One of Gladwell’s guys had approached him while he was on remand and done the deal right there and then. Toddy wasn’t an idiot. He had been caught with kilos of H and knew he would be made an example of. The money the Gladwells offered him would be the right level of compensation for losing so many years of his life. They promised him protection too, and a bonus once they effectively seized control of Newcastle. All he had to do was talk to them about Blake’s business; his safe houses, routines and the main men in his organisation, guys like Palmer, Kinane, Hunter and Danny and what they did for Blake. If any of this led to the death of David Blake, well that was the price that would just have to be paid if Toddy was going to win back his life. He no longer cared what happened to his former associates, or the city he’d lived in. Toddy was pretty sure they had all forgotten him by now and Blake was probably already trying to get Kathy into his bed.
So Toddy spilled it all. He laid out everything on Blake’s organisation, up to, and including, minor players who held grudges against the Top Boy, like Billy Warren and Peter Dean. He told Gladwell’s firm what they wanted to hear, which was everything.
Toddy heard a noise behind him but it was nothing to be alarmed about. It was just the sound of the gate swinging shut at the other end of the corridor. The rest of the guys must have been on their way to the showers already. Toddy reasoned he’d better finish off and dry himself. Everyone knew he got special privileges because he was one of Blake’s men but he didn’t want to rub their noses in it. Better to be out of the shower by the time they were lining up.
Toddy grabbed the rough towel and gave himself a quick dry then hastily wrapped it round his waist and left the shower. He had been right, the guys were lining up. There were a couple of familiar faces; Don Watts, who was doing a life stretch for accidentally killing someone he beat up during an armed robbery, Harry Harris who was employed as muscle by a London-based firm, with a side line in torturing people, and finally, Henderson, a complete headcase, doing life with little prospect of parole, for a series of gangland killings all over the north of England. These guys would have intimidated most men, but Toddy always held his head up high when he walked by them because he was protected.
Strange that there were only three of them though? Come to think of it, where was Hinds? He was usually at the rear of the queue, ensuring the blokes kept moving, but today he was nowhere to be seen. Seeing him, Watts turned and walked back the way he had come. At the exact moment that Toddy started to realise something was wrong, Harris stepped out in front of him, blocking his path with his huge presence. Toddy opened his mouth to say something and that was when Henderson stepped out and grabbed him from behind, slamming both of Toddy’s arms together and pinning them behind his back. Toddy tried to struggle free, but he couldn’t budge. He was terrified, his first thought that they were trying to rape him. Had they forgotten he was a protected guy? The fact that vicious retribution would fall on them all afterwards would be little consolation to Toddy if he ended up gang-raped by them. He struggled to break free again but Henderson merely tightened his grip.
‘What the fuck are you doing?’ he demanded.
It was then that Harris looked him calmly in the eye. ‘He knows you betrayed him,’ he said simply. Harris was careful not to mention Blake’s name but Toddy didn’t need to hear it to understand. Before Toddy could utter a word in his defence, Harris brought his hand out from behind his back. In it was a shank, a toothbrush sharpened into a vicious point until it could cut through flesh easily. Toddy pushed back with all of his might, fighting against Henderson’s grip. It worked, and Henderson was propelled back a few feet, but he grunted and pushed hard against Toddy, holding him now in a grip he couldn’t escape from, no matter how he struggled. Harris advanced towards him, the sharpened shank at his side.
Toddy struggled desperately but the more he fought, the tighter Henderson’s grip became.
‘No,’ he managed, but Harris was on him now and his hand shot forward in a blur. Toddy felt the thump of the man’s fist as it collided with his guts, then the pain of the shank as it went deep inside him. He managed a terrified scream, quickly silenced by the second blow, which went into his side, piercing his kidney. Henderson held him up while four more blows were struck, the razor-sharp point of the hard plastic shank piercing Toddy’s skin again and again, travelling deep into his stomach, chest and finally his heart. Toddy’s head shot back then and his body went limp. Henderson released him and he slumped to the floor.
When it was over, Watts walked back from his look-out position. The three men surveyed Toddy’s corpse, then calmly walked into the showers to wash the blood from their own bodies. There was no need to advertise their crimes. Why make it easy for the prison authorities to investigate? Still, none of the men were unduly concerned. You can only do life once.
Each one of them had been well rewarded, with money sent to family members and prison privileges promised in return for a minute’s work. After their shower, they passed Toddy’s body on the way out, careful to step over the little rivers of fresh blood that rolled from it and slid down into the gutter.
42
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‘What do you want doing about Toddy’s other half?’ asked Kinane. He was sitting opposite my desk in the Cauldron.
‘Nothing,’ I told him, ‘let the prison authorities explain to her that Toddy was killed in a fight with another inmate.’
At first Toddy’s girlfriend would be devastated. Kathy would demand an enquiry into his death, she’d want answers, but she wouldn’t get them. Nobody would ever be able to prove anything and we’d chosen the men carefully for their silence. In time she’d get over Toddy, meet someone else and start a new life. ‘Give her a settlement,’ I instructed Kinane, ‘a lump sum, see the accountant. I don’t want her on the pay roll.’ He nodded like he understood. Nobody wanted her hanging around like Marley’s ghost, reminding us about Toddy.
‘And his mum’ he asked, ‘take her off the pay roll?’ Kinane expected me to cut Toddy’s mother loose as a punishment for her lad’s treachery. After all, if it had been down to Toddy, I’d be a dead man now. ‘Tell everyone that’s what we’ve done,’ I said, ‘don’t want anyone thinking we’re a soft touch. They have to know the consequences.’
‘Right,’ he looked a bit uneasy.
‘The woman has just lost her only son,’ I explained, ‘she’s getting on and she’ll be in bits. Do we really want her evicted too? I don’t think she’ll live forever, do you?’
‘You’re all heart,’ he said dryly, which was his way of telling me he thought I was out of my mind.
It was almost over. I still had the problem of Braddock to contend with, and the Turk’s shipment still hadn’t arrived, but at least neither man was behind the hits against my crew. That was down to the Gladwells and they were finished. Everything else was just detail and I could handle that.
I was tired though; the kind of tiredness that comes from living off your wits all of the time. I just wanted to eat something and crash. I parked my car in the underground car park and got out. The electronic gate completed its slow, lazy arc, then it closed with a metallic clang. I felt safe here.
I started to walk towards the main door at the other end of the car park. It was quiet. We stored a few cars down here for convenience but I was the only one actually staying in the apartment block just now.
I didn’t hear a thing until he was right up behind me. He moved so quietly. Then there was a click, as he drew back the hammer of the gun and cocked it. It’s incredible how fast your mind can work when you’re in danger and I realised straight away that I was a dead man. I wasn’t even surprised when I heard his voice, just very, very scared.
‘Don’t move,’ he ordered me, ‘not until I tell you to.’ The voice was so familiar. I’d heard it a lot over the years – but this time he was the one giving the orders. ‘Bring your arms up slowly and place the palms of your hands on the top of your head. Go too quickly and
I’ll kill you. Do you understand?’
‘Yes.’
‘Do it then.’
I did as I was told, bringing my hands up with agonising slowness while my mind raced. I was looking for possibilities, but there didn’t seem to be any right now. I couldn’t see any way out for me other than a bullet in the back of the head.
‘It doesn’t have to be this way,’ I told him, ‘you know that’. No reply. ‘You know I’ll pay you,’ he didn’t say a word. Instead he used his free hand to pat me down, first one side, then the next. ‘I’m not armed,’ I told him, but he ignored me. He didn’t find a gun, but he did find my phone. He took it out of my inside jacket pocket, dropped it on the floor and kicked it so it slid under my car.
‘We’ll take mine,’ he told me.
‘Are you listening to me?’ I asked him, but my voice didn’t sound like mine any more. I was trying so hard not to sound scared but I was terrified, and we both knew it. I carried on talking, reasoning with him, but I already knew it was no good. ‘Did you hear what I said?’ I asked him, ‘you know I’ll pay you.’
Jack Conroy spun me round and pressed the gun right into my face. His eyes were fixed on me intently, but they seemed dead, and I realised why he had always given me the creeps. Up close, I could see right into him and I knew he was a psychopath. He didn’t care what happened to me. I was just another job.
‘That can’t happen. It’s a question of credibility. If word got out I could be bought no one would ever hire me again.’
‘But you came to see me,’ I said, ‘you told me someone wanted me dead but you didn’t want to do it.’
‘Would you kill a man on Billy Warren’s say-so? Nobody would. But they contacted me again and this time they didn’t use a numpty like Billy. They sent someone who knew what he was doing and they are paying me a hundred grand.’
‘I know who offered you that hundred grand, Conroy, even if you don’t, and he isn’t in a position to pay you anymore.’
‘Oh please,’ not only did he not believe that, but he obviously thought the lie was a poor one.
‘You’re being paid by the Gladwells and they are finished. There is no hundred grand Conroy.’
‘I am being paid by a fixer, a man I have done business with for more than ten years.’
‘But you don’t know who the client is, and I do.’
‘No,’ he corrected me, ‘I don’t know who my client is and you only think that you do. There’s a lot of men want to see you dead, Blake.’
‘Walk over to the car,’ he nodded at the vehicle he was using. It was parked up in the far corner. I didn’t recognise it and realised he had hired it from somewhere.
‘Pop the boot and get in.’ I didn’t move. He pressed the gun right up into my eye.
‘Why would I do that?’
‘Because if you don’t I’ll kill you here, which will make things more difficult for me, so I’ll make you pay by putting the first bullet in your balls and the second in your stomach, then I’ll smoke a cigarette while you think about the mistake you made in not listening to me. If you get in the car it’ll be easier for me, so I’ll make it easier for you.’ I looked at him questioningly, ‘a head shot, nice and quick. No pain.’ He was selling the idea to me. ‘It’s the best deal you are going to get. Besides, I know you. You’ll be thinking the longer you delay this, the more chance you have of somehow getting yourself out of it, so why not get in the car, eh?’
I lowered my hands and slowly, reluctantly, walked towards the car. When I got there I clicked the catch on the boot and turned back to him. He gestured with his head for me to get in and, even though it terrified me to climb in there, I did as I was told. When I was lying down he peered in at me and, for a moment, I thought he was going to shoot me there and then, but he just looked at me, then slammed the boot shut.
A moment later I heard his door open and close, then the car moved off and I lurched to one side. I felt every bend as we shot round the side streets. I tried to lie flat so I wasn’t bounced around too much, but most of all I tried to think. I flailed my arms around looking for anything that I could use as a weapon, knowing full well that Conroy wasn’t that stupid. The boot was empty.
Then the car stopped turning and we must have been on open road. I lay like that for twenty minutes, scared to death, just thinking about what I could do to dissuade Conroy or overpower him, but nothing came to me. The fear was choking me now.
The car lurched suddenly, and I slid round as it turned violently to the right, banging my head against the floor in the process. The car started bumping up and down like we were on a dirt track. I was bounced around as it took deep ruts. Where the fuck was he taking me? It had to be farmland or woods, somewhere isolated, somewhere he’d prepared in advance, where no one was ever going to find me. I was trying to stifle the panic that was rising in me now. I had to stay calm, in control, figure out a way to get myself out of this somehow; but I couldn’t see how. Conroy wasn’t like other people. You couldn’t reason with him. All he wanted to do was finish the job and go home. Jesus, how had I got myself into this? I couldn’t believe that after everything I’d been through it was going to end this way. I’d tried talking my way out of it already and it hadn’t worked. And nobody knew I was out here. No one. Christ.
Abruptly the car drew to a halt and I heard the creak as the handbrake went on. I froze as I heard the door handle click and the car moved slightly as Conroy opened his door. He popped the lock and the boot swung upwards. He looked in at me dispassionately.
‘Get out.’
I didn’t move. I couldn’t move.
‘Get out,’ he told me, more firmly this time.
I couldn’t even speak. Instead I just shook my head like a child who doesn’t want to do what his daddy tells him. I felt so small, so scared.
He pointed the gun at me and spoke again, quietly, patiently, reasoning with me, ‘get out or I’ll shoot you in the guts and haul you out.’
I forced myself to climb out, but when I stepped down from the car my knees buckled and I almost fell to the ground. My legs were no longer working properly and I found I was gasping for breath like each lungful would be my last.
‘Walk,’ he dragged me up, then gestured with the gun for me to lead the way along a tiny path that went into some trees. The half-moon lit the way for us. The path was almost covered over by long grass on either side of it and I realised it had been a long while since anyone had walked here. God knows how he had found this place, but he had chosen well. You could kill a man down here and nobody would ever find him. I wanted to weep. Christ, I was never going to see Sarah again. I wanted to reason with Conroy, make him understand that he had to let me go for her sake, but I knew he wouldn’t give a damn. He had taken me out into the middle of nowhere and he was leading me along a path that had only one destination. At the end of it he was going to shoot me and bury me out here. I fell onto my knees and started to retch.
‘Get up, you cunt,’ he ordered me. He aimed a kick at me and it connected with the back of my leg. The pain was searing, but it wasn’t enough to make me stand up, ‘on your feet in two seconds, or I do you here and now.’
Somehow I managed to climb to my feet, desperate to steal myself some time, praying for a miracle that I knew could never come. The wind was up around us, shaking the branches of the trees. They were rising and falling like waves and the noise was so loud that I barely heard him when he told me, ‘keep walking.’
I walked as slowly down that rutted little path as I thought he would allow. Without moving my head, I let my eyes dart around, desperately searching for anything I could use as a weapon, a rock or a fallen tree branch, anything, in case he took his eye off me for a second, but I already knew there’d be nothing. He’d have made sure of that – there would be no way Jack Conroy would take his eye off a target, particularly one like me.
There was nowhere to run to either. He was right behind me and I wouldn’t get two yards before the bullet hit me in the b
ack. There was no point even trying. I kept thinking about Sarah. There wouldn’t even be a headstone to mark the spot where I lay.
‘Just a little further,’ he told me, ‘it’ll soon be over and you won’t feel a thing, just so long as you do this my way.’ He meant I’d die in agony if I did it any other way.
I didn’t say anything in reply, just trudged forwards. Then I saw it. At first it looked like little more than a dark shape by the side of the dirt track but, as I drew nearer, I realised what it was; a deep hole, dug a few yards from the path in a clearing by the trees, a large mound of dark brown earth piled next to it. I stopped in my tracks. I was looking at my grave.
‘Don’t stop,’ he told me, ‘keep going. Go right to the edge and kneel down. Do that and I’ll make this quick.’
‘Fuck you,’ I said and I realised I was sobbing. I didn’t sound as brave as I wanted to.
I didn’t hear him make a move behind me but I did feel the gun as he brought it across the side of my skull and smashed me to the ground. I fell forwards and to the side, a searing pain lancing through me.
‘I won’t ask you again,’ he told me, pointing the gun down at me. I wondered how many men Jack Conroy had led sobbing to their freshly-dug, unmarked graves. ‘Get up, get over there and get down on your knees by the hole, or so help me…’ I began to think that maybe I should just do what he said. The end result would only be the same and at least I’d be spared the pain. I climbed to my feet as slowly as I dared, turned back towards the hole and walked slowly forwards. I only had two choices; kneel down and take his bullet, or try to lunge at him, a course of action I knew he’d be prepared for. A man like Conroy could easily repel me. If he couldn’t, he wouldn’t last a minute in his profession. Once he’d done that he would make me pay for it, putting bullets into parts of me that would cause maximum pain.
The Damage (David Blake 2) Page 27