Pacer keeps saying, ‘You look like Sandra Bullock,’ to the woman with her gummy, wrecked face. New Loon pulls her grey sweatpants down, with all the lads laughing. She can’t do nothing cos of her arm stuck in the slit.
Nogger breaks off when he sees Dylan and the lads. ‘Youse all right?’
‘Purely rendered, weren’t we?’ Dylan tells him.
‘Any bad happen? Heard all kinds of jangle that youse were getting tortured,’ says Nogger, looking at Jay.
‘No. Just normal jail, wannit?’ Dylan says quickly, hoping to change the subject.
The crackhead’s moaning still, the baby crying, the little kid trying to protect his mum. New Loon’s slapping her arse.
‘Little lie down, wannit?’ says Iggo. ‘A few decent kips, half all right scran. Laughing.’
Nogger stares at Jay: ‘And what about you, Little Jay, lad. Did those cunts ask you about Chalina?’ The baby’s crying hard, the crackhead trying to pull her swollen arm free.
‘No, Nogger.’
‘Hope not, lad. Cos you know what snitches get, don’t you, lad?’ The crackhead’s writhing in pain now. The baby’s cried itself sick and the five-year-old’s pissed himself.
‘Fuck off, Nogger. Said fuck all.’
‘Snitches get stitches, Jay. Snitches get stitches.’
Jay’s arse is going now. He looks at Dylan. Dylan searches for a way to take the heat off Jay, then suddenly jumps up, takes a run-up at the crack whore, kicks the arm that’s stuck in the post box. It breaks and falls out of the slot like jelly. All the lads are in hysterics. ‘Come ’ead,’ he says. ‘Enough talking shite. Let’s party on. Let’s get a weed. Come on, the lads are back.’ Dylan signals to Jay with his eyes that he needs to get his head together.
Nogger jumps up, laughing at the broken crack whore. ‘One sick puppy, you, lad,’ he says to Dylan, off Jay’s case now.
New Loon clacks his fingers. ‘See that fucking spaz go.’ Pacer throws the kid half a tub of Haribo Friendship Rings robbed off the counter from the Armenian shop. New Loon gives the baby some fried-egg sweets. As they’re getting off, Onion gives the crack ma a £20 wrap of powder, then snatches it back. ‘Serves you right for being a punter.’
The next day, Nogger throws the Echo at Dylan. ‘Have you seen this?’
CHALINA SHOCK CONFESSION
‘We Shot Chalina’ Admits Gang Member
Arrests imminent after new breakthrough, says CPA
CPA officials announced a ‘significant step forward’ in the Chalina investigation.
Dylan’s stomach lurches. He scans the copy until he comes to what he’s looking for:
Sources close to the probe told the Echo that a ‘human intelligence source’ directly related to the shooting has provided new data. A CPA spokesman refused to confirm that a gang member had confessed but said that fresh leads were being examined.
Dylan takes a moment to control his breathing before looking up at Nogger. Then he laughs. ‘Paper talk, lad. Load of fucking jargarooney. It’s a fucking wind-up.’
‘But they’re saying that one of youse is a midnight mass.’
‘Fuck off, Nogger. It’s just speculation. Look, it says here that they “refused to confirm”. That means they haven’t said nothing. Just rumours and the papers making it up.’ Nogger rereads it slowly, sounding out the syllables and running his fingers under the words. ‘They’re just trying to put pressure on. They release us from the jug and then say that we’ve grassed so we’ll turn on each other. Classic cut-throat defence. Mind games.’
Nogger isn’t getting it. ‘But that article basically says Jay has been chatting shit to guards inside.’
‘Do you remember when we used to get nicked by Vaderis? They’d give you a slap and then drop you off in Crocky so you had to walk home through enemy territory? Well, that’s what the CPA are trying to do us in this article. Make Jay out as a grass, an informant, then drop him off back in the endz. And you’re falling for it, playing right up to it.’
‘See where you’re going now.’
Dylan reads the last few lines. ‘Look, it says that the CPA have now officially taken over the Chalina case from the police. Do you know what that means?’
‘No.’
‘Means the police don’t like it. Another humiliation. Not only have they been kicked out the Jez, they’ve been kicked off the Chalina case. The CPA are just making out they’re doing the business where the police couldn’t. Politics, lad.’
‘Clever cunt, you.’
Dylan gets rid of Nogger. He knows that he’s only got 24 hours to save Jay, before tomorrow’s papers reveal more. Dylan slips through The Boot, over the border fence and out of the Gang Exclusion Zone, back into the city.
Everything seems normal. Cars going by, ice-cream van serving hot dogs up to the kids, council workies digging up the roads. He walks around the streets on the perimeter of the Zone to the checkpoint. Outside, the usual protests are going on: anti-globalisation people, anti-martial law campaigners, climate-change folk and flower punks, the United Campaign Against Security Force Violence.
The human-rights lawyer who tried to reach out to him before is making a speech condemning the killings of Lupus and Clegsy. Dylan hoods up to avoid the CPA official photographers and cops for her when she’s finished. ‘Remember me? I’m one of the lads who’s been accused of killing Chalina. You said I could come to you if I wanted to fight back.’
‘Yes, I remember.’
‘Well, I’ve got something for you.’ Dylan tells her about the rendition, the Greyrock prison and the torture, about how Jay had made a confession while he was being tortured. She immediately says that Jay’s statement will be worthless in court because it was given under duress. Dylan tells her about the waterboarding and gives her a signed statement about what happened. The next day, it’s all over the papers.
CHALINA SUSPECT TORTURE SCANDAL
Gang Members Accuse CPA of Prison Abuse
‘I was waterboarded’ says teenager
Three teenagers linked to the murder of Chalina Murphy claim they have been tortured by private military contractors.
One 14-year-old boy says he was forced to sign a false confession after being beaten up and humiliated by American guards employed by the CPA. Two others say they were waterboarded, a controversial interrogation technique first used on al-Qaeda terrorist suspects.
The boys, none of whom can be named for legal reasons, say they were abducted from the street in Norris Green’s Gang Exclusion Zone and taken away to a secret detention facility.
A spokesperson for the Youth Crime Task Force said that passive rendition of TerrorCrime suspects is permissible under new security legislation, adding: ‘Youths characterised as Incongruous Social Enablers as defined by the S41 Emergency Powers Act can be detained indefinitely without charge. However, their rights are protected by the TerrorCrime tribunals.’
But officials at the Zone’s governing body, the CPA, denied that any torture had taken place. CPA High Representative Robin Farquharson said: ‘Torture of community combatants does not take place. I have complete confidence in our security partners Greyrock. They are professional operatives who have served in the most challenging disharmony zones around the world. They have fulfilled their contractual obligations in accordance with UK law, subject to the Emergency Powers Act and the TerrorCrime legislation.
‘Since the CPA took over operational duties from the army and Merseyside Police, under the Youth Crime Task Force mandate, incidences of TerrorCrime have fallen by 37 per cent. TerrorCrime arrests are up by 75 per cent. Stop-and-strip searches have doubled. The population is secure and happier by a factor of two-thirds.’
Dylan’s buzzing. Thrown a pure spanner in the works. The scandal explodes the following day. All the papers and TV stations are running the story. The Mirror’s headline is ‘Torture of the Scallyban’. The press pack is back with a vengeance. Loads of TV crews and journalists flood into the Gang Exclusion Zone, despite Terror
Crime reporting restrictions.
Dylan blows them out as usual. As he comes out of his front gate, off to the greasy spoon for his brekkie, the bird from the Mail is suck-holing him again. ‘How does it feel to be a hero?’
Dylan, hood up, just says, ‘No comment.’
The reporter from The Sun asks, ‘Will you back The Sun’s campaign to stop child torture?’
In the café, Dylan flicks on Sky News, tells the auld ones who were watching Treasure Hunt to fuck off. Farquharson is being grilled by a reporter again, unruffled but clearly on the ropes.
‘Are you categorically denying that your security forces tortured British teenagers?’ asks the reporter.
‘All community combatants held under TerrorCrime are treated in accordance with emergency powers legislation.’
‘But does that amount to torture, High Representative?’
‘No. Under anti-TerrorCrime laws we are allowed to use enhanced techniques when questioning suspects, and that is perfectly appropriate.’
An expert is drafted in to explain ‘enhanced techniques’ in the next on-the-hour bulletin. ‘For years,’ the pundit says, ‘our communities have suffered from a wall of silence. Gang members will not inform on their mates. Using an alternative set of procedures during debriefings, we are able to extract vital intelligence. These procedures are saving lives. Since alternative interrogation procedures have been introduced, there has not been another significant Terror Crime murder. There has not been another Chalina.’
All the older ones, the same ones who attacked the lads at the pub during Chalina’s memorial concert, have been praising them, calling them heroes. A select committee launches an inquiry into Greyrock’s ‘legally problematic techniques’.
The next day, The Guardian’s headline is ‘Six Guards Arrested in Torture Probe’: ‘Six employees of CPA security forces have been suspended as part of the mounting investigation.’ On Sunday, the News of the World reports on pictures and videos discovered on the suspended guards’ phones, showing Dylan being waterboarded, a naked Iggo being walked like a dog around a cell and Jay wearing a Ku Klux Klan hood and being wired up to a battery. For the time being, the case against the lads has completely collapsed.
PART THREE
ON CAMPAIGN
CHAPTER 29
MILITAI
‘You’re going to have to get off,’ says Paul McQuillum, shovelling his breakfast into his mouth.
‘Why?’ asks Dylan bluntly, not as deferential nowadays.
‘Because you’re roasting.’
‘But they can’t do fuck all.’
‘Doesn’t matter, my mate.’
‘We haven’t even been nicked properly yet.’
‘I know, but I can’t help you. You’re going to have to skedaddle.’
‘No forensics. No witnesses. No statements. Nothing.’
‘On your toes. You know it’s best.’
‘Fuck all, the bizzies have got. Specially after all that torture carry-on. Can’t touch us.’ But Dylan knows he’s onto a loser. The Imperator has decreed it. That’s that.
Two teas are brought over in cuboid Philippe Starck teapots. The Imperator shakes hands with the waiter, slots him a fiver.
‘It doesn’t flippin’ matter, lad,’ he tells Dylan again. ‘The army are back on the streets. The city’s locked down, lad. Looks like flippin’ Goose Green out there.’
He starts throwing his voice and slurring his words now, tells Dylan about the SIM card that he robbed for him. It was worth £250,000. Now it’s worth flippin’ nothing, says the Imperator, cos there’s a drought on. The Government have got GCHQ monitoring calls, they’ve even had the navy searching ships in the estuary. ‘Never mind all the swabs and the sensors rattling the punters,’ says McQuillum, shaking his head, embarrassed at having to talk openly about graft.
‘Not our fault the arse has fell out of it,’ says Dylan.
‘Know it’s not you, mate. Know it’s not you personally. Know the other thing with the poor kid was just an accident, at the end of the day. But it doesn’t matter what I know. It’s what you’re doing that’s important. And at the moment, you being here is interfering with business. Our business, mate. The flippin’ olive oil business. You know what I’m talking about.’ The Imperator’s trying to be diplomatic, not stand on the young ones’ toes. But Dylan can see his patience running out. He says nothing.
‘Listen,’ the Imperator continues, ‘nothing can move, lad. Kids are starving, lad. Not one ounce of graft. Hundreds of families rely on the smooth running of things. D’you get me? It’s not just me. I’m happy. Doesn’t matter whether I’ve got this carpet or that carpet. But others aren’t as . . . capable as me.’
Dylan’s not that arsed about other grafters’ problems. But the Imperator keeps pressing home his point, trying to get into Dylan’s head, although he doesn’t want to go for any last resorts just yet. He starts talking in code: ‘Lad, there in Rotterdam, we’ve got 500 new shirts [500 kilos] on a rail [in a container]. School ones, pale shades [cocaine]. Lined up on the docks like a row of new cars. Can’t get it away. No one will go near it.’
‘Paul, why?’ asks Dylan. ‘I’ll go and get it. Give us the keys and I’ll pull it out and get it back if I have to drive it meself.’
‘The problem is there’s fleets of flippin’ helicopters flying up and down the Mersey. All hands are complaining to me. Asking me to do this, asking me to do that, asking me the other.’
Dylan’s onto the mid-powwow pay-off straight away. He means they’ve been asking him to do Dylan, asking him to do Nogger, asking him to do Jay. The big firms have been asking the Imperator to exterminate the rats so that they can get back to business. Dylan looks at Paul but he’s getting nothing.
‘You’ve brought heat onto the whole city. The whole country. I warned you, mate, didn’t I? At the funeral parlour, mate. To stop all this cowboys and Indians behaviour with the gangs. But you wouldn’t listen. No, youse have brought it on top for everyone. First with the accident, then being in the papers, now upsetting the CPA. People are asking me to sort it out.’
‘But it’ll calm down.’ Dylan’s living on borrowed time, seeing the writing on the wall. Got to sort this one. Can’t have him on my case.
The Imperator’s getting a bit aerated now. ‘You don’t understand. It goes deeper than the graft. You and your flippin’ gang are upsetting our friends. D’you get me?’ Dylan’s stung by the Imperator’s disrespect of the gang. ‘The CPA, Farquharson, they’re our mates now, Dylan. My partners. My company’s bidding for the contracts to rebuild The Boot, for miles around. It’s gonna be the new Canary Wharf, mate. We’re trying to put something back. And you’re trying to take it away. D’you get me? You’re fucking it up cos you’ve just embarrassed our mates. Letting Farquharson down like that.’ He’s so angry he’s almost spitting his tea out. Dylan’s shocked now at Paul half losing it, shocked to hear Paul swearing.
‘Listen, Dylan,’ he says, ‘you’ve got to get on your toes. I’ll set you up over in the Flat Place. All three of youse. Get you some good graft there. Put you to some proper people. I mean proper.’
Dylan has to weigh it up. Is it straightforward graft? Or is he trying to get them out the way so that he could have them dropped quietly, where no one will know. End up washed up on a beach in Spain. Or bits of me floating in a canal.
He looks straight at Paul. Hands on his knees, palms up. Interrogation position. Neutral. Giving fuck all away.
* * *
Before he leaves, Dylan has got one thing to do. He goes to Elizabeth’s flat and knocks on the door. There’s no answer, just like he’d suspected. He tracks down her landlord and he tells him that she left months ago. But he gives him an old address he has for her. Dylan goes to Cerne Abbas on his way to the ferry to Europe.
He knocks on the door.
Her dad answers. ‘Hello.’ Dylan just stands there. ‘Can I help you?’
‘Is Elizabeth in?’
‘I�
�m afraid she’s not here.’
Her mother appears behind him. ‘Hello,’ she says tentatively. ‘Are you a friend of Elizabeth’s?’
‘Yeah. I met her at The Place . . . erm, the library.’
Her mother smiles. Dylan can see Elizabeth’s beauty in her. She seems pleased that someone has come all the way down from Liverpool to see Elizabeth. The couple seem lonely and startled, old before their time. House empty, too big, kids all gone.
There’s a few awkward silences and false starts, as though they’re trying to tell him something but holding back. Dylan feels sure he knows what’s coming next. Elizabeth is dead. He’s sure of it. He closes his eyes, welling up.
‘Are you feeling all right?’ her dad asks.
‘I’m really, really sorry.’
‘About what?’
‘About Elizabeth.’
‘It’s not your fault,’ says her mum. ‘You weren’t to know she wasn’t here.’
‘What?’
‘She’s gone to live abroad.’
Dylan opens his eyes. ‘Abroad. What? Where the fuck’s she gone?’
‘I’m sorry, what did you say?’ asks her dad.
She tells him, ‘She’s gone to teach in France, something to do with an American college over there, but that’s all she told us. We haven’t heard from her since she left. We’re terribly worried about her. Something happened to her at university. She came back here in a terrible state, but she wouldn’t talk about it.’
He’s off into the night, over a fence and back up the hill with the giant’s cock on it.
CHAPTER 30
THE FLAT PLACE
Dylan’s sitting off in a backstreet square in The Dam. It’s a sunny day, but the stone’s still moist from a summer shower. The plane trees are damp and shady. Dylan’s enjoying a morning coffee. Easy living, Holland-style. Watching the yummy mummies pushing space-age prams, blimping the students going in and out of the little shops. They make him think of Elizabeth.
Gang War Page 20
