House of Birds: Forget who you were before... (The Azo Coke thrillers Book 2)

by Roland Lloyd Parry

  “My…”

  “Yeah, yeah. Your mum’s proud of you. I’ve heard your jokes. But there’s one thing I’ve not heard you say. The truth.”

  “Oh aye?”

  “You’re working for the pigs.”

  I wriggled.

  “That’s why you slotted Beshat and Mossie.”

  “I slotted Mossie cos he was on my doorstep with a gun in the middle of the night.”

  “You were after him before that. You torched his shop.”

  I stared at him. “You’ve got it all worked out, eh?”

  “I will have once I’m done with you.”

  He held the ball up in his hand like he was going to bounce it. Then he smiled to himself and lowered it to his side.

  He took something out of his pocket. A screen lit up in the gloom.

  My smartphone.

  “What’s the unlock code?” he said.

  “If I tell you, will you let me know where Raz is?”

  He snorted. “No one knows that.”

  “What about Maya? Where’s she?”

  He said nothing. He sat on his arse on the floor. Reached for his right foot. He took his trainie off. Put it down beside him and peeled off the sock too. Long white tennis one.

  He pulled the sock at either end, stretching and twanging it.

  “I’m not going anywhere, am I?” I said. “Just tell me where she is.”

  He picked up the ball from the floor. He got his fingers in the top of the sock, stretched open the hole and worked the ball down inside it to the bottom. He clutched the top in his fist.

  “You’ll have trouble in Toxteth,” I said.

  “I’m from Trinidad, Azo. Do I look like I’m scared of your scally gangs?”

  You might when you see the size of Pazzer, I thought. After he’s unlocked your trapdoor in the middle of the night.

  He started swinging the sock with the cricket ball in. Back and forth, nice and gentle. Then faster and higher.

  “What’s the code?” he said.

  “Yer ma’.”

  He raised his arm and started slinging the ball-sock round his head.

  He walked towards me.

  I scrambled up with my back to the wall. Pushed myself to my feet. He was coming at me in his dark trackie, blocking the light from the door. I tried to fix my eyes on the sock but it was whirling too fast in the dark. I heard it whiffling. Rodney bobbed one shoulder down and swiped his arm. The ball end flashed out of the dark and hit me on the cheek.

  Wahey. I went down.

  He braced his legs out wide and swung his shoulders.

  My ears were ringing. My eyes blinded with fuzz. I hardly knew where I was, or where he was, or the ball. I groped out blindly for the sock as it came. He lashed it down into my ribs. I splatted down over the flagstones and lay there trembling while he went at it.

  22

  My left cheek was stinging. Someone was touching it. Dabbing it. I smelt TCP. I was too weak to bat it away. I opened my eyes.

  She was kneeling by me. Someone else was shining a torch on me as she dabbed.

  I heard her peeling the placky tabs off a plaster. Caught the sickly nursey smell of it as she laid it crisp and dry on my face. Then she moved on to my ribs. She had a sponge dripping with water to clean the grazes.

  I took a deep breath. Coughed and moaned. Found my voice.

  “I’ve got a little boy,” I said.

  I stopped and snorted from the pain. My cheek wrecked when I moved my jaw. But I had to talk to her. Had to try. I opened my lips again and moved them, more slowly. “Ali. He’s five.”

  All quiet. Just the dripping of the sponge as she squeezed it in a bowl.

  “How old are yours?” I said.

  She stopped with the sponge in her hand.

  “Do they let you call them? Your kids?”

  She looked at me. She didn’t speak. Did she know my face from that time in the Kingston bogs? If so, she didn’t show it.

  “Ask them to let you call them,” I said. “So you know they’re alright.”

  She dropped the sponge in the bowl and stood up.

  “That Rodney. He’d sell his own kids,” I said. “Let alone yours.”

  She slipped out without a sound. I watched her to the doorway. Dicey was standing in it. Feet shuffled, shadows shifted. Voices muttered. Another figure came in. Even in the dark with my head half panned in, I made out Rodney’s strut.

  He creaked the door to and clanked it shut. He came and knelt down beside me. I could smell the fancy spray under his pits.

  He breathed a few times, loud and steady.

  “Who’s your boss?” he said.

  He still had one bare foot. I saw the white sock gripped in his fist, all rolled up around the ball.

  I spoke slowly, mushing my lips out while moving my jaw as little as I could.

  “Pazzer," I said. “He runs east Toxteth.”

  “I mean in the pigs,” he said. “Who’s your boss there?”

  I screwed up my eyes and tried to make out his face.

  “You’re not very good at this, are you Rodders?”

  “Cos you’d know, right? You are good at this stuff. They trained you for it.”

  I shook my head.

  “Where’d they train you?”

  I stopped shaking my head.

  “Who’s running you? How do you reach him?”

  I was still now. Listening. Thinking.

  He was onto something and he knew it. I never reckoned he’d think to ask the right things. Didn’t have to be that smart to just start asking though, did you. Even a div like him could do it. And once he started, I had no clue where he’d stop.

  He went to work with the cricket ball again. I tried to remember to breathe. Wrap up the pain and watch it without sinking under it.

  Wrap it up, my arse. I passed out after a few minutes.

  When I came round I was on my own. My body pulsed with pain. My brain felt like it would burst.

  I lay there moaning.

  I heard noises outside but I didn’t see anyone.

  It went on.

  They left a plate of food just inside the door while I was sleeping. After a few hours I managed to crawl over to it. I had to take care of myself, didn't I.

  Cold. Sausage rolls, pasties. Crisps. I guessed it was them Tesco multipacks, but they’d tipped them out onto the plate so I couldn’t be sure. Anyway I couldn't chew them, could I.

  They left a bucket in the corner. Someone seemed to be emptying it when I was out cold, which was most of the time.

  I didn’t know how long I’d been there. Must have been days. My stingy ribs weren’t getting any better. But one day I was just opening my eyes when I heard the cell door open and close. I felt something under my hand.

  A bottle. A packet of something.

  Flat on my back, I unscrewed the top and sloshed it in my gob. Choked and spluttered. But some of it went down. It tasted like Lucozade.

  I stuffed the packet under my arse and let my body weight down on it to pop it. I shovelled a handful of crisps into my gob. Couldn’t taste too well, but from the shape they seemed like Nik Naks. I still couldn't chew. I just sloshed them with Lucozade and let them melt into powder on my tongue.

  It gave me some strength back. I pushed myself up sitting against the wall. Twenty minutes later Rodney came back in.

  I spoke up first. Tried to start spinning him before he got in my head.

  “Who was that bird then?” I mumbled.

  He sat down in his spot in the corner.

  “Whatever her name is, you’d better send her back here,” I said. “I reckon I need a bed bath.”

  “I’ll hose you down later,” he said.

  “You kinky sod.”

  He stayed quiet.

  “How do I smell then?” I said.

  “Shite.”

  I gave a cheesy sigh. It took all my strength.

  “So go on. Who’s the bird?”

  Quiet.


  “She your girlfriend? Is that why you won’t let her hose me down?”

  He shifted on his arse. “Which bird?”

  “The one who was in here rubbing me off. Why? Is there more than one? Oh my God,” I said. “How much do they charge?”

  “I told you. It’s not like that.”

  I laughed, even though it hurt. To wind him up. “I get you,” I said. “It’s one of them classy places. Too posh to write the prices. Well I’m skint mate, sorry. I’ll have to have the old slapper.”

  He ran his hand through his hair. He was a cocky git. But I’d always felt that touchiness underneath.

  “So the old lady picked her out to come and nurse me,” I said. “Where were you? Out meeting Raz?”

  He was taking his shoe off again. He rolled the sock down off his heel.

  “Come off it,” I said. “We’re having a grown-up chat.”

  He stopped with the sock half off. I saw his fringe move as he looked towards where I was sitting. “Alright then, Azo,” he said. “Let’s be grown-up.”

  “Clever lad.”

  “Who’s running you?”

  “Pazzer,” I said. “Go and see him. He’d love that.”

  He tugged his sock off and loaded it. Swung it round his head to shuft the cricket ball down to the toe.

  “You’re not very clever, you, are you?” I said. “I’ll just pass out.”

  “Never mind. You don’t have to answer right away. This time it’s for Mossie.”

  When I woke up he was hosing me down like he’d said. He must have run the pipe all the way down from the kitchen upstairs. It was cold, but I was shagged. I just lay there.

  They chucked in an old bathrobe and a trackie that looked like it came from Oxfam. I wrapped myself up but I was already snotting and sneezing.

  I guessed it was Becky who’d slipped me the Nik Naks. She never came back. But Rodney did.

  I got anxy. Maybe Rodney would get what he was after. Paterson had had his claws in the cell all this time without them knowing. That had killed enough people so far. If the cell got its claws back in him, God knew where it would all end.

  That wasn’t the worst. I was just starting to see what the worst was. What would happen if Paterson did ever get slotted? What would happen to me? He was the only one who knew the deal we made – the only one who could follow through on it, if I did good. The one who’d scrub my record and get me time with my lad again.

  I’d taken it as a daft joke when Rodney started banging on about finding out who ran me. I hadn’t reckoned he’d ever do it. Even if he did, the thought of his lot coming face to face with Paterson had just seemed like a laugh. They were made for each other, I’d thought. Let them go at it. They’d see what I’d had to put up with.

  Lying there in the damp, it didn’t seem like such a laugh any more. I could get up Rodney’s nose and waste his time for a fair bit. If the smartest thing he could think of was lashing me with a cricket ball, he might run out of steam and juice before I did. It was looking less likely though. I was the one stuck in that cell. I didn’t know how long I’d hold out.

  “Who’s running you?”

  I shifted tack. Had to head him off from finding his way to Paterson. That was the long game. Best thing for now was to stall Rodney and hope for Pazzer and Sanky to bail me out. Maybe they would. Or maybe they’d just chuck a mollie down there and fry the lot of us.

  Those scallies must have sussed something was up though. None of them showed.

  “Who’s running you?”

  I had a fever now. My limbs crawled and my tummy jumped around. I dreamed my dad was boiling me alive, dunking me in a Tefal saucepan with a garden fork. I don’t know what I babbled that whole time. But it wasn’t any use to Rodney.

  The beatings stopped. When I came round they started getting in my head instead. Bad cop and bad cop. Rodney and Dicey.

  She never spoke but she took it in turns with him keeping me awake. Sometimes she’d do that freaky chin-grab. It wasn’t so much that it hurt. It got to me some other way. Some weird gypsy shit maybe. Some voodoo. It got inside my head. Turned me into a blubbering toddler. I could hardly think, let alone speak, when she pulled that trick.

  She’d shine a torch in my face and just stare down into my eyes. I never saw hers. I was blinded by the light and she was staring out of the dark.

  “Who’s running you?”

  “Yer bird.”

  Rodney set his torch on the floor in the corner. He took a placky packet of something from his trackie pocket. Popped it open at the top with his fingers. At first I thought it was a bag of Nik-Naks. But he didn't put his hand in. He put his nose to the bag and sniffed.

  I tried to sit up. Couldn’t. They’d taken off my dressing gown while I was out cold, and cuffed my hands behind my back.

  “Who’s running you?”

  I dug deep into my training and gave it everything I had.

  “Yer ma’... No! Yer gran ... Oh fuck it, I can’t remember.”

  He came and squatted on his heels near me. My chest was bared. My hands were tied. He put his finger on one of the grazes he'd made with the cricket ball. Then another. Hardly pressing. Just touching. Noting where they were. Then he put his hand in the packet and brought out a pinch of something with his thumb and forefinger.

  “You're English, right?” he said. “I'm guessing you like chili.”

  His fingers hovered over my ribs.

  “For Mossie?” I said.

  “Who's running you?"

  “Yer… ”

  He left me there, choking and howling with my skin on fire.

  Hours? I’m not sure. Long enough for a change of shift. Next person in was Dicey.

  She brought some other bird in with her to swab me off. It didn’t help. It was like raking up the embers.

  They uncuffed me and laid me out. My wrists were wrecked.

  The bird went away and came back with some kind of cream.

  I passed out.

  When I woke up, Rodney was back.

  I was close to giving something up. What would it be? Where Paterson worked? I didn’t even know where that posh jail was. I was always in the back of a van when they took me there. Best I could say was Anne Street bizzies where I’d first met him. No way Rodney would fancy snooping round there on the off-chance. Just that and Paterson’s phone number. What good would that do Rodney, calling Paterson? He’d never talk to anyone on that line but me. It’d just send him a message that I’d been… Oh no.

  He never let me set meetings, Paterson. The only times I ever saw him, it was him who swooped on me. So no way Rodney could use me as bait. But if Paterson found out I’d been rumbled, it was game over. He’d not come near me.

  I got that far in my head, burbling and shuddering, before I gave up the unlock code.

  Rodney got into my phone. He found the calls I’d made. Just one number.

  Dicey crouched over me and leaned in.

  My body was twitching. The blood was booming in my ears. Rodney’s face came close to my cheek. He listened to me. Through the din I heard my own voice, telling him Paterson’s name.

  23

  It was like taking a dump. But not a healthy one. Like a sicky, diarrhoeary one. It didn’t make me feel better.

  The fever had rolled off, but I felt like my stomach had fallen out of my arse. I’d given away Paterson. I had nothing left, outside me or inside. I was a burst johnny.

  This whole thing would fall to bits soon. I’d be lying under the rubble when it did. I didn’t have the strength to crawl out. I couldn’t stand, let alone walk. So I just lay there, listening to the footsteps in the passage and the dripping echoes in my cell.

  Then someone came.

  I licked my lips and panted. My chest had turned numb. The torch was on in the corner. I softened my eyes. Tried to see her face in the gloom.

  She tipped some water in my gob. I was lying down flat so I spluttered on it. She helped prop me up against the wall. I glugged. Ha
lf of it went down my throat and half down my t-shirt.

  It wasn’t Jala. The hair was lighter.

  The voice was soft and tired. But I knew it was Becky’s.

  Her face was pale in the gloom. She still had Maya’s clothes on. The old grey hoodie and trackies. They looked baggier on her than before. She looked scraggy where her wrist and knuckles held the torch.

  I couldn’t make out her eyes but I could feel her looking at me.

  So she was the one who’d come to help sort me out. The one who’d brought the cream.

  “We’re going out this afternoon,” she said.

  “We?”

  “Me and Dicey. I’ve won her right over. She trusted me with the key to this hole.”

  “You’ve well gone to work on her,” I said. I’d thought Becky wouldn’t last down here. She was way too wet behind the ears, I’d reckoned. But she’d dived in and swum.

  “Where to?” I said.

  “The church.”

  Her voice had got deeper. Tired and ragged. But it was still her.

  “Where the refugees go,” I said.

  “Dicey’s bringing one of them to work with us.”

  “Some other knob like Rodney?”

  “Not like him. A kid.”

  I was quiet.

  Becky stooped by my side. She shoved at my back till I sat up. She lifted my right arm and got in my armpit. Grunted as she tried to straighten her legs. Then she slipped down on her arse.

  “Walkies,” she said.

  “As if.”

  “You can’t stay here.”

  “I’ve not got much choice.”

  She tried again. Let her breath out slowly as she took the strain. She straightened and steadied herself against the wall with an elbow. Up I went with her.

  My arms were frigged. My wrists had gone to sleep. The cuffs had bit in them and killed the nerves. I had a pain all up my back and down my arms. But I was standing. Half.

  My eyes clouded over. I leaned against the wall. I puffed and moaned.

  Becky let go of me.

  “They’ll be coming back,” she said.

  I stood there. I looked at my legs. I looked at the door.

  She scurried around the room and found my old t-shirt and trackie bottoms. I sat down on the floor again and she helped me get them on.

  “They’ll walk back in here and catch you at it,” I said. “Then they’ll do it to you.”