by David Mark
Here, now, he can still taste the curry on his skin. Can pick out the flavor of spice and cardamom, in among the heavier aromas of nicotine and old booze. He’s chewing on the fat of an index finger, gnawing on it, like a dog with a bone, squinting at a computer screen and breathing noisily through his nose. When he sat down at the desk there were half a dozen other officers in the room. They have gradually drifted away, to speak to witnesses or check in with informants, or to go for a walk around the car park. Nobody wants to be near Ray when he’s in this mood. Even Shaz Archer is giving him a wide berth.
He should be pleased, of course. They’ve just charged Adam Downey with conspiracy to supply a large quantity of Class A drugs, and the evidence is pretty damning against the pretty boy in cell 4. He’ll be denied bail, come the hearing on Monday morning. He’ll be found guilty, should he have the temerity to deny the charges. Should he plead guilty, he’ll still get hit with a few years in view of his previous offenses. Ray has got a scumbag off the streets. He’s put away a villain. He should be drinking the cheap whiskey in his desk drawer and slapping backs as people tell him he’s ace.
Instead, Colin Ray looks like he is about to tear his own skin off and start throwing it at people in great wet clumps.
Adam Downey isn’t enough. Not nearly enough.
A few months ago, Ray spoke to one of the senior figures involved in the new drugs outfit. At that time, the group had just taken over all cannabis operations on the East Coast, and successfully outmuscled the Vietnamese gangs that had previously been responsible for growing the crop. The new lot had simply moved in, and told the Vietnamese that they now worked for them. Even more remarkably, the Vietnamese bosses had concurred. The foot soldiers and farmers who did not like the new arrangement were dealt with swiftly; their hands nail-gunned to their legs and their chests turned to tar with a blowtorch. A few physically imposing enforcers kept an eye on things, and a handful of bright young things looked after deliveries and shipments. During his conversation with the voice at the other end of the phone, Ray had realized that the new outfit had plans. They were never going to content themselves looking after a bit of cannabis production. They had moved in without any real resistance, and in Ray’s mind that kind of victory can make an ambitious man feel invincible. The voice on the phone had warned Ray that it was in nobody’s interests to look into their operations too carefully. He had made it plain that they were well-informed, well-connected, and had half of the Drugs Squad in their pocket. Ray hadn’t given a damn. He’d ignored their bribes and gentle threats, and given the go-ahead on an operation that led to the unit’s first significant arrest. Now he feels he has made another. It just hasn’t had the domino effect that he had hoped.
Last night, sitting in his boxer shorts and mismatched socks, he had expected his mobile phone to ring. He had expected threats or promises from a mysterious voice. But nobody had called. He is not given to self-doubt, but his conviction that Adam Downey is connected to the operation is starting to waver. Ever since the lad was brought in, Ray has been convinced that Downey is a midlevel operative for the new group. He’s young, bright enough, and has met some proper villains while inside. He’s been dealing in drugs since he was a teen, and the sheer quality and quantity of the cocaine found in his possession suggest to Ray that he is part of something big. But the bastard isn’t giving them anything other than “No comment.”
Ray pushes back his greasy hair and scratches at the psoriasis on the back of his neck, sending flakes of dead skin into the air. He sniffs, and swallows the phlegm that appears in his mouth. He’s fighting his instincts. Fighting the urge to go down to the cells and beat some answers out of Downey with his own shoes.
He is so wrapped up in his thoughts that it takes him a moment to register the vibration coming from his shirt pocket. At his age and with his diet, any trembling by his heart should be a cause for concern, but Ray is smiling as he pats at his chest and removes the old-fashioned mobile. Number withheld.
“Colin Ray.”
There is silence at the other end of the phone, and then a familiar voice: accentless and perfectly enunciated.
“Mr. Ray. A pleasure to speak to you again. Allow me to apologize for the unforgivable delay between our last conversation and this one. We have been extraordinarily busy and there has been no opportunity for indulgences.”
Ray sits back in his chair, a broad smile on his face. He’s remembering their last chat, sitting in the front of an unmarked car down Division Road, rain beating on the roof and steam rising from his clothes, Detective Superintendent Adrian Russell shitting himself in the driver’s seat as Ray took the phone from his hands and put the call from his colleague’s paymaster on speakerphone.
“Now then, lad,” says Ray warmly. “You’re right. It’s been a while. And yeah, you’ve been busy. Onwards and upwards, I see.”
“A business has to expand or it stagnates, Mr. Ray. Running water is so much fresher and more vibrant than a static pool, would you not agree?”
Ray sticks a finger in his ear and inspects what he finds, rubbing it on his suit trousers. “Never thought about it, son. My mind’s a bit busy right now. Just charged a young lad with conspiracy to supply. Seriously good quality, the stuff he had on him. Must be worth a fortune.”
There is a pause at the other end of the line. Then the slightest suggestion that the caller is taking a discreet sip of liquid. In the background, the softest of sounds—china on china, cup on saucer; the extinguishing of a cigarette into a clean ashtray.
“You have probably never seen the like, Mr. Ray. Even during your time working in the Met. Even when you lived in that flat in Maida Vale with the Polish lady whom your senior officers did not know about and whom you met during a six-year undercover operation that ended in disaster. Not even when they moved you up to Newcastle to keep you out of the way and you beat a suspect half to death in the custody suite. Even then, you will not have seen a product like the one that was spilled all over the floor of the premises on Southcoates Lane.”
Ray shrugs, though nobody can see. “My CV has its ups and downs. Like your lad. Downey.”
“Yes, indeed. My associates are of course aware of the young man to whom you are referring—”
“‘Whom’?” says Ray mockingly. “Public school boy, you, I reckon. Definitely got breeding. That narrows it down a bit . . .”
“Mr. Downey,” continues the voice, as though there has been no interruption. “He is a young man for whom we had some hope of future advancement. This week’s development was most unfortunate.”
“Yeah, that’s the word. Unfortunate. If I’d lost one of my main guys and a packet of pure coke, I’d call it a bit more than that, my lad.”
There is more silence. Ray wonders if this will be it. Whether there will be more. He feels empty at the thought of the call being terminated. He wants to talk. Wants to tell this supercilious bastard with his perfect vowels that he’s worked it out.
“Shall I tell you something?” he asks, suddenly sitting forward in his chair. “I’ve been thinking about you lot. Thinking about you a lot. Where you came from. What you do. I’ve been thinking about the way you marched in and turned every Vietnamese cannabis factory into your own personal operation. The way you kept the workforce. I’ve been thinking about what you did to those poor bastards who said they were going to talk. And I reckon I know how it works. It’s a hostile takeover, isn’t it? And you can carry those out with only a few guys. I reckon you look at which organizations are profitable, and instead of setting up a rival business, you just take over the one that works. You scare the shit out of the top dogs, and tell them they can carry on and pay you a handsome cut, or you can put them in the ground. It’s a beautiful system, matey. I reckon with the right information and a few good lads you could have half the established gangs in Britain paying you protection money. How am I doing?”
There is a lengthy pause
before the man speaks again. When he does, there is a note of humor to his voice. “That sounds like a great deal of conjecture and guesswork, Mr. Ray. But I admire the scale of your imagination. I’m sure my associates will, too. However, if that is indeed the case and they are only a few individuals with vision and guile, why would they show any interest in the young man in your cells?”
Ray spits in the mesh wastepaper basket. Watches the phlegm slide down the inside of a Styrofoam food carton. Sniffs, and scratches at his neck.
“I’ll tell you that when you tell me why you are ringing,” he says, wetly, into the phone. “If you’re ringing to suggest that we somehow lose interest in Adam Downey, then I reckon it’s because your organization is bright enough to know that loyalty has to be earned. We already know that Downey worked for a dealer around here for years. He supplied on street corners, then got a bit more of a reputation and started dealing wholesale. If your outfit has taken over the gang he used to work for, Downey will know about it. He might even have done the killing himself. I reckon his old boss is in the ground. I think during his last stretch inside, one of your bright things got in touch with him and promised him the earth if he showed a little ambition. That’s how you lot work, isn’t it? You look at the individual. You look at what they want. And you find a way to give them it. That’s how it worked with Aidy Russell, I’m guessing. You realized he was an ambitious officer and you gave him enough information to get him some good headlines, and the price was that he left you alone.”
The caller breathes out slowly. “There are so many more people willing to assist us in our endeavors than your friend the detective superintendent, Mr. Ray. As you say, my associates have an uncanny ability to find out what matters most to people. We are all about the individual. And Mr. Downey is an individual who has demonstrated loyalty. We would not be particularly effective employers were we to then turn our back on him for making an error of judgment.”
“Storing his gear in a sewing shop, you mean?”
Another pause, then: “He was demonstrating original thinking. We prize that, even when the results do not go as hoped.”
Ray taps his fingers on the phone at his ear, slowly, deliberately. He fancies it will be irritating to the man at the other end of the line.
“So you’re ringing to ask me to go let him out?” asks Ray, smiling wide enough to show the pastry crumbs in his back teeth.
This time, the man allows himself what could almost be called a laugh. “No, Mr. Ray. I am ringing to tell you that Adam Downey will be released within the week. He will not talk to you. Nothing you can do or say to him will change that. I am aware of the conversations you have had with some local hooligans with regard to Mr. Downey’s incarceration. I can assure you that Mr. Downey’s brief time at Her Majesty’s pleasure will not be the purgatory you envisage. Nobody is going to threaten him, Mr. Ray. Nobody is going to lean on him. If you check your call log in around twenty minutes, you will see that two members of your CID will be on their way to Hull Prison, where one of the inmates of your acquaintance was found, moments ago, in the shower block, with nails through his hands and knees. A most unfortunate incident. I am ringing to tell you that while some people are resistant to change, others embrace it. These are changing times, Mr. Ray. I am ringing out of courtesy, because there is something about your intractable demeanor that some of my associates find charming. More than anything else, I am ringing to apologize for not sending you a birthday card. You made a sad sight, sitting there alone. I do hope that by next year you have somebody to share it with.”
Ray’s smile fades. He clears his throat.
“Do you think I’m scared of you, son?”
The line goes quiet. There is a suggestion of a cigarette being lit.
“No,” comes the voice finally. “You have nothing for us to threaten. You have no money and no children. You have your pension and will be dead by the time you are sixty even without our intervention. You would not respond well to promises of remuneration and you treat your body far more poorly than anybody in our employ could.”
“So what are you going to do with me, eh, son?” Ray asks it with a laugh, but it sounds weaker than before.
“Nothing, Mr. Ray. We will simply tolerate you. You are not important enough to care about.”
Ray’s fist slams on the desk. The computer shakes, a coffee mug falls. The sound bounces off the walls of the empty room.
The call is terminated with a click.
Ray shouts expletives until he can think of nothing else to say. Then he throws his phone at the wall. The smash isn’t enough. It hasn’t made a dent in what he is feeling. He picks up the swivel chair and knocks his computer from the desk with it in a shower of glass and crumbling plastic. He pants, hands on his knees. Feels the demon sloshing around in his belly.
Makes up his mind.
Then he heads down to the cells.
He heads for Adam Downey.
Ray manages to look sane for the briefest of moments. He winks at the desk sergeant and grunts something about needing to ask a few extra questions.
The uniform hands him a bunch of keys.
Here.
Now.
Cheap shoes clip-clopping on green linoleum. Pausing at a metal door. A stained hand pulling down the grille. A yellow, bloodshot eye staring at the handsome little bastard who has refused to talk for three fucking days . . .
Ray opens the door. Enjoys the look of panic on the young lad’s face. Then he wraps the key chain around his fist.
A moment later, the silence of the custody suite is broken by a guttural, agonized shout. There is the sound of skin on skin. Boots on flesh. There is the rattle of a key chain; the wet thud of metal striking something soft and vulnerable.
And then the desk sergeant and half a dozen uniformed officers are running into Adam Downey’s cell, dragging a bloodstained, sweat-streaked Colin Ray into the corridor by his arms and legs. Somebody presses the alarm; a high-pitched wail shrieking from the speakers on the wall. The prisoners in the adjoining cells start to shout. To bang on their cell doors.
Adam Downey lies on the floor in a pool of his own blood, arms wrapped around his head, lacerations to his arms and chest; his expensive T-shirt is ripped to the waist, his diamond earring dangling from a shredded earlobe.
And above the shouts and the alarm, Colin Ray’s voice, filled with bile and madness:
“Tolerate that! Fucking tolerate that!”
ELEVEN
Monday morning, 9:18 a.m.
The same room in the same health center on the same road.
Too hot to breathe.
Aector McAvoy: bone-tired and unshaven, aching across his shoulders and back. He has bags under his eyes and Band-Aids on the backs of his hands, and the blue suit he is wearing was chosen because it has the fewest creases rather than none at all. He’s spent the weekend lifting furniture in and out of a moving van. Has carried mattresses and bed frames up flights of stairs and climbed in through a first-floor window with a wardrobe on his back while a crowd gathered on Hessle Foreshore and shouted encouragement. He has spent two days struggling with cardboard boxes full of books and shoes and pots and pans, wrestling with a sofa that wouldn’t fit through the bloody front door, despite the careful measurements he had taken when they viewed the place. Spent an hour with his fingers in an ice bucket borrowed from the Country Park Inn, after Fin decided that tickling Daddy while he carried a washing machine would be incredibly funny. This morning, he selected his clothes from a suitcase and a variety of trash bags. He is trying not to dwell on the fact that his socks don’t match. He has already made up his mind never to move house again. He’s exhausted and sore and doesn’t want to be back here. Not back in this airless room, with its traffic sounds and buzzing flies and stupid plastic chair.
“It went okay, yes? The move? It was this weekend, wasn’t it?”
Sabine Keane is giving him an encouraging smile. He tries to return it. This could be his last session, if he plays nicely.
“Hard work,” he says. “I didn’t know we had so much stuff.”
“You didn’t get movers in?”
“Sort of. A man with a van. I thought he’d be more help than he was. He was very good at drinking tea and smoking cigarettes.”
“So you did it all yourselves?”
McAvoy gives a laugh. “Roisin was more of a foreman. She’s not built for lifting sofas. She and Mel kind of directed . . .”
“Her friend, yes? You’ve mentioned her before.”
McAvoy clears his throat. Stares at his tie for a while. “She’s been through a bit of an ordeal. There was an incident at her shop. Had a bit of a to-do with a drug dealer and helped the police nab him.”
Sabine looks impressed. “So you’re tolerating her more readily?”
McAvoy wonders if his answer will lead to another note in his file. “I don’t dislike her. I never said that I did. And Roisin thinks she’s great. Is that important?”
Sabine shakes her head. She looks up at the ceiling. Looks down into her open handbag. Appears to be working out what to say.
“This could well be your last session, Aector. If I count the last one.”
