Like Father, Like Son

by Sarah Masters

  An inconvenience.

  “Fucking arseholes, the pair of them.” Fox’s voice sounded slurred for the first time.

  Has he been drinking?

  “Did you know I don’t have any fingertips?”

  The question startled the shit out of Matt.

  What?

  “I wasn’t aware of that, no,” Matt said.

  How the hell wasn’t this mentioned before now?

  “Well, I ain’t got none. Me dad got rid of them. He liked doing that, getting rid of fingers, hands…people. So I thought I’d give it a try myself, know what I mean? See if I could understand what pleasure he got out of it when he hacked mine off just because I’d come home late one night. I was going to stop at one with Zeus, because, funny enough, I didn’t like doing it at all, but I kept on. Pushed by his voice telling me that the more I did it, the more I’d want to.”

  Bloody hell…

  This was one messed-up individual. Someone who needed a crapload of therapy if he was ever going to get some form of peace.

  Fox laughed again. Bitter, that was what he was. Resentment also rang out in that laugh, echoing off the darkness, floating inside Matt’s head and almost forcing him to entertain thoughts he didn’t want to. Ones that would snatch him back into the past to face things he didn’t want to face.

  “Now, in your case,” Fox went on, “I can see why you’re not dodgy. I mean, your old man was a copper, so of course you grew up knowing the policeman’s job is an honest and decent one. He might have been a copper, but he wasn’t on the straight and narrow, though, was he? No, he was as bent as you are, just in a different way. You chose the righteous path, to be like he was supposed to be. You behave like he was supposed to, not how he actually was. Me? Well, I chose the other way. To be exactly like my father. Easier to do that, see.”

  Matt held his breath. The memories were tapping at his skull, asking to come out. He denied them, telling himself that however Fox tried to wear him down emotionally, it wouldn’t happen. He couldn’t lower his guard.

  Have to remain focused.

  “So I’ll be the leader before long,” Fox said. “Just got Starky to deal with then I’ll have done what he told me to do. Will you do what your old man did? Will you stop the bad blokes no matter what it takes to do that?” He breathed heavily. “I reckon you’ll give it a good go, and in the end you’ll turn into your dad, someone who was crooked and in the gang as much as he was in the force.”

  Matt closed his eyes. Bollocks. He hadn’t wanted to ever think about this again. Thought he’d dealt with it years ago. Old feelings rose, swimming through his body until he felt sick. He realized then, with startling clarity, why he’d wanted to save Zeus. To save a gang member from going down a one-way street where the houses were filled with bad people who peered out of their windows urging them to wreak havoc. To save just one person from getting in too deep—so deep they wouldn’t be able to claw their way out. Like the position his father had been in.

  To save someone from vanishing…

  Oh, God…

  “It was my old man, you know that, don’t you?” Fox asked.

  “I had an idea,” Matt managed, hoping his voice didn’t sound as broken to Fox as it did to him. “Your dad was the instigator of many things back then. Worse than Starky. Worse than you’ll ever be, I imagine.”

  “See, that’s where you’re wrong. I’m well able to be the same as him. Worse than him. Proved that with Zeus’ fingers, didn’t I? Proving it now, having you here, doing what I intend to do. All right, there’s the two of you, but I can handle that. My old man killed yours. The sons should repeat history, yeah? It’s the way of the gangs, I reckon you know that.”

  “It might be the way of the gangs, but it isn’t my way,” Matt said. “I chose not to be like my father. You could have done the same.”

  “Could I now? You know nothing about what my life was like, how he dictated everything. I had no choice.”

  “Everyone has choices. You have them now. Continue with whatever it is you have planned, or stop, simple as that.”

  “Ha. You say it like it’s that easy. But it’s all up here.” Fox may have been tapping his temple for all Matt knew. “In my head. Never goes away.”

  “Look, I don’t want to sound like a heartless bastard, but have we nearly finished here?” Matt needed to draw this to a close before thoughts started gallivanting around inside his head.

  “I suppose we could move on now,” Fox said. “Your bloke there can step outside if he wants. You know, to save his bacon and all that.”

  “I’ll stay where I am, thanks,” Aaron said.

  Matt had all but forgotten he was standing there.

  “Aww, knight in shining armor, are you?” Fox asked. “Or a fool?”

  Three clicks came over the walkie-talkie. The main lights flickered then flared in solid brightness. Police in dark clothing stormed the area, swarming around where Matt imagined Fox was. Matt blinked, caught sight of Aaron in his peripheral vision, and experienced the immense sensation of this situation being a letdown. He hadn’t done the storming. The apprehending. The cuffs around the wrists. Did it matter? Really? Wasn’t the main aim to apprehend Fox however that could be accomplished?

  Once again, Matt admonished himself for always wanting to be The One. The hero. The person who received the applause and the pats on the back for a takedown. He knew damn well why he needed that euphoria, that rush. Each time he arrested someone it meant he was apprehending his father. Problem was, however many times he made arrests, it wasn’t enough to erase that need to do good.

  It would never be enough. Matt was tainted by what his father had done, and it was only now that he realized that taint would never go away.

  Officers had Fox in handcuffs, and Matt stared over at him. Their gazes met, and Matt shivered. Fox had a mad glint in his eye, more so than the usual criminal. He was massive—tall and broad and full of muscles—and Matt resisted the urge to call out to the officers that they should keep a tight hold of him or they might find their captive running off. Although oddly, Fox didn’t appear as though he wanted to run off.

  As he was marched toward Matt and Aaron, Fox gave off the vibe that he was untouchable, that his lawyer would be able to get him off any charges laid at Fox’s door. If that happened, there was no justice in this world. Matt had to be content with that for now, Fox was under arrest. Anything that came later… No, he couldn’t entertain that.

  “You wait and see,” Fox said, being steered closer to Matt. “You’ll end up just like him. Your father. You can’t run from it because it’s in you, just as much as it’s in me. Like father, like son, remember that.”

  Matt was about to respond but kept his mouth shut. Fox didn’t deserve an answer. What he deserved was to pay for his crimes. And what Matt deserved was to cut himself some slack and not be pining over the fact that he wasn’t the one leading Fox from the building. It was okay that someone else was doing it. Matt didn’t turn to watch Damien Fox be carted through the doorway. Why torment himself further? Instead, he looked at Aaron. That was a far better option.

  Aaron’s grin erased every bad and unsettling thought in Matt’s mind.

  “We got him,” Aaron said.

  “Yeah, we did.”

  “And now it’s time to move on.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Robby had heard there came a time in everyone’s life when they had what was known as a pivotal moment, one that defined them and made them realize a few things. He’d had a few, but leaving the city was one of the more amazing ones. The biggest yet.

  Ma sat beside him in the back of an unmarked police car. Robby held her trembling hand with a finger and thumb. He squeezed it to give her reassurance that they were doing the right thing. Or to give himself reassurance. Whatever worked.

  The road they traveled on now was the right one—the one that would take them to a better life. The motorway, in fact, which led up north to a so far undisclosed destinat
ion. All right, it might not be a better life for her, seeing as she’d be losing all her friends and everything she’d grown used to, but she’d handle it, so she’d said. Embrace it. She’d mentioned that the best way to deal with it was to see it as an adventure, a new chapter, not as something to be thought of as a step backward.

  “Imagine Vera’s face when she nips round to borrow some sugar and she sees we’re not there,” she’d said.

  She’d laughed after, and Robby hadn’t been able to recall a time recently where she’d let loose like that. The poor mare had been living a life of drudgery, the monotony of day-to-day bullshit wearing her down, maybe making her nothing like the woman she’d imagined she might be when she’d thought of herself when she’d been younger.

  What had she imagined? Who had she wanted to be? Robby was ashamed he’d never asked, had never even thought to. She was just Ma, a woman who was a constant in his world. She hadn’t been someone with dreams and aspirations to him. Just Ma.

  Things were about to change on that score. He’d find a job. Work hard. Earn money and take her places—places she’d always wanted to go but had never managed to get around to visiting. He still had the grand Starky had given him, and he’d stay true to his word and buy her that microwave, the cups and the dolly shoes.

  “All right, Ma?” he asked.

  “I will be once I see you more settled.”

  And there it was, right there. What she wanted in life was to see him settled. She always had. Robby felt a right bastard for how he’d behaved in the past. He’d thrown all her teachings back in her face over the last few years, ignoring her warnings about the gangs and swatting away her suggestions that it wasn’t too late to go on to further education.

  “I’m going to learn to be a plumber,” he said. “Become an apprentice and go to college and shit. Sorry. And stuff.”

  “Are you?” She smiled.

  Man, that smile hurt when it should have made him smile, too. Every wankerish thing he’d ever done came to haunt him then, swirling around in his head and making his heart ache.

  His eyes burned.

  “I really am sorry,” he said.

  “I know, Robber. Me, too.”

  “For what?” He frowned.

  “For never telling you the truth. For pretending.”

  “It doesn’t matter. I know all about it—about what he did, what they did to him,” he said.

  “You do?” She turned to him, her eyes so full of sadness, remorse, and a million other things that it was hard to stare at them.

  “Yeah. He was a bit of a prick, wasn’t he, my dad?” He laughed, wanting more than anything to show her he was okay. He didn’t need her worrying about the past now.

  “Just a bit.” She laughed, too. “We’ll be fine now, you’ll see.”

  “Yeah, we’ll be fine. You and me, like it’s always seemed to be.”

  She squeezed his hand.

  And for the first time in his life, Robby believed his own words.

  Matt stared at the brain matter that decorated the back of the cherry-red leather studded chair. That brain had belonged to a man who had been clever enough to live a double life. Matt knew all about that. His father had led one for years. This bloke, though—this bloke hadn’t hidden the fact he’d been existing as two versions of himself. Matt’s dad, on the other hand…

  “Listen, you don’t approach me when I’m with my wife or my kid, got it? And I’m with my kid, so piss off.”

  Outside the newsagents, Matt stared up at his dad, who clenched his hand. It had Matt wincing, the pain of that clench. He switched his gaze to the man and wondered if he was a bad one, someone his dad had arrested in the past. Although, when someone was arrested, weren’t they sent to jail? At least he thought that might be what happened if the police got hold of you. So this man couldn’t be a bad one if he was allowed out on the streets, could he?

  “It couldn’t wait,” the man said.

  Matt didn’t like the look of him. He was too wide and too tall. Much bigger than Dad. And his eyes were small, kind of set back in his face like one of those skull masks Matt had seen in the toy shop just now. He was bald and his lips were thin. There was a mean air about him, as though he wanted to hurt someone. Hurt Dad.

  “It’ll have to wait.” Dad went to walk away.

  “Have you forgotten who I am?” the bloke asked, gripping Dad’s sleeve.

  “I’m well aware of who you are, Vincent Bloody Fox, and you’d do well to remember who I am.”

  Matt’s tummy squirmed, or something inside it did, anyway. He didn’t like raised voices, but he especially didn’t like quiet ones—the type his dad and Mr. Fox were using. They reminded him of the times Dad got angry and told him off for being naughty.

  “Who you are is questionable, remember that,” Mr. Fox said. “One call from me, and your career’s fucked.”

  “You threatening me now?” Dad asked.

  Mr. Fox shrugged. “Take it however you like, makes no odds to me.”

  “Look, say what you’ve got to say and bugger off.” Dad gritted his teeth. A muscle wiggled in his jaw.

  “I need your lot to look the other way tonight. There’s a big deal going down. I know you pigs are aware of it and have plans to be there, waiting. You need to stop them from going.”

  Dad shook his head. “How the hell do you know that?”

  “Never you mind. Just do what I said.”

  “I can’t give you any more than I already do without people suspecting something. If the chief gets one whiff of me doing you favors and—”

  “It isn’t the chief you need to worry about,” Mr. Fox said. “It’s never been the chief. So I need you to say you got intel, or whatever the fuck words you’d use, and tell them the deal’s later than it is. I need an hour to get this done.”

  “I can’t.”

  “Can’t or won’t?”

  Dad sighed. “You’re asking the impossible.”

  “Nothing’s impossible.” Mr. Fox smiled. His teeth were all dirty and crooked.

  “I’ll see what I can do.”

  “If you don’t make this happen, you know the score, right?”

  Dad nodded. Where had his usual confident self gone? He didn’t normally stand with his head down like that.

  “I get it,” Dad said. “But… Fuck’s sake.”

  “You want to make it home after your shift tonight, don’t you? See this little kid here? Yeah, you want to do that, don’t you?” Mr. Fox wasn’t smiling anymore.

  He walked away, and Dad sighed, his whole body shaking.

  Mr. Fox had scared him, Matt reckoned.

  They left the high street in a hurry and made it home quicker than they usually did. Dad had driven well fast, like some racing car driver.

  That night, Matt stared at the ceiling from his bed and wondered if Dad would come home after his shift.

  He didn’t.

  He never came home again.

  “…so suicide isn’t even on our radar,” Aaron said.

  Matt blinked. Bugger. He’d missed whatever it was Aaron had said before that. To cover for his zoning out, Matt said, “Hmm.”

  “The position of the gun’s all wrong, look.”

  Matt focused on Starky, the man who no longer had a brain. “I imagine Fox paid him a visit before he went to the warehouse.”

  “Then we’re on the same page,” Aaron said.

  “Unless Fox left evidence, or there’s some kind of surveillance in operation here, or there’s CCTV recording the outside of the property, I’m not sure how we can pin it on him.” Matt felt deflated, like Fox had had the last laugh, the bastard. “And as for how Fox got in when we’ve got a man posted out the front…”

  “Same as he got into Mrs. Zeus’ to take Robby. Through the back door.” Aaron frowned. “Are you not firing on all cylinders or what?”

  Matt rubbed his fingertips across his forehead. “It’s late. We should have finished hours ago. I’m tired. Not thinking straig
ht.”

  Or thinking about things I shouldn’t be, which is screwing my mind up.

  “Look, walk away. Leave this to Gromwell. Why should he be on shift and not be dealing with this? Why does it always have to be you?”

  “You know why.” Matt bit his lip.

  “You can’t do everything. Can’t police the police as well as the criminals.”

  Matt nodded. Truer words had never been spoken. “All right. Put a call in to Gromwell. Once he’s here, we’ll go home.”

  “Good. It’s all over bar the shouting, anyway. We’ve caught who we needed to catch, and Starky here isn’t going to be giving us any more trouble. Whoever takes over The Hardarms… Well, we deal with them as and when.”

  “It begins all over again.”

  “It does, but we knew that when we came into this job. We catch the bad ones.”

  The bad ones… That reference sent a shiver down Matt’s spine. His dad had been a bad one, and he’d been caught, only it hadn’t been the police doing the catching.

  Matt pressed his lips together and turned away from Starky. Matt had long since accepted he couldn’t do anything about the past, but it was high time he accepted he couldn’t always do something about the present or the future, either. One man couldn’t do everything.

  Much as I’d like to think I can.

  He stepped away as Aaron made the call to Gromwell. At a set of patio doors, he stared at his reflection, at the room’s reflection. He shouldn’t even be standing here, Gromwell should. Why did Matt put himself through this time after time?

  Don’t answer that.

  The opulence surrounding him was sickening. Crime paid, even though the saying claimed it didn’t. This house and everything in it must have cost a fortune, made from drug money and God knew what other nefarious dealings. He didn’t know the half of it—and he wasn’t conceited enough to think he did. Shit would get uncovered now. Many of the things Starky had done would come to light, and maybe it would help them to be on the ball with whoever took over the leader’s and right-hand’s spots.