The Damage (David Blake 2) (6 page)

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J
aiden Doyle had a spring in his step. Perhaps it was the weather, which was milder than usual for the time of year, maybe it was having some money in his pocket, or possibly it was to do with the new threads. There was something about the right clothes that could make you feel like you fit in. The ones he’d just bought seemed to have had the right effect on Palmer and Kinane. Things had definitely not been anything like so pally the last time they’d seen him.

A month earlier, he’d gone to the same Quayside hotel with messages from the Sunnydale estate and a word or two about the week’s takings, along with a request for some more stash. You would have thought the supply of junkies willing to pay top dollar for H would eventually become exhausted, even on these shithole estates, but they couldn’t get hold of the drugs quick enough. Jaiden thought that David Blake’s two closest lieutenants would have been happy to hear that but, when he met them, in the bar of one of the Quayside’s fanciest hotels, they had torn Doyle a new arsehole.

‘What do you think you look like you scruffy fucker?’ growled Kinane before Jaiden even opened his mouth. The firm’s enormous enforcer was giving Doyle a look like he was contemplating snapping him in half.

‘Eh?’ It took Jaiden a moment to realise they were talking about his clothes, and he wondered if Kinane had a problem with his eyes. Scruffy? Everything he had on was brand spanking and all of it killer reem. Doyle reckoned he looked pretty slick. There was a yellow, hooded Southpole top over a Super Dry T shirt and FUBU jeans worn so low over his hips that everyone could see the black letters of the Calvin Klein logo on the elasticated band of his undercrackers. He was particularly chuffed with his box-fresh bright white Nikes that didn’t have a scuff mark on them. The final addition was the long, thick gold chain round his neck and he kept the hooded top unzipped, so everyone could see it and the designer T-shirt it hung low on. He kept the hood up over his head. Where he grew up you didn’t want to be recognised by the police, remembered by a witness or spotted by a rival gang if you strayed from your home patch. Doyle thought an old hand like Kinane, a proper gangster who’d gone right to the top of the tree, would understand this but, instead, he gave the teenager a look of disgust.

‘Are you asking to get arrested?’ added Palmer. Kinane’s bulk made Palmer look small by comparison but, in reality, he was an average-sized bloke with a bigger than average reputation that revolved around the words ‘special forces’. Reputed to be a former member of the SAS or SBS, with a drawer full of medals and dozens of ‘Black Ops’ to his name, before quitting the forces and ‘coming over to the dark side’ as Braddock put it, Palmer was a muscly, shaven-headed, softly-spoken Scot with stubble on his chin; his accent was part Glasgow, part Geordie, thanks to his adopted home. Doyle didn’t know too much about the smaller man, except for the whispers on the street about his military career, but he did know he was just as senior as Kinane and was apparently ‘nails’.

‘Palmer’s been in wars and shit and killed, like, hundreds of people,’ Doyle’s mate Shanks informed him just days before the meet. It was true that those who worked in Bobby Mahoney’s firm afforded Palmer just as much respect as they did the far larger figure of Kinane. Doyle was careful to watch his mouth around both men, and certainly never set out to piss either of them off intentionally, but he couldn’t understand what their problem was. Dressed like this, Doyle reckoned he looked like Eminem or maybe a white Tinchy Stryder; proper Gangsta and a man not to be fucked with. His mates had all been impressed by his style but it seemed Kinane and Palmer didn’t share their enthusiasm.

‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

‘What’s the matter?’ Kinane growled the words back at him and Doyle experienced the fear that came with them, ‘You look like a complete cunt, that’s what’s the matter. You might as well walk in here with a bag full of H and an Uzi.’

‘You can’t come into a hotel like this, looking like you just stepped out of the Hood,’ Palmer explained. ‘You’re carrying a sign saying ‘Arrest me I’m a drug dealer’. Look around you, you tool.’

Doyle turned his head from side to side and looked at the other people in the bar, some of whom quickly averted their gaze like they’d only just stopped staring at him. The place was quiet, except for the sound of very dull piano music coming from the speakers, and the low chat of the other customers, all of whom were dressed like they were going to a wedding. They all had on jackets, and trousers, some even wore ties. All of a sudden it dawned on Doyle how out of place he looked. It had never before occurred to him that looking like a dealer, when you actually
were
a dealer, was a disadvantage.

He looked back at Palmer and Kinane. Both of them were frowning at him.

‘Soz and that,’ he stammered the apology and they continued to frown, ‘I didn’t know like.’

‘Well you know now,’ Kinane told him.

Palmer reached into his inside jacket pocket and started to write something on the back of his drinks receipt. ‘If you want to carry on being our eyes and ears at Sunnydale, get yourself down here pronto and buy something proper. I mean a jacket, trousers and some shirts. The kind of stuff we’re wearing. No hoodies, no trainers and no Bling. Understood?’

‘Yeah,’ he was nodding like a madman, desperate to keep his privileged and protected position as the messenger, the go-between for these men of power and Braddock, the man who ruled the Sunnydale estate on their behalf.

‘Blake gets his stuff from there. It’s quality,’ Palmer told him, ‘not that you’d recognise that if you saw it.’

‘And another thing,’ added Kinane.

Doyle had frightened rabbit eyes by now, ‘What?’ he asked.

‘Get a fucking haircut.’

Doyle returned from that meeting a month ago a chastened man. He still wore his own gear for working on the estates but, as soon as he could, he went down to the designer clothes ‘emporium’ Palmer had told him about and bought the clothes they had asked him to buy; trousers, jacket, some shirts. And he got the haircut. If Kinane told you to do something you weren’t stupid enough to wait until he asked you twice. He felt a bit foolish wearing those clothes as he left the estate but he had to admit that, once he was in town, he felt a lot happier. Doyle caught his reflection in a shop window as he passed by and he looked sharp.

Palmer and Kinane must have thought so too because they didn’t say anything about the way he looked, not at first. Instead they listened, hearing him out without interruption as he told them the latest take from the Sunnydale estate, which was down on the usual amount by a fair sum.

‘Who gave you that amount, Doyle?’ asked Palmer.

‘Braddock,’ answered Doyle, ‘it’s always Braddock that gives me the amount.’

‘And did he give you a reason?’

‘No, he never said anything about it.’

Kinane and Palmer showed no emotion at this news. They asked him a couple more questions, the usual day-to-day stuff, then they let him go. As Doyle reached the end of the bar, Palmer called out to him, ‘Oi Doyley,’ and he turned back to be told, ‘you look almost employable.’

Doyle beamed at Palmer then immediately felt self-conscious, turned and left the bar.

Doyle crossed the hotel foyer, silently cursing himself for looking so uncool in front of the big men. He’d smiled like a simpleton as soon as he received a bit of back-handed praise from a street legend. He left the hotel wondering if they would ever take him seriously.

Doyle was about to cross the road to follow the riverside path back towards the Quayside. No one, least of all Doyle, saw the gunman as he emerged from the shadows behind him, raised his hand, pointed his Makarov pistol and shot Jaiden Doyle twice in the back.

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‘T
hey want me to set up a job for them, using a local man,’ explained Peter Dean.

‘Who does?’ asked Billy.

They were sitting at a table in Billy’s flat, a chaotic place that made Dean’s tiny flat seem ordered by comparison.

‘Never you mind Billy,’ said Peter, ‘
they
want to remain anonymous. That’s why they are paying me. You can think of me as the client, if you like.’

‘Yeah, well, I don’t care, do I? All I care about is the money and what the job is…’ Billy seemed suddenly to recall that nobody had actually told him what was required yet, ‘What kind of work is it?’

Peter Dean took a deep breath and said, ‘A hit.’

‘A hit,’ Billy laughed, but then he noticed that Dean wasn’t laughing, ‘you’re fucking joking, aren’t you?’

‘I’m deadly serious,’ said Peter.

Billy’s mouth opened like he was about to form the words of a reply but he didn’t say anything. Instead he thought for a moment and finally said, ‘that’s not what I do. I just deal.’

‘You don’t have to pull the trigger yourself, that’s the beauty of this. I just want you to find a local man who can do it for us, tell him all about the fella these guys want to remove, give him some inside information to help him complete the job, then pay him and see him on his way.’

‘Why don’t these people just do it themselves then? Why pay us?’

‘They’re not from round here and, like I said, they want to remain anonymous.’

‘Right, I see,’ said Billy, ‘well it’s their money I suppose,’ he took a drag on his cigarette, tapped it against the ashtray, then added, ‘talking of which, what are they offering?’

Peter told him and Billy whistled like he couldn’t believe it. ‘Who is the bloke then? The one they want removing?’

For the second time, Peter Dean took a deep breath. This was the moment where he risked everything, up to and including his life, on a single roll of the dice. If he had misread the situation, if Billy didn’t really despise David Blake, or was too scared of him, if he simply wanted to get back into Blake’s good books by telling him there was a plot against his life, then Peter Dean was a dead man. But then Peter was as good as dead anyway, without the funds needed to prop up his fading empire. So he told Billy Warren who the target was.

‘David Blake? Are you sure?’ Billy’s eyes widened as Peter nodded, ‘Jesus fucking Christ man!’

There was a moment when Peter fully expected to be asked if he was mad, before witnessing the nightmarish prospect of Billy picking up the phone to David Blake or, worse, Joe Kinane, then Billy said, ‘that’s a hell of a risk you are asking me to take.’

Billy didn’t believe that though, not really. He was used to ducking and diving, always had been and he was already pretty sure he could sort this, without actually going anywhere near the sharp end himself. Delegation; that was what was required here. He could put a lot of space between himself and this job if he planned it right and the money was, well, astounding. When the amount was mentioned, Billy couldn’t believe his luck. Jesus, who did they think they were going to kill, the Prime Minister? Peter explained he would receive half once the hit man had been approached and engaged, and the rest once the job was completed.

‘Interested?’

‘I might be.’

‘But can you do it?’ asked Peter. There was a worried look on the older man’s face like he suddenly thought he might have overestimated Billy’s contacts. ‘Do you know the right man to make this happen?’

‘Oh yeah, no sweat,’ answered Billy, ‘I know a bloke that would do it easy,’ he assured Dean, ‘in fact he’s exactly the man for this job.’

‘So,’ asked Peter, failing to hide his nervous excitement, ‘are you going to do it?’

Billy took another long drag on his cigarette, ‘I’ll have to think about it,’ he answered, ‘won’t I?’

‘What’s so important I have to drop everything and fly over there? I was with you a couple of weeks back,’ I was in the computer room on the first floor taking the promised call from Kinane. ‘I thought you and Palmer could handle everything.’

I turned my seat while I listened and looked down through the open window so I could see Sarah’s slim shape cutting gracefully through the water, rolling from side to side as she powered towards the far end of the pool.

‘I know,’ Kinane admitted, ‘we can, usually.’

‘It’s not Braddock again, is it? You’re not still banging on about him.’

‘No it’s not him,’ he assured me, ‘but while we are on the subject I have to say…’

‘We are not on the subject,’ I told him firmly, ‘you just said it wasn’t him. You know my view on Braddock. Just leave it.’

‘Yeah and you know my view an’ all,’ he told me, but my silence was enough to shut him up, ‘it isn’t Braddock.’

‘Well?’

‘We’ve got some problems,’ he sounded almost sheepish.

‘What kind of problems.’

‘I don’t know where to start.’

Sarah finished her lengths and climbed out of the water. She walked over to one of the loungers and picked up a large white towel, then began to dry herself with it.

‘Start with the bad news,’ I said, ‘then give me the other bad news.’

‘Amrein’s been on,’ he said, ‘says he has to have this meeting with you about the Gladwells. It’s urgent, he reckons.’