Police, who suspect foul play, are desperate to speak to Royston Blake. The former Hoppers doorman is already sought in connection with the murder of Dean Stone last night. Members of the public are urged not to approach him. ‘If you see him, just give us a bell,’ said a police spokesman.
‘Woss you doin’ here?’ she says. ‘And woss you wearin’ that daft coat for?’
I found her again and grabbed her wrist. As a barmaid Rache never stood still for very long, and with me parka done up high like it were I kept losing sight of her. ‘Rache,’ I says, putting me snorkel right up close. ‘S’me, ennit? Blake.’
‘I knows it’s you. I ain’t stupid, you know. Woss you doin’ here anyhow? Coppers is after you, ain’t they?’
‘Coppers?’
‘Well, ain’t they?’
‘Ain’t spoke to none yet,’ I says, shrugging.
‘Why’s you got yer face all hid then?’
‘Dunno,’ I says. ‘You never knows, does you?’
‘Never knows when you broke the law?’
‘No, you don’t. An’ I’ll tell you what—I might start wearin’ this here coat for permanent. New image an’ that. You heared about me new job? No? Guess what it is.’
‘Blake, I—’
‘Go on—guess.’
‘Oh all right…slaughter yard.’
‘Fuckin’ slaughter yard? Don’t be daft. Go on—proper guess. Think o’ summat no one could do better than Royston Blake, what with me special skills an’ that.’
‘Road sweeper?’
‘You fuckin’ what?’
‘I dunno, Blake. Look, there’s fellers wants servin’ up there…’
I tightened me grip. ‘You ain’t goin’ nowhere till you done a proper guess.’
‘Blake, let go of us.’
‘Guess. Tell you what—I can see you ain’t that clever so I’ll give you a clue, all right? Right, here it is…What motor I got?’
She stopped struggling and started thinking, turning her eyes up and biting her bottom lip. ‘Ford,’ she says after a bit. ‘Let us go now.’
‘No, no…I mean aye, I drives a Ford, but…’
‘Blake, tell us about it later, all right? Please let us go. You’re hurtin’—’
‘No, right…just listen to us, will yer? What type of Ford does I drive? Come on Rache.’
‘Please, Blake…I…’
‘Fuckin’ shut it an’ answer us, will you? Tell you what, here’s a clue: my motor is the bestest Ford ever to grace the streets. Now come on.’
‘Blake…’ she sobbed.
‘Answer, you fuckin’ dozy—’
I stopped there cos someone punched us on the ear. I turned to see who it were and got another one on the same ear. ‘Hoy,’ I were shouting. ‘Hoy, you fuckin’…’ But I couldn’t hardly get nothing out. Each time I turned, the bastard side-stepped. The parka were a top disguise but it were no good for aggro. I tried getting the zip down but it were jammed again, or I weren’t doing it right or summat. And you couldn’t blame us for not doing it right cos me swede and bollocks was fielding fist and boot aplenty now, which got us to thinking there was two cunts here and not just the one of em. I gave up with the zip and started swinging paws. That stopped the blows coming down on us, but it were fucking knackering, and I weren’t connecting anyhow. You try zipping your parka right up and getting into a rumble and you’ll get the idea. Actually I wouldn’t do that if I was you—you’d get a shoeing, like as not, no matter what you was wearing.
After a bit I were getting dog arse knackered, so I stopped. I could hear folks hooting and sniggering around us and I didn’t like that. But what could I do? I tried hauling the parka up over me head but the fucker were tight as a johnny on a marrow. Then someone kicked me legs away.
‘Hoy,’ I shouts again, sitting up. ‘Who’s that? Fuckin’ pack it—’
But I took one on the chin and me jaw turned to jelly. I rolled over and tried making a ball of meself on the deck, but I never really had made much of a ball, being such a big lad. And all it got us was eight or nine boots up the arse harder than I’d ever got or given. You don’t by habit get such an open target as my arse were right then, so whoever the cunts was, they’d be having a right old time of it at my expenditure.
‘Don’t you worry,’ I were yelling now, ‘I’ll have you. I’ll find you an’ fuckin…soon as I gets this fuckin’ parka…’
I stopped there cos there’s a point where you can’t go on, and I’d just reached it. I weren’t out cold nor nothing, but what the fuck could I do, eh? I just lay flat on me face and tried hard to think of summat else, summat nice, like shagging a bird or eating a nice big plate of saveloy and chips with mushy peas atop em. But it were hard to coax either of them things into the turmoil that were my swede at that moment in time. All I could think about were how these cunts here had broke my jaw and one of me arse cheeks, by the feels of em.
There were a fair bit of merriment being had roundabout, like I were just telling you, but after I’d being laying there a while I noticed another sound coming through the cackles and hoots.
It were our Rache.
‘Leave him alone, you fuckin’ bastards,’ she were saying. Or summat of the like. I can’t recall for surely on account of the way my head were right then. ‘Can’t you see he’s helpless?’ she says and all. I didn’t like that too much, but it were Rache and she were on my side, which were a nice thing to know right then. ‘Get off him, you fuckin’…’ she were starting to say again. But then came a nasty slapping sound followed by a sort of yelp from her. Then another couple of slaps and a bit of a wail. Then a lot of sobbing.
They got one of my ankles apiece and started tugging. I knew who it were now, course. And I ought to have known all along and kept me peepers peeled for em. Weren’t just cos they’d hit a bird in public that gave em away. I’d seen birds openly slapped now and then, though such a practice is frowned on by and large in Mangel. Course, I’d never done such a thing meself. What do you fucking take us for? And I wouldn’t stand by and watch no other fucker do it neither. But sometimes it don’t pay to stick your hooter in, depending on who’s doing the bird-slapping. And from the way no one were laughing now nor making no other sound, there weren’t much doubting it were Nobby and Cosh.
They dragged us out back and kicked the fire door open. When they got us out on the hard stuff I tried to stand another couple of times, but they kept booting us in the kidneys so I stopped. I heard a car boot open and shut and then a jangling, like heavy chains. Actually they was heavy chains. One of the two cunts poked summat sharp and shiny at me neck while t’other did his best to feed the chain around us, which weren’t easy considering what a big man I am. When I were good and bound from ankle to elbow they tried lifting us.
I could have told em it’d be hard work, mind. What with the weight of the heavy chains and my natural heft I were a bit of a handful. And if they wanted us in that fucking 1.3 Capri they wasn’t getting no help from meself.
I reckon you’re sitting there scratching your arse and wondering what I were thinking this whole time, and why I hadn’t kicked up more of a fuss instead if letting meself get tied down.
Well, fret you fucking well not.
Quiet I might well have been, but it were all going on up in the place where it counts—the place that separates two-bob doormen from top minders. I were planning, see. Thinking ahead. Had it all mapped out, I did. No fucker hits Rache without getting some comeback. So that’s what I were doing—working out how I’d teach Nobby and Cosh about hitting our Rache, and how they perhaps oughtn’t to do it. That’s what kept us preoccupied and let us relax while they tied us up. Cos there were no good struggling, were there? Any wanker could see that. Even you.
So I got in the 1.3.
I were still ironing out the finer points of what they had coming when the motor pulled up some while later. Fuck knew where we was at first cos I hadn’t been paying heed, and I still had me snorkel up. Mind you,
there were a peculiar whiff to the place that marked it out as somewhere I ought to know. It were like when you gets out of town for a bit—not too far, mind—and then when you gets back the pong of Mangel hits you. It were like that here but a bit worse, like this were the bit of Mangel it all came from, the stench and pain and shite and piss and death and strife and general nastiness that makes life what it is, by and large.
Aye, it were Norbert Green.
Like I says, me snorkel were up so I couldn’t tell specific like where we was in Norbert Green, but there were a brick wall a few yard up the way that I seemed to know.
Neither of the two cunts up front were keen on saying much nor getting out. Nobby were at the wheel, looking straight on. Cosh were next to him but turned back to face us, dangling that sharp and shiny thing from his right paw. Like I says, he were facing us but he weren’t clocking us. His eyes was off out the back window, watching a feller walking up. I could hear the feet crunching stones. And when I heard them stones and looked at the high brick wall again I knew where we was.
Round back of the Bee Hive, for fuck’s fucking sake.
‘Hoy, you,’ says Nobby, looking at us in the rear-view. ‘Fuckin’ pack that in.’
But I couldn’t. I didn’t give a toss how many chains were round us—they wanted us in the Bee Hive and I weren’t going. I’d bust out of chains if I had to. They’d have to kill us dead before getting us in there.
‘Stick him,’ says Nobby to Cosh. ‘Go on, stick his leg.’
‘He can’t get out them chains, you know.’
‘Rockin’ the car, ain’t he? Go on, stick him with that before he knacks me suspension.’
‘But…but Nick says—’
‘Fuck Nick. Go on, before he gets here.’
Cosh poked the blade at us, but it hit the chain. He tried again and got me kneecap, which weren’t nice but could have been worser.
‘What the fuckin’ hell are you doin’?’ I could hear Nick Wossname yelling outside. ‘Open the door,’ he says, banging on the window.
Cosh stopped his stabbing but no one opened no door. ‘You what?’ shouts Nobby.
‘Open the door,’ says Nick.
‘Can’t hear you.’
‘Just open the fucking door or you’re fired.’
I’d quietened down now cos this looked interesting. You could hear Nobby thinking about it, but after five seconds or so he gave in and pulled the handle.
‘Get out,’ says Nick. ‘Come on, piss off out of it. I ain’t fuckin’ around. Go inside for a drink or whatever. Go and do Mona if you like. She’s in the back room.’
Another few seconds passed and then Nobby did like he’d been told.
Cosh opened his door and all. ‘Had to chain him up, didn’t we?’ he says once outside. ‘Bastard got nasty again. Wouldn’t come with us for no coaxin’.’
‘Thass right,’ says Nobby. ‘He were knockin’ the bird from Hoppers about an’ all when we found him. Wossername…her with the baps.’
‘Yeah yeah,’ says Nick. He went round the passenger side and got in, shutting the door behind him. I heard four feet trudging off across the stones.
‘I ain’t goin’ in there,’ I says.
‘Where?’
‘Back there,’ I says, jerking my head back at the pub in question.
‘I don’t want you in there. That’s why you’re out here. Look, I’m sorry about the chains, man. Why didn’t you just go with them?’
‘Never asked us, did they? Just laid into us. From behind an’ all. Had me snorkel up so I had no hope of—’
‘All right. Look, you know why I brought you here. What the fuck is this shit?’
I pointed me snorkel at him.
He were holding up a Mangel Informer. As you well knows, I don’t read that particular journal by choice, but the headline were big and nasty so choice didn’t come into it. INFORMER REPORTER BUTCHERED went the big fat words, one atop t’other. And to be fair it weren’t them I found nasty. It were the picture next to em that twisted me guts so. A normal picture it were, of a speccy feller in a shirt and tie, smiling at you. Looked a bit of a wanker to be fair, but that were getting sideways of the point, which were that I knew this feller. I’d seen him recent, like. I mean fucking recent.
‘Oh,’ I says, harking back to the way I’d felt upon waking that morn, all queasy and not so sure of nothing on account of not remembering jack shite about last night. ‘Well,’ I says from me snorkel. ‘That clears that one up, I suppose. Only…’
‘I knew it. I fucking knew it. You don’t even rememberREDo you? You were so pissed you don’t even remember it. I fuckin’ knew I shouldn’t have let you drink all that beer.’
‘Weren’t the fuckin’ beer,’ I snaps. ‘Lager don’t get us like that. I can drink thirty pints and still be on me game, everyone knows that. No way. It were the…er…’
‘Go on. We’re fucked anyway so you might as well spill.’
‘You know…I took some whisky for the road, like. Anyone would of done same. It were well parky out.’
‘You drank a bottle of whisky before seeing him?’
‘Hold up, I never says I drank no whole bottle.’
‘But did you, though? I mean, come on, man—Royston Blake wouldn’t get pissed on half a bottle, now, would he?’
‘Aye, well…’
‘Course he fucking wouldn’t.’
‘Hoy, you, don’t you fuckin’ curse at us like that. I knows yer me boss in a way, but outsiders don’t get to—’
‘Who says I’m an outsider?’
‘Eh?’
‘Forget that a minute. We’re talkin’ about you, not me. I asked you to lean on the Dowie bloke a bit and suggest he mind his own business. Do you remember that bit?’
‘Aye, aye, but…’
I didn’t, actually.
‘So how the fuck did that turn into this?’ He tossed the paper at us. I were all right though cos me snorkel were up and protected us from flying newspapers and the like. I were growing fond of that snorkel, as it happens. I could hide in there and pretend nothing hairy were taking place.
I shrugged a bit. I couldn’t shrug for proper on account of the chains holding me shoulders down. ‘Turns out like that sometimes, dunnit?’ I says.
Cos it did turn out like that sometimes. And if you says it don’t, you’re a fucking liar. I couldn’t remember doing none of it, but I could see how it might have happened. ‘Woss they said I done this time?’
‘Blake, you took a knife from his kitchen and…and…Oh, Blake, I never wanted none of this. All I wanted was…was…’
I pointed me snorkel at him again. I hadn’t heard him like this before and I didn’t much like it. Weak, he sounded, like he’d never before heard of a feller getting carked and he couldn’t handle it. He were meant to be my boss, and bosses is meant to be strong, ain’t they? Where were the flash outsider now, feller who’d come in and took over half of Mangel?
I reckoned he were all set to start bawling, but instead he pulled himself together and pointed a finger at us. ‘You’re on your own,’ he says. ‘You fucked up, so you sort it out.’
‘Fuck off,’ I says. ‘I were only doin’ a job for you, were’?’ Cos I couldn’t think what else I might have been doing. ‘Ain’t my fault a job turns bad. Look at them two cunts, Nobby and Cosh. You sends them to get us and every time it turns nasty. What if you’d sent them to see this feller in the paper here? What then, eh?’
‘I didn’t send them because I knew they’d fuck up. No amount of money can make someone reliable, Blake. That’s why I asked you.’
‘But why? You knows fuck all about us. Why’d you ask us?’
‘Because I do know you.’
‘But…’
‘But nothin’. You’re on your own. I’ll tell Nobby to dump you some place the pigs can find you. Won’t take them long to finger you for this. Not after we give them the tip-off anyway. And if you mention me to the pigs, I’ll just deny it. They’ll never
believe you, with your record.’ He started opening the door.
‘Hoy,’ I shouts. ‘Hold up a min, er…Nick.’
He stopped at that so I stopped talking. Whatever I said here I had to get right. If the coppers got us for this I’d be fucked and no arguing. I’d got off with shite before but that were with Nathan’s help, and I’d had summat to pay him for his trouble that time. But I had fuck all for him this time around. And even if I had summat, I wouldn’t go to him—he might ask us to go through that door behind the bar again.
Look at us, will you: chained up in the back of a 1.3 Capri. Sore all over. Not a penny to me name. No motor. And what mates did I have to call upon? Finney. And he were round Doug’s, marked for sausages. Plus he were useless anyhow.
So aye, there were a fair bit riding on whatever I said next. That’s why I took me time and thought it over.
But he got one in first. ‘Actually, my name’s not Nick,’ he says. ‘It’s Sa—’
‘All right, Nick,’ I shouts. Cos I’d thought of summat now. ‘Look, think about it a minute. You ain’t got nuthin’ to gain from dumpin’ us for the coppers. Just let us go. Coppers won’t work it out if you don’t do the workin’ out for em. They never does. Come on, Nick. I’ll make it up to you.’
He looked at us for a bit then leaned forward and undid the zip on me parka, thereby exposing my head. I were pleased that the zip weren’t jammed after all, but I’d been in that snorkel a long time now and being out of it felt a bit odd.
‘Fuck me,’ he says, eyes roaming around me face. ‘What did they do to you?’
I couldn’t see what he were seeing but I knew what he meant. There was soreness around the jaw and me right eye were going black, by the feels of him. Plus both ears throbbed and me cheek were hurting. Them was the main bits. Elsewhere you had the hooter damage and tooth loss Frankenstein had gave us, the cosh wound in the side of the swede from last night, and an ache in the middle of it all from general wear and tear. But I’d known worse. And I’d know worser still if I went down for this thing here in the paper. I couldn’t go to Mangel Jail. Not after seeing what Mangel Jail had done to Jack. I’d rather saw me own de off than end up like him.
Booze and Burn Page 20
