Fogarty: A City of London Thriller (9 page)

“What I don’t understand, Gran, is why you kept your distance all of these years.” Ben’s voice was quiet but emotional.

“Benjamin, we made tremendous sacrifices to keep you and your mother safe from Dennis Grierson. We cut off all contact, once we got her off the estate; we let it be known that she had run away. I even slapped Dennis Grierson across the face in public, accusing him of driving my daughter away from her family. He just grinned, but my point was made and he left us alone, for a while.
You were happy, Siobhan was deliriously happy and you looked set to have a good life away from The Farm with a new dad. Then a scumbag lowlife called Trevor Pannell, who worked for the social services, sold your mother’s new job details to Den Grierson.” May Burchill was now May Fogarty again, and she choked up as she spoke.

“Grierson stole a car from Tottenham High Street and waited until your mother was almost home, and he ran her down. She was so badly injured that she survived for only a few minutes after the crash. The police could never link Grierson with the car or the murder, but we all knew who did it. He wanted us to know, that was why he stole a car locally. He was sending us, and everyo
ne else in the flats, a message: ‘You can never escape Den Grierson’; but we did.

You were coming up to eleven years old, your granddad and me, we were still only forty five, so we left for work one morning and never returned. A neighbour arranged for our personal belongings to be kept safe in her flat before she had them sent to a storage unit in Hendon. We picked them up later, but by then we were back living in Liverpool amongst friends and relatives who would have cheerfully killed Grierson on sight. We changed our appearance. I lost over three stones in weight and changed my hair colour; your granddad shaved his head and lost his moustache. But by then you were on your way to a new life with young Danielle Morgan, your second cousin. She still lives close by; she would love to see you. Do you know, she cried the whole flight back after leaving you with Patrick in New Zealand? Then we just followed your progress from afar. We have a scrapbook of everything you’ve done since you were eleven. It’s in my flat at the back of the care home. Even now, I can’t stop thinking that Grierson is a threat to this family
, especially to you.”

“I don’t think so, Gran. He is a sad old man who is surrounded by sad old men. They were tough once,
but now they are quite pathetic. I visited him yesterday, as a matter of fact.” May looked shocked. Ben continued.

“I wanted to kill him, if I’m being entirely honest, but then I thought of him spending the rest of his life in prison and decided maybe that would be a worse punishment. Still, I left him and his minder needing
serious attention at an A&E.”

May looked at him with concern. “Ben, this man is unbalanced. He will seek retribution. He has never lost a fight before and he will
die before he loses this one.”

“That is why I’m here, Gran,” Ben answered resolutely. “He has threatened to harm my sister - my twin - if she really exists.”

Trafalgar House Flats, Broadwater Farm Estate, Tottenham. Monday 15
th
August 2011; 2pm.

Dennis Grierson grimaced as an elderly Mary Akuta changed the dressing on his thigh. Mary had lived in the flats for thirty-five years and had retired from nursing just three years ago; she had assisted May Fogarty in delivering Siobhan’s twins in 1981. Mary had a pathological dislike of Dennis Grierson, but she knew that her family would be at risk if she did not attend to him and his men when he called on her.

“Dennis, I told you this morning and I’ll tell you again. Doctor Marova has stitched you up and I have dressed the wound, but you are still at risk of infection and I can’t do anything about that. You need a hospital.” Den had no intention of leaving his apartment. If he did that, word would spread that he had been badly beaten, weakened in the eyes of the gangs, and there was a good chance
he would never be allowed back.

As well as the pain in his leg, Den’s jaw ached from where it had been painfully popped back in, earlier in the day.  The locum, who attended to his jaw and leg, owed Den a few favours and so he treated him free
of charge and left him with a bottle of antibiotics. Parel Marova was a Latvian doctor who had borrowed money from a money-lender when he first arrived in London, and then Den had bought the debt. Despite his training and sworn oath to protect life, Parel would have been happy to see Dennis Grierson contract an infection and die, but the man seemed to be close to invulnerable.

Mary left the apartment, never to return. Her kids had all grown up and had children of their own; she
was leaving the flats and moving to a retirement community that catered for retired professionals. Mary would be settled into her secure accommodation in Brighton by the end of the month, but she would not be telling Grierson. As far as she was concerned, he could contract gangrene and die.

***

Mikey was seriously concerned. Barty was in hospital, and would be out of action for weeks, if not months. Den was in an out of consciousness with the painkilling drugs, and word was spreading around the estate that Psycho was finished, that some lawyer had come along and kicked the shit out of Den and Barty. The fear that had hung over the flats for years had evaporated in a morning and, like Ghadaffi, Mubarrak and the rest, Grierson was on the verge of being overthrown.

Already members of the TH Crew were ‘dissing’ Mikey openly, presumably trying to provoke him, but he knew better than to react. Mikey was hard but no-one could fight off a concerted attack by a dozen e
ighteen year olds with who knew what concealed weapons about their person. As he watched the TH Crew members on the other side of the road he saw an air of excitement spread over the little group, and they all ran off behind the flats.

“Shit!” Mikey said under his breath, knowing their likely destination. He was about to follow to confirm his suspicions when he heard a loud explosion, and in t
he next instant his phone rang.

“Mikey, it’s Ron. The lock-up has just gone up. The lit
tle bastards have blown it up.”

“Whoa! Hold on, Ron, I though you and J
ock were guarding the lock-up?”

“We were, Mikey
, but then Metal Mickey turns up with three of his crew and they are all tooled up with handguns and an AK47. It was surreal, man!”

“What about the gear, Ron? There was a lot of gear in there.” Mikey had asked the question without any real hope that the drugs, guns, expl
osives and cash had been saved.

“They got on the roof and broke through; they took everything and then set fire
to Den’s Chrysler 300C. I don’t think they found the drugs. They were in the car when it all went up. There’s cocaine dust blowing all over the manor.”

Mikey was already running up the stairs towards Den’s flat. It was going to be tight. This had to be a concerted attack, and there had been no guns on display on The Farm since 1985
, but the rules had changed. “Ron, you and Jock go home and I’ll call you. We need to regroup.”

***

Grierson w
as roused from a troubled dream. The drug-induced hallucination had been terrifyingly real, but he awoke into a nightmare even more real and even more horrific.

Mikey almost fell into the room. He was gasping for breath. He was well out of condition and he had been running hard. He had barely had a chance to explain the events of the last five minutes when Metal Mickey sauntered in behind him, alone and grinning. The seat of power had moved while Dennis Grierson dozed. The young black gang leader smiled, showing the full set of metal braces across his te
eth that gave him his nickname.

“Den, da king is dead, long live da king!” he laughed. “You are out of here in ten minutes on your own two legs, or you ar
e out of here in a wooden box.”

“Kill him, Mikey!” Den snarled, and suddenly the bravad
o drained from the gang leader.

“You hurt me you both die, unnerstand?” His words were cut off by Mikey’s fist crunching into the gang leader’s reinforced teeth, leaving behind broken teeth
, sharp wire and lots of blood.

“Get out, Den! I’ll kee
p ‘em away for as long as I can!” Mikey laid another fist into the gang leader, this time in his solar plexus. The boy crumpled and Mikey dragged him out of the flat.

Den struggled to his feet, gasping with pain as his wounded leg was grounded. It refused to take his full weight and so he limped along, dragging his leg. All of his stored assets had gone up in flames in the lock-up, as had his new car, and there wasn’t time to clear out the flat. He would have to leave his cash, his jewellery stash and his forged passports behind and run for it. They
would be no good to a dead man.

He quickly glanced over at the monitoring unit that tracked his ankle bracelet. It was still flashing green, but it would soon turn to red and then he would have the TH Crew, the police and that crazy New Zealander on his case. Still, he couldn’t worry about
any of that now; the mob was baying for his blood. The tide had turned.

Dennis Grierson left his dingy flat and hauled his injured leg behind him. Every step was agonising, and he knew the stitches were unlikely to hold, but he had no choice. He was in no condition to sto
p and fight. He would make the Crew pay for their treachery, but not today. He could hear yelling and screaming behind him, but he had to remain focussed on his next goal - reaching the centre staircase twenty yards away. When he reached the wide concrete staircase the stench of urine and waste permeated his nostrils. Why did people use public staircases as toilets? He had never worked it out. Grabbing the mild steel handrail, he lowed himself to the next step and a spasm of pain shot from his leg, up through his sciatic nerve into his back. The agonising rictus froze him to the spot, and he had to hold on as dizziness and nausea washed over him. The feeling passed after a moment or two, and he descended the stairs one excruciating step at a time.

Somewhere behind him he heard his name being called out, and he knew he had only minutes to find sanctuary. As he reached the next landing he moved along the deck to the third door. The door had once been a bright blue but was now faded and washed out as a result of neglect. The flat behind the door was not so much a home as a place of work. He rang the bell, praying that the occupant would answer quickly. He was fading fast. His peripheral vision was being overcome by impenetrable blackness, and he knew from experience that when the blackness expanded to fill his circle of vision, unconsciousness would follow. Usually, unconsciousness would be welcome, as it would free him from pain, but not this time. This time, it would leave him at the mercy of the Crew. H
e would probably never wake up.

The door was opened by a scrawny woman in a bathrobe. Her make-up was massively overdone and her heavily applied lipstick was smeared. Her face, arms and hands were thin, and he knew that beneath the robe she was just as emaciated with almost no breasts. She looked like a pre teen pretending to be a woman. Den pushed his way in and t
old the girl to close the door.

“Sophie,” Grierson’s voice was frail and fading. “Lock the door. The flats are under siege; don’t open the door for anyone.” Sophie looked scared. Only minutes earlier a client had left the flat. He had been rough and demanding. She, too, was sore, but she could see that her
boss was more in need of help than she was. She helped him into the bedroom, where he collapsed unconscious onto the soiled bedding, still wet and sticky from bodily fluids.

***

Mikey knew the planned escape route from the flat included the little-used central staircase, and so he dragged Metal Mickey in the other direction, to the narrower staircase
that ran down the side of the flats.

The young black gang leader was bleeding badly from the mouth, and Mikey had to
support him to get him to move.

“You’re a dead man, Mikey, you and Den both!” Mickey spluttered as blood sprayed from hi
s mouth over the concrete deck.

“Bloody hell, Mickey! What’s got into you? You can’t go around killing people and get away with it. Call the Crew off before it’s too late. You have what you wan
t. Be magnanimous in victory.”

He could see from the blank expression on the boy’s face that neither the sentiment nor the wor
ds had been fully comprehended.

Mickey and Mikey were at the head of the staircase when a gang of feral youth tore up the stairs towards them. They were all wearing the gang member purple hoodies with the sleeves cut off at the elbow, showing off their fo
rearm body art. Mikey spoke up.

“OK, boys. Let’s all calm down before this gets out of control.
Dennis has left the Farm and I’m leaving quietly. Stand aside, and when I’m clear of the stairs Mickey can return to the warm embrace of his family.”

It was a standoff that would have seen Mikey survive unhurt and Mickey take over the flats, and everyone on the staircase knew it. Mikey could snap Metal Mickey’s neck with one quick twist delivered by his overdeveloped arms, and he would probably take half the Crew members with him, as most of them were undernourished teens between thirteen and sixteen. However, the balance shifted unexpectedly when the door of the flat behind Mikey opened a
nd an enraged old lady emerged.