Lessons In Blood

by Quentin Black

  Jamie nodded with what looked to Bruce to be a sense of shame and determination.

  Tom Ryder sat in The Huntsman pub in a village named Drax. It was on the outskirts of Selby, around three-quarters of an hour away from Leeds.

  He liked to do this every so often—look for a place

  outside of Leeds where no one knew him, book a B n B

  and drink with the locals. His Uncle Greg, once the most commanding underworld figure in Yorkshire, told the young Tom that he’d have to do this to keep his feet on the ground.

  Tom had loved his uncle fiercely and Connor too.

  It had upset him when he learnt his cousin had set up his own thing down south. Tom had always thought Connor, and he would run the family business together in the future. In this business, family were the only people you could trust—well, you could trust them more.

  He thought of the stories he had been told of how his family had got into it in the first place.

  When young, his grandfather Frank had, despite himself, become a face around the local areas and beyond. He had been a veteran of the Suez crisis and an excellent boxer. He had sorted out some unruly types in his local pub and was soon sought after by other drinking establishments.

  Tom always remembered him as a kind and loving man. Frank had been adored by his family, and the local community had a lot of affection for him. He and Tom’s gran Pauline were always laughing and joking together. Pauline gave Frank five sons in all; Uncle Derek, Uncle Michael, his Uncle Greg who was Connor’s father, Uncle Lee and his dad Ryan.

  Tom also remembered the scars on the patriarch’s face. Not long after Tom had been born, Frank had attempted to calm down a set of lads who were harassing the local girls and intimidating the bar staff. He had been around fifty-years-old then and less inclined to use violence as an immediate recourse. The lads jumped him, eventually overpowering him before sticking the boot in while he was on the floor.

  What happened next would go down in the underworld folklore.

  Frank’s sons, who until then were as law-abiding as the next man, began to hunt down the culprits. His Uncle Greg caught leader Paul Farron outside a gym he trained at. Tom had heard that Farron had been a ‘roidhead’ and around sixteen-stone. He had been no match for his much smaller uncle who didn’t stop until both Farron’s ankles were broken and his ear torn off.

  Over the next few weeks, the lads who attacked Frank Ryder were similarly dealt with, as well as anyone who tried to intervene.

  After a few weeks had passed, his Uncle Derek had been shot inside a petrol station by a man in a motorcycle helmet. It had luckily only resulted in a flesh wound and fractured clavicle. However, it had been the tipping point which sent his Uncle Greg over the edge.

  Joe Mason had been ‘The Man’ in Leeds at the time. Tom had seen on the internet some old newspaper photos of the man. He looked what he was—a scary fucker. He had been a huge, black-bearded mountain of a man who looked like ‘he ate babies on toast’. He had a handle on the drugs trade in Leeds. He had intimidated most, maimed many, shot a few and killed at least one.

  Tom was unsure to this day how his Uncle Greg had linked Joe Mason to what had happened to his Uncle Derek, but he had.

  The brothers had also found out the identity of the shooter—a Billy Summers from the Seacroft area of Leeds.

  One November evening, his Uncle Greg and his dad Ryan ambushed Joe Mason and three of his cronies along a canal with Katana samurai swords. Joe Mason, knocked unconscious by a knuckle duster-clad fist, had been relieved of his right hand and left foot.

  On the same night, his Uncle Michael and Lee had ‘ballied up’ and wielding baseball bats to smash Billy Summers outside a takeaway shop near the city centre. His four acquaintances hadn’t made any attempt to intervene even as a horizontal Summers had been doused in petrol and set alight. As Michael and Lee had disappeared, the shop owner managed to put the flames out. However, he had suffered a horrific mixture of second and third-degree burns to both head and body.

  Overnight, the Ryder family became arguably the most feared family in Yorkshire and beyond. The rumours that turned into legend were backed up by a walking victim showing the hideous white, leathery patches all over his face, scalp and neck. That and a shadow of a once tyrant now with a missing hand and an awkward walk. They served as a constant advertisement of the Ryder family’s ruthlessness. If any further reminders were needed, his Uncle Greg had sauntered into a pub where Joe Mason’s associates drank by himself. The legend was that he had walked up to the crew of seven recoiling men and out of a small holdall, he tipped out Joe Mason’s severed foot and hand onto the table.

  ‘‘This ends now, or next time it’ll be your poor families looking at your severed heads, or maybe you’ll be looking at theirs. Do you understand?” he had reputably asked.

  All seven had nodded in muted horror, and the war was over.

  This was the kind of family history that he and all his cousins had inherited. Although now the stakes were a lot higher.

  29

  Henry Costner sank into one of the cream sofas in his Kensington flat with a scotch, exhausted. A red pattern carpet covered the mahogany floor on which the couches and coffee table rested. The gas fire simmered away beside him.

  He flicked on the television, quickly changing the channel from the news to mindless romantic comedy.

  It had been a strange day at Westminster. The Brexit negotiations were proving to be even more challenging than was once thought. The issue had been of what kind of border would separate Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. The Sinn Fein party were putting pressure on the UK and Irish Taoiseach for an ‘all island’ solution. To keep the entire island in the single market and customs as the rest of the UK left it. That was just one of a myriad of issues facing the government regarding it.

  Costner knew he should not have sunk into the sofa; it was going to be an effort to get out of it now. The landline rang, and he wearily answered it.

  “Hello.”

  “Hello, Mr Costner,” said the female voice.

  “Yes. Who is this?”

  “I am a representative of a group of people that would prefer that the ongoing investigations into the death of the O’Reilly girl to cease.”

  Costner’s mind whirred before saying, “What in heavens is this?”

  “Mr Costner, open your MacBook that’s currently sitting on the coffee table in front of you.”

  Costner stared at the laptop for a moment before complying.

  “Now what?”

  “Go into your documents and click the unnamed folder on the top left.”

  Costner did so, and hundreds of indecent images of children assaulted his senses. He clicked out almost in an instant, but sickening pictures whirled around in his head.

  “Who the fuck is this?” he demanded.

  “Call off that attack dog, Bruce McQuillan. Or your liberty could be stripped from you with your reputation.”

  The phone hung up.

  Parker’s hand clasped Bruce’s firmly. They were in Parker’s office again.

  “Take a seat, Bruce.”

  “I received an e-mail this morning. Though it was to my personal and not work account, it was still disturbing how it managed to breach the various security programmes I have in place on it.”

  “Who was it from?”

  “It’s been secured by a DAM cryptosystem—explained to me as the e-mail version of the ‘Mission Impossible’ self-destructing tapes. My personal e-mail doesn’t come through the same server as my work e-mail, which suggests they—whoever ‘they’ are—knew and which is why they used it.”

  “OK.”

  “Here, take a look,” said Parker, spinning the laptop to face Bruce. On it was the pictures, complete with biographies, of six men who worked for ‘The Chameleon Project’. Bruce had fifteen operatives in all. The uncovering of the identities of six shocked and concerned him in equal measure. Then he looked at Parker.

 
“Now, I know what you’re thinking, but you’re barking up the wrong tree,” said Parker.

  “What am I thinking.”

  “You think that I had a hand in this.”

  “The thought crossed my mind.”

  “Well, you’re wrong. What reason would I have?”

  “What else did it say?” said Bruce, ignoring his question.

  “Scroll up.”

  Bruce read the message—‘Bruce McQuillan is to immediately cease his ‘investigation’ into already resolved murder cases, or the activities of these men will be brought to light.’

  Bruce looked up, and Parker asked, “What investigation?”

  “I am not telling you.”

  “I think I have a right to know when I am being e-mailed regarding it.”

  “But it’s me they are threatening, it’s—”

  “I am being threatened too, albeit through a veil. The significance of it being sent to my email isn’t lost on me as it shouldn’t be on you.”

  Bruce realised that Parker had controlled an instinct to shout and threaten when Bruce had replied ‘I am not telling you’, and decided to extend him some courtesy.

  “Look, I am not being difficult, nor is it my aim to disrespect you. But I’ve always held to the maxim, ‘ If you would keep your secret from an enemy, tell it not to a friend.’”

  Parker frowned. “Benjamin Franklin.”

  “He also said, ‘Three may keep a secret if two of them are dead’?”

  Parker regarded him for a moment or two. “What do you need me to do?”

  “I need you to hold tight and trust me. All that email says to me is, whoever these people—however powerful—are nervous. And they have every right to be. Because I will find out who ‘they’ are, and end their lives.”

  Parker looked at him for a moment. “I believe you.”

  “Then the least you can do is to stay out of my way.”

  Parker simply nodded.

  Connor and Ciara lay in bed. They were back in the Birmingham apartment.

  “We’re going to have to stop doing this,” Connor said.

  “Because I’ll get attached, and you’re in too dangerous a world to let another share your soul—your loneliness makes you cold—makes you sharp,” Ciara teased in a mock film narrator’s voice. Connor smiled—he couldn’t help but like her.

  “No, because one day you’re going to choke me out. How have you got such a death grip,” he replied stroking his neck.

  “It’s called ‘gripping the bar’, maybe if you did the same, you wouldn’t be deadlifting a weight that some thirteen-year-old Chinese girl warms up with.”

  Ciara got out of bed, and Connor admired her stunning figure. Her back was taut with muscle running down to an almost impossibly high ass and shapely legs. Her short blonde tousled hair strangely added to her femininity.

  She turned around. “Stop looking at me with that look in your eye.”

  “Look in my eye? Oh yeah, you mentioned a thirteen-year-old Chinese girl.”

  She shook her head. “Sick.”

  “Well I am sick of laying here without a coffee, now get to it.”

  Ciara sighed a smirk. She had told him beforehand that if he made her cum, she would make him a coffee. He watched her walk out of the room still naked.

  He briefly looked at the Noam Chomsky paperback ‘Who rules the world’, but decided against reading it now; the author’s analysis of American imperialism was too weighty to merely skim over.

  Connor remembered a conversation with Bruce. He had told him that he thought if people put as much effort into improving themselves and their position as they did complaining about the actions of the Government then they’d have better lives. Bruce had replied, ‘that sentiment is easier to hold as a white, male Briton than a woman of the ‘Rohingya’ in Burma’. He had encouraged Connor to broaden his horizons, hence the reason the Yorkshireman had ‘Who rules the world’ and ‘1984’ on the bedside cabinet.

  Ciara came back and put his coffee on top of the book, and lay beside him on top of the covers.

  Ciara looked at him, “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Well, you can ask me,” he replied.

  “What’s the deal with you and your cousin?”

  Connor knew this had been coming. He wouldn’t lie and couldn’t palm her off—they were partners for the duration, and she had saved his life.

  “My family is the most powerful crime family in Yorkshire. My father was Greg Ryder. That was my cousin, Tom Ryder.”

  “You’re Greg Ryder’s son?” the surprise evident in her voice.

  “Yep. He and my mother were never married, and my dad encouraged me to keep her surname as not to tarnish me so to speak.”

  “So you got your cousin to take over Dixon’s distribution.”

  “No I didn’t. I never wanted my family to be involved with what I do with The Project. I think coming from my background is one of the reasons the boss uses me for penetrating the underworld—my ‘cover’ was ninety-nine percentage premade. But I wanted to keep this and them apart”

  “Have you got any brothers or sisters?”

  “No. Well, not that I know of. Tom and the rest of my cousins were very close though. I think more so being a part of a ‘crime’ family.”

  They lie in silence for a few moments. Then she asked him, “Do you ever get scared? It doesn’t ever seem like you do.”

  “Yeah, sort of…not really. I don’t think I feel it as acutely as most people. I know what adrenaline feels like but I think I use it better than most,” he said. Then he thought of a fight he had last year and remembered that he had indeed been scared. “I get scared more of different things. Of certain consequences. More angry I suppose, but scared too.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Connor took a breath and said, “Like this evil that we haven’t got to the bottom of yet. Some cunt has decided it would be a good idea to snatch some of the most vulnerable people and to turn them into commodities. Everyone recoils at horror films, but what some humans are capable of is chilling enough. I don’t even class some of them as humans. I don’t care how this sounds, how unprofessional it is, how reckless it can be, I get a thrill in hearing the pain-ridden screams of these monsters if I catch hold of them.”

  She looked at him for a moment. Then to his surprise, she cuddled into him.

  30

  Dixon walked around his Guilford, Surrey estate with his white Doberman Pinscher running circles around him.

  He was deep in thought. There were only a few people in this world that needn’t answer to anyone for anything. Two years ago, he had been one of those people. One of the biggest sports agents in the world, with his fingers lightly brushing the UK underworld. Then his eyes became bigger than his mouth.

  An American billionaire entrepreneur had expressed an interest in one of the Premiership football clubs and had engaged Dixon as an advisory for an exorbitant sum. The deal didn’t go ahead in the end, and Dixon felt deflated.

  However, an emissary of the billionaire had stopped behind to discuss another proposal with Dixon. The man was massive—around six-feet-four-inches—and broad with it. The blond, South African giant had introduced himself as Ethan Steyn. He had then explained that there was a mutual benefit to be had with people who could afford it, paying over the odds for organs they needed provided they were received as quickly as possible. The excess money received by the said hospital could go towards further medical research—‘a win, win’ said the emissary.

  When Dixon had asked what his role in this was, the answer was ‘recruitment’. Dixon had smiled inwardly at the emissary’s bare-faced insinuations that the victims—involuntary—sacrifices’ were for the greater good; that these people were a drain on society, that the organs and medical research would help ‘advance us as a species’—Dixon had nearly burst into laughter at the justification.

  He had inquired as to why the super-rich didn’t just have surgery done in whatever cou
ntry that could produce a suitable donor immediately. The answer was that ‘nobody wants a gook doctor opening them up if they can help it’. The emissary did not know that Dixon was ‘in’ as soon as the numbers were discussed; two-hundred-thousand per ‘clean’ person—clean being someone who wouldn’t be missed too much.

  So it began, and Dixon had made millions off it. Then the debacle with the O’Reilly girl had happened. The South African had cleaned up the mess, and police had blamed the Egyptian immigrant. Now this ex-special forces turned intelligence guru Bruce McQuillan was getting too warm.

  Dixon made his decision. He would send an email—in code—to his American contact stating the arrangement was now over. With his mind made up, he marched back to the house.

  Bruce reclined into the sofa with a cup of coffee. He looked around Janet Quigley’s luxury apartment. Much of the furniture was a mahogany red which contrasted with the cream of the walls. There were ornaments of meerkats dressed in different uniforms. The gas fire flickered within its grey marble frame.

  He had not long finished a delicious meal of black cod marinated with miso.

  He was calming himself and organising his thoughts. He had already contacted the six agents and informed them to “go to ground”. Every agent who worked for The Project had been ordered upon completion of their initial training to begin to cultivate an identity, including a bank account and to choose a country for the sole purpose of escaping to in the event of the exposure of their cover. No one, not even the members of The Project or indeed Bruce himself, were to know of their chosen country and identity. Indeed, to aid in this, each new member was given £250,000 of ‘survival’ funds for this potential instance, which they were encouraged to add to throughout their careers. He would recall them back when the coast was clear.

  Bruce had thought about this unknown entity which threatened to expose Bruce’s leadership of The Chameleon Project to the world. He concluded that whoever it was, would correctly assume he would go ‘dark’ and that would be bad for them as then he could potentially strike back from nowhere. Still, he had a sense of satisfaction—if he was not a threat, this mysterious antagonist would not have reached out to Parker. However, this would have to be the last time he would see Janet for a while. He thought he owed it to her to tell her in person.