by Nick Oldham
The man called Loz, short for Lawrence, shook his head.
‘ I said c’mon,’ the first man said more firmly.
Loz’s mouth dried up. His eyes narrowed. What the hell was this about? he wondered. ‘No, look I-’
‘ Get your fucking arse over here,’ the first man said fiercely. Then his tone lightened. ‘I mean, who the hell’s going to look after this baby while I’m away? You, Loz — you — so you’ve got to get used to feeding him.’
‘ Just so long as I don’t have to take him for a walk.’
‘ That’s the spirit.’
Loz stomped on his cigarette, blew a lungful of smoke into the clear Atlantic night and dragged himself reluctantly across the roof to the cage. His eyes never left Nero; his imagination never moved away from being ripped to shreds by those paws which were as big as shovels and teeth which were as sharp as nails.
The first man was kneeling down by the coolbox, having prised off the lid. Two hands went in and eased out a dripping horse steak, the size of a dinner-plate.
‘ A Frog would give his right arm for this,’ the man joked. ‘Now, this is the tricky bit,’ he explained to Loz. ‘Making sure Nero don’t get the chance to tear your hand off.’
He dropped the meat into the sliding tray and pushed it under the cage to the waiting lion. Nero grabbed it immediately between his teeth, reared back and with snuffling grunts of pleasure, padded to the far corner of the cage and began to tear at it. He held it between his paws and ripped it with his teeth and licked it with his massive, rough tongue.
‘ What a brilliant animal,’ the man said. He loved the lion.
‘ Yeah,’ Loz answered uneasily. ‘Brill.’ Something was pricking at Loz’s mind — something the other man had said, about going away. It was the first time he had even mentioned it and Loz wondered why it should suddenly come up here, at two in the morning on the rooftop whilst feeding that bastard of a lion. Something did not fit right here, Loz’s instinct warned him.
‘ You give him the next piece, eh? When he’s finished that one.’
Loz shrugged. ‘Whatever you say, boss.’ His eyes bored into the back of the man’s head while he tried to figure out what his employer was up to. Loz couldn’t get a handle on it. Why had Billy Crane asked him up here tonight?
Crane spun round quickly and caught Loz looking at him.
‘ Problem, Loz?’
The younger guy shook his head.
Nero had devoured the first piece of horseflesh. He knew there was more to come. He rose to his feet, his belly only partially filled, and strolled back across to the two men. He was not as impatient now; the first steak had taken the edge off his craving.
‘ Everything go all right at the airport this morning?’ Crane asked conversationally.
‘ Yeah, no probs.’
‘ Good, good.’ Crane held up the palms of his hands and inspected them; they were still covered in blood from handling the meat. ‘So we should be fifty grand richer pretty soon, shouldn’t we?’
Loz’s senses tingled alarm bells. ‘Yeah,’ he said, brow furrowed. ‘Should be.’
‘ That’s good.’ Crane sniffed, then indicated the next piece of meat in the coolbox. ‘Grab that, Loz.’
Loz took a breath, steeled himself and delved into the box.
Behind the mesh of the cage, Nero regarded both humans expectantly, the short, dark, vertical stripes of the inner corners of his eyes virtually pointing at them. Loz could see the lower canines jutting out of the lower jaw like mini, sharpened tusks, but yellow, with off-brown bases, as thick as a grown man’s thumb. Nero smelled all lion too: bad breath which was overpowering, a strong mustiness emanating from him and, of course, the thick smell of urine. It was a combination which made Loz want to retch.
Swallowing hard, he wrapped his fingers around the slimy piece of meat which he carefully lifted out, trying to get as little blood as possible on his hands.
‘ You said you were going away, Bill. Where to?’
‘ Back home for a while. Got something to do.’
‘ Urgent?’
‘ Necessary, shall we say?’
Loz looked at the meat in his hand. That, too, stunk. Obviously not the freshest meat in the world. Not that a lion would care.
‘ What should I do now?’ There was an expression of distaste on his face.
Billy Crane groaned with annoyance. ‘Give it to me, you pathetic git!’ He snatched the meat from Loz’s hands and said, ‘Here I’ll show you.’
He made a show of weighing the meat in his hands, then without warning he slammed it into Loz’s face and wound it round like a custard pie, smearing blood all over Loz’s face. Before the other man could react in any way, Crane had thrown the meat down and gripped Loz’s throat crashing him hard up against Nero’s cage, rattling the mesh.
Nero was stunned by the flurry of movement. He roared.
The fingers of Crane’s right hand circled Loz’s throat and lower jaw, pinning him against the cage, squeezing, distorting Loz’s face like a cinematic special effect. Crane’s left forearm was crushing Loz’s throat, using his victim’s shoulder as a lever to apply pressure and make him gurgle.
Loz’s eyes were wide and terrified. The thought of Nero only inches away behind him made him twitch fearfully but it was the unleashed anger of his boss that made him wet himself in fear.
Crane was nose to nose with Loz.
‘ I pay you good money to pick up sensible, trustworthy mules and you go and choose that silly bitch. I am so fucking annoyed, Loz, you would not believe it. I am struggling to express myself.’
‘ I don’t know what you mean,’ Loz croaked.
‘ Well, I’ll tell you,’ Crane’s voice grated dangerously. ‘I got a phone call not very long ago to say that she was picked up at the airport. Not because of a routine check — I could have lived with that — but because of her behaviour and her stupid boyfriend’s behaviour. Two fucking drunken louts. So why did you pick her, Loz? Why?’
He crashed Loz’s head against the cage again.
Behind, Nero bristled and growled, fascinated by what was happening. His black eyes shone with anticipation.
‘ She seemed OK, honest, Bill. But you can’t fucking tell.’
‘ Why pick her?’ Crane insisted. ‘I have lost a lot of money over this and I’m not happy, not one bit.’
Loz closed his eyes and whispered, ‘She gave me a blow job.’
There was little to be gained by lying to Crane. Better to admit things than submit to his interrogation techniques.
Crane relaxed his grip slightly. ‘A blow job? Fifty grand’s worth of coke for a blow job? Is that how you recruit them? It is, isn’t it? That’s a superb way of seeing if they have all the necessary skills for the job, isn’t it? “Will you suck my cock? Well then, you must be a good drug carrier”.’
He let go and stood back.
Loz coughed, massaged his throat, took his eye off Crane. A mistake. He never saw the fist coming. All he knew was that the front of his face exploded in a searing white light of pain. He sank to the ground, dazed. He didn’t see the knee coming either as Crane drove it into his face.
Loz pulled himself slowly up the cage on to his hands and knees, his head drooping loosely between his arms. He could tell his nose was broken, crushed, and his cheekbone possibly fractured. Blood poured out of his nostrils, blobbing on to the floor with strands of snot and saliva.
But Billy Crane had not finished with him yet. His rage had not subsided.
He hauled Loz to his feet and hurled his face against Nero’s cage. The huge beast, 108 kilos of rippling muscle and sinew, launched himself through the air, his huge paws spread wide, claws extended.
Even though there was the mesh between them, Loz cowered away with a scream just a nano-second prior to Nero’s full weight crashing against the cage. The lion rolled away backwards and regained his feet in one flowing, feline motion. The smell of blood and fear was starting to drive him wild.
And still Billy Crane had not finished.
With a roar himself, he took hold of Loz’s brightly coloured shirt, pulled him roughly on to his feet and pinned him against the cage again. Tipping Loz off-balance, he dragged the unfortunate man along the cage, winding up its inhabitant, who paced angrily behind Loz. The latter screamed, shrieked and provoked even more of a response from Nero.
In all, Crane dragged Loz up and down the cage four times. By the end of this Nero was emitting unworldly noises which seemed to come from the very pit of his guts; noises more akin to a wild African night than a balmy one in the Canaries.
By now, Loz had taken the leap beyond fear. The whole episode had become unreal to him following the massive blows to his face. It was like a nightmare from hell.
Panting heavily, Crane threw Loz to the ground, where he snivelled like a baby.
‘ Fifty fucking thousand pounds,’ Crane gasped. ‘You arsehole. What is that worth, eh? An arm? A leg? An eye?’
He bent down and withdrew Nero’s food tray from the cage and flung it clattering across the roof. There was now a gap of about four inches high by ten long in the netting at floor level.
‘ Or a hand?’ Crane said. His eyes blazed anger and retribution.
Loz’s face snapped up at Crane as the implication of what had been said struck home. ‘No, Billy,’ he uttered in disbelief. ‘Please… I don’t deserve this. No way do I deserve this.’
Nero roared in his ear. Crane bent towards him menacingly.
Almost as soon as she inserted the key into the lock, Danny lost her nerve. She fell against the door for support and butted her head against it in an expression of frustration at herself.
This is stupid, she thought bleakly. It’s two in the morning — no time to be returning alone to a house which holds such tragedy. I need moral support for this.
She took her mobile phone from her pocket and tried to remember Henry Christie’s number. ‘Phone me any time,’ he’d told her. Oh yeah, she thought sardonically. He’d really appreciate me calling him at this hour, wouldn’t he just? His wife would be none too happy either.
The fleeting image of Henry asleep in the same bed as his wife made Danny wince with jealousy. She slid the mobile back into her pocket, put the key into the lock once again, turned it and pushed open the door.
A musty aroma wafted to her flaring nostrils.
She looked towards the closed door of the kitchen. Where it had happened. And stepped across the threshold on to a pile of letters which cracked beneath her shoe. Geena had been collecting the mail for her, but it was about two weeks since the task had last been done. There was a small mountain of the stuff, mostly junk. She stepped beyond it into the hall, closed the door behind her and stood there for a moment in the darkness. All she could hear was the beating of her own heart and the nervous rasp as she inhaled, exhaled, shallowly.
Her hand reached for the light switch.
The light came on, illuminating a familiar scene.
In sudden flashback, she saw herself, three months before, treading slowly down the hallway carpet in her bare feet, a dressing gown wrapped tightly around her naked body. Walking with trepidation towards the closed kitchen door from behind which had come the boom of a shotgun being discharged.
She swallowed in the here and now, hardly daring to move. Then she stepped forwards and the unexpected noise from her house alarm almost made her leap out of her clothes, skin and bones. The movement sensor fitted above the kitchen door had picked her up and set the house alarm going, giving Danny one minute to get to the control panel and switch it off.
‘ Hell, Christ!’ she yelled, covering her ears.
She had forgotten about the alarm, something she’d had fitted in response to problems experienced prior to Jack Sands’s death. She ran down the hall, ducked under the stairs, desperately trying to recall the code number to deactivate it.
Her own collar number.
She tapped it in and the cacophony ceased as quickly as it had begun, leaving a hollow ringing in her ears.
At least the episode had achieved something. She was now right by the kitchen door, only inches away from the handle.
Without further ado, she grabbed it, opened the door, flicked on the lights and stepped into the kitchen.
Danny’s bleak thoughts concerning the whereabouts of Henry Christie were way off the mark. Not only was he not in bed with his wife Kate, he had not slept on the marital bed for almost two weeks. At that moment in time he was leaving a very sophisticated night club in Manchester’s city centre, with his arm thrown around the shoulders of one of the biggest and most feared villains in the North of England.
Jacky Lee believed himself to be one of the elite hundred or so men in the country who were considered by the cops to be the top of the tree, crime-wise. One of those crims who lead flash lifestyles, drive big cars, own big houses, screw second-rate models, knock about with footballers and pop stars, and who have no visible means of support. The police know their way of life is financed by crime, but because they cleverly distance themselves from the sharp end, they are rarely caught.
However, Lee’s belief had been somewhat dented six years earlier when he found himself in front of a Crown Court jury in York, facing drugs importation charges for which he subsequently received eight years in jail. Good behaviour got him out in four, when he immediately slotted back into business.
Lee and Henry Christie stumbled out of the club, down the steps. A Roller had pulled up, a black BMW behind it, all tinted windows and menace. Lee and Henry clambered into the back of the Rolls, laughing and joking drunkenly.
Lee was definitely the worse for wear, well inebriated. Henry was stone cold sober, but acting pissed. Inside himself he was worked up like a coiled spring and needed to keep his wits firmly about him. He was operating in dangerous territory.
Lee leaned over the driver’s shoulder and gave him instructions to take them to his apartment in the city — a penthouse down south. Then he slumped back next to Henry and gave a deep sigh of contentment.
‘ Jesus, it’s good to be back with you,’ he said to Henry, slapping the policeman’s knee in a manly way. ‘I really missed our crack when I was inside that fucking place, you know.’
‘ I missed you too, Jacky,’ Henry said. ‘We had a scream back then, didn’t we?’
‘ Aye lad, we fuckin’ did that — and did some good business too.’
A change suddenly came over Jacky Lee. He became silent, pensively watching the lights of the city flash past from the Rolls. His expression was hard and he no longer seemed drunk.
‘ Y’know,’ he said at length, ‘I fuckin’ thought and thought about why I ended up in the slammer. I truly believed my operation was watertight.’
Something in Henry’s throat constricted. A peculiar feeling — nausea combined with dread — grumbled in the pit of his stomach.
‘ I been over it all again and again, boy. Workin’ it all back in my mind. Retreading everything I’d done, who I’d met, who I’d dealt with, and I really, really struggled to see why the cops moved on to me. I even got a private detective to go over all the witness statements against me to see if there was any clue in them as to who might’ve dropped me in it with the cops, and to check out people I know. Just out of curiosity, like.’
Henry’s controlled outer-body language did not betray his inner turmoil. He feigned a stifled yawn of indifference and belched. He folded his arms and allowed his head to drop back on to the soft white leather headrest. ‘Any conclusions?’ he asked Lee laconically, closing his eyes.
‘ Oh yeah, too fucking true.’ Jacky Lee’s eyes bored across at the side of Henry’s head. Henry opened his own slowly and clicked his tongue as though there was a nasty taste in. his mouth. Actually there was. It was a taste called terror. But even so, if Lee thought he was going to rattle Henry into spouting a confession of some sort, he was wrong.
‘ And?’ Henry asked.
‘ I thought about y
ou. I thought you could’ve been the one.’
Shit. Henry’s mind raced whilst his face remained impassive. So this was it, he thought. The time of confrontation. The moment Henry dreaded happening. He knew that his reaction to Lee’s statement was crucial as to whether he, Henry, lived or died. The significance of the following BMW struck him at that moment. The hit team.
Henry eyed Lee narrowly for a few tense seconds. Lee was waiting, testing.
Henry’s mouth kinked into a grin and his eyes flushed with humour. The grin evolved into a smile which became a chuckle and a head-shake of disbelief. Lee responded with a giggle.
‘ I had to think about you, pal. I had to think about every cunt,’ Lee explained when the mirth had subsided. ‘But you — I knew it couldn’t be you. You’ve put too much bent gear my way for it to be you.’
Henry’s mind breathed a sigh of relief.
‘ Yeah, you know me too well, Jack,’ Henry said, remembering how he had once spent a whole Christmas with Lee and his family up in the North-East — mother, sisters, granny, nieces and nephews and even had a holiday in Spain with the guy once. They knew each other very well. ‘I’m just like you. Making a living. Buying and selling. Just a commodity broker.’
‘ Yeah, you’re right. That’s all we are — commodity brokers, market traders without a pitch. Just selling on goods. I like that — commodity broker.’
The Rolls drew to a halt outside an apartment block. New, swish with good security, overlooking one of the basins of the Ship Canal. Lee had built the whole complex, financed it one hundred per cent. The eighty apartments he’d already sold had netted him somewhere in the region of six million.
‘ Love to invite you up, pal,’ Lee said, ‘but I got some hot totty waiting up there. Gagging for it, she is.’
‘ Hey, no problemo.’
‘ Good. So — see ya.’ Lee opened his door but crimped back suddenly to Henry before getting out of the car. ‘The issue we’ve just been discussing, by the way…’ He raised an eyebrow. ‘Y’know, the grass?’