I had to admit she was right. It didn’t look good for Toddy. ‘Look, just do your absolute best for this guy, okay? Will you do that?’
‘Of course, but will you also do something for me?’
‘Name it.’
‘Stay away from Martin Todd. You can’t do anything to save him and we don’t want you appearing on his friends and family list right now. You may think my firm is expensive Mr Blake but this is one piece of advice I am giving you for free.’
8
.......................
I took a cab out to my brother’s house. Our young’un, as I always called him, had a new place. Until recently, my older brother had been content with my old apartment, which was a whole lot better than the one he had been living in before I employed him. Then, abruptly, he said he wanted somewhere bigger, with a garden. I just laughed at him. I couldn’t see it really; my big brother Danny tending his petunias. Anyway I took the piss out of him but I didn’t argue. It was his business what he spent his money on.
He’d been in the new place a few weeks now and when I pulled up outside he was in the front garden cutting back the hedges with one of those big electric trimmers. He had his shirt off while he worked, revealing a tanned and muscular torso, covered with long-faded Parachute Regiment tattoos on his arms and back. On his chest he had the cap badge with a motto underneath; the Latin words ‘Utrinque Paratus’, which translates as ‘ready for anything’ and was as suitable a motto for our firm as any I could think of. On his back was a huge airborne forces emblem of Bellerophon atop a winged Pegasus wielding a spear to kill the Chimera. I knew fuck all about Greek mythology, but I knew that story. I could still remember the day Our young’un first showed me his new tattoo. He’d not been in the Paras long and was about to go off to the Falklands, a war that completely fucked him up for thirty years or so, before I finally got him straightened out. He came home pissed one night, woke me up and pulled off his shirt to show me the fresh new tattoo. I was only about seven and it scared the shit out of me. I don’t think I really understood what he had done. It felt like that bloody man with the spear somehow owned him after that. The tattoo had faded, but the childhood memory was still vivid.
It was a warm day, but not hot enough to strip to the waist so I reckoned it wasn’t down to the weather, and it turned out I was right. I paid the taxi and walked towards his front gate, just as a woman came out of the house next door, carrying a little tray with a cold glass of beer on it. I’d say she was about forty; quite tidy in her own way, with a gym-toned body and expensive hair-do with blonde streaks in it. She had a look that must have cost a few bob to maintain and, as she smiled at Our young’un, I wondered where her old man was right now. My guess was he worked away somewhere, sweating to earn the money she needed to keep looking so fit.
‘I thought you looked thirsty,’ she announced, offering the tray over the hedge towards him.
‘You read my mind, pet,’ answered Danny and he wiped his brow with the back of his hand theatrically, then reached out and accepted the beer. ‘Ta very much.’
Danny still hadn’t seen me, which was why he stood straight, raised the bottle and took a long slow drink from it, giving the woman plenty of opportunity to check out his muscles. She looked like a cat eyeing a bowl of cream.
‘Now then, Danny!’ I called and he almost choked on his beer. ‘How’s it hanging bro?’
He actually coughed then, as if the beer had gone down the wrong way. He managed to keep his composure while he introduced me. ‘This is Davey,’ he told the woman next door, ‘my little brother.’ He put a bit more stress than was necessary on the little, like he always did when he was narked at me. He forgot to tell me her name so I simply leaned over the hedge and shook the hand not holding the tray.
‘I’m Stephanie,’ she said, before adding unnecessarily, ‘Daniel’s neighbour.’
‘Daniel?’ I asked and he gave me a look, ‘very pleased to meet you Steph,’ I told her, ‘hope I’m not interrupting,’ and she looked a little flushed.
‘Not at all,’ she assured me, ‘Daniel was trimming his bushes so he offered to do mine while he was at it.’
I stifled a smirk and made out like I was admiring his handiwork, but she was still standing right behind the shrub I was looking at. ‘Nice tidy bush,’ I told him.
‘Thanks,’ he told me stiffly, ‘were you just passing, like?’
‘’Fraid not,’ I said, ‘need a word,’ then I looked at her, ‘the family business.’
‘Of course,’ she said, ‘I’ll leave you men to it then. Unless you’d like a cold beer too Davey?’
‘No thanks, I’m fine, but it’s very kind of you to offer.’
‘No trouble at all.’
‘Thanks Stephanie,’ he told her retreating rump as she sashayed back into the house, closing the door behind her.
‘Careful Our young’un, wouldn’t want you to get caught up in her clematis.’
He picked up the hedge trimmers and waved them at me like he was about to cut my head off with them, then we both walked towards his garage so he could put them away. I wasn’t going to let him off that lightly.
‘Oil rigs?’ I asked.
‘Eh?’
‘Her husband? Aberdeen is it, or is he a travelling salesman?’
He smirked like he was about to ‘fess up to something, ‘Dubai.’
‘You dirty bugger,’ I said, ‘you’re like one of those randy blokes from “On The Buses”, always trying to get your end away with some other bloke’s bird.’
‘What?’ he mock-protested, ‘I haven’t done anything.’
‘Yet.’
‘Hey, it’s not my fault if she’s after my chap. I’m not encouraging her.’
‘Apart from taking your shirt off and offering to trim her bush for her.’
‘Alright Finbarr Saunders, you can stop with the bush jokes now,’ he told me firmly. ‘Besides, she’s too old for me.’
‘She’s a few years younger than you,’ I reminded him.
‘Yeah, well I prefer ‘em young,’ he said, and from what I’d heard he was getting them too. It was an amazing transformation. Two years back no woman in Newcastle would have given our Danny the time of day. He was broke, unemployed, drinking too much and he lived in a shit-tip but now his life was turned around and all because he was working for me. He had money, nice clothes, he wasn’t drinking anything like as much as he used to and everybody knew who he was. Not every girl in the city wanted to go out with someone in his line of work but there were enough who did like a bad boy to keep him going. They wanted to be seen with him and he was lapping it up.
‘Well, be careful, she looks like she’d eat you alive.’
‘She’s alright,’ he told me.
I figured we’d wasted enough time on small talk so I asked him, ‘What do you know about Doyley getting shot?’
‘Not much. We followed it up, obviously, but there’s no strong lead, no one with any major reason to follow him down to the Quayside and shoot him, or pay someone to do it for them. I even went and saw him in the hospital and he has no idea who did it. He’s scared shitless, obviously, and a bit delirious with all of the drugs pumped into him.’
‘I’d have thought he was used to that,’ I said.
‘At least Doyley lives up to his nickname,’ he said ruefully, ‘now he’s got holes in him.’
‘Braddock wouldn’t want him out of the way for any reason?’ I asked.
‘It’s possible, I suppose, we’d thought of that. But why would he go to all of that trouble to get rid of a member of his own crew outside a hotel on the Quayside? Much easier to do it on the estate where no one sees anything.’ I’d thought of that too, of course, but I’d wanted to hear what Danny had to say about it, ‘I’m not saying that Braddock isn’t a toerag, pain-in-the-arse, because he is, and he needs sorting,’ he added, ‘but him shooting Doyley makes no sense.’
‘Has there been a lot of heat on us?’
‘The
Police have gone a bit mental about it, as you can imagine. They don’t mind that much if a drug dealer gets shot on the Sunnydale estate or any of the high-rises but they ain’t too keen when he’s gunned down outside a tourist haunt in the Quayside.’
‘I figured as much. Who came to see you?’
‘Who do you think? D.I Clifford,’ and he snorted, ‘I think he is losing the plot. He kept demanding to see Bobby, of all people. He’s got it into his head that Bobby is back in Newcastle.’
‘Bloody hell.’
‘Anyway he left a message for Bobby,’ he said.
‘Which was?’
‘It was a bit rambling but it was all about keeping the streets of Newcastle safe for the good folk of the city and how he wouldn’t tolerate another shooting.’
‘That bloke is a heart attack.’
‘Agreed,’ he said and he glanced at his watch, ‘so you’re back,’ he said solemnly, ‘and I haven’t got any plans for the afternoon. Are you finally going to show me it or what?’
Danny drove us down to the nightclub in his Jaguar XF. He tried to pretend he wasn’t that arsed about his new car but I was sure he secretly thought he looked like the DBs behind the wheel. We parked outside the new club, which had been custom-built on an old lot on the Gateshead side of the river. We’d bought an old club that had been forced to close down, demolished it brick by brick and put the new building up in record time. It was a cavernous place. ‘Jesus Christ,’ said Danny, I’ve seen aircraft hangers smaller than this…’
The club still needed a bit of work; a lick of paint in places and the attention of a sparky but we were almost there. Our young’un was looking round, taking in the huge lighting rigs, the glass lift to the VIP area and the podiums. ‘Amazing,’ he announced, above the din of the workmen.
‘A lot of it was down to Sarah.’
‘How’s that? She’s never even set foot in the place.’
‘I showed her the plans and I got a bloke to do me a virtual version, you know a 3-D mock-up on the computer. She took one look at it and went, “No, that’ll never work” and “what you need is one of these” and me being a mug I listened to her. She had some great ideas, really transformed the place. None of them were cheap, mind.’
‘You really think we can compete with the Diamond Strip? I thought the Quayside was dying on its arse these days.’ The so-called Diamond Strip was an area of pubs and clubs north of the Quayside at the top of the hill, centred around Collingwood Street. It was the place to be seen since it became the preferred venue for rappers, footballers and Z-List reality TV personalities.
‘If this club does what I expect it to, we’ll drag the whole party scene back across the river,’ I assured him.
Danny looked unconvinced. ‘Must have cost a friggin’ fortune.’
‘It did,’ I admitted.
He shook his head, ‘I’m sure you know what you’re doing, bro’, but I can’t see how you’re ever going to make any money out of this place.’ I laughed at him and Danny looked baffled. ‘What’s the joke?’
‘It’s not supposed to make any money, Danny,’ I assured him.
‘I don’t get it.’
‘The whole place is one huge launderette,’ I explained, ‘the money from the sale of our product comes in and it goes through the books as admission money from non-existent customers and their proceeds from the bar. The club can be half full, making a massive loss and I don’t give a shit, just so long as we can wash our dirty cash and it goes out the other side clean and ready for the accountant to wrap it up in a bow.’
Danny thought for a moment. ‘That’s bloody genius.’
‘It’s one of my better ideas,’ I admitted, ‘do you want to hear another one?’
‘Suppose so,’ he wasn’t looking at me. His eyes were wandering round the place again and he looked like a kid in a sweet shop.
‘Once it’s open, I’ll need someone to run the place.’ He looked at me now. ‘Do you know the kind of person I’m looking for?’
He grinned at me, ‘A handsome, rock hard, former para who’ll leave the hard men quaking and the ladies sliding off their seats?’
‘No, a crude, thick fucker who’ll do what he’s told because he doesn’t know any better.’
Danny beamed. ‘When do you want me to start, like?’
‘Opening night,’ I told him. I was relieved he was so up for the job. Along with Palmer and Kinane, Danny had been my main muscle since I became the boss, but I was keen for him to take a bit of a back seat now. Doyley getting shot had reminded me how tough this business we had chosen could be. I liked the idea of Danny being the face of our club, no longer the guy out there collecting protection money or taxing our local villains. I could trust him to keep a proper eye on the club and it would keep him safe.
‘What are you going to call the place?’ he asked.
‘“Cachet”,’ I told him. I’d not long decided on a name but I liked it. It was short and snappy, a one-word depiction of style, which I reckoned would fit the bill.
‘Should call it “The Laundry”,’ he told me.
9
.......................
We’ve got twenty-three pubs in Newcastle and Gateshead. The Mitre was one of those pubs and tonight we had the big upstairs bar to ourselves. The lads were downing pints and, as usual, Hunter had put himself in charge of the old-fashioned jukebox. None of the boys minded because they couldn’t be bothered to change the tunes themselves and he kept us entertained, his lazy eye scrutinising the track lists as he sought inspiration. Trouble was that he thought nobody made decent music after 1985, so the choices were a bit limited. The boys enjoyed Meatloaf’s Bat Out of Hell, followed by Fleetwood Mac’s The Chain, because they could play air-guitar to them, then he gave us some Cult and a bit of AC/DC, followed by Bryan Adams’ Run to You. It was like we’d all suddenly gone back in time in one of those crap TV series.
I watched Hunter choose the next round of tracks. These get-togethers were virtually the only time we ever saw Hunter dressed in anything but overalls. That night he was wearing a pair of jeans and a blue pullover his missus probably picked up for him in Marks & Sparks at the Metro Centre. He didn’t look much like a hardcore criminal from this distance, but he had seen some things in his time and he’d dealt with a lot of shit for the firm. He was tall and stocky and his hair was now more grey than brown. He would have had a forgettable enough face if it wasn’t for that lazy eye. When Hunter looked at you, one eye was fixed on yours and the other seemed to be staring at a spot somewhere over your left shoulder, which could be a little distracting. Hunter was our Quartermaster, and his cover was the body shop he had in the arches under the railway bridge. If the boys needed a piece they went there to see him, their comings and goings easily explained to the police by a duff radiator or burned out clutch.
The whole crew was there that night. More than twenty of our most-trusted faces. I like to get them together from time to time. Bobby used to do the same thing. Put them all in a room with free beer on tap and watch them. I didn’t have an ego about it but I needed them all to see men like Palmer, Kinane and my brother Danny deferring to me on business matters. That way, no one was likely to forget who I was or where I fit into the scheme of things.
We’d been there a couple of hours when Palmer walked in, straight from the airport. He got an ironic cheer for making the effort even though he was late and he waved to acknowledge it. When he saw me at the bar he came straight over. He was wearing the long black leather coat he always wore these days. It was the only thing I could ever remember him spending any money on and he virtually lived in it. It had been raining outside and the drops clung to his shoulders and the top of his head. He’d given up on his thinning hair and spontaneously shaved it all off one day then turned up the next morning ‘looking like Yul Brynner,’ as Kinane put it. That was the kind of thing Palmer did. He didn’t bang on about it, or even discuss it with anyone. One minute he had hair, the next he was shaven headed and
sporting a thin layer of stubble that, if anything, made him look even harder.
I was relieved Palmer was back from his meeting with the Turk. I took a quiet table in the corner so we could talk before we rejoined the rest of the lads.
‘How’d it go?’
‘Easy. It’s a shame we’re not in the Euro.’
‘You’re not serious.’ It was the first time I’d heard that view expressed in the UK in a while.
‘A million Euros weighs a lot less than a million pounds,’ he explained, ‘and you can fit it all into one bag.’
‘I meant how did the meeting go?’
‘Okay,’ he said.
‘Any hitches?’
He shook his head, ‘No.’
He took a sip of his pint and I took a sip of mine.
‘You were gone a while.’ I noted.
‘They do things slowly over there. You have to meet everyone before they even sit down to talk business, you know that.’ I didn’t know that, but then I had only met the Turk twice. I left the rest of it up to the men I trusted. ‘I lost count of how many cousins he introduced me to but they all work for him. His is a big operation. I had the deposit on me for three days before he agreed to accept it. I slept lightly with that amount of money in my room I can tell you.’
‘So why did it take so many days to shake hands on the deal? You did shake hands on it?’
‘Yes we did and I told you, they do things slowly out there.’ Palmer seemed a little edgy. Was he nervous because he had something to hide or nervous because he didn’t and the last thing he wanted was me to think that he had? Maybe it was just me. Perhaps I was the edgy one these days. ‘He wanted certain assurances for starters.’
‘What kind of assurances?’
‘The usual kind; are we secure as an organisation? Do we have a safe, foolproof route to get the product into the UK? Did we have enough money to buy that amount of product from him each and every month?’
The Damage (David Blake 2) Page 7
