by Ray Banks
"I'm up." Muffled reply, followed by random thumping.
"Stop thumping the floor. Get up properly."
Gav went to the front door.
Two men stood on his doorstep. The sight of them made Gav's knees lock. They didn't need to show identification to prove they were police, but that was precisely what they proceeded to do. The shorter man with the cauliflower nose was called Parsons; he was the one who appeared to be in charge, even though both cards read Detective Sergeant. The other one was a yeti of a bloke named Spencer, the kind of fair-haired fella whose eyebrows were invisible unless the light caught them. Gav didn't bother to remember their first names. He didn't reckon they'd be mates any time soon.
"Mind if we come in, Mr Scott?"
"I don't know. It's a bit hectic this morning." As if on cue, Sophie started wailing in the kitchen. Gav gave the police a weary and utterly manufactured smile. "See what I mean?"
Spencer nodded towards the sound. "You need to get that?"
"Nah, the missus'll sort it. What can I do for you?"
DS Parsons frowned and referred to his notes. "You are the current proprietor of Puma Cabs, Mr Scott?"
"Yes."
"Just took it over, is that correct?"
"That's right. Is there—"
"From a Mr Neil Bigelow?"
"Yes." The yeti had moved in closer, trying to see into the house. It made Gav feel like he was going to get trampled if he didn't get the questions right, and he began to rethink having this conversation on his doorstep, especially when he saw Brenda Purdie give him a sidelong glance as she passed. "Listen, if this is going to take a while, do you lads want to ...?"
Parsons nodded. Spencer backed off to allow him first entry and Gav led them through to the front room. Parsons perched on the edge of the settee and looked around while Spencer remained standing.
"Get you a cup of tea or anything?"
Both shook their heads; Parsons added a wave of the hand. Gav heard Kevin running upstairs with his PE kit. Heard Fiona talking to Sophie about her porridge.
Parsons gestured to the chair. "Take a seat, Mr Scott."
"No, I'm all right standing. Go on."
"There was an incident last night. At a block of flats" – Parsons checked his notes again – "Eldon Court?"
Gav waited. Hoped that his face didn't show anything.
Parsons moved inside his suit, but the jacket barely shifted. "Do you know the place?"
"To drive past, aye."
"You drive past it last night?"
Gav shook his head. "I don't think so."
Spencer grinned. "You would've remembered."
"Why?"
"Because it was on fire."
Gav didn't say anything. He swallowed. Kept his mouth shut. Afraid to open it in case all those juddering panicky thoughts came tumbling out. So they'd done it. Fuck what Gav said, fuck what the boss told them to do, they'd done it anyway. He cleared his throat and straightened his spine. "I was at home last night."
Parsons made a note. "We didn't ask that, but thank you."
"I've got nowt to worry about, have I?"
Spencer folded his arms. "Why would you have anything to worry about?"
"You're here, aren't you?"
Spencer smirked at him. These two knew something.
Parsons adjusted his position on the settee. "Mr Scott, a number of your vehicles were spotted in the area at the time of the fire."
"It's part of our area, round there."
Spencer leaned in. "A number of your vehicles."
"Aye, I know, meaning more than one. I know what you're getting at. It's a block of flats, right? So you think maybe more than one person might've called? And maybe, just maybe, we're the cheapest in the area, so maybe they called us first?"
"That's a lot of maybes. Lot of business, too."
"We work hard."
"So we hear." Spencer looked out of the front room window. "This new, is it?"
"What's that supposed to mean?"
"Maybe I should elaborate." Parsons flipped through his notes again. "Several witnesses put your employees at the scene of the fire, Mr Scott. Before, during and shortly afterwards. Five different cars."
"They get the registrations?"
Spencer shook his head. "Too busy trying to get out of there."
"So we have reason to believe that your employees may have been the cause of the fire."
"Why? Because they were there?"
"Because this isn't an isolated incident, is it, Mr Scott?"
Gav didn't answer. He waited for Parsons to continue. He didn't.
"I don't know what you mean."
"An attempt to smoke out some of the less savoury individuals who made that particular block their home." Spencer turned away from the window. "Didn't you have something like that round here?"
"We had a fire." Gav stared at Spencer. He felt his throat begin to close. "Is that what you're talking about? What's the score here? Am I going to need a brief or what?"
"A brief?" Spencer laughed.
"Yeah."
Parsons shrugged. "If you feel that you need legal assistance, then you're entitled to have a solicitor present, yes. But if that's the case, we'll probably have to continue this discussion somewhere more official. Do you feel you need a solicitor?"
"A brief." Spencer shook his head, chuckled to himself.
"I don't know. Depends on if I'm being accused of something."
The two police shared a glance, and Parsons spoke: "There aren't any charges against you. We're still at the enquiry stage. Just wanted to ask you about your employees, that's all."
"And you didn't get the registrations?"
"I'm afraid not."
"That's a pity. I could've given you names."
"You can't give us names anyway?"
"I wouldn't want to get anyone in trouble unnecessarily. These are my employees. I don't want to foster ill feeling."
"What about if we gave you a few descriptions? Would that help?"
Gav's mouth pinched. He could hear the boys chattering away in the kitchen. Andy was beating up Kevin for something. Fiona told them both to pack it in, and the kitchen fell silent. Gav checked his watch. "All right, well, I've got to be at work soon, so ... make it quick as you can."
And so Parsons read out the descriptions given by eye witnesses. Sounded like the usual lot – Viv Francis, Scouse Clive, Fat Bob, Smokey Benson – and he couldn't help but nod a little when they described Phil Cruddas.
"Ring a bell?"
Gav caught himself. "Plenty of blokes round here look like that. Unless you hadn't already guessed, this place used to have a cokeworks down at the bottom of the hill there. Wasn't exactly full of soft hands, that place."
Parsons smiled. "I understand. Well, listen, I just wanted to keep you informed. I'd be much obliged if you could do the same, see if anyone lets something slip at work or over the radio, something like that?" He handed Gav a card. "Anything you find out, just let us know."
Gav looked at the card just so he didn't have to look at either one of the police. He gestured to the door as the two lads came running out of the kitchen with their school bags. "Going to be late, boys."
Kevin said something breathlessly as he and Andy blundered through the front door. Spencer watched them go with a wry look on his face that Gav didn't much like.
"Well, I hope I can help you lads resolve this." Gav held the front door open for them. Spencer was first out, Parsons slow to follow. "Terrible thing, a fire."
Parsons nodded at the floor. "I hope so, too. Hate to see your business affected because of it, anyway. I hear good things about what you've done on this estate, Mr Scott."
"It's nothing."
"No, it's definitely something." Parsons nodded once more. "Speak to you soon."
Gav watched the police get into their car and waited until they were well out of sight before he turned back to the hall.
Fiona emerged from the kitchen as he was shrug
ging into his coat. "What was all that about?"
"Nowt."
"Gav?"
"I'm just going over the office for a bit, all right?"
He didn't wait for an answer. Slammed the door behind him and made off down the front path. Ten minutes later, he stormed into the Puma Cabs office. There was a gang of drivers clustered around the coffee machine. In the centre of them all, and telling another one of his loud and lewd stories, was Phil. Gav had planned to be business-like, all formal and that, when he was dealing with Phil, but one look at that smug expression on the man's face made him zero in with his palms out. The drivers peeled away to let him past. Gav shoved Phil into the machine, rocking it back and banging it against the wall so hard it shook the conversation out of the office. Coffee pooled on the floor from Phil's dropped cup. Phil tried to push back, but Gav showed his teeth and slammed him into the machine again.
Phil shrugged off Gav's hands. "Fuck you doing?"
"Fuck you doing?"
"You what?"
Gav backed up a step, tried to control himself. "My office. Now."
"Why?"
Gav was already walking. "My fuckin' office, Phil. I'm not kidding. Else you can dump your keys with Rosie."
"I'm not going in there alone with you."
Gav stopped by his office door. "You want to do this out here, do you?"
"Anything you want to say, Gav, you can say it in front of witnesses."
"Aye, you know what, you're right." Gav crossed back into the office. "Anyone else here torch that block of flats last night?"
There were no replies. Phil smoothed down his shirt front.
Gav nodded. "That's what I thought. So it's just you and me, Phil."
He went into the office, sat behind his desk and waited. Phil came in and closed the door behind him. He stood in silence.
"You not got anything to say for yourself?"
Phil sniffed. "That wasn't on, that. You need to learn to control yourself better. Can't go around assaulting people."
"I had two CID over my house just now. Telling us that some of my employees pulled a burn last night over at Eldon Court. Place was chocka with my cars, apparently."
"What'd you tell them?"
"I told them I'd let them know if I found anything out."
Phil nodded once, slowly. He sat opposite Gav. Stretched his legs. Behind him, Gav could see furtive glances through the window from the other drivers.
"I told you, Phil, didn't I? I told you, you wanted to break heads, you had to do it on your own time, and it didn't come back to me."
"You were the one mouthing off in the workplace, Chief."
"And you're the one using cars with the fuckin' company logo on them."
Another sniff from Phil, followed by half a smile. "It was all right when you were in on it, is that what you're saying?"
"It was all right when it was defensive."
"Right."
"When it was controlled."
"By you."
"Ah, right. I get it." Gav leaned back in his chair. "This is you chucking your toys out the pram because I'm in charge and I told you not to do something. You want to give your fuckin' head a shake, Phil. Want to remember who's paying your wages."
"Who the fuck do you think you are?" Phil's voice was quiet. "You're nowt without me. You wouldn't have any of this."
A direct challenge, and it hung in the air between them for a moment.
"All right. I hoped we'd be able to come to some kind of agreement, but if you're going to be like that, then I don't have much of a choice, do I? I'm going to have to tell them that you and a bunch of drivers torched the flats."
"You wouldn't do that."
"It'll be a blow to lose you lads, I'm not going to lie. But I've got nothing to hide here. I didn't have nowt to do with it. I'm safe."
Phil's eyes glazed over. He breathed out. Smiled, then laughed. Dug around in his pocket for his cigarettes. Lit one and chuckled again. Motions to go through, little rituals, all the darker options cast to one side as he considered the diplomatic route. "You would've done that already if you were going to."
"Well, you know, here's the thing: I don't want to do it. There's sentiment involved. I don't want to send you to prison."
"That's nice of you."
"I mean, you made a mistake. As long as you know who's in charge here then I think we can move past it."
Phil blew smoke. "What do you propose we do?"
"I'm prepared to be reasonable about this."
"Oh aye?"
Gav nodded. "You get us names I can give to the police."
Phil shook his head.
"Yes."
"Why me?"
"Because you organised it. Because we both know what'll happen if I grass the lot of you up – that's most of my drivers gone surly and the patrols gone to fuck. I'm not having that happen. Spent too long building up that confidence to have it taken away in one fell swoop. No, you get us a couple of names. Maybe three. Enough to get the police away from us and get this closed off. I'm not grassing anyone up. You're taking that. But we're going to sort this in-house, you get me? Nice and quiet."
"And then?"
"And then you'll do what I tell you. No more of this shit."
Another silence. Phil contemplated the end of his cigarette. Gav saw him wilt as he weighed up the options. He'd never seen Phil show weakness before. Maybe he'd caught a glimpse of the names tattooed on his arm and had second thoughts. Whatever it was, it resolved itself into a slow nod, and Gav knew that there'd be no further problems from Phil fucking Cruddas.
AUTUMN, 1987
37
"All right, so we've had the getting-to-know-you, all the introductions, I know you and you know me, and Alan knows us both. Good. But I'm not in the habit of wasting my time, so how about before we go any further, Gavin, you tell us what happened with those lads of yours that went to jail."
Gav glanced across at Dryden, who offered little more than a shrug. Bernard King dabbed the corner of his slack mouth with a napkin and ran a tongue over his teeth behind closed lips. He was a short, splay-nosed man who'd scrabbled his way up from the gutter and wore that fact like a medal. He was the kind of man who eschewed fancy restaurants for the kind of meat and potatoes carvery place Gav found himself in now, the kind of man who valued straight talking, just as long as it was him doing it. Dryden had introduced the pair of them at the beginning of September, and there'd been some initial discussions about Gav making an offer on Five Star cabs. Those initial discussions had stalled. Gav didn't know why until now.
Gav finished chewing his steak. "Nothing much to tell." He took a drink of wine.
Nothing much to tell. That was about right. He'd ordered Phil to gather some names, and Phil had done just that. Smokey Benson and Scouse Clive were what he came back with. Viv Francis and Fat Bob both had families; that was the reasoning. And of course the two grassed men were loud about their protests, but Phil must have explained the situation to them in words of one syllable, because they soon shut the fuck up. Bottom line was they were both first offenders. Nobody had died in the fire at Eldon Court, so it wasn't so much arson, more a prank gone awry. Everyone knew the dealers had moved out that way, so they thought they'd do something about it, and things got a bit out of hand. It wasn't that far from the truth, even though the number of guilty parties had more than halved.
"They got done, didn't they?"
"That's right."
Viv and Smokey went to the police, they were interviewed at length, remanded in custody, brought up in front of the judge, who called their crimes "a misguided attempt to bring some semblance of order to a long-troubled council estate" and promptly sentenced them both to two years, with eighteen suspended.
"So where are they now?"
"I don't know." Gav showed a bitter smile. "They're not working for me anymore, I can promise you that."
Phil had asked him to consider suspending them, but Gav remained firm: he wasn't running a
charity here. Someone needed to be punished for this. He'd tried to be as lenient as possible, but this wasn't the kind of behaviour he expected from his drivers, and so they were sacked. If Phil didn't like it, he was more than welcome to join them down the dole. And Phil – looking more cowed than a man of his size should ever look – kept quiet.
"And that's it, is it?" King looked sceptical.
"Yes." Gav frowned. "When I make a decision, Mr King, I stick by it." He glanced at Dryden. "I'm not the kind of bloke who lets his employees make the rules. I have a business to run. That comes first."
Word got around, of course. And any respect that the drivers might have had for Gav at one point disappeared overnight. Phil obviously told them who was really behind the grass, probably to save his own reputation. Gav didn't care. Affection and respect weren't the same thing. He didn't care if his staff didn't like him. He wasn't there to be liked; he was there to get things done. And he wasn't going to get much done if he spent all his time pandering to a gang of arsonists. So he made it clear that the others who'd been at Eldon Court were lucky to be out and about, and even luckier to be collecting their wages. He didn't like to remind them that there were fuck all opportunities for them outside his business, but he did so anyway, just to ram it home. If they didn't like him for grassing to the police, they could at least respect the fact that he'd avoided getting rid of any family men – no sense in kids suffering just because their fathers were gung-ho vigilante arseholes.
"That's good to hear, Gavin. You know, I built Five Star all by myself."
"I didn't know that." Gav continued eating.
"It's true."
"Quite an achievement."
"You know how I did it?" King prodded the table. "I worked harder than everyone else. Simple as that. Everyone else was working this hard? I worked harder."
Dryden leaned in. "Which is why you're entitled to take it easy now."
"That's not my point, Alan. I'm telling Gavin how I did it. I'm sharing something with him. You wouldn't know. What did you do?" He smiled at Gav, jerked a thumb at Dryden. "Union man. Only thing he knows about is how to stop work."
King laughed. Dryden hid a smile in his wine glass.