Nightmare City (31 page)

He did not actually own the club outright, but held a
fifty-one per cent stake in it, the remaining forty-nine per cent
divided between Morton and McNamara through a complex series of
financial manoeuvrings which kept their ownership as secret as
possible. Conroy covered the door with his own men and this ensured
that only his dealers had access to the clientele and therefore he
had a stranglehold on the drug trade inside. The Electric was not a
big club, holding a capacity of two hundred. Nevertheless he
cleared about £1500
per week through it in
drugs money alone.

It was very rare for him to put in a personal appearance at
such a low level. He tried to keep his distance from the streets
these days.

Dundaven usually dealt with things here and Conroy was a tad
uncomfortable as he sat in the manager’s office and glowered at the
head doorman who sat on the couch, a towel pressed into a nasty
gash on his cranium. He had escaped lightly. The two other doormen
had been whacked into oblivion and taken to hospital by
ambulance.

The cops had been and gone, fobbed off by the manager, by the
time Conroy arrived.

‘
What happened?’

‘
We didn’t stand a chance,’ the doorman whined. ‘They pulled
up outside, two cars, three in each, balaclavas on. They were into
us before we could do fuck-all.’

Conroy sighed. Men in balaclavas. Right up Munrow’s
street.

‘
And ..?’ he urged the man on impatiently.

‘
And they beat the living crap out of us with baseball bats or
pick-axe handles - I don’t know which. You don’t really care when
you’re being clonked. They both fucking well hurt.’

‘
Why weren’t you ready? I thought protection was your job.
It’s what you’re paid for, isn’t it?’

The doorman looked sourly up at him. ‘Ready? Give us a break,’
he said. Although he knew he was talking to the boss, the pain in
his head made him angry. ‘Why should we be ready for
that?’

‘
Because I fucking pay you to be ready, you fucking wanker!
Where were your bats?’

‘
Behind the cash counter. If we had them on us all the time
the cops’d pull us. We keep’ em out of sight and only grab’ em when
we need’ em.’

‘
You mean you didn’t need them tonight?’

‘
We was attacked - out of the blue. It weren’t like trouble
was brewing.’

‘
Did they say anything?’

‘
No.’

Conroy sat back and crossed his legs. He was annoyed and
worried at the same time. Fucking Munrow! This had to be down to
him. It was times like this that Conroy needed Dundaven. He would
have arranged to sort Munrow out in the most appropriate way. But
with Hughie locked away, a vital link in his set-up had been
severed.

Shit. How to get Munrow out of his hair? Then he remembered
Tony Morton’s suggestion which, reading between the lines, went
something like: Get John Rider to do your dirty work for
you.

But how could he get Rider sufficiently riled with Munrow to
take him out?

Conroy rolled his neck. It cracked obscenely.

‘
Let’s have a look at the Thunderpoint. See if it’s the same
pathetic story,’ he said to his bodyguards.

It was.

But at least he had had an idea about Rider and Munrow. A
double whammy. One which would sort both of them out.

They were ready for the
piece de
resistance.

Possibly the biggest club operating in Lancashire, that
midweek night was the Salsa, near Fulwood, just off the M55. Out of
town, plush, up-to-date with state-of-the-art sound and lighting,
it was frequented by footballers, Manchester pop stars and other
minor celebs. The Salsa was a good, well-managed, profitable club
with a capacity of almost fifteen hundred with it usually reached
on Friday and Saturday nights.

The Salsa was the jewel in Conroy’s crown. He owned one
hundred per cent of it. A poor week netted him five grand in drug
money alone. In entrance fees, which went through the books and
were properly audited, the club grossed over £50,000 each week.
Easily.

Conroy strove hard to keep it one of the best clubs in the
north. It was the only one he ever visited. He often paid celebs to
frequent it and give it the necessary credibility. You could almost
guarantee to see somebody well-known, whatever night of the week.
The off-chance of dancing on the same floor as a pop star or a
five-million-pound footballer probably drew in an extra two hundred
bodies a week.

It was a perfect target for Munrow to make his
point.

From the car park they made their way in a businesslike manner
to the front of the club. Staves and bats were secreted up sleeves
or down trouser legs. Shotguns were held firmly under
jackets.

The balaclavas went on at the last moment. Within seconds they
had pole-axed the doormen and entered the club.

They rampaged through the place like a pack of wild dogs.
Indiscriminately hitting innocent people, smashing tables and
destroying the disco console.

Munrow made his final point by having two of the bouncers
dragged onto the dance floor and laid face down.

In full view of all the customers, many of whom were drugged
up to the eyeballs, he placed his shotgun in the soft flesh at the
back of the left knee of one of the bouncers and pulled the
trigger. He did the same to the other.

Munrow and his business associates then fled.

And not one witness, out of a total of four hundred and ten
people, saw a thing.

Funny, that.

Chapter Fourteen

The avenue was wide, tree-lined and very pleasant. Extremely
middle-class. On either side of the road was a grass verge which
was covered with a coating of pure white fluffy snow. Behind the
grass verges ran wide footpaths, behind which were the garden walls
which fronted the houses. They were all detached, five- or
six-bedroomed affairs with driveways which had an entrance and an
exit. Set back at the rear of the houses were double garages the
size of small bungalows. The gardens were all lawns and
landscaping. Stockbrokers and solicitors abounded here, a good
place for them to live, not far from Manchester and the towns of
central Lancashire. They had their own little railway station
nearby that made commuting a doddle.

Rider looked at his watch. 7 a.m. A couple of minutes before,
a milkman had trundled down the avenue in one of those electrified
carts, in and out of the driveways, and now the place was quiet
again.

It was very dark. A real winter’s morning. It would probably
be ten before the night was completely shrugged off.

The dull ache in Rider’s body became more than uncomfortable.
He changed his position slightly for the hundredth time, yawned
again, long and weary. It had been a long night.

He shivered and hoped it wasn’t to be an unproductive one.
Otherwise he’d have to revisit a certain transvestite and drown
him/her in a toilet.

Rider was sitting in the front passenger seat of a tatty Ford
Transit van parked up on the avenue, underneath the overhang of
some roadside trees. The van was totally out of place, exposed.
Rider knew it would only take one phone call from an early-rising
public-spirited resident to bring the cops sniffing around. He was
living on borrowed time and the later it got, the less he
had.

With increasing restlessness he was observing the front of one
of the houses about a hundred metres away.

It was fucking freezing and though the engine was ticking over
like there were lumps of lead in the petrol, the pathetic heater
was only gasping out lukewarm air. He wasn’t dressed for the cold,
only wearing his nightclub gear of thin suit and tie.

Efficient as ever, Jacko, sitting in the driver’s seat, was
appropriately dressed for the winter weather in a duffel coat,
thick socks, boots and cord pants. His gloved hands were resting on
the steering wheel. He constantly had to wipe the screen with the
back of his hand to see through the thin veil of frost which was
forming relentlessly on the inside of the glass as their breath
froze.

Jacko looked glum and unhappy. He did not want to be here. He
desperately hoped nothing would happen.

‘
You should get a decent van,’ Rider complained. ‘I’m freezing
my balls off sat here.’

‘
It is a decent van,’ Jacko replied stonily. ‘Is he gonna come
or what?’

‘
Yes.’ There was more certainty in Rider’s voice than he
felt.

‘
Then what?’

‘
Leave it to me. My problem.’

‘
I don’t like this one little bit, John,’ the other said
nervously. ‘Why get involved? I know you got battered, but this is
a dangerous world - and I really don’t want anything to do with
it.’

‘
I know. You won’t be involved. Trust me.’

Jacko gave him a contemptuous glare from the corner of his
eyes.

Rider was experiencing some guilt in roping the barman in, but
he had no one else to turn to other than Isa, and she wouldn’t be
much use in a situation like this. ‘I appreciate what you’re
doing.’

The barman merely snorted, giving the impression he wasn’t
remotely taken in by Rider’s words. He wiped the window
again.

A vehicle turned into the other end of the avenue, lights
blazing. It came towards the Transit. Rider got ready. But it was
only the gritting lorry thundering past, showering the Transit with
road salt.

‘
At least there’s nothing left to rot,’ Rider said
dryly.

‘
One more remark about this van and we’re going,’ Jacko
snapped. He meant it. ‘You could’ve used your Jag.’

‘
And he might’ve recognised it . . . Hang on.’

Another vehicle turned into the avenue from the same
direction, travelling slowly. A car. Instinctively Rider touched
Jacko’s arm. They both sank down.

This car turned into the driveway of the house they were
watching and pulled up outside the front door. The security lights
clicked on and bathed the whole front garden with white light. The
car lights were switched off. A man got out, went up the steps to
the door and pressed the bell.

Rider’s throat constricted.

‘
Is it him?’ Jacko hissed.

Rider couldn’t say for sure. He was three hundred feet away
and he could hardly see sod-all through the iced-up
screen.

The upstairs house lights came on. Seconds later the front
door opened.

The man stepped inside, the door closed.

‘
Well?’ Jacko demanded.

Rider shook his head. ‘I’ll take a chance.’ He reached under
the front seat and pulled out the revolver he had confiscated at
the zoo. He held it up ominously, feeling a charge of adrenalin zip
through him. His hand shook ever so slightly. Fear? Excitement?
‘Give me fifteen minutes and if I haven’t reappeared, call the
cops, emergency or something. Use your imagination, ‘cos it’s
likely one or both of us’ll be dead.’

He jumped out of the van without looking at Jacko and trotted
towards the house, making the first footprints of the day in the
snow.

Henry Christie’s two daughters - Jenny, fifteen and Leanne,
nine - were both at an age when privacy meant a great deal to them.
They had a room each and were very protective of their
environments. They hated adults in their rooms, full
stop.

Both were also acutely aware of their developing bodies, Jenny
more so than Leanne, obviously. Should their dad, by accident, see
anything more than he should, or even see their underwear in the
washing basket, there would be screams of embarrassment. Usually
from him.

His privacy and body, however, were fair game for
them.

And at the same time as John Rider stepped out of the van that
morning,

Henry was thinking how unjust the world was when he couldn’t
even have a crap in peace.

He had settled himself, quite naked, on the toilet in
the
en-suite
adjoining his and Kate’s bedroom. He straightened out that
morning’s
Daily Mail
and looked forwards to ten minutes of bliss. He hadn’t even
had the time to digest the sports headlines when Leanne burst in
without knocking, tearing into the littlest room like a chattering
whirlwind in jimjams, frightening the shit out of her father. He
quickly covered his private parts with the newspaper. Leanne,
seemingly oblivious to his predicament, commenced to show him some
drawings she’d done at school the day before.

‘
Mmm, yeah, lovely. Nice - that’s a good one,’ Henry said,
trying to appear enthusiastic. A trapped critic. At that point he
was having a few problems holding back his natural bodily
functions.

Then his eldest daughter, Jenny, appeared. ‘Hi, Dad,’ she said
brightly. She came in and helped herself to a towel and a bottle of
shampoo. On her way out she looked at him critically. He squirmed
and coloured up. ‘You’ve put some weight on,’ she said and legged
it with a giggle.