wanted to do was lie back and go to sleep. He'd been about to do that when the old man had knocked on the door and asked if they could have a talk, just the two of them, just for a second.
"I know it's stressful. I know maybe you needed something to help with that when you were over there. But you're home now. You need to sort it out."
Joe didn't say anything, just stared at the old man, lazily questioning his authority. It felt as if he was being told off, which was a joke: the old man had always been too soft to do anything like that. First sign of resistance, he would roll over. Rolled over for Mam, rolled over when the doctors told him there was nothing they could do for her, rolled over when they closed the works, and now, when Joe wouldn't answer, he'd roll over again. All Joe had to do was keep staring at the old man, then leave the room. And if he hadn't been half-nodding, that was exactly what he would've done. As it turned out, the old man took Joe's reluctance to leave as a desire, half-hearted or otherwise, to kick the smack, which was why he was talking in that counsellor tone, urging him as gently as he could to go down the GP and ask for help. "That's all you need to do, Joe. There are things they can treat you with. I've read about it. There's substitutes. Methadone, something like that ..."
"Thanks." Joe's voice was toneless. "I'll think about it."
"I'm just saying, you don't want to be doing that with a bairn in the house."
"Understood."
"And I don't want to have to tell Michelle."
"Course you don't."
"No sense in upsetting her. Besides, it's best you sort this out yourself."
"I agree."
"Great."
The old man nodded and, once he realised that Joe wasn't going to say anything else, backed out of the room like a royal servant. Joe watched him leave, disgusted. Then he looked at the floor and rubbed his forehead with the heel of his hand. He rolled a bad taste around the inside of his mouth.
What the fuck did he know about anything? What the fuck did he know about stress? A seven-horse accumulator didn't come close.
In Ulster, it was constant. Wasn't so much the violence – once that kicked off, the training kicked in – but the perpetual threat. In the course of one day, an Ammunition Technical Officer cleared a hoax IED from outside a house in Waterside – it comprised four beer cans, two batteries, various pieces of wire and a watch face. An anonymous caller with a thick, almost impenetrable accent, rang up the RUC four times to warn of seven bombs in Londonderry city centre, and one more in Prehen Park. At the same time in Creggan, two masked men – one with a handgun – hijacked a Department of Environment Land Rover and returned five minutes later, having told the driver to park outside Fort George. The driver told the RUC and another ATO discovered a beer keg covered in wires in the back seat – another hoax. An hour later, the same thing happened with a Toyota van – hijacked, rigged with a hoax, the driver ordered to take it somewhere, this time Craigavon Bridge.
Every now and then, if your luck had completely gone to shit, a real bomb would go off.
And then you had all the day-to-day bollocks that weren't hoax calls. Military patrols stoned on the streets. Buses and taxis hijacked and set ablaze. Petrol bombs chucked at RUC mobile patrols and military ambulances. The British Army weren't there as an occupying force. It wasn't a police state, either. Their role in proceedings was strictly reactive, to keep the level of violence as low as possible in order that other influences might go to work. A purely military victory in Northern Ireland was never on the cards. At least, that was the official line borne o
ut by the brass and trickled down to the troops, but some of the lads believed they were out there to knock some sense into these Paddy bastards, and they were the ones held up by the brass as examples of infantrymen who actually enjoyed The Ulster Experience. Unfortunately, most of those lads were two-planks thick and psychotic by the second month, so it was the likes of Joe the brass promoted to Lance-Corporal.
And being a Lance-Corporal meant you were in charge of a brick – the four-man standard unit of patrol in urban environments where fields of view and arcs of fire were limited, and where there may only be one or two gunmen. Any number of bricks could be used to patrol an area, the idea being that each brick provided support for another, and that the smaller patrols would be more vigilant in order to prevent ambushes, and more mobile in order to cut off avenues of escape. Patrolling was mostly about pissing on enemy territory and marking it as British Army, what the brass called "domination of the ground". This land grab had two main rewards: it denied the enemy freedom of movement, and it meant troops could build up a detailed knowledge of topography and community. And there was always the fleeting chance you could catch the bastards in the act.
Then again, when your Lance Corporal had the slow blood of a functioning smack addict, patrols became an exercise in putting one foot after the other. Full training comprised patrol and riot-control techniques, how to shoot, when to shoot, when to tell others to shoot, what happened if they shot back, how to recognise what they were shooting back with, how to deal with the damage those weapons did, and finally how to arrest the bastards in line with current military procedure. All of that was shit in his hand if his brain couldn't recall it, and his brain couldn't recall it under that kind of pressure. Most people were allowed to walk down a street. Joe couldn't do that; most days he had to lead his brick into an area that he knew could be dangerous. He had to keep an eye on every window and doorway, every street corner and hedgerow for the telltale signs of an ambush – something glinting in the sun, an open window when it was cold outside, a moving curtain, something that could be construed as a signal, made by paid boys to a waiting gunman or bomber. He was also responsible for keeping his patrol together, keeping them tight, watching each man and making sure he was carrying out his allotted task. Where there was no trust, no respect, there was danger. Thirdly, he had to navigate: however familiar he and his patrol were with the ground, they had to be aware at all times of precisely where they were – in the event of sudden contact (which was what the brass liked to call the shitstorm of violence that came their way every now and then), he would have to report instantly over the radio where he was and in which street. Next, as patrol commander, Joe was responsible for communicating over the radio with Company HQ and with other patrols out on the ground supporting him or working with him. Lastly, and most important of all, he would carry out whatever the patrol task was – as patrol commander it was Joe who had to fill out the written report after the patrol. He was the one responsible for carrying out identity checks or who did the checks of the occupants of a car at a Vehicle Check Point.
