Cutter's Firm

by Julie Morrigan

  ‘Well, they won’t be a problem for long,’ I tell him. ‘Tommy, do you reckon we can get a good price for them as a job lot?’

  ‘It would be the easiest way to shift them,’ he says. ‘One deal, job done.’ He sits and thinks. ‘I’ll have a word with Manny through Durham. He’s a possible.’

  ‘Might be worth talking to Gus in Hartlepool as well,’ says Wayne.

  ‘Good enough; you two take the lead on that. Give the little fuckers away if you have to. I want rid, fast as you like. They’re a fucking nuisance.’ And now surplus to requirements. ‘Give it a week, tops. If there’s no takers, we’ll put them down,’ I add.

  The girl’s putting a fresh drink down in front of me when I say that and she misjudges the distance, bangs the glass against the table top and bourbon slops out onto the polished surface.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mr Cutter,’ she says, ‘I’ll get a cloth.’ She sorts it all out and tops me up and I wonder if she’s starting to hit the sauce like the last one. I’ll have to keep an eye on her.

  8: Jack

  We get a visitor next afternoon and it’s not one I was expecting; it’s Livvy’s old school friend, Bex.

  ‘Hi, Jack; your mam said you were getting out,’ she says as she stands shivering on the step. She stares at my face but doesn’t meet my eyes. I realise it’s the first time she’s seen my scars and she’s having a bloody good look at them. ‘I just wanted to see how you were.’

  ‘I’m glad to be home,’ I tell her honestly. I don’t say anything about how having her eyes glued on me like that makes me feel. I haven’t seen many lasses in the last three years but if the way Bex is looking at me like is anything to go by, I think it’s just as well.

  ‘Who did that to you?’ she asks.

  My hand goes to my face. ‘Cutter,’ I say. ‘Come on in.’

  Inside she sits near the fire and makes small talk with Mam while I make us a coffee. I hardly know her and I wonder what she wants.

  We talk about the usual stuff: what my plans are now I’m out, what we’re doing for Christmas, what she’s been up to. I get the sense she wants to say something, but doesn’t know how.

  Finally she stands up and says her goodbyes to Mam and Dad and I see her to the door. She’s standing outside on the step when I say, ‘What is it?’

  She looks startled, as if I’d read her mind. I didn’t need to; it’s written all over her face.

  ‘It’s about Livvy,’ she says, her voice low. I hear the television go on in the front room and I pull her back inside the house, then shut the front door to keep the cold out. We’re in the tiny lobby at the bottom of the stairs; we should be able to have a private conversation here without freezing to death.

  ‘What about Livvy? Bex, do you know something about what happened to her?’

  She shakes her head. ‘No, but I know she was having an affair with Gordon Cutter.’

  ‘An affair?’

  She nods. ‘She told me she loved him. She thought he was going to leave his wife for her and they’d get married.’

  ‘What?’ I can’t believe what I’m hearing. ‘He was more than twice her age!’

  ‘It’s true, though. He used to buy her things and take her out before she left school, and then he gave her that job. That’s when it all really kicked off.’ She wipes a tear. ‘You know what she was like. She was … innocent. You know? If she’d had a few boyfriends or been a bit older she’d have seen through him, but she was too trusting. He was just using her, but she believed all his lies.’

  My mind is whirling. An affair? Cutter told us she’d sleep with anyone he told her to … I didn’t believe him at the time, I thought he was just trying to upset us. Jesus Christ, what the hell did he do to her?

  ‘I don’t know where she is, I don’t even know whether she’s alive or not, but I know that whatever happened, it was down to him. He can deny it all he likes, but he caused Livvy’s disappearance. I know he knows what happened to her.’ She checks the time on her phone. ‘I have to go. Keep in touch, though.’

  ‘I will,’ I say, opening the door. She slips out, pulling her hood up and her sleeves down, then vanishes into the late afternoon gloom. I close the door behind her and start to process what she just told me.

  Ten minutes later I’m striding down the street, shoulders hunched against the cold, having told Mam I need to stretch my legs. And I do, but I don’t tell her where I’m going. I figure if Bex knew about Livvy and Cutter then there must be some other people who know as well, and since the first job she did for him was at the arcade, that’s as good a place as any to start.

  I can see it from a good distance away, a garish beacon in the darkness summoning the faithful to their own form of worship. I slow down as I get nearer, remembering how Cutter sometimes used to sit outside in his car and pass drugs to his dealers. I don’t want to be seen by him; not yet, anyway.

  The coast is clear and so I go inside. As I walk through the door the noise and the heat hit me. I glance around, trying to be casual, keeping my hood up. I don’t know a single soul, not the kids playing the machines, not the young lad dishing out the change. There’s an older bloke playing the slots, but his eyes are on the girls on the dance mat. Fucking perv. I want to say something to them – to warn them – but they’d probably think I was the creepy one if I did.

  There’s nothing for me here, so I decide to take a walk up to the caravan park. I’m more comfortable outside. I prefer the dark, the quiet and the solitude to the noisy, busy, bright heat of the arcade.

  As I draw nearer to the park I remember what I saw there, the adults and what they were doing to the kids Cutter supplied, and I shudder involuntarily. Will there be kids there still? Can I do anything about it if there are? I have to accept that I probably can’t. Cutter has the police in his pocket, that’s how he managed to get me locked up for three years when I’d done nothing wrong. I was fitted up by the police. They stood up in court, under oath, and lied through their teeth.

  There are no lights on in any of the caravans, but there won’t be any visitors at this time of year. I climb the fence and head over to where the old fixed caravans are, the ones the kids were kept in. I look around as I go and, even though it’s pretty dark here, I don’t see any sign of the pub Cutter talked about building.

  As I get to the area where the vans are, I get a surprise; they’re still here, but they’re just burnt-out shells. I walk around and they’re all in the same state, the scent of smoke still clinging to them. There’s absolutely no sign of life here whatsoever. I wonder if a rival torched the caravans or if Cutter did it. I wonder where the kids are and hope to God none of them were inside when they went up.

  I toe open the door to one of the caravans and peer in; it’s murky, damp. I hop up and take a step inside. It creaks and groans alarmingly and I stand still until it settles and my eyes adjust to the gloom. The stench of smoke and burned plastic hits the back of my throat and I feel sick. I pull my hoodie up over my mouth and nose and breathe through the fabric, trying to filter the stink. The moonlight breaks through the clouds and I take advantage of the light to have a quick look around. At first I see just a few scraps of burnt clothing and a single small trainer, then I spot something glinting as the light catches it. It’s lying just under the bench seat that runs along the wall opposite the door. I bend down carefully, trying not to disturb the equilibrium of the caravan, and see that it’s a little digital spy camera, one of many Cutter has trained on everyone and everything that’s part of his sordid empire. I pick it up and pocket it, then I back out of the caravan once more. I heave a sigh of relief when I get outside without mishap, pull the hoodie away from my face and take in a lungful of reasonably untainted air.

  I quickly jog round the rest of the caravans, but don’t see anything else of interest, that seems to be it, so I make my way back to the fence, scramble over it, and head for home.

  9: Millie

  Carl and I get back to the office around four, laden down
with goodies from the bazaar. I put the home-made cakes and biscuits I bought in the kitchen for people to help themselves to and, even though this is a small paper with a handful of staff, they’re gone in no time.

  It takes less than an hour to write up my copy and I’m out of there by half past five, off home to grab a sandwich and then head out to another church hall for their amateur dramatics production of A Christmas Carol. I can’t say I’m looking forward to it. It’s not so much the production as the chairs; I reckon there must be a factory somewhere that makes astonishingly uncomfortable chairs especially for church halls.

  The show actually isn’t bad – I’ve seen far worse, that’s for sure. The production has more to do with the Muppets than Charles Dickens and, as much as I appreciate Dickens, I reckon that was the right approach to take. When I get home I make some notes while it’s all still fresh in my mind.

  That dealt with, it’s time to have some dinner and plan my trip to Cutter’s nightclub. I stick a frozen pizza in the oven and take a shower while it cooks. As I sit and munch my way through it, I wonder what the hell people wear to a club like Gold. It’s a bit of an oddity by all accounts; they don’t get the sort of clubbers I would recognise. There’s booze, music and dancing, but the crowd is mixed in age. A bit posh. Probably not the kind of place where you’d be welcome in the sort of scanties the town crowd likes to wear.

  I settle on a dress I bought for the evening do at somebody’s wedding last year – strappy, but not too tarty – and heels. Then I prove I’m not a teenager any more by putting a coat on; it’s bloody freezing out.

  When I get there, there’s a queue to get in and half the people in it are shivering and turning blue with the cold. Some of them stand in line for twenty minutes or more to get to the front and then get turned away, seemingly for how they look, and I’m glad I dressed as I did.

  There are just a handful of people in front of me when I see a couple of expensive cars pull up and three men climb out of each one. They walk over the road and straight to the head of the queue as if they own the place, and when I hear one of the doormen say, ‘Good evening, Mr Cutter,’ I realise why. I stare at them as they walk in and one of them turns and catches my eye. He gives me a smile and then I’m distracted by the doorman talking to me. Two minutes later I’m checking my coat and walking into Gold, Cutter’s nightclub, for the first time.

  10: Cutter

  Later in the evening we all head to Gold. I’ve got a bit of business to see to before I can mingle, so I leave the others in the VIP area and head through to the office. I’ve barely got my arse in the chair behind my desk when somebody comes in to pour me a drink. I bloody love this club. I can’t tell you what a buzz it is to walk in here knowing it’s all mine.

  Nat, the bookkeeper, has the office next door and I want to talk to her about the new venture. She’ll have long since gone home, so I send her an email telling her to meet me here in the morning.

  Nat’s a funny one. For all she does a good job and I trust her, I can’t bring her in to my inner circle like I could a bloke. You just can’t, can you? You can’t talk about birds the way we do when there’s a bird there, and you can’t have somebody who one of the others might want to shag who’s on the team. It would be unsettling. So she has to stay at arm’s length; I doubt she feels she’s missing out, mind, and she’s well paid for her trouble.

  Business matters dealt with, I go back into the club and take a good look around. Dek and Charlie are getting stuck in to the single malt; Wayne’s talking to Tommy, who’s eyeing up some dark-haired lass in a nice dress, and Big Liam’s nursing a Jack Daniel’s and watching the crowd. I plonk down next to him and a glass of champagne appears in front of me, placed there by a little bird with pink hair, wearing some sort of bodysuit. There’s no flesh on show, but it leaves nothing to the imagination.

  ‘Thanks, love,’ I say and she gives me a smile full of all sorts of promises. I’m tempted for a split second, then I remember the wife and I let it pass.

  There’s the usual crowd in, plus a young lad with a camera wandering round snapping local celebrities. He’s no bother and we get some nice publicity in an entertainments magazine from it, so I’m happy for him to carry on. He’s just put his camera away and sauntered out when a high-heeled shoe goes flying across in front of us and hits a bloke in the middle of the back. He grabs the shoe, stands up and turns round, trying to see who threw it. The lass he’s chatting up stands up as well and she’s no sooner on her feet than she gets a drink thrown in her face, followed by a slap from a little ginger bird with big knockers. Judging by the way Ginger is listing when she walks, it’s her shoe that was thrown. Sure enough, she snatches it back then starts screeching at the bloke, a tattooed mahogany freak with a ridiculous haircut. He shouts back and I see they both have unnaturally large white teeth. They’re strobing in the lights from the dance floor.

  ‘Who the fuck are they?’ I ask Liam, as I see bouncers heading over to them to break it up.

  ‘The two who are fighting are on some reality TV show,’ Wayne chips in. ‘Bloody horrible, the lot of them.’

  ‘Pseudo celebs?’ I say, and he nods. ‘We’ll have a bit of fun then, eh?’

  The three of us head over to where Mahogany and Ginger are trying to fight with the bouncers. The other lass looks bewildered.

  ‘Right,’ I say, ‘what’s going on here?’

  ‘None of your business, fuck off!’ says the fella, cocky as all hell until Liam gets a hold of him. ‘What you doing?’ he says as his feet leave the floor. ‘Do you know who I am?’

  ‘If you don’t know who you are, you must have ingested too many substances,’ says Liam. ‘Either that or you’re very, very stupid.’

  ‘You can’t talk to him like that,’ says Ginger.

  I nod at Wayne and he gets a hold of her, amidst much squawking and complaining. ‘Thanks, lads,’ I say to the bouncers, ‘we’ll take it from here.’

  They nod and back off.

  ‘Back entrance?’ says Wayne.

  ‘Yes,’ I say, ‘and don’t worry about being gentle with them.’ They’re frogmarched out of the club, down a passageway, then out through the back door.

  ‘Right,’ I say to the fella, ‘now what were you saying about this being none of my business?’

  He tries to hold his hands up, but Liam’s still holding on to him. ‘I don’t want any trouble, okay? I’m a celebrity, I don’t know if you know—’

  The rest of his words are lost as I lay into him.

  Wayne, meanwhile, is having fun at Ginger’s expense. When she wailed, ‘Not my face!’ he took it as an invitation to punch her in the tits.

  ‘What are you doing?’ I ask when Mahogany’s fucked and I’m taking a breather.

  ‘Trying to bust her implants,’ he says, wellying her in the chebs one last time. ‘No chance, though, they’re rock solid.’

  Her face is covered in snot and mascara and her boyfriend is on his knees, picking up veneers that look like piano keys and muttering, ‘My teef! My fucking teef!’ Liam pulls him to his feet and stands the two of them side by side.

  ‘Now listen, you two,’ I say. ‘I don’t want to see you or your kind in my club again, do you hear?’

  They nod.

  ‘And if I hear you’ve breathed so much as a word of this to the police, I will hunt you down and I will fucking kill you both. Do you understand?’

  Realising they are about to escape with their lives, they nod more vigorously.

  ‘Now, fuck off!’

  We watch them scuttle away, then head back into the club. I enjoyed that, it was a nice diversion.

  A couple of hours later I head for home, driven by Tommy, who’s smiling because he’s got the phone number of the dark-haired lass he was chatting up. ‘Be careful what you wish for,’ I tell him when he drops me off.

  Inside, the bairns and the wife are in bed, which suits me fine. I pour myself a drink and sit down with it in the dark, going over the day’s even
ts in my head. I hope Wayne can shift the chickens; I want rid. They’re more bother than they’re worth and besides, the older my bairns get, the less I like dealing with the perverts and lowlifes who want kiddies. I’ll be okay; I’ve got enough on the right people from the parties at the caravan site to make sure I never get touched for anything. I could bring the north-east to a standstill if I let on what people get up to. Sick fuckers.

  My phone vibrates in my pocket and I take it out and check the screen. It’s the wife wanting to know when I’ll be home. I don’t bother telling the silly cow I am home, I just ignore it.

  Christ, what is it with women? Her upstairs started out like the pink-haired lass at the club tonight, passing me glasses of champagne and dishing out smiles to go with them. She was keen as mustard, up for anything, and inventive with it. The last wife had turned into a boring whinger, so I shunted her off and married the fancy piece, and the next thing I know, she’s just like the ex – a moaning bitch complaining about how much time I spend out the house and how she never sees me, asking where I’ve been and what I’ve been doing and who I’ve been doing it with.

  She might have to go. I’ve had just about enough of her; the bairns don’t like her all that much anyway, and that’s the main thing I need her for right now. We’ll get Christmas over and see where we are then.

  I’m more interested in the new house and what that might mean. It’s exciting, a whole new business venture. There’s the meeting tomorrow with the accountant and the brief, then we’re getting together with Big Liam’s friend, the dominatrix. I’ve met all sorts of slappers, but I’ve never met one of them before.

  I drain my glass and get up to head for bed, then think of that sour-faced cow lying there, pour myself another and sit back down again.

  11: Jack

  When I get in Mam’s fretting about where I’ve been and for how long. I tell her I just went for a walk to stretch my legs and clear my head and not to worry, I’m not going to do anything stupid, but she does worry, of course she does.