Layer Cake

by J. J. Connolly

  ‘Yeah. That’ll be nice.’

  ‘What about you?’ he says, turning to me.

  ‘I wouldn’t mind,’ I say.

  ‘Away you go then, Dunck, three cups of coffee but you better hurry up before your bum-chum Alan rings back.’

  Duncan reluctantly gets up and goes to the kitchen. Trevor calls me over conspiratorially. His eyes are darting like he’s gone a bit psycho, a bit worrying.

  ‘I need to know if the gear’s been shifted yet, how Shanks worked it with Van Tuck, cos sometimes he sends the bill of lading over to Shanks so he can collect.’

  ‘The bill of landing?’

  ‘No. It’s the bill of lading, L-A-D-I-N-G. You’ve never shifted any cargo, have ya? A container arrives in Liverpool dock and it gets opened and the cargo gets broken down into consignments. The bill of lading is like a receipt for your bitta that cargo. You produce the bill of lading and show that you’re the person named on it or it’s been endorsed on the back, like a cheque, and away you go.’

  ‘It sounds really easy.’

  ‘It is most of the time. Now, if that bitta paper was on Van Tuck’s desk when he got kiled, it’s now in an evidence bag with the CID and tomorrow morning they’ll be down the docks either pulling apart my crates, finding some very choice Greek marble and my loada puff, or they’ll be plotted up waiting for it to arrive, in which case it’s a write-off, it’s seized.’

  I realise we’re whispering.

  ‘Are you saying that the bill of lading could be with Shanks?’ I ask.

  ‘Possibly. What I’m really hoping is that it’s not even been delivered and we can get word over there to hold fire until we can work something out. And all this, I think, is to do with that lot rumping the German outfit.’

  ‘Trevor, it could be that some hounds from up here have topped Van Tuck and are planning to collect your load.’

  ‘He was our ace in the hole. Only me and Shanks knew about him.’

  ‘To your knowledge, Trevor.’

  The phone rings just as Duncan returns with a tray of coffee and a plate of assorted biscuits. He places the tray down on the coffee table and waits.

  ‘Well, answer the fuckin thing!’ roars Trevor. ‘Stop fuckin about and answer it.’

  Duncan picks it up on the sixth ring. ‘Alan,’ he says like it’s a surprise, ‘any joy?’ Duncan’s eyebrows go up, pulling faces like it’s some very disturbing stuff, like he’s eaten something sour. ‘Really . . . that’s strong . . . they did what? . . . That’s fuckin sick, that is . . . there’s a maniac on the loose . . . no, of course I won’t. You’re bloody loving this, ain’t ya . . . And Van Tuck, anything known?’

  A pause while he listens.

  ‘Right, I see. Well, poor bastard. The fat lady’s sung for him . . . No way, Alan. I wouldn’t dream of publishing anything . . . I almost wish I hadn’t asked now . . . We couldn’t print that anyway, people would throw up.’

  I can hear a huge guffawing from across the room. Alan sounds quite tickled, loves the gory detail.

  ‘But seriously, don’t you think that’s sick . . . that’s the word . . . Okay, I’ll love you and leave you, see you in the Masons, Friday, on parade eighteen-thirty hours . . . If you hear anything let me know.’

  He puts the phone down.

  ‘Are these blokes after you or something, because if they are, you’ve got a problem,’ says Duncan.

  ‘Tell us exactly what your friend told you,’ says Trevor.

  ‘He’s not my friend, by the way, but anyway. He tries to ring the fella he knows but this bloke’s out. He’s a bit pissed, he’s got balls, so he rings one of the guys on the investigation and he welcomes the chance to download because it’s heavy. The victim, the Dutch bloke, was held for about two days before he died. They know that because the decay on the wounds showed some were forty-eight hours old and others were fresh. Also, two smartly dressed men were seen entering the boatyard early Sunday afternoon. They’ve worked out, you really have to trust pathologists because they’re seldom wrong, that he was tortured for the whole two days. He was given a rare beating. He had a fractured skull, ribs and forearm. They’ve then wired him up to the electricity mains by his goolies, his swinging bits, burns of the electrical variety on the old testes.’

  ‘Poor Van Tuck,’ sighs Trevor.

  ‘Oh, there’s lots more, they didn’t stop there. They were only getting started. They put his eye out, pop, something sharp or something blunt in the eye.’

  ‘Sounds like they wanted information,’ says Trevor to me.

  ‘I may continue,’ says Duncan. ‘They started cutting his fingers off, one by one, a couple off each hand. The wounds on the little fingers were older than the others.’

  ‘Charming,’ says Trevor. ‘If it was a hit, someone woulda walked on that boat, bang-bang with a silencer and away.’

  ‘It’s brutal but not very professional,’ I agree.

  ‘Exactly. They risk getting caught in flattette.’

  ‘What? Talk English, Duncan!’

  ‘On the job. But if I can finish before you two offer a critique. He had water in his lungs, so they reckon they half drowned him in the bath and then they cut off his two big toes in the bath and dragged him around a bit so there’s blood everywhere on the boat and the police are spooked by it because they reckon that these two were cooking meals and having naps. And the final coup de grâce, the grand finale, they left him wired up to the mains so he was slowly cooked alive and they carried on lobbing bits off him.’

  ‘Like?’

  ‘Ears, nose –’

  ‘Bollocks?’ asks Trevor.

  ‘You know, Trevor, I didn’t think to ask.’

  ‘How was he found?’ I ask.

  ‘By the cleaning lady, little Irish woman,’ says Duncan. ‘She’ll have a job getting that place ship-shape.’

  ‘What was the cause of death?’ I says.

  ‘Loss of blood and heart attack.’

  ‘What do the busies think Van Tuck was about?’ asks Trevor.

  ‘They never had a sniff of anything on him, no files, no Interpol circulars, nothing here or in Holland.’

  ‘Do the law think it could be just a nutter?’

  ‘Possibly, but they’ll go through ever bit of paper, every phone bill.’

  ‘Where’s the fuckin khazi in this place?’ says Trevor, getting up and walking out the door.

  ‘The door directly in front of you, Trevor.’

  Duncan sounds quite pissed on the brandy.

  Trevor’s phone rings. I pick it up from the coffee table and the display says ‘Shanks’ and a land-line number. I answer it.

  ‘Trevor?’ says Shanks, his accent exaggerated two-fold.

  ‘Shanks, it’s me. Trevor’s in the khazi having a piss.’

  ‘I just came home and there’s about twenty messages on the machine, from Mandy ‘n’ all. You okay?’

  ‘I think Trevor better ex–’

  ‘Did I hear my fuckin phone go?’ says Trevor, rushing back in still doing up his flies. ‘Give it here.’

  He snatches it outta my hand.

  ‘Shanks, listen, someone’s been topped, yeah. Now think, where was that bitta how’s-your-father? Listen. Was it with the Dutchman or was it still in the shop?’

  Trevor asked the question like it’s the final question for the big star prize on a TV quiz, slow and deliberate, pronouncing every syllable. Trevor listens intently cos he has a couple of million sovs, maybe a year’s work and possibly a lot of attention from the cozzers riding on the answer. He’s nodding continually throughout his conversation with Shanks. I can hear Shanks’ voice faintly but it seems to have gone up an octave so it’s high and shrill.

  ‘Saturday, you say, and he had it then, the paperwork, on hand. The goods were where? Well, Shanks, maybe, just maybe, there’s a fuckin chance.’

  Duncan’s phone rings and he picks it up. Trevor’s still marching up and down while Shanks rabbits on like mad. He covers the mouthpiece a
nd gives me a wink.

  ‘Shanks reckons we’ve got nothing to worry about, we sit tight and don’t panic, he’s got people in the docks.’

  I’ve got half an eye on Duncan. He’s jotting down notes in a reporter’s notebook. He starts to deflate, like someone’s letting the air outta him.

  ‘Trevor,’ says Duncan, putting the phone down.

  ‘In a minute, Duncan, fuckin hell, can’t you see I’m busy, are you fuckin mad?’ says Trevor, shaking his head.

  ‘I have to go out, something’s come up, like right now, Trevor,’ says Duncan.

  ‘Well, fuck off then. We’ll let ourselves out,’ says Trevor, who’s cheering right up.

  ‘That was one of my contacts with a story,’ says Duncan, looking down at the carpet.

  ‘So ya off to win the fuckin Pulitzer Prize, are ya? Shut the fuck up, will ya. No, not you Shanks. I’ve got that fuckin nuisance paperboy with me.’

  ‘He works in the docks,’ says Duncan.

  Trevor only hears the word docks. ‘One second, Shanks. Don’t go away. You–’ he points at Duncan ‘– speak.’

  Duncan still can’t look up. His voice wavers as he speaks, the fear has returned.

  ‘This chap who works for a shipping agent says the police, acting on information received, just seized approximately three tonnes of hashish resin, very high quality, in a consignment of Greek marble. The whole place is alive with police and customs. He says they arrived earlier with bills of lading and started to pull the place apart. After two and a half hours they came up trumps.’

  ‘Shanks,’ says Trevor into his mobile, ‘we just gone down a snake. I’ll see ya tomorrow, laters.’

  He clicks the phone shut very calmly and tucks it into the back pocket of his jeans. He picks up the coffee table at each end. I watch as the tray of untouched coffee and biscuits slides off onto the floor in slow motion. He holds the table above his head for a split second and then fires it, like he did it every day and practised for hours, into the wide-screen television in the corner, letting go a howl of deep rage. The glass on the telly disintegrates instantly and shoots splinters and shards of glass back into the room. Next he picks up the stack system and propels it against the wall. Trevor’s throwing everything in the room that’ll break against the wall or overturning it. He pulls the dining chairs apart and moves on. He’s screaming ‘fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck’ over and over again. I’m stood in a corner trying to look as inconspicuous as possible and Duncan, bless him, is doing the same while Trevor completely destroys the room. Every last breakable object, lamps, plants, the carriage clock, vases, video, is smashed. Now he’s trying to throw an armchair through the front bay window but it won’t have it. The upstairs neighbour is banging on the ceiling but luckily for everyone Trevor is oblivious to it. After about thirty seconds of intense destruction Trevor is suddenly calm but breathing hard like he could suddenly see the pointlessness of it. He looks around. He’s surprised by the debris around him, baffled.

  ‘Come on. We’re going,’ he says to me. Duncan’s shaking in the corner and looks literally about to shit himself. ‘Sorry ‘bout that, lad,’ Trevor says to him in passing. ‘I’ll pay for any damage.’

  Wednesday Dan Saff Again

  Morty finds last night’s turn-out hilarious and my reaction to it even funnier still. Trevor dropped me at a petrol station in the fuckin middle of fuckin nowhere and the fuckwits behind the jump thought I was asking for a fuckin spaceship to take me home rather than a fuckin taxi. When I did manage to communicate this to them, through a travelling salesman who acted as an interpreter, it took about an hour to fuckin arrive and the geezer driving got lost and wouldn’t admit it so after about twenty minutes we drove past the same fuckin petrol station again and I swear I saw him waving at his ‘You’re from London, ain’t ya’ mates. Then the geezer wants to charge me twenty-five quid for a sightseeing tour so there’s a bittova row and a bitta barter and he eventually settles for fifteen quid after the hotel night-staff was gonna call the old bill and neither of us wanted that.

  At about four in the morning I got woken up cos I felt a hand on my dick. Coming to, I’m greeted by the sight of some junkie hooker kneeling by the side of my bed smoking a snout and about to give me a blow-job with Mister Mortimer and Clarkie egging her on, telling her that I’ve just got outta the boob and I’ll really appreciate it, ain’t had it polished for a five stretch, darling. It’s fuckin sad and repulsive cos she’s half gouging, stinks of Tennant’s, snout and junkie constipation smell, but when I fuck her off she’s straight on Morty saying she wants her cash anyway. Morty and Clarkie are out of it, crying with laughter, doubled up.

  ‘I want me fookin money, you two. You said you’d pay me here, ya cunts.’

  She’s now got her arse about a foot from my face, screaming, and her off-white leggings are far too small so they’re stretched to fuck. I can see right through them. I’m trying to make out what the fuck the pattern on her knickers is. I sometimes think of the strangest thing at the strangest time. Morty gives her a score.

  ‘I want some fookin cab fare. You said you’d fetch me back.’

  Teddy bears, that’s what they are, fuckin teddy bears on her knickers. That’s a sad state of affairs, I’m thinking, she’s sucking cocks for a living and she’s got teddy bears on her drawers. I wanna go back to sleep. Morty gives her another forty quid and she starts to relax a bit. They turn the light out at least. I fall back to sleep listening to Morty howling with laughter. Maybe she’ll get my cab driver on the way back, they were made for one another.

  This morning we got to the dining room at one minute to nine and breakfast finishes at nine on the dot. The staff didn’t look pleased to see us. Apparently the night manager had to knock about the noise at five o’clock after complaints from the other guests. Morty gets himself the full-on breakfast from the serve-yourself counter and is tucking in. I’ve got some fruit and a pot of coffee and Clarkie’s got four tall glasses of orange juice lined up in a row in front of him. He’s also got a glazed look that suggests that he wouldn’t pass any random drugs test.

  ‘I thought you’d appreciate a little souvenir of Manchester last night seeing as you did the corporate entertainment bit with Trevor,’ says Morty, a bit too cheery after only three hours’ sleep.

  ‘He’s a fuckin pothouse, that Trevor.’

  ‘Do you hear that, Mister Clark, our colleague here is shocked and surprised to find that one of the most feared and respected drug dealers in the north of England has a vicious temper.’

  Clarkie grins.

  ‘He seems such a nice geezer,’ I say, ‘but he changes when he’s stoned, and a spliff and –’

  ‘He becomes some kinda hippie Mafioso, a right pest with all that stuff. The wind and rain and honour, brotherhood and all sorts of shit. When I was in the boob with him–’

  ‘You remember him from the boob?’

  ‘Course I fuckin remember him from the boob. We did time together. How d’ya think we found Trevor? In the yellow pages?’

  ‘Well, he says you wouldn’t have remembered him.’

  ‘I don’t know why he’s said that cos you’d remember Trevor all right. These fuckin eggs are dead.’

  ‘If they weren’t they’d be chickens.’

  ‘I mean they’ve been on the fuckin hotplate too long. This gaff reminds me of Sunday mornin in the shovel. And that lot remind me of screws,’ he says, nodding at the waitresses in their black uniforms.

  ‘Well don’t eat the eggs then. So why would you remember Trevor? He says he did his lie-down quiet and–’

  ‘Trevor?! The Trevor who was here yesterday?’

  ‘Yes, Morty. He says he went in to do a five and ended up doin a three so he musta–’

  ‘No. He went in to do a three and ended up doin a five, other way round mate. Someone’s got their arithmetic wrong and I can’t believe one of the biggest dealers in the country can’t do simple maths.’

  ‘So why would he tell me that?’
>
  ‘Fuck knows. Maybe Trevor has problems with his memory. Listen, Trevor’s party piece was throwin screws over the landing from the threes.’

  ‘What, killin ’em?!’

  ‘No, silly bollocks. He’d still be there if that was the fuckin case. No, they have a net, like what you get under the trapeze at the circus, and they’d land in that, screws and grasses.’

  ‘And they thought it was a giggle as well, did they?’

  ‘No way. He’d get a serious beating from the mufti, the heavy mob, but he’s a bit mad is Trevor.’

  The sensation of walking out of Duncan’s last night over all that broken glass in the shag-pile carpet is still very vivid.

  ‘He had you booked as the Chris Eubank of the prison system,’ I says.

  ‘What?’

  ‘He said you had a tie and a uniform.’

  ‘That was only to raise a laugh for the chaps. See what I mean, Trevor takes everything too fuckin serious. This Van Duck geezer, nothin to do with us, or the firm from down our way, or any fuckin Continentals. See, these fuckin scousers-’ says Morty, pointing at the gaggle of waitresses with his knife ‘– when they ain’t singing “You’ll never walk alone” or “He ain’t heavy, he’s my brother”, they’re nickin the gold fillings outta each other’s heads. They got a right nasty side to their character. Some cunt’s tortured the geezer to death for his PIN number when all the time they coulda gone down the docks with this bill of whatever and won the scally lottery, three tonna puff. I don’t know why you even mention it.’

  ‘He went down for three tonne a block last night cos someone done a number on his travel agent so I think he’s a bit entitled to be–’

  ‘And another thing. We ain’t givin no fuckin readies to any Germans. If we can find a home for those pills we pay the Apaches or whatever you call ’em their whack, Jimmy his, and we jog on.’

  ‘Is that cos they’re fuckin Nazis?’

  ‘Listen, I don’t give a monkey’s who they are or what they fuckin believe. They ain’t getting a fuckin penny. Subject closed.’

  ‘And you still wanna find a buyer?’

  ‘Yes. Maybe this outfit’ll wanna make up their losses.’