Beyond the Rage

by Michael J Malone

  Praise for Beyond the Rage

  ‘Every once in a while, a book comes along and redefines the term unputdownable. Beyond the Rage is one of them. The plotting is sublime … The prose is faultless throughout.’ Crimesquad

  ‘Funny and brutal, heartfelt and compelling… The plot races along, pausing only to rip at your heart and knee you in the groin. Highly recommended.’ Craig Robertson

  ‘Another corker of a tale from the pen of the talented Michael J Malone… a superb story. Extremely highly recommended.’ Eurocrime

  ‘Malone has the enviable and rare talent of crafting hard-hitting noir that is also emotionally intelligent and engaging. A fabulous read.’ Caro Ramsay

  ‘Brings a poet’s sensibilities to the crime novel – but still manages to deliver a belter of a yarn. Kenny O’Neill is tough yet vulnerable… the storyline never anything less than compelling.’ Douglas Skelton‘

  A deeply personal thriller…both terrifying and believable… Make no mistake, this is the best yet from a writer who has always delivered.’ Russel D McLean

  Praise for Michael J Malone’s fiction

  ‘Had me gripped by the throat from first page to last. An absolute stunner.’ Ian Ayris

  ‘Addictive... more twists, turns and blind alleys than a labyrinth.’ Crimesquad.com

  ‘Blasts onto the scene like a bullet … my debut of the year.’

  Tony Black

  ‘Blistering prose … an explosively cool and riveting novel.’

  Sam Millar, review for New York Times journal of books

  ‘Quite simply, one of the best novels I’ve read in the last ten years.’ Caro Ramsay

  Also by Michael J Malone

  fiction

  Blood Tears

  A Taste for Malice

  The Guillotine Choice

  non-fiction

  Carnegie’s Call

  BEYOND

  the

  RAGE

  Michael J Malone

  Beyond the Rage

  Contents

  Praise for Beyond the Rage

  Beyond the Rage

  Prologue

  1

  2

  3

  4

  5

  6

  7

  8

  9

  10

  11

  12

  13

  14

  15

  16

  17

  18

  19

  20

  21

  22

  23

  24

  25

  26

  27

  28

  29

  30

  31

  32

  33

  34

  35

  36

  37

  38

  39

  40

  41

  42

  43

  44

  45

  46

  47

  48

  49

  50

  51

  52

  53

  54

  Acknowledgements

  About the author

  Copyright

  Prologue

  There was usually some sort of shouting match in his house after he went to bed. Sometimes it began immediately after he shut his bedroom door, sometimes it would happen just as he was falling asleep, but most often it had to wait until his father came home late.

  On the occasions he went to bed while Dad was still ‘out’, his mum would be extra nice to him. She’d make sure he’d eaten some supper, she might even let him off brushing his teeth, and she’d always tuck him in. Which was embarrassing, he’d try to tell her. But she didn’t care. It didn’t matter if he was almost a ‘big teenager’; he was always going to be her little boy.

  He might even get to stay up late and watch some TV. He didn’t much care what programme was on, so long as he could brag to his pals at school the next day that he’d been up past his normal bedtime. But as soon as his mum heard the tell-tale sound of his father’s key being twisted in the lock, he was sent running to his bedroom, with a pat on the backside and a panicked ‘Hurry, son. Bed.’

  It wasn’t that she was shy of fighting with her husband – he overheard her tell her mother on the phone one night – she just didn’t want ‘the wee fella’ to watch.

  He thought that was crazy: the notion that not being able to see their faces bright with yelling at each other made things any easier on him. He was quite able to fill in the pictures, thank you very much. In his mind’s eye, his mum was always standing and his dad was on the sofa, with a cup of tea in his hand. His mum would be doing most of the talking and while she talked she would be pointing, her finger sharp as a knitting needle. Dad would pretend he wasn’t bothered until eventually he would lose it. He would then stand up, towering over her and the shouting would begin in earnest.

  Kenny could see him carefully putting his cup on the coffee table. In his imagination, his father always had just enough reserve to save the crockery before he went mental. There was never any physical violence. Dad was always telling him that men should never hit women and that any man who did was a ‘real cunt’. But there was always plenty of shouting.

  He could rarely work out what they were arguing about. The odd word would make it up through the ceiling/floor and the occasional phrase, but for the most part the words ran into a meaningless melee of sound; one a gruff bass and the other a shrill soprano.

  One night he woke up to a real humdinger. The Partick Thistle FC clock on his bedside table was shining 01:15 into his bedroom in bright green and both his parents were screaming at each other. But this time they were in the bedroom next door. He heard one word that night. Gun.

  Then it fell silent. A silence that was just such a contrast to the noise he had been listening to he wondered if he had temporarily lost his sense of hearing. Then his mum began crying and he could hear a low, soothing rumbling sound from his dad. Not long after that the bed began creaking.

  That was almost the worst thing about the fights; the way they made up afterwards. Don’t let the boy see us fighting, but when we start shagging just inches away through the wall to him, he’ll have to put up with it. Grown-ups were crazy and their relationships were fucked up as far as he was concerned.

  The noise-making at this stage was in the same proportions as the fighting. His mum made most of the noise, while his dad just gave a big groan at the end. Meanwhile, he was laying feet away, face brighter than the clock.

  He discussed everything the next day with his pals at school. Davie Morgan got really excited at the mention of the gun, telling everyone that Kenny’s dad must be a gangster. Ben Kelsey got most excited when he heard about his parents shagging. Kenny’s mum had a cracking pair of tits, Ben said, and he was going to have to have a wank later on while thinking about them. Kenny had to be pulled off him by a passing teacher.

  The teacher was a student called Bob – and a pretty cool guy – and in Bob’s opinion Ben Kelsey probably wasn’t at the stage where he could manage to beat one off. But that wasn’t the point, Kenny argued after his face fell when he was given two hundred lines. He pretended later to his pals that his lines read, I will not fight my pals in the school grounds when they say my mum has nice tits.

  Then there was the night just five days before his thirteenth birt
hday. Dad was out and Mum didn’t let him stay up late, which he remembered thinking was odd. She sent him off to bed as soon as Big Ben began to chime at the start of the Ten O’Clock News. He protested, ‘Aww, Mum.’ She said, ‘Aww Mum nothing, get your skinny wee arse off to bed.’

  He didn’t get tucked in that night and he must’ve fallen asleep quickly because he was really fuzzy-headed when it started. It was a low noise with the one note. Then it rose in pitch and volume and made his hairs stand on end. He tip-toed down the stairs and the sound got louder. The thing that freaked him out was that it sounded like it was his dad that was making it.

  And there he was, on his knees in the kitchen leaning over his mum, who was slumped over the kitchen table. He remembered thinking later how weird it was that he was able to take in everything in the room with one glance. He noticed everything. The blonde of his mother’s hair, the empty bottle of brandy in one of her hands, the small, white medicine packet in the middle of the table and his father’s continuous howl of guilt and protest.

  ‘Nooooooo.’

  1

  ‘So that concludes our business for the day then, Mr O’Neill,’ the man across the table from him said as he spun the combination locks on his briefcase. ‘A pleasure as always.’ He stood up and stretched out a fat hand.

  ‘It’s Kenny. How many times do I have to tell you to call me Kenny?’ he said as he leaned back in his chair, ignoring the hand before him and trying not to make a face of disgust at the amount of hair growing on the back of the other man’s fingers.

  ‘We may be involved in a business that is... less than legal, Mr O’Neill. But it is a business nonetheless and it behoves us to act in the manner of business people.’

  ‘If that’s the case, why are we meeting in a Little Chef on the A9 instead of the Hilton? And who the fuck says “behoves” nowadays?’

  A tight smile formed on the man’s face as he considered his response. He was aware of the rumours that surrounded Kenny. Who wasn’t? But he would be keen to assert his own ego, while maintaining some sort of relationship. It would also be nice not to get his arse kicked.

  ‘Mr O’Neill...’

  ‘Kenny.’

  ‘Mr O’Neill...’

  ‘Kenny.’

  ‘Kenny, your sense of humour is part of your legend, so I don’t take offence.’ A shrug. ‘In my view a man should always look to better himself and that means a certain look...’ – he paused to correct the position of his tie – ‘...deportment, vocabulary...’

  ‘Yeah, yeah, yeah, Dimitri. In the real world... in the twenty-first century, like, businessmen don’t wear ties. They call each other by their first names, they meet in offices and if anybody gets above themselves they slap them down...’

  ‘There’s no need to bring up the threat of violence, Kenny,’ Dimitri said in a broad Glasgow accent that as far as Kenny was concerned just did not go with the name. Dimitri’s voice wavered for a moment. He swallowed and then squared his shoulders as if he had just remembered how he needed to act the part. Kenny did have a reputation.

  ‘...They slap them down by refusing to do business with them ever again,’ Kenny pointedly finished what he was saying. He wanted to add ‘you pompous twat’ at the end of the sentence but restrained himself.

  ‘Do I not give you good product, Kenny?’ Dimitri held both hands out, palms up like an actor waiting to accept applause.

  ‘And that, my friend’ – Kenny stood up – ‘is the only reason why I agreed to meet you.’ He held a hand out, despite his better judgement and almost too eagerly Dimitri took it in his moist paw and shook it.

  ‘Now, Dimitri,’ said Kenny, wiping his hand on his trouser leg, ‘take your briefcase, your tie and your deportment and get the fuck out of my face.’

  Once the man had huffily walked out of the restaurant, Kenny pulled his phone from his pocket. Just as he was dialling a number, Dimitri walked back in.

  ‘The toilet,’ he mouthed as he walked past. ‘Just needed the toilet.’

  Kenny looked to the ceiling. Where did these people come from? You just can’t get the right class of villain these days. His phone rang out. A voice answered.

  ‘Kenny, m’man.’

  ‘Well?’

  ‘It’s good. It’s all good.’

  ‘Excellent,’ Kenny said. ‘Usual terms?’

  ‘Of course, Kenny. Of course.’

  ‘Excellent.’ Kenny was taking a step back from the coalface. He no longer wanted to be at the front of the deal, offering the goods to the buyer. That was the dangerous side. The role that meant greater personal risk with the small matter of police capture, trial and jail time. No, fuck that. He wanted to make the maximum amount of money, with the minimum amount of risk and that entailed setting himself up as a middle-man. That meant anonymity.

  ‘Excellent,’ he repeated. ‘Call me by my name once again over the phone and I’ll tear your fucking heart out.’ He hung up before the other man could say anything. He’d had enough of idiots for one day.

  Not that he was averse to getting his hands dirty. Cometh the hour, cometh the knuckle-duster. He was more than willing to hand out some lessons, and lessons learned the hard way tended to stick, in his view.

  He caught the eye of the waitress as she was folding purple napkins around knives and forks for prospective diners. She carried on with a couple more before she huffed and walked over. She pulled a pad from a pocket in her apron, licked at her teeth and said, ‘Help you?’

  Kenny looked at her name badge. It read Versace, for chrissakes. He couldn’t bring himself to say her name.

  ‘I was going to ask for another coffee, but I can see you have more important things to do rather than serve the one customer you have in the room. So I’ll just have the bill, please.’ Now that she was closer to him, he considered that she was probably about fourteen and she’d be thinking that social niceties were reserved only for grandparents holding out a wad of notes and the cool kids in her class at the high school.

  As if she had just remembered her training, Versace straightened her back and stretched her mouth into a smile.

  ‘Was everything okay for you, sir?’

  ‘I’ve tasted worse.’

  She processed that with a raise of her eyebrows and a faraway look.

  ‘I’ll... I’ll just get your...’ She turned and walked away. As she walked, Kenny studied the swing of her backside. If you liked that kind of thing – pubescent – and he knew some men who did, she was not too bad. He, however, preferred them with a little more curve, a little more years and with a price tag. Then you knew exactly where you stood. Sex, as far as he was concerned, was all about a form of barter. He got some rest and relaxation, the girl got some cash. If you knew the cost up-front before the wood took then nobody got hurt. And by nobody – if he ever took the time to analyse it – he meant himself.

  His phone rang. The ringtone was the theme music for Looney Tunes and was set for his cousin, Ian ‘Mabawser’ Ritchie.

  ‘Ian, elucidate.’ Kenny loved using big words with Ian. It really fucked with his mind.

  ‘Eh?’ was the response.

  ‘Expound.’

  ‘Dude, you talk some amount of shite.’

  ‘And dude, you’re from Milngavie, no Manhattan, so cut it with the Americanisms.’

  ‘Anyway, cuz, I was won-der-ing…’ He dragged the word out by way of a delay tactic. Like he knew what he wanted to say wasn’t going to get a good reception but he knew he had to say it anyway. ‘…Seeing as it’s your big Three-Oh today, if you wanted to come round my mum and dad’s tonight?’

  ‘Shit. I forgot about that.’

  ‘You forgot your own birthday? It’s your big Three-Oh.’

  ‘Think about it, Ian. When did I ever celebrate...?’

  ‘Oh, right,’ Ian said. The penny clanked to the bottom of his sieve-li
ke mind. ‘It’s just that Mum felt that it was time to... bygones and all that.’

  ‘Fuck, Ian. Do I have to?’ Kenny rubbed at his forehead. He could deal with all kinds of hard-cases – murderers, rapists, thieves – but his Aunt Vi knew how to tweak the old guilt reflex. He’d managed to avoid her... them, for two years now. Since that last time when he threatened Uncle Colin. The man was a twat and he’d always be a twat, no matter how nice his wife was. He’d gone to live with them when his mum died and his dad vanished and Uncle Colin never let a day pass without reminding him how lucky he was that they’d taken him in rather than letting him go to live in an orphanage.

  ‘You know how much Mum cares about you, dude. You’re her sister’s son...’

  ‘I know, I know, I know.’ Kenny was leaning over the table, still rubbing at his forehead. Fuck. He didn’t think he could bear to be in the same room as his Uncle Colin without wanting to wipe that sneer off his face with a cheese grater.

  ‘She’s got something for you.’

  ‘I don’t need any presents, Ian. I have enough stuff.’

  ‘This isn’t stuff, Kenny. It’s a letter.’

  ‘A letter?’ Kenny sat up straight in his chair. Something twisted in his gut. He could sense this was important.

  ‘She said to tell you only if you were moaning about coming over. A last resort, bribe kinda thing.’

  ‘The letter, Ian?’

  ‘It’s from your dad,’ Ian said and Kenny could picture his cousin’s face scrunched up as he issued the words. Only he in the world knew how important his father’s absence in his life had become. ‘I swear to God, Kenny, this is the first I heard of it.’

  ‘So it’s not a new letter?’ No one had heard a word about or from him in the last seventeen years... and five days. Or so he thought.

  ‘Apparently it arrived when you were eighteen and Mum has been keeping it until you were old enough to–’

  ‘Fuck,’ said Kenny. His old man was still alive. Or at least he had been when he was eighteen. ‘What does the letter say?’ He swallowed. If he is alive, where the fuck has he been? Acid scored his stomach. He took a deep breath. Dropped his shoulders. Forced some calm. Seventeen years was a long time.