Cutter's Firm

by Julie Morrigan

  31: Cutter

  We’re all at the safe house and I’ve just told the firm in broad strokes how things went down with the Middlesbrough boys. We left out the bit about Wayne; we’ve got plans for him. Big Liam has wanted to lay hands on him ever since I told him what was on the camera footage, and he’s since watched it for himself, which got him very bloody riled up. I’m going to let Liam take the lead, but I’ll be using my knife on the cunt before we’re done.

  Liam picks his moment and when we’re all on our feet heading through into the sitting room, he backs Wayne up against the wall. ‘If you have something to say to me, you say it to my face. Understood?’

  To his credit, Wayne stands up for himself. ‘Fuck off, you psycho,’ he says, getting in Liam’s face.

  ‘Woah, lads, we’re all on the same team here; calm down, for Christ’s sake,’ says Tommy. Charlie and Dek stand back and watch.

  ‘Are we all on the same team?’ says Wayne. ‘I know we used to be, but lately it’s been us and them.’

  ‘And just who is “them”?’ asks Liam, his voice rumbling like thunder, the threat of a storm evident in the tone.

  ‘You and him,’ he says, pointing at me. He looks at me. ‘We started this firm together, the three of us,’ he gestures to me, him and Tommy, ‘but now you’ve got no time for us two. It’s all Liam this and Liam that. What the fuck’s that all about?’

  Tommy looks like somebody just slapped him.

  ‘Is that how you feel as well?’ I ask him.

  ‘Things have changed, Gordon, there’s no denying that. I understand Wayne’s point of view, but I don’t feel as strongly about things as he does.’

  Good answer. It might have all calmed down for now if the cocky little fucker had kept his mouth shut. ‘That cunt’s the problem,’ Wayne says, sticking his finger right in Liam’s face.

  Liam turns puce and I’m scared he might have a heart attack. I’ve seen him angry before, but this is off the chart. He gets hold of Wayne by the front of his jacket and slides him up the wall, the rustic cladding tearing into the leather. That’ll be his jacket ruined, but that’s the least of his worries. His feet are dangling and he’s choking for breath. ‘You fucking bender, I will break you!’ Liam gets right in his face and Wayne is looking pretty fucking sad now. ‘Do you think I can’t?’ the big man demands.

  ‘I know you can,’ gasps Wayne, ‘but right is right and wrong is wrong and what’s happened in this firm is wrong.’

  Liam drops him, turns and walks away, biding his time, and Wayne smoothes down his clothes and tries to claw back some dignity. If he thinks it’s over, he’s wrong; it’s only just begun.

  Later there’s just me, Liam, Wayne and Tommy left, and Tommy makes his excuses to leave. ‘You coming?’ he asks Wayne, and Wayne nods.

  ‘Tell you what,’ I say to Wayne and Liam, ‘why don’t the three of us talk things through. I don’t want bad feeling in the firm. How about it, Wayne?’ He looks at me for a long moment, but then he nods. ‘Liam?’ Liam nods, too, but he would; this is all part of the plan.

  ‘I’ll leave you to it,’ says Tommy, and he heads off into the night.

  Liam acts contrite and apologises – it’s a great performance – and Wayne is carried along on a wave of bonhomie and does likewise, then we all head to Gold to celebrate.

  Once there, we get a few drinks inside us and I start talking about the new house and the way we’re going to fit it out, then I suggest we go downstairs to the cell in the basement of the club – which Wayne hasn’t yet seen – and go through all the cupboards, see if we’ve missed anything that’s there. Liam is up for it, of course, and that gees Wayne up, and we all trot off downstairs.

  Once in the dungeon I thread a pair of handcuffs through the ring in the ceiling and Big Liam holds his wrists up to be locked in. It’s all very jokey and Wayne’s laughing along with us. When I release Liam and suggest to Wayne he has a go, he’s only too keen.

  And now the fucker’s hanging there from the handcuffs in the ceiling, grinning like the whole thing’s a big joke. Which it probably is if you don’t know what Liam and I know. I grin back, playing along, and Liam plays along as well … then the mood changes and Wayne suddenly realises he’s been played for a fool.

  ‘What the fuck were you doing telling Harry and Mickey that the car lot was in trouble?’ I ask him.

  ‘I didn’t—’

  ‘Don’t fucking lie to me. Mickey spilled his guts soon as he sniffed the acid.’ I slap his face, none too gently, a foretaste of what’s to come.

  ‘Okay,’ he says quickly, ‘I just thought we could kind of incorporate the Middlesbrough firm into ours, like you did with Mac’s firm. Spread out a bit, you know?’

  ‘And then you’d run the car lot and be head of the Middlesbrough crew?’

  ‘Well … yes, something like that.’ He tries to shrug, but that’s pretty bloody hard to do when your hands are tied up above your head. ‘I thought it would be good for everybody.’

  ‘And at what stage were you planning on discussing that with me?’

  ‘Soon as I knew if it was a goer.’

  ‘Wrong fucking answer!’ I say, and I get my knife out and stripe his cheek. Blood runs down his face and drips onto the floor and he looks at it almost in disbelief.

  ‘Come on, man, Gordon! We’ve been friends for … how long? Fifteen year or more?’

  ‘Exactly,’ I say, ‘and yet you go and pull a stunt like that.’

  ‘I just wanted to get some respect back. People are laughing at us—’

  ‘What about the camera?’

  ‘What?’

  ‘The camera. There’s a camera missing from the ones you and Tommy took from the caravans.’

  ‘I don’t know anything about—’

  I stick my face in his and scream at him, ‘Did you take my camera?’ Specks of spittle are flying from my mouth and I can see Wayne flinching away from me.

  ‘No, I swear—’

  ‘Did you take my camera?’ I shout again.

  ‘No—’

  He howls in pain as I ram the knife into his thigh, then stand back and watch as blood discolours his jeans and begins to pool in his shoes. ‘Gordon, please!’

  ‘And it’s Mr fucking Cutter to you, you fucking cunt!’ I tell him as I tug the knife none too gently out of his leg and stripe his other cheek with it.

  He’s a vicious little bastard with other people, but I don’t think he’s ever seen his own blood before; he’s squealing like a girl, and that’s before Big Liam starts pounding him. He blacks his eyes and breaks his nose, then starts pulverising his body. I hear ribs crack, then he starts on his kidneys. After ten minutes Wayne is a bloody, howling mess and Big Liam is panting for breath, his knuckles skinned and covered in blood. When we’ve had enough we turn the lights out and lock the door and leave the fucker hanging there. We stand an old mattress up against the outside of the door to help muffle the sound in case the fucker starts screaming for help, but it’s probably an unnecessary precaution; there’s no reason for any of the staff to venture into this part of the cellar. I doubt they even know it exists – after all I didn’t until Liam told me about it the other week, and it’s my club.

  ***

  A couple of days later I take Tommy down there to see his mate, not that Wayne has been without company in that time; Liam and I have popped in regularly to visit him.

  When I open the door and show Tommy in, his jaw drops. ‘What the fuck is going on here?’ he asks, dragging his gaze from Wayne for long enough to rake eyes over me and Liam.

  ‘That little fucker was trying to fuck us over,’ I say. ‘You don’t know anything about that, do you?’

  ‘About what? I have no idea what you’re talking about!’

  I reckon he’s telling the truth, so I tell him what Wayne has been up to. He looks at his friend, hung up, naked, covered in his own filth and blood, face and body a patchwork quilt of cuts and bruises, a couple of skinned areas on his c
hest where Liam decided to see how sharp I keep my knife. ‘Oh, mate, why didn’t you tell me what you were thinking?’ he says, then he turns to me. ‘I’d have stopped him if I’d known, I hope you know that,’ he says, and I do. ‘Christ, Gordon, look at him … enough’s enough, eh?’

  ‘I don’t think Wayne’s the only one forgetting his place,’ I say, my voice cold. ‘Here’s some information I would advise you to take to heart and remember; it’s not Gordon to the likes of you, it’s Mr Cutter.’

  ‘And Mr Bradley,’ says Liam. ‘Show some fucking respect.’

  ‘And if you overstep the mark again, you’ll get a taste of what he’s had.’ I nod at the hanging man.

  I see him look from me to Liam and back again. ‘Okay, I’m sorry. Please, Mr Cutter and Mr Bradley, accept my apology.’

  ‘Accepted,’ I say, and Big Liam nods.

  ‘But please, let’s take Wayne down and let him go. He’s learned his lesson, and he won’t ever trouble you again now, you know that.’

  I hold his gaze and slowly shake my head. ‘He went too far for that, Tommy. This is the end of the line for Wayne.’ I look at Wayne and there’s nothing left in his eyes, no more fight, no more hope. He’s accepted his fate and it’s as well that he has. Now I need Tommy to accept it, or else he’ll have to be dealt with as well. It’s all about loyalty, see, about putting the firm above all else.

  ‘He’s one of our own,’ Tommy says.

  ‘He was one of our own, then he shit on us.’ I pause. ‘And you are going to prove your loyalty by killing the cunt.’ When Mac discovered disloyalty in his firm, he did what needed to be done himself; I’m teaching both of these fuckers a lesson by making Tommy do it.

  He looks horrified. ‘No, no,’ he says, ‘this isn’t right. Please, Mr Cutter, reconsider.’

  ‘Do it, it’s an order.’

  Wayne gurgles and gasps and I realise he’s talking to Tommy. Tommy moves closer to hear, then he takes a deep breath, wipes the backs of his hands over his eyes and turns to me. I hold my knife out to him and he takes it and flicks out the blade. He steps up to Wayne and takes his chin in his left hand. He plants a kiss on each ruined cheek, then raises his right hand, the one with the knife in it, and buries the blade in Wayne’s neck. Wayne jerks and twitches a few times, a dead man dancing, then he’s still. Once Tommy knows he’s gone, he pulls the knife out and wipes it with his handkerchief before folding the blade away, dropping the handkerchief and passing the knife back to me.

  ‘That’s done, Mr Cutter,’ he says, and I see tension in his jaw and something new in his eyes that I can’t quite identify. ‘We never speak of this again; deal?’

  ‘Deal,’ I say, and we shake on it.

  32: Jack

  I’m thinking about what Millie Redman said to us about needing proof and I’m thinking I’ll never get Cutter off the streets; how can I get proof? He’s got the town sewn up, even the coppers are in his pocket.

  I’m mulling this over, clicking round online, when I remember the camera I took from the burnt-out caravan. The shock of finding out what happened with Livvy drove it out of my mind, but now, I wonder … I hook it up to my computer via USB and next thing I know I’m watching some very nasty footage of some very nasty men and women abusing very obviously drugged-up children. I don’t want to watch it – it’s stomach-churning – but I need Cutter to be on here if it’s to be used to tie him to the abuse. I fast-forward through the footage and just as I’m about to give up, I see his face. He’s there, he’s on film. He doesn’t touch any of the kids, but it’s obvious he’s a part of the whole thing. I run to the bathroom and throw up, then come back and sit on the edge of my bed and cry tears of frustration and anger and relief and then, when it’s out of my system for the time being, I pull myself together, make a copy of the material, and send an email to Millie Redman saying I have what she needs. I hear back from her pretty promptly and we arrange to meet at the newspaper offices tomorrow.

  33: Millie

  When I get home from work, Tommy’s in my house. He doesn’t have a key but I’m no longer surprised by anything he does; I just hope he didn’t go searching and find the Cutter file.

  It doesn’t take long for me to realise that he’s wasted. There’s a bottle of Jack Daniel’s on the glass coffee table and it’s down to the dregs; there are also traces of a white powder smudged on the surface.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he says, ‘I’m so fucking sorry,’ and I’m not sure it’s me he’s talking to.

  ‘What’s happened?’ I ask him. ‘Tommy?’

  ‘Oh, babe, you would not believe what I had to do today.’ He looks at me, eyes barely focused. ‘I can’t believe …’ He drifts off, for a moment, then snaps back to the here and now.

  I go and make him a coffee, put it on the table and sit down next to him.

  ‘You’re going to feel like shit tomorrow,’ I tell him and he fixes his eyes on me.

  ‘I can’t possibly feel worse than I do today,’ he says, his words slurred and hard to make out.

  ‘Why? What is it you’ve done that’s so awful? I bet whatever it is, we can work it out.’

  He shakes his head. ‘There’ll be no working this out.’ He puts his glass on the table and takes my hands in his. ‘I killed someone.’

  ‘You did what?’

  ‘I killed someone. Not just a routine murder, I killed my lifelong friend, Wayne. I stuck a knife in his neck and I watched him die.’

  I almost laugh, then I go cold when I realise he isn’t joking. And while we’re on, what the fuck is a ‘routine murder’?

  ‘Gordon Cutter made me do it,’ he mumbles, ‘and I’ll never forgive him for that, for making me do that. I’ll never forget Wayne’s face … I’ve killed people before, but it’s never been like this.’ His voice peters out and he makes a horrible groaning sound. ‘Cutter and Liam Bradley had tortured him, they’d had him for days. Christ, you should have seen him … he begged me to kill him, or else I don’t think I could have done it, even though it would have meant my own life if I hadn’t.’

  I pick up the mug of coffee and put it in his hands, make sure he has a good hold of it before letting go. ‘Drink that,’ I say, ‘it’ll help.’

  He takes a gulp, and then starts again, rambling and mumbling. ‘You don’t know the things I’ve done,’ he says, ‘terrible, terrible things, but I’m done with that now. Never again. Never again.’

  I have no idea what to say to him; I can barely process what he’s telling me and I curse the fact that I don’t have my digital recorder turned on, even though it’s so hard to make out what he’s saying. I wonder if I can get him to talk about this on the record when he’s sober.

  ‘We should go away,’ he says, ‘you and me, it’s the only way we’ll be safe from Cutter.’

  ‘He doesn’t know me,’ I say.

  Tommy laughs, but there’s precious little mirth in it. ‘Of course he does! He saw you at the club and in the paper. He told me I had to stop seeing you. He wants you—’ he draws a finger in an unsteady line across his throat. ‘Probably make me do it.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘That story about the receptionist. She’s dead, her and her boyfriend, they were on the take …’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘I was there.’

  ‘There when?’

  ‘When we killed them.’

  I go cold. He’s telling the truth, I can feel it, but what he’s saying is horrific. It’s one thing speculating about Gordon Cutter being involved in murder, quite another hearing a man I’ve slept with, someone I’d started to care about, telling me he’s a killer.

  ‘We should go tonight,’ he says, ‘just go. On the run.’

  ‘We can talk about this tomorrow,’ I say, playing for time. ‘You’re safe here, he doesn’t know where I live.’

  ‘Don’t be dumb, of course he does.’

  ‘What? How?’

  ‘Who do you think turned your place over? Him, looking to see if y
ou had anything on him, after you ran that story.’ He sips his coffee then mutters, ‘You’re lucky we didn’t find anything.’

  ‘We? You were part of it?

  ‘I had to do it. He’d have killed me.’

  I feel sick; he’s right, I am in danger. I’m no longer concerned for Tommy’s safety, under the circumstances I reckon he deserves what he gets, but I need to look after myself.

  ***

  Next morning I get up and get ready to go to work, planning to leave Tommy in bed to sleep it off. As I pick up my car keys he wakes up and blinks at me, bleary-eyed.

  ‘God, I’m sorry,’ he says, ‘I was wasted last night.’

  I force a grin, trying to make light of it. ‘I know,’ I say, ‘mind you don’t make a habit of it.’

  ‘Did I say anything?’ he asks, and I realise he has no memory of his confession.

  ‘Nothing that made any sense,’ I tell him. ‘I think you were saying you were sorry for being wasted, but I couldn’t really make anything out.’

  ‘Sorry,’ he says again.

  ‘Forget it. We all deserve to cut loose once in a while. You take it easy today, okay?’

  ‘Thanks.’

  He’s asleep again almost before his head hits the pillow, and I wait until I hear solid snoring before I go to the spare room and retrieve the file, then creep downstairs and out to my car; I think it’s best if I keep this, plus all my other notes and tapes, at work from here on in.

  As soon as I get in to the office, I write up as closely as I can remember what Tommy told me last night, print off a copy for the file and save the document in the Cutter folder on my computer.