The Good Life (16 page)

He wondered briefly what was happening to Cain and Johnny Mac, and he couldn’t resist a smile. They were clever lads; he was sure they would find the bastard behind recent events. He wouldn’t want to be in his proverbial shoes when they did.

Ten minutes later he answered the door with a wide smile on his face, but it wasn’t who he had thought it would be.

Shane was more or less dead on his feet, but he hadn’t caved. He had been tortured well beyond the pain threshold of normal individuals and, even though he had lost his teeth to a set of pliers, he was still trying to grin at them. Neither the blowtorch to the soles of his feet and scrotum, the removal of his teeth and fingernails with pliers, or a drill forced through his ankle had made him say anything of note.

‘This is, without a doubt, the hardest fuck in history.’ There was genuine admiration in Cain’s voice, even though he was feeling irritated by the man’s sheer strength of character. That he could go through all that without so much as a whimper was scary and weird. But then nothing made sense to him lately – why should this be any different? ‘Let’s kill him and dump him. See if anything comes through from that.’

Johnny Mac nodded his agreement. ‘I feel bad. In fairness, he was a fucking star – not a fucking peep out of him.’

Cain pulled the man’s head back by his hair and cut his throat quickly as he said to Johnny Mac, ‘Couldn’t agree more, mate. Shame. Fucking shame.’

Then they both had a drink and wondered what was going to be the next move.

It was nearly last orders and Caroline was very drunk, slumped in the corner of the pub. That wasn’t unusual for her – she limited her drinking to the evenings these days. Her stints in hospital had taught her to be much more canny about her alcohol because of the medication. She rarely drank around her son now, and that fooled everyone, herself included, about how much she needed it.

She had continued to fuck around with Cain and Jenny by issuing her demands – which she claimed were always for Michael’s benefit – before dashing their hopes that she’d sign the divorce papers. She had heard about their problems and she was over the moon. It was true what people said – what goes round eventually comes round, and it seemed that those two treacherous fuckers were getting it back with bells on. And so they should! They had destroyed her life and her son’s life and they owed a debt of honour that she wanted paid ad infinitum. They could never suffer enough, as far as she was concerned.

The fact that Cain was offering to give her whatever she wanted didn’t make a dent in her hatred. Instead, it grew bigger by the day. And as for that Jenny Riley, she was a coward, and what Cain saw in that milksop she didn’t know. It was as if she had bewitched him somehow.

Caroline Moran would take no responsibility for her own part in her downfall. As she knocked back her wine, she revelled in their suffering, glad that for once their life wasn’t like some kind of fairy tale. It had grieved her for years that, despite the fact they hadn’t been able to marry, it was always a sunny day for that pair, and that her life was so bad in comparison. Her son had, in effect, been sidelined, and that was something she would never forgive. He was Cain’s first-born, and how she wished she had called him Cain Junior. But she had never believed in family names; she felt they stunted a child.

Now Cain had his fucking namesake, and
her
son was relegated to second position. It was absolutely outrageous. She had made him pay and, oh, how she had made Jenny Riley pay as well for what she had stolen from her and stolen from her son. As for poor little Michael, she had no intention of him ever spending time in Jenny Riley’s company. It was never going to happen. Not then, and certainly not now.

She had opened herself a transport café, and it was doing fabulously well. She had done that on her own, and she felt it was a great achievement. It was very successful too. That was a punch in the eye for her husband and his fucking whore – that she had an actual head for business and had made a really good success of her café.

She couldn’t admit that without Cain she would never have got the premises or the funding for her little enterprise. That she had a house, mortgage free, and a generous allowance, and that Cain paid the bills and her son’s private schooling meant nothing to her. As far as Caroline was concerned, it was her right, her due. She didn’t allow herself to admit that she had destroyed herself and her only son in the process, that she was now obese and her son was stunted from her hatred of his father. She had taken a lovely lad and made him into a handsome but morose individual whose whole life was tainted by her hate and her bitterness. He had no idea that his father loved him and would do anything for him.

When the man sat down beside her she hadn’t even hesitated. She was willing to help bring Cain down in any way she could.

Now that she knew there was big trouble coming to Cain and Jenny, she could not be happier. It was as if she had been waiting for this all her life. God Himself knew she had prayed for this, prayed for his downfall every night since he had left her for that tramp, and finally,
finally
, her dreams were coming true. It was sweet revenge. She was going to take away the Good Life he had given that whore, and that he had taken from her and her son.

Denny Gunn was amazed that someone he had thought of as a friend would actually come to his house and threaten him. It was outrageous, in fact, but when he told him so he laughed.

Denny had liked Peter Parkes from the first time he had met him. So this was a big shock, especially the kicking he’d given him – surely he knew that he did not have to go that far? He was a paid up member of the IRA, for fuck’s sake. He was fucking royalty as far as fucking villainy was concerned, and here he was being hustled by a fucking berserk! It was the ultimate piss-take and he told him just that.

Peter sighed in annoyance. ‘Look, Denny, this isn’t personal, mate. I’ve already tried to explain that. A lot of people think that Cain Moran and Johnny Mac have had too big a bite of the cherry. It’s time they were taken out to let everyone else have a piece.’

There was a truth to that, but Denny believed that the current peace in London was better than in the old days where there were far too many factions vying for the same earn.

‘You can’t get away with this, Peter. Listen to me, mate.’

Peter shrugged. ‘I don’t want to kill you. That wasn’t on the agenda. I’m just here to make sure you don’t fuck anything up. You think you’ve got the Irish? Well, so have I. This is all Lenny McAvoy’s doing, mate. He wants to break those fuckers’ hold on London and the North. So do I. Cain and Johnny Mac have run things for too long.’

Denny Gunn felt like he was stuck in a nightmare. Lenny McAvoy was a Face in the Irish community, but he must have offered a really good deal for them to countenance this. Although, in fairness, Lenny was a big supporter of theirs. Liverpool and Manchester had big Irish communities. This would have taken a great deal of planning.

Suddenly Denny felt a great sorrow for Cain and for Johnny Mac – they were gone no matter what. It was a shame, but it was life as they lived it. It was a brutal existence that spat you out as quickly as it raised you up.

‘Can I get you a drink?’

Denny was fucked, he accepted that. He had to swallow his knob, wipe his mouth – it was the only thing he could do.

Cain and Johnny were taken as they left the club. No one would have believed how easy it had been. They were surrounded in the car park, and there was nothing they could do. They were convinced they were safe, invincible – neither of them had seen themselves to be vulnerable to treachery.

It was as if they were written out of history in minutes and, in many ways, that is exactly what happened.

They were transported to a warehouse in Slough that they had acquired many years before and forgotten about. Once they were there, it was as if the whole world had gone mad.

When he woke up on that cold concrete floor, Cain remembered being beaten but, much worse, he remembered seeing Johnny shot to death, his body taking each bullet as the force of the ammunition blew him across the filthy flooring.

And Cain remembered being shot himself. And what’s more, he knew who the perpetrator was, knew it was someone he had treated like family. But he was helpless. When he lost consciousness he had never expected to wake up.

But against the odds he did. The old boy who was the nightwatchman had arrived late, but he had phoned the ambulance and the police. He had saved Cain’s life. But it had been far too late to help Johnny Mac.

Jenny, Eileen and Molly were at the hospital. Cain Moran was hanging on by a thread. He had five bullets in him and a surgeon was operating but it didn’t look good. Johnny Mac was dead, and it looked like Cain would be joining him. Jenny was beside herself with worry and the fear of losing the man she loved more than life itself.

After five hours in theatre, the surgeon came out and told them that if Cain lasted till the morning he was in with a chance. He was a strong man, and what was needed now was not just physical strength but mental strength too. Jenny was thrilled by the news. She was convinced that Cain had what was needed to stay on this earth, and she told the doctor that.

It was while they were celebrating this that the Filth turned up. That was when the real trouble started.

Cain Moran had regained consciousness five days later and was promptly arrested for fraud and the murder of not just Johnny Mac but also Micky Two Fags, Jimmy Boy Banks and Richie Jakobs. Shane Dwyer was tacked on as a victim before the case got to the Old Bailey. He was, as Molly said, sewn up like a kipper. The big shock though was that the witness for the defence was Peter Parkes. He had the starring role.

Jenny lost everything, and she could do nothing about it. The police had been quick to acquire any proceeds from the alleged crime. Cain Moran had been royally set up. He should have seen it coming but, like most people who thought they were at the top of their game, it had never occurred to him that anyone would tuck him up.

Jenny had had the sense to keep cash hidden away; as Cain had explained to her over the years, you never knew what might happen and cash was cash, plain and simple. She had to leave their home, and everything in it except for her clothes and her photographs. It was as if someone had slammed a door on the life she knew and loved. But she didn’t care about anything except Cain.

All Cain had cared about was that Johnny was dead. Losing the man he had loved like a brother had really affected him. He knew when he was beaten and he knew that he had to swallow his knob to guarantee Jenny and Cain Junior’s safety. He had been visited in hospital and the situation explained to him in graphic detail. He had his life – which was a result whatever way you looked at it – but if he wanted his loved ones to stay alive he had to do as requested.

He had become too powerful and that was something that had had to be addressed. In his own way, he understood that too. Cain had no options left – if he had to go away without a fight for Cain Junior and Jenny he was willing to do just that. Every now and again life kicked you in the nuts. His life as he knew it was over; all that was left was the formality of the court hearing, and he had already known how that was going to turn out. It was a guaranteed guilty.

The trial itself had been a showcase for the Metropolitan Police and it got great press coverage. Cain Moran’s picture was everywhere, and he was depicted as a brutal crime boss who ruled his empire with a violent and bloody hand. He was portrayed as the stuff of nightmares, and his every deed, real and imagined, was splashed across the papers and relished by the readers. His torture of prisoners was written in all its gory detail, and old Faces came to the fore once more with their own tales of Cain Moran’s derring-do. It was an abortion, but Cain could do no more than live with the consequences, and endure his trial day by day.

He was escorted to the Old Bailey in a meat wagon with motorbike outriders and a stream of police cars; there were even police helicopters overhead. The jury were to be left in no doubt that this was a very dangerous man indeed.

The judge had said in his summing up that Cain Moran was a particularly nasty character whose reign of fear and terror was thankfully over. The people of London could now sleep safely in their beds. He sentenced Cain Moran to twenty-five years behind the door. In other words, Cain would not be eligible for parole until he had served the twenty-five years. The papers once more had a field day, and Cain Moran had left the Old Bailey to go back to the Scrubs awaiting his time till he was dispensed to a maximum-security prison. He was treated well in the Scrubs by his fellow inmates, who were all aware that he was the victim of his own success.

But Cain Moran had respect, and that was something no one could take away from him.

He knew this was his life from now on and he swallowed down his hatred and his desire for revenge against the bastards who had brought him down for the sake of his Jenny and Cain.

But when all the lights were out and the prison was dark and only the whispers and the clanking from the other cells could be heard, he put his pillow over his head and finally cried.

Jenny looked around and, satisfied that everything was tidy and clean, she turned off the lights in her kitchen and made her way to her bedroom, stopping only to make sure her son was asleep. Cain Junior was lying half out of his covers, and she gently put him back into bed and covered him up.

This flat was small but it was in a decent block; Cain had seen to that and she was grateful to him. It was supposedly owned by a third party, but it was hers really and she had no mortgage on it. She also received compensation from Peter Parkes and that was the hardest to bear. That he had turned on Cain after all he had done for him – it just didn’t bear thinking about.