by Nicky Black
Lifting his head at a knock on the door, he shouted his “come in” and Murphy stood in the doorway.
‘Just got off the phone with the prison, boss,’ he said. ‘Trevor Logan has visited Reggie Collins twice these last three months.’
Peach frowned. ‘Why?’
‘Dunno. Took us ages to get through, coz the prison’s been on lock-down.’ Three guns had been smuggled into the prison, Murphy said, but they’d only found two of them, so the place was a no-go zone. ‘But there’s not been any argy-bargy between them, boss. Seems they’ve kissed and made up.’
‘I doubt it,’ Peach murmured. Guns, drugs, violence, exploitation. It didn’t stop when they got banged up.
Something sat heavy in Peach’s gut; an instinctive sense of providence. ‘Everything ready for tonight?’ he asked.
‘Yup. I even ironed me jeans, boss.’
‘You’ve got an iron?’
Murphy looked hurt. ‘I’ve got all mod cons, thank you very much.’
Peach hmphed. ‘Good, well make sure you use it more often in future.’
***
As the evening drew in, Peach left the station and approached his car but stopped at the sound of crunching glass underfoot. He cursed under his breath as he noticed the smashed windows and the deflated tyres. Eyes darting around the car park, he spotted a young boy sitting on a low wall, digging at the soil behind him with a garden trowel. His bare legs were grubby and bruised, the sole hanging off one of his sandals. When the child looked up, Peach recognised him: the youngest of the Logans, Carl, who was regarding him with a vacant stare. He had the deep reddish-brown hair and black eyes of his father, Billy, the man Tommy Collins’ father had murdered, though not in the cold blood Peach had originally thought.
Carl jumped soundlessly from the wall and meandered past him, the trowel and a plastic carrier bag hanging loosely in his hands. Peach felt his eyes drawn to the child. He was small and frail, the slow walk reminding him of Sally when she was his age, tired from walking and wanting a carry.
When Carl was beyond Peach’s reach, he swivelled around and lifted the carrier bag over his head. ‘Best little thief in Valley Park!’ he shouted.
When Peach wrenched his car door open and looked under the passenger seat, the takings from the rave were gone, and Carl Logan was dragging the trowel firmly along the sides of parked vehicles before sprinting out of sight.
DENISE
Hovering next to the ceramic pit bulls, Denise looked towards her brother’s house with wary eyes. She walked up the gravelled drive, past the Range Rover and the silver MG to the door. She spotted his face at the living room window, and a few seconds later she was dragged roughly inside by her arm. Paul slammed the door and walked past her into the living room, throwing himself onto one of the swivel chairs where he sat rigid, palms clinging to the edge of the arms.
Denise stopped in the doorway, her hand springing to her mouth. The room had been trashed, the bar shattered, the floor littered with broken glass, most of the floorboards upended.
Her voice wavered. ‘Is it true?’ He didn’t look at her, so she asked again. ‘Did you give Tommy drugs?’
It was then she noticed the suitcases, three of them piled on top of one another, their edges just visible behind the slashed leather of the bar.
She took a few steps towards him. He was deep in thought, his face desolate, and she felt a flutter of pity, followed by an overwhelming need to give him comfort.
‘Take me with you,’ she said, her voice hopeful.
Paul just stared at the bar. ‘He’s taken everything.’
It wasn’t the response she wanted, but she kept her voice kind, sympathetic, just like Oprah. ‘What do you mean, love?’
‘That bastard darkie,’ he said, indicating the devastation around him. ‘Kept me safe, kept my money safe, what was left of it. And now he’s gone to work for another bunch of apes.’ He looked up at her. ‘No fucking loyalty.’
Denise took another step towards him. She could be loyal, she could protect him.
‘Even took the fucking dogs.’ Paul leant forward, his head falling into his hands, his shoulders starting to shake. ‘I loved those dogs,’ he whimpered.
Denise clutched at the knot that grasped her stomach; forgiveness, compassion, empathy – she could feel those things again if he would let her.
She ran to him, kneeling in front of the chair, her hands on his knees, imploring him to look at her. They’d be fine, she said, they’d start afresh, together, they’d build a life if he would take her with him. But Paul was shaking his head, his fingers still spread across his face.
‘I’ve got nothing,’ he cried. ‘And I couldn’t take your money.’ He closed his fingers tighter across his eyes and hiccupped a great sob.
The sound made her heart leap, the vulnerability of it. She held his arms, shaking them firmly. She had a few hundred pounds credit on one of her cards, she said. She could get more in a few days. They could go abroad. They were both resourceful people, they’d soon be back on their feet.
‘Card?’ The voice was suddenly clear and steady, the shoulders taut and unmoving.
‘I haven’t got much,’ she said. ‘But what I have got – it’s yours. Ours.’ She brought her hands to his, pulling his fingers from his face, but when he lifted his head, she saw no tears, and the fingers had grabbed her mouth before she could say, ‘What are sisters for?’
His face loomed, and he squeezed, forcing her lips into a painful pout, then he stood, pulling her to her feet and marching her backwards until she fell to the floor. He straddled her, grabbing her hair, and pulling her head back, no amount of clawing at his hands relieving the stinging pain in her scalp.
‘You think I give a fuck about Tommy?’ He pulled harder, his face a mask of rage. ‘It’s your kid you should be thinking about. She’s my currency.’
She began to speak but his hand covered her mouth, finger and thumb nipping her nostrils, halting the words that now vibrated against his palm, muffled and futile.
‘I need this rave to happen tomorrow night,’ he said, ‘and you’re going to make sure my drugs get there, do you understand?’
Her eyes were wide, frantic.
‘What was that copper doing at your house?’
She wanted to tell him she’d got rid of the copper, shielded him, but she couldn’t breathe let alone speak. She squeezed her eyes closed against the pain in her head and lungs, tasted the iron tang of blood.
‘If the police are anywhere near the place tomorrow night, you’ll be sorry.’ His nails dug into her cheeks as his eyes scoured her face.
She nodded, sobs of humiliation obstructing her throat.
‘What did you tell him?’
She shook her head, it was all she could do.
‘Does he know anything?’
She shook her head again, and finally her mouth was free.
She gasped, filling her lungs two or three times before she was able to speak. Her daughter, her Samantha. Would he really hurt her? The answer was written all over his soulless face.
‘If I do what you want, you’ll leave her alone?’ she managed.
‘I’ll be gone, sweetheart.’ He bent down to her ear. ‘Tucker didn’t know where I stashed the drugs.’ And then he sang in a cruel chime, ‘Oh, my love is like a red, red rose.’
The realisation hit her hard. She wanted to scream, scratch her nails down his face, but looking into his eyes, she realised they weren’t her father’s at all, but her mother’s blue eyes, sad and empty. Grief seized her heart, grief for this lost boy she’d once held in her arms, the tiny baby she’d fed with a bottle when her mother’s fingers were broken and useless. With a tear rolling down her temple, she held her hand to his cheek, and for a moment, he closed his eyes and leant into the touch. ‘Forgive me,’ she whispered.
He lifted his hand, rested it over hers and she felt a surge of love. There was still hope for him.
Grasping her fingers, her brother squee
zed the love right out of them. She froze as she felt one of his knees force her legs apart, the ‘No!’ snared in her throat with fear, and his breath warm on her ear.
‘Guilt will be the undoing of you, sister,’ he said. ‘And I’ll tell you this. You can rot in hell.’ His knee pushed further into her thighs and she managed to get the ‘No!’ out.
Not this, please not this. Some people had called him “evil,” and now she knew why.
His knee slid back, and it collided with her groin with such force she felt her pelvis stab into the bones of her hips.
Her face scarlet, her breath trapped, she rolled over as Paul stood in one graceful movement.
‘As if,’ he said.
Saliva was pouring from the side of her mouth onto his shiny white shoes. She couldn’t stop the drooling, she couldn’t breathe, but she could hear her brother’s words.
‘Currency. Remember that.’
TOMMY
Newcastle was dressing itself up to the nines for its Friday night out. The mood was intoxicating, laughter spilling out onto the streets from the hot, boozy air of the pubs. It was eight o’clock and the city centre streets were teaming with townies, students, couples, and arty-types, drunken knots of leather-look trousers and spangly tops whose wearers had had their fill of Happy Hour’s three shots for a pound. They poured from the Metro stations and the buses with one thing and one thing only on their minds: to get as hammered as possible by home time, if not before.
The streets were classless, a fusion of those with, those without, and those who couldn’t care less. The pubs and clubs had their loyal clientele, each faction filtering off at the city’s junctions to spend the night with their own kind. The students crammed into the darker, dingier establishments with gig posters for wall paper. Graduates and young professionals would head for Central Station or the old Quayside bars that stocked German beer they could drink straight from the bottle. The good-timers headed to the Bigg Market where they could drink and cop-off, cry in the toilets with their friends and not have far to stagger for a kebab and a taxi at the end of the night, and all for under a tenner.
The Crown was a traditional alehouse, caught between the crowded, rickety bars of the old Quayside and the contemporary new construction of the Law Courts and its imposing regeneration that threatened to bring a different kind of drinker to the riverside. Valley Park had little to offer young people like Tommy and his friends, only the Nag’s Head and its meat raffles and pissy old men. The Crown offered the best of both worlds: working-class people with ideas, and the opportunity to talk to those who were doing better than yourself, but who weren’t twats.
‘Me mam’s been to Benidorm, like,’ said Frankie, the holiday brochure open on the table. ‘Came back like a fucking radish.’
Despite the heat, Tommy kept his flying jacket zipped up to the neck. He touched his chest now and then, convinced the tubes of ecstasy in his inside pockets were rattling audibly against the pounding of his heart. Feeling tiny spiders of sweat running down his back, he glanced at the door of the pub where Hadgy Dodds stood back to allow a couple into the bar. Tommy tightened his lips and looked at his watch. Jed was outside on the mobile phone, talking to the sound and lighting guys, trying to convince them the money would be in their hands by the morning, money Tommy wouldn’t have until he’d relieved himself of drugs under the noses of men who would take great joy in punishing him for it. Jed had offered to help, the relief evident in his face when Tommy had refused point blank to involve anyone else. Tommy had relayed the story of Paul Smart's involvement in Billy Logan's murder to Jed while Frankie got the pints in. Jed had said nothing, just closed his eyes, shook his head and looked away. But the anger was evident in the set of his jaw and the tapping of his fingers on his biceps. It was all Tommy needed to see. His friend understood; he had his back.
Frankie coughed now, unused to the tense silence. He closed the brochure and began flipping a beer mat from the edge of the table with his fingers, catching it then repeating the process until Tommy snatched it away in irritation. The pub was filling up, the couple taking the last empty table next to them with their pints of Guinness, their hands all over each other, blocking Tommy’s view of the door where he could see the heads of more drinkers streaming in. He watched half a dozen men gathering at the bar. He could spot them a mile off; they were too clean shaven, perfect short back-and-sides hair-cuts. They looked way too employed.
He nudged Frankie and nodded towards the bar.
‘Filth,’ muttered Frankie.
Tommy lifted himself halfway from his stool and strained his neck, his face falling into a frown when, instead of Jed emerging from the growing crowd of drinkers, Tucker appeared and stood still for a moment as if bracing himself before walking towards him.
‘Aye, aye, here’s trouble,’ said Frankie.
Tucker stood over them, his face grisly and misshapen.
‘He hasn’t got your trainer money yet, you’ll have it tomorrow,’ said Tommy on Jed’s behalf.
Tucker bent forward into his face, and Tommy strained his head back. ‘Give over, Tucker, you’ll be giving people nightmares.’
‘I’ve got cash.’ Tucker straightened up and flicked his head towards the vestibule that housed the pub’s toilets.
Tommy thought for a moment. Perhaps Smartie had relented, or maybe Tucker was there to bundle him into a car again. He touched the bruise on his face, the tip of the iceberg of pain. But cash trumped selling drugs any day. With a glance at Frankie, he stood up, Frankie’s hand springing to his arm, a look on his face that asked what the hell he was doing.
‘I’ll be fine,’ said Tommy, although he didn’t quite believe he would be.
A minute later, Tucker stood with his back to the payphone outside the gents, Tommy keeping a safe distance, his instincts on full alert.
Tucker produced a roll of notes, no more than sixty quid. ‘You need to go,’ he said.
Rubbing his hand over his mouth, Tommy stifled a sceptical laugh. He’d heard it all now. ‘Why would Smartie want me gone?’
‘He doesn’t. I do.’
Aye, right. It was some sort of test of his metal. Run away, and he’d be forever listening for footsteps behind him, forever expecting the blow to the head, the bullet in the chest, the hammer to his knees. If he was going to do a moonlight flit, it would be further away than Sheffield.
‘Do you want it, or not?’ said Tucker.
‘Sixty quid?’ Tommy laughed. ‘What we gonna do, live on the streets? Fuck off, Tucker.’
Tucker held the money up. ‘There’s eighty, and it’s all I’ve got.’
Tommy creased his face in irritation. ‘Hey, I might look it, but I’m not daft—’
‘I want to fucking help!’ Tucker looked around him as if surprised at his own raised voice. ‘Just fucking take it.’ He shoved the money into Tommy’s chest, but Tommy kept his arms by his sides.
‘Paul Smart’s bitch wants to help?’
Tucker drew air in through his nose, let it out slowly through his mouth and said, ‘Why do you think I’m here?’
‘Haven’t got a clue,’ Tommy replied. ‘So, if there’s nowt else, I’ve got your boss’s drugs to sell.’ He made to move but stopped at Tucker’s ‘Wait!’
There was more heavy breathing, as if Tucker were preparing himself for a big fight, his fists opening and closing by his sides.
‘He’s not my boss anymore.’ Tucker looked at his feet, then back up at Tommy, who saw something in Tucker's eyes he'd never seen before: sadness. ‘I was too late,’ he said.
‘Eh?’ Tommy was beginning to wonder if Tucker had taken a few too many blows to the head.
‘She was already dead.’ He continued to look at Tommy, his eyes strange, his glare so piercing Tommy could only stare back.
‘Can you not see it?’ Tucker said, grabbing Tommy’s arm.
‘See what, man?’ And as he looked into Tucker’s green eyes, the noise of the pub became muffled, and it was as if he
knew what was coming next.
‘You’re my fucking brother, Tommy.’
There was a beat before Tommy laughed behind the back of his hand, a sound with a bitter edge. He looked Tucker up and down, unconcealed disappointment and disgust shrouding his face. His brother was someone important, someone who would change the world one day. Tucker Brown maimed and killed for Paul Smart, was as savage as the great Jaws himself. His mother could never have given birth to such a creature.
Slowly, he pulled his arm from Tucker’s grasp and stepped away from him, disbelief turning to anger. But Tucker’s eyes stayed steady.
‘It’s true—’
‘Liar.’ Tommy snarled. He’d never been an angry man, never felt this kind of strain and burden. But now, it overwhelmed him, and he thought he might explode with it. ‘Look at the state of you, man!’ he yelled, pushing Tucker back against the payphone. ‘You’re nothing, you’re a nowt.’
‘I’ve got my birth cert—’
‘You’re a fucking animal!’ Tommy spat, finger pointing, ‘and even if you were my brother, which you’re not, I’d fucking disown you!’
He watched Tucker’s face lose its earnestness, the armour returned, protecting the defences he'd let slip for just a few minutes. Then, resisting the desire to spit at the animal’s feet, Tommy stood back, straightened his jacket, and pulled open the door that led back into the pub.
***
Jed was sitting on a stool, looking up at Tommy with a relieved smile and a nod of the head. The sound and lighting guys wanted paying by 9.00 a.m., the full amount, he said as Tommy flopped down next to him.
Tommy sighed and rested his forehead on the balls of his hands, his fingers grasping at his head as he watched Tucker railroad through the pub, pushing people out of his way to get to the door.
‘The antennae’s gone from the flats,’ said Frankie, ‘but that lassie was all right, before she got cut off.’
