‘Tell you what, Blake,’ he says. ‘You do summat for me and I’ll help you out of this. Fair play?’
‘I’ll do it. I’ll do whatever you says.’
‘Whatever?’
‘Aye, what fuckin’ ever.’
He told us what he had in mind.
‘You fuckin’ what?’ I says. ‘Why?’
‘Blake,’ he says, putting his face right up close. ‘Don’t you recognise me at all?’
‘Course I fuckin’ do,’ I says, eyes rolling. ‘What d’you take us for? You’re Nick Wossname.’
He sat back, shoulders slumping, head shaking.
‘Look,’ I says, thinking about what I’d said and how I ought to be keeping him sweet. ‘I’m sorry about the Wossname. But I just can’t ever recall what your proper last name is.’
‘It don’t matter,’ he says. ‘Just do it. Do it quick. If you can’t prove he’s dead by midnight tonight, I’m dropping you in it.’
‘Now hang on, that ain’t hardly enough—’
‘Midnight, Blake.’ He had his fingers on the door handle. ‘Run it by us again, Blake. Cos this time I want no fuck-ups. Who do I want dead?’
‘Midnight’s too soo—’
‘Shut up, Blake. Who you gonna kill?’
‘All right all right,’ I says. ‘Doug. Doug the bastard shopkeeper.’
He nodded and opened the door. Norbert Green air filled my lungs.
‘Hold up,’ I says as he touched gravel. ‘There’s one other thing.’
‘What?’ he says, not turning but not ignoring us neither.
‘Can you sub us a fifty?’
17
DRUGS AND CRIME: THE CHIEF SPEAKS
Robbie Sleeter, Junior Reporter
In a press conference today Police Chief Robert Cadwallader outlined the two main challenges facing Mangel today: drugs and crime.
‘When you think about it they’re both the same thing. I mean it’s obvious, really. You’ve got drugs springing up here out of nowhere in the past few weeks, and you’ve got crime spiralling out of all reckoning at the same time. Aye, I’ve had a talk with the lads and we’ve decided that them two things is tied up together, like.’
The chief had a word of warning for the perpetrators: ‘We’re taking a tough stance. We’ve never been shy on punishment on this force but now we’re upping it, switching her up a gear. You get caught for drugs or crime, you’ll be looking at the inside of Mangel Jail for a long one. And we’ll get you, don’t you worry about that. We’ve got officers staking out all known druggy places, and anyone they catch will be put away. No appeal.’
Asked about Royston Blake, prime suspect for the murders of Steve Dowie and Dean Stone, the chief sighed and said: ‘We said before that no one should approach him. Well, that’s just standard procedure for us to say that when your suspect has done summat violent. But in this case you can probably get away with it. Far as I know, Royston Blake is all belly these days, and all that pop drinking has done his coordination no favours. To be honest I don’t reckon he were ever that hard anyhow. And he’s always been soft up top, as everyone knows by now. All mouth and no trousers, I’d call him. So aye, you’re probably all right to approach him.’
Frankly I were a bit put out when Nobby and Cosh dropped us in Frotfield Way. They’d took the chains off first but I were still put out. Wouldn’t have been so bad if they’d stopped the motor before shoving us out, but they didn’t, so there you go. To be fair, I were glad of it in a way. There’s no better means of patching up differences with a feller than stopping your motor before letting him out. And I didn’t want mine with them patched up. Like I says just now, I had plans for em.
Mind you, soon as I picked meself up and brushed my arse down and got the ten fivers out, I felt a lot better. I know fifty sheets is hardly what you’d call a fortune these days, but it were all right for my requirements. Sooner I knocked off Doug the better, but I had to be careful about how I done it. Doug were a wily old cunt, and one duff step might see him extending his sausage special by another week. So I had some headwork to do. And empty guts is no good for headwork.
I were thinking all this as I stood across the way from the arky. There were summat different about the place, to see it from outside on that day. Knackered and old, it looked. I crossed the road for a closer gander, zipping me snorkel up so Fat Sandra wouldn’t recognise us and chuck us out for being banned. I were thinking about a game of pinball, which I reckon is the best way of working out plans. Not that I’d played much pinball of late, being banned from the arky and Mangel not having no other tables besides the ones in there. But as a lad I always used to flip the steel ball when I had a problem to overcome. A superior swede like mine requires limbering up if you wants him performing.
I saw what were up with the place once I stepped inside. No one were in it. Not one punter. Not even the one or two old fellers you always gets in there. Fruities was bleeping and flashing but no one were there to feed em. Only Fat Sandra, sat there in her kiosk. I made sure me snorkel were tight then strolled up, walking funny to disguise meself a bit more.
‘Hiya, Blake,’ she says, barely looking up.
‘All right, San. How’d you know I…ah, forget it.’
I slipped a bluey under the mesh, and straight away wished I hadn’t. I should have waited to see if she wanted us out first. But I were fretting without cause, as it turned out. She took the fiver and dolled us out some change with nary a word.
‘Er, San,’ I says, trying to pick it up. ‘Where the fuck is everyone?’
She smiled. First time I’d ever seen her smile for proper, that were, the grumpy old bitch. ‘Always had trouble pickin’ coins up, you did. Even back when you was a youngun you had fat fingers.’
‘Fat fingers?’ I says, looking at em. ‘Fuck off. Muscle, it is.’
She shrugged. Shrugging weren’t like her.
In a minute or two I got all the coins up and headed for the pinball. ‘They’m gone,’ she says as I stepped away.
‘Who is?’
‘Everyone. You asked where everyone is. Gone, ain’t they? Thass all I knows.’
I looked at her. The kiosk were full of fag smoke as usual and you couldn’t see much, but I could see enough. Knackered and old, I’d say she looked. And fat. ‘Why’s that, then?’ I says.
She looked up at us like I’d just flicked shite on the glass partition. ‘You takin’ the piss?’ she says. ‘Don’t you read no fuckin’ papers?’
I shook me head slow and looked at the sun coming in through the doors, wishing I’d never come in. ‘Just fuckin’ tell us, why don’t you?’
‘Don’t you get arsey with us,’ she says, spraying spit all over the glass. ‘You’m banned, remember? Only reason I’m lettin’ you in here is no one else is in.’
‘All right,’ I says. Cos I’d fucking well had enough of Fat Sandra and her knackered old arcade. ‘All right, Fat Sandra…’ And then there were them arcade monkeys doing Hoppers over the other day, which I’d forgot about until just now, what with one thing and another. ‘All right, Fat fuckin’ Sandra…’ And then there was the years I’d spent not playing pinball, thanks to the life ban she’d doled us back then, when it weren’t even me who bust the pinball machine and honked on the floor—it were Legs and Finney. ‘All right, F—’
‘Gonna say summat or what?’ she shouts. ‘You blinkin’ useless old tosspot…it were your fault, all this. If you’d of done what Doug telled you from straight off, we’d all be all right.’
‘Eh?’ I says, wishing more than ever I’d not come in.
‘Eh?’ she says, meaning to mock us, I suppose. ‘Eh? Eh? That all you can say, is it? Sort out wossname, Doug telled you. Woss so hard about that? But you couldn’t even do that, could you? You had to fuck about and bottle it and turn the whole thing to shit. Now hark woss happened—we ain’t got no punters here cos of you. An’ no punters means no arky. Why couldn’t you do it, you stupid old sod? If you’d of done it, everyone
would of gone back to normal an’ there’d of been no muck spread about the arky in the paper.’
‘Muck?’ I says. ‘About the arkywhat?&17;
‘Pull yer fuckin’ head out yer arse, Royston Blake. Open yer eyes for once and clock what a thick, fat wazzock you are. Everyone laughs at you, behind yer back. There’s many who does it to your face now an’ all, so I hears. And why not? Look at you. You couldn’t even keep door at Hoppers proper. I heared you got punched out by a youngun. Head doorman? Biggest fuckin’ joke this town has ever seen, more like.’
‘Right,’ I says, clenching me paw. I swung it at the kiosk, shutting me eyes on impact. Didn’t want bits of glass in em, did I?
But fuck all happened. The glass wobbled a bit but me paw just pinged back off of it, hurting. I swung again. Cos I weren’t having Fat Sandra telling folks how Royston Blake couldn’t punch a hole through a window.
Me fist bounced off again, hurting quite a bit more now. Meanwhile Fat San were bent double in the kiosk, laughing and calling us more names. I went round and tried the door but it were locked. I shouldered it but the fucker weren’t giving. I went to smack the glass again but couldn’t go through with it, not the way me knuckles was throbbing.
‘Ah ha ha ha, you stupid cunt,’ says Fat Sandra. ‘Come on, do it again. Ah ha ha hee…’
But I were staying in control. Don’t you fucking fret about that, mate. If you’re waiting on me losing it, you’ll be waiting a long time. Royston Blake do not lose it. He stays calm and focussed. It’s every other fucker who loses it.
See, I’m clever.
If I couldn’t get into her kiosk, I’d get to her another way.
I went over to the nearest fruitie and put shoulder to it. ‘Raaagh,’ I yells. Cos when you’re working the weights you’ve got to let off steam, else give yourself a hernia. ‘Raagh.’
‘Ha ha, cunt,’ says San.
‘Ragh,’ I says. But it were no use. The fucker must have been nailed down cos I couldn’t budge him. I tried another. ‘Raaaagh.’
‘Hee hee hee,’ she were saying now.
‘Raaagh.’
‘COME OUT, ROYSTON BLAKE.’
‘Ragh,’ I says, though me heart weren’t really in it no more. ‘Fuck were that?’ I says to Fat San. But she were leaning back in her swivel chair, cackling harder than ever.
‘COME OUT, BLAKE,’ comes that big blaring boom once again. Came from everywhere, it seemed to, from all sides and overhead at once. ‘THE PLACE IS SURROUNDED. POLICE HERE, ENNIT. YOU AIN’T GOT NO CHANCE, MATE.’
‘Hoy,’ I shouts at San, me face right up against the funny glass what wouldn’t break and didn’t feel much like glass, now I came to think about it. ‘This a fuckin’ joke, is it? Where’s that—?’
‘COME ON, BLAKE,’ says the big boom. ‘DO YERSELF A FUCKIN’ FAVOUR AND COME OUT HERE, FUCK SAKE. WE AIN’T GOT ALL DAY.’
I couldn’t handle it no more. There was secret speakers wired up round the walls or summat, just waiting for old Blake to roll in.
Well, I weren’t having none of it.
I were off out of it. Had better things to do anyhow, though I couldn’t recall what they was at that moment. I knew it’d come to us with a bit of fresh air and a smoke, mind.
‘Gotcha,’ says PC Plim, cuffing us as I went out the door.
‘Have this,’ says PC Jonah, ramming his truncheon in me guts.
Don’t you worry about me.
I’d been in Mangel Pig Station many a time before and I’ll be there again, like as not. Me and that place has a special relationship whereby I’m took there now and then and let out a short while thereafter. Keeps the coppers happy and reminds us that I ought to be careful, like. I’ve never made the trip on to Mangel Jail and I never would. This town needs Royston Blake, and the coppers knows it. Place’d turn to shite without meself around to keep her stoked.
So don’t you worry about me, mate.
Besides, soon as they put us in a cell I knew I’d be all right. Cells is all right here. Four walls, one floor, a ceiling, and an iron door. Plus a mattress. And a pan in the corner there. What more can a feller ask for, eh? A telly’d be all right, but if a man can’t sit tight for a bit with his own thoughts, he ain’t a proper man in my opinion. And if you looks at it a certain way, a cell were the best place for us right then. I had thinking to do, didn’t I? I had to work out how to do Doug the shopkeeper. It were plain as spilt beer that I wouldn’t get no headwork done in town, what with folks going on at us everywhere, so a short spell in a cell were best for everyone.
Except they hadn’t put us in a cell. Not yet anyhow. Soon as they finished hitting my belly with a truncheon, they’d sort a cell out for us. Aye.
To be fair on em they weren’t truly hitting us for proper. Not like I hits folks, or Frankenstein hit us back there. Fellers like Plim and Jonah just ain’t made for hitting. (Unless you means hitting them, in which case they was born to it.) Try all they liked, they couldn’t hurt us. Not even with them big old truncheons they had what they couldn’t hardly lift, and meself strapped to the chair like I were. Guts of rock, me. You could crash an airplane into my belly and I wouldn’t so much as flinch. And, being coppers, my guts was all they was bothered with. Couldn’t leave no nasty cuts and bruises, could they? Mind you, could be they was scaredy of hitting us in the chops. You hit a feller in the guts, it’s like slapping him on the back. Hit em in the mug and you’re asking for comeback. Which is what I’d done to Jonah in the ozzy a couple of days ago, according to him, though I couldn’t recall it meself. His bottom lip were all swelled and stitched up, mind, so someone had had a pop at him. And if it were down to meself, then fair’s fair—flap away with your truncheon.
But you ain’t hurting us.
I didn’t let on about that, mind. I groaned and retched like the best of em. Let em enjoy emselves for once, I says. No skin off my teeth. And if Plim were right and I had made a public cunt of him over a parking offence in Frotfield Way the other day I can’t say I blamed him.
Mind you, I weren’t so happy-go-lucky when he landed one in me knackers. ‘Hoy, you cunt,’ I says. ‘Fuckin’ watch it.’
They looked at each other, then started taking turns ramming their sticks in me knackers while I tried to keep em hid between me thighs. They couldn’t hurt us, mind. Not for proper anyhow. Didn’t I tell you?
Knackers of steel, me.
I heard the door open.
The light came on. I closed me lids against the harshness of it all. I’d been lying here in darkness for going on four hours or so now and I were just getting used to it. I’d even stopped fretting over me plums quite so much. They ached like billy still, but least I could feel em. And like I says, made of steel, they was.
The puff went out of us as Plim and Jonah lifted us and set us back in the chair. They tightened the straps then went and stood arms folded either side of the door, which were a bit open.
‘All right, lads?’ I says to em. Cos in a way we was like pals, despite everything. They was doormen and I were a doorman, though I were a minder now if you’re being technical. Mind you, they was coppers. And you can’t never be pals with no copper.
They looked back and didn’t answer.
‘Got a fag?’ I says.
Nothing from that, neither, not straight off. But after a bit Plim nodded at Jonah, who stepped forward and planted a benny between me teeth.
‘Got a light?’ I had to say and all, him just stood there all grim and statue-like. He lit us up and went back to his spot. ‘Fuckin’ hell,’ I says, puffing. ‘Woss the matter with you two? Vow o’ silence, is it?’
Halfway down the fag someone comes through the door and shuts it behind him. It were an older feller, wearing a shirt with stripes on the shoulder and holding a big red folder. He were twice as big as your typical feller in every way. Except his height, which were about same. And his mouth, which would be too little even for a feller half as big. And I can’t speak for the bits of him kept hid in his
trolleys. He sat across the table from us and waggled a finger in his massive right ear.
It were Big Bob Cadwallader.
You know, the police chief.
Well, I certainly fucking knew him, anyhow. And he knew us. Had a couple of run-ins with him in me time, hadn’t I? We had an understanding, like. He knew I were a bit of a lad and I knew he weren’t so thick as the other coppers.
‘All right, Bob,’ I says.
‘Shut up, you cunt,’ he says, not even clocking us.
‘Heh heh,’ I says. ‘Still a charmer, eh?’
‘I says shut up, you.’ He waved Plim over. ‘PC Jones? Do him the honours.’
Plim reached us in two strides and slapped us hard across the cheek. Fucking coppers.
I were all set to say, ‘Summat on yer mind?’ but Big Bob got in first. ‘Royston Roger Blake?’ he says, opening his big red folder.
I sucked on the benny and says: ‘But…’
‘You Royston Roger Blake or not?’
‘Aye, but—’
‘Dear oh dear,’ he says, shaking his swede and turning to the last few pages. ‘Dear oh dear oh dear. This lot here ain’t good.’
‘Wossit say?’ I says, leaning forward an inch. I couldn’t read the writing but I clocked one or two photos here and there. I couldn’t make much of them out, neither. Except a lot of red.
‘Never you mind. It says what it says and it ain’t good. Door broken down…telephone pulled out o’ the wall…preliminary blows to the head…kitchen knife…stabbed forty-seven times…’
‘Woss that, then?’ I says.
Big Bob closed the book. On the front of it were a dirty white label saying ‘ROYSTON ROGER BLAKE’ in big faded letters. He looked at us for the first time since coming in. ‘What this means, Royston Roger Blake,’ he says, ‘what this means is we got you.’ He opened the folder again and started flicking from the middle backwards. ‘No, I can’t see how you can get around it this time,’ he says, slamming it shut again. ‘How many lives a cat got, eh?’
Booze and Burn Page 21
