The Damage (David Blake 2) (31 page)

‘What? Are you serious? He’s just stolen the whole fucking consignment! You know how much that’s worth. This is declaring war on you. And on us. After we went in there and you warned him, he goes and does this. He doesn’t give a fuck about us. If we don’t fix this then we are going to look like total mugs. Who else is going to steal from us if we let this go unpunished? They’ll be lining up to take us on!’

Every word Kinane said was true but I couldn’t go to war on two fronts right now, not with Danny in hospital and Gladwell’s contract killers trying to take us all out.

‘Here’s what I want to happen,’ I told him. ‘Palmer is going to talk to Braddock. He is going to tell him I am furious that the drugs have been lifted from under Braddock’s nose and he has to retrieve them and kill the bastards who’ve done it.’

‘But
he’s
fucking done it!’ Kinane was bawling at me now.

‘I know that, Joe. But don’t you think Braddock has got his boys on full alert right now? He’ll have them all pumped up from robbing your lad and now they’re dug in waiting for us to race down there like General Custer and the Seventh Cavalry. If we do that it will be a bloodbath on both sides. It’s not worth it.’

‘Then what are we going to do?’

‘We throw the ball back into his court, we wait to see what he does, and we bide our time. We’re already at war with the Gladwells, I don’t want a war with Braddock’s crew at the same time. So Palmer will tell Braddock there’ll be no more drugs until the last consignment is recovered.’

‘They’ve got enough to last them a month,’ Kinane reminded me.

‘And right now they are living large and spending money they haven’t earned yet. When the drugs run out they’ll feel it.’

Kinane was shaking his head, ‘I don’t believe this. I don’t believe what I’m hearing. I’ve never even questioned you before…’ he was talking to me, but he suddenly switched his attention to Palmer, ‘…you can’t tell me you agree?’

This was a tricky moment. If Palmer agreed with Kinane I was pretty much finished. If I was lucky, the mutiny would be bloodless.

There was a long silence from my head of security. ‘Well?’ demanded Kinane.

‘I think he’s right,’ he said, and for a moment I didn’t know which one of us he meant, ‘we can’t go charging in there while they are expecting it. Let them drop their guard, then act.’

‘Jesus Christ!’ shouted Kinane. ‘I would have expected better from you!’ he told Palmer, then he stormed out of the room.

‘Thanks,’ I said.

‘I told Joe you were right,’ Palmer said, ‘but I’m not sure you are. This waiting for the drugs to run out, it’s a dangerous policy right now.’

I knew what he meant. Braddock would probably know we were at war with the Gladwells and had only acted now because he thought we were preoccupied with them. Once I’d let the drugs run out on his estate, Braddock’s obvious next move would be to buy from Gladwell, giving our enemy a toe-hold in our city. It was the nightmare scenario for all of us. I just hoped he wasn’t bright enough to spot it.

*

Sharp and I were back in the apartment because we didn’t want to be seen together in public. ‘What have you got for me?’ I demanded.

He shook his head, ‘Nothing.’

‘That’s not good enough Sharp. I told you…’

‘Believe me, I am trying everything I can,’ he snapped. ‘I’m speaking to too many people on this one and sooner or later he is going to know there’s a cop from your neck of the woods asking questions about him and then I’m a fucking dead man.’

‘So you’ve spoken to a bunch of villains, all the bent coppers you know and even the honest ones and you’ve found nothing I can attack him with? I don’t believe it. For a gangster, he’s squeaky clean.’

‘I’m telling you that’s how it is. The guy just runs his crew, nowt else. He sells drugs but he doesn’t do them, his men respect him, even the hardest ones like that Fallon do what he tells them to because he has things tight, the money keeps rolling in and they all get paid on time. He never goes anywhere without a few of his crew around him so a hit is out of the question. When he’s at home he stays in with his missus, who he’s known ever since they were at school together, and his kids.’

‘What about a mistress, girlfriend, boyfriend even?’

‘I thought of that too. I was hoping there’d be a bird somewhere, or at least some hooker he shags when he’s bored, but there’s no one. He’s with his crew all day then it’s back to the big house, set back from the road, CCTV everywhere and men watching over him. I guess he’s learned from his brother’s mistakes.’

I didn’t say anything for a moment.

‘What do you want me to do?’ he asked.

‘Get back out there, keep looking, there must be something.’

He looked like he was about to start crying, ‘please, you don’t know what you’re asking me to do.’

‘Yes I do,’ I assured him, ‘I need you to do this. It’s important.’

He put his hands up to his head and pressed them hard against his skull like he was trying to stop his head from exploding, then he said, ‘you don’t get it, do you. You are going to get me killed.’

‘In your game that’s an occupational hazard, Sharp. Now get back out there.’

‘Christ man…’

‘Gladwell knows everything about us. He knows where I go, who I see and where I shack up when I’m over here. We’ve got nothing on his crew that I can use against him. I want something on Gladwell and I want it quick. Find me a weakness. Because if I don’t get one his crew will keep picking us off one by one until there’s nobody left, and you needn’t think you’re immune. If you don’t deliver, I’ll make sure he hears you are part of my outfit. You got that?’

‘Yeah, course,’ his head was bowed now. He looked terrified, but I couldn’t tell who he was more frightened of; me or Alan Gladwell.

‘Good, because you know something?’

‘What?’ he looked up at me then.

‘You are on the right side, believe me. He might have three times as many men, but he’s stupid. We are going to win and, when we do, I won’t forget your part in it. You’ll be well looked after.’

Sharp nodded, ‘Yeah, cheers,’ he mumbled, but he obviously didn’t believe a word of it. I’m not sure I believed it myself.

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

I
t was getting dark when I walked out onto the roof of the Cauldron, which was turning into a second office for me. I could talk to people without fear of being overheard. I could smoke up here and clear my head. Palmer was out there already, gazing out at the city. ‘What is it Palmer?’ I asked him, even though I had a pretty good idea.

He turned to face me. ‘How do you mean?’

‘You’ve had a face like a smacked arse for days now,’ I told him, ‘so out with it. What’s on your mind?’

‘You really want to know?’ he asked.

‘I wouldn’t ask if I didn’t.’

He took a drag on his cigarette to fortify himself then said, ‘I keep thinking about what we did to that guy,’ he wasn’t looking me in the eye. ‘Him shooting Danny gave you every right to finish him but what we did?’ He took another draw on his cigarette while he was choosing his words and said, ‘it wasn’t right, leaving him like that. We should have killed him. What we did wasn’t right,’ he repeated. Palmer turned away from me. He was leaning forward, head bent, elbows resting on the railing.

‘It wasn’t just spite,’ I told the back of his head, ‘what I did to that guy wasn’t only revenge for my brother, though I’ll admit that was a big part of it.’ I stood next to him and we looked out over the rooftops together.

‘I wanted him to suffer, really suffer, but that wasn’t the only reason.’ He looked at me doubtfully. ‘Kinane will leak the story. Don’t worry, he isn’t going to be telling anyone who was involved, but he will let the word get out that the man who shot my brother died in the worst way imaginable, that we chained a man up and walled him in while he was still breathing. That way, the next time anyone even dreams of coming up against us, they’ll think again.’

‘Reckon it’ll work?’

‘How many times have you heard the story about Joe taking that gangster ten miles out into the North Sea on a fishing boat and chucking him overboard?’ I asked.

‘A few times,’ he admitted.

‘What did you think when you heard that?’

‘That I was glad it wasn’t me,’ he admitted.

‘Exactly. The same goes for the one about Alan Gladwell cutting that bloke’s cock off. Well, now there’s a new story doing the rounds that will make people realise we don’t fuck about down here. Would you come up against us if you heard that death is the least of it?’

‘I don’t know,’ he said, ‘truthfully, I don’t.’ I had never even seen Palmer looking tired before now but tonight he looked all-in.

‘Okay,’ I said, ‘tomorrow you go down there with a JCB or a bulldozer, whatever you can get your hands on at short notice. Take a couple of Kinane’s lads with you to be on the safe side, make sure they have their shotguns. If the guy’s as dangerous as you say he is, I want no fuck-ups.’

‘I hear you.’

‘Flatten the place. By nightfall tomorrow I don’t want to be able to see a trace of that building, do you understand?’

‘Yeah,’ I could hear the relief in his voice. Personally I didn’t give a shit about the grinning bastard. I reckoned he’d be at least half mad by now anyway, after all this time in that dark hole, but I needed Palmer back. I needed my main guy to be bright, alert and on my side again. I knew permitting him this small victory would change things for the better. Maybe he’d even sleep tonight.

‘Palmer, make sure that nothing comes crawling out of that rubble, you hear me?’

He nodded slowly, ‘I’ll see to it,’ he assured me, ‘you won’t have to worry about a thing.’

Me, not worrying about anything? That was almost funny.

I spent the evening at Simone’s apartment or, more accurately, I spent it in her bed. Since that first evening together I’d not had much time to even speak to her on the phone. She seemed to understand that Danny’s well-being was the most important thing to me, so she kept her distance but I got text messages from her and occasional voice mails; short messages that seemed innocent enough and never alluded to the fact that we had slept together. After a few days I went back there and I’d been twice more since then. I didn’t see any harm in it. I don’t have a normal life and my stress levels are probably a hundred times higher than a regular guy’s, so why shouldn’t I allow myself this little diversion? I didn’t see us as a permanent item though. She was damaged goods, and not just because of her shifts down at the massage parlour. There were things going on in her head that I didn’t think I’d ever be able to fix.

She dozed off next to me and I was just thinking about leaving when Sharp phoned me, ‘I’ve got something, it might not be much, but it’s something.’

‘Let’s hear it.’ I spoke quietly at first and left Simone’s bedroom so I didn’t wake her.

‘It comes from a low-level grass, a street dealer who pays a man, who pays a man, who pays Gladwell.’

‘Go on.’

‘Alan Gladwell is going away for a few days. Out of the country. It’s business, apparently, but he’s not taking anyone with him,’ that struck me as more than a bit odd, a man of Alan Gladwell’s profile travelling abroad without protection. ‘I know this because he’s put his brother Malcolm in charge while he’s away.’

‘How do you know he’s not taking anyone else with him?’

‘I don’t, for sure, but I did some digging and it turns out he has been doing this regular lately, just goes off and doesn’t take his crew with him. Doesn’t even tell them what he’s up to but there’s a rumour he’s out east, negotiating with a new supplier about a shipment, and the word on the street is that it’s a big one, a very big one.’

It seemed we weren’t the only organisation seeking alternative suppliers after the arrest of the Haan brothers.

‘He goes off without taking his own guys to watch his back?’ This sounded all wrong to me.

‘That’s how the story goes, and I didn’t buy it either, so I followed the guy.’

‘You followed Alan Gladwell?’ This was an even bigger surprise.

‘I know. I was fucking terrified. I didn’t want to do it but it’s like you said, if I can’t find anything on him, I’m a dead man anyway. I kept well back and I only hung on long enough to see where he went.’

‘And where did he go?’

‘That’s the strange bit. He got his driver to park over the road and made a big show of going into a Bookies, but he was only in there for a minute then he was out again. He glanced over at his car and, when he reckoned nobody was looking, he ducked into the place next door.’

Sharp paused to let that sink in.

‘A knocking shop?’

‘Nope.’

‘Sharp, I know you are pleased with yourself but I haven’t got all day. Where did he go?’

‘A travel agents.’

‘A what? Why would he do that?’ If Alan Gladwell needed a flight booking there’d be a queue of people who’d want to sort it out for him.

‘I figured he didn’t want anyone to know where he was going, not even his right-hand men or his brothers, in case they worked out who he was talking to. You’ve had problems with leaks in the past, maybe he has too. Maybe he doesn’t trust anyone with this deal, if it really is so big?’