Dad might’ve been a soft touch with everyone else, but he had a fuckin’ blue-veiner for making my life shite.
FOUR
My head rattles like Stomp in stereo and the Greggs sausage roll I’m trying to eat is burning the roof of my mouth off. I huff and puff, finally spit the pastry onto the road and let the rest of it follow suit out of the window. Watch it jump and splatter under the wheels of the car behind me. Tell myself it was rank anyway.
Round Salford, the morning sun is a disc of yellow in a sky of smoke. Some of last night’s bonfires have yet to be extinguished. Now the place looks like a riot’s just finished.
Footage of Bosnia, Belfast, Baghdad and now North Manchester.
The streets are dead; all that’s left is the vibe of something exciting.
I drank at home after I left The Denton. It took the best part of a bottle of Vladivar to kill the pain in my cheek. A quick examination in the mirror told me that the smackhead had almost knocked the tooth out of my head. I wish he had.
Right now it’s hanging by a nerve, throbbing like a bastard.
I’d go to the dentist, but I don’t have the cash. And it’s been that long since I had a check-up, my old dentist is probably pushing up the daisies. Fuck it, I’ll soldier on.
I’m on my way to a morning spar with Paulo, so he’ll probably do me a favour and knock the tooth out for me.
He’s good like that. The guy might be pushing fifty, but he’s still got a nasty right hook and an uppercut that could floor an elephant.
At this time of the morning, it’s a quick drive. But when I pull up outside the club, Paulo’s waiting for me with a face like a smacked arse. I check my watch: I’m still half an hour early. I slow the car; wind down the window as he approaches.
This can’t be good.
‘What’s up?’ I say.
Paulo leans in. ‘You’ve got company.’
‘A client?’
“I fuckin’ hope not, Cal. And you want to get him out of there before I get back from the paper shop, else you’re both on the street, you understand me?’
‘Hang on a sec ‘
“I want him out. No buts about it.’
Paulo pulls away from the car, points at me, then starts walking towards Regent Road. I park up and get out of the car, chew the inside of my cheek. Company means one of two things. Either a client’s in there, or Detective Sergeant Donkin’s decided to pop by to fuck me over. Neither of which have made Paulo this edgy before. In fact, not a lot makes Paulo edgy. He’s famous round here for being cool as.
Which makes me jittery as fuck.
I push open the double doors to the club, feel a wave of heat across my face. My back starts to sweat. This place was a second home when I got out of Strangeways. Paulo was the guy who got me my parole, stood by me. He saw something in me I couldn’t see in myself. Took me to one side, threw me in the club with the rest of the prison-fresh lads and watched us beat the shit out of each other until we’d had enough. I was twenty-two then, it’s a couple years on now, and I’ve worked out plenty of aggression in that time. I might be too old to keep coming back, but Paulo’s got plenty of work for me. It’s part of my probation that I still attend this place. Two years down and six months to go, then I’m a free man. Until then, I have to pop in and see my PO every couple of weeks. It’s hellish. That tiny wee office, sitting there while the skinny prick patronises the hell out of me. He doesn’t give a shit, to be honest. The moment he saw me, he saw the crime. And he didn’t want to see any further. Which was fair enough.
Because when I first saw him, I saw a prick. And I didn’t want to see any further.
Me and Paulo talked about setting up the agency, one horse operation that it is, and it was a joke until people started coming to see me. I don’t advertise, but word spreads round here, and most of my clients aren’t the type who have the money for a professional outfit. Either that, or they just don’t trust the pros. It’s got to the point where Paulo’s charging me rent on the office.
He’s got a cheek. It’s really nothing more than a broom cupboard with a desk and two chairs in it. Oh yeah, and a window with a fine view of the bins.
The door’s open. I can make out movement in there.
Someone gangly, moving about at random.
My stomach turns.
No wonder Paulo didn’t want to stay around. It’s not the kind of company any ex-con would want to keep, especially one who’s straight as a die and intends to stay that way. I blame Brenda for mentioning the name last night. Morris Tiernan’s ears must have been burning.
So he’s sent his son round to have a word.
Morris Junior, called Mo to avoid confusion. He’s a sixfoot-four beanpole with all the charm of a liquid cough. Bad skin, worse attitude, shaved head, a natural born scally. When Manchester was mad for it, Mo had his plooky hands full dealing out of a pub opposite the Hacienda. He was minting it then, but had his dad’s knack for staying out of any serious trouble. When a couple of kids on mountain bikes let loose with a converted air pistol at the club’s bouncers, people knew it was Mo fucking about. One dead, three wounded, and not a single charge the Tiernans’ way.
Then Tony Wilson called it a night. Some say he was pushed into it. Too many drugs, too many bad influences, and Madchester was fading fast. The last night the Hacienda was open, when Wilson spread his arms and told the clubbers to loot the place, Mo was first in line. Back then Mo was pilled up and hip. These days he just gets pilled up and fashion can get to fuck.
I make my way across the club floor. Mo doesn’t pay social visits. I look around the club for anyone I don’t know. It’s unlike him to turn up on his own; he’s normally got a couple of shellsuits hanging about the place with car aerials in their trackie bottoms. But I don’t see anyone. It looks like an average morning.
Step into my office, and he turns at the squeak of the door.
His pupils are pinpricks in a sea of blood vessels. This isn’t an early morning for him; it’s a late night. He holds a bottle of Yop in one hand. When he sees me, he takes a swig, leaves froth on his top lip. It makes him look like a rabid dog.
‘Y’alright, Mo?’
He studies me, then points one long finger at my face.
‘Pastry,’ he says.
‘You what?’
The tip of his finger wiggles. ‘You got pastry on your face.’
I wipe my cheek with the back of my hand and try to smile.
Normally I’d close the door, but I decide to leave it open. If Mo flies in here, I’ll need witnesses and an escape route all planned. ‘What can I do for you?’
‘How you doing, man?’ He perches himself on the edge of my desk. His foot taps the floor.
‘I’m okay. Hanging in there.’
‘It’s tough coming out, innit? Even what – two years, wunnit?’
‘Two and a half.’
‘A lot changes in that time.’ He takes another swig from the bottle. He has a long, trimmed fingernail on his pinkie. The bastard wants to be a coke-snorting pimp. His tongue licks away the yellow foam, then he sucks his teeth. “I hear you’re all straight an’ that now.’
‘Straight as I can be.’
‘You working for Paulo?’
‘This and that, yeah.’
