Street Soldier (12 page)

‘Piece of shit,’ Ricky hissed through the pain.

Sean smiled. What he wanted to do was beat the slimy wanker into a pulp. He had no doubt that Ricky was the one responsible for his mum’s bruises. But he was almost as angry with himself as he was with the shit stain lying in front of him. If he’d stayed at home, not joined up, this wouldn’t have happened. He could have protected his mum, looked after her. He remembered
what Copper had said, back when he first decided to join up. The bastard had been right.

And so Sean kept smiling, and heaved Ricky to his feet.

‘Seems to me my mum’s entitled to a refund. So I’ll take it now.’ He held out his hand. Ricky glared hate at him, but reached into his pocket. And suddenly Sean found himself staring down the barrel of a revolver. It was pointing directly at his face, and it was loaded. Sean could see the ends of the rounds sitting in their chambers.

Ricky’s hand was shaking. Whether it was from the slap, or because he wasn’t used to the weight of a pistol, Sean couldn’t be sure. It didn’t make him feel any easier about what was going down.

‘Right, then, you shit,’ Ricky said. ‘Back off and get your bitch of a mother out here now!’

Sean raised his hands – not right in the air, just either side of his face. ‘Hey, you don’t need that, bro.’ He had to work to keep his voice calm, low. ‘We can discuss this.’

‘Shut up!’ Ricky screamed. ‘What? You think you can come back here and tell me what to do? You think?’

Sean focused on the weapon, taking in how Ricky was holding it – sideways, like an American gangster, trying hard to be cool. All that meant was that he was twice as likely to miss. When he fired, the gun would recoil, and the way Ricky was holding it, the shot could
go anywhere. And even if he’d been using it properly, it was one-handed, the end of the barrel waving around all over the place. He didn’t know squat about handling a weapon.

If he had been only a few metres away, Sean would have felt pretty confident, because what with the shaking hand and the recoil, Ricky would almost certainly miss him. But this close, even for a novice, missing him would be a lot harder.

‘Now, get your mum out here! Ricky’s waiting!’

‘Pricky can go fuck his own.’

Ricky raised the gun a bit higher – and Sean moved.

He hadn’t officially done the unarmed combat course, but he had practised with mates who had. Speed, aggression, surprise – that’s what you needed.

Ricky was holding the gun in his right hand. Sean darted to his left, Ricky’s right: his mates had said it was harder for a guy holding a gun in one hand to move it quickly in that direction. He wrapped the fingers of his right hand around the barrel and brought the heel of his left hand up under the hammer, and in one swift movement he had levered the gun out of Ricky’s grip. It was a textbook move. Ricky’s finger was still inside the trigger guard and it nearly came with it. He howled as Sean heard the snap.

With the same movement, Sean chucked the gun
away down the passage and threw his whole body forward into the guy, piling in with his right fist, smashing it hard and fast into Ricky’s face. Ricky’s nose gave way under a barrage of blows, blood bursting out across his cheeks. Sean drove on, pushing into him, punching, punching, punching, right arm pistoning into the guy’s head. Ricky collapsed in a shrieking, weeping, quivering heap. Sean stepped back and picked up the gun. Then, slowly, deliberately, he levelled it at his assailant. For the first time in his life, after all that training, he was holding a live weapon aimed at another human being. It was a strange feeling. And he held it properly, two hands on the grip, feet apart, arms straight, staring straight down the barrel at his target. Ricky stared at his finger, which hung down uselessly. Then he screamed again.

‘We were discussing a refund for my mum,’ Sean said. The skin on his knuckles had split and his hand throbbed, but he held the gun steady.

Ricky opened his mouth, and Sean thumbed the hammer back with a loud
click
. He had no intention of pulling the trigger, but Ricky wasn’t to know that. He fumbled inside his top and pulled out a thick wallet, which he threw down on the floor by Sean’s feet. Weapon still trained on him, Sean knelt on one knee to pick it up. He opened it with one hand and looked down at a thick wad of tens and twenties. Taking hold of the wad with
thumb and forefinger, he lifted it out so that the wallet fell away. Then he kicked the wallet back to its owner and stuffed the money into his own pocket.

‘Your refund is accepted. Now do us both a favour and fuck off already.’

Ricky was clutching his hand with tears in his eyes. His face was a volatile mix of rage, agony and confusion as he clambered to his feet. ‘You’re fucking dead. Your bitch of a mum owes me. Now you do too.’

Sean walked backwards to the flat and pushed the door open with his shoulders and arse, without bringing the gun down.

‘You can’t protect her all the time, soldier boy.’ Ricky spat blood, hunched over to protect his hand, while tears of pain ran down his spattered face. ‘I’ll be back. Those bruises I give her the first time? They won’t be nothing on what’s coming if she don’t pay up, and this time I don’t care how many extra shags I get out of her.’

Sean paused, halfway into the flat. Then he crossed the threshold again and approached Ricky with steady, measured steps, tapping the gun against his thigh. ‘Oh, Pricky,’ he said softly.

He had cut off Ricky’s escape, which Ricky suddenly realized – about the same time as he realized he should maybe have kept his mouth shut about the extra shags.

‘No . . . no, wait . . . please . . .’

He cowered back into a corner.

Sean feinted, pretending to drive his knee into Ricky’s groin. Ricky shrieked and bent double to protect his balls, which meant that Sean could grab the back of his neck and drive his knee in hard, for real. Sean let go and Ricky dropped to the floor. He retched a couple of times, then spewed vomit and blood over the passage.

Sean crouched down nearby, just out of range of the pool of vom. ‘You’ve got arrangements with the Guyz? I’m one of the Guyz and let’s just say your arrangement is over.’ He went back into the flat and shut the door.

He didn’t look at his mum as he worked out how to break the gun open. He dropped the bullets into his hand, then stuffed rounds and weapon into different pockets.

On the other side of the door, Sean heard Ricky call him a ‘dead man’ and a ‘fucking bastard’ as he retreated, stumbling down the landing towards the stairs. Then silence.

He stared hard at his mum. She looked back at him the way he had looked at her the one and only time she had caught him in bed with a girl.

‘Why didn’t you tell me, you dozy cow?’ he asked softly.

Her face seemed to crumple. ‘Because if I did, I knew you’d come and sort it out.’

‘And that’s a bad thing?’

‘Yes! You went through so much to get away from this place . . . I’d die if you got nicked again. I’d die.’ Her eyes were like a rabbit’s caught in the headlights, just before the Land Rover splatted over it.

Sean thought for a moment, then pulled her into a gentle hug. He gave her a kiss on the cheek and then rested his chin on the top of her head. ‘What happened?’

Finally she started to cry. ‘When PJ went . . . he took everything. Said he’d paid for it so it was his. And . . . and he cleared out the account because most of it was his money . . . and I didn’t feel safe without him and without you, so—’

‘So you started paying Pricky. Fucking hell.’ Sean closed his eyes, shook his head. ‘From now on you tell me everything, right? Everything.’

He gently pushed her away and clapped his hands together like nothing had happened. ‘So!’ He winced. Shit, his hand hurt. He flexed his fingers slowly to keep the blood flowing and stop them swelling up. ‘Cup of tea, you were saying?’

He would give it a couple of minutes before letting her know that he had to go out again. Unexpected business to attend to.

Chapter 12

Sean leaned against the concrete wall outside the flat and gazed into the night, at the lights from curtained windows. He stared at one particular set of curtains while he finished off his can of lager. Then he set it on the edge of the balcony, pulled out his phone and punched in the number. It was a new phone since he got nicked, new number, but he had copied over the contacts.

The sound of distant ringing went on too long. He was about to hang up when someone picked up at the other end.

‘Yeah?’

‘Matt?’

‘Nah, you’ve reached Justin Bieber’s private line. Course it’s Matt! Who’s this?’

Sean laughed. ‘Sean, mate. It’s Sean.’

Silence. Then, ‘Get out of here! Sean? Mate, where you been? How long’s it been since you joined up? You come to your senses finally?’

‘You around?’ Sean asked.

‘Why, you want to link up? That’d be sweet. Where are you now?’

‘I’m outside my mum’s.’

There was a pause, and then the curtains Sean was looking at were pulled aside. He gave a single wave with one hand; the figure in the window lifted a hesitant hand in return.

‘Sure, mate. Come on over.’

‘On my way,’ said Sean. ‘You decent?’

Matt laughed. ‘Yeah, I’ll make sure me and – uh – the wifey are dressed.’

Sean grinned. ‘Don’t know her name, do you?’

Matt had always made it a point never to have the same girl in his bed twice. ‘Just get yerself over here, you prick. Bring your balls, if you can remember where you left them.’

Two hours later, Sean found he had lost the power to say ‘Hectic.’

‘Het – hetci—’

He hadn’t got truly smashed since he joined up. He was out of practice and didn’t particularly want to get back in.

But that wasn’t washing with the people he was with right now. His return home – because that’s how everyone
saw it – had quickly turned into an excuse for a massive party. Booze was flowing, music was pounding, and a gentle haze of weed hung in the air, though so far Sean had successfully avoided having a spliff pressed into his hands. His arms and ribs ached from having his hand shaken and being pulled into hugs by people he knew, and a fair few he didn’t but who were drunk enough to think they did.

He had kind of hoped Curly might be there. No such luck. Curly had hit the big one – seven years for armed robbery, which kind of sucked for his pregnant girlfriend.

‘Hectic, mate.’ He had finally nailed it. He popped the ring on the can, took a sip. ‘Love it.’

He and Matt were crammed into a corner of the kitchen, which seemed to be the designated serious conversation zone. No one bothered them there. Matt had asked how the army was working out while he sank a deep glug from his own can. ‘Pissed a lot of folk off,’ he said, ‘you bailing on us.’

‘I didn’t bail,’ Sean said immediately.

‘That’s not how everyone sees it.’

‘Then why the celebration?’ Sean gestured at the bodies around them, dancing, laughing, talking. ‘Someone missed me.’

‘Hey, not everyone is not everyone, right?’ Matt said. He leaned over and rested his hand on Sean’s leg. ‘
I’ve
missed you, mate. Like a brother. After Gaz – that was fucking tragic; did you hear his old man died a few months ago, inside? Broken fucking heart. After Gaz, and Copper – well, he’s still around, but he’s got, let’s say, side projects – after Gaz, and Copper, there was . . . you. But the way you disappeared? That was shit of you. Well shit.’

‘I’m back now, aren’t I?’ Sean pointed out.

‘I’m serious,’ Matt said. ‘For some folk, you know, this is everything, isn’t it? We’re like family to each other. You leave, you cut ties, that hurts people. Unavoidable.’

Sean took a breath. He wasn’t pissed enough to forget the reason for coming over. ‘Like my mum?’

‘What do you mean by that?’

Sean told Matt what had happened. ‘And this guy says they’ve got an “arrangement” with the Guyz. An
arrangement
? Are we, like, hiring out now?’

Matt picked up his drink, but he didn’t take his eyes off Sean. ‘Interesting use of the word “we” there, Sean mate.
We
are the guys who hung around to look after things.
You
are the guy who pissed off.’

‘Except you ain’t looking after things,’ Sean said levelly, ‘if you’re letting pricks with guns from other outfits cruise the estate, beat up the people who live here and take their money. What’s going on?’

‘What’s going on, Sean, is that life is more complicated than it was when we was kids. You hang around, you
grow up here, you realize it. But you didn’t hang around, you sodded off to be a soldier boy, so all this has kind of passed you by. I can see it’s a leap to catch up, but you’ll have to make it. You get out what you put in. And your mum – shit, she’s a sweet lady, Sean, we all know that, but she don’t exactly put much in, do she? So she gets messed around, and there’s nothing to make it worth our while looking out for her. OK, OK.’ He held up a hand as Sean took a deep breath. ‘This guy was well out of order. We shall have words. But apart from that – well, she don’t look out for herself and you’re not exactly paying your dues.’

Sean slowly let the breath out again and stared at Matt, who was innocently downing the rest of his can. He had once looked up to Matt like any boy looks up to a hero. Now he was a stranger.

‘Fuck, you sound like Copper,’ he muttered.

Matt lowered his can. ‘Now, he’s one of those who thinks you bailed on us.’

‘Guessed that,’ Sean said. ‘But it’s nearly a year and a half since I last saw him. Surely the big tosser’s got over it by now.’

‘You can ask him that yourself,’ Matt told him. ‘He’ll be here in about ten minutes.’

Sean stopped his lager can halfway to his mouth. ‘You serious?’

Matt nodded. ‘Don’t worry though. He’s mellowed about it now. Sounded well excited when I told him you were here.’

‘You told him? Why didn’t you tell me you’d told him?’

‘Didn’t know I had to,’ Matt said. ‘Chill, all right? Copper and you go way back.’

‘Last time I saw him, I’d just smashed his face in.’

Matt stared and was actually silent for a second or two. Then he laughed. ‘Funny, he never mentioned that. But he’ll be over it now. It was a long time ago.’