The Graft

by Martina Cole

  ‘How the fuck did you lot get in?’

  His voice was harsh. He wasn’t sure he wanted these youngsters walking in and out as it pleased them. Didn’t Jude have any idea at all about the real world? He pushed her away from him gently and she slumped back on to the couch, leaning forward awkwardly to pick up the money lying on the floor.

  ‘What are you? Fucking deaf? How did you get in?’

  ‘Through the front door.’

  His demand was answered by the tallest boy who spoke to Tyrell with no respect whatsoever.

  ‘You want me to mash your face, boy?’

  The boy blanched at the annoyance in the large Rasta’s voice. He knew that Sonny’s father could be a handful and wished he had remembered that before he had spoken. But the urge to show off in front of his friends was paramount in his life and he was now paying the price.

  ‘Leave them alone, Tyrell. Anyway, I thought you were leaving.’

  Jude’s voice was dismissive and he felt an urge to slap her face but calmed himself down enough to say almost normally, ‘Of course. You were just seeing me out, weren’t you, when we were so rudely interrupted.’

  Even Jude managed a smile at the tone of his voice.

  Tyrell looked the boys over and sighed inwardly. These were his son’s friends and he had no interest in them whatsoever. You could see what they were just by looking at them. The small blond one was already stoned out of his nut.

  ‘Were you good friends with Sonny Boy?’

  The question was directed to the tall boy with the surly face and short cropped hair.

  Gino nodded.

  ‘You knew everything about him, I expect?’

  ‘ ’Course.’

  The words conveyed the message ‘more than you did’.

  ‘Then where did he get the gun, clever bollocks?’

  Tyrell turned to a white-faced Jude as he said, ‘Put the kettle on, I think I might stay for a while after all.’

  Chapter Eight

  ‘For fuck’s sake, Nick, you’re starting early even for you.’

  He swallowed down his vodka and burped loudly.

  ‘Who are you, me mum?’

  He pushed himself up from the table and wandered towards the bar. The head barmaid Candice was watching him warily. She could feel the anger coming off him and sighed heavily. It was going to be another one of those days.

  There had been plenty of them lately. It was as if Nick had moved into the pub. He was there when she went home and there when she arrived in the morning. It was getting wearing. She had her own little scams afoot and didn’t need the added pressure.

  ‘I feel like I am, having to keep reminding you about your drinking and not eating and the fact that you keep starting fights with the customers . . .’

  She watched his reflection in the bar mirror. He rolled his eyes and she felt a moment’s anger.

  ‘Shag off, Candice, for fuck’s sake. Give me a break from your poxy voice. I might as well be at home with Tammy.’

  Candice grinned at him as she said seriously, ‘Now come on, Nick, I ain’t that bad.’

  He was chuckling as he replied, ‘If she heard you say that, you’d be spitting teeth for a week.’

  ‘You seem to forget me and Tammy go way back. She wouldn’t pick a fight with me.’

  He knew it was true. No one in their right mind would pick a fight with Candice; she was like a bloke in the aggression stakes. In fact it was one of the reasons she ran the bar so well. No one would willingly take her on now. Too many had tried over the years. He liked her, always had. She was friendly without the usual female fluttering. What you saw was what you got, and she was a good-looking woman.

  ‘Lovely tits’ was something he had heard said of her many times over the years. He had also heard her favourite answer to anyone who had the gall to say it to her face. Unrepeatable though the answer often was it had always made him smile.

  ‘Come on, have a cup of coffee with me, eh?’

  He shook his head.

  ‘Have a vodka with me instead.’

  She sighed again, pulling down her cropped top and then hitching up her skin-tight jeans. She yawned loudly as she said: ‘Fuck off. Unlike you, Nick, I have to do a day’s work.’

  ‘Come out the back and have a shag then.’

  Candice grinned.

  ‘You’d get a shock if I said yes, wouldn’t you?’

  ‘Too right I would. After what I just put away, I couldn’t get it up if you paid me, love.’

  She touched him gently on the arm as she said, ‘Come on, have a coffee with me then get yourself down to the site office.’

  As she spoke George Michael came over the bar courtesy of the new sound system. He was singing ‘Careless Whisper’ and Nick suddenly felt the urge to cry.

  That was happening a lot lately.

  Shaking her head, Candice walked back behind the bar. Taking out her handbag, she cut two smooth lines of top-grade cocaine expertly.

  ‘Come on, Nick, snort this. It’ll sort your head out and sober you up a bit.’

  He minced behind the bar like a woman and she laughed out loud. After he’d snorted both lines he said loudly in an American accent, ‘I have an eighth in me pocket. You can have it, sweetheart, for being employee of the month.’

  Candice wiped the excess from around his nostril and laughed: ‘Go home, go to work, just fucking go somewhere!’

  As he put his jacket on she sang along to the music. He was opening the door to leave when she shouted, ’Ain’t you forgotten something?’

  Nick raised an eyebrow quizzically.

  ‘Employee of the month?’

  She held her hand out to him and he placed the small package in it. Candice grinned. It was a heavy eighth, exactly what she needed for a day in the bar.

  It was strange seeing Nick snort. Usually he hated it around him, but she guessed rightly that he was feeling things still and in that way she felt sorry for him. He had been through the mill lately, but he was also rich and respected. You couldn’t have it all ways as Nick Leary would eventually find out.

  When she heard his car pull away she picked up her mobile and tapped in a number. ‘He’s on his way and he’s half cut again.’

  She turned the phone off without even bothering to wait for an answer. She cut herself a line and snorted it quickly. Once the regulars arrived it would be like a mad house and she would have to talk twenty to the dozen and serve three people at once. Just as she wiped her nose and rubbed her lips together to moisten her lipstick the first customer arrived.

  Candice smiled at him and poured him his usual drink. It was a good job she had here and she knew it, but if the word on the street was true then Nick was pissing it all away.

  She hoped he got it sorted sooner rather than later. He was starting to get on her nerves.

  ‘I mean, who would give my Sonny a gun?’

  ‘Oh, leave it out, Tyrell! And you call yourself a fucking Rasta? You can buy a gun in the local pub for a fucking score.’

  ‘Not that kind of gun you couldn’t, Jude. It was top quality merchandise, and it had been used in an armed robbery. I think we can safely assume the police believe our son was involved in that too. It’s one of the reasons the CPS wouldn’t prosecute. So don’t talk to me about guns that cost a fucking score!’

  Jude was sick of the whole conversation.

  ‘What good would it even do finding out where the gun come from, eh? You want to sort someone out, you go and see Leary. He’s the one who killed Sonny.’

  ‘Not that fucking tune again, Jude. You can’t blame the man for protecting his own! How many times . . . The gun was high-velocity. If Sonny had shot it he would have sprayed the fucking place with enough bullets to wipe out this block of flats!’

  Jude rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

  ‘Precisely. So why didn’t he then?’

  Tyrell shook his head so hard his dreads slapped his face. ’Are you telling me that Sonny should have shot the man? I
s that what you’re saying?’

  Jude sat down, defeated.

  ‘Of course not . . . I don’t know what I mean, Tyrell. Just fuck off, will you? All you’re doing is depressing me.’

  He took a deep breath to calm the rapid beating of his heart.

  ‘So none of you has any idea where he got the gun from?’

  The tall boy left the room. Tyrell could hear him passing water in the bathroom in short staccato bursts. He wondered where the boy got the money for the crack he was so obviously on.

  He waited for the boy to come back. Instead he walked from the flat, his footsteps loud as he thumped heavily down the flights of stairs.

  ‘Where’s he gone then?’

  No one answered.

  ‘This is a fucking joke, Jude, but I will find out what the score is, and believe me, when I do you had better be ready for fireworks.’

  ‘Oh, piss off.’

  Tyrell was annoyed.

  ‘You know more than you are letting on, Jude, but I’ll find out the score in the end.’

  ‘Go home to your family, Tyrell, I don’t need all this now. I can’t cope with any more today, I need a breather.’

  Her voice was harsh and he knew she was telling the truth as she saw it. The two young men who remained would be company enough for her. He wondered briefly which of the three boys scored for her and guessed rightly that it was probably the one who had just had it on his toes.

  So much for the earlier dramatics.

  He walked from the flat quickly. It was only when he was outside that he realised he didn’t have any money left for a cab and couldn’t remember where he had left his car.

  Gary Proctor was looking over the warehouse with interest. It would be well worth the money and the commitment required to turn it into a grafting place. They needed somewhere to keep all the equipment they used for the raves and the private parties. This was ideal. It was well equipped, had a blinding alarm system and was also centrally placed for the people who would ultimately use it.

  He phoned Nick to OK the purchase and was not surprised to find that his phone was turned off as usual. Gary left a message for him to ring back and then rolled himself a joint as he glanced around once more at the enormous space, picturing its potential.

  Nick was a pain lately, but everyone hoped that now he could draw a line under things and they could all get back down to business.

  A young man with dyed blond hair and a lisp asked him if he was finished yet. Gary smiled lazily as he told him to come inside and shut the door. The boy was nervous and had every reason to be. Gary Proctor knew his own rep and he knew it worked for him.

  This boy was driving him for the day so he felt he had the right to ask a favour of him. After all, he was going to pay him a hefty wedge and they were alone, so why not take advantage of it?

  ‘Want a puff?’

  ‘What is it, black?’

  ‘Nah, scuff. Me mate brings it over from Amsterdam.’

  The boy shook his head vigorously.

  ‘Don’t touch it.’

  ‘Really, what do you touch?’

  The boy shrugged, his slim athletic body shown off to best advantage in the tight-fitting T-shirt and jeans he wore.

  ‘Skunk, Es, a bit of coke now and again . . . mushrooms.’

  He was bragging in that inane way seventeen year olds inevitably did when talking to anyone over thirty.

  Gary toyed with the idea of telling him that he had grown his own mushrooms years before and that he was responsible for most of the Es that hit the clubs in the south east. Especially his own clubs. He took a cut from every dealer in there, plus selling them the gear in the first place.

  Instead he smiled at the boy.

  ‘You think you could do a good set for me tonight?’

  The boy nodded eagerly.

  ‘Yeah, man. Fuck! I mean, ’course I could.’

  ‘Come here then.’

  The boy edged towards him, slowly picking up the nuance in his voice.

  ‘Come on, son, you ain’t silly, are you? You know what I want.’

  Gary knew that if Nick found out about this he would kill him, but he was past caring. Anyway the boy would be too scared to say anything, he would make sure of that. The kid’s name was Jerome and he wanted to be a DJ. Gary had just offered him a spot in one of the clubs he managed. He might act as if the clubs were his, sometimes even thought they were the amount of time he put in seeing to them all, but in fact they were Nick Leary’s. Gary chose to forget that for the moment.

  Jerome wasn’t queer, Gary would lay money on it. Which, unfortunately for him, was the boy’s chief attraction. Gary lazily unbuttoned his trousers, watching the boy’s eyes. He saw the pupils dilate as Jerome realised what was expected of him.

  Gary laughed in anticipation. This was the bit he really liked, the bit that turned him on.

  ‘Get your laughing gear around that.’

  The boy was stepping backwards now, shaking his head and waving him away with his hands as if Gary had just offered him a sandwich and he was trying to say he was full up.

  ‘Leave it out, man, I ain’t into all that queer shit.’

  Gary grinned once more. He had two gold teeth. They glinted in the harsh sunlight coming through the roof panels. He was a big-set man, barrel-chested, with short legs that were now planted firmly on the ground.

  ‘Get over here now, boy. I ain’t in the mood for no girly shite. Get your mouth round that.’

  ‘You can fuck off, Gary, I ain’t going near it.’

  The boy turned to leave and Gary struck him a blinding blow to the side of his head. He punched him three more times, each harder than the last, then when Jerome was on the floor, dragged him to his knees by his hair.

  ‘You have two choices, son. You can do this with your teeth still intact or with them scattered round this floor, but either way, son, you are doing it. Do you get my drift?’

  The boy was crying now, sobbing.

  Gary, however, was laughing his head off. He liked it like this, liked the fear, it added to his excitement. Unfortunately for Jerome he decided there and then that he would not be doing the favour for anything.

  So Gary had to be far more persuasive than usual.

  Lance Walker was lying on a cold floor and he was trussed up like a chicken. His head was throbbing and his mouth was dry. He knew he had been taken and the knowledge annoyed him.

  His arms were burning with pain from being tied tightly behind his back for so long, and he knew that even if he were untied he would not be able to use them. He looked around him and in the dimness he could make out machinery, but what sort he couldn’t tell.

  The place stank of mildew and he guessed rightly that he was in a basement. It was so quiet though, he knew he was in an empty property. The place had the neglected feel of a disused house and he wondered briefly whether he would walk out of there. Somehow he very much doubted it.

  His personality did not make him fearful often, but now he was uneasy at the thought of being at someone else’s mercy. People were usually at his mercy and he knew that the irony of his situation would please a lot of his contemporaries.

  ‘You are awake at last then?’

  The voice made him jump and he turned over with difficulty to see Nick walking out of the shadows, a cigarette in his hand and a smile on his face. ‘You fucking piece of shit, Leary. Let me up and fight me like a man. But you ain’t a fucking man, are you?’

  The words were delivered with enough hatred to start an average war.

  Nick laughed, he had to admire the man. He was tied up and helpless yet he still had the front to mouth him off.

  ‘You never learn, do you, Lance? Anyone else would have the nous to try to placate the man who had drugged and trussed them up like a kipper. You was a thicko at school and you’re still a fucking Dumbo all these years later. Now where’s my money?’

  Lance stared up at Nick and his eyes burned with hatred.

  ‘Everyone lost
their money, Nick, you know that. We all lost out, the puff was delivered and dropped into the sea and the fucking bastard plod were waiting for us. You were there, you know what happened.’

  Nick dropped his cigarette by the man’s head and watched as the smoke curled upwards. He put it out gently with his shoe and then lit another one. Then he said in a quiet voice, ’All I know is, Lance, we all paid you a fucking hefty wedge and then like a crowd of cunts we waited by the sea in pissing fucking rain for the drop and as we saw the bales being dumped over the edge of the boat we all got out of our nice warm motors to collect and the next thing we knew fucking plod was all over the place.’