Shadow Box

by Peter Cocks

  Tony Morris always played shit music.

  I picked up a scuffed CD cover from the car’s footwell and looked at the tracklist. It was a Now That’s What I Call Music compilation from a couple of years back, already way out of date. They were either poppy urban acts – Rihanna, Alesha Dixon – or winners and runners-up from one TV talent show or other – Olly Murs, Leona Lewis, One Direction. They were names that had barely registered on my psyche. The background to my life had been flamenco and Spanish club music for a while, and since I’d come back I’d found it hard to even listen to my iPod for fear of igniting unwelcome memories.

  “Spoken to your mum recently?” Tony asked.

  I hadn’t for a while. Calling the old girl always made me feel an awkward mixture of guilt and a longing for one of her roast dinners. It was my brother’s and my fault that she’d had to move so far away. But she was settled in the Midlands and I didn’t want to rock the boat. I found it easier to lock off the needy emotions I felt when I thought about her.

  “Not for a bit,” I said. I stared at the CD cover and pretended to read it.

  “You should,” he said. “She misses you. Worries about you.”

  Sensing my discomfort, Tony left it there. He adjusted the volume on the car stereo and caught me wincing as the electric crackle of Lady Gaga singing “Telephone” with Beyoncé started.

  “Gotta keep up to date, mate,” he said, grinning.

  “These are well past their sell-by. Lady Gaga, Tony?”

  “I probably would, given half a chance.” He leered, his chunky hands tightening on the steering wheel. “You seen the video? Starts off with a load of half-dressed birds in a prison…”

  “Pervert,” I said.

  I didn’t really mean it, I was just falling in with Tony’s laddish banter, his attempt to jolly me along. The conversation lulled and my mind slipped a gear.

  “What thoughts do you have on Sophie Kelly’s whereabouts, Tony? Are you sending me after her?”

  Tony stared straight ahead along the motorway for a moment. He indicated, overtook a heavy lorry then pulled back into the middle lane.

  “We’re following several lines of enquiry,” he said, cautiously.

  “I know,” I said. “Simon Sharp told me that much.”

  “We haven’t got much at the moment, mate, so I don’t want to give you false hopes, or send you out thinking we’re heading in a definite direction.”

  “Give me false hopes?” I was taken aback. “I haven’t got any hopes, Tony. I hate to remind you, but since you recruited me I’ve been shot twice, beaten up more times than I can remember, stitched up on a drugs sting. I’ve also killed a man barely older than me, lost one girlfriend and watched while another was blown up in a car bomb meant for me.” I began to warm to my theme. “Ever since then, I’ve been stranded here in London like Johnny No-mates, hanging around in shit clubs doing my best to avoid drugs that might, just might, make me feel better about it all for a while. So instead, I get beered up, end up in fights and wake up alone, trying to remember what happened before I do it all over again the next night. It’s shit. So, no, I don’t really have many hopes, as such.”

  Tony was quiet, keeping his eyes on the road.

  “You’ve had a tough time, Eddie,” he said finally. He didn’t usually “Eddie” me. I was more often “kid”, or “mate”. “You’ve been dropped in at the deep end. I just don’t want to throw you straight back in again when we’re not entirely sure where this one’s leading. I don’t want you to think that going off after Miss Kelly like a knight in shining armour will be all hearts and flowers.”

  “When did anything to do with the Kelly family end up all hearts and flowers?” I laughed. “The hearts usually have bullets through them and the flowers end up on their graves.”

  “Nice,” Tony said. “Poetic.”

  “And one thing I want to know, Tony, is why are you doing what Tommy Kelly wants? Is it usual to put someone like me on a mission under instruction from someone like him?”

  “It’s not strictly kosher, I’ll give you that, but we tend to operate outside the normal boundaries, as you know. For us, I’m sorry, but Sophie herself isn’t all that important.”

  I smarted. I had assumed it was a missing persons case – one person being every bit as important as another.

  I guess it depends on who your dad is.

  “We’re not doing this for Tommy Kelly or his daughter; we are doing it in spite of Tommy and because it’s his daughter. We’re an intelligence agency: it’s the route that leads us to her that’s the interesting bit, what the investigation might bring us on the way. Sometimes you have to dance with the devil, and on this one, he’s calling the shots.”

  As ever, Tony muddled the phrase.

  “So, what if I call the shots? What if I say I’m not going to do it?”

  Tony sounded like he was trying to convince me, but he knew he had me by the nuts.

  “One, we think that Sophie Kelly, wherever she is, will not be there of her own free will. Anyone who knows Tommy knows that the girl is his weak spot, it’s the only thing that makes him vulnerable. He may not show it, but he will do anything to assure her safety. Two, I think you still feel something for her…”

  It was true. The mention of her name made my stomach lurch, still produced a feeling that reached all the way to my toes.

  “So don’t tell me you wouldn’t do what you could to make sure she’s safe.”

  He was right. Sophie Kelly filled the void I had that passed for feelings. She was a love that I had known – and now missed.

  “Also, three, if Tommy Kelly sets you off on a mission, his name will open doors for you, offer you some protection. We can back you up against anyone who threatens you, but if you’ve been given the carte blanche by Mr K, plenty of others will treat you with kid gloves.”

  “Lucky me,” I said bitterly. “Once again, under the protective wing of Tommy Kelly.”

  “And me,” Tony chipped in. Tony’s protection hadn’t always been that good in my experience, but given the choice between him or Tommy Kelly… “Listen, bottom line is, Sophie is a big piece of bait for anyone who wants leverage on Tommy. So you’ll be the sprat sent to catch the rabbit.”

  Tony may have mangled the phrase but his meaning was clear enough. I didn’t like the idea of being the bait. To use another cliché, I felt I was being pulled into another mess, hook, line and sinker. I opened my mouth to argue, and Tony took his eye off the road for a second to look at me. I didn’t see the car that overtook us, fast – just a flash of black.

  Then there was a bang, and Tony shouting “Fuck!” as he tried to regain control of the wheel, twisting sharply left and narrowly missing the back of a container lorry before we hit the verge and went over.

  Gravel scraped the roof, the windscreen shattered and then, finally, the sound of sirens.

  Donnie hated prison visits at the best of times.

  They brought back memories of his own spells at Her Majesty’s pleasure: the endless boring days; the permanent underlying aggression; the terrible food and the stench of “slopping out” – clearing up your own shit and piss as they’d had to do in his day.

  Being a big bloke with a reputation made matters worse. Either you were surrounded by toadies – weaklings in for fraud, scared to death, who would suck up on a daily basis with gifts of fags, hoping to ensure your protection – or you were honour-bound to be the one to bash up the nonces and kiddy fiddlers when they came in, to make sure they were put on the special unit out of the way of the good, honest criminals like Donnie and his colleagues. Worse, you were a target for the up-and-coming villains and hard men who thought they could have a go to secure their reputation on the wing. There would be the surprise crack on the back of the head from a cosh made out of a chair leg wrapped in scraps of nicked roofing lead. If you managed to stay upright, you had to muller the assailant into oblivion to maintain your own rep and keep the other “have a go” boys down.


  Any of these put you at higher risk if you were just trying to keep your nut down, do your bird and hope for parole in eighteen months.

  Donnie’s mind drifted back to the showers in Wormwood Scrubs a few years back. He had already been on a five-year stretch for grievous bodily harm when some herbert had decided to try it on. Shivering and damp and naked in the changing room, Donnie had felt the tap on his shoulder and turned to find a fist smack in his face, breaking his nose. Even for the hardest bastard, a surprise busted conk was almost impossible to recover from, and Donnie had reeled back as his attacker jabbed soapy fingers in his eyes, brought a knee up into his crown jewels and crashed another right-hander into his jaw.

  The man was shorter than him, but squat, with a thick neck and shoulders like a bull. He was well known to Donnie: Roy Francis, an enforcer for another firm, the north London Noble family – or “No Balls”, as the Kelly firm referred to them. Francis had been giving Donnie the needle for weeks, looks across the dining hall, snide comments in the exercise yard, usually because of some real or imagined slight or insult, or word from the outside that there was friction between the two firms that could be carried on inside the prison.

  Donnie had fallen to his knees, blinded by watery eyes, as further heavy punches had rained down on his head and ears. Through his blindness he managed to grab a stocky ankle and twist Francis to the ground, making him slip on the wet floor. His attacker had made the mistake of coming at him with bare feet and Donnie managed to clamp his jaw round Francis’ last two toes, biting down hard until he felt flesh give and bone crunch.

  Francis’s screams had alerted the screws, but some, either from fear or enjoyment, would let these rucks play out until most of the aggression had gone from the fighters. Donnie’s eyes cleared a little and, while the other man was writhing in pain, he jumped on top of Francis with a knee drop across his throat, grabbed his opponent’s ears and pulled hard, cracking the other man’s head back across the changing room bench. Finally, he brought his massive head down into Francis’s nose, causing a spray of blood to cover both their faces.

  As the eight assembled warders eventually wrestled Donnie against the changing room wall, he caught sight of himself in the mirror: eyes swollen like rotten peaches, a mask of blood and scratches covering his face and smashed nose, blood and drool pouring from his mouth and down his chest.

  He looked like a monster. He was a monster.

  Being attacked had cost him several weeks’ solitary and pushed his parole back another year – a year in which Donnie pledged to keep out of mischief and never go back inside, swearing he would shoot himself sooner than serve another stretch.

  Now he swerved prison visits if he could; he always got the sweats that they would keep him in. But, of course, when Tommy asked to see you, you went.

  The inside of Belmarsh smelled like a prison, but the wing to which Donnie was escorted was much posher than anything he was used to. With shiny lino floors and bright lighting, it felt more like some kind of day centre.

  Tommy smiled and held out his hand to shake, but he didn’t get up from the plastic chair.

  “Don.”

  “Tommy.”

  Donnie found it difficult to make eye contact with the guvnor at the best of times, but this was the first time he’d been face to face with Tommy since he’d assassinated his brother Patsy in Spain.

  “Good to be back from the Costa?” Tommy asked.

  “Yeah. Thanks. Settled back in OK.” Donnie sniffed nervously, wiped his knuckle across his nose and looked at the floor.

  “Don’t be awkward, Don,” Tommy said. “It’s me. Tommy. You done good over there. Very handy. It was all getting a bit out of control.”

  Donnie had always assumed that the order to kill Patsy had come from Tommy, but that made it worse. He found it awkward to look in the eye the man who was capable of ordering the slaying of his own flesh and blood. And paying Donnie for doing it.

  “So, how you getting on with business, Don?”

  “You know, keeping out of mischief. Doing a bit of this and that for Dave.” Donnie shrugged, tried to divert attention away from himself. “Dave said Dolan’s up for appeal? D’you think…?”

  “Don’t be a numpty, Don. His only way out’s in a box and I’ll make sure of it.”

  “S’what I thought.” Donnie nodded.

  “Good,” Tommy said. “Anyway, I’ve got a little errand for you. A bit of unfinished business.”

  Donnie’s heart sank, but he tried to look interested.

  “Remember the kid who went out with Sophie?”

  Donnie nodded: he remembered the name Dave had told him; remembered shooting him in a flat in Deptford.

  “Well, he’s back.”

  Donnie raised scarred eyebrows. “Back? Dave mentioned ’im, but I thought…”

  “Didn’t we all, Don? But a little bird told me he’s still around.”

  Donnie felt embarrassed. He was being told, he felt, that he had cocked up a job. The sense of failure that always lurked close to the surface of Donnie’s shallow depths broke out as a patch of sweat under his armpits.

  “So, what can I do to help, Tommy?” Donnie asked.

  “Dave will give you the full SP but, long and short of it, I want you to keep a close eye on Eddie Savage.”

  “It was a blow-out,” Simon Sharp said.

  Sandy Napier sat on the other side of the desk and looked closely again at the report.

  “Forensics have been over the vehicle with a fine-tooth comb. The tyre was bald on the inside and the tracking was out, which can’t have helped,” Sharp continued. “There was also debris found on the road near by, which may have contributed. The engineering boys have been given a bollocking.”

  Tony rubbed a hand over his stubbled jaw. He hadn’t shaved for a few days; the dressing on the side of his face prevented it. I had got off quite lightly: mild concussion, cuts and bruises and a painful lump on the side of the head. We had been in and out of casualty within a few hours and were driven back to HQ in Beaconsfield.

  “It just feels too much like a coincidence,” Tony said. “Me and him on the way here, black car… I’ve been doing this job long enough to know when something feels wrong.”

  “We’ve checked every angle, Tony,” Sharp insisted.

  Napier nodded. “I know how it looks, but the motorway cameras have been checked. The black BMW was legit, registered to a Mr Khan in Edgbaston. He wasn’t even much over the speed limit. That’s all there is to it. He wasn’t responsible for you crashing, it was a tyre blowing out at speed, pure and simple.”

  I could see that Tony was having none of it. Whether it was deliberate or a complete accident, he didn’t like the omen.

  “So we need to get you back on track, Mr Savage,” Sandy Napier said. “I hope you don’t mind me saying, but you’ve put on a few pounds.”

  It was true. I hadn’t exactly kept up a fitness regime in Spain, and since I’d been back, apart from the odd run round Regent’s Park I’d been a bit of a couch potato.

  “We’ll get you back down to fighting weight,” Napier assured me. “Also we want to train you up in a few surveillance techniques. Be handy. Good to have you back, Savage.”

  I felt a little swell of pride. Kind words from Napier were as rare as rocking horse manure.

  “Thank you, sir,” I said.

  Half an hour later, Simon Sharp finished eating and went back to his desk, leaving me and Tony alone. Lunch was canteen spaghetti bolognese. The tomato sauce was too acidic and the dried parmesan smelled a bit vomity. I’d learned to add a pinch of sugar and a splash of milk to tomato sauces to take out the sharpness. And to use fresh parmesan.

  Sharp had left half of his, but I was hungry. So was Tony, judging by the slurping noise as he sucked the pasta in and the trickle of orange sauce that stuck to his chin.

  “He doesn’t eat much,” I said, nodding at Sharp’s plate.

  “Got his figure to think of; you might take a l
eaf out of his book.” Tony grinned at me and winked, then helped himself to some of Sharp’s leftover spag bol.

  I paused for a minute. I wanted to ask Tony about Sharp but wasn’t sure how to approach it.

  “So, Simon’s on my case now, full time?”

  “Sure,” Tony said. “That OK?” He wiped the last of the sauce from his chin with a paper serviette and belched.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Fine. He seems cool.”

  “He’s a good agent,” Tony said. “Bright as a whip. Got degrees in rocket science and ancient Serbo-Croat, or something.”

  “Yeah, he’s smart. Is he…?”

  Tony looked up at me from the bowl of rhubarb crumble that he had swapped for his empty pasta plate.

  “Is he what?”

  “Is he gay?”

  Tony nodded. “Sure. Got a problem with that?”

  “No, of course not,” I said. I didn’t. “I just wanted to know.”

  “Good,” Tony said, between spoonfuls of crumble. “Because he’s the best man for the job. He was Ian Baylis’s protégé. Baylis took him under his wing, trained him up: languages, surveillance … he’s an all-rounder.”

  Baylis had been my original case officer. He hadn’t exactly taken me under his wing. We’d disliked each other on sight.

  “Sharpie kept an eye on you in Spain from time to time.”

  “Really?” My case officer on the Costa had been Anna Moore. I’d got a little too close to Anna, which I suspect is why I’d had a new handler assigned to me.

  “You wouldn’t have seen him, though. He disappears like a fleeting shadow. He spirited your girl Juana back to your apartment the night it all kicked off in Benalmádena.”

  “I knew someone from our firm must have looked after her, but I never saw anyone.”

  “Sharp’s good, I told you.”

  “Didn’t save her, though…”

  Tony raised his eyebrows to silence me. I felt a hand on my shoulder. I hadn’t seen Simon come back to the canteen or heard him approach.

  “We need to get on, Eddie,” he said. Everyone at HQ seemed to have reverted to “Eddie”, my original cover name. Tony dismissed me with a flick of his fingers as he chewed his crumble.