“I’ll take it by your silence that I’ve got your fuckin’ attention?” Eric said.
“Summat like that.”
“Then back off.”
Bob knew he would be permanently weakened if he gave in to Eric’s demands. Word of it would spread, and keeping people in line would soon become impossible. The councillors, politicians, and police in his pocket would bleed him dry with their demands; competitors would start leaning on his businesses; and even his most loyal footsoldiers would move to other crews or make a move for the throne.
Appearance was everything, and he couldn’t afford to appear weak. Clambering to his feet, Bob brushed the wet soil off his clothes and gritted his teeth.
“Sorry, lad. No can do.”
“But…”
“If youse manage to get out of town tonight, I won’t chase you,” Bob said slowly, letting the words sink in. “But as of this moment you lads are public enemy number one. Every scumbag I’ve got at my disposal is gonna be chasing you as of tonight. A hundred grand for each of you – dead or alive.”
Now it was Eric’s turn to fall silent. Bob grinned.
“I wouldn’t waste any more time talking to me. Time is one luxury you don’t have. Not anymore.”
86. – Stanton
“I WOULDN’T waste any more time talking to me. Time is one luxury you don’t have. Not anymore.”
Bob had just played his double bluff and won. For a moment, I thought I’d had him. He’d sounded exposed and weak, but this play had changed all that. A hundred grand apiece would turn the heads of even our closest allies. It was the kind of money that would bring our enemies onto the streets within the hour. There would be no place to hide.
It was time to leave.
I hung up, pocketed the phone and got on my feet. As I was brushing myself down, I heard footsteps in the distance, coming my way. Branches crackled underfoot, shrubs swooshed as they were brushed aside, and the runners exhaled heavily.
Scrambling behind the trunk of a big sycamore, I crouched low and trained my gun in the direction of the sounds. Three figures came crashing through the undergrowth and into the clearing. Before they had the chance to run any further I yelled at them to stop. One of them turned in the direction of my voice and stumbled, taking the others with him. They landed on the floor in one undignified tangle of limbs and torsos.
I shined an LED light in their faces and stepped out from behind the tree. Kandinsky, Mickey and Ted were scrambling and slipping in the mud as they tried to get on their feet. I turned off the torch and helped them up.
Kandinsky was first to his feet. “Christ… thought you’d be… long gone by now,” he said between gasps.
“Got a little lost,” I said. “And what about you?”
“Fuckin’ carnage,” he said. “Saw the gun flare in the distance, heard the screams, figured you were having some troubles… Came running over to help out and saw these two making their way in my direction. Nearly shot ‘em.”
Mickey lifted his head and gulped down air. “We hadta do… some fast talking, Stanners, me lad.”
“We need to get the fuck outta here,” I said. “Now.”
“What’s going on?” Kandinsky said.
“Bob Owden just put a hit out. Hundred grand a head. Probably phoning people as we speak, telling them to get out on the streets. In an hour there’ll be lynch mobs with pitchforks hunting us down.”
The three men looked at each other in silence. I knew what was going through their heads, because the same things were going through mine: fear, doubt, and an overwhelming desire to get the fuck out of Teesside.
“What about us?” Ted said, looking at Mickey.
“Bob doesn’t know who was shooting at him yet, but it won’t take him long to figure it out. I doubt he knows you, but Mickey’s definitely on his radar.”
Mickey took another deep breath and said: “So let’s go and get our money, so we can get the hell outta here.”
87. – Owden
JIMMY KNELT beside Rose and held her hand, squeezing it briefly, before he got back on his feet. Bob noticed the moment as he waited for somebody to answer his phone call. He’d already contacted several of his favoured footsoldiers, telling them to get people on the streets, but now he wanted to bother the Stantons on a more personal level and make it harder for them to hide.
“Whosis?” growled an out-of-breath voice.
“Is that any way to greet an old friend, lad?”
“Bob?”
“Hope I haven’t performed an act of interruptus to your coitus?”
“Eh?”
“Sounds like I caught you mid-stroke with your latest conquest.”
“Not sure whatcha getting at…”
“Let’s not play games, Alan.”
Alan Piper must have put his hand over the phone, because Bob heard muffled voices giving each other a back and forth. Then the commotion ended.
“Whassis all about, like?”
“The Stantons.”
“Not seen them cunts in donkey’s years.”
“Maybe you haven’t, lad. But they might try and get in touch shortly. They’re on the run. They’ve been naughty, see.”
“Naughty how?”
“Cutting children and their mothers, stealing from people they shouldn’t be stealing from,” Bob said, “causing a general nuisance. The usual, but I’ve had enough of it now.”
“And whassis gotta do with me?”
“You’re old friends.”
“Hardly friends,” Alan replied. “In fact, I can’t stand ‘em.”
“Really? Now, that surprises me. They saved your life back in the day. You all hung out together, and you gave them cushy jobs, I’d say that makes them friends.”
“It’s like you sez, Bob. Back in the day. History.”
“Well, if you or your people come across those lads it’s worth a hundred grand a head.”
“Hundred grand… a head?”
“Does this line have an echo?”
“No.”
“Then I won’t be repeating myself.”
“I just wanna make sure I heard correct, like.”
“You heard correct. In fact, they might have another figure from the history books with them.”
“Who?”
“The Master.”
“Thought he was in exile?”
“Supposed to be.”
“He got a price?”
“Let’s make it a cool quarter mill for the three of ‘em.”
That gave Piper pause for thought. “Dead or alive?”
With enough time and enough pain, there was every possibility that he could torture the location of the files out of Eric Stanton. Under enough duress even the hardest men could fold, and Bob was still more than capable of supplying enough duress.
“Either, but I’ll throw in a sweetener to anybody who keeps them alive.”
“Which is?”
“An extra twenty-five per head,” Bob said. “But that stays between you and me.”
“Absolutely,” Piper said. “I’ll get me men out on the streets in a jiffy.”
“You do that. Lemme know straight away if you find them. They’re worth more alive.”
Bob hung up and put the phone away. That would cut the Stantons off from pretty much every friend they ever had, and even turn a few of them into enemies.
Jimmy was standing near Rose. Every so often he looked down at her corpse, letting his gaze linger. Then he turned and fixed his eyes on the Karagounis brothers and his expression hardened. Bob approached the hitman and placed a hand on his shoulder. Jimmy didn’t acknowledge the gesture; he just kept his focus on Eddie’s underlings, who were both smart enough to avoid his stare.
Bob tightened his grip on Jimmy’s shoulder. “You liked that lass more than you were letting on,” he said.
Jimmy swivelled his head in Bob’s direction. The torchlight made his eyes seem more bloodshot and glazed than they actually were, but Bob knew unshed te
ars when he saw them. Something about the hitman’s lost expression cut into Bob and made him remember the way he felt on the day his wife and son died. The feeling of despair, the sense that he would never love like that again because a door inside him had closed, the knowledge that life as he knew it would change, the realisation that it was all his fault and could have been avoided. Even though all this death and disaster had been Jimmy and Rose’s responsibility, Bob couldn’t disguise his sympathy.
“I’m sorry, Jim. I would’ve never made you do it if I’d known.”
Jimmy nodded. “Yeah, well, it’s done now,” he said and sniffed. “What you gonna do about Emily?”
“Whatever she needs will be bloody well taken care of,” Bob said. “Surgery, therapy, the whole works.”
Eddie groaned. It was a softer sound now, due to blood loss and shock. Bob pointed at the prone man, saying: “He talking yet?”
Jimmy shook his head. “He’s demanding we get him treated first.”
“Is he now?”
Bob looked over at the Karagounis twins, shivering side-by-side in the middle of the clearing, and wondered just how much they knew about Eddie’s businesses. Two million pounds would need to be well hidden, and a man might need the help of a few close associates to ensure it stayed that way. He approached the siblings with a big smile on his face, trying to put them at ease, but it made them shudder more violently.
“Now then, lads. You feeling conversational?”
Judging by their silence they were feeling anything but talkative.
“Your boss’ money…”
Anthony looked like he was about to deny all knowledge.
“Lie to me and I’ll cut you the way you cut Emily McGarvey. Then I’ll pour petrol on the wounds.”
Anthony stared at the ground, then rubbed at his nose for a few seconds. “I dunno where it all is, like,” he said, glancing at his brother. “Neither does he. Eddie hid money in quarter mil chunks. We weren’t around when he hid them all. But we think we know who might’ve helped him.”
Bob pulled a small folding scout knife and unfurled the blade.
Anthony’s eyes went wide. “Swear down, Bob. Not fuckin’ lying.”
Bob leaned over and patted Anthony’s hairy, damp face.
“Then you’ve got nowt to worry about, lad,” he said, glancing down at the knife. “Just watch what happens to those who do lie. Watch and learn.”
He threw the knife in an arc that ended in the soil near Eddie’s right arm. Jimmy leaned over and picked up the blade. He turned it in his hand, feeling the weight.
Bob took a deep breath and stared directly into Anthony’s eyes. “Tear off his face, Jim. Make sure it hurts.”
A piercing scream shattered the silence. Anthony turned away, but Bob grabbed his face and angled it back towards Eddie. “I told you to watch and learn. So do it, or I’ll cut off your eyelids.”
Anthony tried to remain fixed on the horrors happening over Bob’s shoulder, but occasionally his eyes would twitch left and right or blink closed momentarily. Whenever this happened Bob slapped his face and told him to keep watching. Eddie’s screams became tremulous as he was being pushed and pulled around by Jimmy, but then they began fading off into thin sounds, until one final lengthy shriek that came to a sudden stop.
Only now did Bob turn around.
Jimmy held a thin, rubbery, bloody mass in his hand that wobbled unpleasantly every time he moved it. He placed his hand against Eddie’s neck, checking for a pulse.
“How’s the patient?” Bob asked.
“We’ve lost him.”
Between the hairline and chin, Eddie’s face was a dark mess of muscle, blood and bone. Not even his mother would be able to recognise him. Bob didn’t care anyway; now that he was dead, Eddie was just another problem to dispose of.
He turned back to the Karagounis brothers. Anthony gagged but kept a hand over his mouth so he didn’t bring anything up. A vomit splash steamed in front of George’s right knee, and a long string of unbroken drool hung from his bottom lip. Bob patted their faces.
“So what were that about the money, again?”
“We know where it all is,” they squealed in unison. “We know where it all is.”
88. – Stanton
IT TOOK fifteen minutes of scrambling through darkness to get back to the car. When we arrived, my brother and McMaster were already waiting inside it.
My brother opened the driver’s door. “Youse took your time.”
“Not… through… choice,” I replied between gasps. “We got lost.”
“You’re sounding a bit unfit there,” my brother said with a snigger. “Mebbe you should lay off the Parmos, fat boy.”
“And maybe you should… go fuck yourself,” I said.
My brother’s sneer tightened into an expression of tight-lipped anger. He slammed the door closed, folded his arms and glared at us through the window as we walked around to the back of the car. I unlocked the boot and threw my weapons inside. The others quickly followed suit. I closed the boot and locked it.
“We can’t take everyone,” I said. “There’s only room for five in there. We can’t afford to get pulled over right now.”
Ted patted Mickey on the shoulder. “Can you get down to Derby with me cash?”
“Does the Pope shit in the Vatican?”
Ted laughed. “Then I guess that’s me walking.”
I offered to open the boot, so that he could take an automatic with him for protection. Ted gave me a condescending smile and lifted his top. A small, pearl effect handle poked up from the waistband of his trousers. “All the protection a lonely boy’ll ever need.”
We got in the car and my brother started the engine. Ted stood by the vehicle, lifted a couple of fingers to the left side of his brow and gave Mickey a casual salute. I heard a soft voice in the back seat say: “Dismissed, sergeant.”
The car made a fast three-point turn and we pulled away. Ted was moving quickly towards the shadow of the trees. As we picked up speed, I tried to catch one last glimpse of him in the rear-view, though there was nothing to see but country dark.
My brother stuck to the speed limit the whole way back, despite the urgency and tension of the situation. We couldn’t afford to get pulled over – certainly not in a stolen vehicle – because Bob owned too many of the police. Some of them would already know about the bounty on our heads, ensuring that Bob would be the only person informed of our arrest. It took well over half an hour to arrive back at Piper’s place.
My brother was about to turn into the road where Piper’s love nest was situated, when I nudged his shoulder and told him to drive past the gate, go to the end of the street and come back around.
“Okay,” he replied. “Why?”
“I’m feeling paranoid. Humour me.”
I told Kandinsky and Mickey to duck out of sight.
“What’s going on?” Kandinsky said.
“Just go with me,” I said. “Might be summat, might be nowt.”
During the drive, I worried about how many people Bob would phone to make our lives as difficult as possible. Obvious targets were all of our old friends, like Thrombosis and Toby, followed by calls or visits to operators like John Arnold, Gary Feldman and Alan Piper, offering the kind of reward that would get rid of their money troubles for the next decade.
The only name on the list that worried me was Piper.
He valued money more than love and friendship, because they didn’t provide the funds required to eat the finest foods, buy the finest suits, and chase the area’s finest women. Two hundred grand of tax-free cash would definitely turn Piper’s head; I just needed to know how far it would turn.
Kandinsky and Mickey ducked down until their faces were practically in McMaster’s lap, then moaned about being uncomfortable. I told them to shut up and wait.
My brother kept the vehicle slow and steady until we passed a 4x4 with tinted windows, parked opposite Piper’s front gate on the right-hand side of th
e road. Using the wing and rear-view mirrors, I watched until the moment we turned left. The pale light of a text message or call illuminated the interior. There were two silhouettes in the front seats, one holding a glowing mobile phone.
“Two blokes in the four-by-four,” I said. “Watching the gate.”
“Any idea who?” my brother replied.
“Too far away to tell, but I’d lay down good money on Piper.”
My brother gritted his teeth. “That treacherous fuck.”
He drove to the bottom of the next street and turned left again. Kandinsky lifted his head slightly. “How the fuck are we supposed to get in if they’re already expecting us?” he said.
I told my brother to pull over and said: “Because I’ve got a plan.”
89. – Owden
A BLACK transit van pulled off the road and manoeuvred into an alcove that was well shielded from view by thick vegetation. The back doors opened and five tall men dressed in black got out of the vehicle. One by one they reached back inside and removed oversized holdalls that were big enough to hold a human body.
Bob sent two of the men to deal with the bodies of Alex and Garth. They came back five minutes later, carrying the bulging holdalls over their shoulders like they contained nothing heavier than holiday clothes. One after another, the men flung the bags into the back of the van, then they fell in with the others and awaited further orders.
Bob pointed up the path. “There’s another four up there. Jimmy’ll meet youse at the top and take you where you need to be. One of you’ll need another bag.”
One of the men reached into the transit and pulled out another oversized holdall, then they took off up the trail at a jog, leaving Bob with the two men that Regan had brought along. He geared up to say something to them when he heard the distant drone of an engine.
There was headlight halo in the distance, drawing closer. Bob snapped at the men to hide, which they did without complaint, then he waited behind a fat tree trunk and watched the oncoming vehicle.
The Glasgow Grin (A Stanton Brothers thriller) Page 30
