Bad Blood

by Kelleher, Casey

  ‘Of course we can have free drinks, you mug,’ Nathan sighed. ‘But other than that, this place needs to be run tighter than two coats of paint. I don’t want the Old Bill round here poking their noses in. This place has had a bad reputation for years, and I want to start a clean slate with it. There’ll be no lock-ins, no fights.’ And then glaring at his brother he added, ‘And no drugs.’ Nathan had watched his brother closely last night during the fight. Christopher had been coked out of his head, and it wasn’t a one-off occasion. How his father hadn’t noticed was beyond him.

  ‘What are you looking at me for?’ Christopher feigned innocence at Nathan’s implication.

  Nathan held Christopher’s stare. He could tell he’d pissed his brother off. He could also tell that even now, having just rolled out of his pit, Christopher was high as a fucking kite. Nathan knew his brother better than anyone, even better than Christopher knew himself.

  ‘Paranoia is one of the effects, you know.’

  ‘Funny fucker.’ Christopher shrugged his brother’s comment off. It was none of his brother’s business what he did.

  ‘Where’s Dad and Uncle Raymond?’ Christopher thought that they would be the first people here – his father would have been itching to get a glance at his sons’ new investment and put his two pence worth in.

  ‘Think he said something about clearing some business thing up. I’m sure they’ll be here in a bit.’ Nathan checked his watch. Now that the police appeared to be keeping an eye on them, his dad and Raymond didn’t want to take any chances. They’d gone down to the warehouse first thing this morning, and Nathan had a feeling they were going to be a while clearing everything out. ‘We may as well make a start and crack open the champagne. You know what he’s like, he’ll be expecting a glass of the good stuff at the ready when he does turn up.’ Nathan grinned as he pulled from the fridge the bottle that he’d put by especially for the occasion. He wanted to celebrate. He was determined to prove to his whole family that this place was going to be the first in a very long line of smart investments.

  Destiny’s was going to be a tidy little earner. Nathan was happy to leave the boxing and promoting to his dad and the fighting to Christopher. He’d learnt a lot from working for his dad, but Nathan wasn’t cut out for crime, his heart wasn’t in it. He had just gone along with it all until he figured out what he really wanted to do. Now he had. He wanted to deal in property; that was where the real money was, and more importantly it was what Nathan felt most passionate about. His only regret was that he’d taken Christopher in with him on this development. Already there was friction. And, though his brother didn’t know it yet, it wasn’t a mistake that he intended on repeating.

  ‘Shall we make a toast?’ Nathan popped the cork and poured the drinks, before passing them around.

  ‘I think Kelly should do it, being the new landlady and all that. You need to give the place your blessing, Kel.’ Evie clapped her hands together excitedly for her elder sister. From what Evie had seen since she’d been back home, this place was exactly what Kelly and her nephew and niece needed. A new start.

  ‘Yeah, go on, Kelly, what do you say?’ Nathan grinned.

  Slipping her sunglasses back over her eyes Kelly dramatically flopped her head down on top of the bar, before speaking the words she never thought she’d hear herself say. ‘What do I say?’ she laughed as she half-heartedly raised her champagne flute in the air, her forehead still resting on the bar. ‘I say, please God, no more bloody champagne.’

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  ‘You did lock them, didn’t you, Raymond?’ Unscrewing the concealed compartment in the floor of the Volkswagen Caddy, Harry glanced back to the main warehouse doors making sure that the bolts were securely on. ‘I wouldn’t put it past the Old Bill to have followed us.’

  ‘It’s locked, Harry. Chill. Even if they had followed us, they would have lost us when we switched the cars. The gormless twats are probably sat in the multi-storey car park eyeing up your Bentley right as we speak.’

  Raymond could see that his friend was on edge. He’d been like this since he’d arrived at his first thing this morning. It wasn’t like Harry to get so het up about this kind of shit. Normally things like this wouldn’t rattle him. Harry had been in this game for too long to start quaking in his boots over someone as insignificant as Terry Stranks.

  So the police had searched his house . . . So what? Harry knew that they would never find anything. It was how he worked. Harry lived by the rule that he would never leave so much as a skid on his doorstep let alone shit on it. It was his family home.

  Passing the brown paper parcels to Harry, Raymond could tell that Harry had more on his mind than he was letting on.

  ‘Yeah, you’re right. Here, what about DCS Porter?’ Harry reasoned. ‘Did you see his face last night as he apologised for having to search my gaff? He looked like he’d shat his pants.’ The police were convinced that he was hiding Terry and that just proved to him what bloody imbeciles they were. ‘If the pigs owned a brain cell between them they would have known that I fucking hate Terry with a passion. And if that cunt had turned up at my place looking for help, I would have handed him in quicker than that lot could have identified their arses from their elbows.’

  They had gone about searching his house like the blind leading the blind, and Harry had been determined to hide the fact that them turning up at his house had seriously rattled his cage.

  ‘Don’t you worry about DCS Porter. Like Mansell said, he was just keeping up appearances and making sure that he looked like he was doing his job, Harry. Trust me. Porter won’t fucking do a thing to either of us. Not unless he wants to make his Internet debut as a dodgy fucking porn star who likes giving it up the arse to underage girls.’ Raymond grinned. As far as he and Harry were concerned they were both as safe as houses.

  Raymond loved the fact that he had Porter over a barrel.

  The bloke had had a right bee in his bonnet, ever since he and Harry had turned over that jewellers in Mayfair eight years ago. Talk about a bone of contention. Porter was convinced that Harry was involved, so much so that he’d been digging around for dirt on Harry for years.

  Finally, with the help of Molly, Raymond had managed to put paid to all that, by getting his own form of collateral damage in the form of filmed evidence. Porter wouldn’t dare touch them now. It would be more than his life was worth.

  ‘I wonder where that fucker Terry is, though?’

  ‘Fuck knows, but wherever he is, I would put my money on the fact that he hasn’t travelled via a motorbike.’ Raymond shook his head now, laughing. ‘I tell you, Harry, it was the funniest thing I ever saw. I turned round to make sure that Nathan was still behind me and spotted Terry about two hundred metres behind, caught in a cloud of thick black smoke. If his bike had been going any slower, it would have been in reverse.’

  Harry couldn’t help but laugh then.

  Harry had always said that the devil was in the detail when it came to executing a plan, and with Terry’s bike purposely rigged, and Officer Mansell at the ready to pull him in, Terry getting caught red-handed with three kilos of the purest calibre cocaine on the market had been a dead cert. Harry wanted to tuck the fucker up for a few years at least, and keep him as far away from Kelly as possible. As for the transit van that had materialised out of nowhere and knocked the fucker off his bike, well, as far as Harry was concerned that had been genius timing. A pure coincidence, money couldn’t buy that kind of bad luck; it was just a shame that the collision hadn’t killed the cunt.

  It was all sorted, and Harry had even got his brief all geared up to go and advise Terry to take the rap once the police had him.

  Harry had thought that Terry, being the divvy cunt that he was, would just go along with it all and do exactly what he was told. Harry had truly believed that by the time that twat realised that he’d actually been shafted it would be too late. He�
��d already be locked away in an eight by six cell, on his holidays courtesy of Her Royal Majesty.

  The only thing Harry hadn’t figured on was Terry doing a runner.

  So as it turned out, Terry had a bit more clout than Harry had given him credit for.

  He’d underestimated his son-in-law.

  ‘You should have just had him done, Harry. We could have made it look like an accident so that Kelly would have been none the wiser that we’d been involved . . .’ Raymond didn’t want to state the obvious, but he couldn’t understand why Harry hadn’t just done that in the first place. He’d have happily done the honours if it had come to it. In fact nothing would give him greater pleasure than to put Terry Stranks down like the dirty dog that he was.

  ‘What, and watch Kelly bury her husband?’ Harry stopped and stared at Raymond now. ‘You saw what that did to me when I had to bury my Evelyn. I couldn’t do that to Kelly, no way.’

  ‘Yeah, but that was different, Harry. It wasn’t as straightforward as that.’

  Raymond trod carefully as he spoke.

  They barely mentioned Evelyn’s name anymore.

  Harry just shrugged it off, as if she never existed. Heartbroken and racked with guilt over what happened.

  Packing the parcels down tightly in the compartment, Harry purposely ignored Raymond’s direction of conversation and closed the lid down. Then he pulled the board of ply lining back in place, and screwed the panel back down to the floor.

  Raymond took the hint. He knew more than anyone how hard it had been for Harry. To bury his wife, and carry the secret of her death around on his shoulders each day. He’d been there for him every step of the way of course. He’d helped Harry to cover it all up, and he’d helped Harry ever since by picking up the pieces.

  ‘Kelly loves him,’ Harry reasoned. As much as they both hated Terry Stranks, Kelly, for some godforsaken reason, really did love the man, and Harry couldn’t be the one who took that away from her. Not permanently anyway. Not like that.

  Feeling his chest constrict, Harry took a deep breath. He could feel the dull familiar rattling forming inside his chest again. He was stressed out and it was starting to take its toll. Jumping down from the back of the van, he knew that he needed to be honest with Raymond. Well, as honest as he could be.

  He’d been thinking things through for weeks now, and Harry knew that he was going to have to start facing the reality of his situation sooner rather than later. He just couldn’t find the right words.

  ‘Do you know what? I’m getting too old for this shit.’ Harry stood facing Raymond. ‘I’ve been doing some thinking and it’s time that I stepped back from all this. I’m done in from it all.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Raymond sat down on the edge of the van. The warehouse was stuffy, and Raymond pulled at his shirt collar to loosen it.

  ‘Look, we both knew that this wasn’t going to be forever. Fuck me, since we started out we’ve made a fortune. We’re quids in from the Dubai account alone, we’re set up. I just feel like it’s time to step back now.’

  A feeling of immense unease swept over Raymond, something that he had rarely experienced when it came to thrashing out business with one of his oldest friends. Harry had just dropped an almighty bombshell. He wanted out. Just like that. It didn’t make sense.

  ‘I don’t get it, Harry.’ Confused, Raymond was trying to digest Harry’s unexpected announcement.

  ‘There is nothing to get, Raymond, I’m just tired of it all.’

  Raymond screwed his face up. Without a shadow of a doubt there was more to all this. As the saying went, you can’t bullshit a bullshitter, and Raymond Marks could smell the stench of crap from a mile off.

  Harry, seeing that Raymond wasn’t convinced, shrugged as he continued. ‘You’ve seen yourself what we’re having to deal with now. The fucking Turks are taking over Soho, flooding the market with their gear and selling the shit so cheap that we just can’t fucking compete anymore. We’ve already had to drop our prices to accommodate the Mancs in case they decide to go elsewhere. It won’t be long until the Turks move in on our deal.’

  ‘Compete? Jesus, Harry, can you hear yourself? Our gear is the fucking purest shit out on the streets. Even if those oily eyed cunts try to undercut us, you get what you pay for. Their shit is so bulked up with fucking Levamisole, just one baggie could deworm a fucking herd of cows. People are wising up to buying from those fuckers.’ Raymond was telling Harry what he already knew. It wasn’t just the Turks that had been basking in the limelight lately. The Russians had been all over the press recently too. News of their latest contribution, ‘Krokodil’, a fast becoming ‘poor man’s heroin’, had hit the streets too. That shit was so toxic it could rot people’s flesh right off their bones. The bigger firms didn’t want anything to do with it. It was a fucked up world out there and the foreign gangs were ruthless. They didn’t seem to have any morals when it came to what they used to cut their shit up with. There may be honour among thieves, but there was none amongst dealers, that was for sure.

  ‘You know as well as I do that the foreign gangs are fucking ruthless, Harry. They just want the highest return for their investments. Once they’ve had their money they don’t give a flying fuck about the aftereffects. People are wising up to that. No-one with half a brain cell wants to associate themselves with that lethal shit. Look at our contacts. They’re willing to pay a premium for the purest cocaine on the market. And we have the best supplier going, Harry. There is no competition.’

  Raymond stared at his friend defiantly. If Harry walked away now, he was a fool.

  With his supplier in Holland providing them with a steady influx of the purest of gear and regular monthly shipments, all they had to do each month was deliver the shipment to their contact up in Manchester. Harry cut out all the middle men and made a fortune. Raymond did the drops, and the rest was history. Harry couldn’t just walk away now. The market was theirs for the taking.

  ‘Let the Turks fucking sell to the fucking scum out on the streets. They ain’t got shit on us. We’re wholesalers, Harry, fuck being the middle man. That’s their role.’ Raymond knew that he was fighting a losing battle; once Harry made his mind up there was no room for persuasion and he knew by the way that Harry was talking that this hadn’t been an overnight decision. Even so, Raymond knew that he had to try to make Harry see sense.

  ‘Don’t you just feel fucking tired of it all, though, Raymond?’ Harry asked. ‘I am. My head’s done in. I’m going to be fifty-five this year. My kids are all grown up and I just want to sit back for a bit and enjoy my time with them.’

  Raymond caught the tilt to Harry’s voice as he spoke. There was something else going on here. Whatever it was, Harry wasn’t going to let on.

  ‘In case you’re forgetting, we’re the same age. And I ain’t being funny but fifty-five is a long way off from being fucking eighty-five, Harry. What do you want to do, eh? Fucking retire? Sit watching Cash in the fucking Attic while you do the sudoku puzzles in the back of the paper? Fuck me, Harry. That ain’t you. You ain’t ready to give all this up.’

  Harry laughed now, despite himself.

  A real belly laugh. Raymond always had such a way with words. He always hit the nail on the head.

  ‘You’re a fucking baby in the grand scheme of things. We both are. And you’re as fit as a bleeding fiddle . . . You could run rings around me.’

  ‘Look, I hear you, Raymond. Really I do. But like I said to you before, this wasn’t meant to be forever and it’s time for me to take a step back.’

  Silence fell between them. Raymond could see by the stern look on Harry’s face that his mind was made up.

  ‘Okay then, mate,’ Raymond sighed.

  Harry wasn’t budging and Raymond knew by the finality in the man’s voice that the conversation was over. ‘Whatever you say. But I really hope that you don’t regret this decision a
few years down the line.’

  ‘You know me, Raymond, I don’t do regrets.’ Harry shrugged, glad that his friend was finally backing down.

  Life was far too short for regrets and Raymond, as much as he cared, didn’t know the half of it.

  ‘Now come on, let’s get this shit out of here.’

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Walking into the room, Cassie picked up Jacob Mulligan’s notes. ‘Hey, my little man, how are you doing today?’

  Staring out from under his skull and crossbone bandana, the little boy shot Cassie a cheeky grin. ‘Hello, Nurse Wrong.’ The three-year-old giggled loudly.

  ‘Excuse me, little mister.’ Cassie put her hand on her hip and pouted her lips playfully. ‘I think you’ll find it’s Nurse Wright.’

  Giggling even more now, Jacob shook his head. ‘Nurse Wrong, Nurse Wrong,’ he sang.

  Jacob was a little star in the making. For the past couple of weeks caring for Jacob had become a highlight of Cassie’s day. He never failed to make her smile. Cassie had taken a real shine to the boy, just as he had her. Though she knew that professionally she needed to keep her distance – working on the oncology ward meant that she had long ago learned the hard way about getting too close to patients – there was something very special about Jacob, and Cassie, like the rest of the nurses on Elephant Ward, couldn’t help falling in love with the child.

  Smiling over at Jacob’s mother, Cassie could tell that the poor woman was out of her mind with worry. Cassie couldn’t blame her. Today was going to be one of the toughest days the poor woman had ever endured.

  ‘You didn’t sleep again, Sally?’ Cassie asked sympathetically. The guest bed looked like it had been slept in, but going by Sally Mulligan’s puffy eyes and ghostly white complexion, Cassie would put her money on the fact that the woman had lain awake again worrying. Another sleepless night.