Cog in the Machine

by Nigel Shinner

  The scent of the cooking bacon was making his mouth water. He started to spread ketchup on to the slices of bread as the phone rang again.

  The screen read ‘Gibbo.’

  “What?”

  “The cash is being dropped off on Saturday.” There was no mistaking Gibbo’s tone. He was a Scouser and his voice was pure scally.

  “Who is dropping it off?”

  “I don’t know for sure. I’m not a mind reader.”

  This displeased the Boss. “How much pressure did you use?”

  “I put a ten mil drill-bit through his feet – if he knew, he would’ve told me.”

  “Ok. When will you have the answer?”

  “Tomorrow, at the latest. I have the name of a possibility but it’s not confirmed – someone called Dom.”

  It wasn’t a smile. More of a sneer, but the Boss couldn’t help but react to the name. That name was a game-changer.

  “Boss?” Gibbo was reacting to the lack of response. “Are you there?”

  “I’m here – I need you to confirm the delivery man for the payment.”

  “I’ll try. Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  “When you need to know something, I’ll make sure you know it.” End of conversation.

  The skit and sizzle of the burning bacon wasn’t enough to draw the Boss back into his immediate environment.

  With the phone still in hand, he scrolled through the contacts, tapping a name almost at the end of the list.

  It rang twice. It was answered.

  “Vinnie? We need to talk.”

  Blood might be thicker than water, but it’s rarely thicker than a big wad of banknotes.

  Chapter 32

  After weeks of having to stroll around to Bob’s house for regular visits, Dom had an overwhelming sense of pride parking the BMW behind Bob’s Blue Astra on the drive. To most people it would feel normal to drive a car from A to B, but Dom hadn’t yet lost the gratitude he felt for the loan of a vehicle after not being able to drive for so long. The sense of euphoria he experienced behind the wheel was almost as fresh as when he had first passed his test.

  “How can you afford that?” Bob didn’t open the conversation with a greeting or the offer of a brew as he usually did.

  “It’s not mine.” Dom was defensive.

  “Whose is it? You’ve not stolen it, have you?” The old man delivered the questions as a kind of rebuke.

  “No, no. It’s a…” The answer was too hesitant to be believed but Dom gave an answer which was as close to the truth as anything else he could have said. “It’s a company car.”

  “A company car? I thought you worked in the warehouse. What are you now - sales director or something?”

  “No, I’ve been offered a place in McQuillan’s racing team and the car is part of the deal.”

  “Racing team? Does that man have a finger in everything?” said Bob, exasperated.

  “Sort of, Bob, sort of.” Initially, Dom had wanted to float the idea of the package delivery offer to Bob and see what he thought of it all. But with the reaction to the ‘company car,’ he thought better of it.

  “Just don’t go getting yourself killed.” Bob pointed a finger like a concerned parent – which was exactly how Dom thought of him. “Do you want a cup of tea?”

  The offer of a brew told Dom all he needed to know. He was off the hook for the car and the racing.

  The pair chatted like old friends about everything and anything, from the current good spell of weather to the latest political crisis. This kind of normal was the true cost of imprisonment. While it was often possible to get lost in conversation on current affairs and general newsworthy titbits with another inmate, there was never a sense of reality about the outside world, simply because the locked doors, barred windows and towering walls created a barrier. Not only to keep the prisoners inside but to keep the world at large at a distance.

  A conversation beyond the walls was a far different thing. Dom was now living where the news happened; outside. It was something he had taken for granted before crime had taken away his liberty, not something he had noticed from behind the walls. Freedom added something to everything he’d done since his release. Freedom had given him an appreciation for everything.

  Yet in his head, the things he did only affected him. Dom was not stupid or arrogant and rarely did he see the results of his actions as having any impact on others. While he took the sentence handed down to him for his part in the armed robbery, he still didn’t think about his part in the whole scheme. It was Dunston’s fault. If he hadn’t fired that shotgun…

  Sometimes, Dom was stubborn. Sometimes he was naïve. In the back of his mind, he knew he could be both, but now was not one of those times. Or so he thought.

  Chapter 33

  It was the morning after a very fitful night’s sleep. Dom arrived at work in the BMW. He parked up, heading straight to McQuillan’s office before clocking in.

  There was always a pang of trepidation just after his knuckles had made contact with the door. It was an intuitive anxiety that Dom had developed in prison.

  He had learned through bitter experience that the friendly, considered approach that some individuals had was a façade for much deeper and darker agendas. People would come with smiles and compliments just to acquire the skills of others to meet their needs. That was the fine line that Dom was walking.

  While he was eager to please his bosses, he was not going to go into anything blindly. If there was a job to be done, accompanied by a big pay out, he was interested. But he wanted all the facts first. It was a reasonable request, he thought. If he wasn’t satisfied by the answer, there was always the option to pull out of the job.

  That was the delicate point.

  An ex-con with skills would always get work. Dom’s only skill was his ability to drive a car to its very limit and make it look effortless. Anything else was standard – average, in fact.

  Dom didn’t want to be average. He owed it to himself to have a better life than the next guy. If he didn’t take the job, there would be a next guy, eager to take the money and take the chance.

  Dom had to knock a second time.

  “Come in,” McQuillan’s gruff voice boomed unmuted through the door.

  Stepping into the room, Dom was surprised to see Richards sitting next to McQuillan.

  “What can we do for you, Dom?” Richards asked the question, although it was McQuillan’s office and it was McQuillan Dom had come to see.

  “I need to know some things about the driving job you want me to do.”

  “It’s easy. Jump in the car, drive around the track as fast as fuck and help us win the race,” Richards answered.

  “No,” Dom barked. “I meant the other job.” Dom delivered the reply so harshly that the pair glanced at each other.

  “What do you need to know?” McQuillan answered this time.

  Pulling out a chair, Dom sat without waiting for an offer of a seat.

  “I need to know what I’ll be carrying.”

  “Why?”

  “If it’s anything illegal or dangerous then I should have that information. I don’t think that’s too much to ask.” Dom scanned the faces sitting across the desk from him. Their expressions showed that it was too much to ask.

  “What would you say is illegal?” Richards asked.

  “Drugs, guns – I don’t know, stuff like that.”

  “You won’t be carrying any drugs or any guns. Happy?” McQuillan asked.

  “No.” Dom frowned. A fob off – not good. “I need to know what I’ll be carrying. Why do you need someone with my driving ability to deliver the packages? What’s the reason?”

  There must have been something wrong with Richards’ and McQuillan’s telepathy as Richards blurted out his answer. “You don’t need to fucking know.”

  “Then double the money or I’m out.”

  “You ungrateful little fucker!” Richards bellowed.

  “Calm it down, Di
ck,” McQuillan interrupted the outburst while remaining incredibly controlled. “I understand why you want to know, Dom, but it’s for your own good that we don’t tell you.”

  “I don’t see it that way. If I’m transporting something that is definitely going to put me back in jail then it’s a no or twice the money. If you want me to trust you then you have to trust me.”

  Rage flamed across Richards’ face but McQuillan maintained his composure. The pair looked at each other then back at Dom.

  “Let me tell you a story,” McQuillan said.

  “I’m all ears.” Dom needed the story. Everything that had been happening to him in the last few weeks was starting to add up. The job offer, the use of a car, the extracurricular opportunities; they showed a certain level of manipulation, indicating that he was picked for his skill instead of being given a second chance.

  McQuillan started right back at the beginning.

  In his early days, the younger Tommy McQuillan had scratched a living working in garages, learning bits and pieces about engines, cars, vans, whatever came through the workshop. He knew enough to always find work but not enough to be indispensable to whoever was hiring and firing. Because of this, his CV was a constant stream of short-term jobs, usually by an employer looking to fill a gap in the workforce until something, or someone, better came along.

  This lack of security frustrated him. McQuillan had a long-term girlfriend and a daughter who relied on him. He needed to find something more permanent.

  As luck would have it, he had landed a job at a breaker’s yard. He could put vehicles back together again, so taking them apart was no trouble at all and he earned a little extra with a side line in spare parts. As long as the gaffer of the yard didn’t find out, he was quids in.

  Along with the various vehicles that would end their days at the yard, a ton of gardening machinery would be dropped off too. Lawnmowers, petrol strimmers and chainsaws would quite often never make it to the scrapheap. They would be salvaged, repaired and sold on by McQuillan, who had discovered a real flair for selling second-hand machinery. As an additional side line, he kept a lawn mower and strimmer and did a few gardening jobs at the weekends and on bank holidays.

  The regular flow of money entering his household benefitted his family for a few years. Then he was rumbled taking home another mower and a boot-load of spare parts.

  He had lost his job and his constant supply of refurbished machinery.

  While he was able to keep food on the table by upping the amount of garden services he was providing, it wasn’t satisfying enough for the newly entrepreneurial McQuillan. At the age of forty, and with no chance of a steady full-time job with endless opportunities of making cash on the side, McQuillan decided he would try and go legit, applying for a multitude of business loans. He was declined on every one.

  Completely down on his luck, and facing an uncertain future in the gardening business, he took some drastic action. He went to a loan shark. Ten grand cash, to be repaid over twelve months at a hundred percent interest, secured against his kneecaps or any other part of his body that could be broken as a subtle reminder of the debt. With the money, he was able to hire a unit to work from and bought in some second-hand gardening equipment to recondition and sell on. It was tough going.

  Tougher still when the loan shark, a boy from the Rhondda called Bryn Roberts, started applying pressure for early settlement of the debt. With every visit, the threats became more tangible and the additional favours to secure working kneecaps became more extreme.

  About six months into the loan period, Roberts asked for one of his ‘big’ favours. The burly Welsh boy turned up at the close of business one Friday evening and asked McQuillan to hold onto a package for him, no questions asked. McQuillan had no desire to know what was in the heavy plastic-wrapped box. He merely agreed to hold it and tucked it away in a toolbox.

  McQuillan’s luck changed as Roberts’ luck ran out. On that very night, the loan shark took a knife through the ribs in a bar brawl. While the Welshman was struggling to take his last breath, nobody was crying over his blood. The debt was wiped from the slate.

  Curiosity over the package got the better of McQuillan. On the following Monday morning, he had broken the seal on the tightly-packed wadding. McQuillan had never seen cocaine before, but he’d guessed that was what it was. Fifteen kilos of it.

  He knew a few people who knew a few people, and a contact was found who could shift the merchandise for a good price. The street value for quality gear at that time was twenty-five grand per kilo. McQuillan took ten just to be rid of the stuff, but he still made a hundred and fifty grand without breaking a sweat. The contact suggested they do some more business on a small scale. McQuillan had agreed, just as long as he didn’t have to hold the gear. It was a done deal.

  The small-time business opportunity grew a little, and then grew a little more. The contact was able to buy and sell coke by the caseload without too much trouble. The only stumbling block their new found business venture faced was the lack of larger quantities of product to buy in the first place. It was harder to buy quality than it was to sell on. The answer was in importing it.

  As the drugs business had grown, the machinery business had also grown to mask the true nature of the returned capital. McQuillan realised that he would have to scale up both businesses simultaneously, one shielding the other. The contact suggested that importing machinery from China would give him stock to sell in a newer, larger unit but also provide an opportunity to move some Class ‘A’ narcotics from the other side of the world.

  “And the rest, as they say, is history,” said McQuillan, his demeanour as casual as ever.

  Dom’s mind was blown.

  “And who was your contact that made this all happen?” It was an impertinent question but one he was going to ask all the same.

  “I was the contact,” said Richards coolly.

  Whether legitimate or not, the pair ruled over a small empire and ran it like a precision tuned machine.

  Dom suddenly realised that he was the cog in a very different machine than the one he had first thought.

  And then the horrifying truth hit him.

  He was excited.

  Chapter 34

  Illicit behaviour often becomes an addiction. Doing the undoable, even the unthinkable, and getting away with it, can become a bigger high than cocaine, a better thrill than any high-stakes poker game, because you’re playing against the fabric of society, and you’re winning. Everyone and everything that tells you don’t, can’t, mustn’t, and you dare to say will, can, must – and win! It’s like the universe saying ‘Go on, then, I dare you.’

  Dom wasn’t an addictive person in the ordinary run of things – fags, booze, drugs, none of that mattered to him at all. But…

  There was some kind of switch that was flicked on whenever he was involved in something more or less than legal; a switch that seemed to be stuck in the on position for the foreseeable future. Dom was back to being the Dom of old – reckless and adrenalin-fuelled, just with more experience.

  Regardless of the implications, Dom was in. All the way in.

  The cliché would be that he had a spring in his step but that didn’t even come close. He oozed confidence, not just from the belief he had in his own ability, but with the conviction with which his employers had empowered him. It spilled over into everything he did, from interaction with his colleagues to the daily practice in his loaned vehicle.

  The new-found self-assurance was obvious.

  “You seem pretty pleased with yourself?” Bob wasn’t backward in coming forward when it came to calling Dom on his moods and conduct.

  “I’m in a very good mood – that’s all I can say. Life is good.” Dom’s grin was immoveable.

  “I suppose you want a cup of tea, or are you above tea now?”

  The sarcasm wasn’t going to bring Dom down. “Tea would be lovely, thank you.”

  “So are you going to tell me what’s got you all f
ull of the joys of spring, or is it hush hush?”

  While his outward persona was advertising his mood, he couldn’t really blurt out to Bob that he was now involved in some major criminal activity which would result in a huge payday for simply driving a car.

  “I’ve met a girl.” He smiled that perfect smile, showing the dimples in his tanned face.

  “Oh, have you now? You find her on the internet, did you?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “You know.” Bob gestured as though he was typing on a keyboard. “One of them online places where you can buy a lady for the night, or even for a wife.”

  “Are you for real?” Dom chuckled at the elder man’s perception of the modern world. “No, she’s a real girl I met at work.”

  “What’s her name?”

  “Georgia.”

  “Georgia? Is that a girl’s name these days? Are you sure she’s not a... you know… one of them transgender people?”

  “Yes, it’s a girl’s name and no, she’s not.” Dom chuckled at the suggestion.

  “Well, as long as you’re careful and not letting yourself in for something surprising.”

  “Ok, now where’s the tea?”

  Bob didn’t say another word. He filled the kettle, flicked the switch and reached for a couple of mugs.

  *

  They chewed the fat and ate some biscuits like they always did. It was their thing. In Dom’s mind, and more importantly in his heart, Bob was the only father figure he had ever wanted. And the feeling seemed to be mutual - Dom would often catch the old man calling him ‘son,’ and not as a term of endearment, but like a doting father caring for a child he had raised his whole life.

  The thing was… it felt the same as ever, now he’d decided to go all in, driving for another criminal conspiracy, just like the that had landed him inside, only bigger and, he hoped, better planned. For all the adrenalin, and self-respect and empowerment, there was Bob, and biscuits, and chat. Should it feel different, he wondered, knowing that if it went to hell, Bob would be so disappointed in him?