by Rob Sinclair
He was right to think that. Buying time was exactly what I had been doing. As much as I hated O’Brady and wanted to see him suffer, I also knew exactly how dangerous he was. And with me in bed with Jackson and Marsh, I was playing a deadly game.
I walked through the streets of Digbeth over to the Full Spread, feeling the nerves build inside me. Back on O’Brady’s home turf, the last thing I wanted was to be starting on the back foot, yet given the tone of our recent conversations, it seemed inevitable. I’d tried as best I could to get O’Brady away from this place, but having done me the ‘favour’, as he put it, of granting me some leeway by not demanding the money, he outright refused my suggestion of meeting on neutral territory.
Meeting O’Brady on his hallowed turf was exactly what the police wanted me to do, even if it was without doubt the least safe option for me. O’Brady was far more likely to be himself there, which only increased the chances that he would incriminate himself.
My biggest problem was that the police had so far been entirely unsuccessful in getting any sort of surveillance inside the club. Which made my role, from the police’s point of view, all the more vital; from my point of view it was all the more dangerous.
As I rounded the final corner onto the dirty back street where the club was located, I spotted the car straightaway. It was a battered old Ford Mondeo. Bumps and scratches marked its pale-blue body and large bubbled clumps of orange rust were visible around the wheel arches and along the edges of nearly every metal panel.
The car certainly wasn’t out of place parked in the grotty street, but the two occupants, trying their best to look inconspicuous, certainly were. Police officers. Sergeants from CID. I’d been led to believe there were six officers in total stationed near the club: a precaution should the meeting take a turn for the worse. I hadn’t seen the others, but these two couldn’t have looked more like policemen if they’d tried. Maybe it was just because I was on the lookout for them, though. I hoped that was the case. If O’Brady or his men rumbled the officers then all bets were off.
I approached the main entrance to the club. It was a few minutes past eight in the evening and no bouncers were stationed outside, but I could see the padlocks were off the battered steel double-doors so I guessed someone was inside. I knocked loudly on the doors and waited.
A few seconds later I heard various deadbolts being turned. One of the doors swung open to reveal a woman. Her form cut a stark contrast to the gloomy darkness of the club beyond. I didn’t recognise her. Not that I was a regular, but I’d seen a number of the dancers before and was familiar with their faces, the bar staff too. This woman was tall and plump and dressed in jeans and a plain jumper. She just looked … ordinary.
‘I’m here to see –’
‘I know, I know,’ she said, moving aside to let me in. ‘Come in. He’s been waiting for you.’
I smiled at her and walked past her into the club. Inside the main lights were on but dimmed. It was dark, not as dark as when the punters were in but dark enough to hide the major cracks and warts of the interior.
I spotted a gaggle of people over on the platform area. They were standing, chatting happily. Among them was O’Brady, with some of his trusted comrades, but also a number of the dancers – although they had more clothes on than I’d ever seen before. That wasn’t exactly a difficult feat to accomplish, I guessed.
As I approached, the conversations died down. All eyes turned to me and O’Brady stepped forward from the crowd.
‘You’re late,’ he said.
I stopped, confused, and looked at my watch. ‘It’s eight,’ I said.
‘Exactly.’
‘We agreed to meet at eight?’
‘No. You said eight. I said six.’
‘But we agreed on eight, I thought?’
I tried not to show it but I was already rattled. Was this just O’Brady’s way of quickly gaining the upper hand, putting me on the back foot, or had I really messed up?
‘Well, you’re here now. And it’s a good thing for you too. I was just about to send some boys out after you. I don’t like people playing games with me, and you seem intent on that lately.’
‘I’m sorry. I’m not playing games.’
‘You’d better not be. Or I’m going to finish you for good.’
I nodded in acknowledgement of O’Brady’s words and put my hand in my jeans pocket where the Blackberry phone was located, running my fingers over it as though it were a comforter. I wondered whether O’Brady’s threat of violence had been heard, although I knew such a vague statement on its own was of little use to the police.
‘Is this a bad time?’ I asked, indicating the crowd of people behind.
‘Yeah, it is,’ O’Brady responded. ‘We’re doing auditions for a new club. You wouldn’t believe how many girls have come forward for this new gig. Auditions are the only way. Not a bad way to spend an evening, though, eh?’
‘I guess not.’
‘My old woman looks after it.’ O’Brady indicated over to the lady who’d let me into the club.
‘Your wife?’ I asked, looking over at her. I knew O’Brady was married, but I’d never met his wife before or even heard him talk of her much. She was nothing like I expected. I guessed he would have some trophy wife to hang off his arm.
‘Yeah. My wife,’ O’Brady said, looking at me suspiciously as though my surprised tone had offended him. ‘She’s got a great eye for the girls. Can tell the ones that’ll get the punters drooling better than any fella can. Plus, she knows which ones’ll get along with the others and which ones’ll forever start cat fights. I like to keep a happy ship here.’
‘Of course,’ I said, turning my attention back to O’Brady.
‘Well, you’re here now, so come on.’
I followed O’Brady, presuming he was heading to the office. As we entered the bright corridor I saw Mickey Egan coming out of one of the storerooms. He gave me a knowing look, and as my eyes moved down I saw his hands, his arms, all the way up to his elbows, were smeared with thick red liquid.
Blood.
O’Brady turned to me. He must have seen the shocked look on my face. In fact, he probably enjoyed seeing it.
‘Any luck?’ O’Brady said to Egan.
‘All sorted,’ Egan responded. ‘Just going to get cleaned up.’
By that point my pulse and my breathing were out of control. I wasn’t far off an all-out panic attack. Egan moved to the side as we walked past him. Beyond the fear that consumed me, I had a strong feeling of contempt for Egan. Dani thought he was capable of murder. Unfortunately for me, it sure looked that way.
I reached inside my pocket to the phone again. I was in way over my head now. All of the thoughts of violence and revenge and retribution that had been swimming around inside my head were washed away in an instant. I was terrified. I just wanted to get out of there. Alive. And in one piece.
‘Problems?’ I asked, surprising myself by being so forward.
‘Not anymore,’ was O’Brady’s chilling response.
CHAPTER 47
I risked a peek as we passed the storeroom from which Egan had just emerged, but I saw nothing. The door, bloody fingerprints on it, was ajar an inch or two, but I could see nothing of whatever horrors lay beyond.
We headed into O’Brady’s office, and as I turned to shut the door I realised Elvis had followed us in, which only added to my anxiety.
‘You said you’re doing auditions,’ I said. ‘For a new club?’
‘Yeah. You hadn’t heard?’ O’Brady said as he sat down at his desk. He indicated for me to sit opposite. I did.
‘No, I hadn’t.’
O’Brady tutted. ‘That’s why you’ll never amount to anything, Stephens. Your mind’s too closed to what’s going on around you. It’s been all over the local press. The biggest, most exclusive dancing club in the West Midlands.’
‘I don’t get much time to read the papers.’
‘’Course not. Too busy being an everyday
gom.’
‘A what?’
‘An idiot. A fool. That’s what you are. You don’t get anything in life without working yer arse off. That’s why you’ve got nothing. You’re lazy.’
‘I’ve got a decent job. A nice house,’ I said, my blunt, defensive tone completely at odds with how I was feeling. ‘Wife, kids too. I may not be a wannabe business mogul like you, but I’m happy with my lot.’
‘Job? You’re suspended. Ah, did you think I wouldn’t know about that? I know people. I talk to people. Your house? It’s all on debt. Your wife? She hates your guts, I heard, has thrown you out. Shame, she’s a pretty lady that one. She’ll not be on her own for long.’
I clenched my fists but didn’t rise to the challenge. For whatever reason, O’Brady was trying to rile me and I had to try to stay on track. I held O’Brady’s stare but didn’t say a word. After a few moments he smiled and looked away.
‘Business mogul?’ O’Brady said. ‘That’s quite a compliment actually. People talk about the luck o’ the Irish, but I got here through hard work and nothing else.’
‘You’ve certainly done well for yourself.’
‘Quite a change for the Irishman around here since I first came, you know. Back in the seventies we ran large parts of this city. Whole areas were Irish. You’d walk into your local boozer and they’d be doing IRA collections. It was like a little home from home.’
‘A lot’s changed,’ I said.
‘Damn right. Once the Pakis came they started crowding in on us. Now it’s the bleeding Poles, taking over what were our areas.’
‘Well, the Irish were just immigrants too,’ I countered.
O’Brady gave me a deathly stare. ‘I hate that word. Anyway, that wasn’t my point. It was the bombs that changed it for us.’
He was referring, I knew, to the pub bombings in central Birmingham in 1974 that killed twenty-one people and injured nearly two hundred. The IRA were widely believed to have carried out the atrocity, though they had never officially claimed responsibility.
‘Before that the Irish had a lot of support in this city,’ O’Brady said. ‘People liked us. But the bombs changed all that. All of a sudden every Irishman was marked. We were driven out. Many went home. Others moved areas, breaking up the power we once had. Some of us stayed. I stayed. I saw an opportunity.’
O’Brady paused and looked at me. I wasn’t sure whether he wanted me to say something, congratulate him maybe. I didn’t.
‘My point is, I’m a businessman. I always have been. You can save all that politics nonsense. I came here to make money and that’s why I’m still here now.’
‘And that’s why I’m here too,’ I said. ‘To talk business.’
‘Good. You know, I’m not happy with you playing me, stringing me along. So this is your last chance. Tell me what you’re going to do for me.’
The door behind me opened and in walked Egan. My gaze fell down to his arms, which he’d done a lazy job of cleaning. Although they were now dry, they were still stained red. I felt a surge of bile in my throat as I thought about just what barbarity lay in that storeroom.
‘You’re done?’ O’Brady queried.
‘The others are finishing off. I thought you might want me in here. To help out.’
Egan glared over at me and I quickly looked away, back at O’Brady.
I shuffled in my seat. My thoughts were all over the place. All of the prep that I’d gone through with Jackson and Marsh and my sister seemed so distant, and irreconcilable with the position in which I found myself.
I had to do something. Ultimately I reacted on pure survival instinct. Fuck the sting operation. I just wanted to get out of there alive.
‘The thing is,’ I said, ‘the situation’s changed a bit since we last spoke.’
O’Brady raised an eyebrow, a look of disgust on his face.
‘Changed how?’
With my heart drumming in my chest, I reached into my pocket and took out the Blackberry and put it down on O’Brady’s desk.
‘What’s that?’ O’Brady said, his tone edgy, nervous. Rare for him.
‘It’s a phone.’
‘I can see that. But what’s the fecking point you’re trying to make?’
‘It’s a bugged phone.’
O’Brady stared at me. I could tell he was raging. ‘Bugged? Bugged by who?’
‘The police,’ I said, my gaze fixed on O’Brady. ‘They’re listening to this conversation right now.’
There was absolute silence for a few seconds.
‘The police?’ Brady said, looking somewhat dumbstruck.
‘Yeah.’
‘And why would the police be listening in to our conversation on your phone?’
‘Because I’m working for them.’
CHAPTER 48
Everyone in the room held their breath as they waited for O’Brady to respond. Elvis and Egan both moved forward and crowded around the desk. Their unwavering focus was on the inanimate object that lay there, as though they were waiting for the phone to perform some sort of magic trick.
O’Brady said nothing, but he indicated frantically to Elvis to go outside. Elvis shot off. I guessed he’d been sent to gather some of the other goons and go and see whether there was any heat outside the club.
O’Brady, Egan and I sat in silence for a minute. I wondered what the police’s response would be. Would the standby units spring an attack and come crashing into the club? Or would they scarper? Perhaps they would just remain in place while they waited to see what would develop.
When Elvis returned less than a minute later, his face ashen, he simply nodded at O’Brady. I took that to mean he’d spotted at least one of the unmarked vehicles. In a way, that gave me a little comfort. While I would have much preferred an unlikely rescue mission, I knew it was the last thing the police would do. They had no right to barge into the club when they as yet had no evidence that anything was untoward. But at least they were still somewhere out there.
Would that be enough to stop O’Brady killing me?
O’Brady signalled for me to get up and I did. He followed suit. He indicated to Elvis and the phone, and then drew a finger across his neck, which made me wince. Elvis nodded and picked up the phone, then hurried away out of sight.
O’Brady nodded to me and walked out of the office, turning right to head to the fire exit. He pushed down on the release bar and flung the door open. It swung one hundred and eighty degrees and crashed against the wall before springing back and almost taking me out.
Egan and two other men, who’d come scuttling down the corridor after us, followed us outside. O’Brady stopped when he was a few metres away from the club building, near to the barbed-wire-topped wall that ran along the perimeter of the yard. He turned to face me.
‘Anything else on you?’ he asked.
‘No,’ I said.
He signalled to his men. One of them grabbed me from behind. The other patted me down, then stripped off my clothes, checking in pockets and creases for any sign of other phones or bugging equipment.
Within seconds I was left standing in the cool air in nothing but my boxer shorts. I was shaking violently, though it wasn’t from cold. It was from fear.
But surely O’Brady wouldn’t attack me there, in the yard, knowing the police were nearby and without first knowing my explanation? At least I hoped that was true. It was the only basis for me having come clean.
When the goon was satisfied, he picked up the pile of clothes and looked to O’Brady for further instruction.
‘Nothing?’ O’Brady questioned. The man shook his head. ‘Fine. Take the stuff inside.’
O’Brady looked me over with contempt. I could tell his mind was buzzing. Mine was too. Of all the stupid, dangerous things I’d ever done in my life, this definitely came out on top.
‘Inside,’ O’Brady said to Egan.
Before I knew it Mickey Egan had seized hold of me and he began dragging me back toward the club, my heels scraping painful
ly across the tarmac. He hauled me into the office and shoved me down onto the chair. His thick arm wrapped around my neck, choking me and pinning me in place.
O’Brady came into the room and walked around in front of me. There was a sinister look on his face. But I could also see that he was deep in thought. He didn’t know quite how to react to the situation.
He nodded to someone behind that I couldn’t see, then turned his attention back on me.
‘Talk to me,’ O’Brady said.
It was unusual to see him so guarded with his words. Just moments before he’d been spouting off, and now he could barely string three words together.
Egan released his grip on me just enough to let me speak, though my voice still sounded choked and hoarse.
‘The police approached me. It wasn’t my fault. There was nothing I could do.’
O’Brady glared at me for a good while. I wondered what he was thinking. Could he see the walls caving in on him or was he only pondering violence?
‘What have you told the police?’
‘Some things,’ I said vaguely. If O’Brady was going to be tight lipped then it was only right that I did the same. Blurting out details of what I’d told the police would likely frighten him and make him even more lethal. ‘Not everything.’
‘Some things?’
‘They can’t hear this conversation now,’ I said. ‘You have to believe me on that. The phone was the bug.’
‘You’re sure about that?’
‘Yes!’
Just then Elvis came back into sight. He handed something to O’Brady. Something small, metallic. Shiny.
Cable-cutters.
‘We’re going to play a little game,’ O’Brady said with menace. He moved over to me and leaned down. ‘It’s called twenty questions. You know how it works?’
‘Please! Don’t do this.’
‘Each question is a chance for you to tell me the truth. You give me an answer I don’t like …’
O’Brady held up the cutters and brought the handles together. The blades slid over each other with an ominous scraping sound. A wave of nausea ran through me.