Beast of Burden (9 page)

Fine. It was fine. They deserved each other. Christ, the last thing I wanted was a fourteen-year-old in the bastard house over Christmas, when I was trying to get nicely bladdered. Even thinking about it gave us a thirst, so I headed round the offy, picked up a crate for the fridge, then went down to Wilmslow Road. Popped out of the car at The Balti King, but I kept an eye on the car while I was in there.

Nobody turned up, and by the time I got back to the car, it was already getting dark. I shoved my lamb jalfrezi, pilau and nan (so greasy you could see through the paper bag) into the passenger seat, and headed home, the smell killing us with hunger every minute I was driving.

By the time I got in, I was feeling it. And by the time I got the curry down us, plus five cans, I was seriously knackered. I tore off some bog roll and mopped up some sauce from the settee. It wouldn't come out all the way, so I thought fuck it.

Everything was fucking work these days. Since Annie did her bunk, I was stuck with a place that didn't want to stay clean. I mean, I wasn't the kind of bloke to go out and steam-clean his settee, but the fact was that the chintzy shit she left us with attracted dirt. And it wasn't like I could get rid, either, not when I reckoned that it was only a matter of time before she came to her fucking senses. So the place was getting manky, and I was in no mood to clean it up. Especially not after I'd drunk those cans. A couple more, and I was getting thirsty for the Grouse in the kitchen cupboard.

I didn't need to check my watch to know it was getting late. If I turned on the telly right now, there'd be that saucy brunette on ITV Play telling all those sad, hopeful bastards out there in the dark that if they just got the
right
word in tonight's Wordfind, they'd win ten grand. And then I got to thinking that her and the bog roll would go together like ham and pease pudding, might wake us up a bit.

Instead, I sat looking at myself in the dead screen. Kennedy had already popped in my head, and that was enough to kill any urges I might've had. A bloke in my head when I was handling myself, that was the first step on a dark path. Especially one like Kennedy, a put-on merchant, right down to his fucking accent. You got the bloke talking to a scally, he was all phlegm in the throat, a hundred percent Scouser right from the streets, but as soon as the DCI wanted a word, that accent went out the fucking window. He was clipped, he was professional, and most of all he was full of shite.

And yet,
I
was the joke of the office. It was like a conspiracy against us these days.

I felt around for my baccy tin. Found it wedged down the back of the settee. Rolled myself a thick one, because my hands were going numb with the drink, pulled my lighter. There was baccy falling out the ends, but I reckoned it would smoke good enough. I lit it and took a big enough draw to bring an itch to my lungs. When I finished coughing, I thought about that last bit again.

Right enough, I hadn't been doing that well recently. Couple of bad collars that came back to bite us in the arse because I may've used a little too much force when cuffing them, and a shoplifter who swore blind I put my hand up her crack when I didn't. But a few bad arrests didn't make a whole lot of difference outside the station, and that attitude on Paddy Reece had been bothering us. It was like he'd heard something along the line that I'd lost whatever respect I once had, that I wasn't hard enough to be feared anymore. I took another drag on my ciggie, leaned forward on the settee. Wondered how that could've happened.

It was someone who'd decided to mess around with us. Putting about that I'd gone soft or something. And I was a peaceful bloke, didn't want to knock heads unless I absolutely had to in order to get my job done. If someone gave us lip, I'd fatten it, but I didn't go out of my way to get into fights. But someone was spreading shit about us.

So who was it? Kennedy?

Kennedy was a Scouse twat, but he hadn't been at the nick long enough to get any informants of his own, so there was no way he could put any kind of word out. And everyone else in the nick knew better than to fuck us off.

I heard the crackle of the paper going up, felt the heat near my fingers. Dropped the ciggie into the large glass ashtray on the coffee table, breathed smoke.

“That fucking cunt,” I said to the floor.

Because I knew who it was right then.

Callum bastard Innes.

DONKIN

The more I thought about it, the more it made sense.

Innes knew how I worked. I had a carefully constructed network of gobs and grasses stretched across Greater Manchester like an invisible spider web. If someone nicked a load of Motorolas in Crumpsall, I'd know the bastard within the hour thanks to a dippy slut called Mandy Corr. Down Prestwich, if you were to tell us that one of those nice Victorian terraces got broke into, that'd be a quick call and the boot up the ring of former daytime burglar Gerald Moss. And say a granny got lamped and robbed down Eccles New Road, that was a case for the gob who called himself Just Dom.

One thing tied all these people together, and that was the gear. Every time I heard that crime problem was a drug problem, I knew that the drugs were also part of the solution, because there was nowt as gabby and unscrupulous as a needy smackhead. Nobody outside of your tight-arse and tanned white-collar criminal is more scared of a prison term, either, because it meant they'd have to clean up. And as much as they all said they wanted to clean up, fact remained that they were smackheads, and if there was one thing smackheads loved, it was smack.

My favourite grass was long gone, though. And I still reckoned that was an issue with me and Innes.

His brother, Declan. A piece of work, and a dream come true to a copper like me. The lad was well in with the Tiernans and he had a fierce hunger for pretty much any downer he could lay his hands on. Didn't take much to get him trained up. He took to the rules pretty quickly. It wasn't long before if I wanted anything connected to the Tiernans, I'd pull Declan Innes. And there was a time, the brass would let us do it, no questions asked.

Get him sat in an interview room for a couple of hours, just enough time for the blood to leech from his face and for his skin to prickle. Then I'd leave him another hour, just to be on the safe side. By the time I pushed open the door, he'd be ready to talk. Most of the time he'd give us solid information, and because the Tiernans knew he wasn't giving us anything directly related to them, they let him keep walking around.

Then came his fucking brother to muddy up the waters a bit.

I thought it'd be great, have a brother in the mix. It's more emotional for a grass.

Didn't exactly turn out like that, though.

I remember after that security guard got his napper stoved in, I brought Declan down the nick, and made sure to sweat him hard before I came back. When I did, he looked like he was about to puke on the fucking floor.

“How you hanging, old son?” I said.

He didn’t saying, too busy hugging himself. He wagged his head, his eyes bugging at the floor.

“Jesus, Declan, what
are
you doing with your life, eh?”

Nothing again.

“I'll tell you what you're doing with it, you're watching it go down the fuckin' plughole, and we all know whose fault that is.” I walked behind the table, stopped and watched him suffer. “You know that cunt Mo's going to drag you right down into the shit with him, don't you?”

Declan hugged harder. Drew a long, wet breath up through his nose.

“You want to end up in the fuckin' 'Ways, son?”

He shook his head.

“Because I'll tell you, Declan, I like you.” He pulled at face at us, but I smiled. “No, I do. And I'll tell you straight, no word of a lie, I reckon you're a good lad. You've done us some good turns over the years, and I really don't want to see you banged up.”

He stuck his bottom teeth out, then he smacked his lips and swallowed. Looked to me like he was trying not to cry.

“You're not a strong lad,” I said.

“I'm fine.”

“You're fine.” I laughed at him. “I leave you in here much longer without a fuckin' fix, you'll be climbing the bastard walls.”

Shaking his head, breathing through his nose so there was this weird whistling sound in the room. I wanted to slap him so he'd breathe through his mouth like a normal human being, but instead, I leaned on the table, fixed him with a stare.

“You're a fuckin' smackhead,” I said. “You're fuckin' fragile. And you're not going to get any better unless you face up to that fact. So when I ask you questions next time, I want to make sure you tell me what I need to know.”

Then I straightened up, and left him in there for another hour and a half.

It was good stewing time, and it gave him time to hit that core of self-loathing that I knew he carried around with him. What I heard, his old man was a bit of an arsehole, but obviously knew that a backhand to the mug was worth a thousand angry words. Having a smackhead as a son, I had no doubt that Innes Senior would've done what any father worth his balls would do, and that was to make his eldest feel like shit. I wanted to bring all those feelings right back, break him down to the point where it didn't matter if the Tiernans
killed
him — the only thing he'd want was to get out of that interview room.

When I went back in, he'd near melted into a puddle of his own sweat.

“So, you going to tell us about that robbery, then, Declan?”

His face crumpled up. That was the last thing he wanted to talk about. But tough shit for him, eh?

“I heard about it,” I said. “Heard your kid, whassisname —
Callum
, is it? — got picked up. On his own. Or near enough. There was this almost dead security guard with him. Looked like your little brother smacked him over the head with something, except here's the thing — whatever he smacked the guard over the head with, it wasn't around anymore. But he was. Funny that, innit?”

Declan started shaking his head again. Still small wags, but I got the feeling they'd get more severe as we carried on.

“Did I get something wrong?” I said.

“I don't know—”

“Fuck off, you don't know.”

“I'm telling you—”

“Here, I've got a good sense of humour, Declan. You know that, we've had a few laughs over the years, me and you. So I'm willing to let that first one slide, know what I mean? But the thing about jokes is you can't really tell them to the same person twice because then they stop being funny.”

I pointed at him, and he jerked so hard I thought for a second I'd hit him with a lightning bolt.

“I'm sorry,” he said. “I can't tell you anything.”

“You want to continue this discussion tomorrow morning?”

He looked at us, and his eyes were fucked. Like he was tired, but he wouldn't be able to sleep for ages.

“What do you want?” he said.

“I know you were there. Your kid wouldn't do nowt without his big brother's say-so, am I right? Especially when he's new in town.”

Declan kept quiet.

“So you must've been there. And I know that you wouldn't dare try to pull a warehouse, just you and your brother, so I'm guessing that you had a couple mates along for the ride.” I smiled at him. “
And
, knowing you the way I
do
fuckin' know you, I reckon it'd be safe to assume that those mates were Mo Tiernan and his boys. Am I warm?”

He set his jaw, kept his gob shut. And inside, I bet he was eating himself alive.

“So what're you going to tell us here, Dec? What you got?”

He moved his head, looked at the floor. I got in a bit closer. Leaned forward and grabbed his face. He reacted like my hand was red hot, made a hissing noise through his teeth.

“Yes or no, those lads were there.”

He screwed his eyes shut. Made a choking noise like he was going to either puke or start crying. I let go of his face, pushed off the table.

“You want to play this formal, we can.” I pointed at the door. “I can take you out there, chuck you in a cell and watch you tear your fuckin' hair out. But after that, I'll bring you out here again and I'll ask you the same questions. You don't tell us what I want to know, I'll put you back. I can do that, Declan, because I have every reason to suspect that you were on the scene.”

Hugged himself so hard, I thought he was going to snap his own spine.

“Wasn't your brother put the guard down. Wasn't you, neither.”

He took a deep, ragged breath in.

“You hear a guard coming, you'd fucking leg it, wouldn't you? He catches you, you want to put up a fight, see if you can get away, but it's not like you go
looking
for trouble, is it?” I pointed at him again. “
You
don't lamp a cunt just because he's there.”

He let out the breath with a small noise like a sob.

“So tell us.”

“I don't know what you're talking about.”

I was on him before he could react. Grabbed his hair tight in one fist and pulled him out of the chair. The chair hit the floor, and he kicked at it, yelping. I dragged the fucker to the corner of the room, threw him into the wall, one hand against the back of his neck as I jabbed him hard and low in the kidney. He cried out again, and I stepped back to watch the pain shudder through him.

He leaned into the corner of the room, his mouth open but no sound coming out.

There was a knock at the interview room door. A voice outside, asking if everything was okay. I told them to fuck off.

They fucked off. Back then I still commanded enough respect to make that happen. Back then, I could even be in here with a suspect on my own. Didn't need a uniform watching over us every step of the interview.

Declan started to curl as he went to the floor.

“We got your brother,” I said. “You know that.”

He nodded, hearing us through the pain. His lips disappeared — he looked like a fucking muppet.

“You go on tape, tell us what happened, I can do things for you. Do things for your little brother an' all. Bring in Mo, keep him here.”

Declan sobbed, then he said, “No.”

“No?”