Games with the Dead

by James Nally

  ‘I spoke to the auld fella. He’s got a coterie of local widows pursuing him. Can you believe it?’

  ‘Be young, be foolish, but be happy eh?’

  We laugh at the memory. Ma, who possessed a rare knack for surreal humour, had The Tams’ classic played at her funeral. When the priest revealed it had been Mick and Dolores’s special song, we fell about laughing. Da had been well into his fifties when they’d married, and neither foolish nor happy his entire angst-ridden life. It was her song, of course, a mantra she warbled around the house all day and played full blast on the record player whenever Fintan or me felt down.

  ‘Ma was a real romantic, wasn’t she?’ I say. ‘Such a shame she got stuck with that joyless lummox.’

  ‘Ah she knew him before she married him. Da is just Da, you know?’

  ‘Why do you always defend him?’

  ‘Why do you always stand up for Mam?’

  ‘Well someone had to.’

  That thickens the air. Although Golden Boy Fintan escaped largely unscathed, Da’s whiskey rages and black moods scarred us all. Poor Mam took the brunt of it, to protect me. But tonight, like some trainee Samaritan talking a man down off a bridge, Fintan is refusing to let any of the dark stuff in.

  ‘So, let’s face it, Donal, even our Da, Mick the Grinch Lynch, an octogenarian sociopath renowned for his homicidal outbursts, bad hip and graveyard teeth, is getting his end away more often than you. How does that make you feel?’

  ‘Do not put that image into my head, for the love of God.’

  We both silently drink to that.

  Fintan sniggers. ‘Remember the morning after Mam died. You went off roaming the fields, all mournful and magnificent like some malnourished Heathcliff. I thought I’d try to keep things as normal as possible, so I fried the auld fella two eggs, like Mam had done for as long as I can remember.

  ‘I put the plate in front of him and he says, “I don’t like eggs”. I said, “What do you mean, you don’t like eggs? You’ve eaten two every morning your whole life.” And he says, “I only did it to keep herself happy.” Can you believe it?’

  I shake my head. ‘It must’ve been the only thing he ever did to keep her happy.’

  ‘Anyway, later I got stuck with that gombeen of a priest. I couldn’t think of a thing to say to him so I told him that story. At the funeral, he turns it into a big parable about how relationships are all about endurance and suffering, and how the Crucifixion shows us the unique rewards such pain brings. Do you remember?’

  ‘I was too busy self-harming so his words wouldn’t get through.’

  ‘I was raging and I let him know afterwards that he’d taken the whole thing out of context to promote his own bullshit agenda.’

  ‘And you’d recognise that quicker than most,’ I say.

  I’m now wondering what Fintan is getting at. Such observations are normally the preamble to contrition. What has he done?

  ‘Why are you telling me all this, Fint? In fact, why are you being so … nice?’

  ‘Oh, thanks a lot, Donal. Jesus, I’m working harder than Fred West’s cement mixer here.’

  ‘Just tell me what she said. I can handle it.’

  He squashes his can, hurls it into the corner and plucks two more out of his Londis bag.

  ‘The thing is, Father Gombeen’s spiel at the funeral made me realise we’re so brainwashed into that kind of thinking. You know, where putting up with misery for forty years is grounds for beatification. The only road to true happiness is through the valley of tears. It’s all shite.’

  ‘Fintan, can you stop riddling. You’re making me epileptic.’

  ‘All I’m saying is, you and Zoe haven’t been happy for a long time. If you two get back together now, that will be it. The Matt factor means you’ll be committing for the rest of your lives. If you take your male pride out of it, and your hurt at her betrayal, is this really what you want? Because you must admit, Donal, you’ve been flatter than a flapper’s tits these past few months.’

  At last, we’re on point. ‘Right, so she’s not budging then?’

  He takes a hefty swig, to help him cut to the chase. ‘At first she refused to believe that you’re going undercover. Then she accused you of emotional blackmail. You may as well pull out of the course, Donal. It’s not going to win her back.’

  ‘Is that it?’

  ‘No. Not exactly.’

  ‘Please tell me you didn’t go off script, Fint?’

  ‘She’s such a controlling cow, Donal. I can’t stand watching you running after her like a puppy every time she whistles. You need to win back her respect.’

  ‘Oh God, what did you say?’

  He squirms in his seat.

  ‘What did you tell her?’

  ‘Look, I lost it, okay? I told her you’ve already met someone else, her name is Tania, she’s a model on the paper and I haven’t seen you this happy in years.’

  ‘Jesus, Fintan. I’ve got to call her, tell her you made it all up.’

  ‘Do not call her, Donal. For God’s sake, man, where’s your self-respect? You don’t want her coming back to you out of charity, do you? Or pity? Or guilt? You need to forget about her. It’s the only way you’ll find out for certain if she really loves you. Because if she doesn’t truly love you, you need to get away from her.’

  He slows his blinking and breathing, reining himself in.

  ‘Don’t you get why Mam loved that song so much, Donal? Why she drilled it into us? Be happy, Donal. Be foolish, but be fucking happy. That means not being a martyr for the next thirty years, like she was. That’s all Mam wanted, that we don’t make the same mistake she made. Do what makes you happy, Donal, if not for you then for Mam, in honour of her memory. Okay?’

  Chapter 36

  Whitechapel, East London

  Tuesday, June 28, 1994; 09.30

  A drab prefab in Whitechapel proves my unlikely Alma Mater in undercover chicanery. I’m wondering where everyone else is when the door crashes open to a tanned, balding but pony-tailed, forty-something geezer straight out of Pimp School.

  ‘My name is Gary and I’m your course leader,’ he declares in a strong cockney accent, bling jangling, Hawaiian shirt wobbling. I can’t help thinking he’s trying way too hard and looks like, well, an undercover cop.

  ‘You’re probably wondering why you’re sat in a classroom on your own. That’s because we train each of our UCs in complete isolation. This is how seriously we take your security. We need the same commitment from you.

  ‘Golden Rule number one of undercover work is: don’t do it just to get away from your missus. Golden Rule number two is: don’t breathe a word about it to another soul. Loose lips sink ships. Even hinting at what you’re engaged in to one individual can come back on you with horrific consequences. Is there anything you need to tell me, Donal?’

  I shake my head, thinking, Shit, I’ve broken both golden rules already.

  ‘Right. Some boring practical stuff. Believe it or not, no British policeman works full-time in an undercover role, except the handful of top dogs who run SO10. Any undercover work has to be an extension of your existing work. If we decide you’re right for this job, we’ll have to get your boss to release you. Don’t expect your boss to like it. Now, how familiar are you with rave culture?’

  ‘I got dragged to one once, Gary. As soon as I discovered the bar sold only water and Lucozade, I fled.’

  ‘Man of my own heart. I can’t believe some of the shit I see. Ravers sucking children’s dummies to stop the E buzz wobbling their jawbones. Stripping off and smearing themselves in Vicks decongestant to clear the lungs and maximise the E experience. Some even walk around all night with an inhaler inserted in one nostril.

  ‘Don’t be fooled by the surreal pantomime. It may have been all about peace and love at the start. It’s now all about profit and loss. The underworld has taken over the scene.’

  I think of Chris St. John Green’s flit from those East London gangsters with all t
hat cash, and marvel at the irony that I might be infiltrating the very scene that made him.

  ‘According to our friends at Customs – who, by the way, enjoy a fully funded, global undercover unit – ecstasy coming into the UK has increased 4,000 per cent since 1990.

  ‘Market saturation has seen the price drop from fifteen pounds to as little as five pounds per pill. Needless to say, the quality has plummeted too. MDMA is now a brand name for a range of concoctions that contain LSD, speed and God knows what else.

  ‘The fact you’ll see St John Ambulance volunteers at many hardcore venues sums it up. You’ll see ravers getting “cabbaged” and “monged”, to use the charming parlance of the day. Increasing numbers are “losing it”, winding up in cults, or institutions or heading off to India and Thailand and never coming back.

  ‘The gangs that run the scene don’t care. They take over venues by force. Anyone who resists is crushed. Just the other week in East London, a club owner stood up to one criminal outfit and paid the price: a couple of nights later, a bunch of grunts armed with machetes stormed in and attacked select clubbers, all black males, then cut off two of the DJ’s fingers so he can never mix records again.’

  I fail to stop myself wincing. I’m Cold Case Squad, after all, where the greatest threat to physical harm is dust inhalation.

  ‘Once the criminal gang takes over, they take complete control of the scene. They import the tablets, supply them to dealers, then charge these dealers to gain entry to the marketplace, their clubs, so the profits are vast.

  ‘These gangs follow a well-trodden route map from armed robbery to prison to overnight drugs barons. Thanks to recent developments like cheap international flights, laptops and mobile phones, integration with Europe, deregulated banking and, of course, the demand for E, at the touch of a portable phone they’ve been propelled into a stratospheric world of mass cash and wildly disproportionate power.

  ‘The gang that controls the club where Molly’s E was bought are typical of the breed; weight-pumping, steroid-popping, egotistical and violent cokeheads who’ve made money beyond their wildest dreams but still want more.’

  The verbal assault ceases while he deals photos onto my desk like playing cards. Each snarling face is upstaged by a veined and monstrous neck. ‘Shaun Shaw, convictions for GBH and drug dealing. Craig Walsh, convictions for GBH and racketeering. And the boss, Pat Regan, convicted armed robber with a taste for sadism.’

  Bulging out of a wife-beater vest and leering at the camera, Regan looks wide-eyed and unhinged.

  ‘For these guys, enough is never enough. They don’t just want to make more money, they want to rip off rival gangs. That’s the thing with villains, they’re still petty criminals at heart. They can’t help themselves. It’s not enough to make a packet of cash from a deal, they have to try to mug off the other party, even if doing so might cost them more money in the long run.

  ‘And so our gang engages in what have become known as “have offs” and “tie-ups”. They find out about deals, burst into rooms where they’re going down, masked and armed with assault rifles, and relieve dealers of their “tackle” and tens of thousands of pounds in cash. As another little sideline, they “tax” rivals of their super profits. Anyone who resists gets kidnapped and tortured.’

  He frisbees three more photos on my desk. One and two depict faces liberally carved up with a blade of some sort.

  ‘Major drugs barons who refused to pay their tax bill. Regan has set about so many mugs with his Stanley knife that he’s even developed a signature, the “Chinese Sneeze”. Check out both guys’ noses. He’s cut their nostrils like Polanski did to Jack Nicholson in Chinatown, only he always slices both.

  ‘Although both victims are heavyweight criminals, they’d only talk to me strictly off the record. They daren’t stand up to this gang because Regan and co. have no code, creed or confederates. They are maniacs and they are out of control.

  ‘Which segues neatly into the next photo. This is a guy they lifted off the street in broad daylight, tied him up, placed a plastic bag over his head with a couple of holes in it. They then sprayed a can of highly toxic, specialist aerosol paint into one of the holes, forcing him to breathe in all the nasty stuff – propane, butane, heavy metals and solvent – which then entered his bloodstream. As you can see in the photo, this man is now a drooling lump, immobile, blind and on dialysis. His crime? The four had met at Pizza Hut and he’d refused to pay the forty-pound bill. Imagine what they’d do to a cop?’

  He surveys me mercilessly.

  ‘You sure you want to get involved with animals like this? Let me tell you now, the smart guy would get up and walk away.’

  I’ve spent my life skulking away from danger. Conversely, Da and Fintan have always flourished in their particular Twilight Zones. I’ve got to show them; I’m just as tough as they are. I too can hack it amongst the maddest and the baddest. How else will I ever earn their respect?

  You can’t have love without respect.

  Fintan said so himself, so I don’t even blink.

  ‘Okay, Donal. But no one will think any less of you for changing your mind. For what it’s worth I, personally, would think more of you.’

  I can always just not turn up tomorrow …

  Gary claps his hands and rubs them together. ‘Right, there’s a man called Daryl who drives a red Volvo 363 and deals crack around the Venue nightclub in New Cross most afternoons. Here’s a hundred quid.

  ‘Tell him Gary sent you. He’ll see you’re not a regular user so he’ll assume you’re an occasional rock star who deals small-time to fund it. A rock costs fifteen. My advice is “eight rocks or no deal”. Any less than eight for a 100 and it’s not worth a dealer’s time. He’ll smell you’re a cop.’

  I can’t hide my alarm. ‘I don’t know the terminology, Gary. I barely even know what the stuff looks like.’

  ‘Thousands of people buy illegal drugs every day. Very few of them see themselves as Tony Montana. You’re just going to the sweet shop, Donal.’

  I shrug, still not sold.

  ‘I have a series of sayings that will get you through this, Donal. Number one is: Paranoia is a soul eater. Don’t let it in. Just get down there, do the deal and bring it back here tomorrow morning.’

  Chapter 37

  The Venue, New Cross, South East London

  Tuesday, June 28, 1994; 13.30

  I’m on foot, making my third circuit of the Venue nightclub, alone, isolated, out of my profoundly shallow depth; The Only Living Boy in New Cross. I’ve never ‘scored’ drugs in my life. It took me six months to muster up the courage to buy a pack of johnnies from my local Boots. It’s just totally out of my realm of understanding or experience. They may as well have sent me to perform some rap, or a breakdance.

  A red Volvo estate is parking up outside the KFC. As I approach, I know how those chickens feel.

  ‘Daryl?’ I say to the gargantuan Caribbean man filling almost both front seats. He turns down his drum ’n’ bass but the pounding beat continues, the first rumblings of my full-blown heart attack.

  ‘Yeah?’

  ‘Gary said you might be able to help me?’ I say, sounding way more feeble and needy than I’d planned.

  ‘Get in,’ he says.

  I squeeze into the passenger seat, taking a quick scan for anything that might prompt me to hop back out again. All clear.

  ‘How much have you got?’ he says.

  ‘100,’ I say.

  He starts the engine and tootles off.

  ‘I’ll have eight for that, Daryl.’

  ‘I’ll get your eight,’ he says casually. ‘But I don’t carry that amount on me. Cops bust me with that, I’m going to jail.’

  ‘So where are we going?’

  ‘I know a pub where I can get it.’

  Fair enough, I think, hoping to God it’s not too far. My nerves can’t hold much longer. He pulls up outside the Rose and Crown pub in Bermondsey.

  ‘Give us the money and
I’ll get it for you in there,’ he says.

  ‘Yeah right, I’m going to just hand you a hundred quid, Daryl. You’ve got a mobile. Why not call and get him to bring it out?’

  ‘Man, are you for real? I’m not asking him to come out on a busy street in broad daylight with eight biscuits. He won’t do it.’

  ‘I’ll come in with you then.’

  ‘Fine,’ he says, holding out his hand.

  I plant the cash in his palm, follow him across the road.

  ‘This is one badass pub, my friend,’ he says. ‘My man only does business direct with me in a back room. You’re gonna have to wait at the bar.’

  I perch on a stool and order a half. This isn’t so hard. I think suddenly of the Velvet Underground song, ‘I’m Waiting for my Man’. I’ve just got to get used to waiting. That’s what this is all about. So I wait, and wait.

  ‘Shit!’ I jump up, look out of the window. Daryl’s getting into his car. By the time I shout his name from the front door, he’s already gone.

  Chapter 38

  Arsenal, North London

  Tuesday, June 28, 1994; 15.00

  Unlocking the front door to our house in Arsenal, I turn to the sound of my name.

  I think suddenly: if this is a Gary-inspired guerrilla attack, then I’ve just failed my second test today.

  ‘Not me,’ I lie to the amiable-looking man, hoping to salvage something from the exercise.

  ‘I know you from Zoe’s photos,’ he brays, stepping forward and offering his hand. ‘Chris St. John Green.’

  My hand grasps his but doesn’t feel a thing. I should be infuriated; the gall of the fucker turning up here unannounced. I’ve every right to sock the smug gob off him. Truth is, I’m too sideswiped to react at all.

  ‘You may as well come in,’ I say.

  ‘That’s terribly kind of you,’ gushes Hugh Grant and I have to check he’s not taking the piss.

  He follows me down the hallway to the kitchen table.

  ‘Drink?’ I hear myself say, then baulk at my own hospitality. I should be reaching for the bread knife.