Authors: Howard Linskey
‘Where’s Bobby,’ I asked him again, ‘what have you done with him?’
‘He’s in there,’ said Gladwell and he jerked his head towards the next room. Vitaly shoved me out of the room we were in and up against the door of the next one.
‘Open it,’ he ordered.
I pushed the heavy wooden door and it creaked open. I was peering into the darkness of a gloomy store room but I couldn’t see anything, ‘Bobby?’ I called.
Silence.
Vitaly pushed me into the room and turned on the light. At first I thought the figure in the chair was dead or unconscious, the body slumped, the silver hair streaked with blood from a blow to the skull. ‘Bobby?’ I called again and the head slowly came up.
Bobby Mahoney had been tied to his chair just like the others. I reckoned that was the only thing keeping him upright. His head lolled back again, he looked drugged or maybe it was just the effect of the beating they’d given him.
‘Bobby,’ I said it again, quieter this time, willing him to say something back to me but it was all he could manage just to return my gaze.
Gladwell was at my side, ‘I’m going to give you a chance boy,’ he told me, ‘just one, so think fast.’ Vitaly gave an order in Russian and one of his men handed Gladwell his Makarov, the Soviet era military pistol that was the weapon of choice for Eastern Europeans in our game. It was widely available on the streets of every city in Britain because it was cheap as chips.
Gladwell took out the magazine and ejected all of the bullets then he held it up so I could see and put one bullet back into the magazine before slotting it back into the gun. ‘You have a choice,’ he told me, ‘either this bullet goes in Bobby Mahoney’s brain or it goes in yours.’ Bobby finally made a sound. He actually laughed. It was a big, deep, mad laugh but I was astonished by his balls nonetheless. I wish I could have been that defiant.
‘What?’ was all I could manage.
‘Tell me,’ he urged, ‘I want to hear you say it,’ he cocked the pistol and pressed it hard against my skull, ‘him or you? Go on.’
I looked at him then I looked at Bobby, who was still laughing, like Gladwell had just said something really funny.
I didn’t want to say it. I didn’t want to say anything.
‘Say it!’ ordered Gladwell.
‘Him,’ I croaked the word out, too ashamed to look at Bobby.
‘Good lad,’ he said like it was the correct answer and he lowered the gun.
Vitaly and one of his men grabbed me and pushed me forward till I was no more than a few feet from Bobby then they released their grip. Vitaly pulled his own pistol and stood to one side of me, then pressed it against my head.
‘One move,’ he told me, ‘one move and… ’ he made a sound like a gun firing. I got the message.
Gladwell walked round to face me, standing between Bobby and me. ‘I’m glad you feel that way because you are going to have to earn your life today. We both know I need Mahoney out of the way,’ he told me reasonably, ‘so I want you to do it for me.’
‘What?’
He couldn’t be serious. He didn’t really want me to do it, surely.
Tommy Gladwell pulled my arm up then he pressed the Makarov into my right hand and wrapped my fingers round the cold metal of the gun. Before he released it into my grasp, the Russian pressed his pistol harder against my head.
‘One move,’ he reminded me.
Gladwell stepped away and walked behind me. I was left holding the gun in my outstretched hand and it was pointing straight at Bobby. He was staring back at me, serious now. The laughter had stopped.
‘Do it,’ urged Gladwell, ‘shoot him and walk away.’
‘Fuck off,’ I managed, ‘you’ll kill me anyway.’ I was still holding the gun in my outstretched hand. I could feel the barrel of Vitaly’s gun pressing into my skull and sweat forming on my forehead.
‘No I won’t,’ he assured me, ‘do this thing and we are even. I’ll put you on a train to London. You have my word.’
‘Your word?’ I didn’t believe he could be serious.
‘You’re basically a civilian. You’re no threat to me. What the fuck are you going to do on your own - without Finney, without Mahoney, you’re nothing! But, like I said, you have to earn your life. You have one round. Use it on Mahoney and live. Try and use it on us and Vitaly will drop you where you stand. But I won’t wait all day son. In a moment I’ll start counting down from ten and when I finish, Vitaly will kill you anyway if you haven’t done what I’ve asked. Then he’ll kill Mahoney.’
This didn’t make any sense to me. None at all.
‘Then why get me to shoot him?’
‘Because I want to make you do it.’
‘Why?’
‘To prove that I can.’
‘What’s the point?’
‘Oh fuck this,’ he suddenly lost patience, ‘Vitaly… ’
Vitaly cocked his gun, ‘No!’ I shouted, quickly, ‘I’ll do it.’ I was just desperate to buy some time. That’s what I needed. Time, to think, Christ, I needed time to think.
‘Ten…’ said Gladwell.
‘Wait,’ I said, my hand shaking so badly there was a chance I’d miss, even from here. I lowered the gun just a little.
‘Nine… ’
‘Fucking do it,’ said Bobby suddenly. Those were the first words he’d spoken since I walked in the room. His voice sounded incredibly weary all of a sudden, like he was tired of the game.
‘Eight…’ I levelled the gun again, pointing it straight at him.
‘Good lad,’ said Bobby, ‘you’re doing me a favour,’ and he actually managed a grim smile of encouragement.
‘Seven… ’
‘Do it, they’ll do it anyway,’ Bobby was selling the idea to me.
‘Six…’
‘Get out of here, find Sarah, look after her,’ so that was his reason.
‘Oh, she’s being looked after,’ said Gladwell and the Russians laughed.
‘Five.’
I tried to squeeze the trigger but I couldn’t. I tried again but my arm shook. I knew I was crying now like a little girl, tears streaming down my cheeks, my face all snot and tears. I let my arm drop and the gun fell to my side. My head went down and all I could see was my shoes. Next to me Vitaly said something that sounded like he was swearing in his own language.
‘You stupid cunt,’ Bobby told me.
‘Four.’
I tried to raise my arm again but I couldn’t. I just wanted to lie down on the floor and let them shoot me so it would all be over.
‘Three…’
‘Do it you spineless fucking cunt! Do it!!’ Bobby was screaming at me now.
‘Two… ’ I raised the gun again and pointed it straight at Bobby’s head.
He grinned, ‘I’ll see you down in hell Tommy Gladwell you fat little queer!’
‘One.’
‘Do it,’ screamed Bobby, ‘fucking do it!’
So I did. I blew Bobby Mahoney’s brains out.
...................................................
I
couldn’t take my eyes off Bobby. I couldn’t tear them away from what I had just done. That’s why I hadn’t even realised what Tommy Gladwell had been doing while I was killing my boss. It was only when his extended arm slowly came round in a big arc towards me that I realised he was holding a mobile phone. ‘Smile son,’ he told me, ‘you’re on Candid fucking Camera,’ he handed the phone to Vitaly who put it in his inside jacket pocket, ‘nice phone Vitaly,’ he said and then he laughed. It was a big, gleeful, triumphant laugh because he knew he had won. I didn’t care about that just now. All I cared about was the fact that I had just shot Bobby Mahoney through the head - and Gladwell had filmed the whole thing on Vitaly’s mobile.
I took one last look at Bobby; his head forced back by the bullet, brain matter splattered all over the white wall behind him, then they took the empty gun from me and hauled me out of the room.
‘Leave a couple of your lads to deal with the bodies,’ Gladwell told Vitaly, ‘put them in the incinerator.’
The Russian just nodded without enthusiasm. Why did I keep getting the impression Tommy Gladwell didn’t really have a clue who he was dealing with? Six months down the line, with the city under their full control, it could just as easily be Gladwell who was staring down the barrel of a Makharov, on his way to the incinerator. I couldn’t imagine these guys wanting to play the hired hands for long. They looked too bloody sure of themselves. None of that really mattered though. One way or the other, I was history.
I didn’t expect for one minute that Tommy Gladwell would honour his promise and let me go, even when they didn’t shoot me straight away, even when I was taken from the building, bundled into the back of the Porsche Cayenne and driven away. I was vaguely aware that my car was gone but I didn’t care. I still expected Gladwell to order them to pull over somewhere quiet, drag me from the car, and shoot me in the face, just like they had done to Geordie Cartwright, Jerry Lemon, and Alex Northam; just like I had done to Bobby Mahoney. As we drove back into the city I still didn’t believe it. I couldn’t have done it. I hadn’t just murdered Bobby Mahoney in cold bloke. I wasn’t muscle, I wasn’t a gangster, not really, but now it seemed I
was
a murderer. How the fuck had that happened?
We were getting closer and closer to the bright lights of the city and I had to stop myself from actually believing they weren’t going to kill me. I tried not to even think about the possibility they might let me go because then, when they didn’t, it wouldn’t hurt me quite so much. I was numb, inside and out, and the quicker this hell ended then the better it would be. I played out the scene in my mind over and over; everything that was said before it happened, me firing the Makarov like I was doing it in a dream, the bullet hitting the target, smacking into Bobby’s head, jerking him back, jolting his body in the chair like it was a crash test dummy and all the blood that blew up out of the back of his skull, painting the wall behind him, sending dark red splashes out over the chipped, white plaster. Jesus Christ, what had I done?
I was vaguely aware of Gladwell in the car, wittering away to the two Russians or was it to me, or perhaps he was just talking to himself. He was like some excitable child on Christmas morning who had just found out Santa’s been and given him everything he ever wanted.
Gladwell was in the front passenger seat, Vitaly was in the back with me and one of his men was driving. Gladwell kept shifting about in his seat, he couldn’t keep still and he was turning round to talk to us, ‘did you fucking see it, did you fucking see it?’ he kept asking us, ‘he just stepped up to the plate and bam!’ he banged his hand on the dash board in front of him, ‘I give this guy, this civilian, who’s never so much as punched a bloke in his life probably, a shot at the title, a once-only offer to save his life but he has to kill a bloody legend and does he take that chance? Too fucking right he does! Nooo messing! Bang! Ten seconds I tell him and he waits right till the last one and I was thinking, oh wait a minute, he’s not going to do this thing, then wham,’ he hit the dash board again, ‘he looks Bobby Mahoney in the eye, Bobby Mahoney mind you, king of the whole city, and he slots him, cool as you like. Oh, hello man, you were awesome son! You should be in my crew. Do you want to come and work for me, do you?’ they all laughed like this was a hilarious suggestion, ‘anyone needs slotting, he’s our Top Boy from now on, I’ll get him right on it. Oh yes! You’ve earned this son, you really have. But tell me, for the listeners,’ he held out his hand and angled his fist towards me, as if he was holding a microphone, ‘what’s it like to be the main man, the cock of the fucking north? How does it feel to kill a legend?’ I just stared right back at him because I had absolutely nothing to say to anyone, ‘no? Cat got your tongue, has it? Oh well.’
The car swung over the Redheugh bridge and followed the one-way system back round in a loop to the railway station. They parked in the short term car park outside. Gladwell, Vitaly and the driver got out and I followed them dumbly. Could it be true? Were they really going to let me go? Surely they wouldn’t just put me on a train like this - but how could they kill me now in front of hundreds of people at a railway station with everything captured on CCTV? Then I remembered the Russian’s little camera phone and Tommy recording Bobby Mahoney’s last moments on it. They were happy to let me go because they knew I couldn’t talk to anyone about this. How could I explain I ended the life of the biggest crime boss in the history of the north east? Even if the police accepted I was forced to do it under duress, there would be a big queue of people with short fuses and long memories, who would never be so understanding. Gladwell knew, as long as he had that clip on his phone he was Bank-of-England-safe, it was his insurance policy. I was in no fit state to even attempt to get it back from his Russian. It was perfect for Tommy. If anybody did try and link him to the disappearance of Bobby Mahoney, if the heat got too intense, he could make sure the powers that be received the footage of me shooting Bobby - then they’d be looking for me all over the country instead of him.
Letting me go wasn’t such a risk when you thought about it. From their perspective, there was really no one left to come after them now. Even Finney was dead and I’d always thought Finney was invincible. Bullets bounced off Finney, punches had no effect, he’d faced men with knives, guns, machetes and iron bars and come away with barely a scratch. If you took on Finney you ended up dead, or in hospital or a wheelchair. Nothing could stop him. But these Spetsnaz guys managed to bring him down in a night and they weren’t even out of breath.
The concourse was alive with noise, from the trains arriving and departing, from the chatter of people, from the high-pitched chirrup of the birds circling high above us. I stood under the big, old, metal clock with the Russians, while Tommy went into the ticket office. All around me, people were going about their lives and I watched them dumbly. I was aware of young couples meeting for Friday night dates. One in particular, a boy who met a girl from her train and they embraced, before linking arms then heading off into the city together. I used to be like that, lifetimes ago. They seemed normal, happy, hopeful, inhabiting a world I now realised I had left behind years ago. One which I was finally fully wrenched from tonight, at the exact moment I put a bullet through Bobby Mahoney’s brain.
I killed him, me, a civilian, not a gangster. I’m not that kind of man, yet I didn’t pause long before squeezing the trigger and sending a round into my boss’ head. How long had it taken? All of ten seconds. I had known Bobby Mahoney since I was a kid, been tied to him for good or bad, in one form or another, for more than two decades, protected him, looked out for him, taken his money and safeguarded his interests - and his daughter loves me, of that I’m sure. Yet how long did it take me to decide to end his life when the choice was put to me? Less even than a minute to betray everything I knew, just so I could stand here like a dummy on a cold station platform. And what did I get for it? Nothing much, just my life.
I killed a man.
I killed
the
man.
But I didn’t have any choice, did I? I mean, what else could I have done?
I suppose I could have called out at that point, shouted for help or the police but even in my shocked state I knew that was a really dumb idea. All the cops would be left with was a bit of CCTV footage of me being stabbed and dropped on the ground. They’d issue descriptions of some shaven-headed blokes who’d be back in Moscow before their identikit pictures appeared in the Journal. Even if they didn’t kill me, how could I explain what had happened? The police might not unreasonably deduce I was the real murderer when they received the clip from Vitaly’s phone. So it wasn’t going to happen. They’d won, they’d got me and they knew it.
All in all, I was astonished to be alive and I was almost pathetically grateful when Gladwell came out of the ticket office holding the long, thin piece of card that represented my freedom. I had to try very hard not to sob again at that point, because I was so relieved, ‘I bought you a first class ticket,’ he told me, ‘a little reward for killing your boss for me. I thought it would be nice to give you one last taste of the high life before you disappear for ever,’ and he smiled at me, ‘you know I almost envy you. You’ve been given a great opportunity. You can start all over again with no shite and no baggage, a clean slate. There’s many a man would kill for that, son. But then I guess you did,’ and he laughed again but suddenly his smile vanished. He leaned forward and told me, ‘just don’t come back, ever, you hear. If you do there will be no mercy from me. There’s nothing here for you now, everybody you ever worked with is dead and, if they’re not, they’ll be working for me when the weekend’s out. I’ll not be hanging around just now though. After all, I’m the man who shot Billy the Kid. I’m off to collect my missus then we’re away home on the late train. I’m going to have a hot bath and a nice meal when I get in. Tomorrow night my lads here will be doing the rounds. There won’t be a joint in the city that won’t know it’s under new ownership by midnight. You got that?’
I didn’t have the energy to answer him but I managed a nod and he took that as a yes. He stuffed the ticket into my jacket pocket and one of the Russians gave me back my wallet. ‘No credit cards but I left you a tenner in there,’ said Gladwell, ‘let’s see how far that gets you in London eh?’ and he laughed again, ‘put him on the train.’
The two Russians stood on the platform so they could see me through the window, making sure I didn’t try and get off but there really was no danger of that. They waited until the electric doors hissed then thumped suddenly closed and the train started to pull away before they turned their backs. By then I couldn’t have got off even if I’d wanted to and, believe me, I didn’t want to. Vitaly couldn’t resist lifting his hand in something between a wave and a mock salute.
It was late. I was all alone in my half of the first class carriage and I was glad of it. I slumped back in the chair and my head lolled to one side as the train went high over the Tyne, crossing the railway bridge, speeding away from the city that had been my home all my life, a place to which I knew I could never return. I was so tired I could barely muster the energy to hand over my ticket when the conductor walked through. Despite my exhaustion, the relief flooded through me. It wasn’t me in that chair in a lock up with a bullet through my head, it wasn’t me that had been tortured to death for the numbers of Bobby’s bank accounts and it wasn’t me that had been beaten unrecognisable because four ex-Spetsnaz men wanted to prove they were tougher than me. I was grateful for that. I should be grateful. I
was
grateful, definitely. But something was wrong.
I wasn’t grateful enough.
All the way down as far as Durham, I kept telling myself how lucky I’d been. I’d survived a war, a war that had killed all of my comrades. Like Gladwell said, I’d been given a chance to start again, to go legit, live like a normal person. When I arrived in London, a whole new world would open up to me. I could live a life without fear. I had half convinced myself I believed all of this by the time the train pulled into Durham station, the illuminated horizon of its castle and cathedral on the hill telling me that a half hour journey had gone by in an instant, so wrapped up had I been in my thoughts.
I stayed on the train. One thing I was definitely going to do was stay on the train. Getting off it would be suicide.
I was worried though. Gladwell had footage that could get me a life sentence should he ever feel like using it. And that was only half of it. What the hell was I going to do in London, realistically? What job was I qualified for and who was going to want to take me on? My business card said I was a sales and marketing director but I wasn’t. I was an ideas man for a gangster and they don’t advertise those posts in the paper. Getting a job like that is about trust and being known by the man who employs you. No one in London knew or gave a fuck about me.
That idea I used to have about owning a restaurant? I knew nothing about restaurants except how to eat in them. It was a load of shite, a dream no more realistic than the one I’d had about playing for Newcastle when I was a kid. Face facts. It was never going to happen. I was going to be nothing in London, a nobody. The money I’d get from selling my flat wouldn’t get me a cupboard down there. I’d end up pulling pints behind a bar or washing dishes in a hotel. Shit job, shit pay, shit life, might as well be dead, which was something I hadn’t thought about when they were pointing a gun at my head.
The train pulled away once more and something began to happen to me. Somehow the fear I felt when I thought I was going to be killed or tortured started to recede. It had become more like a distant feeling and was slowly being replaced by something else. Anger.