I was pretty sure Danny would be okay. I couldn’t see why anyone, even someone who had been tailing me for weeks, would consider my bro to be anything other than a washed-up version of his former self. He was obviously a civilian who had nothing to do with any part of Bobby Mahoney’s business but, just to be sure, I had the Glock.
The bell has never worked as long as I’ve been coming here, so I banged on the door. No answer. I hammered again, a bit louder this time, and still he didn’t come to the door. That wasn’t like him. Danny wasn’t a heavy sleeper even when he’d been drinking. I reached for my keys and found the spare one for the front door that I kept on the fob for emergencies. This was definitely an emergency. I told myself everything would be alright, as I opened the door, but I was already beginning to have a very bad feeling about it.
My brother could be a bit jumpy, what with his war experiences and everything, so I made sure I didn’t burst in there unannounced. Instead I pushed the door wide and, before I stepped in, I called his name. No answer. The flat was quiet, the lights were on but he didn’t seem to be about. I called his name again, louder this time and that’s when I saw him.
Danny was sitting in his old arm chair in the lounge. Because his back was to me, the only bit of him I could actually see was his left hand, which was resting on the arm of the chair. It was quite still. My brother wasn’t moving.
‘Danny,’ I called quietly at first, because my heart had shot up into my throat, and it was stopping the words from coming out. How could he have not heard me banging on the door? Unless…
Oh no, not him, not my brother as well.
‘Danny!’ I called his name louder now. After all, he could be asleep. I told myself that he could be asleep but I knew he wasn’t asleep. A sleeping person would have heard me by now, ‘oh Christ,’ then I was running across the lino towards him. The bastards had killed my brother.
I reached the chair and in the same moment I put my palm onto his hand and leaned round to see his poor, dead face.
And he screamed.
Danny screamed. He spun towards me and grabbed me by the throat. Next thing I knew I was being lifted off the ground and I was so relieved to see his scared, startled, lovely face that I forget to be annoyed when he upended me in one instinctive, fluid movement and threw me down on the deck. Then he was standing over me, one hand tight round my throat again and the other pulled back and formed into a fist like he was about to smash my bloody face in.
‘It’s me, it’s me,’ I gurgled and at that point he seemed to snap out of whatever auto pilot he was on. His eyes narrowed in confusion and he looked at me like I’d gone mad, ‘you’re alive,’ I said, not quite believing it myself, ‘I knocked, I called your name,’ I blurted out by way of explanation, ‘Christ I thought they’d killed you.’ And it was only then I finally realised why he didn’t answer, why he couldn’t hear me. There was a long, thin, white wire hanging down from his ear.
‘I was listening to me iPod man!’ he told me with not a little irritation, ‘I said I was going to sort it,’ he was shouting, as one ear piece from the iPod was still in place, the other one had fallen out. He pulled the remaining one free, ‘anyway,’ he asked, ‘who’s supposed to have killed me?’
Palmer’s guy Toddy sorted me out with a BMW 7 series. He gave Danny his semi automatic. I issued instructions and they left without a fuss. Now that I had Danny with me I could leave Palmer to it.
In my pocket I still had the shabby little business card Joe Kinane had given me down at the Cronk. I reached for the new phone Palmer’s man had supplied me and dialled. Kinane answered like he’d just woken up.
‘I need to meet you,’ I said.
He recognised my voice straight away, ‘What? Right now? Where? Why?’
I didn’t have time for subtlety and there was no need for it. I had to get my message across to him so he understood what was going on right away with no pauses, no questions and no fucking about. ‘Bobby’s dead,’ I said and I waited for that to sink in.
‘Jesus,’ he said a moment later. ‘Fuck’s sake,’ he added. ‘I don’t believe it.’ He wasn’t doubting me, it was a figure of speech.
‘Believe it,’ I told him, ‘it’s true. Bobby’s dead and so is Finney. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.’
‘Bloody hell,’ he said as he came to terms with the fact that the man he hated more than any other was dead. I guessed that, more than any other emotion, he would feel cheated.
‘Bobby Mahoney is dead,’ I told him again so it would sink in, ‘Finney’s dead, Northam’s dead. Jerry Lemon and Geordie Cartwright you know about already. They are all gone, all dead.’
‘Fuck! What’s happened?’
I ignored him, ‘I’ll explain it all to you when I see you. I need you to come to the house of a guy called Palmer who works for me. He’s coming round to fetch you now, you and your sons. I’m going to need all of your boys from the gym, but tonight just bring your sons. Don’t bring anybody with you who isn’t family.’
‘Right,’ he said, ‘what have you got in mind?’
‘I’m offering you a deal Kinane,’ I told him, ‘a very good one.’
THIRTY-TWO
Our-young-’un and me headed west across the city. I was driving as fast as I dared but I still had to be careful because I couldn’t run the risk of being pulled over by the police, not with a gun on me.
‘I need to know I can rely on you,’ I told Danny, ‘because of what’s happened, you and Palmer are just about the only people left I can trust.’
‘Of course,’ he sounded almost offended. ‘You can rely on me man,’
‘I mean it Danny. You used to say that you and your mates in the army were like brothers, you’d do anything for each other, well I’m your real brother and I need to know what you are prepared to do for me.’
He mulled that over for less than a second, ‘anything, name it.’
‘Even if it’s dangerous.’
‘Well, yeah, no sweat like.’
‘Even if it means killing.’
He thought that one over for a moment. ‘You wouldn’t ask me unless it was the only choice. I know that. I owe everything to you man, everything. Don’t know where I’d be without you but it sure as hell wouldn’t be here.’
‘Thanks,’ I mumbled, feeling grateful and uncomfortable at the same time.
‘Anyhow,’ he said quietly, ‘killing’s not as hard as you might think.’
He was right there.
‘I’ve never asked you this before,’ I told him, ‘and I wouldn’t ask it now but I’ve got to because I’m trusting you with my life and the lives of the people who work for me. What happened to you in the Falklands that made you the way you are?’
‘The way I am?’ he asked as if he didn’t comprehend me.
‘You know what I mean,’ and he fell silent for a time.
‘Aye,’ he said quietly, ‘I know what you mean.’
‘Was it at Goose Green?’
He just nodded.
‘You don’t have to tell me,’ I admitted, ‘but I have to know that, whatever it is, it won’t stop you from being on top form when I need you.’ I was starting to think this might have been a bad idea, that I should have left Our- young-’un in his flat and done this on my own, except I didn’t know how.
‘It’s alright,’ he said, ‘I was only eighteen,’ and he shook his head as if he couldn’t imagine being that young in a war zone, ‘eighteen but I can remember most of it like it was yesterday,’ then he let out a bitter laugh, ‘and I can’t remember yesterday.’ He leant back in his seat, against the headrest. ‘When the battle started we got pinned down, they had more men and about a dozen trenches with machine guns zeroed in. We couldn’t get through them and it looked like we were in the shit big style. I thought we were all going to die, I really did. Then Colonel H, he got up and led the way, went after a couple of machine guns with two of our NCOs and well, you know what
