By the time the money runs out, Paddy thought, staring at the blinking cursor, I’ll have ruined the lot of them scheming bastards. He rubbed his hands together. Then, Kenneth Wainwright can shove it up his sad, dole-ite arse, because Paddy Big-Bollocks is coming back, baby!
With his index fingers hovering over the keyboard, Paddy contemplated what else to feed the detective with.
‘Did you know the Boddlingtons have brothels on Trafford Street and Grove Close in Sweeney Hall?’ He clicked send.
The main focus for Paddy’s anger was, of course, Sheila, since the lousy cow had sought to end him. Beyond that, he would not rest until Leviticus Bell was dead. Memories of that fateful poolside scene where he’d been sliced open and left for dead only months earlier were blurry, but he was certain that Lev Bell’s face had been hiding beneath a false beard and those stupid bloody sidelocks – an imitation Shylock, coming for his pound of flesh, trying to pin it on Asaf Smolensky. Very damned clever. Not clever enough to dupe him – the mighty Paddy O’Brien, however. But the Boddlingtons …? Why the hell should they evade the strong arm of the law? It would be easier to take his empire back with the enemy already weakened.
Waiting for Ellis James to respond, he jumped when a thin voice behind him said, ‘What the fuck you doing in my room on my laptop?’
Paddy turned around to find Kyle standing over him. A thin streak of piss with a sour expression on his malnourished face. The kid reeked of poverty – stale hand-me-down clothes that were too big on him; a whiff of unwashed boy, lard, school sports-hall changing rooms and the pervasive smell of mildew from living in a permanently damp Victorian terrace. Paddy hated the smell because he remembered smelling exactly like it as a child.
‘Your Mam said I could,’ Paddy lied, irritated that he had been caught in the act.
‘Well, you can’t. It’s mine and I’ve got private stuff on there.’
Kyle reached out to snatch the laptop away but Paddy swung it out of his reach. ‘Easy, tiger.’
‘Give it back, Ken! It’s mine! Mam bought it for me as a treat when my dad—’
‘How long you been stood there?’ He eyed the boy warily, keeping a firm grip on the laptop but snapping the lid shut. What had he seen?
‘Long enough,’ Kyle said, scratching at the florid rash of spots on his forehead.
The kid looked nothing like his mother. His eyes were small and too close together. Paddy found it odd that there were no photos of the father around the house whatsoever, as if he had never existed. Perhaps Brenda had never forgiven him for simply disappearing one day. But with a creep of a son like Kyle, who could blame the guy?
‘I was googling my ailments,’ Paddy said, pre-empting any confrontation. Who knew how much the kid had seen? ‘And they’re confidential, right? None of your fucking business, nosey hole.’ Had Paddy been thinking aloud while his back had been turned to the doorway? Conky used to frequently pull him up for that sort of thing. It would be no good if Kyle had worked out he’d been talking to a cop. The kid didn’t seem entirely daft. Unlike his dimbo of a mother. ‘Shouldn’t you be at school?’
Kyle’s gaze was unwavering. His attentions were focused on the laptop. With a jolt of realisation, it was clear to Paddy that the kid wasn’t suspicious of him at all! He had something to hide. And there was only one thing thirteen-year-old lads might be doing on a computer that they didn’t want a grown-up to know about.
‘I won’t tell her,’ Paddy said. ‘About the porn, I mean.’
Suddenly, the kid’s stern face cracked, offering Paddy a wry, knowing smile. Was this the start of some kind of truce? Was Kyle going to stop being a miserable little sod just because Paddy was poking his mother?
‘Ta,’ Kyle simply said, pulling the sleeves of his hoodie over his bony hands. That half-smile had turned to a grin, lighting up his cadaverous ugly face. Maybe the kid was relieved.
In truth, Paddy wouldn’t have the first idea on how to check someone’s browser history, but he wasn’t about to tell the little dipshit that. ‘Sling your hook, son, while I finish up here. Okay?’ He held his can of lager out to the boy. ‘You wanna swig? Is that what you’re waiting for?’
Shaking his head, Kyle sloped off back downstairs, still wearing a lopsided smile as though he was the only one in on some big secret. Creepy little smartarse.
Opening the laptop’s lid, Paddy refreshed the screen to see if Ellis James had responded. Sure enough, he had.
Re: Maureen Kaplan tip-off
James, Ellis
To: Shadow Hunter ([email protected])
Have you got addresses for those brothels and also the place in Crumpsall? We’ll treat this information very seriously. I’d really like to meet you face-to-face, Shadow Hunter. Can I take you for lunch? I want to get to know you and let you know how GMP can help you, if you’d like to testify against the O’Brien crew or the Boddlington Gang.
Regards
E.J.
PS: What do you know about the main criminal firm in Birmingham? Have you ever heard of Nigel Bancroft before? If so, what can you tell me about him? I’ve attached a photo.
Paddy clicked on the attachment and studied what looked like a professionally shot corporate portrait of Bancroft. With his blow-dried hair and bone-white teeth, he put Paddy in mind of some male model off a Just for Men hair-dye packet. He’d heard of him, all right, but the ponce had never dared set foot in Manchester while Paddy had been king. If Ellis James was trying to pump him for information on Bancroft, that meant Sheila – and possibly the Boddlingtons too – were getting the heat. With Paddy gone, why wouldn’t a man like Bancroft have a pop at annexing a destabilised Manchester as Midland turf? It was the sort of stunt Paddy would certainly have pulled. A calculated business risk, well worth taking.
He thought about the prospect of that dozy show pony, Sheila, trying to defend herself against the likes of Nigel Bancroft: organised, established, semi-legal and experienced as hell. Threw back his head and laughed so hard, he began to wheeze.
‘What a bleeding joke!’
Sheila was just a woman. If the Brummies were after the O’Brien empire, she didn’t stand a hope in hell. Maybe Bancroft would do the job of bringing down his treacherous widow for him.
Chapter 11
Sheila
Sheila was surprised that her breath wasn’t steaming on the air in the office perched high above the warehouse floor of the cannabis farm. Despite the hot, moist, tropical climes artificially created in the vast industrial area below to keep the crops lush, she shivered in that claustrophobic crow’s nest of a room. The stiletto boots she had pulled on before leaving the car were causing her feet to spasm. Or maybe she was just tense as hell at the prospect of what was to come.
‘I don’t think this is a good idea,’ Conky said, perched on the dated 1970s desk that still bore the splintered bullet-holes from the Boddlingtons’ attack back in the spring. He removed his glasses with a flourish and fixed Gloria with The Eyes. ‘You don’t have any experience of dealing with these eejits. Colin Chang just about managed because he had the technical nous. But you’re an ex-cleaner, not a pharmacist, so you haven’t even got that, have you? Having a gun in your shopping trolley won’t give you any of the gravitas needed to run the O’Brien business interests.’
‘Who says?’ Gloria asked, folding her arms tightly across her chest. Bitterness audible in her clipped consonants. ‘I manage over a hundred women. And you could do with one of our girls in here. Look at the state of it! Has this place ever seen a duster?’
Conky sighed, rubbing The Eyes like a despairing parent. He looked to Sheila for support, but Sheila focused on Lev, who was rolling Jay’s pushchair to and fro along the wrinkled, threadbare old office carpet.
Seize control before Conky steam-rollers over you, Sheila O’Brien, she counselled herself. Draw your sodding boundaries. ‘Gloria’s taking over from that prick, Degsy, and that’s my final decision.’ Sheila turned bac
k to her lover and noticed the dejected expression on his craggy face. Right then, Conky put her in mind of a chastised dog. ‘I want him demoted so he’s just running errands. I’m not having him mismanaging staff, leaving us open to attack and losing me money because he can’t organise a piss-up at a brewery. We either pull him into line or he gets booted out on his arse completely.’ She turned to Gloria. ‘That’s your first task, Glo.’
Patting her shopping trolley, Gloria nodded. ‘Be strong and courageous. Do not fear or be in dread of them, for it is the Lord your God who goes with you. Deuteronomy 31:6.’ She beamed widely, sticking her tongue through the gap in her otherwise perfect teeth.
‘And now, I want you to bring that Kevin up here,’ Sheila said, catching Lev’s eye.
‘Me?’ He continued to roll the pushchair. Daddy Day Care with tattoos.
‘Leave the sodding pushchair, will you? You’re making me seasick. You shouldn’t be bringing your son to work with you. Hasn’t he got a mother, for Christ’s sake?’
Lev looked down at his high-top trainers. The muscles in his jaw flinched. ‘His mam’s a dyed-in-the-wool bitch. She’s still drawing down his child allowance, no questions asked, but she doesn’t actually give a shit about our Jay. I can’t let her near him. I wouldn’t leave that junkie slag in charge of beans on toast. I’m suing for custody.’
‘Nursery?’
‘I didn’t save my son’s life to pay some other bastard to bring him up, thanks. And I never asked for this job. Actually.’ He shot an accusatory glance over to his own mother. ‘Mam blackmailed me into it.’
‘I’m not having you sponging off me, Leviticus,’ Gloria said, wagging her finger at her son in admonition. ‘You’ve got to pay your way if you want to live under my roof.’
‘Oh, excuse me!’ Lev said, a look of disbelief on his face. ‘Your bloody roof? You mean the rented house Sheila’s stumping for because we’re on the run from the Fish Man?’
Feeling irritation bristle along her cold, clammy spine, Sheila snatched the handle of the pushchair from him. ‘Get that grassing arsehole Kevin up here. Now!’
When Lev had left the office, she strutted to the window, aware of the effect that her swaying hips had on Conky, even though he now shared her bed. She peered out of the office window that faced internally onto the cannabis farm below, making her feel as though she were suspended above a forest canopy. Queen of all she surveyed. ‘I need you to send a message to Bancroft, Conks. Something that will make him think twice before he starts with me or mine again.’
‘Aye,’ Conky said. He stood with the grunt of a stiff, ageing man. But dwarfing both women with his height and bulk. Turned to Gloria. ‘You’d better get your wee grandson out of here. This is not going to be pretty.’
Gloria looked to Sheila for approval.
Swallowing hard, secretly wondering what form ‘not pretty’ would take, she nodded. ‘Best to take him back to the car.’ She threw Gloria her car keys. ‘Put the engine on if it’s cold. There’ll be plenty of time for you to show this lot who’s in charge, but now’s probably not ideal, what with Jay and all …’
Kevin appeared at the door to the office as Gloria was leaving. He stepped aside to allow the pushchair through. Looked like he might throw up at any moment on his shoes.
‘Get in here,’ Sheila said, praying there was some ferocity in her voice, though she felt anything but ferocious.
Lev pushed the imposter into the middle of the office.
‘I didn’t do it!’ Kevin said, holding his hands high. ‘I didn’t grass.’
Sheila rounded on him, slapping his pasty face hard. He was slightly shorter than her, given she was wearing stilettos. Didn’t look more than twenty-five. Save the motherly love for your own kids, she chided herself.
‘Who else would be shooting his mouth off to the man who owns Birmingham but a Brummie? Come on, Kevin. I wasn’t born yesterday. And don’t you dare take me for a berk just because I’m a woman.’
Kevin clutched at his cheek, already reddening from the slap. ‘I’m not. I swear. I don’t even know Nigel.’ His voice had risen an octave. He kept glancing towards Lev, as though his former ally would somehow pull him out of the mire. Those piggy eyes of his, glassy with fear, were darting towards Conky, who was approaching with menacing, almost glacial slowness, taking what appeared to be a garrotte out of his coat pocket. Kevin grinned and chuckled the nervous, mirthless grin and chuckle of a man who realised he was about to be dealt with by the Loss Adjuster. ‘Come on, Conky. You know my rep is good.’
Sheila baulked as Conky stretched the garrotte taut.
‘How do you know he’s called Nigel?’ Conky asked.
‘He’s the big boss back home. Everyone knows his name.’ The sheen of sweat on his top lip glistened even in the dim light of the office. His eyes were everywhere except on Conky.
‘You’re a liar.’
He walked behind Kevin. Nimble like a ballet dancer for such a large man. Sheila wasn’t sure she wanted to see any of this. She had always found Conky’s physical might a turn-on, but now that she was faced with the reality of what Loss Adjusting really meant, she wasn’t sure she’d ever be able find Conky attractive again.
‘I’ve just been reading an interesting book about the Roman Army,’ Conky said in that breezy, enthusiastic tone of voice he always used when he spoke about his reading habits. As though he were merely enjoying an espresso in her kitchen. ‘Do you know what form the punishment took for lying in the Roman army, Kevin?’
Kevin glanced behind at Conky, but Conky clamped his head between his giant palms and forced him to face front.
He whispered in the dealer’s ear. ‘They called it “fustarium”. The lying soldiers would be cudgelled to death. But I haven’t got a cudgel handy. So we’ll have to use this nice cheese wire.’ In one swift movement, he released Kevin’s head and wrapped the garrotte around his throat, pulling tightly. ‘Don’t worry. I’ll send your head to Mr Bancroft so he can say his goodbyes properly.’
Lifting Kevin from the ground, Conky seemed to find the act of choking the life out of a man almost effortless. Kevin, on the other hand, writhed and kicked out, trying to free himself.
Sheila couldn’t bear to watch. Please die quickly. Please die quickly. She stared out of the internal window at the farm below, watching the Vietnamese children tend the lush green plants with great care. At that moment, feeling queasy and faint, she regretted more than anything that she had turned Nigel Bancroft down. It would have been so easy to relinquish this vile Man’s Business and carry on with her own cleaning company and the online-dating-cum-phishing scam. Soft-end criminality that would allow her a good night’s sleep. Not this. Could she have insisted Conky only half-choke the grass and then let him go? No. She would forever more have been known as a soft touch and Bancroft would be back, asking for a higher percentage.
‘It’s done,’ Conky said. There was a thunk as he dropped Kevin’s body to the floor. ‘Get me a machete from one of the kids,’ he told Lev.
‘Jesus, Conky!’ Sheila said, deliberately looking anywhere but at the dead man. The odour of death made her gag. ‘Just leave it at that, will you. Send Bancroft a bloody photo or something.’
But Conky wasn’t listening. ‘There’s only one way to send a message that will stick.’
When a trembling, reluctant Lev was despatched on a borrowed motorbike, carrying a fried-chicken delivery bucket containing Kevin’s head with Conky’s order that he ‘hot-foot it to Nice Nigel’s office in Birmingham to say the O’Briens have sent him a little food for thought’, Sheila left the blood-splattered office choking back her tears.
As she joined Gloria and Jay in the Rolls Royce, she barely registered the sight of the man in the white van, watching from his vantage point some fifty yards from the apparently derelict warehouse.
Chapter 12
Tariq
Pulling into the parking space of the hospital, Tariq killed the engine of his Mercedes CLS. Pushe
d his father’s disabled permit into the windscreen. Sighed.
‘I can’t stand this place,’ he said, staring up at the tall Victorian houses that overlooked the disabled bays. ‘Always a scrum to get parked. You’re stressed out before you even get in there.’ A light sweat had broken out beneath his clothes. This occasion was having more of an effect on him than he had anticipated.
His father laid a gnarled hand on his arm. ‘It’s me going for the consultation,’ he said in Urdu. The lines at the corners of the old man’s milky eyes crinkled up. ‘You’re just the chauffer. So, let me do the worrying. We’ve been lucky this week. We survived a near miss with that truck you nearly crashed into. Maybe it’s a sign that things are going our way. Insha-Allah, everything will have stayed the same.’ He readjusted his karakul hat and fastened the top button of his coat, his arthritic fingers shaking slightly.
‘Come on. You’ll miss your appointment.’ Scanning the scene in his mirrors, Tariq kept the doors of the car locked until he was certain there were no faces out of keeping with the entrance to the Christie hospital. Only people bent double and shuffling through ill health, walking slowly because the chemo had bloated them up, or latching onto their chaperones for dear life. No sign of Conky – Roy Orbison on steroids – or of those scumbags in the black Volkswagen van. Surely they had been Sheila’s men. The woman had more metal than he had given her credit for, not to mention new staff.
Tariq felt momentarily light-headed. Realised he had been holding his breath again.
‘You need to calm down, Tariq,’ his father said, pressing the button to unlock the car. He opened his door expectantly. ‘Stress is a killer. You don’t want to end up in here like your old Dad.’
Tariq fixed his father with a look of disbelief. Wiped the old man’s spittle from the dashboard with the special Dad-Spit-Cloth in one automatic movement, trying to calm himself. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said in Urdu, blinking hard. ‘But didn’t two lunatics try to bundle you into a van last week in broad daylight?’
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