A Dark Place to Die

by Ed Chatterton

  Jimmy Gelagotis watches, his fingers gouging the desk, his leg twitching involuntarily. The man onscreen works slowly and the video clip jumps, cutting forward in time, Stevie's face becoming awash with blood, his unbelieving eyes staring from the red mask.

  Behind Jimmy, Ella comes out of the bathroom, towel-ling her hair. She approaches the laptop, looks over Jimmy's shoulder and begins to scream.

  20

  'There's no covering this up, Koop,' says Hannaway. 'Not this one.'

  Even in the middle of this nightmare Koop is annoyed with Princess. When had he ever asked Hannaway to cover up anything? Before this, Carl's various problems have been relatively minor and all Koop has received is an early tip-off. It's helped keep Carl out of serious trouble although there's been no halting the gradual decline. But this is no time for an argument. Once the bedroom door is opened, everything changes forever between Koop and his younger brother, Carl.

  Carl Koopman, amphetamine skinny and shirtless in the freezing box-room, is on his knees on the bare wooden floor in an attitude of prayer underneath a music poster. The Farm playing Spike Island. The only light comes from a crown of fairy lights he has wrapped around his head. Koop registers the dark green cord trailing towards the electrical socket set into the stained wall. The lights are set on a pattern that sees them fade slowly before lighting up again. As the red bulbs glow Carl turns his head towards the door but doesn't seem to register there's anyone there.

  On a bare mattress on the narrow bed to Carl's right is the naked body of a man. He has been sliced open across the belly and his interior organs pulled out and placed on the floor. A deepening pool of blood is seeping through the mattress and dripping onto the boards beneath the bed. A large knife lies to one side. Koop steps forward and drags it towards the door with his foot. The action seems to stir Carl Koopman. He sits back and looks up again, his fingers still interlaced.

  'Liam's fine,' says Carl, loud enough to be heard over the music. 'He's fine, Menno. Custy.'

  Koop doesn't reply. Behind him he hears Hannaway on the radio calling it in.

  'You need to come with us, Carl,' says Koop. 'You can stop praying.'

  'Oh no, Menno. You can't stop praying. Not till it's all alright. See?'

  'Well, maybe take a break, eh, Carlo?' Koop uses the old family name for his brother. It seems to work. Koop steps across and flicks the power button on the CD player. He uses the knuckle of his index finger, his copper instincts automatically minimising any crime scene contamination. Shaun Ryder's nasal whine dies and Carl Koopman gets to his feet.

  'He'll be fine,' he murmurs, looking at the dead man.

  'Of course he will, Carlo,' says Koop. He takes Carl's elbow, handling his brother like a delicate vase, guiding him past Hannaway. Grimes, recovered from vomiting, cuffs Carl and, looking at him as if he may explode, guides him carefully around the landing rail and down the narrow stairs. They turn in to the living room and Grimes sits Carl on the sagging sofa.

  In the cramped bedroom Koop and Hannaway stand for a few moments without speaking. Koop keeps finding his eyes flicking towards unimportant details in the room. The cheap woodchip wallpaper. A packet of Rizlas. Anything except the dead man. Carl's involvement has severed the link to Koop's professional detachment. If he looks at the dead junkie for too long Koop thinks he may start crying.

  'What a fucking mess,' says Hannaway eventually. He looks at Koop. 'You alright?'

  Is he alright? Koop doesn't know. He nods stiffly and this seems to satisfy Hannaway.

  'You'll have to go downstairs, Koop.'

  Koop's temper flares at the subtle insinuation that he might tamper with the scene, but the feeling fades as quickly as it arrives. Of course he'll have to go downstairs: his fucking brother is the killer. He shakes his head as if to brush away the thought and then nods at Hannaway. He goes slowly, postponing the inevitable for a few seconds more. Behind him he hears Hannaway talking on his radio. Its electric static crackles loud in the narrow hall.

  In the living room no-one is saying anything. It's colder in there than upstairs. Koop takes off his coat and puts it around Carl, although he doesn't seem cold. Carl doesn't make any sign that he's noticed and Koop sees his head is somewhere else, somewhere not here. Grimes looks like he's aged five years and can't stop clicking a switch on his radio. On. Off. On. Off.

  'I'd speak to someone about this if I were you,' says Koop. 'When it settles down. A counsellor. The department has them.'

  Grimes tries to appear tough but only succeeds in looking young. To both his and Koop's surprise it's Carl who speaks next.

  'Yeah, mate,' he says, 'get some therapy. Or that shit will keep coming back.' And both Koop and Grimes know that this person speaking is the real Carl Koopman – the dazed, knife-wielding psycho Carl has gone. 'You shouldn't try and, y'know, do the strong thing, man. Fucks you up.'

  'Like you're an expert,' says Grimes. 'Fucking nutter.'

  Koop gives Grimes a glance but can't seem to summon the energy to say anything. His bones are lead, his blood treacle. At least Mum never lived to see this. It's something.

  Carl looks up at his brother. 'I'm right, aren't I? The lad needs counselling.'

  'Quiet, Carlo. Not now, eh?'

  A blue light bleeds through the ancient curtains signalling a second patrol car arriving in the snow-silent street, and then a third and the house begins the familiar transformation into a crime scene. But this time it's not Koop's scene. He's a witness. As the first rubberneckers arrive, Grimes hands over to the new officers and he and Hannaway lead Carl down the short slippery path and place him in the back seat of the patrol car. Despite Koop's involvement there's no way Hannaway's going to miss out on bringing the collar into the station.

  Grimes still looks pale and Hannaway takes the keys from him before climbing behind the wheel of the Ford. Koop gets into his vehicle and follows them slowly to the station, Carl sitting peaceably in the back seat of the patrol car. On the slow drive through the white streets of the Hatton estate, Koop can see his brother's head bobbing softly to some inner rhythm, a song that Koop has never been able to hear. Or wanted to.

  The rest of the night is torture. The victim is formally identified as Liam Jones, a low-level dope supplier who sometimes shared the squalid house with Carl. Carl freely admits killing him 'in order to save him'. From what, he never makes clear.

  After the initial processing and interviews are over – none of which Koop is involved with, except as the subject – it's clear that, despite bouts of clarity, Carl Koopman should be hospitalised. He's examined by a medic for physical damage and then separately by a psychiatrist who recommends sectioning. Koop waits all night for the process to unwind until, around eight in the morning, Carl is picked up and taken to Ashworth High Security Hospital in Maghull, north of the city and less than four miles from the death house at Eaton Shire Place. Koop can't believe his brother will be occupying the same institution as Moors Murderer Ian Brady. It makes him feel unclean and – this is something Koop wouldn't have thought possible – even worse about the whole sorry business.

  The case never makes it to court. At least not in any meaningful sense. Carl Koopman pleads not guilty by reason of insanity for the killing of the drug dealer, and is confined to Ashworth indefinitely. Koop and Zoe never really talk about what has happened. Not properly. Despite his advice to Grimes the previous evening to seek professional counselling, Koop never does so himself. After a short internal review by the force, Koop is given a clean bill and returns to work. Carl is never mentioned by anyone Koop comes into contact with on the job.

  On October the eighteenth, 1998, Koop makes his monthly visit to Ashworth to check on Carl. It's the last time he sees his brother.

  Until now.

  21

  Jimmy Gelagotis calms Ella with some difficulty, eventually convincing her that the clip of Stevie is a fake, a sick joke that someone is playing on him.

  She seems to believe him, although Jimmy thinks
this may be more to do with her wanting to, as much as any conviction on her part. Jimmy doesn't care less if she believes him or not but he doesn't want her hysterical, he needs time to think. She's sleeping now, having taken a couple of sleeping pills and a large vodka.

  Jimmy pours himself the same over a tumbler full of ice and takes it to the armchair by the window. He sits and drinks and looks at the ocean. There's a storm flickering to the north. It'll come in hot and strong later that night. When the glass is empty, he flicks a look over at the laptop and considers watching the clip again just in case the story Jimmy has told Ella – that it's a fake – turns out to be the case.

  No, decides Jimmy, there's no need to put himself through that nightmare again. That fucking thing is real, brother. Stevie's face is something Jimmy won't be forgetting in a hurry.

  His first instinctive reaction is anger. He wants to get on a plane, or send an army, or do some motherfucking thing – right now – to get the bastard who's done this. Stevie White was a delivery boy. Nothing more. It's out of proportion, insane. Who the fuck does that to a messenger?

  In the silence of the apartment, the answer comes back to him loud and clear.

  Someone who doesn't like the message.

  Someone who wants to send a message of their own. Kite telling Jimmy that his gambit has not paid off. Or, Jimmy wonders, perhaps this is an extreme way of letting him know who's boss? The Poms might be using Stevie's execution to acknowledge the change in the deal structure and simultaneously registering extreme disapproval.

  That could be how it is. Stevie might just be the offering to placate the angry gods; the gods in this case taking the offering themselves. Jimmy cogitates on that one for a while before dismissing it as too extreme. This is much more than that. A message of 'unhappiness' would have been sent by putting Stevie in the hospital. Kite has taken this personally.

  Jimmy swears, looks down at the line of the shore stretching south as the lights of Surfers come on, and swallows the last of his vodka. He's demonstrated an error of judgement, sure that, given the money involved, and the fact that the goods were already here, Kite would have barked a little but gone along with the thing. The king is dead and all that.

  But Kite hasn't. Killing Stevie is telling him something. It's telling Jimmy that they aren't going to let him take over the Australian end of the deal, not without a fight at least. For a moment, Jimmy Gelagotis sees his true worth in the scheme of this. A small player who, despite his violent and ruthless past, has now stepped up into the ring with some truly bad boys. Even with the air-conditioning running, a bead of sweat trickles down his temple as he recalls the rumoured links Kite has with the Colombians and the Irish. Man, there are some nasty fuckers in that lot and no mistake. Jimmy feels a strange and rare sensation: fear.

  Fuck it. He stands and moves to the laptop.

  He clicks it into life and presses 'play' to watch the 'Stevie Wonder' clip again. What doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

  As Jimmy watches the torture and death of Stevie White once more, he starts to relax a little. This is showy. This is unprofessional, needless. What sort of a businessman is Kite? He'll calm down eventually. There are a hundred and fifty million reasons for him to do so. He will, after a period of anger and paranoia, reflect that Jimmy Gelagotis and his team are ideally placed to complete the delivery. The difference between Jimmy Gelagotis and Keith Kite is that Jimmy Gelagotis knows he will be gone forever the second the smoke clears. This deal is the last deal. It has to work. It will work. And it's too big a deal for Kite to jeopardise with a war.

  He'll be back in before too long, Jimmy reckons. Nothing else makes sense.

  He picks up his phone and calls Tony. Business or not, they'll all have to start watching their backs.

  22

  Declan North looks at himself in the full-length mirror.

  A naked man he doesn't fully recognise looks back at him. A man of middle height, firm but not overly muscled, his skin Belfast white, his hair black – artificially so, although only he will ever know that. A man who has, literally, killed more people than he can remember. A man who doesn't care about how many people he ends. As long as he gets to do them.

  North has never been a person to dwell on what the future might hold, but he feels safe in predicting that, unless someone gets him first, he'll continue to feed his habit. He can dress it up and tie a ribbon round it, look at it any way he wants to, but there's only one reason why: he likes killing people. Everything else is detail.

  He'd enjoyed the Australian. It was all business – or mostly all – for Kite. Kite, by Declan North's standards, is somewhat squeamish, even sentimental. After the business with the Australian, Kite was nervy. North has stored that information away for a time when it might be useful. Information, he's always found, is the best weapon. After Semtex.

  North was raised in a Republican household just off the Falls Road and was ten years old when it all began kicking off again in 1968. By 1972 and Bloody Sunday, Declan North has lost his father and only brother to the Troubles. He hasn't been overly traumatised by their deaths, in all honesty. At fourteen, had he been properly assessed, Declan North would have been diagnosed as a full-blown psychopath.

  He'd have killed wherever he'd been born, but being where he was, being part of where he was from, proves to be a godsend. He adopts a political stance – easy to do under the circumstances – and begins positioning himself to become a member of the IRA. North has no illusions about changing the face of Ireland through his actions, although, being no fan of the English, that would be a very welcome bonus. No, he is in it for the kicks and the kills. To be sanctioned, praised and rewarded for doing something he'd have paid to do is sweet indeed.

  And Declan North is that rare combination of order and madness that means he always carries out his task no matter how difficult, or disgusting, and doesn't leave a trace. He is never so much as arrested by the British.

  This is invaluable to The Cause. It means he can travel freely, or as freely as any Irishman at that time in mainland Britain, and his handlers use this to the hilt. They don't know quite how he does it but Declan North is a man born to kill and, a rare quality, get away with it.

  By the early eighties, the IRA is heavily involved in a rapidly growing – and satisfyingly profitable – drugs trade. They use what they're good at – fear and terror – to ensure the security of sizeable deals. If you need someone to ensure delivery, to enforce an unpaid bill, to ease the passage of contraband, they will do it – for a price. Declan North has the good fortune to be in the right place when everything begins to go civilian. He has the experience and the skills that are in demand, and he makes a smooth transition to criminality long before the IRA is made respectable.

  North caresses his naked chest. Thin scar lines, raised slightly from the skin, run laterally across his torso at intervals of a few millimetres. Beginning at shoulder height, there are approximately a hundred lines, most of them faded, some fresh. North takes out a vial of amyl nitrate, pops the cap and inhales, feeling his heart leap as the rush hits. He puts down the empty vial on the hotel dresser and picks up a fresh scalpel. He unwraps the sealed plastic wrapper and grasps the handle. He lovingly traces the flat of the scalpel blade along his engorged penis, the blade just brushing the skin, not breaking it. Under the harsh light from the single bulb, the only source of light in the black-painted room, the scalpel glitters. North slides the blade up his abdomen until the scalpel arrives at a spot just below the last transverse line on his chest. Now, gripping a little more firmly, he drags the blade across himself, his hand steady. A thin line of blood appears in its wake. North angles his arm to keep the line as straight as possible. He reaches the end, pinches the blood from the scalpel blade and licks his fingers. Taking a white towel, he presses it against the bloody line, feeling the sting as stray threads press into the wound.

  On the wall to his right, Matty Halligan is lashed face-first to a wooden cross-beam. He wears a blind
fold and heavy biker boots, but is otherwise naked. His buttocks are criss-crossed with lines that echo those on North's torso.

  North picks up another vial of amyl nitrate and comes close to Halligan. He twists off the cap and holds it under Halligan's nose. He snorts greedily and groans with pleasure. North takes hold of his scalpel again and, kneeling, slowly traces a fresh line of blood across Halligan's buttocks.

  North puts his mouth to Halligan's ear.

  'You saw what I did to the Australian,' he whispers. 'You liked it, right enough.' It isn't a question.

  Halligan flinches. A tremor of real fear runs through him.

  'Relax, big man,' whispers North. 'You're a keeper.' He looks across the room to where a naked younger man stands, head bent, his penis erect. North beckons him forward and the younger man takes up a position behind Halligan. He turns and looks at North for permission.

  North nods and the naked man presses himself into Halligan. North sucks in a deep breath and settles down to watch.

  23

  It's exactly like going to see the headmaster.

  The Fish occupies a larger than normal office on the fifth floor at Canning Place. In his day Koop always maintained his office right next door to his MIT unit at Stanley Road, but The Fish insisted on moving to where 'the big decisions are being made'. The MIT took that to mean he could be better placed for the arse-licking he's renowned for.

  'Enter.' Perch's querulous voice answers Keane's knuckle-knock and Harris pushes open the door.