by Conrad Jones
“Yes, you recognise the name?”
“Yes, you’re Nate’s father.” Grebby tried to swallow but his throat was like sandpaper. Whatever this man wanted, he wasn’t messing about. “Is this about Nate dying, man?”
“Correct,” Nate Bradley senior smiled. “You sold the ecstasy tablet which killed my son to Carl Lewis.”
“No way, Mr. Bradley!” Grebby looked shocked and shook his head. “I don’t touch any of that shit,” he lied. He could sense that the man meant business. He didn’t know where he was but he knew he was too far away from help to scream. There was something missing from the man’s eyes. He looked focused, almost robotic. There was no emotion in them, no anger, no hatred, just ice-cold focus.
“Carl Lewis was right here where you are yesterday. To be fair to him, when I asked him who he bought the drugs from, he didn’t give the game away straight away. He lied too.”
“What do you mean?” Grebby stuttered. “What did he tell you? He’s lying.”
“Do you know what I did for a living, Grebby, in the army, that is?”
“No, I didn’t know you were in the army, why would I?” Grebby was sharp and he tried to sound convincing. “I hardly know Carl Lewis and I only met Nate once. I heard about him dying and I was gutted, Carl will tell you that.”
“I was an interrogator.” Nate ignored his rambling and shined the torch into his eyes. “Sifting lies from the truth is my profession, and you are lying to me.”
“Look, man.” Grebby tried to sound calm although inside he was far from it. He was a clever lad and academically he was doing well at college. His situation was precarious, but he didn’t believe that Mr. Bradley was going to hurt him. Rational people didn’t kidnap teenagers and took them to the woods to kill them. He wanted to know about the drugs, and that wasn’t the end of the world. Grebby’s mother had been dealing weed for as long as he could remember. That’s how he had gotten into it. She made a good living out of supplying her friends and as Grebby had grown older, he had decided he could, too. She had been banging a dealer off the estate for years and Grebby had gotten to know him reasonably well. They had smoked weed together and soon, Grebby had been selling for him at school. When he got back home, he was going to call in some favours and have Mr. Bradley sorted out. Okay, he had lost his son, but this was going too far. “This is over the top, Mr. Bradley. I don’t know anything about any drugs.”
Nate stood up and turned around. He disappeared into the trees and Grebby watched as the torchlight faded into the dark. He looked around, but the torchlight had been shined into his eyes and they wouldn’t adjust to the darkness. There was nothing but black and darker black to be seen. He hated the dark. It had always scared him. He thought about trying to wriggle away to hide, but getting lost in the woods or falling into the quarry weren’t options he wanted to chance. As he debated his options, Mr. Bradley appeared from nowhere and the beam blinded him. He hadn’t heard him approach despite the silence around him. Gecko kneeled down next to the young dealer and placed his college bag next to him.
“Who do you get your drugs from?”
“I don’t get them from anyone,” Grebby replied quietly. He was scared, but his mind was processing his position and trying to think of a way out of it.
Nate Bradley roughly turned the boy over and he pushed his face into the rotting leaves carpeting the floor. The dealer wriggled and kicked as he fought for air but Nate was too strong. He could feel strong hands searching through his pockets. The game was up. He was carrying drugs and money.
“A quick search of your pockets and schoolbag turned up a roll of twenty-pound notes, a bag of ecstasy tablets and a block of cannabis resin,” Nate said calmly. “All of which are pretty consistent with being a lowlife drug pusher.” He released the pressure on the dealer’s neck and allowed him to breathe.
“Okay, okay,” the boy gasped. “Look, I deal a bit for my mum’s boyfriend. He is a complete arsehole and he beats the shit out of me and my mum if we don’t sell his gear.”
Nate grabbed a handful of greasy hair and dragged the dealer toward the edge of the quarry. Grebby squealed like a girl and twisted his body but he couldn’t break free. “Please! He makes me sell it, honestly he does!”
Nate placed the chloroform soaked rag over his nose and mouth to shut him up while he prepared to talk to him. It was obvious that Grebby was not taking any responsibility for his part in his son’s death. Not yet anyway, but he would before he died.
When the geek awoke, he was strapped to a concrete block at the edge of the quarry. His feet were over the edge. Nate asked him, “Who sold you the drugs?”
“I feel sick,” Grebby moaned. He looked around and realised his feet were dangling over the cliff. Fear gripped him and he turned his face to look at his captor. “What do you want to know? I’ll tell you whatever you want to know.”
“Who sold you the drugs?” Nate grabbed his face between his forefinger and thumb and shined the torch into his eyes. Tears spilled over and ran down the boy’s face. “You refused to talk at first, which means that you are not sorry about my son’s death, nor are you worried about killing another teenager with the same batch of tablets.” Nate pushed the block closer to the edge; the dealer’s legs dangled.
“Stop, please!” Grebby cried. “What did Carl tell you?”
“That doesn’t matter to you. Who sold you the drugs?” “His name is Jacky Benjamin. I know his address on the Bluebell housing estate,” Grebby babbled. “Check my mobile, his numbers are in there.”
Nate picked up the mobile and scrolled to the contacts file. He entered it and searched for the name. “What is it stored under?”
“Benny and Jacky, he has two phones that he deals from.”
Nate checked the numbers were there. “What is his address?”
“Sixty five Huyton Lane, it’s the corner house opposite the Bluebell pub.”
“Who does he live with?” Nate asked.
“No one, he lives alone, but there are always people coming and going. He has a lot of friends, you know what I mean?”
“Does he keep weapons in the house?” Nate wanted to know as much information as he could about his next target.
“How the fuck would I know?” Grebby shouted. He was terrified and he wanted out of here right now. He had parted with the information and now he wanted to go home.
“Have you been to his house?” Nate stayed calm.
“Yes, a few times, to hang out.”
“To take drugs you mean?”
“We smoked a bit of weed, that’s all, now let me go.” Grebby struggled to get his words out.
“Did you see any guns?”
“No, let me go.”
“Dogs?”
“What?” Grebby asked incredulously.
“Does he have any dogs?”
“Yes, he has three. Now let me fucking go!” Grebby rocked his body but only succeeded in cracking the back of his head on the block.
“What type of dogs are they?” Nate pressed on.
“Bull Terriers, now please let me go. I promise not to go to the police if you let me go now,” Grebby replied angrily.
With the information gathered, Nate decided to explain briefly why he was going to kill the boy. “You killed my son, Grebby, and you have shown no remorse for doing that, so tell me why I should let you go?”
“I didn’t kill him. How could I know which tablet Nate would take or how it would affect him? How could I know? He took the tablet on his own back, no one forced him.”
“No they didn’t, but if you hadn’t sold them to Carl, then Nate would be alive.”
Gecko decided he had enough information from the young dealer to progress to the next level. He heaved on the concrete and pushed it toward the edge. Grebby was hysterical as Nate pushed the block over the edge and the boy plummeted into the freezing cold depths of the quarry. His body settled just yards away from his younger friend Carl. Mission number two was accomplished. It was time to
move up the chain.
When he arrived home that night, he charged up his wife’s mobile phone and pressed in the numbers he had acquired. Both numbers were stored in the memory, one under Benny, the second under Benjy. Jacky Benjamin was responsible for murdering his son and his wife. Nate planned to take Benjamin out of circulation, but a reconnaissance of his home revealed that it was like a fortress. The dealer protected his doors and windows with bars. There were cameras fitted to the front and back and he could hear at least two dogs barking. It would not be simple to break in, and when Benjamin left his house, several youngsters dressed in black shellsuits escorted him. There was a pub across the road called the Bluebell where Gecko could sit and watch the house through the window. It was there that he met Patrick Lloyd.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jackson
Jackson Walker was rooted to the spot as his front door shattered into splinters. His brain was telling him to sprint across the room to pick up the gun he had cleaned minutes ago, but his muscles refused to respond to the messages. A man dressed as a construction worker stepped through the splintered frame and walked calmly towards him. He had a yellow hardhat and a navy blue jumpsuit on. Around his waist was a utility belt with an assortment of tools attached. A grey respirator covered his face. David Lorimar, Dava as his associates knew him, often used this disguise to enter buildings without attracting anyone’s attention but that of the most observant members of the public. He aimed a silenced Glock at Jackson’s chest area and waved the weapon, indicating he should get down onto the floor. A similarly dressed man was covering the doorway with a black plastic membrane. A yellow warning triangle stood on guard in the hallway, telling any nosey neighbours that chemical vermin control was underway.
“Get your hands up, Jackson,” Dava said calmly. “Make a sound and you are dead, understand?”
“What the fuck is this all about?” Jackson asked. He knew it was a hit, but he didn’t know for sure who wanted him dead. It could be any of a dozen people that he had crossed recently, or a hundred others he could have thought of if he had had the time to go back further into his past. Not that it mattered, he was living his last few minutes on this planet, unless he could escape. “Who is paying you?” Jackson knelt down and raised his hands above his head.
“Shut up or you will die slowly,” Dava hissed.
“So this is a hit, right?” Jackson smiled nervously. The hit man had not squeezed the trigger yet, which meant either he didn’t want to make a mess and leave evidence or he didn’t want to carry a body out of the building. If they tried to take him out alive at gunpoint, he had a chance to escape or call for help. His mind was screaming at him to do something or say something, but he was still in shock.
“Well done there, you should have been on Mastermind.”
“At least let me know who is having me wiped!” Jackson smiled again although his guts were churning. He was supposed to be executing a man today, but the tables were turned. There was a sick feeling of panic in his stomach. A dreadful feeling of complete hopelessness seeped through him. There was nothing he could do. He remembered Delamere Forest, where he had watched a man digging his own grave and begging for his life. Tears and snot had mingled on the dealer’s face as he dug his resting place in the dark damp soil. It had been Leon’s idea to bury him alive while his associate had watched in horror, but it had been Jackson who had kicked him into the hole screaming. It had been Jackson who had stood on his chest and covered the poor man in soil. He remembered stamping on the rotting forest floor as he had compacted it around the man until the muffled screams stopped and the undulating soil became still. Somewhere the dead man’s soul would be pointing at him and smiling. What goes around comes around. ‘This is karma,’ he thought. Jackson swallowed hard and waited for his fate.
“Let’s just say someone is hitting you before you hit them, shall we?” David Lorimar looked toward his associate. “Put your hands in front of you.”
He waited for his colleague to cut another length of plastic membrane. He placed it on the floor while Dava fastened plasticuffs around Jackson’s wrists. Jackson was shaking with fear as a thin plastic noose slipped out of the utility belt and his attacker tried to slip it over his head. He realised why he had not shot him already. The hit man was opting for a quieter method of execution. Jackson knew he was about to be garroted and he threw himself backwards across the floor. His hands were tied but his legs were free and he ran desperately for his life. There was nowhere to run. The doorway was blocked. Jackson stumbled toward the window and he hurled himself headlong at the glass. David Lorimar kicked out as he ran and he caught his ankle, knocking it violently from under his fleeing target. Jackson crashed into the window frame full force and the skin on his skull split like an egg. Blood poured from the wound and blinding white lights shot through his brain. Before he could recover and bolt again, he felt the plastic zip tie sliding over his head and tightening around his throat. It was a murder weapon frequently used by David Lorimar. There was no sound except a thick guttural gurgling sound as the noose tightened and crushed Jackson’s larynx. He felt the blood vessels in his brain swelling before they burst. His eyes protruded and looked like they would pop out and his tongue lolled out of his mouth. As the darkness closed in, the third vertebrae in his spine snapped.
David Lorimar felt Jackson’s body go limp and he let it fall onto the plastic sheet. They moved silently and with a practiced purpose about them. They wrapped Jackson Walker in his own carpet and carried him out of the flat into a battered old Renault Traffic van. No one saw the hit men enter and no one saw them leave. Two hours later, they forced his dismembered body through a mincemeat processer and mixed him with a new batch of pigswill. Jackson Walker was nothing more than a memory, just another gangster who had disappeared in the dangerous quicksand of the underworld.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Patrick Lloyd: The Past
Patrick Lloyd was in the Bluebell, leaning against the bar reading the sport pages when Nate caught his eye. Patrick watched him closely. He could tell that Nate was watching the property opposite. He lived locally and knew that a well-known drug dealer occupied it. He was curious why this stranger was interested in the property. Patrick figured that he must be a police officer, and he was wary of police officers, although it was obvious that this man was not looking for anyone else except the occupant of the property across the road. After an hour, he approached Nate and began a conversation.
“Tell me to get lost if you like, but are you police?” He whispered with a cheeky smile on his face.
“Get lost.” Nate didn’t look at him.
“Don’t be like that. I’m being nosey, I know, but why are you watching Benjamin’s gaff?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” Nate looked at him this time. The fact that the man knew the dealer’s name worried him. He needed to know if the guy was curious or a friend of the drug dealer. He was annoyed that he had made it so obvious he was watching the house. His hatred of the man who owned it was dulling his senses. He needed to keep sharp if he was to revenge his family’s death.
“Are you drugs squad? I hope you are, that bastard needs stringing up by the bollocks, mate.” Lloyd spoke with a thick scouse accent, but there was something false about it. “If I had my way, I would put a bullet in the back of his skull.”
“Do you know him, then?”
“Nah, I know of him. He’s a drug dealing scumbag. It pisses me off that everyone knows what he does, yet the police do nothing about it. The kids on the estate are knocking on the door from dawn until dusk. Are you drugs squad, then?”
“No.”
“Rival dealer?”
“Definitely not.”
“Customer?”
Nate laughed. This man was persistent; he had to say that. He was a strange looking character, but there was something amusing about him. “Let’s say I have a similar opinion to you.”
Lloyd held out his skinny hand. “Pa
trick Lloyd.”
Nate ignored the gesture and continued to look out of the window. He didn’t want to shake the man’s hand. He was too pushy and there was something strange about him. There was something about his eyes. They were bright and darted everywhere. Gecko had seen that look in people who were being hunted. “What do you do, Patrick?” He asked without looking at him.
Patrick was skinny and lean. He wore his hair cropped short. He looked like he could have been a squaddie once. He took a mouthful of dark bitter and smiled. His teeth looked false. “You know, a bit of this and a bit of that. I’m ex-army, Cheshire Regiment.”
“I thought so,” Nate nodded. “Me too, intelligence.”
“Desk jockey, eh?”
“No. I didn’t have a desk.” Nate looked him straight in the eyes for the first time. It was then that the dealer’s front door opened. Nate looked inside the house while the entourage filed out.
“Benjamin is the lad in the Parka. The others are his lowlife mates. The things you see when you haven’t got your gun, eh?” Patrick winked.
“That is very true,” Nate laughed. “I wouldn’t advise shooting a drug dealer in broad daylight anyway.”
“Do you think anybody from around here would give a shit?” Patrick shook his head as he spoke. “No one would remember seeing anything that happened on this estate. Do you want a pint, mate?”
Nate looked at his glass. It was empty. It was a long time since he met someone who made him laugh. “Why not, I’ll have a lager, please.”
“Nice one, I’ll be two minutes,” Patrick smiled and walked to the bar. Nate looked around the pub, taking it in for the first time. He had been so focused on the Benjamin property that he hadn’t noticed his surroundings. The pub was clean and modern in design. The floors were polished pinewood and the brass rails on the bar sparkled. There were four bandits spaced out, one on each wall. All four machines were being pumped full of dole money; the players were all similarly dressed in tracksuits with the trousers tucked into their socks and training shoes. Patrick chatted with a fat barmaid as she poured two new pints. He eyed her up and down with a little too much interest. She flicked her hair and laughed, flirting with him. The drug dealer and his cronies had disappeared into the maze of alleyways that dissected the estate. “So, are you police or what?” Patrick returned with a big grin on his face.