Cleaning Up

by Paul Connor-Kearns

  A cursory glance at Bazzer’s front yard told him that Mr. Dougan was obviously not a keen gardener. On display; a couple of rusting bikes, an engine block, a punctured football and three randomly scattered, small wellington boots, such was Bazzer-boy’s tilt at the Barrington’s garden of the year contest.

  Darrin walloped the door a few times and immediately heard some yelling inside. Bazzer was definitely home, loudly entreating his missus to do the honours -‘bitch’. She did as she was told and opened up. Mrs. Bazzer was a small malnourished looking pregnant girl/woman who pulled the door open with the energy and zest of a brown bear waking up from a six-month kip. Darrin noted the fading bruising underneath her left eye. He did the introductions and, as he did so, she looked at him with an apathy that bordered on the pathological. Bazzer came busying up quickly behind her when he heard it was the feds, plenty of energy from that twat. As per his rep and Mozzer’s pencil sketch briefings he was full of ‘fuck you’ piss and vinegar, his pale, blue eyes glittering with malevolent thoughts and bad intentions.

  Baz was surly but locked into remaining scrote polite. He knew Moz and gave him a begrudging nod of recognition. He looked at Darrin as if he didn’t particularly care for his presence or for his existence. Darrin smiled evenly at him but kept his eyes hard, giving Baz the silent message that he didn’t give a fuck about that, either way.

  ‘Can we come in Mr. Dougan have a chat?’ Darrin asked, after the pleasantries were over.

  ‘What’s it about like? I’m busy at the mo.’

  Darrin looked down at the slightly stained pyjama bottoms and smirked straight into his face.

  ‘Oh yeah, busy eh? Brushing up on a bit of Open University are we then Bazzer? We can do it down the station if you like, must be a warrant we can dredge up from somewhere, what do you reckon Detective Morris?’

  Bazzer scowled and motioned for them to get the fuck in.

  The garden was picture postcard tidy compared to the lounge room. Bazzer told his missus to shift out of the room, ‘men’s business’, he growled at her, punctuating the assertion by throwing a pile of clothes and some kiddies’ jigsaws and board games off the sofa and onto the floor.

  She shared her unhappiness with Bazzer with a snarled but slightly muted ‘prick’ and reluctantly marched off a couple of narked and protesting X-boxing mud larks. As the three of them crocodile walked past them out into the kitchen the youngest, a red head of five or so, gave Darrin a glance and the ghost of a shy smile. He had his dad’s piercing baby blues and a solid little build which suggested that he’d outweigh his old man by a good fifty pounds when he hit maturity, maybe in him would be the ghost of Bazzer’s ultimate Christmas future, one could only hope.

  Moz led off on the kid’s story, it had been agreed by the team that he would be the mouthpiece with Darrin watching on. Bazzer listened to him with a facsimile of polite interest whilst scratching various parts of his body. Baz continuously switched his gaze between them and the frozen TV screen, all the while licking his bright full lips with a slightly obscene regularity.

  Dougan let Mozzer talk it all out before he made any response, he knew nothing, of course, never spoke to the kid, never seen him, didn’t know who he was. A complete stonewall job - he was a good fucking liar, Darrin had to give him that. ‘Love to help you officers but yer know sorry like…’ all the predictable bollocks.

  Darrin heard Moz sigh and start to move his arse forward on the sticky sofa.

  Darrin looked intently at Bazzer’s profile, his eyes were back on the frozen screen again and Darrin felt the urge to smash him and keep on smashing him.

  Fuck it, he thought.

  He snatched the baton from his ‘where do we go to from here’ partner.

  ‘We’ve heard that the lad might have gone down to some party like, just before he disappeared Baz. Know anything about that then do yer?’

  That got the fucker’s attention right enough, he couldn’t hide the gulp in his throat. Moz moved uncomfortably on the sofa letting out a little whistle of breath at Darrin’s break from the script.

  ‘P-party?’ Bazzer’s head twitched a couple of times in a little two-step left-right, left-right reflex. There was no eye contact at all now and he had a sudden interest in what was not going on in the back yard.

  Darrin leant in a little and pushed away Mozzer’s attempt to grab his forearm.

  ‘Yeah that’s right, we’ve been told it were somewhere down at the Quays.’

  At that Bazzer turned his head looked right into his eyes and vigorously shook his head.

  ‘No officer. Know nothing about any party. OK, nah, nothing, nowt like.’

  Darrin looked at him in silence for a few moments, conscious of a slight twitch beneath his own left eye, all of his will was focussed on being still, steady, in the moment.

  Dougan reiterated with a shrug, ‘help you if I could officers but, like I said.’

  Ah well, that was that then, for the moment.

  Darrin stood up to go and Mozzer was up half a beat behind him. Darrin turned to the lounge room door then did a little half turn back, which brought Dougan back into his eye line.

  Bazzer looked up at him with a malevolence that actually made the hair stand up on the back of Darrin’s neck. A half sneer curling back his upper lip far enough to show his gold spotted left incisor.

  ‘Hang on a minute though cuntstable. Yeah, I heard summat on the grapevine like. Bloke in a pub, don’t know him like, chatting about that he were. He’d heard tell some important folk like to pork them young uns, yeah. Yeah, important folk, he reckoned.’ And this time he looked at both Mozzer and Darrin, ‘important protected folk like - maybe you might know what I mean Mr Morris?’

  Darrin turned to Moz who had his eyes fixed on Bazzer.

  ‘No, I can’t say I do Dougan,’ Moz said, his voice as cold as an Arctic blast. ‘You got any more bullshit to want to tell us, boy?’

  Bazzer snorted, his lips twisting into another sneer.

  ‘No Mr Morris, I’ve got nothing for you at all.’

  When they got back to the car, Darrin had expected a roasting but it didn’t come, just wave upon wave of heavy, static filled silence. But it was Moz who spoke first as they pulled away from Dougan’s home and on out of the Barrington.

  ‘Be nice to nail that prick, eh Daz?’

  Darrin mutely nodded and glanced over at his colleague’s profile.

  ‘Yeah, sounds like he might be able to give us plenty if he cracked. Be like pulling back a rock that would. What do you reckon Moz?’

  Mozzer tapped his meaty left thigh a few times before he answered, then he did a little double index fingered tattoo on the steering wheel. ‘He’d lie to God that slack jawed fucker would and shit on his mum while he did so. And, well, you let the cat out of bag din’t you Dazzle - going to be ramifications about that, fucking hell.’

  Darrin glanced at him, ‘fuck it Moz, let’s shake the tree for a change, where the fuck are we going with all this?’

  Moz made as if to reply but didn’t. Instead, he turned to look out the driver’s seat window as mute and pissed off as Marley’s ghost.

  They made the rest of the journey with no further reference to it. Ramifications, Darrin thought, good, let’s fucking hope so.

  OCTOBER

  Tommy called Sonny on Tuesday, the kid was now on bail, tagged, and, given the amount of weed that he was found with, lucky not to be held in custody. Sonny said that there was some solid evidence that the kid had been ferrying around the hard stuff too but the cops were choosing to sit on that nugget at the moment. So, maybe the little prick had been a little lucky again.

  Sonny thought the kid would probably end up in a secure training centre rather than juvie. Apparently, he’d spilled enough info to them to get him out of those particular woods. He considered calling Donna to chat it through but he decided against it. He was ready to close the book on the kid, let him take the hard medicine and if he was binning Pasquale that probably meant
he’d be binning her too.

  More importantly, it had been a few days without contact with Mick so he called round to see the old man. Mick was home, obviously content in his chair, reading the newspaper with a half finished brew at his side. His bar ashtray was two thirds full and rising with a ragged pyramid of dimps. There had to be enough tar in Mick’s lungs to do a fair patch up job on the M62.

  They sat in silence for a few minutes then his old man tapped the paper, ‘one in here for you today son, you’ll like this.’

  ‘Oh yeah, go on then?’

  ‘Yeah, bout these bloody chimps, taken away from their mothers in infancy then kept in labs for thirty years just to be tested. They were let out for the first time yesterday. Poor fuckers had never seen the sun, never! Fucking disgraceful I reckon, and they reckon we are at the apex of the fucking pyramid of evolution. Fuckin’ Jaffas.’

  His old man rested his paper in his lap and peered at him over his reading glasses.

  ‘You know son, I’ve been giving what you said a lot of thought.’

  ‘Oh yeah what’s that then Dad?’

  ‘You know that spiritual sickness stuff? I read that and I can’t get my head around the cruelty of it. I don’t know whether to get mad or to fucking cry, truly I don’t.’

  Tommy looked intently at his old man. He could count on two fingers the number of times that he’d seen Mick shed any tears.

  He smiled at Mick.

  ‘Well, there is a belief that next year, on the day after your birthday as it happens, there will be an event that will eventually lead to the collective enlightenment of mankind.’

  Mick nodded, ‘oh yeah I’ve read about that, that Mayan calendar thing right?’

  Tommy nodded at him, ‘yeah you got it Mick, the Mayan calendar.’

  ‘Well, if I’m still around son, I’ll raise a birthday malt to it. But I don’t think you’ll be seeing a day of collective enlightenment Tommy, never mind me.’

  ‘Yeah think you might be right Dad but…you never know.’

  His dad looked at him and laughed, ‘bloody barm pot you are lad, bloody Mayans - bloody jaffas.’

  Tommy laughed with him till it tapered out into another easy silence, Mick reading, him listening to, who was it? John Martyn? Had to be, John doing his soulful thang on Mick’s relatively new and much used DAB radio.

  He looked at his watch - time to make tracks.

  ‘Fancy the pub tomorra - me and Jimbo are having it?’

  Mick rubbed his chin for a couple of moments and then gave a thumbs down with an emphatic nod of his noggin.

  ‘I would but it’s the bloody football tomorra in’t it. That bloody TV will be on in every room in the fuckin’ pub. Blokes gawping transfixed at the screen, no thanks son, I’ll pass.’

  Mick gave out a few of his patented rueful pissing in the wind chortles.

  ‘OK Mick, I’m away at Lee’s this weekend. I’m going to check out Brighton with him and Bern.

  That sparked the old fella up again. He put his paper down and took off his specs.

  ‘Brighton. I remember that bloody town well. Me, your Uncle Tom, Uncle Fred and Richard went down there, had a bucks’ weekend fer Richard’s wedding.’

  Mick laughed at the relished memory.

  ‘Bloody hell, we did some fine misbehaving.’ Mick gave him his mischievous leprechaun grin and a knowing wink.

  ‘You’ll like it down there son, your kind of place I reckon, not like this bloody dump - have a good ‘un if I don’t see yer before yer go.’

  ‘Thanks Dad, I will. I’ll have a look. See if they erected a plaque in memory of your visit. I’ll give you a bell when I get back.’ He stood up to go and patted his dad gently on the shoulder before he made his way to the front door.

  ‘Leave the door son,’ Mick told him, ‘I’ll lock it up behind yer.’

  Tommy walked out into the surprisingly cool air and quickly turned up the collar of his jacket.

  He was with his dad about the football, imagine a world without soccer, he thought. That would be fucking fine.

  So, his routine was tightly locked in, right up to the court case. A visit by Sonny or another member of the Youth Visiting Team in the morning and then another one of the team would come back to take him to the station to report to the cops in the afternoon. The other kids in the ref told him that they thought the tag was cool but he didn’t think so, it wasn’t even remotely cool and he was pissed off enough to not even pretend to buy into their bullshit about it. Junior had sent him a text telling him that his loot was safe. He had over two grand in that tin and, as yet, no fucking idea of how he was going to get to it.

  Things were changing all around him right enough, Kat would be gone in a couple of weeks, off to her own flat and Neil was making his plans for a move out with his sugar-daddy. When away from Neil, Kat and Jess told him that they thought it was all likely to fall through quickly. They couldn’t imagine anybody living one-on-one with Neil on a 24/7 basis, they weren’t wrong about that, Neil was a fucking roman candle of incessant drama.

  Despite all that shit - the refuge felt like exactly that to him at the moment - a place where he felt both accepted and safe. Dwayne would have been busted for sure unless he’d been smart enough to get away and he didn’t feel safe with any of his old haunts, apart from his mum’s. The thought of being caught up on the Coleshaw or the Barrington filled him with dread, they would fuck him up for sure. His mum had visited him a couple of times during the week but she hadn’t talked to him about the possibility of him going to hers for the weekend. The punishment had started as far as she was concerned.

  A week on Thursday then and he’d know for sure where his next home would be. The others had reassured him that the training centres were OK, if that was where he was to be going. None of the others had mentioned juvie in his presence apart from his prick of a roommate who had been leapt on by the gang and venomously told to shut the fuck up. Kat said she’d stay in touch and he thought that she probably would, Neil and Jess had parroted the same thing but he knew that they were both as fickle as fuck and he doubted that they would come through for him. Be nice to see a bit more of Jess, she’d been looking at him a little differently since he was charged and, let’s face it, she was as hot as fuck.

  He hated the uncertainty but, what the fuck could he do? If he bolted it would only make things worse for him. His mum and the rest of them were right, it was time to take the medicine. Pasquale put his feet up on one of the plastic chairs at the back of the ref and looked, for the zillionth time, at his tag and thought unresolved thoughts about the two grand with his name on it resting in that cavity mill wall.

  The ops team had met up a couple of days after their chat with Bazzer. Dwayne was banged up in the nearest big house but keeping resolutely schtum about his gaffers. The consensus was that the operation hadn’t been compromised by the arrest and that they were still OK to go on both up at the Coleshaw and down at the Quays. The scrotes would put down Darrin’s bust to bad timing and bad luck although they had decided to pull him out of the estate just to be safe. Dalton would be back early next week according to a call that he’d made to O’Brien’s mobile. O’Brien sounded indifferent to that bit of news, he’d been in and out of the fuck-pad with his piece pretty much every day since Keithy had taken off and the girlfriend had stayed in the apartment whenever O’Brien had been away - long evenings on her tod singing flatly to herself in the spa. Aching love ballads mostly, she was missing her tarnished knight.

  Interestingly and surprisingly, Moz hadn’t mentioned his slip to Young, Bowden or, as far as he knew, anybody else on the team. So, if the coppers’ knowledge of the parties had somehow got back to anybody in the Saltt crew thus far, the O’Briens were keeping that bit of information to themselves.

  As far as Darrin was concerned it was all still a long bow, they would have to get leverage from Bazzer himself to get anywhere near the higher echelons and, although Dougan was as daft as a brush, he had strong self p
reservation instincts and was likely to remain loyal to the Saltt crew. Darrin reckoned that the chance of Bazzer spilling was negligible.

  Mac had been invited to a piss up at Biffo Johnstone’s place over the weekend; a few cans, a huge bowl of weed, mixed nuts and raisins and a DVD on the flat screen, ‘one of the fucking Die Hards no less’ and he’d had the misfortune to be shown Pete’s competition bodybuilding photos. ‘Came third in the regional finals’ according to Mac, which got the biggest laugh of the meeting.

  The following day Darrin was back on the plod, ambling round the battered Centre with Johno. The clean up was pretty much finished now, the florist shop was still boarded up but old Harry was already back in business- as hardy as a desert rose that old fella - and the Asian mini market had its doors open too. His shoulder was pretty much OK although it was still a little stiff if he tried a straight-arm lift. They clocked off the shift at eight, he was a little weary but not ready to go back to the flat so he hit the canteen for a snack, a brew and a read of the paper. At this time of the day it was guaranteed to be quiet and that would suit him fine. He felt like he’d been talking all day and, inevitably with Johno for company, he’d had to use or at least pretend to use his listening skills a fair bit.

  He was just about to wrap it all up and get ready to make his way home when he heard the familiar gravelly baritone call out his name from the doorway.

  ‘P.C. Darrin May - a local hero and a young gun on the rise.’

  He could have done without it, in fact he needed Keegan at the moment like he needed a dose of crabs, but he kept the irritation from his face and managed to drag up the riposte of a mirroring smile.