The Baby And The Brandy (Ben Bracken 1) (7 page)

‘Take the next left again.’ I do, while Jack continues. ‘There was a case of cash - Berg cash - that went missing up in Edinburgh. One of the Berg, a little charmer called Leonard Freund, took something of value up to Scotland, although I’ve no idea what it was. In exchange, Leonard was given a case containing £1.25 million, but it went missing. Felix got a tip off, or I should say, that his son Michael did, that the money was on the move headed down to London, in a silver BMW. Directly between London and Edinburgh, sits Manchester, which this BMW had to pass to get where it was going. The Berg were completely stuck, they couldn’t intercept him, and I stepped in. I didn’t mean to, but they were in trouble.’

‘You helped them?’ I ask, my eyes fixed on the road. Jack sighs.

‘I saw the BMW, and I forced it off the road. Red mist seemed to descend, or something like it. I didn’t like the fact that this guy had stolen from my Dad, and I wanted to stop him. I forced him off road, and down into a ditch by the M62. The car was fucked, that beautiful Beemer all twisted up like tin-foil, and the guy inside was scrambled egg. But the case was intact on the passenger seat.’

The revelations keep coming, each new piece of information more explanatory than the last - and tantalizing. With the scale of money involved and the activities discussed, we are talking about some serious organized crime players here. Am I in the right place at the right time or what?!

I’m concerned though, and it’s a deep rooted concern that, for me, is twisted deep inside. Last time I tackled organized crime, with that snake Terry Masters, I bit off more than I can chew. I’m stronger now, more lucid - less of an angry haze surrounding my actions. I feel more assured, composed and ready. This is me. This is now. Jack wouldn’t like to hear it... but the Berg are firmly on my radar. That can be my secret, my ulterior motive. Find Royston Brooker’s killer, and bring them to whatever justice we can. Then I’ll turn my attentions to the Berg.

‘You impressed them...’ I say.

‘They intimated as much,’ he replied. ‘First they replaced my car with this one. I hate it.’

‘I love it.’

‘Then they asked me outright. I got the whole spiel, the whole explanation as to who they really are and why they do it, with all the grim details spared. It felt like the Hollywood version, but after I’d seen that guy crushed to a pulp in that ditch on the M62... There’s no glamour there, only ugliness. A life lurching from one grim foray to the next. I don’t want it and told them so.’

I see where his thoughts drift to, but can also tell that the place they end up at is frequented too often for Jack’s liking. ‘But your hands are already dirty, aren’t they?’

Jack looks down into his lap, wearing regret like a lead cloak. ‘Yes. In trying to help Dad, I... made compromises I can’t take back. So you see, I know what it’s like to kill. And I will kill again. I’ve shown I have what it takes.’

It’s with a shred of sadness that I feel Jack’s transference in joining me in murky lawlessness is complete. We are both killers, but only ever wanted to do the right thing. Those are the hands we were dealt, and we both chose to play them - and for that we only have ourselves to blame.

8

Only five minutes of stop-start travel had passed, before Jack directed me off the main carriageway, and down by a principal intersection next to Old Trafford, the vast, giant, cavernous home of Manchester United. I watch the high red neon lettering blink in the drizzle as the car wheels away down around the stadium, towards the visible water of Salford Quays.

We follow the road around, and end up traveling in direct parallel to the water itself. The Quays are essentially a trade stop-off along the Manchester Ship Canal, which now shows off Media City, the northern home of the BBC, and the Lowry Centre, a commerce and theatre flagship. All of this is bolstered by a heady volume of commercial and residential real estate, offering a new way of waterside living just outside Manchester city centre.

I haven’t been back here since I left the city for the armed forces, and the changes are wholesale. It is barely recognizable from the quirky shipping district I remember, and now there is more than a hint that this is a place to see and be seen in.

‘There’s a right ahead, just take it and park up,’ Jack instructs. I do just so, and we both hop out of the car in a small car park that overlooks the entirety of the Quays, the full vista spread in front of us atop it’s watery foundations. It’s a good sight, and I feel a hint of pride at my adopted city’s accomplishment.

‘I take it you know where we are?’ Jack asks, carrying a dark undertone to his voice.

‘Yes. Salford Quays,’ I reply, resting against the railing to take in the view, the water’s surface of the canal about 15 feet beneath my feet.

‘Right. When the explosion of building work took place here, the general thought was that it would be the end to the traditional trade route usage of the Manchester Ship Canal, and certain protocols were relaxed accordingly simply down to the lack of requirement for it. Less stuff was coming in, therefore less regulation was needed. Obviously the viability for using this route was clear, and it is something that the Berg played on big time. They went from pretty much writing off the Quays as too difficult to use in any kind of import export sense, to embracing the Quays fully as a gateway for their own expansion.’

That certainly makes sense. If checks on this area are the same, then the Manchester Ship Canal can be used to import directly from the sea if necessary.

‘Another big bonus’, says Jack, as he turns and points high to the sky over Old Trafford, at a plane that is banking right to change course. ‘Incredible, near immediate access to Manchester Airport.’

I can certainly see the appeal of this particular spot of Manchester, if covert international business and quick getaways are your sort of thing.

‘So, Felix has a warehouse down there by the Lowry, and a residence up there just by the main waterside properties. It’s that one with the tall windows, just away from all the others.’ Jack points, and I follow his finger from a medium-sized blue warehouse, nothing more than a big corrugated iron box with a jetty, and a beautiful looking piece of property that could only really be described as palatial. Floor to ceiling windows are correct, but they are from the very floor of the property to the very ceiling of the second floor, a wooden clad waterside retreat of the highest order. A joke about crime paying threatens to be cracked, but I choose against it.

‘It’s perfect’, I say. ‘You can see everything from there.’

‘That’s right,’ Jack says. ‘Including us.’ And with that, Jack waves at Tricky’s house, in a rather jovial manner. He follows it up by standing for a couple of seconds with outstretched arms, his features imploring recognition. ‘Like you say - we get his attention’, he adds.

I’m growing increasingly wary. If this group, the Berg, really are apex predators in Manchester’s grimy criminal ecosystem, prodding a wounded animal at this time when they have just lost one of their own is perhaps not the best thing to do. But Jack seems to think he’s a little untouchable as far as Felix is concerned. I hope he is right, and in fairness to him, he’s not been too wrong so far.

In situations where friction is imminent, planning and control are the two elements that prevent haphazard escalation and things getting out of hand. The events of the morning have spiraled, but only in terms of information. I feel an urge to expand on intel, and start at least formulating a line of inquiry. The prospect of action is looming ever closer, but it resembles more of a distant heady fog than an ordered staccato timeframe. I know I’m good at thinking on my feet, but there is no substitute for information. If this is the way for Jack to get it, then that’s fine. But there are a shitload of variables to this one. And waving at a crime-lord’s house does not sit atop the pile as the shrewdest thing to do.

I sit on the bonnet of the Lexus, and wait. Jack lowers his arms and sits next to me, our eyes fixed on the house across the water, our ears filled with the soft hush of breeze and the shriek of gulls.

‘How are you feeling?’ I ask, but I stop him from answering. ‘That’s not really for you to answer, more that I just want you to take your feelings into account. Don’t get carried away. Front and centre, you want a name. If Felix has one, take it. Then let’s plan the next move accordingly. I am no good to you if you fizz off on your own, flying off the handle. If you get a name, we get our heads together, and we build something with a beginning, middle and end, with multiple entrances, exits and contingencies. If we need to act with urgency, then we’ll take that as it comes. Do you understand that?’

‘OK’ Jack replies.

But something else is bothering me. Even though I feel as if I want to help Jack, that somehow our journeys are interconnected, I’m still not sure why he asked me. I feel that my concern is worth attacking straight on, because while I am here and will happily attend to some garbage-removal on behalf of this poor city, Jack seems like he’s got enough bottle to step out on his own here.

‘Jack, your... ability, if that’s what you want to call it, or your... tenacity, should you prefer that, has seen an attempt to recruit you by a hefty organized crime syndicate. You appear to me, that you can handle yourself, and that this situation is one you will settle with or without my help. I want to know why you asked for it.’

Jack doesn’t shift his gaze at all, still burning a hole through those perfect floor to ceiling windows. He takes a minute to think about it, kneading his answer over.

‘I realize that what I want is an eye for an eye. And I don’t want any mistakes. This situation is one that I never expected to be a part of, nor one that I ever thought I’d see. The way you took care of those men a couple of years back, that no nonsense display of problem-solving, is something I need right now. And I’m not sure on my own I can deliver it. Yes, I’ve spilt blood -’

‘But you’ve realized there is a big difference between the ways it gets done,’ I interrupt. Just like for Her Majesty, only much less thinly veiled, I’m here for the dirty work.

‘You know that there is a certain detachment to pulling a trigger, a certain distance to running someone off the road in a car. And you imagine it will be lot different if you have to pull someone close, and slide a knife between their ribs, back and forth a couple of times, watch his eyes explode then glaze as you pierce something vital, then hold them while they die at your side. You need me to make sure, if that’s what’s needed for retribution, that’s what’s going to get done. And I’m the best way to make sure it will happen.’

Jack thinks about this for a long moment. In truth, I’m not surprised, nor hurt by his admission by silence. At least he’s had the guts to say it, in a fashion, unlike my previous superiors who sent me out into the field, knowing what I was going to come up against then gleefully washing their hands of the horror as soon as I was out of earshot. I am, indeed, a grisly problem solver. And a good one too. And I hope that if it comes to that, whatever happens, will be for the greater good.

I turn to the view again, leaving Jack to his silence. I begin imagining an overhead map in my head, as I take what is laid out in 3D in front of me and transform it into a top-down, flat, contour-free patchwork. I look for nuance in this, anything out of the ordinary, and for extra detail. I’ll bring up a Google map later, but it may be out of date, or featureless. If that happens, I’ll layer my own findings onto the top.

Regardless of who killed Royston Booker, and what might happen to them, curtailing the Berg’s criminal activities is something I definitely want to factor in - it’s all part of what I stand for. The abuse and endangerment of the innocent in the pursuit of monetary gain by criminal means... That is what I want to deal with. If I can use the Berg, with Jack’s help, to bring justice to Royston’s killer, I can use what I have learned to bring the Berg to account at a later date. Perhaps get some evidence of criminal activity I can drop at the police’s doorstep, something that would see them arrested, and result in their operations being shut down.

My ulterior motive is taking shape. Jack doesn’t know about my reasons for escaping prion - my new plans and purposes. He must think I’m just happy to be out and doing him a favor. Well, I will - to an extent. And then it’s my turn.

A soft rattling swoosh heralds the arrival of another car, pulling up next to us, and as soon as it has come to a stop, two men have jumped out. One wears a dark jumper, jeans and work boots, looks about 45, salt and pepper hair in a strange mid-nineties centre parting. The other, presented much more of the present era, is in full Nike sports wear, athletic but with bulk, like a wide receiver, with tension and coil. He looks like he could chase down a Mack truck and stick it in a headlock.

Salt and pepper speaks. ‘Hey, Jack, you got a minute?’

He doesn’t even glance at me, absolutely zero acknowledgement that I am there at all.

‘You know I do, Michael’, replies Jack. ‘What do you think I’m doing here?’

Mr. Nike says nothing, merely opening the rear passenger door, then resting his arm against it.

‘So... shall we?’ says Michael, running a hand through that abhorrent hair, and it flops straight back into place thanks to what I can only imagine is thanks to years of precisely aligned mistreatment. I opt to let this situation play out - it’s just more intel at this point.

‘You got it.’ says Jack, walking towards the car, while turning to me. ‘Would you mind the car for me?’

I merely nod back, while keeping an eye on the other men. Neither meet my gaze, nor acknowledge my presence. They seem cool, experienced, regimented almost. Well oiled. Well versed.

It stays that way as they reverse backwards and out into the roadway, then accelerate gradually away. As they go, I can almost make out Mr Nike glance in his wing mirror at me, but I can’t be sure. I turn back to the waterside, and let the cool breeze float across me. It smells icy, and dark. Like the rivers I visited in my youth. Gulls shriek through the low whistle, but I can’t see them. My eyes are centered on the house opposite. Felix Davison’s house.