Angels Of The North

by Ray Banks

  "Saying he's a perv?"

  "No. Not a perv. Not like that." She thought about it some more, then stared at her open hands as if the script was there. "It's like he's looking at you and he's trying to see where your weak spots are. Like you're talking to him and you're saying all these nice things to each other, and all the time he's sitting there looking at you like he's wondering how you're going to react when he's in charge. Like he's always on the edge of telling you what to do, d'you know what I mean? There's never anything ... normal about it. It's not like you're talking to him. It's like you're talking to his secretary and he's filing it all away, I ... I don't like it. It's creepy." She frowned. "I don't know if I explained it very well."

  "I think you did."

  "And I can't tell you what to do, Joe. It's your decision to make. But if you're asking me do I trust him, or should you work for him, then no. I don't want you owing him anything. And I don't want him in charge of you."

  "You know something?" He pulled her closer to him. She fell into his chest. "I think you're right."

  "Yeah?"

  "I do."

  "So are you going to take the job, then?"

  He let one finger poke her in the side. She yelped.

  "Course I'm not, you daft ha'porth."

  They sat there for a while longer, watching the breeze play with the woodchips and grass. The bairn made occasional noises. She seemed happy.

  Joe used to play out here when he was a kid. Back when Mam was alive, she'd take him down here. There wasn't much in the way of things to play on – a rusty roundabout and a few swings – but it was enough to be outside and running around. He remembered, and this might have been complete bollocks, but he remembered that he had mates once. They were a gang of marauders, taking the playground by force even if it was empty and they had to imagine their enemies. Back then, all they wanted was to be pirates and their highest honours came in the form of the scrapes and bruises they picked up while rolling around on the concrete. They climbed on walls that sported broken bottles mortared into the brickwork. They hung off street lamps and bus shelters. And when they came out to the playground, they watched the works belch smoke and choke the life out of their fathers. And they knew, each of them, that they'd never work down there, not as long as they had breath to fight.

  He didn't remember any of their names now. Their faces were little more than smudges in his memory. He remembered scuffed shoes and bloodied knees and he remembered a fight once on a summer night where one of the big lads pinned down one of their gang – a weakling, he remembered now, a reed-thin, watery-eyed lad who wore thick glasses because one of his eyes went off in an odd direction. This big fucking bully pinned down this lad and was gobbing on him slowly, a long string of spit dangling over the weak lad's mouth, getting closer and closer to his tightened lips. The rest of the gang all stood round watching, frozen to the spot, no longer marauders. They couldn't do anything. They were too scared. Because if they interrupted, if they didn't sacrifice the weakest member of the herd to the big lad, then they'd all be next. He'd do them one by one, however long it took.

  But just as the big lad's spit came perilously close to the skinny lad's glasses, the skinny lad lashed out one hand, suddenly free from under the big lad's knee, and grabbed the big lad's face. There was a collective stuttered breath, caught and held, as the big lad punched the little one back to the concrete. But there was something wrong. The big lad had hunched forward. Skinny had something in his hand and he wasn't going to let go. There was a scream, then the blood started. Skinny's fingers were red in seconds. The big lad wrenched away from him, both hands going up to his eye. For one sickening second, Joe thought Skinny'd gouged the big lad's eye out, but in a fleeting glimpse of the wound as the bully stumbled blindly past, he saw that it wasn't the eye but the lashes that had been torn free. The big lad ran home, leaving tiny drops of blood in his wake. When they helped Skinny up, he shrugged their hands from his arm. He didn't need anyone's help. He was stronger than the rest of them, but not by choice. Like someone with a terminal illness. They said they were brave, when all they were was trying not to die yet.

  Fuck it, maybe that was bravery after all.

  The parents called their kids home, and the kids reluctantly obeyed, some of them more reluctantly than others. Joe and Michelle watched the park vacate as the bairn slept soundly at their feet. When the breeze went from cool to cold, Michelle didn't say anything, but Joe saw the shiver in her shoulders and said they should probably get off home. "Don't want the bairn to catch a chill."

  They set off for Turkish Pete's, the chippy down the end of Elswick Walk. Michelle said she'd get it, but Joe had a bit of money and insisted. Bought jumbo sausage and chips for Michelle, a cod and chips for Joe and, because he had a note, he got a haddock and chips for the old man. Michelle glanced at him when he said that. She didn't seem to know what to say. He looked out of the window, the sky already bruised. "He'll be coming out the bookies. Probably starving, eh?"

  She nodded. Her eyes looked watery and she appeared to be holding back. She was about to say something when Turkish Pete handed over three bundles himself. Joe pushed away from the window and grabbed the parcels. Michelle pushed the bairn out through the doors and threw a backwards wave at Pete before the Turk turned his attention to a bug-eyed man in a toon top who wanted to know if he had to pay for extra batter bits.

  45

  Brian heard Danielle before he saw her – laughter, loud and genuine, a sound he hadn't heard in years – as she came through the school gates. She had friends with her – Brian assumed they were friends because she was talking to them, smiling with them, joking and carrying on – but they weren't from the estate. Tania and Shannon weren't part of the clique anymore. That outing at the MetroCentre must've been one last blip on the road to separation. And it was inevitable, wasn't it? After all, Danielle didn't live on the estate, and the Hall was the kind of place where you made friends just because they lived near you. If you didn't share the same interests, you found something bland and innocuous that everyone liked and then that became your thing. With men it was football or drinking or women. With the girls, Brian guessed music or make-up. Danielle was growing up – one look at her, the cosmopolitan young lady, would tell you that – and because she was growing up, she needed new friends to hang out with, people who suited her new self-image. No doubt Tan and Shan called her all the snotty bitches under the sun. They were probably right, but the sad thing was that dumping Tan and Shan was just another example of Danielle cutting ties with the estate.

  Maybe Lynne wasn't brainwashing her. Maybe this was all her own choice.

  These new friends of hers were from her new school. She'd apparently transferred to Central High earlier in the year. Lynne hadn't told him because she didn't want him to worry about the fees. At least that was the story she spun him. The real reason she didn't tell him was because Central High was a posh school for smart kids. They had to sit exams to get in. Danielle must've sat them just after Christmas – he couldn't get his head round the time frame, or that she'd kept such a big thing from him. And then she must've passed – and that was even more bewildering. He knew she wasn't a dunce, but the idea that she was clever had never really occurred to him. She was just a girl, after all. She acted like one. She was girly and slight and whenever he'd seen her with Tan and Shan, she'd acted just as thick as them. And now look at her, strolling with friends – posh friends with nice big posh houses like Danielle's mother's boyfriend. Look at her clean hair and brown uniform and healthy face. Listen to the way she tried to soften her accent to fit in with them, and the way she was repeating what they said, training herself with their vocabulary. Something made a noise in Brian's head – sounded like his jaw clicking at speed – and he realised what it was.

  Jealousy.

  Christ, wasn't that right? Here he was, sat in his cab, screwed up in his seat, watching his daughter over the lip of the side window. He felt like a toad. He felt dirty, like
he was stalking her.

  They hadn't mentioned Central High because of the fees, which meant that someone else was paying them. And that someone probably wasn't Lynne, or else she would've been happy to tell him. So this was Crosby's doing. And it still gnawed at him, turning like a slow drill bit in his mind every night – he was just a copper, not even a detective sergeant, so how could he afford all this?

  Brian smiled to himself, watching Danielle swing her bag like Julie Christie in Billy Liar, waving with two fingers – ah ta-ta – before she made her way to the Merc that had just pulled up The car was that kind of off-silver colour – a brownish silver – they called champagne but reminded Brian of the first piss of the day. Crosby sat behind the wheel. Probably swinging by to check on his investment. Brian hunkered down even more. He became suddenly aware of the bright yellow Puma Cab decal on the side of the car, panicking because he didn't know whether to reverse up the street or keep down and hope Crosby didn't see him, which of course he had, hadn't he? He must have.

  He waited for the inevitable scene, but if Crosby had noticed him, he'd decided not to pursue it. As the Merc pulled away, a white van obscured him for a second as it passed. Brian watched it go in the rear view mirror.

  What would he have done if Crosby had seen him? What would he have done if Crosby had seen him, got out of the car and come over to speak to him, tell him to stop being a fucking weirdo and leave his daughter alone? What would he have done then? Maybe got out – Brian pictured himself throwing open the door so hard it forced Crosby back – and stood up for himself. "She's my daughter, mate. Not yours. I've got a right to see her."

  "Oh aye? Well, we're working on that."

  "How about you work on this?" And then he, what, he would hit him? Curl a fist, plant it in his gut and double the bastard in the middle of the street. And then what? Well, watch him crumple first – that couldn't be avoided, it was too wonderful a sight not to savour – and then apologise to Danielle – "I'm sorry, love. I just wanted to see you" – and then maybe she'd look at him and understand that all he wanted to do was apologise, be a dad and try to work something out. Because maybe this school and these new friends had given her a new perspective on life. Maybe she'd matured. And maybe they'd agree to meet up and talk it all over once and for all. Crosby would shout and swear and lose that sculptured cool. Brian and Danielle would share a glance like, who does this fucker think he is? and that would be enough.

  Or he would've bottled it and shuddered in silence while Crosby tore a strip off him in front of his daughter.

  Brian shuffled back up in his seat and scared the shit out of a little girl who happened to be passing by his window. She jumped back, startled, wide brown eyes and comedy O for a mouth. She couldn't have been any older than ten, wore the Central High uniform and looked like Bambi at the end of a hunter's rifle. He looked away, hating himself, and started the engine. Turned on the radio and caught the tail end of South Gosforth pick-up. He called it, turned the wheel.

  Heading out to the High Street, he couldn't shift Crosby from his thoughts. If Crosby was on the take, then there was something Brian could do about that, wasn't there? He could take the fight back to him. Calling Brian a skivvy for a fucking gangster. How the fuck would he know, eh? How would he know unless he thought like a criminal himself?

  Brian stopped outside the Duke of York pub. A bloke in a suit got in the back. He slumped and shuffled, looked as if he was trying to show Brian his gut, then pulled his jacket closed, tucked his tie and jerked his chin before he finally told Brian to take him up to Darras Hall. Brian knew immediately that this wasn't the kind of fare who liked to talk. That was fine. Brian wasn't exactly in the mood himself. Besides, the bloke looked like a shithead. He had to be if he lived in Darras Hall. Way out of Brian's normal remit, but he'd been up there enough times to know a gated community was a good way to foster the kind of silver-spoon stupidity that was currently killing the country. If he had a mind to lose a tip and possible a fare, he'd tell that to the bloke in the back seat, but Brian wasn't that daft or that desperate to prove a point. He had thinking to do, and in the meantime, he'd vaguely judge the fucker in the back seat and take every antisocial tremor of his face as confirmation that was he was right.

  "What are you looking at?"

  Brian shook his head. "Nothing."

  "Well, then. Watch the road."

  "Sorry."

  The bloke frowned, looked out of the window.

  Brian mouthed "cunt" at him in the rear view.

  What was that line? Behind every great fortune was an even greater crime, something like that. Something he read many years ago, popping out of the fog of his brain in flashing neon. Bringing him back to Michael Crosby.

  There was something wrong there. Some danger. He'd always known it. Always thought there were things that didn't ring true. He didn't know the man, hadn't spent much time in his company (thank God), but there'd been a mechanical ease with which he'd managed to co-opt Lynne into his bed and then further into his house. And what a house it was, Brian remembered. Big, in Low Fell, not the kind of old-money house people inherited. It was the kind of upper-middle-class house they bought. And for him to be living there by himself ... it was implausible. There was definitely a rabbit off there. But then why wasn't he living in town? Why wasn't he living it up in Newcastle or somewhere if he had the money?

  Brian dropped the posh prick off in Darras Hall. The prick didn't tip. Brian didn't expect one. He didn't stick around, got back on the A696 and put pedal to the metal all the way down to Low Fell. There he circled around, didn't slow, as he passed Crosby's house. The car was there. Another pick-up came through on the radio. Brian turned it off. He parked at the end of the street and waited.

  It wasn't long before Brian noticed activity at Crosby's place. The front door opened, Crosby came out and took the steps two at a time. Got in the Merc and sped off without so much as a look over his shoulder. Brian pulled in, kept the car way back and his eye on his quarry. Stalking Crosby had become easier with practice, and it provided Brian with a much-needed – albeit low-key – revenge. After all, what kind of detective was he if he couldn't spot a semi-regular tail? Plus there was always the fervent hope that he'd see Crosby do something reportable, even though it was becoming increasingly apparent that this stick-up-his-arse copper's only weakness was his taste in women. He followed Crosby into Gateshead City Centre, watched him cruise around until he stopped in front of a snooker hall. Brian kept on going down the road. In the rear view he saw Crosby notice the cab, but not him. It might've been suspicious, but easily written off – it was south of the Tyne, this was where Puma operated. Brian pulled in at the end of the street. Watched Crosby head for the snooker hall and buzz to get in. Brian lit a cigarette. The radio burbled, never fully silent. He heard Gav shouting at someone. He didn't switch his gaze from the mirror. Crosby appeared almost as quickly as he'd gone, shoving something into his pocket that looked suspiciously like cash and Brian's chest got tight.

  "Fuck me." Saying it out loud, barely aware of it. Cigarette burning between his fingers. He watched Crosby get into the Merc and drive off. Didn't realise he was gone until ten seconds later when ash dropped from the end of his tab into his lap. Brian stuck the cigarette between his lips and brushed his trousers, smoke in his eyes. Then he started the engine and took off after Crosby, but the Merc was nowhere to be seen.

  So he was gone, but it didn't really matter, did it? All that mattered was that Brian was right. He'd thought it was a long shot, but there it was, played out in front of him in three dimensions – Crosby picking up his cash from a snooker hall. What kind of investor did that? The kind that wasn't investing money, but providing protection, that's what.

  Brian had to pull over. His heart was beating so hard he thought he might black out. After all this time, all this humiliation, he had something. He had a weapon. Which meant there was hope after all.

  46

  Gav let out a long, harassed sigh. Cro
sseyed with paperwork. Tax shit, payroll shit, seven bags of seven shades of other shit. He couldn't get organised, couldn't get things done. Seemed like every time he had something nailed, there was someone begging for something else.

  There was a knock on the door. Gav looked up to see Phil Cruddas filling the gap. "Got a minute, Chief?"

  "What?"

  "Someone here to see you."

  Wasn't like Phil to knock, even less like him to stand there waiting to come in.

  "Who?"

  Phil moved out of the way to reveal Lawrence of Arabia with a suitcase. Tall, blonde, in charge. The kind of bloke who got things done, not out of any great desire to see them done, but because that was just the way he'd been brought up. The stranger introduced himself: "Detective Constable Michael Crosby."

  Gav blinked in spite of himself. Glanced at Phil, who still stood by the door, apparently desperate to leave, which he did as soon as Crosby was in the office, closing the door behind him. That's it, fucking do one, you coward.

  "What's this about?"

  "Don't worry." Crosby sat opposite. "I'm not here in an official capacity."

  "Right."

  "I know you've had some problems with the police recently."

  "I wouldn't say that."

  "Some of your drivers—"

  "That was nothing to do with me, though. So ..."

  "It's okay. This isn't an interview."

  "Then what is it?" Gav made a show of looking at his watch. "I mean, I've got a lot to be getting on with. I'm not sure I have the time—"

  "Won't take five minutes, but I understand that you're busy, and I didn't call ahead. If you'd rather rearrange, I can do that."

  Crosby reached into his case and removed a Filofax. He plucked a pen from the centre and started leafing through the pages. This bloke was a yuppie. Not just a yuppie wannabe, either – now Gav managed to study him, he noted the cut of his suit, the haircut, the glint of the watch under the cuff of his shirt. He was moneyed. And Gav could always do with a bit more money if a wanker like this was prepared to give it away.