Davey was leaning over the table by now, his head only another head’s length from Jake’s. And he was taking it unbelievably fucking loud, almost shouting without shouting. Not so much to convey anger or emotion or anything. Just to convey sheer fucking noisiness.
Because, what Davey had figured, over the course of their first meeting, was that the junior Jake Powell was a smug little git but he was also intelligent. Sitting in that puce and cream room in Manchester’s Bootle Street police station, he was easily intelligent enough to feel the noise and swallow the Davey Green deal. Becoming a grass wasn’t so bad. There were plenty worse things he could think of, given the time, given a few more hours in that over-heated little room with its crappy colour scheme and the decibels ratcheting up to Concorde levels. It helped, too, having the gramme of amphetamine sitting unwrapped between them on the interview table.
*
It was a shame there was no amphetamine this time around. Because the truth was, Green was having trouble finding any leverage. Pushing his way into Jake’s life hadn’t been a problem, but now he’d reached a wall. He lit another Rothmans and took a Columbo squint through the smoke haze. Look at this apartment: the hardwood floors, the designer cons, even the flower-power teacups. Maybe it was his warped prole soul but Green felt like there was some kind of impregnability deal going on here. He couldn’t see any loose flaps, and he had no way to get under the lad’s skin. Maybe he’d blown it, and Jake’s snitching days were long gone.
A four-minute stretch while Green sipped at a second mug of tea and worked through another cig and a half. As far as Jake knew, the room had never been this full of smoke, but Green was clearly getting off on the fug.
Finally, Green said: ‘You follow the news back home?’
‘Manchester?’ Jake shrugged. What should he be looking for? The football scores, maybe? Manchester City ripping through a string of managers and tripping down to the bottom of the league. A few less predictable bombshells, like the IRA tagging Marks and Spencer’s. Jake had a phone-call off his Manchester aunty a few weeks after that happened: she wanted to know why the bastards couldn’t have bombed Debenhams; no one goes there.
Green said, ‘The reason I’m asking, I been making the papers quite a bit. Ever since I brought down that paedophile ring, I been getting heavy press action.’
A pause.
‘You haven’t seen me?‘
Jake shook his head.
‘Yeah, well, I’m no beauty but, you know, the face of Manchester crime prevention. They could do worse. You sure you haven’t seen it?’
‘I’d have remembered.’
‘I bet you would. The second I saw you tonight, I knew you recognized me. Your old Smiley – your boss. I got to say, you were about the worse fucking snitch I ever ran.’
‘Why are you here? You think I know anything about a paedophile ring?’
‘Let me get the story out. That’s always been your problem, wanting everything arse-first… does your girlfriend complain about that?’ Green put up his hands: a play at conciliation. ‘Sorry, just a joke. What I was saying, we found out these juve homes round Cheshire, Warrington, also Liverpool but that’s out of my jurisdiction, all of them were run by benders. The last seventeen or so years, they’d been buggering the boys, organizing swap meets, all kinds of unpleasantness. Anyway, I cracked it.’
‘Seventeen years too late.’
‘I got to act on information received. It’s not as if you told me anything about it. You being my shit-hot bum-boy sneak and all.’
‘The police knew.’
‘Well, this is the peculiar thing. That’s the conclusion I been coming round to, in the course of investigations, as I been rehashing the old files.’
‘Is that why you’re here? The police are so corrupt, you got to blackmail old snitches into lending a hand? Because, if it is, you can forget it. I haven’t lived in Manchester in fifteen years.’
‘You’re getting warm.’
Jake looked at him, ‘Or you’re here to shut me up and maintain the spotless image of the Greater Manchester Police Force.’
‘Good guess. But it’s more of a collateral thing. A friend of yours has turned up, bludgeoned to death out on Saddleworth Moor. To tell you the truth, I’m amazed we found him, you know our record finding any bodies up there. Anyway, little Kevin Donnelly, when did you last see him?’
‘Donnelly’s dead?’
‘If he’s not, he’s going to have to walk round the rest of his life with his dick in his mouth.’ Green paused. ‘I should have said there was some mutilation involved. It wasn’t pretty.’
Chapter Four
It was after midnight when Jake stepped out of Bootle Street police station. This was the old Victorian lock-up smuggled into a narrow back street in the centre of Manchester. Maybe there was a logic to hiding the police out of the way in a street so narrow and overhung: the idea that whatever happens between police and thieves, it shouldn’t take place in public. DC Green was steeped in those kind of subterranean deals and had his own reasons for taking Jake there.
Outside, the night was steeped in streetlight amber and soaked in a mist of water, rain held in near suspension. From Jake’s angle, the night was creeping by while he was moving at double speed… like Billy Whizz, running around the raindrops and only getting wet if one melted against his speeding cheek. Billy Whizz, for certain. It had to be a first, snorting speed off the top of the cistern in a police-station toilet. When DC Green returned his little packet of amphetamine, Jake had headed straight for the lavvies. He was a new recruit to the police’s informal network, so why not get a little informal around police officers?
Jake started running up the street towards Albert Square, keeping his face turned to the slit of night sky above him. He wanted to see the stars through speeding eyes. When he heard someone call his name, he spun and almost fell.
‘Donnelly?’
The boy was standing in the back door of what looked like a bank or shop, only a short step out of the rain, his eyes like a cartoon squirrel pictured in its hole.
‘How long you been there?’
Donnelly shrugged. ‘An hour?’
At least.
The boy was shivering. ‘They didn’t do me for nothing.’
Jake never thought they would. What could they do him for; he’d been walking down the street when DC Green picked him up. Arresting rentboys was always a problem, anyway. The Chief Constable’s official line was there are no puffs in Manchester. If they caught Donnelly bent over a car hood with a mechanic buried in his back passage, they’d hope the guy was carrying a wrench so they could charge Donnelly with going equipped.
Donnelly was holding out his pack of cigarettes. Jake took one and moved closet for a light from the shared match. Huddled together in the doorway, his face was inches from Donnelly’s. The boy’s cheeks so pinched and sharp they reminded him of sides of wind-dried duck, the kind he saw hanging in the Chinatown shop windows. Jake said, ‘You okay?’
It was a stupid question; the boy was risking pneumonia. He must have thought it was worth it: wanting to stick by his new compadre. But the way it was with Jake, any show of affection made him tighten inside. Now, standing so close he could almost taste the cigarette burr inside the kid’s thin smile, Jake watched as Donnelly’s face flickered out of focus, losing its hopefulness and clicking into something else: a look that read equal parts horror and resignation. It was a long second before Jake realized it was his fault. What had happened, he knew, he had sneered down at the boy with something like distaste – or worse. The way Donnelly recoiled, it was nothing but a response.
Jake tried to fix his expression, flashing a smile he hoped looked warm rather then crooked. He tried an apology.
‘Sorry. I’m pretty fucked up.’
‘lt’s okay.’
‘Yeah, well.’ Jake couldn’t just leave the kid. ‘Come on, let’s get a drink.’
*
Bernard’s Bar lay a couple of str
eets over, on King Street South, a chintzy cellar venue: part log cabin, part swinging discotheque. Jake walked ahead of Donnelly, past the spotlit fish tanks on the stairs and down to the underlit bar. Bernard’s was one of the few gay bars outside the Village: standing up for itself outside the ghetto and catching a shade different clientele. These men tended to be wealthier, professional, aged thirty to fifty. That was the plus. The minus: they were mostly clones. Anyone who came walking off the street, they thought they’d hit an ugly moustache party. Even late Thursday, the place seemed full. Catch it on the weekend and it bristled.
The wooden-topped counter started at the door.
Jake leant against it and sent a psychic thought-beam into the back of the barman’s head. The guy turned on cue.
‘Two Pils.’ And turning to Donnelly, ‘That all right?’
‘Uh-huh. Ace.’
Jake wondered, the way the bar guy bent over into the fridge, was that choreographed. Knowing he had to pull the same move a thousand times a night, he tried to get it perfect. Tilt and down, one-two, and lift and squeeze, one-two. The guy surfaced with the two bottles, smiled and said, ‘I took them out the back, they should be a bit cooler.’
Jake just nodded and passed over a couple of quid. After what he’d been through, he wasn’t going to worry about the temperature. The beer was good, though. Combined with the speed, it was Holy Communion. Jake reached inside his suit, pulled out a half-full pack of Rothmans and flip-topped it towards Donnelly.
‘Here. Sorry, I don’t have a light.’
It was only as the kid sparked up, Jake remembered that he hadn’t had any cigarettes earlier. Donnelly knew it, too, if he thought back. Why else would Jake have bummed one off him all those hours ago on Chorlton Street? And even though Donnelly didn’t seem to have guessed the cigs were police-issue, it still gave Jake a shock of guilt. A shock and an aftershock: this was going to become an everyday anxiety, something he would have to get used to now he was a police informer.
Jake covered, coughed, rationalized: Donnelly probably assumed Jake was holding a pack all along and had only asked for one earlier as a kind of Borstal Boy reflex, making the new kid pay in tobacco. Though Jake had never been in Borstal; he’d only read the book. In his Harrington jacket, Donnelly looked like he’d only been released a month.
‘Your mate’s waving you.’
Jake looked up to see Donnelly pointing across the heads of the clones, towards the back of the club.
‘What?’
‘Over by the chimney, that’s your mate, isn’t it?’
Jake stared, seeing Johnny sat on the raised Swiss-style hearth, his back to the unlit pile of logs that was Bernard’s unique decoration statement. He had a beer in his hand and his hand held above his head, yelling: ‘Jake!’
Jake couldn’t believe it. Johnny was supposed to be in Berlin until tomorrow evening.
‘Johnny?’
Jake pushed by a couple of beefy blokes wearing flight jackets and locking handlebars. As he manoeuvred round them, he shouted, ‘What you doing here?’
Johnny was grinning through his long blond fringe, ‘Had a bit of business, mate.’
There were two men with him, both with short-cropped hair, tennis shirts and blue jeans. As they stood, Jake noticed the jeans were belted too tight and too high. Men’s waists should run from hipbone to hipbone, not straight across the navel, but a lot of the clones wore their jeans high. Jake didn’t know why. Maybe the attraction of super-tight pants. If they moved their waist up, they could fit a smaller size. Perhaps they liked to brag they’d had the same waist since they were eighteen. These two men were in their mid-thirties and would have looked identical except that one was six-two and the other was five-seven. Whatever business Johnny had been doing with them, it was over now. He was just shaking their hands and telling them he’d see them tomorrow, around nine.
The smaller one said, ‘We’re having a dinner party, so come a bit later. Say, nine-thirty… about that time we’ll kick back the rug and put some records on.’ He had a campish lisp that became even stronger when he said, ‘Bring your friend.’
He left with a coquettish look over at Jake.
Jake gave Johnny a grimace, ‘The fuck’s with her?’ Using the same tone the guy had used.
‘I’m selling them some videos.’ Johnny said. ‘And I told them I delivered. What’s the matter, you don’t fancy a party?‘
Jake made the correction. ‘A dinner party, and we’re not invited. It sounds more like we’re the after-dinner entertainment.’
‘You think they’ll want to play hide the After Eights?’
Johnny was laughing. But Jake was a little more worried. Anyway, Friday nights they usually went to the Poly Disco on Aytoun Street. In fact, the place they first met – though they’d seen each other around before then. Counting back, it was probably less than a year ago but it seemed a lifetime. So, if Johnny asked him one more time, Jake would go and help him deliver videos to the guys’ party. He’d missed Johnny the last few weeks he was in Berlin.
Johnny was the blond bombshell and Jake was the brunette, and although one was bleached and the other dyed, that only underlined their different complexions. Johnny looked rosier, Jake just looked pale and intense.
‘So what’s been happening? I miss anything?’ Johnny asked.
He definitely missed something tonight. Jake said he’d tell him later, but already knew he would never say anything about his conversation with DC Green. ‘What about you? Why didn’t you let on you were coming back early?’
‘I didn’t know. It was luck, I got a lift straight through to Amsterdam and then another to Watford Gap. I did it in about twelve hours.’ Johnny always hitched. ‘Anyway, I tried to find you at Good-Day’s. Sean said you’d skipped out with this old guy’s money.’
The way he said it meaning: Smart Work, Mate.
‘Yeah, twenty quid. I bought a gramme with it. You want what’s left?’
‘Top one. I tell you, I’m wrung out. I haven’t slept since…’ He had to stop and think that one through. ‘What’s today, Thursday? I woke up Tuesday, about six in the afternoon. What’s that?’
Jake palmed the wrap over. The sum he could do in his head. ‘Fifty-four hours.’
‘Jesus Christ, as long as that. No wonder I’m fucked. I’ve got to get some of this down.’ Johnny rubbed his hands together, keeping that amphetamine warm.
He was about to head for the powder-room but paused, a crease forming between his eyes. ‘Who’s that?’
Jake had forgotten about Kevin Donnelly. He swung to the side, waving Donnelly over as he shouted an introduction. Johnny already had his hand stuck out for a formal shake-meet. Donnelly only had to thread his way through the crowd, he’d find a new friend waiting. A second ago, he looked like a boy in a bubble of loneliness. All it took was Johnny to flick a switch and he was floating inside a warm 40-watt bulb.
Johnny clamped the kid’s hand and patted his arm. ‘Good to meet you, mate. Back in a second.’
Jake and Donnelly stood there and watched Johnny bounce into the crowd. The way his hair moved, the shimmy could have been created for a shampoo ad. Johnny’s hair always looked like that… when it hadn’t been washed. Usually, he wore it lacquered-up and back-combed into a quiff mountain.
Donnelly said, ‘I seen you around together loads. Not recently, though.’
Jake told him, ‘No. He’s been staying in Berlin – cornering the European pornography market.’
Donnelly looked puzzled, but didn’t bother with a question, ‘Right. Do you want another Pils?’
Jake had nearly finished his drink. Speed gave him such a thirst he wouldn’t even notice he was ripped until the sixth or seventh bottle.
‘Yeah, same again. And get one for Johnny.’
Donnelly disappeared. Jake could either stand there, alone, or he could follow Johnny round the dance-floor and into the gents. The toilets were impossibly small. Or was that cosy? Just one cubicle, a two-man
tin urinal and a basin so small you could wash one finger at a time, maximum. When Jake got there, he had to wait for a guy to zip up and leave. He spent it usefully, putting in some time at the washbasin mirror. As the guy left, he tapped on the cubicle door.
‘Open up, it’s me.’
The bolt slid back. Jake watched the disc swivel from red to white and pushed on the open door. Johnny was straddling the toilet, a Pips membership card in his hand and the speed laid out on the porcelain cistern top. Jake rebolted the door and asked if there was much left.
‘Yeah, I couldn’t believe it. I thought you’d leave nothing but the glucose; snort all the speed from around it ’
There was a joke that Jake was tight-fisted. Or, rather, it wasn’t a joke but Johnny had enough charm to make a joke of it.
Jake watched as Johnny rolled a something-denomination Deutschmark note into a tube, took a breath, and whooshed the speed down: it took him just two smooth goes. He finished by wiping the side of his Pips card down his tongue, grinning while he did it. It was true, there had been plenty left. Paulo always gave good deals.
Jake said, ‘It taste better with foreign money?’
Johnny opened out the note and licked across its surface in two fat tongue swipes. He pulled a face and considered the question. ‘Actually, no. I got to say, it just doesn’t do it for me.’
Jake laughed.
‘I’m serious, mate. They’re smaller, they’re printed on crappier paper and they don’t have the Queen’s head. It’s just not the same.’ As he was talking he passed over the empty wrap. Jake screwed it up and popped it in his mouth, chewing the dregs out of it.
As they left the cubicle, a guy looked over from the urinal and threw an arch look, backed up with a grin. Jake ignored him but Johnny grinned back, telling him to put it away – this was a no-small-dick zone.
Manchester Slingback Page 4