Mammoth Book of Best British Crime 11

by Maxim Jakubowski

  “I will,” said Sherlock Holmes, shaking the old man’s hand.

  No Short Cuts

  Howard Linskey

  My feet were on the ledge. I couldn’t move, my arms were pinned behind my back, held fast, no point even struggling. One push and I’d be over the edge, a dead man for certain. I could hear Tatty next to me and he was sobbing uncontrollably, shitting himself; we all were. There were four of us in our crew and right then we were all as helpless as each other, praying that this lot wanted to talk about what we’d done to them, to give us the chance to make amends. I didn’t want to think about the alternatives because I couldn’t see any way out of this now but down; about 200 feet on to rock-hard concrete. And all I could hear in my mind were my dad’s words, over and over again, “There are no short cuts, son.”

  I felt the hand on my back and suddenly I was pitched forward and I screamed, as the ground seemed to lurch up towards me, but the big bastard behind me pulled me back by my belt at the last moment, then he actually laughed at me. He was just shitting me up; this time.

  The soles of my trainers skidded on the metal top of the ledge and he had to support me or I’d have gone over. The fear was like nothing I’d ever experienced. I was powerless, on the wrong side of the metal barrier put there to prevent people from accidentally falling off the top floor of the high-rise. Terrified, I tried to catch my breath, then a big, booming, horribly familiar Geordie voice told us, “I don’t want any of you to be under any illusions lads. You’re all going off this roof.”

  * * *

  The last time the four of us were all together, we’d been in the pub, happy as pigs in shit, listening to Carey spouting off about Kevin Keegan and his complete lack of managerial credentials, “I’m telling you man,” he reminded us between sips of his pint, “the world’s gone daft. He has never managed anyone before. The man’s spent the last eight years on a golf course in fucking Malaga and now everyone’s acting like he’s bound to be a success. It’s all bollocks. He was a great player but so was Ardiles and look what a disaster he was as manager.”

  Carey had a point. Since Kevin Keegan was made manager of Newcastle United a few weeks back, the world had indeed gone daft, our corner of it at least, and Carey was probably adding a bit of much-needed realism to dampen the euphoria, but I hoped he was wrong for once.

  Carey was undoubtedly our leader. He was older than us, a man of twenty-three, could pass for twenty-five maybe thanks to the coarse stubble on his chin and his short, buzz-cut hair, and he’s been about has Carey. He’s seen stuff, knows people, considers himself a bit of a player and I didn’t think he was bullshitting all that much. Not after the stunt we all just pulled together. It was like something out of a film, honest it was, and it was all his idea, all down to Carey. He takes the credit; 100 fucking per cent. We were still buzzing with adrenalin. You see we were the boys who’d only just gone and ripped off Bobby Mahoney; the man who runs . . . fuck that . . . the man who owns Newcastle.

  “Everything all right?” I asked Carey as soon as he arrived that night.

  “Kula Shaker,” he told me, looking cucumber cool, and I was bloody relieved. It was three days since we burst into that bookies with two sawn-off shotguns, an ancient Webley revolver that used to belong to Carey’s granddad and a baseball bat. We marched out of there a few minutes later with a little over twelve grand in cold, hard untraceable cash and knew we’d arrived. We were in the big league.

  Three pints later and Carey had warmed to his subject. “Bobby Mahoney is like Ardiles,” he told us firmly, “finished in this city. I mean, he’s in his forties man.” And we lapped up every word.

  “What does that make you like? Kevin Keegan?” Tatty was giggling like a little girl with a crush on Carey. There’s some hero worship going on there because Tatty, aka Andy Tate, is only eighteen and he doesn’t understand the meaning of playing it cool. Clarkey and me, well we’re just that bit older, we’ve seen a bit more than Tatty, so we know to disguise our admiration for Carey. Don’t want anyone thinking we’re a bunch of benders.

  “So what’s our next move?” asked Clarkey, trying to sound like the veteran gangster he wanted to be.

  “I’m on it,” Carey assured him while dragging on a cigarette, “I’ve set up a meet.”

  “Who with?” I asked him.

  “Anderson,” he told me, without giving us any more, and I got the impression he wanted me to ask, “Who?” so of course I didn’t. Clarkey did it for me, though, and Carey told us, “Only the biggest face in Liverpool. He’s well connected. Heard a whisper about us and called me up; wants to put a bit of business our way.”

  That night we had a cracking time. One of those evenings when you just know the world can’t touch you cos absolutely every-fucking-thing is going to plan. Somehow, I even found the balls to flirt with the lass behind the bar, who I would normally see as seriously out of my league but maybe Carey’s ambition is beginning to rub off on me. She was blonde and as fit as fuck, older than me too, at least twenty-four I reckoned, and I asked her, cool as you like, if she fancied going out one night, “Maybe to the pub or the pictures or something.”

  “Maybe,” she smiled at my cheek, “I fancy seeing that new one with Sharon Stone.”

  “Basic Instinct?” I asked her, trying not to look too bloody excited.

  “That’s the one,” she said, and I gave her my best crooked smile like that was cool with me, but inwardly I was wondering, because I never would have had the nerve to suggest we went to see a film like that together.

  “Fuck me,” said Clarkey afterwards as we walked home, “doesn’t she get her fanny out?”

  “The barmaid?” asked Tatty excitedly.

  “Not the barmaid,” said Clarkey, cuffing Tatty around the head with the palm of his hand, “Sharon fucking Stone.”

  “I don’t know,” added Carey, “she might.”

  “Might what?” asked Clarkey.

  “Get her fanny out,” said Carey with a grin, “the barmaid; if he asks her nicely.” And he winked at me and, just for a moment, I felt like the cock of the north.

  It was cold and windy on the afternoon of our meet with Anderson, like it always seems to be in Newcastle. We drove up there in Tatty’s knackered old Vauxhall Chevette. It was a purple car with a green bonnet and he was desperate to trade it in for something better, but Carey wouldn’t let him spend any of our stash because it would draw attention to us all. “And that’s a big fucking no-no in this game,” he’d warned us. He’d put all our money in a safe place and we didn’t question it at all. I didn’t question any of it, in fact; why Anderson was calling us up for a meet, why it was happening on the roof of an empty, dilapidated high-rise that’d been condemned by the council and just what work a Scouse gangster was planning to put our way in Newcastle. I was happy to leave the thinking to Carey, mastermind of our big heist down at Bobby Mahoney’s bookies. Carey had inside information on that one. He knew Mahoney used the bookies to launder some of his cash and he didn’t see why we shouldn’t just smash our way in there and take it all.

  We walked up hundreds of stairs because the lifts were out then stepped breathlessly on to the roof of the high-rise. I didn’t even see the blow coming. I just got a monumental smack around the head from something heavy and fell face first on to a hard surface. By the time I came to my senses I had already been picked off my feet by someone much bigger and stronger than me. He effortlessly pinned my hands behind my back and frogmarched me to the edge of the building, then lifted me over the railings like a child. I screamed because I reckoned I was going straight over, but at the last moment he stopped and I desperately scrambled with my feet until my trainers finally got some traction on the slippery ledge. I couldn’t move, though. Carey, Clarkey and Tatty got exactly the same treatment; each one of us trapped on the ledge, held by blokes much bigger than us; proper big-time gangsters.

  “It was the Webley that gave you away,” Bobby Mahoney told us, right after warning that he was
going to chuck us all off the roof. I knew it was Mahoney, even though he was behind me. Everyone from our neck of the woods knew the man. He was a legend in our city and right then he didn’t sound as if he was finished. “You don’t see too many of them around these days. I made a couple of enquiries and someone whispered your names in my ear.”

  The man holding on to me spoke then. “Why are we wasting valuable drinking time on these little queers?” he asked. “Let’s just chuck ’em over.” He sounded serious and Tatty squealed in protest. They’d chosen the right location. The whole estate had been condemned, so there was nobody around to see us fall and the wind was blowing about us, so you wouldn’t even hear us scream on the way down.

  “Let us go,” demanded Carey, “or you’ll be fucking sorry.” But he didn’t sound too confident about that.

  “Careful Jerry,” warned Bobby, and I realized the psychopath holding on to me must have been Jerry Lemon, one of Bobby’s main men. “I hear these lads are protected. A little bird told me they were connected to that Scouse hard-nut Anderson.” And Jerry Lemon just chuckled.

  “You’d better fucking believe it,” said Carey, “you don’t want to go to war with Anderson and we are well in there.”

  “Really? Are you Anderson’s best little boys then?” asked Mahoney, but he didn’t sound convinced. “What’s he promised you, eh?”

  “We work for him now, exclusively,” Carey was blagging, like he was bluffing at poker with a really crap hand. “We’re protected. No one can fuck with us without him straightening them out.”

  “Oh, I see,” said Mahoney, “well I’m quaking in my boots. I can just imagine Anderson telling you that, can’t you Jerry? I wonder how he sounded when he said it.”

  “Ooh I don’t know Bobby,” answered Lemon, “maybe he sounded a bit like this, ‘Alrigh’ La’, I hear you’re da guy who stood up to Bobby Mahoney, what a fucking Billy Big Bollocks you must be eh? You should work for me son, if you want to earn some real money dat is.’”

  I listened to Jerry’s comedy Scouse accent, which sounded like he was a bad London actor playing a bit part on Brookie, but I was looking at Carey, whose head had slumped, his eyes screwed tight shut, and he looked like he was about to cry like a bairn, and I realized the stupid, dumb bastard’s been had. It was Jerry Lemon who phoned up Carey offering him work, not Anderson, getting him to admit he’s the man who ripped off Bobby’s bookies then luring him into a trap up on the roof of a derelict high-rise. I can’t believe the leader of our crew could have been that stupid. All at once, I realized the only man on this roof who was dumber than Carey was me, for following him up here. All I wanted now was to go home and lock my door, climb into bed, pull the duvet over my head and never go out again. My dad warned me when he heard I was hanging around in a gang. “There are no short cuts son,” he told me. He meant I should settle down, get a shit job like his and be a normal person as he called it. I thought that was crap advice at the time, but now it’s all I keep thinking about.

  Bobby confirmed my new view of Carey. “Not the sharpest knife in the drawer, are we son?”

  “Fuck off,” snapped Carey, but there wasn’t much conviction behind it. Bobby took immediate offence.

  “Tell me to fuck off again and see what Finney does to you,” he told Carey. Finney, who was one of the biggest blokes I had ever seen in my life, gave Carey a shake and put the shits up him proper. Carey fell silent, which was the only smart thing he had done this week.

  “Now you are going to tell me where my money is. Otherwise it’s a quick shove and a long goodbye for all of you.”

  “I’m saying nowt,” Carey replied, and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. I was thinking our only chance of avoiding being thrown off this building, to our certain deaths, was to tell Bobby Mahoney where his money was, get it back to him very quickly and beg him to let us off with just a serious beating for offending him. Even then I reckoned our chances were somewhere between slim and nil. Not telling him was insane.

  Before Bobby Mahoney could reply, I shouted, “Tell him, Carey, for fuck’s sake!”

  “Fucking shut up!” Carey screamed at me. “Tell him and he has no reason to let us go.”

  Surprisingly Bobby Mahoney stayed calm, “I can see your dilemma, lads. Young Carey here is right. If you tell me where my money is I might order my boys to throw you all off the ledge. Then again, if you don’t tell me, I will order my boys to chuck you over.”

  “Then you’ll never see your money,” warned Carey.

  “True,” admitted Mahoney, “but then this isn’t really about the money, son. I have enough money. You taking me for a few grand is like you losing fifty quid out of your wallet on a Saturday night. I mean it’s annoying but, in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t matter shit. No,” he continued, “the most important thing is ensuring that other cocky little cunts like you think twice before they try and steal from me, which means making an example of you lot now doesn’t it?”

  None of us said a word. None of us had the courage to speak. Mahoney waited patiently.

  Eventually he said, all matter of fact, “I don’t think these boys are taking us seriously enough.” There was another long pause and, out of the corner of my eye I watched Mahoney take a look at us all, one by one, as if he was weighing us up. Then his eyes rested on Clarkey, who hadn’t said a word up to now, and he nodded at the other enormous bloke who was holding my friend and said, “Joe.”

  I’d seen Joe Kinane around town. He made the bouncers on pub doors look tiny by comparison to his bulk. He straightened and let go of Clarkey who automatically brought his free hands out from behind his back. Clarkey frowned his incomprehension but soon learned why he had been released. Kinane gave him a push and he shot forward. My old school mate went face first off the building, flailing his arms out to his sides, desperately trying to grab something, anything, to save him but he was too far out for that and all he had left to claw at on the way down was air. He seemed to fall so slowly. He didn’t scream but instead just carried on pedalling his arms against the cold air, all the way down, right up to the end until finally he hit the concrete with a sickening sound like fruit being thrown against a wall.

  “Oh God! Oh God!” Tatty was sobbing and gasping. Carey was repeating the same thing over and over again; just saying “Fuck . . . fuck . . . fuck.”

  Me? I couldn’t say anything. I was too terrified to utter a word. I just stood there on the ledge with my mouth open, looking down at Clarkey’s smashed body, expecting him to climb to his feet in a moment and run off like it’s all been a big joke. But he didn’t. I was trying to get my head round the fact that my friend was actually dead, properly gone and wasn’t ever coming back.

  “Who’s next?” asked Bobby Mahoney.

  “Don’t!” I found a voice from somewhere but I didn’t sound like myself anymore. I sounded like the little boy I had suddenly reverted to. “We’ll tell you where the money is.”

  “Shut up!” ordered Carey, but he stopped being the leader of our crew when one of us went off the side of a building. “Don’t tell him!”

  I couldn’t see how not telling Bobby would save him but I think I understood why he was desperate to keep me quiet. Mahoney undoubtedly knew he was the leader of our crew and likely to face most of the older man’s fury, but I didn’t care about that now. I’d forgotten all of that bollocks about friendship and brotherhood. All I cared about was saving my own life.

  Carey was shouting at me. He was louder than me and Bobby was frowning like he was hard of hearing and couldn’t make out what I was saying.

  “Shut up,” he said quietly and we both stopped. “We’ll get to the money. First I want to know who hit her.”

  And I stared at Bobby Mahoney like I had no idea what he was talking about, because I had no idea what he was talking about. “The girl,” he prompted me, “the girl behind the counter, twenty she is, and one of you cunts hit her in the face with a gun, broke her nose and knocked her teeth out
, messed her up proper, ruined her looks, because she wasn’t quick enough filling one of your bags with my money. So,” he took a breath, “who did it?” Then he turned his attention to me. “You,” he said, “tell me. Tell me now.”

  I opened my mouth but the words wouldn’t come out. Bobby looked impatient. “Was it him?” and he nodded at Carey. I glanced at Carey too and he had a desperate look on his face like he knew what was coming and couldn’t do anything to prevent it but was still praying for a different outcome. I’d seen Carey go behind the counter while we kept the punters covered with the shotguns, but I hadn’t seen him hit the girl and he certainly didn’t tell us anything about it afterwards. I couldn’t believe he had done that. Not to a young lass.

  I caught Carey’s eye then I turned to Bobby Mahoney and nodded. Mahoney glanced over at Finney and nodded too like he was getting no pleasure out of this but it was just something he had to do. Carey looked right at me as Kinane pushed him off the building. This time I closed my eyes because I didn’t want to watch him fall. I waited for what felt like an age before I opened them again and glanced over the edge and there was Carey’s body smashed up and twisted on the ground way below us. When I saw Carey go off the edge of the building I felt sick but I couldn’t help wondering, praying in fact, if Bobby Mahoney would be happy now. After all, this was Carey’s idea, all down to him. You could say it was his fault I was standing there, soiling myself and pleading for my life.

  “Now then, ladies, that just leaves the two of you,” said Mahoney. “Since I’m in a good mood today I’m going to be extra generous. I’m going to let one of you live.” Tatty started sobbing again but I was concentrating hard because I believed Bobby Mahoney was telling the truth. He would let one of us live and I was damn certain it was going to be me.

  “Whoever tells me where the money is will walk away from here.”