Original Skin
Page 38
“You don’t want the arrest?”
McAvoy twitches his mouth into a ghost of a smile.
“I don’t know what I want.”
Pharaoh opens her mouth. Her tongue flicks out and glosses her full, red lips. She puts a hand on his arm and squeezes, never taking her eyes from his.
“You did good, Aector.”
McAvoy looks away. Shrugs. Begins to walk away.
“Where are you going?”
He answers with one word.
“Roisin.”
He doesn’t hear her move. Can picture her standing there, watching him get smaller.
Wonders what she will read into his answer.
Whether she knows he is on his way to a fistfight with a gangster.
11:18 P.M. ANLABY PLAYING FIELD.
COLIN RAY is pressed against the damp brick of the changing rooms, tucked into the blackest pocket of shadow that he can find. He is soaked to the bone. His suit is clinging to his gangly frame and every few seconds he shivers, sending a fresh mist of rain from the brim of his borrowed black baseball cap.
“Anything?”
Shaz Archer’s voice comes from between locked teeth. She is behind him, better concealed in the doorway of the outbuilding.
“Still just talking.”
The travelers are gone. The caravans and the horses, the furniture and four-by-fours disappeared sometime this afternoon. Anybody who saw them go is keeping quiet about it.
They are not why the two police officers are here. They are after the men who sit in the nearby Lexus, parked up on a patch of rutted, rain-lashed gravel a hundred yards away from where they shiver in the sodden clothes and wait.
Ray is in a foul mood. Already news has filtered through that McAvoy and Pharaoh have brought in a murderer he did not even know they were seeking. Already there is a chance that the collar he makes tonight will not be the most eye-catching of the day.
“Col, are we sure . . . ?”
Ray holds up a hand to shush her. A car is pulling up, nosing in past the wooden fence and coming to a halt around thirty yards from the Lexus.
“Bloody gangsters are on hard times these days,” muses Ray, squinting through the rain, trying to focus on the figure climbing out of the little hatchback.
He feels Archer beside him, unable to keep herself quiet.
“Is that . . . ?”
Ray nods. “McAvoy.”
They watch silently as the bulky Scotsman walks sure-footedly across the car park to the Lexus. See him tap on the blackened glass.
“Col, what’s he doing?”
McAvoy is stepping back. Taking off his coat. Folding it up and laying it on the roof of the big posh car.
“Oh, Christ, that’s what he meant . . .”
Suddenly Ray remembers Alan Rourke’s words. What he said about Noye’s need for respect. His intention to do harm to the copper who hurt his godson.
“Is he on his own?”
Ray doesn’t answer. Just watches as the doors open on the Lexus. Watches four men climb out.
“Your eyes are better than mine,” he whispers, and grabs Archer by the pocket of her soaking denim jacket. Pulls her close. “Tell me.”
“Ronan,” she says softly. “Noye.”
“Fucking hell.”
Wordlessly, they watch McAvoy back up. Watch one figure break off from the advancing quartet. Take the lead.
Ray raises the radio. “Are you getting this?”
“Sir.”
“Hold positions.”
Through the veil of rain, the lead figure becomes Giuseppe Noye. Becomes a thickset, burly, middle-aged man in jacket and jeans.
He is talking to McAvoy. Leaning in. Face-to-face. Pressing a finger in the bigger man’s chest.
“Col, he’s going to get himself killed . . .”
Ray is not being malicious in his stalling. It is pragmatism that keeps him here in the dark. He sees an opportunity for an arrest. Sees a distraction better than any he could have planned.
“Sir.”
He looks down in irritation as the radio crackles in the dark. He raises his head again.
“Let them play . . .”
• • •
“THIS ISN’T YOUR FIGHT, NOYE. He’s lying to you.”
McAvoy says it again. Shouts it loud enough for Ronan to hear. Sees the ginger teen flick a V sign, bookended by two leather-jacketed thugs.
“You’re going to get broken, copper. Broken.”
McAvoy tries to keep his feet as the smaller man comes forward, swinging brisk, powerful blows at his head. He absorbs them with his forearms, jabs, and moves away, fending off this bare-knuckle fighter with speed and agility. He tries to make this a boxing match. Something vaguely noble. Remembers his bouts at university; all head guards, mouth guards, vests, and padded shorts. The experience helps him little now, on this patch of rutted concrete, lit by strips of moon, and fighting a man whose hand wraps are stained almost black from the blood he has spilled in countless similar bouts.
“Close in now, lads, close in.”
McAvoy doesn’t know the referee. He’s a short, slightly built man in his middle years, who is exposing little of his face between the collar of his sheepskin coat and the peak of his flat cap. He had given them a brief rundown of what passed for the rules, and told Noye he wanted none of his usual bollocks. Had asked McAvoy whether he had anybody to stand beside him, and given a shake of his head in response to McAvoy’s.
“I’ll leave you bleeding, boy,” says Noye. “I’ll leave you crying for your ma.”
Noye’s words are whispered promises, softly snarled as McAvoy tries to gather him in and hold him, to test his strength and sap his energy.
“He’s lying to you,” says McAvoy in Noye’s ear, as a short left-handed blow thuds into his ribs. “Your godson. He’s a liar. He’s turned his back on all of you. And now you’re fighting his battles . . .”
Another blow connects with his body, and this one hurts him. He winces and Noye scents victory. He swings a hard right hand and catches McAvoy behind the ear. Follows up with a blow to his chin, thumped home with the heel of his hand.
McAvoy’s vision blurs. He hears high-pitched song, then static.
He is down to one knee. Raising a hand. Trying to block the blows that rain down upon him.
The referee pulls Noye back before he can deliver a boot to his fallen opponent. There are rules here. A code. No kicking. No punching when on the ground. No biting, unless the opponent is trying to rip your tonsils out. Everything else is fair game.
McAvoy pulls himself up, groggy, disoriented. Strong arms push him forward into another flurry of punches. He brings his hands up. Takes the impact on his forearms. Tries to grab the smaller man as if they are on the ropes of a boxing ring.
Hard, thudding right hands pound into his ribs. The air leaves his body. The fight leaves his legs . . .
• • •
COLIN RAY lifts the radio. Prepares to give the order to move in.
McAvoy is still upright. Refusing to go down. Refusing to do much more than make himself a target.
“Fight, you jock bastard,” says Ray under his breath. “Take his fucking head off.”
• • •
NOYE BACKS AWAY, looking at the other men, as if unable to understand. The orders he receives in their glances and nods are unmistakable. Finish it.
He moves back in, arms by his sides, preparing to swing upward from the floor at McAvoy’s exposed jaw.
McAvoy sees it coming. Sees the scarred, cracked knuckles coming straight up to smash beneath his chin.
He lashes out. A straight right. His fist crunches into Noye’s.
It is the gypsy who yelps, a high, effeminate squeal, like a pained cat.
And now McAvoy is moving forwar
d. He is moving as a boxer, feet balanced, hands raised.
He throws a left that snaps Noye’s head backward. Another that staggers him. Hurls a right that would have taken his head off had he not pulled it at the very last instant . . .
• • •
“GO ON, SON . . .”
Ray watches, openmouthed, as McAvoy hurls himself forward and bodily picks up Noye by the waist. Charges across the car park with the other man in his embrace and slams him into the side of the Lexus with enough force to buckle the doors.
“Go, go, go . . .”
Ray has seen enough. Enjoyed every fucking second of it.
As Ray and Archer run across the car park, they see the three other figures fall upon McAvoy. Begin thumping elbows, fists, knees into his big broad back as the unconscious Noye slithers to the ground.
Sirens now. Flashing blue lights and Colin Ray’s shouts.
McAvoy, swinging wildly, taking hold of the nearest head and slamming it into the car. Planting a meaty right on the side of a slick, shaved skull.
Chaos.
The two figures that remain upright seem to freeze.
Then McAvoy drops to one knee. And Ronan runs.
“You all right, son?” bellows Ray, above the rain, as he approaches his fallen colleague. Around him, uniformed officers are jumping out of police cars. To his right, Shaz Archer is slipping cuffs on a black-jacketed, shaven-headed man who is lying groggily in a puddle.
McAvoy looks up at him from under a swelling eye. “Sir?”
Ray gives a relieved little burst of laughter. Turns from him and takes over from a uniformed officer who is cuffing the other, larger leather-jacketed man. Giuseppe Noye is being tended to by two officers. In the distance, two constables in fluorescent raincoats are disappearing into the darkness, sprinting after Ronan’s vanishing form.
McAvoy takes an offered hand. Hauls himself upright.
Looks around dazedly. At the reassuring sight of men in uniform and villains in cuffs.
“Sir, I’m not sure . . .”
Colin Ray returns to his side. “Noye,” he says, nodding at the man on the ground, groaning and clutching his ribs. “You were right, son. Alan Rourke gave him up. Tipped us the wink that he was coming up here on business tonight. We figured it was the Vietnamese . . .”
“Sir?”
“His godson, Ronan. He’s working for the new outfit that’s outmuscled the Chinks. He’s got his own little crew. He’s the one who’s been giving our crime statistics the battering.”
McAvoy presses a hand to his head, trying to take it all in. “The other two?” he asks, gesturing at the other two men who are being manhandled into the back of squad cars.
“Muscle for the new outfit. Ronan’s thugs. Nice little sideline in stolen cars before they started putting ladies’ hands in pans of boiling oil.”
“That was these two?”
“According to Rourke.”
“And he’ll give evidence?”
“Nope. But Noye will.”
McAvoy screws up his eyes. “What?”
“His godson. Ronan. Little shit’s gone off the rails. Noye will see the benefits of getting him away from his new friends.”
McAvoy seems about to fall to his knees. He steadies himself. Rubs the rainwater from his face and winces as he touches his bruised face.
“He won’t give evidence, sir.”
Ray smiles and puts a hand on his back. “I’ve got ways and means, son. Noye’s a proud man. He won’t like finding out what these two bruisers have been doing to his godson.”
“What?”
“He’s got quite the temper, has Pepe. And when he finds out his new business partners have been abusing his blue-eyed boy . . .”
McAvoy looks into the long, ratty face of the older man. “Have they, sir?”
“We’re not dealing with a genius here, son. We’re dealing with a very bad man.”
They regard each other for a time. Standing in the rain. Soaked to the bone. McAvoy’s blood on both their hands.
“Heard you caught a killer,” says Ray eventually.
“She’s confessed, yes.”
For a time it is just them and the rain. The sound of three men coming around from painful injuries to find themselves in cuffs.
“You really came here to fight?” asks Ray softly.
McAvoy allows himself the ghost of a smile. “I hoped I could talk him out of it.”
“Didn’t work?”
“Apparently I’m not all that persuasive.”
Ray shakes his head. Grins. Looks around him and gives a grudging nod at a fine night’s work. Runs, painfully, across to Shaz Archer, and pretends he is McAvoy. They giggle as he pretends to pick her up and slam her into the Lexus.
McAvoy stands alone. Closes his eyes and waits for the thumping dizziness to cease.
Lifts his face and lets the rain wash him clean. Sniffs hard, but the only blood he can smell is his own.
Finally, he crosses to the Lexus and retrieves his coat. It is soaked through, but he pulls it on anyway. Removes his phone from the pocket and looks at the message on the screen.
We love you so much. xx
He holds the phone in his hand for a time. Caresses it, as if it is all that keeps him upright.
Smiles to himself, as he realizes that it is.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Much affection and gratitude go the way of David, Phoebe, and Eliza at Blue Rider for their support, their encouragement, and their Herculean levels of tolerance.
Many thanks to the Quercus team who make my books better—Jon, Richard, Lucy, and Ron.
Gratitude, as ever, goes the way of superagent Oil Munson. Cheers for putting up with me.
And here’s me raising a glass to Rob L and Babs for stopping me being too, well, me.
I’d also like to give a manly punch on the shoulder to my boy, George, and some form of stomach raspberry to my daughter, Elora. Seriously, I’m nowt without you.