by V E Rooney
“Anything else you used to hide your money? I heard rumours about helicopters and planes,” I say as I look at a newspaper report which made mention of Sean Kerrigan buying a Lear jet for his own personal use.
“Oh, I wasn’t into all that, that was the lads,” she says, frowning. “Boy toys, you know? Oh, they were careful about it because Sean was always drumming it into people that they couldn’t be tooling around in some flash car or making a show of themselves, flashing their money around. Sean did lease a private plane and a helicopter sometimes, under false names of course. Sometimes the crew would use them to go to footie matches abroad, horseracing and all that. Sean even had a few flying lessons. But that wasn’t to show off – that was in case he ever needed to do a dusty, a really quick dusty away from the law.
“I bought a few nice cars – a Mercedes and a Beamer - but just for when I needed chauffeuring around or was going somewhere posh. For me, I knew that property was the best place to hide the money along with some select businesses. You know how stupid people are over house prices here. So I took the motto from the business and applied it to property – buy low, sell high. Nothing safer than bricks and mortar, is there?”
28. BRANDING
I clear my throat and look at Reynolds. “So…the dogs…”
Reynolds glances up at me, with a startled expression on her face.
“Amongst the various ways in which you levelled the score, so to speak, with associates and rivals, was rumoured to be a particular form of retribution which involved you setting dogs onto people,” I say quietly. “Now, I’m aware that urban myths can arise from the scantest of details, but is there any truth to that? You killed people with dogs?”
Reynolds stares at me for a few moments, her expression now as impassive and impenetrable as the Police mug shot.
“Here we go,” she says wearily. “And I thought you weren’t interested in sensationalism and salacious tittle-tattle. I’m disappointed, love, I thought you were better than that,” Reynolds says, her voice returning to the light singsong timbre of earlier in our meeting.
“So you’re saying it’s not true? It’s an urban myth based on hearsay?”
“I never killed anyone with dogs,” she says calmly, almost with a note of displeasure in her voice that I would suggest something so ludicrous. There is silence for a few moments as I contemplate her response.
“You never killed anyone with dogs. But did you set dogs onto people?” I say, trying to glean a more enlightening answer.
She looks down at the table.
“So…you want to know about the dogs…”
***
I’m at Taylor’s a few times a week, mostly during the day to catch up with Karl and sort out the takings, but sometimes during the night to watch the patrons throw some shapes and throw their hands up under the lasers. It’s also a way of catching up with Ste, when he’s not too busy throwing out some pervy straight boys who are hassling girls on the dancefloor or breaking up fights between jealous boyfriends.
Sean keeps a low profile when he’s here. He doesn’t want people drawing the obvious conclusion that he’s really the main man behind this place so he tends to stay upstairs in the club office. Occasionally he will venture out onto the upper level balcony to quietly watch the evening’s happenings, hidden by the myriad light and speaker riggings hanging from the ceiling.
Sean and I are peering over the balcony at the crowded dancefloor below while Ste, Paul and Lee mooch in and out of the club office, chatting shit with each other. The club is getting busier all the time and the queues are stretching around the block. This is most definitely the place to be and everyone wants in. Sean’s even bobbing his head along to the throbbing trance track that is vibrating around the room. He catches me watching him, and smiles back at me, seemingly pleased with his booming business. He beckons at me to walk with him as he returns to the office.
“Thursday morning, 10am. Got a meeting with the Irish lads in Manchester, need you there.”
“Sure thing.”
As he’s filling me in on the meeting, I glance over the balcony. I can’t be sure at first but my breath catches in my chest. I rapidly blink my eyes, unsure whether I’m seeing things properly. My heart begins pounding, my breathing becomes shallower.
Down on the dancefloor, I see him. It would have been very easy to miss him altogether. He’s taller, bulkier. But the imprint of him is indelibly stamped into my psyche. I would recognise him anywhere. It’s been well over a decade but I recognise the scar. The dent in his shaven skull. The dent where I drove in a piece of broken glass.
It’s Skinhead. He’s in Taylor’s. I see him on the periphery of the dancefloor, scoping out the girls in the centre. He’s with a few lads. He’s hopping up and down to the music, swigging eagerly from his lager bottle, pointing out fit girls to his mates.
I’m gripping the rails of the balcony so hard that my knuckles are white. I can’t move, I can’t move in case my legs give way. My mouth is half-open, I can’t speak, I can’t even move my head. For the second time in my life, I am frozen by fear.
I can’t hear Sean speaking to me. All I can hear is the blood rushing in my ears and the pounding in my chest. White noise rushing into my head, panic pouring outwards. I’m beginning to hyperventilate. I don’t even notice Sean gripping my shoulders, I don’t hear him shouting my name in my face. Everything has gone blank.
“Ali! Ali! What’s the matter?” Sean has a stricken look on his face. “Ali! What is it?”
I look at him but I can’t speak, can’t get the words out. My legs are starting to wobble.
“Jesus! Ali! Ste, help!”
I’m only aware of my body failing me, how everything becomes blurred as I slump to the floor. I’m sobbing, panicking because I can’t breathe. I feel like I’m about to have a heart attack.
Suddenly, I feel a multitude of arms lifting me up and carrying me into the club office, laying me onto the couch. A throng of worried faces bent over me, muffled shouts and pleas for me to say something, tell them what the fuck is wrong with me. Paul’s girlfriend Vanessa is sitting next to me on the couch, her arms wrapped around me. I bury my face into her shoulder and sob uncontrollably for a few minutes. Vanessa is making soothing noises and rubbing my back, rocking me gently.
Once I’ve regained some semblance of composure, I look up and through my tears I see Sean crouching down directly in front of me, his right hand placed on my left knee. Ste is on the other side of the couch, his right hand placed on my left shoulder. Vanessa still has her arms around me.
“It’s alright, love. It’s alright. Just take your time, OK?” she says gently.
My breathing is slowing down, returning to something approaching normal but I’m still shaking. I rub my eyes, blinking away the tears. I can’t look at anyone. My eyes are rooted to the floor.
“I’m alright. I’m alright,” I say, my voice trembling as I attempt to sit up straight. I hold my head in my hands, close my eyes and breathe deeply, trying to recall the breathing exercises I learned in my childhood karate classes.
“What happened?” Sean says quietly. I’ve never seen him look so concerned.
I still can’t look at him. I’m frightened. I have never told anyone what happened to me all those years ago. I buried it deep within me, covered it in shame and fear and left it undisturbed, locked away for good. But the darkness has seeped into the light. If I am to escape it, I must face it full on, no matter how much I want to throw up and pretend that it doesn’t exist.
So, in my own matter-of-fact way, I tell Sean what happened. I stumble over my words, I have to stop every now and then to calm myself, but I tell him. I tell him everything. Every last sickening memory of that day.
When I am finished, there is silence in the room for a long time. I feel all eyes on me as I sit there, drained and spent. Out of my peripheral vision, I see Sean casting his eyes downwards, a tight grimace on his face. He rubs his hand across his face repeatedly.
<
br /> “The fucking bastard. The fucking evil bastard,” Vanessa says, shaking her head in disgust.
Ste is rubbing my back. “Fucking hell, Ali. Why didn’t you tell me before?” he asks before Vanessa holds her hand up to him. “Ste, not now, lad.”
I can sense that Ste is struggling to keep himself in check, trying to force his temper not to get the better of him. If it was up to him, he would be down there ripping Skinhead apart with his bare hands.
“Well, he won’t be fucking coming back in here, that’s for fucking sure,” Sean says quietly.
Now it’s my turn to tell Sean the odds. It’s not up to him. Skinhead’s fate rests with me and once again, I’m thinking about the bigger picture.
“No. No. Do not lay a finger on him. I’ve already taken my revenge,” I say to both Sean and Ste. “How do you think he got that ding in his head? That’s the end of it. I don’t want any more trouble because of him. I’m done with it.”
I’m trying to sound firm and defiant but I’m weary. The truth is that I would love nothing more than to go down there and stab that bastard a million times, but my desires come second to my need to stay off the radar. Skinhead could meet his end in several grisly ways but that would bring attention of the unwanted kind if the busies were to link him back to this place, and by extension Sean and myself. I can’t let my ego get the better of me.
Sean is all tenderness and gentleness with me. He gets Paul to give Vanessa and I a lift back to my pad. As Vanessa leads me out of the office, Ste gives me a big hug and promises to pop round to mine tomorrow.
Vanessa sees me to my door, reassuring me the whole time that she’s there for me if I need her, all I have to do is phone her no matter what time of day or night. But I already know that I will never speak to her about this again. As touched as I am by her genuine concern, I’m mentally exhausted and I just want to be left alone. I just want to go to sleep.
I fall into bed and close my eyes, hoping and praying that tonight’s confessional will have exorcised this particular demon. I drift off to sleep, but wake up again a couple of hours later, sobbing my heart out.
As far as I was concerned, as far as it related to anyone else, to Sean, Ste, Vanessa and Paul, that was the end of Skinhead and me. The next day, I explained to Ste why I felt unable to confide in him, that it was nothing personal, that I just wanted to forget about the whole thing. But Sean had other ideas. Ste gave me the low-down a few weeks later.
After I had left the club that night, Sean had gathered some of the crew together in the office at Taylor’s – Karl, Ste, Paul, Lee, Gaz and Richie.
“Oh girl, Sean was fuming. I mean, fucking fuming, he was,” Ste told me. “I could tell he was fit to burst. You know the way his eyes go like pissholes in the snow, like he could rip your throat out any second? Like that, he was. So he called us all together and told us to keep tabs on Skinhead for the rest of the night. Oh, he didn’t tell them what Skinhead had…erm…what he’d done, just that he wanted him marked, you know.
“He told Karl not to throw him out or bar him from the club, that he wanted him tracked, he wanted a beady eye on him at all times. He got one of the bar staff to give Skinhead some free drinks vouchers to get him to come back to the club, you know, buy one get one free, that type of thing.
“So Skinhead’s all made up with that and he’s going on about how much money he’s saving with these vouchers. The club kicks out for the night and off Skinhead goes. Sure enough, he comes back a couple of weeks later, lashes his vouchers down on the bar and starts knocking the beers back. He’s pissed in no time. Karl gets the word from the bar staff that Skinhead’s turned up again and he phones Sean. Next thing, Sean and the lads are huddled in the office. I could tell something was gonna kick off. Then Sean calls me up to the office and fills me in on what’s happening. Tell you what, girl, when someone makes an enemy of him, there’s no mercy.”
I had a pretty good idea of what happened, but what Ste told me shook me to my core.
“So it’s coming up to kicking out time. All the lads know what they need to do so Sean sneaks out the back of the club. So the club starts emptying out, right? Me and the lads are getting people out the doors quick as you like and all the time Paul has got his eye on Skinhead. Skinhead staggers out the door, says ta-ra to his mates and goes round the back of the club for a slash. He’s pissing up against the wall by the fire exit when Paul, Lee and me sneak up behind him. Paul’s got this plastic bag and he puts it over Skinhead’s bonce and then we dragged him off down the alley.
“Oh, wait until you hear this. We’re just about to put him in the boot of Richie’s motor when Paul gets hold of Skinhead, pulls the plazzie bag off his head and gobs right in his eye. Proper fucking gobful of spit right in there. And then Paul says to him: ‘That’s off my bird, she said to give you one from her. You fucking cunt.’ So then Skinhead gets loaded into the boot, tied up, tape over his gob to shut him up and all that, a few kicks and punches to give him a taste of what’s coming, you know.”
Richie then drove the car to a large lock-up down Princes Road way where Sean was waiting for his special delivery.
“Skinhead gets hauled out the boot of the car and he’s tied to a chair. All the time he’s kicking off, saying he hasn’t done anything, what is he supposed to have done, come on lads, let’s sort this out, all of that, right? So we get him in the chair and the lads start taking turns to twat him one. I had to be held back, the others knew I’d kill him with one punch, girl. So then, we’re all just standing around him, just staring at him and not saying anything. He’s proper fucking shitting himself by now. And then Seanie boy comes out of the shadows and starts walking towards him. And Skinhead drops his load at that. He may not know who Sean is, but Sean’s just got that air about him, you know? That ‘I’m the man who’s about to destroy your life’ thing he does, yeah?
“So Sean is standing over Skinhead, just staring at the fucker like he’s something he’s just stepped in, yeah? Skinhead starts begging and pleading and all that, even though the stupid twat doesn’t even know why he’s there. And then Sean bends down to speak to Skinhead. And he goes: ‘How did you get that scar on your head, mate? Looks like a nasty one. How did you get that?’ So Skinhead’s just looking at him like, what the fuck is going on. So then Sean goes to him, ‘What’s your favourite song, mate? Is it, ‘Thank Heavens For Little Girls’? Oh, girl, you should’ve seen the fucker’s face. It was fucking comical. So then Paul comes over and crouches down by Skinhead. Him and Sean are doing bad cop, bad cop. So then Sean starts on Skinhead. He’s saying to him, ‘How old are you, mate?’ So Skinhead says he’s 26. Sean says, ‘Right. And are you still into raping little girls? Are you?’
“So Skinhead’s going off on one, that he doesn’t know what the fuck Sean’s on about, he’s never raped anyone, they’ve got the wrong person, he’s done fuck all, he’s got sisters for fuck’s sake. And that’s when Sean got Paul to bring you in,” Ste says.
Let me pick up the rest of the tale. I had no idea of what Sean had planned. If I’d known, I’d have put a stop to it. But it was Sean who gave the orders, not me. And Sean had clearly decided that Skinhead had not been punished severely enough for his liking.
I’m at home one night. I can’t face going back to the club for a while so I’m being a bit of a hermit. I’m still going to crew meet-ups and taking care of business elsewhere, maybe just being a bit quieter than normal - I just don’t want to be anywhere near the club. If any of the crew knows about what’s gone down with me and Skinhead, they aren’t letting on.
Sean’s being his usual self, still taking the piss out of me but being extra attentive to me as well. His arm around my shoulders more often, that kind of thing. Paul and Lee are also being more protective of me. Obviously Vanessa’s given Paul the gist of what I told her and Sean and Ste, so Paul’s acting like my unofficial big brother. Lee, bless his heart, keeps offering me cups of tea because he doesn’t know what to say to me.
Looking round at everyone, knowing that they know what had happened to me…it makes me feel even more ashamed and vulnerable. And Sean’s probably noticed the way I now flinch every time a bald man crosses my line of sight. But the unspoken atmosphere leaves me in no doubt that as a member of the crew who had been wronged, they all have my back.
I get a call on the mobey from Sean about midnight. “Need you at the lock-up down the road from ours. Quick as you can.” Before I can ask what the fuck is so important, he hangs up on me. I get a taxi down to Princes Road and head into the lock-up where Paul is outside waiting for me.
As I step through the door, I know straight away what’s happening. I can see the lads standing in a semi-circle around Skinhead who’s tied to a chair in the middle of the room. His face is battered and bleeding and his left eye is all but closed up. He doesn’t see me at first. Paul and Lee are keeping him distracted with the occasional punch and slap.
Sean walks over to where I am. I’ll be honest, I want to fucking smack him one, for dragging me back into this, for making me share the same breath as that cunt once more, for going against my wishes. But I know arguing with him is an exercise in futility. He’s made his decision, and God doesn’t change his mind.
“You’ve got to understand something, girl,” Sean says, his eyes full of earnestness. “Pricks like this?” he says, nodding his head back at Skinhead. “They don’t change, girl. They don’t. He started this. And now you’re gonna finish it. Do you understand?”
I understand. I nod slowly. Deep down, I know he’s right but I don’t know if I have it in me to bring this sorry saga to its logical conclusion. Sean’s going to force me to end it. I follow Sean to the centre of the room. Sean steps aside, leaving me face to face with Skinhead. Now, I feel no fear, no trepidation. The panic I felt on seeing him again after so long is now replaced with a resigned sense of foreboding and a growing anger within me. I know what’s about to happen to Skinhead. I almost feel sorry for the bastard.