‘What for?’
‘Broke into some poor couple’s home and accidentally woke them up, decided he might as well rape the wife while he was there, knocked her old man senseless first though, then tied him up and made him watch. Police arrived while he was still on top of her.’
‘Christ almighty,’ said Bobby, ‘is there no fucking decency in our game any more?’
‘To tell you the truth, I have been through every name I can think of; every apprentice hard-knock and wannabe villain who might have heard of you and thought they could do a better job but there’s nobody in our bloody league, not even close.’
‘Whoever it was, they knew about the Drop,’ he said, ‘and not many do, even in our outfit.’
‘I’ve been thinking about that as well,’ I said, ‘we’ve been sloppy; you, me, everybody. There’s six people who’ve been down south with that money in the past two years. It only takes one of them to boast to a mate or tell some bird they’re shagging and word can spread like the clap. Soon a whole bunch of people know Bobby Mahoney sends money to a top level fixer every month.’
‘You’re right,’ he admitted, ‘it pains me to admit it but you’re right. So what are we going to do about it?’
‘We are going to keep asking people until we hear something useful. We are going to stay sharp and make no mistakes, we are going to tighten things up and make sure there are no more fuck-ups. We are going to ride this one out and we are going to win.’
‘You sound like the boss already,’ he said, ‘you sure you don’t want my job?’ he frowned at me, but I knew it was a wind-up.
‘No,’ I said, ‘I have a better quality of life than you do and I don’t need the stress.’
‘Thanks a bleeding lot.’ He smiled.
We talked some more about business and I was pleased to be back going over the detail again. Eventually, he said, ‘you’re still coming to our Sarah’s 21st right?’
‘I was planning to,’ I said, ‘as long as you still want me there.’
‘Course,’ he said, ‘but do me a personal favour Davey. Stay off the sauce and get her and her daft friend home at the end of the night. They want to go off to some club after the meal and she won’t want her old man there with her,’ he stopped looking at me then. Instead he studied a space on the wall just over my left shoulder and said, ‘with all that’s been going on, I want to be careful, you know,’ I did know. He meant if someone wanted to hurt him, really hurt him, they could go after Sarah. ‘Look after her for me.’
‘Sure,’ I said straight away and he nodded like he was genuinely grateful.
‘One other thing,’ he told me, ‘you’ve not got any answers yet, so it’s time you went to see Kinane,’ I’d known this was coming and been dreading it but I nodded like it was a sensible idea. ‘Get down that gym of his and find out what he knows. He must have heard something.’
‘Okay Bobby,’ I said.
‘And take Finney with you,’ Christ, that’s all I needed. Finney and Kinane in the same room together. Having them both in the same city was scary enough.
TWELVE
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Kinane’s gym was called, The Cronk, in tribute to Emanuel Steward’s original, justifiably famous, Kronk gym in Detroit; a place where hard men entered and champions emerged; Gerard McClellan, Dennis Andries, Michael Moorer and Thomas ‘Hitman’ Hearns, to name just a handful of them.
The only thing that emerged from Kinane’s version was a little drug money and some unquestioning muscle, capable of guarding the door to a club on a Saturday night.
‘Stay in the car.’ I told Finney.
‘What? You’re fucking joking aren’t you?’ he growled.
‘It was four years ago and I wasn’t involved remember. He has no argument with me.’
‘Aye, well, maybe but you tell him I’m out here and I’ll rip his arms and legs off if he dares to show his face. Any time he wants. He just has to come out and say the word.’
‘I don’t doubt you would, which is why you’re staying in the car. We haven’t got time for all that macho shit right now. We’re here to find out who killed Cartwright and that’s all.’ He was pissed off at me because he genuinely wanted an excuse to have a crack at Kinane but I was not having that.
I’d never been in the Cronk before. It was a real throwback. Talk about no frills. The entrance was bare except for a framed photograph on the wall, taken about twenty years ago, which constituted the gym’s hall of fame; a 24 year old bare-chested fighter with an IBF Cruiserweight belt fastened proudly around his waste. Glenn McCrory is still the only world champion boxer the north east has ever produced, our very own great white hope.
The only other decoration on the walls of the Cronk was a big fist-shaped hole where someone had taken it out on the plasterboard. I walked past McCrory and on through a door that took me into the main gym.
The smell of sweat hit me as soon as I walked in. The gym was a big, open room with breeze-block walls and a dusty wooden floor. There were eight or nine tough looking men in there pumping iron or shadow boxing. Light shone down on them from a row of old windows set high up in the walls. I knew Kinane had three grown-up sons and, sure enough, some of the guys in there looked like younger, slightly smaller versions of him. They were still pumped up like it was a fulltime occupation to look ripped.
There were no fancy touches here. No modern weight-lifting machines, it was all just free weights, as if anything else was an affront to manhood. A big guy was lifting what had to be in excess of three hundred pounds, the veins on his neck and face standing out with the strain. He was making a noise like he was struggling to finish a shit. He completed his lift, bringing his weights up to his chest then over his head before letting them slam back down again on the floor with an almighty crash. I felt the vibrations through my feet even though I was yards away.
Joe Kinane wasn’t hard to spot. He was a massive bloke, about six-six with hands like shovels and a chest like the bonnet of a Transit van. He was in the ring, supervising a muscular heavy-weight who was pounding a bag being held by a little bloke who had to be in his mid sixties. Every punch landed with such force it threatened to lift the old trainer off his feet. It made me wince just watching it. Kinane glowered at me when I walked into the room. He broke away from his fighter, stepped out of the ring and crossed the floor to meet me.
‘David Blake, what the fuck do you want?’
‘It’s good to see you too Joe,’ I told him, ‘I need a word, if you could spare me a minute of your time.’
He said nothing to me just turned to the young boxer, ‘take a break,’ before adding, ‘five minutes.’ The big lad didn’t argue. The old guy looked mightily relieved.
We walked to a small office with a timber and glass front that seemed to have been added to an inside wall of the old gym as an afterthought.
‘He looks useful,’ I offered.
‘Know fighters do you?’ asked Kinane, knowing I didn’t.
‘Nope,’ I admitted, ‘but even I can see he was knocking seven shades of shite out of that bag.
‘That lad will be a British champion one day,’ he told me as if it was an undisputed fact.
We sat on stained office chairs that must have been bought from a liquidation sale or sold off by the police from their retrieved stolen goods stock. The place was a dump, and I could tell in his face Kinane knew this and was bothered by it now that I was here.
‘I take it you are still working for the old cunt.’
If anybody else had said that I would have had Finney break their arm on principle, but Kinane was a special case, so I confirmed I was still working for the “old cunt”, ‘you know I am.’
He nodded slowly, ‘so what brings you here? None of my business has anything to do with him. I’m legit. I train fighters, they box and sometimes they go on doors.’
‘Bobby knows how you make your living,’ I told him and I decided against telling Kinane that Bob
by permitted him to earn that living, even though we both knew this was true. I could see no point in riling Kinane. Not when I needed his help. ‘He knows about your fighters and your doormen,’ I told him, ‘he also knows about the coke deals, the Es and the protection your boys have been offering the heroin dealers on the Sunnydale estate.’
Kinane looked a little pissed-off at this last nugget of information but it was my job to know these things. ‘Bobby’s got nowt to do with those high rises,’ he told me, ‘never has done.’
‘Which is why it doesn’t trouble him,’ I have had many a long discussion with Bobby about the potential gold mine in the Sunnydale estates, the most inaccurately named collection of high rises in Newcastle, provoking images of country fields and sunshine that are in stark contrast to its burned out cars, derelict flats and a dealer on every corner, but he has a real downer on the idea. He doesn’t like heroin. He thinks it’s risky and could end up putting him inside for life, which I understand and he doesn’t want to deal to the kids on those estates, which is noble enough. My argument is there’s always someone dealing there anyway, always has been, always will be, so it might as well be us. That way, it’s organised, there’s less anarchy, you know the purity level of the product on the streets and you don’t get users OD’ing all the time because someone didn’t know how to cut it right. There’d be no stupid feuds between rival dealers either, because they’d all be working for us and the income was about as regular as it gets. Anyway, he won’t have it.
‘Then why are you here?’
‘Cartwright.’
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘people are talking about that.’
‘I’m sure they are,’
‘I did wonder if that was why you came,’ then he frowned, ‘Bobby doesn’t think that I… ?’
‘No, no, of course not,’ I lied. Bobby clearly did wonder if Kinane might be behind his problems and with some justification. They’d had a big tear-up, over lord knows what, about four, maybe five years ago now. To be honest I can barely remember the details myself after all this time but the hurt and the hate was still fresh on both sides. At the end of it all, Kinane was banished from the inner sanctum of our firm in disgrace, like Lancelot being kicked out of court by King Arthur for shagging Guinevere. Only he stuck around, stayed in the city and eked out a living in Newcastle. He could have made a big name in any other city in the country but he was one of those blokes who wouldn’t know what to do with himself if he didn’t live here.
‘I’m getting round everybody,’ I told him, ‘so I thought I may as well come and see a man who knows. You always knew everything that went on in this city Joe. We worked together often enough for me to realise that.’
‘When you were a snot-nosed kid you mean?’
‘When I was a snot-nosed kid,’ I agreed, not rising to it.
‘Well,’ he concluded, ‘you’re not a kid any more, one of Bobby’s main men, so I hear. I have heard that much.’
‘And what have you heard about Cartwright?’
‘Nowt, but I’d be surprised if he’s done a bunk. I’m assuming he’s not the only thing that’s gone missing or you wouldn’t be half so bothered.’ He’d obviously heard there was money involved but didn’t want to admit it. My silence told him everything he needed to know. He frowned, ‘Cartwright’s not the kind of bloke who would steal from a man like Mahoney, for what that’s worth, so I doubt he’s gone voluntary like.’
I took a risk then, without really knowing why.
‘He didn’t,’ I said, ‘he’s dead.’
‘Jesus,’ the big man seemed affected by that news. He would have known Cartwright well, ‘and you don’t know who’s done it?’
I shook my head and waited. The look on his face told me there was something.
‘It might be nowt.’
‘Go on.’ I urged him.
‘One of my boys was out a few weeks back and he saw Cartwright in a bar in the Bigg Market. He was talking to an Ivan.’ So someone else had seen them.
‘A Russian? Was he sure?’
‘Well my son doesn’t speak the language but yeah he reckoned it was a Russian. I s’pose he could have been from anywhere round there. Anyway he was a big fucker apparently, looked like he was in the business.’
What had George Cartwright been up to? ‘Thanks,’ I said, ‘it might be something,’
‘Yeah, well, that’s for you. I wouldn’t tell Bobby fuck all but you were alright, even when me and Bobby had that row.’
‘That was between you two. It was none of my business.’
‘I know but the rest of the crew treated me like I’d shagged their sisters after that. And that cunt Finney… ’ he froze then as if he suddenly realised Bobby wouldn’t send me down here without some muscle to back me up, ‘he’s not out there is he?’ his eyes narrowed, ‘because if he is he can come in here now and I’ll show him who’s the real hard man.’
‘I don’t doubt it,’ I said, ‘which is why I told him to wait in the car. Just leave it Joe. I know you hate him but I haven’t got time for that right now.’
Remember when you were a kid and you used to play that game with your mates where you’re wondering if Superman could fight Captain Marvel or who would win between Godzilla and King Kong? Well, there is not a man in Bobby’s firm who hasn’t silently wondered who would win if Finney and Kinane came to serious blows. I feel certain whoever finally lost that one would be a dead man and the other wouldn’t be fit for anything much afterwards.
I changed the subject, ‘tell me about your boy, your youngest. I hear he’s in some bother.’
As I’d hoped, this took his mind off what he’d like to do to Finney. ‘GBH,’ he said simply.
‘Chip off the old block.’
‘I tell him not to get involved but some big tosser had a few drinks and fancied himself. Our Gary broke his jaw, a couple of ribs and an arm. He’s in court next month.’
‘I’ve got some bent law working for me. I’ll get him to do some digging on the other bloke if you give me a name. By the time he’s finished, your innocent victim will be lucky to escape jail time he’ll look so crooked.’ I took a business card out of my wallet and gave it to him, ‘a friendly solicitor, very clever. She’ll make it look like the most honourable case of self-defence the jury can imagine. Give her a call.’
‘Thanks Davey,’ he said.
‘But this is on me,’ I warned him, ‘if Bobby ever finds out I’m using a family lawyer to help your boy, I’ll be in the shit, so it goes no further, you hear.’
‘Yeah, cheers man,’ he pocketed the card gratefully and to my surprise he handed me a cheap business card with the name of the Gym and a boxing glove on it and his mobile number underneath. ‘When you hear what happened to Geordie Cartwright. Let me know like,’ I assured him I would.
As I was leaving he said, ‘don’t trust Finney, he’s a snake that one. He might look dumb but he’s not. He’s clever, in his own way, sneaky like.’
I smiled, ‘I don’t trust anyone.’
It had been worth it to come here. Hearing it from Billy was one thing. He could have been wrong, pissed, high or just plain lying to me but now we’d got it from two sources. We’d had two definite sightings of Cartwright in a pub discussing business with a foreigner. What was going on? What the fuck was Geordie Cartwright doing talking to a Russian in the Bigg Market?
THIRTEEN
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‘He mention me?’ asked Finney when I climbed back into the car.
‘Nope.’
‘Good job an’ all,’ he said, turning the key in the ignition and revving the car for no good reason. ‘Where next?’
‘The accountant’s.’
‘I hate that slippery fucker.’
‘Me too,’ I said.
‘He acts like his shit don’t stink.’
‘At least we agree on that,’ and he gave an affirming grunt.
‘Coffee, gentlemen?’ asked the lady rec
eptionist in a voice that you could have cut glass with. She was acting as if Finney resembled a respectable member of the upper middle-class customer base she was used to greeting, rather than the violent criminal low-life he obviously was.
‘No thanks,’ I said and Finney shook his head.
‘Another cup Mister Northam?’ she offered.
‘No thank you Barbara,’ he covered his empty cup with his hand, ‘I’ve had an elegant sufficiency.’ When Northam said this, Finney gave him a look like he’d just caught our accountant sodomising a minor.
Alexander Northam’s small accountancy firm was on the second floor, over an estate agent in Grainger Street, slap bang in the middle of the city. He wasn’t entirely crooked, there were legitimate clients too, but none of them put as much money through him as we did. Despite this he had the manner of a city banker and usually looked at us as if we were something he’d picked up on the bottom of his shoes.
‘Excuse me gentlemen,’ she was using that word again. Finney peered at her as if he suspected she might be taking the piss but she was oblivious. She merely smoothed her skirt with the palms of her hands and bent to clear away the cup, ‘I’ll be outside if you need me Mister Northam.’ And she left us to it.
‘Doesn’t she know your first name?’ I asked. He gave me a withering look and ignored me. ‘Nice couch,’ I said, ‘must have cost a pretty packet,’ I patted the soft Italian leather and we sat down uninvited. As usual, Northam didn’t look too pleased to see us. Having Finney in his well appointed office, all teak and leather furnishings, must have been like having a naked hooker at a WI meeting.
‘Yes, well, it did but then one has to maintain a veneer of prosperity, even in these testing economic times. There’s a crisis of confidence out there - or don’t you read the newspapers?’
‘I read them,’ I assured him, ‘all of them. And you reckon a leather sofa and a few old books are going to fool people into thinking you know what to do with their money?’
The Drop Page 9
