Harry was trying for his good housekeeping badge, tidying up what was left of the office, when Dillon and Jimmy walked in twenty minutes later. Dillon got the tool box from the bottom drawer of the filing cabinet and took out a hammer, chisel and screwdriver. ‘I got me sister faxin’ all the details direct to the bank,’ Harry told them, sweeping rubbish into a nice neat pile in the corner. ‘Cliff’s out buyin’ weddin’ bells.’ ‘If that bank manager was to come down here,’ said Dillon grimly, ‘we’d not get a post office savin’ book, never mind a loan.’ He gripped the hammer, a frown of concentration on his face as he stared at the broken elephant. ‘Newman kidnapped my kids for this…’ ‘For chrissakes, Frank,’ Jimmy panicked, ‘he just wants the bloody thing back!’ Dillon angrily shook off the restraining hand. ‘Nobody threatens me, nobody gets my kids, frightens my wife, and I just take it!’ His fierce glare made Jimmy back off. ‘What went down when you saw Newman, Jimmy? And don’t give me any bullshit —’ ‘Frank, I told you, I swear.’ Jimmy held out both palms towards the elephant. ‘He just wants that.’ Dillon raised the hammer, ready for an almighty swing, and then slowly lowered it. He blinked, and his jaw dropped. ‘Oh man…’ he said softly, almost mouthing it, ‘… it’s staring at us in the face. Newman deals in gems, right? What if these were real?’ He tapped the beads and coloured glass woven into the headpiece. ‘Look at the bloody size of them.’ Taking the screwdriver, he prised out one of the fragments, a cold blue fire in its depths, and placed it in the centre of the desk. ‘Okay, Harry — hit that with the hammer!’ Gripped in both meaty hands, Harry brought it down with all his eighteen stone. The desk split across the middle and caved in. All three down on their knees, muttering and cursing, scrabbling and searching. A glint amongst the debris. Dillon plucked it out and with a grin of triumph held it up — intact. ‘Bingo!’
The warehouse was in darkness but there was a light burning in Newman’s office. Dillon walked in without knocking. Under his arm he carried a shapeless parcel wrapped in newspaper. Jimmy stayed by the open door, trying not to look at anything specific, in particular Newman’s face, a pale, gaunt death mask in the light of the desklamp. Colin uncoiled from his chair, and Newman made a tiny fluttering motion with his fingers. ‘S’all right.’ He motioned the minder to leave. Colin went out, giving Jimmy a hard stare, and shut the door. ‘Sit down, Frank. Want a drink?’ Dillon placed the parcel in the middle of the blotter and folded his arms. Newman unwrapped it. His face didn’t alter when he saw the battered elephant, nor even the empty headpiece, the stones plucked out. He merely sat hack in his chair, his pointed tongue flicking out across the wide slit of his mouth. Dillon took a small canvas bag from his pocket and dangled it. ‘Eight crates. That was a big shipment, Mr Newman. Very decorative.’ ‘Very lucrative.’ Newman reached out. ‘Hand them over, Frank.’ ‘Five grand?’ Dillon’s face went ugly. ‘We been caught, we’d have got more than five years each.’ ‘I can pick your kids up any time, Frank — understand me?’ The soft voice, dipped in acid, was back. ‘This isn’t some two-bit racket, this is an organised —’ Enraged, Dillon said venomously, ‘And I can have the law pick you up — Mister Newman — any time. You want to play it that way…’ he nodded, ‘fine by me. If I’m not out of here in ten minutes, I got one of my lads waitin’ by a phone.’ He held up the canvas bag, clutched tight. ‘An’ if you want to try an’ get these by force —’ Dillon lifted his head and bellowed, ‘Harry!’ The door was kicked open. Framed in the doorway, Harry and a mate of his, built like a brick shithouse, had a furious, struggling Colin pinioned between them. Newman stared at Dillon, tight-lipped with fury, a tiny muscle twitching near his left eye. ‘How much?’ Dillon sat down and leaned forward, forearms flat on the desk. ‘I want a legit lease on the premises — four years’ll do. We’ll pay you a fair rent.’ Newman tried to interrupt. ‘I’m not finished. Plus, we want it re-wired, telephones installed, and an agreement to run a business on the premises. Then the damages to the furniture, re-decoration…’ ‘An’ that’s it?’ Newman said after a little silence had collected. He reached for a cheroot and moistened the end of it. Dillon nodded. ‘One more thing,’ and the husky softness in his voice made Newman pause in the act of lighting it. ‘I see them near my kids —’ Dillon turned his head and looked deliberately into Colin’s face and deliberately back again ‘ — then it becomes personal. I’ll do ten for you, Newman, understand?’
I’ll do ten for you, Newman, understand? He’d understood all right. In the flare of the match as he lit his cheroot, Dillon had seen it in the flat grey eyes. And Dillon had meant it. Not big, empty words, running off at the mouth, but the complete, literal truth. One more move like that and he’d gladly, willingly, definitely do for the bastard. Dillon blamed himself. Everything Newman touched was corrupt, rotten, and yet he’d allowed Jimmy to get them involved, given way easily and weakly just at the moment when he should have toughed it out. Better to go to the wall, jack it all in, than sink into Newman’s pit of slime. He wanted nothing more than to provide for Susie and the boys, but he’d be doing them no favours stuck in a prison cell for five years, Barry Newman’s prize mug and fall guy for one of his crooked enterprises. And that’s what would happen, as inevitable and predictable as clockwork. He was still tensed up, an odd mixture of anger and elation jumping inside him, when he arrived back at the estate just before midnight. Driving into the courtyard, Dillon saw Jimmy sitting in the jeep. He was slumped down in his seat, as if he’d been waiting for some time, holding a quarter-f bottle by the neck. There was something going down; Dillon didn’t know what, and he wasn’t keen on finding out. His skin felt prickly, as if charged with static electricity, his chest tight. He locked the Granada, taking his time, and strolled across. ‘I just dropped Harry off, then went to see if Cliff’s all clued-up for the bank manager.’ Dillon snorted ruefully. ‘He’s at his soddin’ weddin’ rehearsal.’ Jimmy wasn’t pissed. He’d drunk himself beyond that, into a kind of sullen, dead-eyed edginess, just this side of hysteria. His voice wasn’t at all slurred, but it was sneering. ‘Ah ha! Cliff goin’ into the bank, is he? I don’t believe it. I get the premises, get everythin’ set up…’ He stared. ‘Why, Frank? It should just be you and me at the bank, those two assholes’ll screw up!’ He jumped out, suddenly manic, jabbing his finger into Dillon’s chest. ‘This was us — partners.’ ‘The deal was the four of us, Jimmy. We’re in it together, but we want it legit — no scams.’ ‘You came out on top, an’ you could have asked ten times the amount.’ Jimmy’s tone was scathing, as if talking to a cretin. ‘Newman was laughin’ —’ ‘You can’t stay away from him, can you?’ It was an effort, but Dillon kept his temper. ‘Sooner or later you’ll go down.’ Jimmy turned away, as if to get back into the jeep, then he hesitated. He didn’t seem to know what to do, where to put himself, so he swung back, thrust out the bottle of vodka. ‘No thanks.’ Dillon watched him throw his head back, take a long swig. ‘There’s no easy money, no easy way, we got to do it by hard graft,’ Dillon said. He looked into Jimmy’s eyes, bloodshot in the corners. ‘If it’s not for you—’ Jimmy said nastily, ‘Oh, I see — this is the kiss off, is it?’ Dillon’s barely-controlled temper went up a notch or two. ‘Nobody’s kissin’ anybody off. You want out, say so, you’ll get whatever dough you put in.’ Jimmy swallowed hard, as if what he really wanted to do was cry. ‘Have a drink with me, Frank.’ Quiet, plaintive. ‘Frank!’ ‘No, Jimmy, not tonight.’ ‘When then? When Frank?’ ‘I’ll see you tomorrow.’ ‘You won’t, I’m gone,’ Jimmy said. ‘I’m out of here.’ He hurled the bottle against the wall. Dillon tried to take his arm. ‘Don’t be like this, Jimmy…’ Jimmy yanked free. ‘Get off me! Go in to your screechin’ wife and kids —’ He blundered forward swinging, a clumsy punch that knocked Dillon backwards. Jimmy’s eyes were hot and wild, urging him to take a swipe, goading him on. Dillon wiped blood from his mouth. He said quietly, ‘You’re pissed, Jimmy.’ ‘Am I? What about just pissed off!’ All of a sudden he seemed to cringe down, abject, pleading. ‘I want you to have a drink with me.’ Dillon said nothing. He just shook his head slightly, as if his tolerance level had finally, at long last, been breached. He was as confused as Jimmy in a different way, feelings of anger, contempt, pity and compassion all jangled together, making no kind of sense. As if realising he had overstepped the mark, Jimmy hesitantly reached out and touched Dillon’s burst lip. ‘I’m sorry… Frank, come on, you know, know I care about you. You need me…’ ‘No,’ Dillon said, muted, ‘you got it all wrong, I don’t —’ He went stiff. Jimmy had his arms around him, hugging him. He was crying, sobbing, like a broken-hearted child. Dillon felt Jimmy’s hot tears against his cheek, the scrape of his chin, and then the slobbering mouth as Jimmy tried to kiss him. Dillon stepped back, shuddering. He hit jimmy open-handed across the face. Jimmy took it and stood, head bowed, tears dripping down, and Dillon slapped him again, as hard and viciously as he could. ‘I’ve always covered for you, Jimmy, now I’m warnin’ you, you’re out. And don’t you come anywhere near my kids.’ He wiped his mouth where the blood had smeared. ‘You sick bastard.’ Dillon turned his eyes away from the wretched sight and walked towards the concrete stairwell. ‘It was a joke!’ Jimmy called out pathetically, attempting to laugh. ‘No harm done, eh? I just wanted you to have a last drink with me…’ Dillon kept going. ‘I’ve signed on the dotted line, Frank, I’m going to… Frank!’ Dillon entered the stairwell and started to climb. ‘Stuff you — stuff the security crap!’ Jimmy shouted. ‘This time next week I’ll be in Colombia,’ his voice bouncing and echoing round the brick tenements and concrete landings. ‘… Frank?’ Then raising both fists to heaven, he shouted with all his might, ‘FRAAAAANK!’ The echo boomed and died away. Jimmy let his arms flop down. ‘I love your kids, Frank,’ he said, wiping his eyes with the back of his hand.
On the second floor landing Dillon stood with his back to the wall, head resting against the concrete, listening to the jeep revving up in the courtyard below. It set off with a squeal of tyres and screeched round and round, like a lone dodgem car in a deserted funfair, headlights flashing against the buildings opposite, flashing this way as it turned, making a swirl of patterns on the underside of the walkways. Flashing lights of ambulances and fire engines on the ceiling of the upstairs room in Hennessey’s Bar. Smoke seeping through the floorboards. Downstairs an inferno. Taffy, Jimmy, Steve, Harry, Dillon’s lads, crawling through the smoke and flames, searching for the injured. Taffy lifting a beam to let Steve get through with Billy Newman. Harry holding up a table while Jimmy dived underneath to get the girl clear. All of them risking their necks, laying their lives on the line, not because of duty, not because of Queen and Country, but because that’s the kind of blokes they were. While the Malones of this world shat their pants and scarpered, this breed of men put their bollocks in a vice and got the job done. It was a privilege to know them, an honour to have served with them, a matter of pride that he was one of them, his mates, his lads. Nothing could ever break the bond, whatever the crap Civvy Street threw at you. Nothing was worth breaking it for. Dillon was running. He leapt down the stairs three, four, at a time. He cleared the last flight in a single flying jump and came charging into the courtyard as the jeep rocked on its springs in a last crazy turn and shot off into the street and vanished into the night. Dillon heard it screeching far, far away in the distance. Jimmy Hammond. His Bad Left Hand. But he would sooner have cut off his own right hand than lose him. ‘Jimmy… ah! Jimmy,’ Dillon said, staring into the darkness, his face wet. ‘I didn’t mean it.’ Dillon waited in the hope Jimmy would make one last trip back, wanting, needing to tell him, he didn’t mean it. The jeep never came back, and Dillon sat on the wall and looked at all the graffiti. He lit a cigarette, and inhaled deeply, letting the smoke slowly drift out of his lungs. He wondered if Jimmy would just forget it, waltz in the next day, give him that wink of his… Dillon knew that telling him not to see his kids would have cut into Jimmy’s heart, he did love them, half the postcards on their board were from Uncle Jimmy. Every Christmas the gifts came, he never forgot one of their birthdays. Jimmy truly loved Frank’s boys, maybe because he knew he’d never have any himself. Dillon pulled on his cigarette and wondered if he should call Jimmy until it dawned: he didn’t even know where he was shacked up, but that was Jimmy, his private life was always kept well out of access. It has been a strange sort of agreement they had made, even though it had been years ago. ‘What you do in the privacy of your own time Hammond, is your business, but, I don’t know about it, I don’t want to know about it, and no one else is gonna know — well not from me!’ Jimmy had stood with head bowed, his thick thatch of blonde hair as always immaculate, he stood as if expecting Dillon to say more, but when nothing else was said he slowly raised his head, looking directly at Dillon. There was no shame in his eyes, almost an arrogance. ‘I am what I am, Frank.’ ‘I know, but don’t let the blokes get so much as a whiff or your career’s out the fuckin’ window.’ ‘Yeah, I know.’ Jimmy, the bloke with no fear, the first man to volunteer to defuse a bomb, the bigger, the more dangerous the better, as if he liked the adrenalin, needed it. Jimmy, the soldier all the blokes reckoned was gonna roar through the ranks, Jimmy Hammond earmarked for officer material, if it leaked he was a queer, he would be out, and Dillon was the only man who had sussed him. It hadn’t been so much as sussed, he’d had a complaint from a recruit who never even made it through the training. Lucky for Jimmy, but it had been Dillon’s job to call it… At first Jimmy had denied it, called the young bloke a wanker, but then when told if he didn’t shut the fuck up and listen, it would go further, he had stood head bowed. ‘The kid’s useless Jimmy, he’s out of here, that’s why I am giving you this opportunity to come clean with me, to admit, admit whatever your kink is — and to keep it out of the barracks. Out… understand?’ Jimmy had given his odd smile, as if he still felt it was all a load of bull, but Dillon wasn’t going to let him bullshit him as he was able to do everyone else. ‘He was telling the truth Jimmy, he wanted to go over to medics, you beat the shit out of him, so don’t fuck around with me…’ Jimmy crossed to the window, again showing not a sign of what he was feeling, no body language gave him away, he was seemingly relaxed and almost joking. ‘Yeah, yeah, I’m an iron… what you want me to do, go to the CO, tell him, get chucked out?’ ‘You’re not hearing me right Jimmy, I reckon you’re one of the best men I’ve ever worked alongside, I don’t want to lose you, this is just a warning, one between you and me, won’t go any further. I’m just telling you to keep your private life private… that’s all, nothing else.’ Jimmy remained standing with his back to Dillon. ‘Na! I’ll quit, I’m not having that bunch start screaming woofter at me!’ Dillon wanted to hit him. ‘I’m not gonna spill the beans, like I said this is just between you and me, understand you great thick-headed bastard?’ Jimmy turned to Dillon then, there was a strange expression on his face, as if he was surprised, almost stunned. ‘You’d do that for me?’ ‘You’re one of the best, Jimmy, I’d go out on a limb for you, that’s what I’m saying.’ ‘Well thanks, Frank Dillon nodded, and was about to leave, when Jimmy laughed. ‘I suppose a fuck’s out of the question.’ Dillon turned, couldn’t help but laugh, he gave Jimmy a light punch, then clasped him in his arms. ‘Watch yourself eh?… This is just between you and me?’ They shook hands, and in all the years the subject had never been brought up again between them. Nobody ever did suss that Jimmy ‘Fearless’ Hammond, was an iron, nobody would have believed it and Jimmy took Dillon’s confab to heart, he never at any time referred to or discussed his private life. It remained his secret, and after he returned from any leave, he was the one with all the stories about how many women he had laid, only occasionally would he cast a hooded look at Dillon, but even that was a little furtive, as if he knew not to take it any further. Dillon had nicked Jimmy’s CV from headquarters, read that he had been brought up in a children’s home, but that was about all the background anyone ever really knew about Jimmy Hammond. What the file did contain was his recommendations, his qualities as a soldier always written up in glowing terms. Hammond was very much earmarked for officer material, although he was aggressive and was often in brawls with his superiors, but his ability in combat, especially in the Falklands, had been noted. There was even a special recommendation from Frank Dillon. Dillon tossed the cigarette down and ground it out, walking slowly up to his flat, up the stone steps, past the graffiti, and on to his own flat’s corridor. He leaned on the railings, staring into the darkness. He would probably never understand the Jimmys of this world, or their sexual predilections, they were an alien species. Dillon could never even contemplate the fact that Jimmy Hammond was obsessed with him, loved him deeply, and wanted him to himself. All Dillon knew was that he had hurt Jimmy, said something he knew would hurt, and that he was sorry for that, but it had to be said. Jimmy was dragging them into Newman’s world, and it was a world Dillon knew would be destructive. He went back into the flat, more at ease with himself, sure he had done the right thing, but deep down he sort of suspected Jimmy might not come back. He had in the end overstepped their rules, even though they were now in Civvy Street. Jimmy’s pitiful attempt at an embrace had broken the agreement; in a way it was a relief, a sad one, but nevertheless Dillon was relieved and, unlike Steve, Jimmy was a winner, he wouldn’t do anything crazy like top himself, he was too cool for that. Jimmy’d land somewhere, someplace on his feet, probably with a machine-gun in his hands, needing the rush of adrenalin, loving the edge of danger that cloaked in fury the small, abused, loveless child, who constantly searched for the father figure he never had. Not the mother, because it was his mother who had abused and beaten him, his mother who left him starving in a squalid bedsit for two weeks. Jimmy had been in care since the age of four in eight different institutions. His army records simply stated that he had been brought up in children’s homes.