The Drop (16 page)

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S
harp brought a bloke down to my flat to make an identikit drawing, so I didn’t have to go into the station. He told the artist it was for my protection.

‘Don’t worry,’ he said, ‘I gave him some bullshit about you being an innocent caught up in a gangland feud.’

‘I am,’ I said, which made him laugh out loud though that wasn’t my intention.

The artist quizzed me about every aspect of my attacker’s features, as his hand skimmed over his pad. With a last confident stroke of his pencil, he finished and turned it round to show me the result. There, looking right back at me, was an unmistakeable likeness of Weasel-face. I noted with satisfaction that if you knew him you would have recognised him, except now that same face would be sporting stitches where the broken shard of urn had sliced deep into his skin.

After the identikit guy had gone, I asked Sharp, ‘what next?’

‘Officially, I’ll be circulating his image round all the nicks in the area. On the assumption he’s an outsider, I’ll be concentrating on other forces. I can’t see a local villain wanting to rob one of Bobby Mahoney’s men,’ he shrugged, ‘might as well dig his own grave.’

‘And unofficially?’

‘I’ll get a copy of the sketch and send it round that other little world we are familiar with, till one of our grasses comes up with a name to match the face. If he’s out there, if he’s known, we’ll get him eventually.’

Sharp had the right idea. If we found anything it would more than likely be through a grass. There’s a lot of shite spoken about the criminal code. People bang on about it as if the last thing any villain would ever do is grass up another crook to the police. What a load of crap that is. The city is full of informants, from the lowest dealer on the street right up to the very top. At street level, a dealer might keep himself out of nick if he informs regularly to a local DI or DS. Some of them just do it to eliminate the competition and the police are cool with that, as long as they get the arrests.

We are no different. When some cocky young fucker starts dealing blow or selling guns, sets up a brothel or starts a crew that does robberies, we get to hear about it sooner rather than later. Then we pay them a visit. If I do it, I make sure Finney is there to back me up. The message then goes out to them like a biblical prophecy. And Lo’ the Lord said ‘all the world shall be taxed’. The only difference being that their local lord is Bobby Mahoney and the tax in question is a percentage of their estimated earnings. If they are sensible, they pay. If they are not they get another visit from Finney. This time he is on his own or he might bring some of the other lads down with him. They always pay after the second visit, if he has left them in a fit state to do it, that is. We tax our local villains and no one should feel too sorry for them. Everyone else in the country has to pay tax and it’s not as if they are declaring their income to the Inland Revenue.

Sometimes we take another tack though. From time to time, if it suits us, we will shop their whole operation to the Northumbria Police, removing our competitors at a stroke and gaining us some much-needed goodwill in the process. How do you think a corrupt cop like Sharp becomes a DS in the first place? By busting-up crews we tipped him off about.

So don’t talk to me about a code. There isn’t one.

It took a few days for the bruises to heal and I was wary of everybody for a while, strangers coming towards me, people walking too close behind me. For a day or two, I had Palmer watch my back from a distance but there was nothing, so I told him to stand down. I had more important things for him to be doing.

Bobby seemed to find the whole thing faintly amusing. While he took it seriously on one level - someone had the cheek to burgle my flat to try and find some dirt on us - he was pleased I had seen off my assailant and done him some damage. I was right, it did seem like he was more trusting of me after that. After all, I was hardly likely to arrange a serious beating to deflect suspicion, was I?

Finney surveyed my bruises as they changed colour, eventually settling into a sickly, jaundiced yellow and said, ‘you got a comprehensive tuning there.’

‘You should have seen the other guy,’ I said.

‘I saw the blood,’ he admitted, ‘turns out you were harder than I thought.’ Since he’d always assumed I was soft as shit, this was a pretty back-handed compliment.

I’d been trying to steer clear of Sarah for a bit. Don’t get me wrong, I had no regrets about Laura, none at all. I was just annoyed it had taken me so long to realise how barking mad she was.

Sarah texted me a few times, checking I was okay, which was nice and for the next few days I got some light-hearted messages about what she was doing, how bored she was, how daft her mates were, that sort of thing. I always replied eventually but I made out like I was well busy, which I was. Trouble was, I couldn’t stop thinking about her. To tell the truth, I was beginning to crave her.

Inevitably my thoughts would come back round to Sarah and how much I wanted her. I tried to remind myself it was suicide to even contemplate shagging Bobby Mahoney’s daughter but, in the end, I knew that desire, or simple plain lust, was beginning to win out over caution. Men are slaves to that kind of thinking. It can bother you all day until you eventually run out of reasons for not doing what you know you should be
not doing
. And so we do it, no matter how stupid, even if we know it will make our lives more complicated in the long run and we’re very likely to regret it. We just can’t help ourselves.

Fuck it. I picked up my phone and dialled.

‘Hello,’ a soft voice on the end of the line.

‘It’s me,’ I told her, ‘you doing anything?’

‘Right now?’

‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘right now.’

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‘W
ill I see you later?’ she asked me as I was dressing. The sun was shining through the windows, bathing her bed in a bright morning light that showed just how much we’d creased her sheets the night before, but at least it helped me to find my clothes as I picked them from the floor where we’d left them. I’d made sure it was her flat we went to, so much easier to make an uncomplicated exit.

‘Maybe,’ I said, checking myself in the mirror. ‘You at Privado?’

‘Yeah, I’m working tonight,’ Sarah said, ‘supposed to be anyhow but… I don’t know… thought I might phone in sick, you know,’ and she laughed, ‘you’ve tired me out David. I need a duvet day.’

Before she could invite me to share that duvet with her, I said, ‘think of that student loan pet. Anyway you’ve got hours yet.’

‘Guess so,’ then she giggled, ‘you know it was only the other day I found out what Privado means,’ she told me, ‘I Googled it.’

‘And what does it mean?’ I asked as I started to lace my shoes.

‘It means “confidential friend”, she said, ‘is that what we are eh? Confidential friends?’

‘Yep, and let’s keep it that way,’ I said, then quickly added, ‘the girls in there can be jealous.’

‘All want you, do they?’

‘I didn’t say that. If you let on about us they’ll soon think you are getting special treatment.’

‘I am,’ she told me, ‘very special.’

‘Good,’ I said, ‘got to go now though.’

‘Do you have to dash off?’ she sounded disappointed.

‘Sorry.’

I checked I had everything; wallet, keys, phone. I didn’t want to leave anything behind. I walked back over to the bed.

‘Last night was good,’ I told her, bending to kiss her on the lips. She liked that, accepting the kiss then almost toppling me forwards when she wrapped her arms round my neck and kissed me back, long and deep ‘
you
were good,’ I said breaking from her embrace. For a moment, as I looked at her bare, inviting breasts, I almost climbed back in there.

‘Was I?’ she asked hopefully.

‘Oh yeah,’ and she lit up like a Christmas tree. There’s never any harm in making a girl feel good about herself afterwards.

I put on my jacket, ‘call you later yeah.’

‘Yeah,’ she brightened, ‘we could do something,’ she suggested.

‘See you,’ I said.

Sharp was leaning against the bar at Rosie’s. The pub was one of our usual meeting spots because it was ideally situated on the corner of Stowell Street, right by the football ground and you could easily tell if you were being followed as you approached it. A quick glance behind you down a short, clear street and you’d pretty much know if someone was on your arse then you could just keep on walking by, meeting aborted. The pub was popular and nicely public so you could stand a few feet apart but next to each other at the bar and a casual observer might not even notice you were together. Plus, it was always a good pint in there.

Of course, if we were spotted, we would simply resort to our default position. I was a criminal source, a highly-placed grass whom Sharp had been secretively cultivating for years in an attempt to find out more about the crime boss, Bobby Mahoney. Playing the double agent was not without its danger for me but I made sure Bobby knew all about our bent copper and the fall-back plan if we were ever lifted. He had a right to know all about it. After all, the money we were paying Sharp was coming out of his coffers.

‘We managed to put a face to a name,’ he told me.

‘And?’

He slid a folded piece of A4 sideways along the bar to me, ‘it’s all in there. We reckon your guy is Andrew Stone, a professional burglar from Glasgow, a regular exponent of robbery with violence. His local boys checked out his address but, surprise, surprise, he hasn’t been seen there for days. Before you ask, Stone is not directly affiliated to any of the main gangs up there, including their top boys.’

We both knew he meant the Gladwells. ‘A freelancer?’

‘We’re working on that assumption.’

‘That’s what I’d do if I was probing somebody else’s firm, bring in an outsider, someone deniable who couldn’t drop me in the shit if it went tits up. I’d use cut-outs, make sure he didn’t even know who’d hired him.’

‘You’d use someone from another city wouldn’t you?’

‘Yeah, I would.’ Like me, he was wondering if the Gladwells had gotten sloppy, sending a man from their own city down to ours to stir up some trouble.

When I showed Bobby the name and last known address of Weasel-face, aka Andrew Stone, he said, ‘right, well this needs sorting and sharpish. We’re going up to Glasgow; you, me, Finney and Jerry. We are going to see the Gladwells.’

‘What kind of visit is this one?’ I asked him.

‘Unannounced.’

We took the train to Edinburgh and changed for the Glasgow service. Our journey up there was uneventful, there wasn’t much conversation. I was pretty sure we were all reflecting on the seriousness of calling on Arthur Gladwell, Glasgow’s Top Boy, uninvited. Although I understood Bobby’s reasons, it was a prospect I wasn’t exactly relishing.

I stared out of the train window, looking down at the cliffs that overlooked the North Sea, which, as always, was frighteningly choppy and looked freezing cold. You wouldn’t last five minutes in it. Then I realised Bobby was looking at me.

‘That was a nice watch you got our Sarah for her birthday,’ he said uncertainly, as if I’d bought her some crotch-less knickers and a dildo, ‘she keeps going on about it,’ he added, ‘and you. My little girl seems to think you are the doggy’s bollocks these days.’ Something about the way he called her my-little-girl set alarm bells ringing.

‘Bless her,’ I said, as if I was talking about a nine-year-old, ‘well, you know me, I got a great deal on that watch, just don’t tell her eh.’

He was still looking right at me which was making me nervous, but I was determined to hide it. I faked a yawn like we were having the most innocent conversation imaginable, ‘I had to get the boss’ daughter something nice for her 21
^st
didn’t I?’ I told him, ‘she’s a good kid, you should be proud of her.’

‘I am proud of her,’ he said quietly, leaving me none-the-wiser as to what he was actually thinking.

We’d enquired about Arthur Gladwell and knew it was his wife’s 60
^th
birthday. He was taking her for dinner at Roganos, which was very classy, for him. I half expected a private table at a Berni Inn, steak and chips all round with a fried egg on top. He’d never lost the common touch, Arthur, because he had no idea there was any other way to go about things. Lord knows who told him about a place like Roganos.

We got word they were having their pre-dinner drinks in a nearby pub. Arthur was standing there with his missus and their four sons, all stocky like their father but slightly shorter versions of his towering frame, as if they hadn’t yet earned the right to see the world from a higher perspective than him. Their other halves were there too and, if they could be classed as beautiful, it was in a heavily made-up, perma-tanned way that my late mother would have described as ‘all fur coat and no knickers’.

Arthur looked surprised to see us but he hid it well. He quietly instructed his eldest boy Tommy’s wife to look after the ladies at the bar while he walked over to greet us by the door, followed by his boys. They were frowning, our very presence on their patch was a massive affront to them.

There were five of them and four of us but I wasn’t in the same league as Bobby, Finney and Jerry Lemon. I was praying they wouldn’t want to start anything in a pub, even a dog-rough one with ancient wallpaper, and woodchip walls like this one. I sized up Arthur’s lads so I could pick the softest one to lamp if it did kick off, but they were all built like steroidal bouncers. Each of them looked like he’d grown up fighting every day, encouraged by his dad, and I didn’t like the odds. The eldest, Tommy, was sporting the remnants of a black eye and there was something about the way he carried himself, a little warily, that made me wonder if he might have been given it by his father.

‘Arthur,’ said Bobby.

‘Bobby,’ Arthur Gladwell nodded, ‘what brings you here? I’m not aware of a meeting. It’s my wife’s birthday.’

‘I know that,’ said Bobby, ‘this won’t take long.’

‘Fair enough.’

Bobby handed Arthur the rolled up picture of Andrew Stone. The big man unfurled it and looked at it, while we watched him for a trace of recognition. Instead he gave us a questioning look.

‘Someone’s coming after me and mine, Arthur,’ said Bobby, ‘and I need to know it’s not you, not over the phone but face-to-face, man-to-man. I want you to look me in the eye and tell me it’s not you Arthur. Or you can tell me that it
is
you, then we’ll both know where we stand.’

‘Tommy,’ said Arthur, ‘go to the bar and get me two glasses of that single malt from Oban.’ Tommy Gladwell looked less than thrilled to be fetching Bobby his drink but he went anyway. We watched him trudge over to the bar and order and we waited for Arthur to say something.

‘We’ve known each other for a long time Bobby,’ he said finally, ‘we’ve had our differences over the years, no one would deny that. I wouldn’t call us friends but I’d say we respect each other. I’ve heard about your troubles - but I’m not the cause of them.’

Gladwell junior returned with the glasses and handed one to Bobby who took it silently. Arthur raised his own glass to Bobby’s, they clinked them together and each took an appreciative sip, ‘I don’t want to go to war with you,’ said Arthur, ‘just as you don’t want to go to war with me. I’m too old and too busy with my own patch. This city is full of Jack-the-lads, all flexing their muscles because they want a piece of what I’ve got. They all want to be Top Boy and I get no rest ‘cos I’ve got to keep putting them back in their place. I think you understand that.’ Bobby’s eyes narrowed in recognition. Arthur took another sip of his malt, ‘I don’t have to swear on the lives of my grandchildren Bobby but I will if it will make you feel better.’

‘No Arthur, you’re telling me it isn’t so and that’s good enough for me.’

‘Good,’ said Arthur Gladwell, ‘now why don’t you join us for a drink, your boys too of course.’

‘Thanks Arthur. I appreciate the invitation but I’ll leave you to your family. It’s time we were heading back.’ And he drained the last dregs of the malt and handed the empty glass back to Tommy Gladwell, who took it meekly enough, though he looked like he’d rather have seen it hit the floor. Bobby and Arthur Gladwell shook hands and, at the last moment, Tommy Gladwell tried to shake Bobby’s hand but Bobby was already turning his back. I don’t think he was snubbing the bloke deliberately but Bobby was the kind of man who wouldn’t have given a toss either way. As Bobby turned away there was an awkward moment where Tommy had his hand outstretched and there was no one there to shake it. I didn’t want him to look like a complete tosser so I leaned forward, shook his hand and said, ‘hope your mother has a great night.’

When we were back in the train Bobby said, ‘how has he heard about my troubles?’

‘Eh?’ asked Finney.

‘I said, how does he know about my troubles?’

‘I dunno,’ answered Finney. He seemed a little perturbed to be asked the question. I kept silent, assuming it was rhetorical.

We had the first class carriage to ourselves, except for a business type who was busy reading his paper.

‘What did you think about that Davey?’ Bobby asked me.

‘Well, he’s saying it has nowt to do with him and I tend to believe it.’

‘You believe that fucking snake,’ said Jerry Lemon, ‘he’d grass on his own grandma if it suited him.’

‘And so would we,’ I reminded him, ‘I don’t know, I may be wrong but my instinct says it isn’t Arthur Gladwell. He doesn’t want a war right now. In fact it’s the last thing he needs, though… ’

‘What?’ asked Bobby

‘He didn’t say anything about Stone, when you showed him the picture. He didn’t say a word.’

‘Well, he would know him, a professional operator on his patch,’ said Bobby.

‘Yeah but he didn’t deny using him, he didn’t ask you what any of this had to do with him, he just didn’t say anything.’

‘So what you’re saying is, you don’t know if it’s him or not?’ challenged Jerry Lemon.

‘Yes, that’s right Jerry, that’s exactly what I’m saying.’

‘Then going up there was a complete waste of time,’ added Jerry.

‘No it wasn’t!’ snapped Bobby, ‘if it was him, he knows we are on to him and he’s been warned off. If it wasn’t, well he knows we don’t fuck about down here, we come up and confront people if we think they are taking the piss, so him and his boys will know that too, for future reference.’

‘Sorry Bobby,’ said Jerry Lemon, ‘I was only saying… .’

‘Maybe you should do a bit less saying and a bit more thinking. Do you reckon word won’t get round that we went up there to have it out with Arthur Gladwell face to face on his own patch?’ Course it will. Every grass in the city will be onto it by now. We’ll have been picked up on CCTV arriving at the station. That shows we’ll stand, against anyone. Anyone,’ Bobby stared out of the train window and he carried on addressing Jerry without even looking at him, ‘why don’t you do something useful for a change. Go down to the buffet car and get us all a drink.’

I was beginning to think it was worth the journey to Glasgow just to see Jerry Lemon get slapped down like that.