Gang War

by Graham Johnson

  ‘He had to go, lad. He was saying all kinds, lad.’

  ‘But it was Paul. Our mate. Our sponsor. Our fucking boss.’

  ‘Not my boss, lad,’ Nogger retorts, a bit stung. ‘Anyway, lad, now he’s out the way, it makes life a lot easier, graft-wise. Cos it’s wide open now, d’you get me? Anyone’s business, innit?’

  ‘What? What? Anyone’s business? Do you mean your business? That you’re going to take over Paul’s graft? You’ve gone mad, lad. Can’t believe you’re speaking like that.’

  ‘Like what?’ asks Nogger, a touch embarrassed by his boasting, a touch enraged by Dylan buzzing off him for it.

  ‘This is not the filmies, lad. No one’s Tony Montana here, lad. No one can front this.’ Nogger’s humiliated by Dylan’s Scarface put-down. Dylan carries on, even though he knows he’s risking it here. Doesn’t matter that Nogger’s 500 miles away. ‘Paul’s firm’ll be on your case big time, lad. D’you get me? No one’s going to let this go. They’ll be on my case, Jay’s case . . . every one of us. We’ll all have to get on our toes, for ever.’

  ‘Not arsed about all that. As you say, it’s not the filmies, is it? Not going to be a big mad settling of scores at the end, either. It’s just business as usual.’

  ‘Business as usual? What about Dean and Richard? They’re not going to be happy, are they? That you’ve dropped their impresario, their mate of 30 years, their main backer, their fucking protector.’

  ‘Don’t be worrying about them pair.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘They’re gone.’

  ‘What do you mean gone?’

  ‘Gone. I mean just that they’re gone.’

  ‘Gone?’

  ‘Yeah, gone. How many times do I have to say it?’

  ‘D’you mean just gone away? Or proper gone?’

  ‘Just gone. Gone. Gone. Gone.’

  Nogger hands the phone over to Jay and tells him to tell Dylan what’s happened to Dean and Richard. Dylan hears a bit of rustling of pockets and hoods as Jay takes the phone, the tunes from his DS tinkering away. Then he comes on the phone and says, ‘Gone,’ while he’s still playing. Then he hands the phone back to Nogger.

  ‘D’you understand now?’

  ‘I can’t believe it. Not only Paul but them two as well?’ asks Dylan. But he refrains from any further insults.

  ‘Listen, I did it for fucking you, right. For us. You don’t understand what’s going on now. You’re living wherever you are, doing what you’re doing. Meanwhile, back in the real world, it’s coming on top badly.’ Dylan goes quiet, taking the slight, waiting for the explanation. ‘Paul was getting out of order. He was saying bad things about you and me. The cunt was planning to have us ironed.’

  ‘No fucking way,’ says Dylan, like he just heard a bit of too-much gossip.

  ‘Yes way, lad.’

  ‘You’re fucking joking, aren’t you?’

  Nogger switches the chat away from Paul, deftly showing off his new business skills. ‘But he was only half the fucking problem. It’s Chalina’s ma. She’s behind it all. She’s kicking off all over the place.’

  ‘Hold on, you’ve lost me here. Paul. Dean. Richard. Gone. Gone. Gone. But the problem itself has not gone. And it’s Chalina’s ma?’

  ‘She’s planning to stir all the shit up again. All the shit about us, me, you and Jay, on the anniversary of Chalina’s death next week.’

  ‘What?’ Dylan’s head’s burnt out now.

  ‘She’s going to go on telly to call for us to be nicked by SOCA and Interpol. I’ve had fucking Panorama following me about all week. The police and the army say they can’t arrest us cos there’s still no evidence against us. No murder weapon. No witnesses. But she’s threatening to go on telly and cause loads of shit about it. Blame us, the bizzies, everyone.’

  ‘Someone’s chatting shit to you, mate. Winding you up.’

  ‘Dylan, lad. It’s 100 per cent. We’ve had it checked out back home. The Devil’s on it and everything. Next week, she’s going to Parliament, she’s saying she’s going to see the fucking Queen and everything. She’s going to go on the telly saying that we shot her daughter and we’re laughing in the face of the law and dancing on Chalina’s grave.’

  ‘So what? It’ll die down afterwards. And what the fuck does that have to do with Paul?’

  ‘He lined himself up with her, gave her all kinds of info on us to make himself sweet with the bizzies. Making himself look like a nice feller with all his new mates. The fucking business people. Straight-goers. Even the CPA and all that crowd. You wouldn’t believe it, mate, what he was getting up to.’

  ‘You’re saying Paul was a grass?’

  ‘Not saying. I know. Even better, I can prove it, lad. I’ve seen the paperwork.’ He’s super-showing off now.

  Dylan’s shocked at this. Before anyone can be called a grass, especially someone as high up as Paul, as staunch as him, there has to be paperwork. To prove to the lads that it’s not just jangle or jealousy or sour grapes. Deps. Contact sheets. Undercover police reports. Anything. But it has to be in black and white before anyone will believe it, never mind act on it.

  ‘Chalina’s ma went to see him, asking him to use his sway with the lads to get the Chalina thing cleared up. He said that he would. Said that he’d help break the wall of silence and all that bollocks, find out where we stashed the evidence, the weapons, all that.’

  ‘No way, Nogger. Paul? A midnight mass? Fuck off.’

  ‘Telling you, lad. Paul was telling all the lads back home that we were little cunts and he was gonna serve us up to the bizzies, with fucking witnesses and everything.’

  ‘Fuck off. You must have it wrong. You’re talking about the staunchest feller on the planet.’

  Nogger is bored of Paul now. Ancient history. ‘I need you here, Dylan. There’s graft to be done. Chalina’s ma has to be spoken to.’

  Dylan knows what that means. He drops the phone, head blown, gone. Nogger wants the mother killed. He has to get to The Dam now, to speak to Nogger, to talk some sense into him. If not, he has to be stopped. Dylan thinks of Chalina’s death hanging over him. His conscience can’t cope with another one.

  He gets dressed, fishes out four grand’s worth of euros from his stash. Grabs his phone charger and a couple of IMED-scrubbed pay-as-you-go SIM cards, pockets them. He finds two jarg passports he’s hidden, puts one down his bollocks, the other with his moody IDs in his arse pocket. Then he tips the rest of his worldly possessions onto the bed. His old bottle-green Lacoste, some paperwork and bank cards, a few other bits and pieces. Other than the clothes he’s standing up in, that’s everything there is to prove that he was ever there.

  None of his three bank accounts is in his name. They’re all numbered accounts, Internet password accessible, with debit cards he’s activated but never used. He takes out a pen and slowly writes down instructions and passwords on the back of an old statement.

  Then he picks up the postcard of Cerne Abbas that Elizabeth gave him on their first night together. The fertility symbol.

  Elizabeth,

  I’ve got to go away a while. Know you don’t want me to but it’s something I can’t run away from. Someone I know needs a bit of help. So I’ve got to go and get something sorted. Know we’re off to Italy next week but if I’m not back take my gear. And I’ll be there one way or another, don’t you worry. Got some dough there. Look at the note on the statement. Use it to get us set up. Do what you want with it. It’s ours.

  And don’t worry – I’ll do the right thing and get back to you as soon as.

  Lots of luv,

  Dylan

  CHAPTER 36

  REDEMPTION

  Dylan jumps a taxi to Marseilles and a shuttle flight to Schiphol. Jay phones him with the address of their new graft pad. Dylan switches taxis three times, just to make sure, first going through the old town, getting lost in the busy streets, in the shadows of the old buildings, checking reflections in their windows. Then he cruise
s through a neighbourhood of big, detached houses, footballer-style, with high walls, pillars and private security.

  Nogger’s new pad is massive, a mish-mash of Renaissance style and Spanish hagienda. Dylan buzzes the intercom. A familiar voice answers and Dylan’s blood freezes. Through the gates, up the path. The glossy white double doors open and there she is. Stood there in a goldy-beige backless silk dress, split right up the side. ‘For fuck’s sake,’ says Casey. ‘Look what the cat dragged in.’

  Dylan pushes past her. Jay’s stood there in a black Paul Smith shirt and a pair of dress kecks, a baggy black Helly Hansen draped over him. ‘Dylan, mate. Made up to see you.’

  ‘What’s she doing here?’

  ‘Casey’s been over here for a while now, lad. Her and Nogger, you know . . .’

  ‘Fuck’s sake. Should have known. People getting dropped, left, right and centre. Should have known that she’d be at the centre of it all, putting him up to all kinds.’

  Casey laughs. ‘You know me, Dylan. Always found success a turn-on. How you doing anyway, hun?’ she asks, looking him up and down, taking in his old green kagoul, his grown-out skinhead, his hair about an inch long now.

  Dylan carries on walking, asks Jay, ‘Where’s Nogger?’

  ‘’Ere y’are, I’ll show you through. He’s in the bath.’

  The main entrance is protected by a walk-through metal detector and a ThruVision scanner. A sign on the arch reads ‘To protect against person-borne suicide attacks’. Jay looks a bit sheepish. ‘Mad, innit? But Nogger’s gone pure para. Thinks everyone’s on his case.’

  Dylan walks with Jay through the marble corridors, past gold statues and fountains. ‘Where d’us get the pad?’

  ‘Richard’s, wannit? Took it off him after he went. Threw his wife and kids out.’

  Jay opens the double doors into the brown marble bathroom. Nogger’s in a sunken hot tub with gold taps in the shape of eagles, watching a bluey on a giant home-cinema system. He’s trying to stop the bubbles wetting the remote, cursing the mini-mountains of foam. He swims over to the other side when Dylan comes in. ‘Made up to see you, mate,’ he says as he gets out, long Everton shorts sticking to his legs. ‘’Ere y’are, let’s have a chat.’

  He sits down on one of the sunbeds, asks Dylan, ‘You OK?’

  ‘Sound.’

  ‘Listen, let’s get down to business.’ He’s showing off again now, playing the time-poor higher-up with a lot of graft on the go. ‘Chalina’s ma has got to go. Proper. And I want you to do it.’

  Dylan says nothing, just looks down at the puddles Nogger’s dripping shorts are making on the floor.

  ‘The other problem is the bits. The two Mac-10s and the .455 that did Chalina. They’re the only thing in the world that connects us to her. I’ve had them buried on a field in The Boot, but they need to be fetched and slung for good.’

  ‘So what are you saying?’

  ‘Take the bits out the ground. Bin two of them. And use the other one to do Chalina’s ma.’

  ‘You want me to shoot the girl’s ma? With the same fucking guns that shot her daughter? You’re one sick puppy, you, lad.’

  ‘Listen, lad, if we don’t fucking get rid of her, we’ll all be getting nicked. It’ll be thirties and forties for all of us. By the time we get out of the shovel, we’ll be auld men.’

  Dylan thinks of Elizabeth. Of setting up a new life in Italy. Of doing one last piece of graft. Graft that will free him up for the rest of his life. No evidence. No case. No worries. Dylan thinks about what Elizabeth said when they first met, about freedom making you happy. This would release him for ever. He reasons it up in his mind.

  ‘Why me?’ he asks. ‘Why not you or Jay?’

  ‘I’m too on top. And he can’t do it on his own. Only you can think through a bit of graft like this.’ Nogger pushes on, seeing that Dylan’s on a wobble, that he isn’t that arsed about doing it: ‘We might never fucking get out of jail. Remember, we’re kiddie killers. We’re as good as nonces in the jug. Everyone’ll fucking hate us.’

  Dylan looks up, watches Casey coming down in the glass lift, wearing a white bikini, showing off her new F-cups. She’s had all the fat sliced off her arse. The semi-cylindrical doors open and she steps out and into the pool, looking daggers at Dylan. ‘You coming in, hun?’ she asks Nogger.

  He ignores her and pulls Dylan in close to whisper in his ear, not wanting to speak about weakness out loud. ‘Remember, you can’t get a gun into jail. Remember, at the end of the day what are we without our bits and bobs? Nothing. Just skinny, white young ones. What are we gonna do when a six-foot-wide nigger growls at us. All the people we’ve terrored over the years. All the smackheads we’ve told off.’ Nogger’s thinking of the baghead he mugged outside the chemist and the hundreds like him who’ll march on them like zombies, who’ll have their day, who’ll want their revenge. ‘In the jug, Dylan, them people clean up. We’ll be annihilated. Think about that, lad.’

  Nogger keeps up the hard sell, showing off his negotiating skills, going in for the close: ‘Listen, once you’ve done it, I’ll give you half of what I’ve made so far in The Dam. That’s five or six million euros, Dylan. I’ve been grafting for both of us over here, Dylan. I’ve had your back ever since we’ve been here. You can go anywhere with that kind of dough. With whoever you like. Sit off in luxury for the rest of your life.’ Casey switches the bluey back on and starts lathering herself up, closing her eyes and then looking over at Dylan. ‘D’you get me?’ Nogger asks.

  Dylan thought about Elizabeth. It’s true. With that kind of dough, he could go anywhere. They could go anywhere. Be anyone.

  ‘And with Chalina’s ma gone, we’ve got no more Chalina case hanging over us. The bizzies and the army want to drop the case, Dylan. They want to fucking bin it for ever. They’ve got what they wanted: total control of the streets, armed police, the estates crushed. The breadheads have got what they wanted: prime real estate, new shopping centre, nice new skyscraper, us out the way, not grafting on their patch. It’s a win-win. But they can’t fucking forget about it while that slag’s still dancing up and down about it.’

  Dylan doesn’t respond. Nogger keeps lovebombing him with reasons. ‘The bottom line is this,’ he says, talking his new language of international supergraft. ‘Everyone hates Chalina’s ma anyway. Trying to become famous on the back of her kid being shot – it’s fucking disgusting. She deserves to be shot, lad. She’s a dog.’

  Dylan can see where Nogger’s coming from. The Chalina thing’s water under the bridge now. Everyone’s got on with their lives. The bizzies. The businessmen. Nogger. Even him. Even Elizabeth.

  ‘If Chalina’s ma goes on telly crying again,’ says Nogger, ‘it’ll bring it on top for everybody. And at the end of the day, nothing she does is gonna bring back Chalina anyway. It’s just going to ruin all their lives. And after all, it was a fucking accident. Why should we pay the fucking price? It wasn’t our fucking fault.

  ‘There’s only one way out of this nightmare, and she’s blocking the door. No one wants to do it. But sometimes . . . listen, where would you rather be: sat on a beach in Thailand or fuck knows where, eating prawns the size of bananas, or sat in Walton jail getting shagged by a six-foot nigger?’

  Dylan thinks of Elizabeth again. She’s taken him back twice, against the odds each time, when she was totally within her rights to fuck him off. She won’t do it a third time if he fucks her life up again, if all of this Chalina shit comes flying back. She’ll cast him adrift. ‘OK,’ he says. ‘I’ll go.’

  ‘That’s the spirit, lad. Knew you wouldn’t let the lads down.’

  * * *

  Early doors the next day, Dylan’s moving through Schiphol, through the cathedral of light, sure and slow. Through the colours and shapes. He’s totally hooded up. Silvery grey light floods in through the angled glass ceiling, glinting off the moving walkways, washing over tired eyes.

  He glides past the coffee stands, past the Dutch breakfast bar
s, past the duty-free cabinets. Onto the plane, business class, the hood pulled down tightly over his head. He stares straight ahead. An air hostess leans in trippily. Her lips move but he can’t hear what she’s saying. He leaves the coffee and croissant untouched. Suits eye him up nervously from behind their laptops.

  Through the smudgy porthole, dawn breaks above the clouds, a spray of gold light fanning up on the horizon, shining off the brilliant white and glinting on the brushed steel of the wing. All the way, Dylan hears a strange ringing in his ears.

  He’s the first off at John Lennon, bails through baggage reclaim, travelling light. Shows his moody passport at the Borders Agency. The police spotters miss him, a black shadow moving too fast past the two-way mirrors.

  Cold blue light. The city’s waking up. A biting breeze sweeps across it, fresh off the Approaches. Dylan jogs on, cross country, over the backs, through the fields and factories, down the backstreets. It won’t be long before the bizzies lock on. They’ll be scanning the images from the CCTV at arrivals through the visual recognition system. He slips through the concrete and weeds, through the wide open spaces, the only sound his own breathing. He heads down the railway tracks, up the embankments, mask on, flaps open, Velcroed-up. Sweat filters out through the Gore-tex of his jacket, air streaming in through the micropores.

  He’s onto the estate, ready to go, taking it easy through the streets. His old neighbours spot him, exchanging glances and whispers. Curtains are twitching. Word’s going round already, that he’s home, that he’s returned. Women look out of their windows, peek round doors and through spyholes, get on their phones and computers. Kids are told to come inside. The shutters are going down. An old docker-type, hobbling past with his paper, clocks Dylan and shakes his head. He can see what’s coming. ‘Do what’s right, lad,’ he says.

  Dylan heads for the field Nogger told him about, digs up the parcel. Kids and mas are hanging off the railings now. Shouts of ‘Go on’, ‘You can do it, lad’, ‘Put her out of her misery’. Word’s going round fast now. He leaves the square of oilcloth next to the hole. He picks up the pieces, lashes the .455 in his side pocket, de-clips one of the Mac-10s. He puts the barrel and stock in the other pocket, the second Mac-10 down his jacket, held close to his belly by the toggle.