by Anna Smith
He could see Tahir on his feet, blood pouring from his face. He’d been slashed at his ear and one of the guys was trying to stem the blood flow. Another of the guys put his jacket around the naked girl and helped her into a car. Tahir went along with them.
‘This is some shit going on up here,’ Archie said to Cal. ‘But it ends tonight. Come on. Let’s get you down the road and get fixed up. The lads will sort these cunts out.’
As Cal was helped into the car, he saw three bodies lying in pools of blood. He had survived tonight. But he was not looking forward to seeing big Jack.
Chapter Twenty-Six
Sharon was on her way to meet Nick Oswald, but not at the site of the firebombed bar, or in the other café he had suggested close to Fuengirola. She wasn’t that daft. Before they were due to meet, she’d sent two of her boys to the bar just to sit having a beer like any other punter on the pavement café. They waited. But it was no surprise to Sharon that the bastard didn’t turn up. Two other faces did though, and Sharon’s boys recognised one of them as part of Durkin’s Irish mob on the Costa del Sol. So it had to be presumed that Nick was now working for Rodriguez. And it looked like they were lying in wait for Sharon to turn up. The boys had left twenty minutes after Nick failed to show, and called her to report what they thought. She instructed them to find him. And to her surprise, within about two hours, they did. Through their contacts, Nick had been clocked in the departures car park at Málaga airport. No luggage. Just a worried look that grew more desperate when he’d felt the gun in his back and was marched into the waiting car. Right now he was being held in the back room of a timeshare agent’s office tucked into the edge of an urbanisation off the Marbella road. Sharon hadn’t even known the timeshare office existed, but she was learning fast how widespread the Casey empire was, dotted along the Costa coast.
As her driver pulled the car into the street outside the office, Sharon was feeling a little queasy. It wasn’t that she didn’t have the stomach for a fight. She’d shown that, all right, not two months ago when Knuckles Boyle had waved her off the morning she left their house, to be driven to Manchester airport by the thugs he’d sent to assassinate her. She’d promptly gunned down the two of them and left them to die in the mud as she’d made her escape. That was what had brought her to Kerry Casey in the first place. She’d lived then because she was determined she’d survive Knuckles’ attempt to execute her. But this was different. She was about to witness how the truth was extracted from people who betrayed you. This had been something that Knuckles would have done routinely but she’d never been part of that. Now she was. She braced herself as she opened the passenger door of the Mercedes and stepped out. She noted the guards in the back get out swiftly, their eyes sweeping the street and buildings, watching for trouble. She followed them into the office, and past the receptionist, all blonde and busty and glowing with a Spanish tan. She glanced at them, smiled, then her eyes went back to her computer screen. For a fleeting moment, Sharon wondered if she knew what was going on.
Nick Oswald sat in the back room, located down a corridor and a flight of stairs to what looked like an underground car park. He was tied to a chair and his face was bloodied. Sharon looked at the two bulky shaven-headed hard men standing over him, tattooed freak shows, then at the older man in the brown leather bomber jacket, who she knew as Johnny Duncan, who ran a string of estate agents the Caseys used to launder money. Johnny took a few steps away from where Nick sat sniffing, and jerked his head for Sharon to walk with him. They went and he spoke softly.
‘As you can see,’ Johnny said, ‘Nick has been a bit slow in getting the idea here.’
Sharon nodded. ‘What’s he saying?’
‘Well. Nothing, at the start. Hence the little slap he’s had. But he’s a bit more forthcoming now.’
‘Did they get to him?’
‘So he says. But he’s not admitting much, other than he was told to disappear for an overnight. Won’t say who by though.’
‘Has he got a name?’
‘Oh, I’m sure he’s got a name all right. All he has to do is give it to us. We need to know who it was. I mean it doesn’t take a fucking detective to work out that it was Rodriguez or Durkin’s mob who put him up to it. But we want to know for sure. We need more than he’s saying.’
Sharon nodded. ‘Maybe he’ll tell me,’ she said. ‘Let’s just lay off with the slapping till I talk to him.’
Johnny shrugged. ‘Sure. All yours.’ He gestured towards Nick.
Sharon had avoided looking Nick in the face when she’d come into the room, as the fear in him was palpable. Shit! She actually felt sorry for him. Because she knew that no matter what he told her now, he wasn’t getting out of this alive. It crossed her mind to wonder if he had a family, here or back home. She glanced down and could see his legs shaking with fear. She motioned for the others to move away, then pulled up a plastic tubular chair and sat down opposite him, not really knowing what she was going to say to him.
‘Nick,’ she said blowing out a sigh. ‘Christ, Nick! Why do this?’
His face began to crumple and close up and she could see the bruising and the weeping cut below his eye. Below the blood staining his light blue T-shirt showed a smiley sun and the message ‘Have A Nice Day’. The cruellest of ironies as he sat there, his face a mask of fear.
‘I didn’t do anything, Sharon. I didn’t know they were going to fucking torch the places.’ He sniffed. ‘I was just told not to be there for one night.’ He shook his head. ‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’
Sharon didn’t speak for a few beats; she could feel Johnny’s eyes on her, and the other two heavies whose answer to everything was to beat the shit out of someone. And maybe it was. But so far it hadn’t worked.
‘Look, Nick. Okay. You didn’t know. I accept that.’ She clasped her hands together. ‘But come on. You’re not stupid, man. You should have at least guessed they were planning something bad. All you had to do was make one phone call to me. A text even. I’d have got you covered. I’d have taken you out of the situation. You must have known that.’
He sniffed but said nothing, his head dropped to his chest.
‘Did they pay you, Nick?’
Silence, just sniffing. She glanced over her shoulder at the deadpan faces staring back. Eventually, Nick nodded.
‘Okay. Tell me,’ she said.
He wiped his nose. ‘I’ve got a habit. I hide it well. I didn’t mean it to get out of hand, but it has. I owe a lot of money.’
‘You owe money? Who do you owe money to? You go to someone outside of us to get your coke?’
‘I had to. I couldn’t let anyone know I was using this much.’
Sharon nodded. Stupid question she’d asked. Of course, if he was a coke-head, he wasn’t going to be buying it from any of the Caseys’ suppliers. He’d have been bounced out of his job if he did that.
‘How much do you owe?’
‘Nearly twenty grand. It shouldn’t have been that. I didn’t owe anything like that. I never even bought that amount of coke. But they’ve just fucking plucked this figure out of the air and told me I owe it.’
‘So why didn’t you come to me?’
‘I was scared. Of what would happen if I came to you.’
‘Christ, Nick.’ She shook her head. ‘Well for one thing, you wouldn’t be sitting in this level of shit. You’d be out of a job, but that would be it. How bloody stupid can you be?’
He broke down, sobbing. ‘They said they would get my ma shot back home. They even knew her address. How the fuck did they know that, Sharon? I haven’t been home in two years. Nobody even knows where I come from. My ma’s an old woman. She lives by herself. Fuck! They said they’d throw her under a bus.’
They sat in silence, just the sound of Nick’s sobs, then Sharon spoke.
‘Nick. Listen to me. I’ll get someone to make sure your ma is all right. I promise you.’ She paused. ‘But you need to tell me who you spoke to. You need to say who you met.
I need names. And I need them now, Nick. Because you need to understand that I can’t spend any more time on this. Just give me what I need to know.’
Sharon sat, her stomach churning, looking at him. She knew when she walked out of the room it was over for Nick, not matter what he told her.
Eventually he said, ‘It was Terry Dawson. He’s Irish. One of Durkin’s mob. But I didn’t know him. He got in touch with me a couple of days ago. Said my coke debt was paid. He gave me money and told me to get out of town for the night.’ He paused. ‘He was with some other guy. Spanish or maybe South American. I don’t know. He put a gun to my head at one point. And it was then Dawson told me they would get my ma if I opened my mouth.’ He sniffed. ‘That’s why I ran. I just wanted to go home. I knew as soon as I talked to you that you’d be suspicious. I wasn’t even going to call you. I was actually on my way to the airport when you phoned.’
‘Well, you know I didn’t go to the place we were supposed to meet. I’m not daft. But there were two pricks there. Waiting for me, I suppose.’ She looked directly at as much of Nick’s eyes as were visible beneath the puffiness that was now coming up. He was silent. ‘Nick. Did you set me up?’
She already knew the answer before Nick nodded, tears streaming down his face. Sharon stood up. Allowing them to firebomb the pub was bad enough. But by setting her up to be murdered, Nick had signed his death warrant. There was nothing more to be said, and by the look on Nick’s face he knew that. Sharon turned to the others and made a face that said, he’s all yours. Then as she walked towards the door, she heard Nick speak through sobs.
‘Sharon. Will you make sure my ma’s all right? I’m sorry.’
She didn’t answer. She opened the door and went outside into the corridor, then walked out of the building past the receptionist who didn’t even look up at her. She got into the passenger seat of the car and closed the door.
‘Not pleasant,’ she said as the guards got in. She turned to the driver. ‘Let’s go.’
As the car drove out into the main road, Sharon’s mobile rang. It was Rico.
‘They found my deputy. In his apartment. Fackeeng smothered with a plastic bag on his head.’
‘Thanks for telling me, Rico. Talk later.’
She hung up. It wasn’t even midday and the shit was piling up.
*
Frankie Martin came out of the arrivals hall at Dublin airport and merged with the crowd, his eyes everywhere, just in case. Nobody but he knew when he was leaving Málaga, which flight he was on, or even where he was going. Rodriguez had told him it was up to him how he played the game now. He told him he trusted him. He gave him a bank card with access to any amount of money he needed, because war is an expensive business. And Rodriguez’s parting words were that the rewards would be huge if he came back the victor. Christ, Frankie thought. The cunt had even embraced him.
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Kerry had decided to let Jack deal with Cal and Tahir after their vigilante antics the other night. But she was furious with the pair of them, especially Cal, because now she had Maria in her kitchen in tears. Kerry placed a cup of coffee onto the table and looked at her oldest friend as she wiped tears from her blotchy face.
‘I mean, it’s not that I’m not grateful for everything you have done for me, Kerry, for us, for our Jen and Cal. You’ve given us not just a roof over our heads, but a home, and a feeling of family that we haven’t had for years.’ She sniffed, sipped her tea. ‘I know I’ll be indebted to you for the rest of my life. The moment I asked for your help, I knew this, and I never hesitated, because I was desperate. But I just don’t know if we can go on like this.’
Kerry sat impassive, knowing everything she was saying was right. When she had seen Maria at her mother’s funeral, she’d been shocked at the pale, haunted figure she’d become, in hock to moneylenders and waiting for the midnight knock from police to say that her heroin-addict daughter had been found dead. Kerry had welcomed her into the fold with open arms. Maria knew what that meant and so did Kerry. She had given Maria a job and a lifestyle she would never have been able to afford. There would always be a price to pay, and they both knew that. Kerry should send her packing. That’s what more ruthless bosses would do in her line of work. But watching Maria wipe her nose with a crumpled tissue, Kerry couldn’t help but feel for her. Maria’s son was only sixteen, but already he had killed on behalf of the Casey empire. Jack had said he and Tahir had earned their stripes early, just as he had at that age, and he had high hopes for the boys. But Maria knew nothing of this. Sure, she knew her boy worked for them, and she wasn’t stupid. She knew they’d be collecting money, working with the more experienced men as enforcers, but she did not know he was already a killer. And she wasn’t about to hear about it at this table. Kerry had told Jack and Danny that she wasn’t happy that Cal and Tahir, but especially Cal, had been put in the frontline so young. Yes, they had acquitted themselves at the shoot-out to get Finbar back, but Kerry had hoped that the future for these boys would be in the legitimate Casey empire, not as killers or hired guns. But Jack and Danny had explained to her that although the boys were young, they were ready, and they were good hands. And they were keen to be involved. She would let it go for the moment, she’d decided. But she hoped she would never have to break it to Maria that her son had been killed fighting battles for the Caseys.
‘Look, Maria. You have to get it into perspective. What Cal and Tahir did the other night was well out of order, and believe me they know that. Jack is with them now, and I’m going to speak to them shortly.’ She tried to pick her words. ‘But remember, these are just young boys. They’re maybe feeling a bit puffed up because they’re working for us now, part of something big, and they got a bit big for their boots. But they’ll know better the next time.’
‘Cal has two broken ribs, and his face is battered stupid. His body is covered in boot marks.’ Maria shook her head. ‘And Tahir’s got a slash right down his cheek. Marked for life – poor laddie.’
‘I haven’t seen them,’ Kerry said, ‘but I know. They’re very lucky our lads got a call and rescued them. But they know they shouldn’t have acted on their own.’
Kerry looked at her watch. She waited, wondering what Maria was going to say next.
‘Kerry,’ she began, nervous, ‘maybe it’s time for me to find another job. And for me to find another way to live. As I said, I’m so grateful. But I can’t give up my son for this.’
She looked at Kerry and her pleading eyes filled with tears again. Kerry reached across and put her hand over hers. She thought of her own child inside her, how it would turn out, how she would feel if the son or daughter she had grew up to break her heart. And she resolved that when this war was over, she would find a path for Cal where he could grow as a person, not as a killer.
‘Come on, Maria. Take some time to think about it. You know how tough it is out there. You know what can happen – the sharks and the shitbags preying on people. You’ve left that behind you. Your life is good now. Of course, working for an organisation like this, there will be some problems along the way. But believe me, things are going to change. What we do just now isn’t how I see the future. I told you, I have big plans for the Caseys. Big plans. And I want you to feature in them too. We have property, businesses you can get involved in. You can be valuable to us, and you can live a good life without waiting for some bastard to knock your door.’
Kerry didn’t want to lose Maria, because she was working well and with her organisational skills Kerry could see how she could fit in as they grew in the new direction she wanted to take them in. She didn’t want to see her friend return to what her life had been. Because that was what would happen. It wasn’t fair. But there was little opportunity for people out there, grafting away, and they never really got out of the mire. Only the few did, through education or crime. Kerry knew from her early childhood in poverty that her father dragged them from that to wealth through crime. In truth, everything she had, including
her expensive education and law degree, was facilitated by the proceeds of crime. She had never regretted it. She knew what her family was – she just hadn’t expected to be sitting here trying to sell her criminal empire to her oldest friend. But that’s how it was.
Maria pushed her fringe back from her forehead and rubbed at her eyes.
‘I know,’ she said. ‘I never want to go back to what my life was. I admit that.’ She swallowed hard. ‘But I don’t know how I can live with the fear that I might lose my Cal. He’s only sixteen. He never tells me anything of what he does.’
Kerry sighed and stood up. Maria knew the meeting was over.
‘Cal’s a young man now, Maria. He’s not going to tell you everything. You know that.’ Kerry paused. ‘But he will be all right. He’ll have learned from what happened, and he knows that he’s got a lot more to learn. He’ll be fine.’
Maria dropped her gaze to the floor for a second and Kerry’s heart sank a little. She knew that Maria was well aware that she had nowhere else to go. She stepped close to her friend and they hugged tight before Maria turned and went out of the door without another word.
Kerry left the kitchen and headed down the hallway towards her study. She opened the door to see the bruised and swollen faces of Cal and Tahir.
In the fading afternoon light, they looked like battered children from some kind of conflict you would see on television. She quelled her shock and strode across to them, where they looked at her, sheepish through swollen eyes. Kerry stood over them, hands on hips, as Jack gave her a look. She could tell by the body language that he had been laying into them.
‘You’re in some nick, lads,’ Kerry said, glancing from one to the other. ‘What in Christ’s name possessed you to go on some kind of suicide mission to Springburn?’ She kept her voice soft but firm. ‘Just who do you think you are? You think this is some kind of movie you’re in?’