The Aden Vanner Novels

by Jeff Gulvin

  ‘Anyone ask, I been here all evening. Tell your brother too.’ Young Young’s voice was low in his chest and it shook her from threads of the memory.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Never mind why. Just remember is all.’

  Vanner came off the phone to his father and Ellie watched him from the lounge doorway. She held a glass of Coke in her hand. He looked at her then, hair caught in the lamplight, frizzing away from her head. The velvet-green of her eyes.

  ‘Don’t look at me like that.’

  ‘Like what?’

  ‘That.’ She made a face and then smiled. ‘I don’t know. Concentrating.’

  Vanner moved towards her. ‘I like concentrating on you.’

  They moved back into the lounge and he sat down on the settee, crossing his ankle on his knee. Ellie sat close to him, her hand on his thigh, fingers gently kneading the muscles.

  ‘How is he?’

  ‘Not bad. He’s downstairs now. Anne’s made up a bed in the study so she doesn’t have to keep going up and down the stairs.’

  ‘Did you talk to him?’

  He nodded. ‘He wants me to go up again.’

  ‘Why don’t you?’

  He turned to face her then, looking in her eyes. ‘I thought I might go this weekend.’

  ‘Fine.’

  ‘You’re working aren’t you?’

  She nodded.

  ‘I will then.’

  They sat for a moment then Ellie got up and put music on. She knelt down by the small table and selected a CD from the pile. Her CDs, her CD player. Vanner realised that he did not own anything. This house had been bare before she came. She put Wild Wood on and rocked back on her heels as the strains of Paul Weller drifted into the room.

  ‘I saw them in 1978,’ Vanner said.

  Ellie looked over her shoulder at him. ‘Paul Weller?’

  ‘The Jam.’

  She nodded. ‘Another snippet of your past I don’t know about.’

  He glanced at her. ‘I saw The Jam, so what?’

  ‘Not what I meant.’

  He looked away from her.

  ‘You never tell me anything about before I knew you.’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘No you don’t. Not really.’

  Vanner shrugged. ‘There’s nothing to tell you, Ellie.’

  She sat down next to him again, drawing one foot under her backside. ‘What d’you mean — nothing to tell? You’ve got a whole history, a whole past life that I know nothing about.’

  Vanner looked at her then. ‘Ellie, I’ve spent too much of my life thinking about a past. I don’t want to do it any more.’

  Pain in his eyes: she could see it though he himself was not aware that it showed. Gently she cupped his cheek with her palm and kissed him on the lips.

  ‘Even so,’ she said. ‘I’d like to know.’

  He reached for a cigarette and she flicked his lighter for him. He sat hunched forward now, wrists resting on his knees.

  ‘You know everything there is to know about me, Aden.’

  ‘That’s because you wanted to tell me.’

  ‘And you don’t want to tell me?’

  He sighed. ‘Not that I don’t want to—just that I don’t see the point.’

  She shook her head and laughed. ‘God you’re a cripple aren’t you.’

  Her words stung him and he looked up. ‘What d’you mean?’

  ‘You find it so hard to feel.’

  ‘Do I?’ He drew harshly on the cigarette and exhaled a stream of smoke. The music seemed louder now, plaintive almost in his ears.

  ‘Talk to me, Aden. I want to know all there is to know about you. Your father. You have such a strained relationship with him and he’s such a nice man.’

  Vanner sat back again. ‘You talked to him?’

  ‘You know I did when you were outside with Anne.’

  ‘What did he say?’

  ‘He asked me about myself.’

  ‘And you—what did you tell him?’

  ‘Everything. Why not? He was interested.’ She waved away his smoke and reached for her glass of Coke. Vanner crushed out the cigarette and lifted his beer bottle from where it gleamed on the carpet. He held it in both hands, rolling it between his palms.

  ‘You grew up without a mother.’

  He nodded. ‘My father was a chaplain in the army. I was born in the Middle East and then we moved to Africa, Germany, Cyprus, Gibraltar. When I was twelve he got a job as a priest at Norwich School so I went there.’

  ‘Did they take the piss—the other boys?’

  Vanner glanced at her. ‘You mean because he was a priest?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Some of them did, yes.’

  ‘Did it bother you?’

  ‘Yes, it bothered me.’

  ‘What did you do?’

  ‘I became a boxer, Ellie. I got in the ring and punched people.’

  She looked carefully at him. ‘And after that?’

  ‘They didn’t take the piss any more.’

  She was quiet for a moment. ‘You keep a picture of your wife in the bottom drawer in the kitchen.’

  Vanner sat very still. ‘I don’t have a wife.’

  ‘I was looking for a tea towel. I found it by accident.’

  He looked at her now. ‘I don’t have a wife.’

  ‘Ex-wife then. She was very pretty.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right, she was.’

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘We got divorced.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Oh Christ, Ellie.’

  Vanner finished the beer and got up. He moved over to the window, one hand in his trouser pocket. A couple came out of the Greek restaurant on the corner and scuttled through the rain to the door of the pub opposite.

  ‘She decided she couldn’t cope with my kind of life. She went off with my best friend instead.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Aden. I shouldn’t pry.’

  ‘No,’ he said. ‘You shouldn’t.’

  Later, when they were in bed she lay away from him, naked, but her back to him. He could make out the knots of her spine in the half-light through the window. Her side rose and fell with her breathing. He did not know whether she was asleep or not. They had not made love.

  Seven

  JIMMY CRACK WAS WAITING for him in his office at Campbell Row the following morning. When they woke Ellie had been awkward for the first time since Vanner had started seeing her. He walked in and caught Jimmy’s expression.

  ‘The doctor?’

  Jimmy shook his head. ‘I’m still trying to set up an OP, Guv.’

  ‘What then?’

  ‘Jimmy Carter. Somebody shot up his snooker hall last night.’

  ‘Did they?’ Vanner moved past him and pulled back his chair. ‘So what? That’s a Crime Group deal, nothing to do with us.’

  ‘It was Young Young, Guv’nor.’

  Jimmy drove, Vanner sat thinking alongside him. ‘Kilburn got the call about ten thirty last night,’ Jimmy said.

  ‘Who called?’

  ‘Mr Nobody.’

  ‘Well there’s a surprise. How do we know it was Young Young?’

  ‘Description. Very tall, very slim, young looking. He beat up some spade with a pool cue then shot up the ceiling.’

  Vanner looked sideways at him.

  ‘Carries an Uzi. I told you.’

  ‘Where did a shit like that get an Uzi?’

  Vanner knew Jimmy Carter of old. He was old-school Irish, Silverbridge-born with long-time connections in Belfast. His time had been the seventies and these days he was definitely a non-player, but connections never die and Carter’s place thrived off Kilburn High Road. Vanner knew him from his days in Special Branch with Neville Standish. Carter was mean, very mean, and he was about as fond of Old Bill as a Rottweiler was of lettuce leaves.

  Vanner glanced at Jimmy again as they headed up the High Road. ‘Kilburn haven’t nicked him then.’

  Jimmy shook his head. ‘Sca
rpered before anyone got there.’

  ‘Has Carter made a complaint?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  Vanner thinned his lips. ‘Do we know the black that got hit?’

  ‘Nobody’s giving a name, Guv.’

  ‘In-fighting then. Must be some kind of prat to use Carter’s place for a venue.’

  They parked outside the main doors to the snooker hall and climbed the maroon-carpeted stairs. A doorman in jeans and a sweatshirt stopped them at the top. He was short and stockily built with gelled spiky hair. He looked them up and down. Vanner flipped open his warrant card.

  ‘Where’s Jimmy?’ he said.

  ‘You’re too late, mate. Plod’s been and gone.’

  ‘Well he’s back again, mate.’ Vanner looked in his eyes. ‘You go tell Daddy that Vanner wants to see him.’

  For a moment the bouncer looked back at him then he dropped his chin and turned to the inner door. ‘Wait here,’ he said.

  They did not wait. They followed him through the curtained swing doors into the main hall. All the blinds were pulled and the only light showed over the bar, where another man in a white collarless shirt was wiping down the wood. The bouncer looked back at them. ‘Wait,’ he said. ‘I’ll get Jimmy.’

  He disappeared through the doors at the back and Vanner and Jimmy Crack made their way through the silent snooker tables to the bar. The cleaner looked up at them and looked away again. Jimmy pointed to the holes in the ceiling; bits of plaster and dust still clung to the lip of some of them. The cleaner looked up again as Vanner sat down on a stool and laid his cigarettes on the bar.

  Carter came through the doors at the back, followed by the bouncer with the short spiky hair. Vanner looked over his shoulder and their eyes locked. Carter paused for a fraction of a second, sleeves pushed up. He scratched the curling hair on his forearm then half-smiled and sauntered over. Vanner held his eye until he was alongside then he nodded to the ceiling. ‘Had a little accident, Jim.’

  Carter glanced from him to Jimmy Crack and back again. ‘DC McKay,’ Vanner said.

  Carter did not nod or smile. ‘Mr Vanner?’ he said. ‘The police have been and gone.’

  ‘I told him that, Mr Cart …’ The bouncer started to speak but Carter stilled him with a wave of his hand.

  ‘You want coffee, gentlemen?’

  Vanner looked him in the eye. ‘That’d be very nice.’

  Carter sent the bouncer away to make coffee and settled himself on the stool next to Vanner. Vanner lit two cigarettes and handed one to him. They watched each other like two cockerels in a farmyard.

  ‘Been a long time, Jimmy’

  Carter nodded.

  ‘Still see the old faces?’

  ‘I’m not looking these days, Mr Vanner. You know that.’

  Vanner smiled without moving his eyes. He drew on his cigarette and tapped ash into the freshly polished glass of the ashtray.

  ‘So what happened here then?’

  ‘Nothing I can’t handle.’

  Vanner nodded. ‘I’m sure. Trouble is — the way you handle things I’d have to come back again wouldn’t I?’

  ‘Would you?’

  ‘Oh, I think so.’ Vanner looked again at the ceiling, then he noticed the bloodstains not yet scrubbed from the wall. Getting up from his stool he crossed the floor and paused at the spoiled baize of the pool table. He glanced down at the mess and then looked at the wall once more. ‘That’ll need painting,’ he said. ‘And the ceiling? Don’t know what you’re going to do with that?’

  ‘I’ll manage.’

  Vanner nodded and moved back towards him. ‘Sure you will, Jim. But somebody’ll have to pay for it won’t they.’

  He sat down again as the bouncer came in with a tray of coffee. He set it down on the bar and some of it spilled into the saucers. Jimmy hissed and took a beer towel to the spillage. He waved the bouncer away and passed a cup each to Vanner and Jimmy.

  ‘Young Young,’ Vanner said as he sipped. ‘The black with the shooter, Jimmy. His name is Young Young.’

  ‘Yeah? I wouldn’t know now would I. Don’t mix with the blacks.’

  ‘Course not.’ Vanner looked sideways at him. ‘Dealer. Crack. Nasty nasty bastard. Well …’ He motioned to the ceiling again. ‘You know that already.’

  Carter finished his cigarette and buried it in the ashtray. He looked keenly at Vanner. ‘Is there anything else you wanted?’

  Vanner nodded. ‘I want Young Young, Jimmy. I know you want him too now, but I want him really bad. I’d like to get him before you do. In fact you could save yourself a whole bunch of trouble by giving him up to me.’

  Carter laughed then. ‘Now I’d never thought ye’d go soft in the head, Mr Vanner. Not you, what was it — soldier from Belfast in the old days. You remember the old days, Mr Vanner?’

  Vanner leaned one arm on the bar. ‘Oh, I remember, Jimmy.’

  ‘Then you know you’re wasting your time.’ Carter pushed himself off his stool. ‘I don’t know the name, Mr Vanner. And if I did I wouldn’t give it to you. Now,’ he looked at both of their faces. ‘If ye don’t mind I’ve got a ceiling to fix.’

  Outside, Jimmy unlocked the car. ‘Laid down a marker if nothing else, Guv.’

  Vanner looked up the steps to where the crop-haired bouncer was still watching them.

  ‘Not that it’ll do us any good.’ He got back in the car. ‘If Carter finds Young Young he’s history.’

  Jimmy made a face. ‘Young Young’s mean, Guv.’

  ‘No.’ Vanner shook his head. ‘Carter’s mean, Jim. Young Young’s just an amateur.’

  ‘Balls to go in there though.’

  Again Vanner shook his head. ‘Lack of brains, Jim. Just lack of brains.’

  He talked as they drove. ‘Jimmy Carter ran the Belfast brigade of the IPLO in the late seventies. I knew him when I was a soldier over there. I did a tour when I was eighteen, before I went to Sandhurst. Carter was big news, though more to do with organised crime than politics. IPLO were gangsters. I mean real gangsters, not like this posse we’re chasing. Their outfit went to war with PIRA and got wasted. Carter played both sides against the middle and shipped himself over here. He’s still a hardman, Jim. And I mean the Irish meaning of hardman.’

  Back at Campbell Row Jimmy went down to his desk in the AIU and found Tim Carver from Immigration there with DC Eldson from Harlesden Crime Group. Carver, Plug to his back, being tall and skinny like the character out of the Beano, was Mr Wannabe Copper and Jimmy Crack despised him. He sat there with his arms folded, waiting for him.

  ‘Holden Biggs,’ he said.

  ‘Who?’

  ‘Holden Biggs. The black who got slapped in Jimmy Carter’s snooker hall.’

  Jimmy moved papers on his desk. ‘What about him?’

  ‘Young Young hit him.’ He smiled, showing his crooked teeth. ‘I got my snouts, James.’

  Jimmy folded his arms and sat on the edge of the desk. ‘Young Young’s flagged to me.’

  ‘Yeah and Biggs is an illegal alien. I want him out of the country.’

  ‘Then go and get him, Tim.’

  ‘I will.’ Carver stood up. ‘He’s running with the Governor Generals in Tottenham. He was holed up at Carmel Connolly’s flat.’

  ‘Was he?’

  ‘Yeah. He was.’ Carver stepped closer to him. ‘Just came to tell you, James. Next time I get a line on Carmel — she’s mine.’

  Young Young twirled an unlit cigarette like a mini baton between long fingers. He lounged in the chair in Carmel’s ground-floor flat and looked at Stepper-Nap looking back at him.

  Carmel came in from the kitchen and Stepper flicked his hand at her. ‘Close the door behind you.’ She disappeared and Stepper glowered at Young Young. ‘A fuckin’ Uzi. Where the fuck you get off, man?’

  ‘Pussy’ Young Young half-closed his eyes.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Called me a fuckin’ pussy.’

  ‘Oh wow, baby’

&
nbsp; ‘Messing with my name, man. Messing with my name.’ Young Young shook his head.

  ‘You is a black twat, Young Young.’ Stepper got up out of the chair and looked down at him. Young Young drew back his lips.

  ‘I ain’t looking for no war, man.’ Stepper levelled his hand at him. ‘Not from Tottenham. And certainly not from no Jimmy fuckin’ Carter.’ He shook his head. ‘You really fucked up, baby. I don’t know that I can fix it.’

  ‘Then don’t. I ain’t scared of no Irishman.’

  ‘No? You should be. Carter’ll kill you, baby. Kill you really slow.’

  Young Young snorted. ‘Not if I kill him first.’

  Stepper sat down again and blew out his cheeks. ‘Names, man. Where you get off worrying about names?’

  ‘I get off all right. I just get off is all.’

  Stepper shook his head. ‘I tell you, man. You lay low till I think about this.’

  ‘I ain’t scared, Daddy.’

  ‘I ain’t talking about scared. I’m talking about my business. The business that buys your suits, that puts gas in your car. I got plans, Young Young. You ain’t gonna mess them up.’ He got up again. ‘You lay low and you lose that shooter you hear. I hear you been fucking with me—I fuck you. You got that.’

  For a moment the silence was brittle. Stepper-Nap stood there with his hands by his sides, looking down at the coiled form of his bodyguard.

  ‘Don’t say those things to me, man.’ Young Young’s voice was a whisper.

  Stepper curled his lip. ‘Listen to you, man. Just listen.’ He leaned very close to him then, their noses all but together. ‘I’m the Daddy, remember. I pay your wages. You. You is just a soldier.’

  Frank Weir addressed the briefing, nine o’clock in the morning. Ryan sat at his desk with Tony Rob perched on the edge of it and Pamela across from them. Fat-Bob Davies sat squeezed into the seat alongside. The rest of the team were silent as Weir flicked through the Holmes report. Pictures of Jessica Turner with half her head missing were massed on the wall behind him.

  ‘We have a body,’ Weir said. ‘And we have a cottage in the country where she went OTS for the weekend. We don’t have a lover yet. What’s happening with that?’