Two-Faced (38 page)

‘So long as you’re not planning to go into it full time and sack off the other stuff,’ Davy said, concerned about his own business, because Steve was the biggest supplier – with the best gear – in Manchester.

‘Behave,’ Steve shot back brusquely.

‘Relax,’ Davy drawled, putting together some Rizlas. ‘Liam’s my boy, and he knows the score every which way. He used to work for me, and then he went down for me, which puts him right up there for me – you gets me?’

‘Could you do me a favour and take that over there,’ Steve asked, jerking his head in Faz’s direction. ‘Just so me and Liam can have a quick chat and see what we think of each other.’

Nodding, Davy carried his half-loaded spliff to the table.

‘So, you took a rap for him?’ Steve asked, still eyeing Davy.

Shrugging, Liam took a swig of his drink. He didn’t really appreciate having had his business broadcast like that, because he’d made a vow to go straight, and he’d been sticking to it. The last thing he wanted was for people to think that he was dodgy, because dodgy attracted dodgy, and before you knew it you were being sucked into shit you didn’t need to be involved in.

Looking at Liam intently now, Steve nodded thoughtfully. He too worked on instinct, and his instincts told him that this man was not only loyal – as he’d obviously already proved by taking a rap for Davy – but also trustworthy.

‘Want to show me what you got?’ he asked.

‘That go all right?’ Davy asked when they left the club half an hour later.

‘Yeah, cool,’ Liam told him, climbing into the back of the car. ‘We’ll be getting together again in a few days.’

‘Nice, nice,’ Davy drawled, starting the engine. ‘So, where to now? Hotel, or back to mine?’

‘Think I’d best get my head down.’ Liam yawned loudly. ‘I overdid it at a mate’s stag do last night, then I was up and out by six this morning, and it’s really starting to catch up on me.’

‘Lightweight,’ Davy scoffed, grinning at him in the mirror as they set off.

After ordering himself a bottle of JD from room service, Liam took a shower. Lying on the bed with the towel wrapped around his waist after his order had arrived a short time later, he poured himself a large drink and gazed at the screen. An old episode of
Columbo
was showing, which didn’t help keep him awake. Feeling his eyes growing heavier, he finished his drink and reached for the remote – just as the adverts came on. He found himself looking at Mia’s face for the second time that day.

Gritting his teeth when she smiled, and softly purred, ‘
Let Blaze bring out the goddess in you . . .
’ he pressed his finger firmly down on the off button, dissolving her treacherous face.

Having used his charms to extract the room number from the receptionist, Davy rode the lift up to the fifth floor and hammered on Liam’s door until he opened it.

‘I thought I said I’d ring,’ Liam grumbled, rubbing sleep from his eyes as Davy walked into the room. ‘I was flat out, man.’

‘How old are you?’ Davy snorted. ‘I’ve got ten years on you, and I’m a stone-head, but you don’t catch
me
sleeping before five a.m. It’s only eleven, man. You got fucking narcolepsy, or something?’

‘No, and you’ve got
twenty
years on me – at least,’ Liam shot back, his humour returning as he began to wake up.

Saying, ‘Shut the fuck up and get dressed, you tosser,’ Davy poured himself a large drink and sat at the small breakfast table by the window, glancing around the room. ‘How much this shit costing you?’

‘Seventy-five a night,’ Liam told him as he pulled on a fresh pair of jeans.

Davy’s jaw dropped in disbelief. ‘You pulling my plonker?’

‘That’s not that bad.’

‘Jeezus, I’m in the wrong line,’ Davy muttered, shaking his head. ‘I wasn’t even charging that for a
week
in my place.’

‘That’s different. This is luxury, that’s a shit-hole.’

‘
Was
a shit-hole,’ Davy corrected him.

‘Don’t tell me you’ve finally put your hand in your pocket and shelled out for repairs?’

‘As if! Nah, didn’t I tell you what happened?’

Shaking his head, Liam sat on the edge of the bed to tie his laces.

‘It blew up,’ Davy told him, grinning gleefully as he made an explosive gesture with his hands. ‘
Kaboom!
’

‘Christ, was anyone hurt?’

‘Well, not hurt exactly,’ Davy replied nonchalantly. ‘The old alkie and the junkie died straight off, so I doubt they felt anything. But the girls had already left by then, and that strange kid was out. Some kind of gas leak, according to the report. Nowt to do with me.’

‘That’s terrible.’ Liam shook his head.

‘No, it ain’t, it’s wicked,’ Davy countered happily. ‘The dump’s been levelled without me having to fork out for scaffolding, and planning permission’s just been granted to shove up a block of flats, so I’ll be quids in once I get shot of it.’

Liam gave him a suspicious look and said, ‘And when did you start planning that – before or after the explosion?’

Smiling slyly, Davy said, ‘Fucking hell, it’s a good job you weren’t on the investigating team or I’d have been well rumbled, eh?’ He got up and headed for the door. ‘Anyhow, come on. You’ve held me up long enough with your poncing about. There’s liquor going to waste out there.’

‘Where we going?’ Liam asked as he kicked his case under the bed and followed him out.

‘To a pussy club,’ Davy told him, rubbing his hands together. ‘Only don’t tell Viv, or she’ll chop me nuts off.’

Davy’s so-called pussy club was actually a dark little jazz club on a backstreet behind the university, where live bands played the kind of experimental shit that Davy was secretly into but which very few other people seemed to be able to make any sense of. His main boys were sitting at a table off to the side of the stage, and Liam was surprised to see Darren Mitchell among them.

Davy introduced the guys that Liam hadn’t met before – and reintroduced a couple that he had in case he’d forgotten their names – before he ordered drinks all round. Then, getting down to his real reason for meeting up here, he passed under the table to each of them a bag of the white heroin, which he’d cut liberally with bicarb and weighed out to the gram.

Business out of the way, the boys were free either to go or to stay and socialise with the boss. And, Davy being a generous man who kept the alcohol flowing, most of them stayed.

Uninterested in the seemingly made-up-on-the-spot noise that the three weirdy-beardy musicians were producing up on the stage, Liam found himself glancing at his watch every few minutes, thinking that there had to be a better way to spend his first night back in Manchester. Now that he was properly awake, he’d have preferred to do a tour of the city-centre clubs. Dublin was amazing for nightlife, but there was no beating a good Mancunian DJ spinning the latest tunes.

Darren caught his eye after a while from across the table and jerked his head, mouthing, ‘Coming for a smoke?’

Glad of an excuse to get away from the music, Liam got up and followed him out onto a tiny balcony at the rear of the club.

‘Christ, this place is shit,’ Darren complained as soon as they were alone.

‘So why did you come?’ Liam asked, sticking his hands into his pockets and leaning back against the flimsy wrought-iron guard rail.

‘’Cos this is where Davy likes to meet up to hand out the gear,’ Darren told him, lighting the spliff he’d rolled. ‘
He
sorts us, and
we
deal with the streets. I suppose this is his way of keeping us tight.’ Exhaling his smoke now, he said, ‘Didn’t know
you
knew him?’

‘Yeah, been mates for years,’ Liam said, thinking it best not to mention that Davy was part of the reason why he’d been inside, otherwise Darren might get jumpy. ‘How come you got involved with him, though?’

‘There was nothing else going for me after I got out.’ Darren shrugged. ‘I’m not knocking Davy, ’cos he’s been safe, and at least I’ve got regular money coming in. But dealing fiver bags of smack to idiots ain’t exactly my idea of fun. I really thought I’d be doing something better with myself by now, but you know how it is.’

Liam accepted the spliff when Darren offered it to him and took a deep drag. He was surprised. Having been celled up with Darren for several months, he’d kind of dismissed him as a no-hoper. Partly because of the bullshit he’d come out with when he’d first gone down – although Liam was aware that that was a defensive mechanism most guys employed to let the others know not to mess with them. And partly because he’d spent every free minute in the gym pumping iron, then every night flexing and admiring his muscles – which had been a major irritation for Liam. But mainly it had been Darren’s obsession with Mia and all the pictures he’d insisted on pinning up of her that had made Liam dismiss him as a knob.

In hindsight, he supposed that Darren couldn’t have known what Liam’s problem was, seeing as Liam never actually mentioned his own connection with Mia so he shouldn’t really have held it against him. And he seemed perfectly all right now – as long as he didn’t start banging on about her again.

He did.

‘Remember the girl I had all the pictures of when we were on lock-down?’ Darren said, taking the spliff back. ‘Mia Delaney – the model.’

Liam sighed heavily and nodded. ‘What about her?’

‘She’s well famous now,’ Darren said proudly. ‘There’s posters of her all over, and she’s on TV as well, in an advert for some make-up.’

Liam muttered a bored-sounding, ‘Really?’ and tried to change the subject. ‘So, how long have you been working for Davy?’

‘Months,’ Darren told him dismissively. ‘Anyhow, remember how I told you I used to go out with Mia? Well, I met up with her again after I got out.’

‘Good for you.’

Looking suddenly wistful, Darren gazed down into the club’s dark backyard. He’d spent months telling anyone who’d listen that he and Mia had picked up right where they’d left off, but somehow he couldn’t bring himself to lie to Liam. The guy had been moody when they’d been banged up together, but there was something about him that commanded respect.

‘Actually, it wasn’t that good,’ Darren admitted, saying out loud the words which he hadn’t even wanted to think in private. Sighing, he took another deep pull on the smoke. ‘I thought she still felt something, ’cos we had one of them eye-to-eye moments – you know? But she’d got herself hooked up with some rich twat, and his minder caught me off guard and gave me a right going-over.’ He paused briefly, a glint of anger leaping into his eyes as he remembered that night. Then he went on. ‘Anyway, it all went a bit balls-up after that, ’cos my mate’s bird – who used to be
her
best mate – took pictures of her snorting coke in the loos and sold them to the papers.’

‘Really?’ Liam gave him a disbelieving look. Bad as Mia had been, she hadn’t struck him as the kind of girl who’d get into coke. But then, she’d play-acted her way through their entire ‘relationship’, so who knew
what
she was really into?

‘It was a bit weird the way it turned out, actually,’ Darren went on, frowning now. ‘After Laura’s story came out, Mia did an interview saying it was her twin sister in the pictures and not her. But Laura reckoned it couldn’t have been, ’cos Michelle wasn’t like that. It
was
the sister, though. I’d really thought it was Mia at the time, but it made sense after I found out, ’cos she’d been well too skinny, and she’d acted dead weird with me. Anyway, their mam said it was Michelle, so you can’t argue with that, can you? And Mia’s still fit as hell in her adverts, so . . .’ Trailing off, he exhaled wearily.

Feeling sorry for him, because he obviously had it bad, Liam said, ‘I take it you haven’t seen her since?’

‘Yeah, I’ve
seen
her a few times, going in and out of the house. But she’s always with her mam and some fat bloke, so you can’t get anywhere near her.’

‘And what happened to her sister?’ Liam asked, making it sound casual.

‘Well, I know she went into rehab for a while, ’cos it was all over the papers about Mia taking time out from her modelling to support her. But nobody’s heard much since then. There was a rumour that her mum had locked her in her bedroom ’cos she’d caught her at it again, but you just don’t know, do you?’

Saddened, because he remembered Michelle as being intelligent and gentle, and it sounded as if she’d completely screwed her life up, Liam shook his head.

‘So, what you been up to since you got out?’ Darren asked, able to talk about something else now that he’d got Mia off his chest.

‘This and that,’ Liam told him evasively, glad that Darren didn’t already know, because at least that meant that Davy hadn’t been broadcasting his business to everyone even though he’d told Steve Dawson. And the fewer people who knew that he was in town carrying diamonds, the better. Darren seemed to have matured but that didn’t mean he could be trusted. He was a smack dealer, after all.

‘It’s shit when you’ve got a record, isn’t it?’ Darren murmured regretfully. ‘You don’t think when you’re a kid. You just do what you’re doing and fuck the consequences. But soon as people hear you’ve been banged up, forget it. You ain’t going nowhere.’

‘There’s something out there for everyone,’ Liam assured him. ‘You’ve just got to decide what you want and go for it.’

‘That what you did?’ Darren gave him a look that was part respect, part envy.

Nodding, Liam watched as he flicked the little red-tipped roach into the yard. ‘Ready to go back in?’

‘Yeah, best had.’ Subconsciously hanging back to let Liam lead the way, Darren trailed in behind, saying, ‘Do us a favour . . . don’t tell Davy and the guys any of the shit I just told you about Mia. Only I’ve done a fair bit of bragging about her, and I wouldn’t want them to know the real score. You know how it is.’

Liam told him that his secret was safe and went back to the table. After sticking it out for another half-hour he decided that he’d had enough. He’d only come along to spend a bit of time with Davy, but Davy seemed quite happy playing Big Daddy to his crew so he doubted he’d be too put out if Liam left. Liam made his excuses and promised to hook up again with Davy soon.