The lads squirrel through the gardens and burnt-out houses, digging up their stashes of guns and drugs, hoping to save them before they’re covered over with rubble and lost for ever.
On the fringes of the action, an officer from the Royal Engineers is giving an interview to BBC World. ‘This phase is designated Operation Urban Renewal. The Boot estate was a warren of half-demolished houses and decaying streets. In effect, it was a citadel for the gangs to operate in, a ready-made environment that enabled crime and anti-social behaviour to flourish. Liverpool City Council have let it rot for years, despite pledging to demolish it. That delay in decamping this estate has played a role in the rise of gang culture. My soldiers will finish the job in a day so that we can hand this land back to the community in order that it can be put to good use.’
As he speaks, demolition teams are moving systematically from one building to the next. Charges are thrown inside. ‘Fire in the hole!’ Another house gone. Fires erupt, fuelled by wood, plastic and plaster. Mountains of fly-tipped tyres and rubbish send flames 40 ft into the air. Soldiers move slowly across the landscape, silhouetted against the orange light, bored amid the towers of black smoke, just like after the Gulf War.
On the residential streets bordering the demolition area, com-munications officers paste propaganda posters onto lamp posts and fences, pictures of smiling British Army soldiers wearing berets, with long radio wires sticking out of their backpacks, chatting with kids and mums: ‘The Army – Working With You to Build a Safer Community’. Some Air Assault Brigade paras go round handing out sweets to the gangs of smaller kids.
The Boot is now levelled: piles of broken rubble, smouldering ruins. On telly, the commander-in-chief of Operation Urban Freedom says that his ‘number-one priority’ is to win the hearts and minds of Broken Britain. No point in building a hospital or a school, he says. There’s plenty of them. So they’re going to build an adventure playground, he says. The place is going to be completely fucking tarmacked over and sponged-up with dark-green Polymax rubber. A politician chimes in, saying that in the long-term the plan is to build a sports centre so that the teenagers can box and play football instead of joining gangs.
‘Fuck’s sake, lad,’ says Jay, changing the channel. ‘Not another fucking sports centre.’
‘Know, yeah,’ replies Clone. ‘Can’t believe it, can you?’
‘Fucking hated games at school,’ Jay carries on. ‘Why would you wanna go afterwards and play footie? Don’t these pricks understand that?’
‘They can’t get their nuts round it, can they?’ Dylan says. ‘Kids round here hate fucking sport. Kids round here are too tired, too shattered from all the mayhem.’
‘So you’re gonna teach them to box? Even worse,’ Jay argues. ‘Turn them into world-class athletes. World-class fucking gangsters.’
‘Boxing, lad,’ scoffs Clone. ‘Don’t need to box. Why d’you need to have a fight if you’ve got a gun, lad?’
Dylan starts thinking aloud: ‘All’s the kids need is a bus shelter with a heater in, innit? Somewhere warm and safe where they can meet their mates. I could draw one now for the pricks, it’s not fucking hard.’
‘What d’you mean, lad?’ asks Jay.
Dylan swallows hard, embarrassed: ‘Think about it, lad. Half the reason the kids are off their heads round here is the fucking weather. Pure fucking whalers’ weather in off the Atlantic. Six or nine months of the year, you’re stood outside in the rain with your fucking hood up in your own little world, sealed off from everything. Can’t be arsed talking to anyone never mind making new mates. Everyone stops and talks to each other in hot countries. I’ve seen it on telly, lad. Give them somewhere warm and dry to chat shit with their mates, and you’re laughing.’
Dylan would never have said all that in front of the older ones. But with Jay he couldn’t really give a fuck. ‘A bus shelter with a fucking radiator in it. Freedom to be safe and meet their mates. That’s all kids round here need. But the problem is there’s no graft in it. If you build a sports centre, some cunt is making pure punt out it. Someone somewhere’s getting a new carpet out it, so they’re not gonna settle for making a Perspex hut for four hundred pound, are they?’
* * *
Once the new surface is down, red, white and blue bunting goes up on The Boot playground. At nine in the morning a few fat mums are standing shivering on the rubber matting in pyjamas or old pink sweatpants, a few Liverpool tops. It’s a fitness class for the cameras, based on the British Army Fitness Programme, like they do for the homeless in London. GMTV are there with their own Green Goddess type. Lorraine Kelly comes out of her Winnebago, says that the army and the locals are working to build an atmosphere of community, rekindling the spirit of the Blitz.
Most of the mums haven’t been up before one in the afternoon for years. Dylan looks at the flailing mas out the window, then goes back to bed.
Lupus is sat on a red-brick wall, shaking his head. ‘The campesinos – mad, aren’t they?’
‘Know, yeah,’ says Pacer. ‘They’ll front anything, won’t they?’
They see Nogger, a few doors down, run out from his pit in his boxies and a T-shirt. He’s spotted his mentally ill ma dancing to ‘The Best’ by Tina Turner. Nogger runs up to his ma and sister. ‘Get in, you fucking pricks. What the fuck do you think you’re doing out here in the street dancing with bizzies and those fucking baby killers?’ he asks, pointing at the squaddies. ‘On the fucking telly, as well. Are you fucking soft or something?’ He grabs his ma by her unkempt hair and drags her in. A few of the paras pretend to get aggrieved. Nogger smiles. ‘As if, prick. I’ll ram that fucking SA80 up your arse.’ He laughs at them, fucks them off, knowing they can do fuck all under the rules of engagement.
Nogger’s sister tells him, ‘I’d watch it if I was you. Those paras take no shit.’
‘What? You fucking shagging one of them, are you? I bet you’re getting hoofed by half the fucking regiment. Don’t you fucking worry about me. I’m a fucking suspect in the Chalina fucking carry-on. If I slipped over on a bar of soap in the bath, they’d be in trouble. D’you get me? I know me rights, girl. They can do fuck all to me.’
Before long, they get an early-morning call off an army disruption team. They swoop on Dylan’s at 4 a.m., come through the front door. Bang! SAS-types come through the back gate and the upstairs windows, pure Iranian embassy-style, stun grenades going off in the front room.
They’re not like the bizzies – rougher, dirtier, louder. The skirting boards are broken and battered just by them running up the stairs. Wardrobes and cupboards are turned over and tipped up. They’re shouting all the time to keep Dylan and his ma and the kids freaked out. Dylan knows the score, though. It’s just one of their tactics, so that they can take control of the environment. The SAS live in a world of shouting, so it’s just normal to them. Everyone’s told to get down or thrown down until they’ve identified Dylan.
A pointy black sack’s put over his head and he’s handcuffed to a stretcher and Black Hawked to Camp Photon, where he’s put in an orange boiler suit and interrogated. Nogger’s there too. They’re together in a Portakabin, chained to the floor. There are two officers and a tubby man dressed in civilian clothes sitting behind a trestle table, and about seven ordinary squaddies standing up or sat off behind them.
‘You fucking scum,’ says one of the squaddies.
Another says to Dylan, ‘Sister’s fucking tasty, isn’t she? Bet she’s a good ride.’ Dylan and Nogger take the interrogation all day. They’ve been in and out of bizzy stations since they were 12. Dylan neutralises his body language, giving nothing away. Back straight, hands on knees, palms up. After the hood comes off, he focuses his eyes on a single point on the wall. Nogger slouches and picks his nails, staring the hardest-looking squaddie out.
Neither of them replies to any of the questions. Now and again, Dylan asks, ‘Can I ring me solicitor?’
A posh officer tells him, ‘You have been detained under anti-terrorism
legislation. You are being questioned under British Army regulations. You have no right to legal representation.’
‘Is that martial law?’
‘Yes. Under the new Emergency Powers and Civil Disorder Act, normal law has been suspended and has no jurisdiction here.’
They start asking about Chalina, and the posh officer says, ‘You must feel ashamed when you see her mum. Don’t you feel bad that you killed that poor woman’s daughter?’
‘Don’t know who killed her, lad,’ replies Nogger, ‘but the ma’s getting good graft out of it now, isn’t she? On GMTV and all that. Making a few quid, isn’t she? Be on Big Brother next.’
‘You fucking baby killers,’ shouts one of the squaddies. ‘You fucking pair of nonces. I’d fucking strangle you right now.’
‘Fucking kiddie killers,’ chimes in another.
Dylan laughs. ‘D’you mean youse in Iraq? Killing all those women and children?’
‘Didn’t kill no civilians, you cheeky little cunt.’
‘Fuck off. All those hundreds of thousands of innocent people youse wasted?’ He laughs. ‘Fucking rock hard, youse, blowing up all those families in their houses. Those little Paki kids with shrapnel all over their faces cos youse dropped a bomb on a fucking wedding. And now youse’ve got the fucking cheek to blame us for killing a kid? Full of shit, you, lad.’
The squaddie’s seething now. ‘You fucking shithead pikey. We’re fighting over there so fucking shit like you can be safe here.’
Dylan smiles at him. ‘You’re fighting over there cos some posh cunt like him’ – pointing at the officer – ‘has ordered you to. For fucking oil or whatever. They’ve killed millions of youse over the years in the fucking wars. And you’re still falling for it, you silly cunt.’
He goes to punch Dylan now, in the stomach. Dylan’s handcuffed, but he roundhouses him in the upper chest as he stoops to hit him, telling him, ‘Go way, you fucking prick.’
‘Youse think you’re fucking hard,’ says the squaddie. ‘Shit’d be pouring out of your fucking arse if the Taliban copped for you in the field.’
Dylan’s buzzing: ‘Generations of my family have been sent to war by you pricks. Brought nothing but fucking grief to us. Everyone knows how much arse we’ve got lad. We’re just not grafting it for rich people no more.’ Dylan’s laughing again, almost relaxed. ‘Anyway, what are you doing, fighting for your king and country? Just oppressing ordinary people.’
After two hours, they give up on Chalina. They know they’ll get fuck all, despite the constant baiting by the young squaddies. The interrogation turns to gangs in general. Dylan knows this is what they’re really interested in. They couldn’t give a fuck about Chalina. Finally, they’re released.
CHAPTER 24
CIVILIAN PROTECTION AUTHORITY
Everyone’s wanting to be Nogger’s mate now. A bit of celebrity goes a long way. In the past month, he’s been getting some good graft off the older lads. Gets two grand to collect a drug debt from a gangster in Hull. Nogger shoots the feller’s bird in the arm and breaks his daughter’s nose. He hands over £32,000.
Afterwards he tells the lads about it. ‘The cunt owed us 40 grand. But I let him off with the eight. Daughter was fucking fit, though, la. Only 12, but she’s a proper little tease. She’s got fucking big tits and a big fat arse, and she’s sitting there on the couch in skin-tight yellow leggings, legs open. You’re not saying that’s not legal, lad. That’s fair game, innit? As far as I’m concerned. Was half thinking of bending her over in front of the fucking ma and da.
‘But fucking scruffs they were, mate, the ma and da. Dirty scags, proper fucking smelly cunts. Fucking spots all over their faces and yellow teeth. Looking too much like the test on the blood, know where I’m going? So I thought, fuck that. Not going near the little bint, am I? Even though she’s sitting there giving it loads. So I just banged her out instead. Bang!’ Nogger does a little slo-mo jab to illustrate. ‘Blood all over her. Running off her leggings. Was fucking funny, though, telling you.’
‘And you only got two grand out of that?’ asks Dylan. ‘They’re using you, la. Treating you like a gimp, if you ask me.’
‘Fuck off, Dylan. It’s business. Do a few little things for the older lads and if that goes OK, you get some more work. Better than taxing little nuggets round here for 700 notes.’
‘Sounds like you’re being mugged off, mate. Just telling you.’
‘D’you know what I did before I got off?’ Nogger pauses, looks around the room, hyping the effect. ‘Just pulled my hood back, didn’t I? Let the feller know who did this.’
Everyone’s buzzing off Nogger’s outrageous cheek, letting the victims know who taxed them. His new trademark, now he’s become immune after the Chalina thing.
On Friday morning, graft day, Nogger’s at the wheel of his hired Transit van. Pauline Mac’s in the front seat, proud to be sitting next to her feller. Nogger tries to run over a couple of paps as he gets off. They’re trying to get pics of Pauline putting on her make-up in the rear-view mirror. She’s in Hollyoaks now, and she’s going for an audition for the lead in some big West End musical next week.
He drives down to Nottingham to a pharmaceutical wholesaler. The place is an old Victorian factory with a loading bay at the back. Nogger shakes hands with the young Asian son of the owner. Nogger, the new businessman. The warehouse lads load up two pallets of benzocaine drums, each one weighing 25 kilos and costing £3,000 – all legal.
They’re back up to Liverpool for half two in the afternoon. ‘Just be in time for the Friday night rush, there, girl,’ says Nogger, rubbing his hands together.
He’s renting a new build in Halewood these days, well outside the Gang Exclusion Zone. When they’re home, Nogger gets in the back of the van, slices through the industrial polythene wrap around the blue-plastic drums and carries one shadily into the flat, wrapped in a couple of bin-bags.
That Friday, Dylan’s up early for a game of footie in the park with the lads. He goes through the washing routine he’s adopted. He pours two inches of petrol into the sink from an old bleach bottle he keeps next to the bog, rinses his hands and arms with it, then cleans off the smell with loads of Fairy Liquid, slaps on some Nivea to finish, to make sure his skin doesn’t crack. He takes a jacket and trackies off the line. He’s washing them every night now, hand-picking the gauze in the pockets to make sure there’s no old bits of gear or gun residue in there.
All the lads are getting out of their houses early doors now. The police have bugged all their places up to death. Dylan’s even heard the Special Branch are firing microwaves at his windows to measure the vibrations so they can recreate the conversations inside. One of the lads said that was how they beat the IRA and the miners’ strike. ‘Old technology, like, but it works, d’you know worramean?’
Dylan looked at him as though he was fucking soft. He was like that: ‘What the fuck are you on about? The fucking miners’ strike . . .’ But he told his ma to say fuck all in the house and started staying outside anyway.
He waits in the queue for the checkpoint to get out of Nogzy. Paras and Royal Irish Fusiliers are checking papers, searching bags and doing the rub-downs. Pure Belfast 1981. As well as the pedestrians, cars and buses are backed up all through the rubble of The Boot, paras poking around in the boots of cars.
Dylan and Jay stay in the bookie’s all day to keep out the house and off the streets. At the counter, a Royal Irish Fusilier smiles at Jay, who blanks him and puts a fiver on trap two in the 10.50 at Brighton and Hove, just so the girl behind the counter won’t boot them out. Dylan’s looking up at Sky on the flat-screen TV when the news starts and pictures of the Exclusion Zone come up.
‘The British Army handed over power to a newly formed Civilian Protection Authority today. The government body will run the affairs of the occupation zones that were taken over by the army as part of the War on TerrorCrime.
‘Troops were ordered onto the streets in the gang-ridden Croxteth and Norri
s Green areas of the city to restore order following the death of three-year-old Chalina Murphy. Chalina was gunned down during a shoot-out between two of the city’s most notorious street gangs. No one has yet been arrested in connection with the murder.
‘Officials at the CPA said it will govern the areas until they are safe enough to be handed back to the local council and Merseyside Police. The Prime Minister stressed that the CPA would not be a military organisation. He said it would be staffed by civil servants as opposed to army officers and was an important step towards winning the war on TerrorCrime. Former Joint Intelligence Committee member Robin Farquharson has been appointed to head up the body.
‘MOD sources said that the army would remain on the streets indefinitely but that they would be pulled back from forward operating bases to “enduring bases”, long-term security facilities outside the gang zones. A spokesman for the CPA confirmed that front-line roles will be taken over by private military contractors.’
Some off-duty Royal Irish Fusiliers come in: skinheads, tight T-shirts, stonewashed jeans. Their aftershave mixes with the smell of the bookie’s – mice and stale cigarette smoke from the years before smoking was banned. Dylan fucks them off and studies the form for the 3.15 at Haydock, a little betting-shop biro between his teeth.
The army lads let on to Pacer and New Loon. ‘What the fuck are youse doing in here?’ asks New Loon.
‘Free country, innit?’ says one of the soldiers, laughing. ‘Some of us are pulling out today. Or at least pulling back into bases outside the zone.’
New Loon and Pacer high-five. ‘Go ’ead. Seen youse off, didn’t we?’
Dylan chews his pen and smiles.
‘Wouldn’t be hanging out the flags just yet,’ says the soldier.
‘What d’you mean?’ asks New Loon.
The soldier winks, collects his winnings and gets off.
That afternoon, Nogger bells Mayonnaise, tells him in crude code to organise a big delivery to his place in Halewood. Mayonnaise organises the transport and the amount – five kilos of real gear, Nogger’s own stuff from the Nogzy stash, which was on The Boot but has been moved to a farm on the outskirts of the city. Mayonnaise tells Nogger that it’s getting harder and harder to smuggle the gear through the roadblocks now because of the electronic drug sniffers and chemical swab tests they’re using.
Gang War Page 16
