Down Among the Dead Men
Page 1
Down Among the
Dead Men
Ed Chatterton
Copyright © 2013, Ed Chatterton
To Liverpool and Los Angeles
Down Among
the Dead Men
Ed Chatterton is the prize-winning author of more than twenty children's novels (published under the name Martin Chatterton). In addition to his career as a writer, he has enjoyed international success as an illustrator as well as working as a graphic designer, university lecturer and commercials director. Born and raised in Liverpool, he now divides his time between Australia and the UK and is married with two children.
Down Among the Dead Men is his second crime novel and he is already hard at work on the third in the DI Frank Keane series.
CONTENTS
PART ONE: LIVERPOOL
Prologue
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Chapter Fifty-Four
Chapter Fifty-Five
Chapter Fifty-Six
Chapter Fifty-Seven
Chapter Fifty-Eight
Chapter Fifty-Nine
Chapter Sixty
Chapter Sixty-One
PART TWO: LOS ANGELES
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
Chapter Thirty-Six
Chapter Thirty-Seven
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Chapter Forty
Chapter Forty-One
Chapter Forty-Two
Chapter Forty-Three
Chapter Forty-Four
Chapter Forty-Five
Chapter Forty-Six
Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Eight
Chapter Forty-Nine
Chapter Fifty
Chapter Fifty-One
Chapter Fifty-Two
Chapter Fifty-Three
Acknowledgements
PART ONE
LIVERPOOL
'If we imagine no worse of them than they of themselves, they may pass for excellent men.'
Theseus, Act 5, Scene 1, A Midsummer Night's Dream, William Shakespeare
Prologue
Nicky's panicky fingertips trace the cramped horizons of his terrifying new world and deliver the same bleak conclusion he'd arrived at a hundred times already since he coughed himself awake.
This is for real.
The things in his life that he'd attached importance to before this – haircuts, ambition, music, films, attitude – fade away with such rapidity that it makes his head spin. This is the lesson he is learning: there is here, there is now, and everything else is bullshit.
He already has several splinters in his fingers and with his hand once more scrabbling furiously in a futile search for something to give him hope, another jams itself underneath a thumbnail. The pain is excruciating but Nicky embraces it like a friend. For a few sweet seconds his mind is emptied of all but pure feeling, before the nightmare reality of the situation rushes back in a vertiginous pitch-black tsunami of fear and hopelessness and absolute gut-wrenching horror.
The sixteen-year-old, his body trembling spasmodically, lies naked inside a solid wooden box – Nicky won't allow himself to use the word coffin – feet flat against an immoveable wall, legs slightly bent and thin arms pressed in tight against his body. He can, by breathing out and lowering his chest, twist his arm up just enough to reach his face.
He fights the urge to start crying again but it comes anyway, his breath erupting in ragged bursts and rebounding hot and sour from the hard surface a couple of centimetres above his damp face. He aches, with a simple childlike desperation he wouldn't have believed possible a few days ago, for his mother to hold him in her arms, his father to scoop him up, to keep him safe, to fight off the wolves.
To get him out of here.
There's something he needs to remember about his parents – something important – but the only thing that penetrates the fog cloaking his brain is the awful dread certainty that they won't be coming for him.
That no one will be coming for him.
Things like this happen to others, to unlucky people you read about and then forget, glad you aren't one of them. Or else to people who'd slipped through the cracks: addicts, drifters, prostitutes. Not suburban teenagers. Not Nicky Peters.
Not me.
Yet, here he is. The evidence is right there that this time it's he who is . . . what, exactly?
With an almost physical jolt the word comes to mind.
Victim.
With an effort of will Nicky slows his breathing and tries to get back some small measure of control. Time passes. Nicky's not sure how long. He wonders if it's something to do with . . . that. He can't even think the words, let alone think about what's been going on. What he'd done was wrong – what they'd done was wrong – but that wouldn't lead to this, would it? Would it?
He can remember being hurt. Someone was moving him somewhere. His mind is foggy, memories frustratingly intangible. Ghosts at the edge of the forest.
&nbs
p; Then there are sounds coming from outside. Someone's there.
The noise brings the tiniest flicker of relief as Nicky realises that he is not, as he feared, buried underground. He begins to sense a room, a space surrounding his box. He opens his mouth to yell for help and abruptly stops himself. He's seen enough movies to know whoever is outside does not wish him well. He knows how this turns out and it makes him want to cry.
Nicky concentrates; he's always been a serious boy. He's got good ears and the sounds gradually form an unwelcome picture.
Someone is working hard. Objects being moved, the scrape of metal on hard floors. A series of ripping sounds; tape being stripped from a reel. The crackle of heavy plastic sheeting. The occasional grunt of effort.
Outside Nicky's box someone is busy.
Panic floods the boy and despite himself he cries out. 'Hey! Please! Help me! Please!'
The movements stop and Nicky hears someone come close. So close he can hear them breathing.
'Quiet, Nicky,' says a soft, soothing voice. 'No one can hear you.'
Nicky begins to cry again.
He knows who's out there.
One
'Fucking get stuck in, Chrissy,' says Jesus and, as always when the big man tells him to do something, Chrissy does as he's told.
The kid shifts his stance and comes in hard with a flurry of light jabs.
Frank Keane dabs his headgear back into position with the heel of his right hand and tucks an elbow tight against his ribs to defend himself. He's already hurting, and as Chrissy ups the tempo, Frank knows it's going to get worse before it gets any better. It's been a long while since he's had a work-out like this and he's feeling every minute of the lay-off.
'Bollocks,' grunts Frank as he rolls with the fresh onslaught. The word is filtered through his gumshield but the kid hears and smiles. At sixteen, Chrissy Cahill is a handy amateur welterweight prospect with several junior titles to his name. Sparring with a forty-year-old, even one with Frank Keane's decent record, is not part of the boy's usual training regimen. Frank's there for variety, a favour to Jesus Penaquele, Chrissy's trainer.
Jesus – only Penaquele's mother uses the Hispanic pronunciation and she's ninety-seven – is a large man in his sixties with a drinker's face and a keen eye for a likely winner. He has lived in Liverpool his entire life.
Back when Jesus was thinner he'd been Frank's trainer, and sometimes more than that in the bad year after Frank's dad had passed. Frank hadn't been much younger then than Chrissy Cahill is now, and Penaquele had let the boy's grief come out in the ring and the gym. It was only later that Frank had realised how smart and caring Jesus had been. Over hot breakfasts cooked up by Jesus's foul-mouthed wife, Val, after early-morning runs, he had talked to the boy about boxing and football; doing what he could to show Frank how to become a man at a time when there was no one else.
Jesus Penaquele took Frank as far as a national junior bout, where they both found out he'd reached the highest level he'd ever reach as a boxer. That was OK; the game was never going to be Frank's life.
Chrissy Cahill's different. He's a real comer, a genuine contender. One last hurrah for Jesus maybe.
Penaquele's ringside now, pacing restlessly, his hands in pockets, his head tilted. For a big man he's sure-footed, unconsciously echoing the footwork of his protégé in the ring.
'Pick it up, Chrissy. Stop playing pat-a-cake with the old cunt. Give him a bit of the good stuff. He can take it. Head like a fucken rock. Just like all coppers.'
A couple of the other kids laugh. Even through the head protector, Frank can hear the edge in the laughter. They all know he's a bizzy.
'Fuck him up, brother!'
Frank lifts his chin and beckons Chrissy towards him. 'Listen to what Jesus's saying. It's OK.'
Chrissy shrugs and bounces onto his toes. 'If you sure, man.'
Frank tucks in tight and tries to call up some of those long-buried ring smarts. I can't be that rusty.
The kid hits him with a couple of stingers on the side of the head and Frank works backwards into the corner. He's just about to congratulate himself that he can deal with the boy when he's caught in the ribs with a left he never saw. Frank grunts and realises that the two to the head were just range-finders. Chrissy's moved up several gears and inside twenty seconds Frank's clinging on.
Turns out he is that rusty.
'Fucking hell, Frankie,' he hears Jesus shout, 'give the lad a bit of honest work, eh?'
Frank's been boxing long before he was a copper, most of it right here. Nothing much has changed at the Breeze Hill Boxing Club since he started, except for the flat screen TVs on each wall playing classic bouts on a loop and some expensive-looking fitness equipment dotted around the unlovely hall; no doubt the result of some freelance wealth redistribution that Frank chooses not to think about.
The kids look pretty much like they did when Frank was their age. Better gear maybe. No one turns up in anything except the latest and newest. By comparison, Frank's well-worn Lonsdale shorts and gloves are antiques. Apart from Penaquele, Frank's the oldest participant at the club.
Frank doesn't think he'll be training at Breeze Hill much longer. There are plenty of hardcore faces at the club who don't like him being around. Big men, hard men, who congregate around the weight area. Bouncers. An enforcer for the Halligans. These men tolerate Frank on account of his history with Jesus, but no more than that. Coppers don't mix with the boxing world. As the newly promoted head of the Merseyside Major Incident Team, DCI Frank Keane is particularly unwelcome with those connected to the Halligan brothers, both sent away by MIT last year in the Stevie White case.
'You all right, mate?' says Chrissy.
His voice is one that might be used when talking to a confused elderly relative who's having trouble getting out of a parked car, and Frank realises he's been daydreaming.
He taps the kid with a solid right to teach him some manners and it catches Chrissy square on the shoulder, spinning him sideways. He dances back and lifts an amused chin in Frank's direction.
'OK, Frankie,' says Chrissy.
Now the boy steps in close and Frank concentrates on keeping himself mobile. Even so, the blows hurt. Fuck, do they hurt. Chrissy's got steel, no question, and Frank's arms are beginning to wilt under the onslaught. He's blowing. Frank makes a big effort with a combination but his opponent drifts out of range, no effort involved.
'Concentrate!' Jesus shouts. 'The here and now, Frankie. That's all there is, son. Get your fucken head out of your arse and concentrate.'
The 'here and now'. Frank's heard it a million times from Jesus.
While Frank is coated in a fine sheen, his breath hot and ragged in his lungs, the kid's not even sweating. This won't last much longer. Frank hooks the thumb of his glove under the brow of his headgear and brings it back into position. The watching boxers sense Frank's vulnerability.
'He's gone, bruv!'
'Do 'im, Chrissy, lad!'
The kid shifts smoothly into a higher gear and drives Frank back onto the ropes, the older fighter's arms turning to lead under the blows. Frank's puffing badly now and a lethal right takes out his gumshield, opening him up to anything the kid has got.
Enough. It's only training. Not enough to lose any teeth over.
Frank jumps in close and wraps his arms around Chrissy. 'I'm cooked, son,' he pants.
Two taps to the back of Frank's headgear and Chrissy pushes him away.
Chrissy turns and pats his glove against the outstretched palm of one of his mates reaching through the ropes.
Jesus lifts the ropes for Frank and he steps down from the ring as the small knot of onlookers drift back to their training stations. 'Thanks for that, Frankie. Good to see him coping with some crafty old fucker.' Jesus speaks like words are expensive, biting them out in short measure. He has an intense way about him.
'Crafty?' Frank shakes his head. 'There was nothing crafty about that, Jesus. I was surviving.'
Frank ta
kes off his headgear and Jesus hands him a fresh towel from a neat stack in a plastic container. Frank's still got a boxer's build, although his face shows none of the damage that those who stay in the game have. His sweat-coated hair is short, cropped, the speckled grey winning against the black. He looks like he needs a shave – something of a permanent condition.
Frank wanders to the benches and sits down, takes his gloves off and unwraps the bandage looped around his knuckles, the movements smooth from muscle memory. Jesus wanders over and pats Frank on the shoulder.
'Good work, Frankie. Ta.'
'You rate the boy?' Frank picks up the towel and wraps it round his neck, rubbing sweat from his face with the ends.
'He's all right, like, Chrissy. Fucking did you, hey?'
'No argument there.' Frank gets to his feet and has to brace himself against the wall. 'He's got a bit of Izzy Sulah about him.'
Jesus makes a noncommittal grunt. 'Yeah, maybe. We'll see.' Sulah was one of Jesus's hopes – after Frank – who made a bit of a splash.
'You doing OK?' says Jesus without looking at Frank. 'Work good? All that?'
Frank knows there's only one answer Jesus needs to hear.
'Yeah, all fine.'
'Good. Sound. As long as you're happy, hey?'
He walks over to Chrissy, leaving Frank to stretch off.
Frank showers and leaves around eight without speaking to anyone else. He takes his time. Since he and Julie split in January there's no one waiting for him at home.
Two
All Quinner wants, when it comes down to it, is five minutes' peace and quiet to go over the runsheet and tweak the dialogue for the three scenes they'll be shooting – or attempting to shoot – today.
That shouldn't be too much to ask, should it? Not after six years eating a pile of shit the size of the Mersey Ferry to get the cunting thing in front of the cunting cameras.
But here it comes again.
'Quinny! Quinny, you poof! Oi, softlad!'
Dean Quinner tries not to look up but it's tough when the voice is less than ten metres away, has an accent sharp enough to slice concrete and is coming out of the mouth of your knuckle-dragging cousin, Big Niall. Shaven-headed Quinner, thirty, wiry and wired, sharp city eyes red-rimmed with fatigue, has got a million fucking things to do before fucking lunchtime. But Niall won't be denied.