The Drop (6 page)

‘Of course, he had a good eye for the headlines the old “hanging judge”. I thought at the time it was quite a coincidence how his carefully considered sentences all added up neatly to ninety-nine years.’

‘Terry Marshall got thirty-two years,’ and he whistled like he was impressed, ‘minimum recommendation was twenty-five. The judge may have liked headlines but he had a good sense of humour an’ all. There’s Terry standing in the dock at his age and he says “I can’t do all that time” meaning he is going to be long dead by the end of his sentence and do you know what the judge said. “Do your best,” and DI Clifford laughed until he almost choked. “Do your best?” You should have seen the look on poor Terry’s little face. I mean imagine it, you’ve robbed and thieved and battered and murdered till you are at the top of the whole shitty pile and how do you spend your last days; sharing a tiny cell for twenty-three hours a day with a mugger and a rapist until you finally die. He’s got to be asking himself every hour of every day what was it all for?’ he paused to let that sink in, ‘that’s how it ends for people like him - but it doesn’t have to be like that for everybody who works for the top boys.’ He leaned forward like he was sharing a conspiracy with me. ‘You know Bobby Mahoney is on a list don’t you? I mean right at the top of that list, along with a few cockneys, a couple of Scousers and some Jocks I could mention.’

I tried to look blank, ‘New Year’s Honours?’

‘SOCA’s hit parade.’

SOCA or the Serious Organised Crime Agency, was created with the merger of the National Crime Squad and the National Criminal Intelligence Service, to become an organisation the tabloids had taken to referring to as the British F.B.I. They were meant to tackle drug barons, people traffickers and large scale money laundering.

‘It’s like top of the pops,’ DI Clifford continued, ‘only you don’t want to be in their chart and I wouldn’t be surprised if Bobby isn’t number one with a bullet. The man most wanted. You know they have a list of all the major players in organised crime right across the country and they are gunning for them all. They are going to get them too. You know who’s in charge at SOCA, the former head of MI5, Britain’s Counter Intelligence service, the spooks. They fought the cold war, the IRA and Al Qaeda so they are going to make mincemeat of your lot.’

‘So why are you even here?’ I asked, ‘if they are that good, you can just sit back and relax and watch while the show happens all around you.’

‘I am here to offer you a way out. Your only way out, come to mention it. Cooperate with me and when the wheels do come off, as they will, spectacularly, you’ll have at least one friend who can put a word in for you when it matters. Otherwise you’ll be just another pretty boy getting gang-raped in the showers at Strangeways.’

‘Cooperate? How exactly?’ I asked him calmly.

He straightened, full of adrenalin now. He was doing a selling job on me and I could tell he was pretty sure I was interested, ‘tell me what you know and maybe it will be easier for Bobby if his local nick does the arresting. I might even be persuaded to bust him on lesser charges just as long as it takes him off the streets. We could focus on his role in the vice game and play down his little drugs empire?’ He said that last bit like I should be impressed he knew we were shifting drugs. Well whoop-tee-doo. He folded his arms smugly and sat back in his chair.

‘Know what I think?’ I asked him, ‘honestly want to hear it?’

‘Go on,’ he urged me.

‘You’ve got nothing and you’re shit scared. You’re worried that SOCA are going to carry out some huge bust up here on your new doorstep and you’ll be left standing there like the ugly bird at the party no one wants to dance with.’ He seemed a bit taken aback to be spoken to like that.

‘How long have you been a DI, Clifford? A bit too long I’d say, from the look of you. Bet you were the star Detective Constable weren’t you, but then most of them are fucking numpties. Maybe you were even a fast-tracked DS but somehow it hasn’t happened for you has it? You were standing on the dockside in your cheap suit and you’ve missed the boat? And what’s all this ‘we’?
We
busted the Marshall Brothers,
we
brought them down. The guy who really made that bust is well high up in the funny handshake brigade by now. He’s probably Assistant Commissioner, at least. Am I right? And you, you’re stuck up here in the grim old north, miles from home. Bet the wife hates it and secretly hates you too these days. Frankly Clifford, you look tired. You’re classic heart attack material. I can smell the desperation on you from here. I reckon you’d give someone a blowjob if they made you Superintendent. Well I could make you a Chief Super overnight, so are you going to suck me off now or what?’

He didn’t say a word. He just sat there trying to rein in his fury. I think he was actually trembling with rage at that point. I wondered if I was about to be on the receiving end of a bit of good, old fashioned Police brutality.

‘It’s alright Clifford,’ I told him, ‘you don’t have to worry, you’re not really my type. Now why don’t you fuck off out of my face and take the other Chuckle Brother with you. My wine is getting warm.’

He pointed his finger at me as he rose from his seat, ‘you won’t be laughing.’ he said, jabbing it at me, ‘you… won’t… be… fucking… laughing… ’ it wasn’t exactly Noel Coward but I was surprised he could string the words of a sentence together the way he looked. I guess I’d touched a nerve. I don’t normally like to rattle the cages of the local law enforcement and I try to keep it from turning personal. They’ve got their job to do and we’ve got ours and I never want to give them any more incentive to come after us than they’ve already got, but this cocky fucker needed taking down a peg for thinking he could turn me into a grass. I reckon he’d be up half the night churning my words over in his head, wondering if they were at least partially true.

Clifford walked out, leaving DS Sharp to trail after him. Sharp went a bit over the top, turning back to me, and shouting, ‘we’ll be back!’ but I supposed he had to play the part.

...................................................

I
t was dark and cold and threatening rain as I climbed out of the car outside my apartment. I couldn’t wait to get inside in the warm but then Vince called, ‘I’m at Mirage. You need to come down here and see something.’

‘Now? It’s not my brother again is it?’

‘Not this time.’

‘It better be important Vince, it’s late and I’m knackered. I’m not coming down there if some prat’s glassed someone on the dance floor. You can handle that.’

‘No it’s not that,’ he assured me, ‘I wouldn’t bother you with that.’

‘Well what then?’

‘It’s hard to explain over the phone,’ he said, ‘you’re better off coming down here, believe me.’

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘I’m on my way.’

I climbed back into my car.

I called Finney and picked him up on the way over to Mirage. It was a venue we had a full share in, part bar, part nightclub. The idea was to get the young ‘uns into the bar with cheap happy-hour offers then, when they were pissed and happy, encourage them to pay to get through a set of double doors into the night club. The music was good, the crowd wasn’t too rough and we made decent money out of the place. Obviously our own boys manned the doors on both the bar and the club, so I couldn’t imagine anything that could have gone seriously wrong in there.

‘You don’t think one of Benny’s lads has gone ape and killed some muppet do you?’ asked Finney.

‘I hope not,’ I said, ‘the paperwork would be a nightmare. They’d close us down for sure.’

The place was still open when we got there and fairly busy for a Monday, late evening, but there was no one on the door and that was more than a bit strange. I told a barman to fetch Vince and we waited for him to make an appearance. I clocked Finney looking up at the big screen where they were showing videos on MTV.

‘Look at that preening prat.’ He didn’t bother to disguise his disgust. I looked over to see what had offended him.

‘What’s wrong with him?’ I asked.

‘What’s wrong with him? To start with his shorts are at half mast. How can he walk in them? I’ve not seen shorts like that since Stanley Fucking Matthews. He’s got a dog lead round his neck and a plaster on his face. What’s he done? Cut himself shaving? There’s bum fluff on his lip and he’s wearing a hat I wouldn’t have on at the beach. Who is he? He’s a disgrace.’

‘That’s Nelly.’ I told him.

‘Nelly? For fuck’s sake,’ he snorted, ‘I used to have an Aunt Nelly,’ he jabbed a sausage-sized finger at the screen, ‘and she was probably harder than him.’

She probably was, if she was related to Finney.

When Vince showed up I asked him, ‘why is there no one on the door?’ in reply he simply jerked his head to one side to indicate we should follow and took us behind the scenes to the little office with the CCTV monitors in it. ‘You need to see this,’ he said, pushing a button to play a scene he had obviously set up for us.

We watched in silence as a grainy black and white image appeared. We got a bird’s eye view of the lobby between the bar and the club. There was, as always, one of our girls standing behind the counter waiting to take the entrance money. Nearby, in front of her counter, stood the huge, hulking figure of Benny Evans and one of his lads, looking like a couple of sentries on guard duty. They had on the regulation uniform, black shoes and trousers, white shirt, black leather jackets. They were all bloody enormous guys on our doors but they needed to be, to deal with the tanked up specimens we were serving.

The image on the screen kept changing, flashing back and forth between the door of the bar where, sure enough, two more of our lads were standing right where they should have been, and the lobby of the club.

‘So far, so normal,’ said Vince.

‘Just what are you showing us here?’ I asked but before he could answer the scene outside the bar changed. It all happened so fast. There was a blur of movement as two big, heavy-set guys with shaven heads literally ran into view and went straight for our doormen. Our two guys were caught by surprise but they were used to dealing with dirty fighters. It made no difference to the outcome though, as blow after blow rained down on them. It took them all of their guts and strength just to stay on their feet, let alone fight back. Before they dropped, and they did drop, two other blokes - the same types, big buggers with close-cropped heads - went flying between them and on into the bar. You could just make out some frightened punters in the background stepping out of their way.

They disappeared from view but came back into it straight away, as soon as the screen changed to the scene in the lobby by the club doors. Nobody had raised the alarm with Benny and his man. It had all happened too fast for that. The two new guys went straight for Benny and his bloke and the scene repeated itself. It was a carbon copy of the fight outside, with the addition of Kathy, our poor cash-desk girl, ducking under the counter and, though we didn’t have the benefit of volume, more than likely screaming her head off in the process. Our lads were well surprised but at first they held firm. Fat lot of good it did them. Their only reward was a serious pummelling. When they finally fell to the ground, the shaven heads waded in with their boots, and as soon as all four lads were out cold, the shaven heads turned on their toes and marched off. The whole thing took less than two minutes. It was amazing. If it had not been our lads on the receiving end I’d have probably been seriously impressed.

‘Fuck me,’ said Finney, ‘where did those twats come from?’

‘No idea,’ said Vince, ‘it happened just like you saw. They came in, they decked all four of our lads and gave them a proper kicking, then they left, didn’t take a thing, didn’t say a word, just did what they came here to do and went. Our boys are all in hospital. I sent Kathy with them. That’s why there’s no one on the door.

‘I’ll make a call,’ I told him, ‘get you someone down here. I doubt they’ll come back again tonight but in case they do… ’

‘What good will it do?’ He asked me. ‘I’m not being funny but you saw that… ’

‘We’ll make sure the next lot have baseball bats,’ said Finney.

‘Fuck that,’ I told him, ‘I want them armed. Those guys weren’t just a bunch of arm-chancers or local lads with a grudge. Someone was sending us a message.’

‘Yeah, probably best to be tooled up after this,’ Finney conceded.

‘Have you ever seen Benny Evans take a beating like that?’ I asked him.

He shook his head, ‘I’ve never even seen him take a beating.’ He banged his fist down on the desk, ‘I don’t care how hard they are, I’ll fucking murder them. All of them, personally,’

‘Give me that tape,’ I ordered.

‘What are you going to do?’ asked Vince

‘Show it to Bobby.’

‘He’ll have someone’s eyes for this,’ said Finney.

I took the tape up to Bobby’s house. It was a big mansion style building in Gosforth. The posh-end as he liked to call it. He’d come a long way since he was a youngster. The house lay behind two massive wrought iron gates.

Bobby poured us both a drink, ‘you can come through, Sarah’s at her mate’s house.’ Sarah Mahoney was the one person who could wrap Bobby round her little finger. She was twenty years old, had gone off to college a year early and was now graduated, back home and living with the old man again. Her graduation picture held pride of place on his mantelpiece. She was still beautiful, even in that ridiculous get-up they make you wear when you pick up your certificate. I think Bobby was delighted she was home and he was in no hurry to move her out. His missus had been dead nearly ten years now and he’d shown no interest in replacing her. He had women when he wanted them of course, but nothing permanent. Like every dad I’ve ever met, he thought his girl was the most special thing on the planet. Bobby would have done anything for his daughter, anything.

He watched the tape silently then asked me, ‘what the fuck does this mean?’

‘I think someone is testing us, sending us a message. They are trying to say they can take over whenever they like.’

‘That’s bullshit.’

‘I know but I think that’s what they are telling us.’

He thought about this for a moment, ‘Who has got the balls to come after us like that?’

‘What about Anderson? There was that row in Ibiza.’

‘Nah, he wasn’t too happy about it but he’s got too much on his plate for this. His accountant’s not as slippery as ours. Now he’s got ARA all over him ‘cos he can’t explain how he’s got the house, the cars and all the bling with no visible means of support.’

ARA was the Assets Recovery Agency, tasked under the Proceeds of Crime Act with confiscating the ill-gotten gains of career criminals. Sensible people always had legitimate businesses to demonstrate where their income came from, which is why Bobby owned pubs, clubs, restaurants, a catering company, a property agency, even a couple of newsagents, anything with legitimate turnover that we could use to launder cash.

‘Didn’t he have anything legit?’

Bobby shook his head, ‘stupid bastard was still signing on in Toxteth.’

‘That is sticking two fingers up at the man,’ I said, ‘queuing up at the dole office with your Rolex and a wodge of drug money in your back pocket.’

‘He’ll need benefits by the time they’ve finished with him. They filmed him secretly for one of those uncovered, fly-on-the-wall documentaries,’ and he shook his head, ‘I tell you, if that Macintyre bloke came near me looking to make a name for himself I’d stick him in the boot of his own car, lock it and push it into the Tyne, I really would.’

‘I know you would. How about our friends in Glasgow?’ I offered, ‘the Gladwells?’

Bobby thought for a moment, ‘too old, maybe ten years ago but not now. We’ve had our scrapes me and Arthur Gladwell but we always sorted them in the end. Imagine the stress of being the Top Boy in Glasgow for that long.’

‘There’s a lot of competition.’

‘They’re fucking psychos up there. Remember, it was us that built the wall, to keep those buggers out.’

‘I’ll have to remember to tell Laura that. Her old lady’s a Scot. So you don’t think it’s him?’

‘Gladwell? No, too old, too busy and he’s got enough on his plate keeping his boys out of trouble.’ He’s got four sons. Remember we met the eldest and his shrew when we went up there a couple of years back to sort out that construction scam? What was her name again?’

‘Martine,’

‘You called her Lady Macbeth.’

‘With good cause,’ I assured him, ‘but not to her face. She was as sour as a bag of lemons that one.’

‘Imagine fucking that,’ and he whistled as if he was contemplating the demands of the SAS selection process.

‘Tommy Gladwell must have done it, at least a couple of times. They’ve got two kids.’

‘He’s a twat that bloke.’

‘Known as ‘wee Tommy Gladwell from what I remember, even though he was fat and forty by then.’

‘He’s like all the Gladwell lads, carries on like he’s hard as nails but he can’t shit without his old man’s permission and now he’s got his wife involved in his business, imagine that,’ he clearly thought that was taking feminism a step too far.

‘London then?’ I suggested.

‘Met’s all over it. You’ve got Super grasses and SOCA, the ARA and not to mention all the competition, Albanians, Russians, Yardies and Turks. Who’d have time to come up here?’

‘Maybe they think it’d be easier?’ he gave me a filthy look, ‘I’m not saying they’d be right mind but, you know, with some people, the grass is always greener,’

‘It’s possible,’ he conceded then reconsidered, ‘no, no, you’re telling me that some fat cockney twat’s gonna come all the way up here, shooting his mouth off, while we let him get away with taking over the place? Nah, I can’t see it, can you?’

‘I dunno,’ I said, ‘it happened to the football club.’

He laughed so hard at that I thought he was going to choke.

‘Who then?’ I urged him when he’d calmed down.

‘What about closer to home?’ he asked.

‘You mean our crew or beyond?’

‘Either.’

‘Our mob? Only one man with the balls and the brawn and, how can I put this nicely? I can’t. He’s not got the brain.’

‘Finney? I know and he’s loyal, at least he always has been and we pay him a lot. I mean what’s he going to spend it on? He wouldn’t make a boss and I can’t see him working for anybody else after all these years. So, not Finney, anyone else?’

‘I’ve thought about it, obviously I have. I’ve thrown out all my preconceived ideas about these men we’ve been close to for years but even then I just can’t see any of them having the capability or desire to be the boss.’

‘What about Jerry Lemon?’

‘What about him?’

Bobby shrugged, ‘he’s been with me all this time,’ he said, ‘maybe he wants to be Top Boy?’

‘I thought about it,’ I said, ‘but honestly? No, I can’t see Jerry Lemon wanting to take you out of the equation. He’s loyal enough and sensible. He knows he’s making good money right where he is. So, no, I don’t think so.’

Bobby chuckled, ‘that’s what I like about you son,’ he said, ‘I heard all about the way he spoke to you down at the snooker hall, ‘course I did. He treated you like a cunt but when you get the chance to whisper in the bosses’ ear about him, maybe get him on my bad side, you play a totally straight bat. Did it even cross your mind?’

‘Yeah,’ I admitted, ‘but only for a second. So Jerry Lemon doesn’t have me on his Christmas card list, so what? If he’s bitter about something that’s more about him than me.’

‘Trouble with Jerry, he’s old school. He doesn’t like you because he reckons you’ve never paid your dues. You’ve not killed men for the firm, you’ve never been inside or had to punch your way out of the gutter like he had to, like I had to. We both had to fight on the streets every day when we were young, fight for everything, and you didn’t, but that isn’t your fault and it doesn’t make me come over all sentimental for the old days, because they were shite. Jerry had a very hard life when he was a nipper and it’s affected him, but basically he’s a good bloke. I’ve told him right enough that you’ve put money in all of our pockets one way or another. He’s admitted to me privately that the stuff you do keeps us all out of jail but don’t expect him to give you any credit for it.’