by Robert White
“Nah, I knew you’d be okay. You faced your fear, it’s the best cure.”
She smiled again and the room went silent for a moment.
Something had been bugging me for days. I had to ask, it had been burning me up inside. It was one of those things. You know you should just leave it alone, and there’s never a right time, but out it came anyway.
“The Old Monkey,” I said. “Been lately?”
Our eyes locked and a thousand unsaid words passed between us.
“The Old…?” she began.
“Monkey, yes,” I snapped. “The pub on Princess Street on the way into China Town. I asked had you been lately.”
I could see anger in her face. Was it anger at being caught out? Anger at being questioned? Or was it that she thought that I had been following her?”
Her mouth turned into a sneer.
“What is this about, Des? Asking me questions that you already know the answer to? Why not ask the question that you really want to? The one that tells you what you don’t know?”
I’d opened the door and there was no closing it.
“Okay, fair enough, I will. Why were you holding hands with that copper outside the Old Monkey the other night, when you’re supposed to be head over heels for the guy in the next room? I saw you….”
Her anger spilled out of her.
“Saw me doing what? Saw me talking to another man? Is that not allowed in macho ex-soldier world?”
“I didn’t mean to…”
“Didn’t mean to what, Des? Spy on me? Upset me? Accuse me?”
She calmed slightly and pulled up a chair.
“If you are asking, am I having some kind of relationship with Larry, then the answer is no. I told the truth in the meeting. When I said, I got Colin Reed’s name from a reporter, that was legit, I did, but I couldn’t get his address. I tried the prison and walked the pubs around Strangeways to talk to the PO’s, but got no joy. Larry was the only place I could think of, so I used him. I used him to get information for us…End of…okay, Colombo?”
I was open-mouthed. “He gave you the address? He helped us? Well…you anyway?”
She nodded.
“I went to see him at his station. We had words at first, but he finally decided to help me. Now I won’t lie to you, Des, he has made it clear that he has a bit of a thing for me, and he came to my flat earlier.
“He…well he actually wants me to walk away from all this.”
“And what do you want?”
Before she could answer, Rick pushed the door open with his elbow, carrying two mugs of tea.
“How’s the wounded soldier?” he said breezily.
“He’ll live,” answered Lauren with the smallest smile.
Rick dropped the mugs on a small table. “Excellent, well, me and JJ are just about to get into Kevin’s ribs about Red George.”
Before either of us could reply, he’d turned and was gone, apparently only one thing on his mind.
Once the door closed behind him, Lauren took my hand, her eyes shiny, close to tears.
“Me? I want what I don’t think I can ever have,” she said.
Rick Fuller’s Story:
Kevin was giving it large. One long diatribe of street-shite spilling from his mouth, describing all the different ways we were going to die at the hands of his ‘gangsta’ mates.
He was slight in every way, narrow-shouldered, thin pock-marked face, long nosed. He wore a Manchester City T-Shirt and the obligatory black shiny tracksuit bottoms, that matched his Puma trainers.
Of course, no self-respecting Longsight gangster’s outfit would be complete without thick gold neck-chains and a couple of sovereign rings. Our Kevin didn’t disappoint.
Despite his wealth, he dressed like a street thug and had pulled his grubby cheap white socks up over the bottom of his joggers. This seemed to be a growing trend amongst the wearers of sportswear, who never indulged in the pastime.
He looked a proper twat.
Kevin may have been slight, but he was as violent as any brute in his own way. Egghead’s intel was full of instances of Kevin’s viciousness. That said, since his incarceration for his part in the murder of a teenage boy, he seemed to have turned his unwanted attentions on local women, who were too scared to come forward and make complaints against the London crew. When it came to his amorous advances, Kevin was a lad who didn’t understand the word no.
Interrogating him reminded me of a time when I did a little job for the sadly deceased Tanya Richards; some nasty piece of work called Alfie Summers had murdered one of her runners and stolen five grand from the family. Stealing from the Yardies and killing Tanya’s cousin in the process, was as good as signing your own death warrant.
I recall, Alfie Summers was going to ‘shoot me in the mouth’ too.
He ended up eating his own bodyweight in the latest designer drug and dying of carbon monoxide poisoning up on Saddleworth Moor.
The only person who actually ‘shot me in the mouth’ turned out to be Stephan Goldsmith. How things come around eh?
Now, it was Kevin’s turn to tell us what we needed to know, lead us to Red George, and eventually to Goldsmith himself.
Sitting in front of the punk, I put him in his early thirties, which would undoubtedly mean he’d visited the Hacienda club in his time.
“You ever heard of a guy called Freddy Garret, Kevin?”
Kevin curled his lip. “Fuck you, dickhead, I don’t know what you want, but I’m sayin’ nothin.”
I managed a thin smile and pressed on.
“Yeah, you must’ve been to the Hacienda back in the day, Kev, eh? Dropped a few E’s, done a few lines?”
Kev shrugged. “So, the fuck, what? Who are you? The fuckin’ Five O? The fuckin’ drug squad?”
I ignored his question and kept my voice quiet.
“So, Kevin, my old son, whilst you were there, you must’ve seen Freddy. Big time Charlie he was, loved his sniff, proper little rich boy, liked to hang around with the bad lads.”
Kevin’s right knee bounced up and down nervously.
“I might have seen him yeah, always had a blonde bird with big tits with him.”
“That’s the boy, Kevin, yeah…remember what his nickname was?”
Kevin’s face fell.
“Erm…yeah, they called him Four-finger Fred.”
I picked up JJ’s Col Moschin fighting knife from the table and tested the weight in my hand.
“I got him that name, Kev. I cut off his finger with a pair of tin-snips, right there on the street, outside the club. You know why I did that, Kev?”
The boy looked nervous for the first time. He shook his head and stayed quiet.
“Because,” I whispered. “I wanted the diamond ring he was wearing”
I brought the knife closer.
“Now… I could have punched him unconscious and stolen it, couldn’t I?
I could have even pulled the gun I was carrying and robbed him, but I didn’t…you know why?”
More shakes of the head, more knee bouncing.
“Because, Kevin, I was sending out a message, a very important message to very important people. I snipped off his pinkie, stole his diamond ring, and his twenty-five-grand Rolex, popped the lot into a plastic bag and made myself five large, from one of the biggest faces in town.”
I rested the knife against Kevin’s skinny chest.
“But, Kevin, do you know what cutting off Freddy’s digit did for me? What it told those powerful, rich faces about me?”
We locked eyes. I gripped the knife and plunged the blade into Kevin’s shoulder socket.
I shouted over his screams. “That I’m fuckin’ ruthless.”
I knew he was in agony. I also knew he wasn’t going to die or bleed out anytime soon. The razor-sharp fighting knife was buried halfway into Kevin’s shoulder about an inch under his clavicle, the blade separating the ball and socket of his shoulder.
JJ was in Kevin’s ear.
�
��He crazy, you know? He cut off your fuckin’ arm unless you tell him.”
“Tell him what?” Kevin screamed.
Of course, we hadn’t asked the boy anything of note, or even hinted about why Kevin the unfortunate was even fastened to this particular plastic chair in the arse end of Stockport.
It was the way we were trained in the field. Make your presence felt first. Ask questions later.
I added the merest twist to the knife. Kevin went very pale.
“Red George,” I said. “I need to find him.”
Kevin shook his head.
“F…fuck you,” he managed.
I twisted the blade further, sending rivers of pain through Kevin’s shoulder.
“I will slice you apart, piece by fucking piece, son…now… Red George?”
I could see Kevin was already struggling. He was one of those that could dish it out okay, but wasn’t too clever when it came to taking it. Sweat poured from him, his shirt instantly soaked. He stank of fear and shuddered with shock, his body in all kinds of turmoil.
“Okay…okay…” he spluttered. “I know where he lives, but…but, he’s…he’s not at his flat, he’s gone, man.”
I eased out the knife and slowly wiped it on Kevin’s saturated white shirt. Although a trickle of blood seeped from the wound, I knew his pain would be reduced ten-fold.
“Okay, son…I’m liking the fact that you are being nice and co-operative. So, he’s gone. Where the fuck is he?”
Kevin looked at JJ standing over his shoulder and then back to me, his face a mixture of pain, fear and loathing.
“We ain’t seen him for days, weeks, man, honest…Jimmy needed him for a job himself, but George knocked it back. He said he’d had a big payday, said he’d done some big job for some foreign bloke, and he was fuckin’ off somewhere for a while.”
“Foreign bloke? Who?” I pushed.
Kevin shook his head, “I don’t fuckin’ know, honest I don’t.”
I moved to insert the knife again.
He tried to squirm away from the blade, but JJ stepped in and held him firm.
“No! No! Please…Don’t do that, man…I mean…okay look… he said something about this bloke needing him abroad and that was it, man. Honest it was, he just knocked the job back and he was off. Just like that. That’s all I know…honest.”
I held the tip of the knife at the entrance to his existing wound.
“You’re fucking lying to me, Kevin, I know you are.”
Kevin pissed himself, his yellow urine stinking the place out as it splattered on the tiled floor.
“I’m not! No…no, I’m not…look, fuckin’ hell, I don’t fucking know any more than I told you.”
The boy was losing it. His body shook uncontrollably. Physically he was still in good shape. I mean, he hadn’t had too much punishment. It was just his lack of bottle.
I found that wasn’t rare amongst his kind.
I tried to be reasonable. “You know, Kevin, in my experience, people in your position always do and say the same things.”
He shook his head.
I gave him a smile. “Oh, yes, Kevin, they do. They always talk total shite before the truth comes out…so.”
I pushed the blade in and twisted hard enough to open the socket. Kevin screamed so loud, I had to raise my voice again.
“Then of course… there’s the begging, Kev, isn’t there?”
He tried to twist himself away from the blade, but once again JJ held him down. I was right in his face, my nose touching his.
“That’s next, isn’t it, Kevin my son? All the, ‘oh please don’t hurt me, I don’t know anything’ shite, all the ‘it wasn’t me, boss, it was me cousin bollocks’…all that nonsense will come out son… I fuckin’ promise you.”
I pulled the knife out again, releasing him from his agony, dropping it on the table in plain sight.
He was blubbing like a baby. The next thing would be asking for his fuckin’ mother. Lifting his chin in my hand, I forced him to look me in the eye.
“Look at me, Kevin…now stop your whining, lad…look at me. You will… tell me everything, son. This is just your shoulder; this is fuck all. I mean, wait until it’s your cock and balls… And from what I hear, Kevin, you do like to use that cock and balls of yours eh? Like to dish it out to the young ladies eh? What about that poor little schoolgirl you stuck your smelly little cock in?”
He tried to avoid my gaze and turned toward JJ for help.
“Hey, come on, man, I mean…them bitches, I mean…look no one believed them slags eh? It was just a bit of fun, come on, please, don’t…I mean okay…yeah? Right, look, I’ll tell you all I know yeah? And I mean everything, yeah?”
He gave me a manic nod, a pathetic attempt to make me mirror him.
I didn’t oblige.
“Go on,” I said, releasing his chin and collecting the blade. “Impress me.”
Kevin took deep breaths. “Okay, good, man, cool yeah, look…All I know is, George…when he was abroad, he met this guy who would take any number of Mercs from us, yeah? Some fucker from where he used to live in Polak land or whatever.”
“This guy’s name? “I pressed.
Kevin shook his head. Tears rolled, and our pointy-nosed rapist began to cry again. “I dunno, honest, boss, I dunno, Gold something, Goldstein maybe.”
I felt my heart rate lift. “Goldsmith?”
“Maybe…yeah that’s him, Goldsmith…look, the guy always paid cash for the cars, we never met the dude yeah?”
“Go on, Kevin,” I said. “Your cock is safe for now.”
The boy looked relieved. He took a deep breath. “Well, like I said, we never met the guy. George just took the cars over, collected the cash and brought it to us…now he’s working for this Gold guy over there, that’s all I know, man.”
“Where is ‘over there’ exactly?”
Kevin shook his head. “I don’t know, man…I mean it, I don’t.”
I sat back and addressed JJ.
“You know what I think, mate? I think that this piece of shit isn’t telling us where this customer is, because he thinks we want to steal the Merc buyer from him. What do you think, JJ?”
The Turk stepped to the side so he could make eye contact with the lad. Those black lifeless pools of his would frighten anyone.
JJ curled his lip. “I think if we cut his balls off, he’ll tell us.”
“No!” bawled Kevin, desperately attempting to tear his wrists from his ties. “I mean it, man. I don’t…fuckin’…know.”
Kevin threw his last dice.
“Look…you guys are already in the shit, man…I mean, if Jimmy finds you, it’s all over eh? If you kill me, man, he’ll find you. He’s a big player in this town, man…the biggest. Why not just let me go, and we forget all this?”
I leaned in. “Jimmy’s gone to the big scrapyard in the sky, son…do I need to let that little gem of information sink in to your thick fuckin’ skull? Dead in the fuckin’ gutter along with big Paddy.” I tapped my temple with my finger. “If I was clever like you…you dumb fuck, I’d be worried that half of the Moss isn’t already planning a move on your little empire. You know the saying, Kevin…The king is dead, long live the king.”
I picked up the knife and pointed it down toward his groin. “Now, Kevin, one last time…where… is Red George?”
He didn’t know.
Lauren North’s Story:
I couldn’t help but hear the screams from next door. With everything I’d witnessed and been through, it certainly wasn’t time for me to become all squeamish and judgemental, but as I walked into the canteen area to see JJ wrapping Kevin’s corpse in a plastic sheet, I did feel a tad uneasy.
“Jesus, lads,” I said.
The mood was sombre. Des walked in and helped JJ down the stairs with Kevin’s body as if it were the most normal thing in the world.
He nodded at the gangster’s blood-soaked torso and addressed the Turk.
“Must have had a
dicky ticker, eh?” he said.
I watched them, speechless.
Rick followed my gaze, his voice, matter of fact.
“Red George is with Goldsmith, but we don’t know where,” he said.
“What now?” I asked.
Rick blew out his cheeks. “We go back to the lock-up, get some food and some rest.”
“And?”
He looked into my eyes.
“Food and rest is good enough for now eh?”
“I suppose.”
He held me by the shoulders. “Look, at least we know there won’t be any more bodies turning up now he’s out of the country At least Reed was the only one.”
My unease grew.
“Even so, Rick, there are three people dead, now, tonight…I know they were bad guys, killers and all, but…well it just seems a high price to pay, just to know that Red George isn’t in the country anymore.”
Rick glowered at me.
“I’ll tell you one thing, sweetheart.” He spat. “When the news comes out that James and Kevin London are dead, the parents of Paul Long, the poor innocent kid they beat to death, will be dancing around their living room.”
He pointed toward the stairs. “And that piece of shit beat and raped a sixteen-year-old girl, then threatened to kill her sister if she testified in court. Oh, yeah, proper little choirboy he was.”
He stomped about the room, obviously as pissed off as the rest of us.
“Look…no one cares about ordinary people anymore. No one gives a shit about the little guy, the Mr Average that goes to work and pays his taxes, obeys the law. Nobody gives a flying fuck about him eh? The cops have their hands tied and people like Jimmy and Kevin just walk over the good guys… Well I’m not having it!”
He turned for the door and snapped.
“So, if you don’t think you can hack it, maybe you should accept Larry’s offer and walk away.”
As he disappeared from sight, I thought my heart would explode. He must have been behind the door all the time I was talking to Des…must have heard it all.
Everything, every word.
I stood in the centre of the room, feeling sick, unable to move. My tears fell silently, soaking my cheeks and dropping from my chin. What had I done? My stubbornness, my anger, had brought us to this.