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  ‘Alright, Conks?’ Sheila said, emerging from the kitchen.

  He turned around to greet the boss’ wife with a warm smile. Pushed his Ray-Bans up his nose to kiss her on the cheek. She smelled of exotic home cooking and perfume. He drank her aroma in and tried to commit it to memory. Her small, soft hand felt like a child’s inside his. He prayed his palms were dry. And that she wouldn’t see his irritable rash morphing into a blush.

  ‘Sheila,’ he said. Not knowing what to say next.

  ‘Want something to eat? I made a lovely paella. I’m just putting aside the leftovers. There’s plenty.’ She started to untie the apron from her tiny waist.

  ‘Aye. I could eat the arse of a baby through the cot bars, so I could,’ he said. Normally, she trilled with laughter when he used those old Norn Iron turns of phrase from his Belfast boyhood. Tonight, there was not even the glimmer of a smile. ‘I was only going to grab a burger at the club. Paddy’s due there in ten. So, I might have to eat it on the hoof, if you don’t mind, Sheila. The boss—’

  ‘Paddy can wait,’ Sheila said in a low voice. The lines either side of her mouth seemed etched deeper than usual.

  She turned away from him. He followed her diminutive gym-honed form over to the range cooker, never taking his eyes from her. Savouring the opportunity to look without being seen or judged. But there was something unusual about her gait. She was walking gingerly.

  ‘Are you okay, She?’ he asked.

  Turning to face him, Sheila’s gaze only reached as far as his chin. ‘Fine. I overdid it at the gym.’

  He took several strides towards her and raised his glasses to his forehead, putting aside any self-conscious discomfort in knowing she would be able to see his protruding eyes. Stooping, he scrutinised the delicate bone structure of her face in the bright sparkling light of the chandeliers. Could see the ghost of a livid green bruise on her forehead, lurking just beneath a layer of heavy makeup.

  ‘What happened?’ He stroked her cheek gently.

  She didn’t retreat from his touch but nevertheless refused to meet his gaze. She was blinking rapidly. ‘I tripped over my step in aerobics. Landed on one of my five-k barbell weights, face first, didn’t I?’

  She looked furtively over at the kitchen door, as though she expected Paddy to be standing there, eavesdropping. Started to dish paella clumsily onto a plate, treating Conky to more uncomfortable silence, as though she resented him for drawing attention to the obvious.

  ‘If there’s anything you need to talk about, Sheila,’ he said, feeling the pressure of so many unspoken words, accumulated over years, pushing behind his thyroid eyes.

  Her body stiffened suddenly. She turned back to the cooker. Busy with her frying pan.

  Conky realised Paddy had appeared, and was now standing behind them.

  ‘Leave the grub, mate,’ the boss said, eyeing him carefully. ‘She’ll probably poison you with all that foreign shit anyway, won’t you, She? I nearly dropped my guts down that carsey.’ Paddy strode over and slapped his wife’s behind. Treated her to an aggressive kiss on the neck that she pulled away from.

  Glad to leave the awkward atmosphere behind, Conky bid Sheila farewell and drove the boss beneath the fool’s gold of the streetlights down the A56, away from the leafy Cheshire suburbs, through Stretford and towards Manchester’s trading-estate wastelands. They ringed the centre like a shit city wall – identikit, corrugated iron super-sheds, punctuated only by the terraces of Old Trafford, the space-station-like construction of the Emirates cricket stadium and the gaudy blue dome of the Trafford Centre in the distance. All of that invisible as night fell in earnest, leaving only anonymous, hulking grey boxes behind high iron fencing that rusted in the Mancunian drizzle.

  M1 House looked like any other premises, but for lasers that seeped skywards from the Perspex lights in the roof and the thump-thump of dance music that emanated from within.

  ‘Alright, our Pad,’ Frank said, greeting his older brother at the door deferentially. He thrust a full whisky tumbler towards him. ‘Come on. Come on, man. That Dutch bloke’s been waiting hours and he’s boring as fuck.’

  Conky eyed the gaunt, twitchy figure of Frank O’Brien, wincing as Paddy grabbed the drink from him with one hand and administered a brotherly blow to his kidney with the other. Frank was already waxy-faced from whatever cocktail of drugs the daft wee fecker had managed to lay his hands on that evening, dressed like a 1990s throwback in a baggy long-sleeved top and cargo jeans. Shuffling through his giant temple to dance music in grotty old sneakers. A reluctant Pontius Pilate, Conky mused, serving beneath Paddy who was always channelling Tiberius on a good day; Caligula on a bad.

  The bass-heavy music enveloped him, pulsating through the hot, damp air – it was almost tangible. Deafening shite. It was certainly no Dvorˇák or Mozart – it made Conky’s teeth sensitive and aggravated the pains in his legs whenever his thyroid was out of whack. Strobe lights flick-flickering all around, dimmed only slightly by the tinted prescription prisms in his Ray-Ban lenses that mitigated some of the thyroid eye disease that plagued him. Lasers flashing green and red in precise fans, pointing upwards, moving downwards to slice through the fog of the dry ice. Everybody caught in nanosecond freeze-frames. Hands in the air. Shaking that thang. Fecking eejits. Staccato dancing like possessed puppetry where the DJ was the puppet master.

  ‘Make some noise, M1 House!’ the DJ shouted as he blended the groove of one track into another, perfectly maintaining 128 beats per minute.

  Jack O’Brien. Son of Frank O’Brien and number one nephew to Paddy. An accidental Adonis thanks to his dead mother’s Balearic colouring. The crowd worshipped this man, turning towards him in unison. Screaming and cheering up to the distant warehouse ceiling – above the lighting rigs, through the corrugated Perspex to the night sky beyond; out into the universe where their love would mingle with the stars.

  Frank cheered. Pointed towards him.

  ‘Spin those records, son!’

  The heaving sea of firm, slender young bodies parted to let them through. As they did so, Conky spotted the enemy: a mixed-race lad with a lightning flash shaved into the dark stubble of his scalp. Bell something, if memory served. A biblical name. Deuteronomy or something of that ilk. Paddy elbowed Conky in the ribs and nodded, giving the order. Dutifully, he grabbed Frank by his baggy top and yanked him at speed through the cavorting crowd to the backstage area.

  At his side, Paddy had thunder behind his eyes.

  ‘Twat!’ He cuffed Frank on the side of his head.

  Frank was ashen-faced. ‘What’s up, Pad? How comes Roy Orbison here has got a grip of me? I babysat your supplier, didn’t I? I wanna go and vibe with me adoring public, now. Know what I mean?’ Frank toyed with the sleeves of his top.

  ‘Who’ve you got dealing tonight?’ his older brother asked, gesticulating towards the dancefloor, visible beyond Jack in his booth.

  Frank shrugged, still twitching as though he had withdrawals from the dancefloor. ‘Business as usual, man. You know? The Parson’s Croft kids. Degsy and his girls. Nicky, Maggie. They’re flogging Hong Kong Colin’s latest batch of E and meth, like you told them. Dealing some super-fine super skunk. Few baggies of coke. Making the happiness and contentment go round, man.’ He drew a heart in the air, ending with both hands making the peace sign.

  But Paddy looked anything but peaceful and content. He smashed his whisky tumbler on the floor. Grabbed his younger brother by the back of the neck like a mother cat taking its wayward kitten in its maw. Pushed his face towards the crowd. ‘It’s crawling with Boddlingtons, you dozy wanker.’ Slapped him on the back of his sweaty head with a freckled, hairy hand.

  Narrowing his eyes, Conky refocused on the sea of faces. The boy with the lightning flash was palming tabs in a baggie onto some girl and pocketing cash. That much, he could see. Very shoddy procedure.

  Frank opened and closed his mouth. Rolling his head, as though panning for an explanation in his empty druggy head like a p
rospector hoping to find an elusive gold nugget in the mud.

  ‘I don’t know how he got past the fellers on the door, Pad. Honest. Maybe someone let him in the back. Maybe he just slipped through with a group of people. There’s two thousand kids in here. I can’t keep tabs on them. Know what I mean?’

  Turning to Conky, Paddy’s thin lips arced downwards into a scowl.

  ‘Find Degsy. And get that little Boddlington shit back here. I’m not having stray dogs pissing on my territory.’ Hunched shoulders beneath the suit said he was bristling with anger.

  ‘Well, strictly speaking, Pad, it’s my territory,’ Frank said, wide-eyed. ‘As long as people are having a good time, I’m not bothered, me.’

  ‘Fucking dickhead.’

  The slap that Paddy gave him across his face clearly had some weight behind it. Frank rubbed his cheek, suddenly looking like a small boy. Conky knew better than to intervene.

  ‘Get that Boddlington arsehole and Degsy back here,’ Paddy said.

  Amidst a flurry of disingenuous apologies, Conky returned with Degsy and the Boddlington interloper, kicking them at the heels to make them move forwards with his gun trained on their backs. Taking pride in the fear he instilled in Degsy, at least. He was the O’Brien firm’s Loss Adjuster. He had a reputation to uphold. All who came before him in the Conky McFadden court of justice quaked in their boots.

  ‘This is Leviticus Bell,’ he announced, pushing the Boddlington low-level dealer to his knees. Not Deuteronomy, but still a biblical-standard cheeky arsehole. ‘And our very own lovely Derek.’ He poked Degsy in the back with the barrel of his gun.

  Paddy cracked his knuckles. Took something shining from his breast pocket and slid it onto his hand. A knuckle duster. Degsy, a tall bundle of oversized G-Star Raw and Diesel with spots around his mouth that said he smoked just as much meth as he sold, paled instantly.

  ‘On your knees, you lanky twat!’ Paddy said, breathing heavily through his nostrils.

  Degsy’s Adam’s apple bounced up and down in his scrawny neck.

  ‘Sorry, Mr O’Brien. I don’t know why I’m here, like, but whatever it is, I’m sorry. I told Mr McFadden.’

  The left hook that Paddy delivered to Degsy’s temple sent the dealer’s head spinning to the right with a crack. Blood spatters clinging in a jaunty red to the black nightclub walls.

  ‘Christ, Pad. There’s no need for that,’ Frank said, wincing.

  ‘Shut your trap, Frank. I don’t give a stuff if Queen Elizabeth’s name’s on the liquor licence above the door. I’m the boss here. Me.’ He dug into his chest with a stubby thumb.

  Paddy dragged Degsy to his feet. Though he towered above even Conky, Degsy seemed small next to the King. ‘You want to work for me and stay alive, Derek, you keep Boddlington scum out of my venues, right?’

  Degsy nodded contritely. Seemed a little dazed. Touched the blood on the side of his head that now seeped onto his clothing.

  ‘Yes, Mr O’Brien. Sorry. It won’t happen again.’

  Struggling against Conky’s grip, the young mixed-race Boddlington interloper spat at Degsy.

  ‘Parson’s Croft piece of shit!’ he shouted at him. Turned to Paddy and Frank. ‘I’m not bleeding scared of yous, man.’

  Conky cuffed his ear with his pistol. ‘You’d better be, you wee shite. I’m gonna enjoy putting a bullet in you.’ His practised words came out automatically as he dwelled all the while on his missed book club and the strangeness of Sheila’s behaviour. Decades of doing the same job could do that to a man.

  The boy turned to Conky, frowning. ‘Oh yeah? You want the Fish Man to come and fillet you, old man? ’Cause that’s who you’re dealing with if you lay a frigging finger on me.’

  ‘What’s your name again, son?’ Paddy stepped closer and grabbed him by his chin. Pushed his face upwards, examining his delicate bone structure to see if nobility was hidden in his genes.

  The boy spat a second time on the floor at Paddy’s side. ‘Leviticus Bell.’

  ‘Plucky little bastard, aren’t you?’

  The boy somehow wriggled free of Conky’s grip. Lunged at Paddy. A flash of something metallic, under the dim backstage lights. Red, spreading quickly through the suit-fabric covering Paddy’s forearm. The boy, running away; sprinting like a hunted gazelle through the emergency exit.

  ‘Boss!’ Conky shouted. He pushed his glasses onto his forehead to get a better look at the wound. His breath coming ragged with an accelerated heartbeat as he stared down at the gash.

  ‘It’s just a scratch!’ Paddy said, pressing his fingers into the wound.

  But then, something more sinister, as Paddy’s look of surprise and anger turned into a wide-eyed hundred-yard stare. Clutching at his chest, he began sinking to his knees.

  ‘Jesus. I feel—’ he said. Grimacing, then, his eyes clamped shut.

  ‘Call an ambulance!’ Conky barked at Frank.

  As Frank punched 999 into his phone, he seemed to be watching with part-glee, part-dread as his brother slumped to the floor, unconscious.

  Chapter 3

  Paddy

  The heart monitor beeped in syncopation with the bing of the oxygen saturation gauge. Constant noise, in those bloody places. Bright lights that made Paddy squint. And that smell. He hated that smell.

  ‘What is that stink?’ he asked Katrina. ‘Do you reckon it’s …? I dunno. Floor cleaner like Mam used to use and … human shit, maybe?’ He sniffed the air. Wrinkled his nose. Felt tired. ‘I can’t stand it. I want to go home, Kat. Tell our Sheila she’s to come and get me.’ He shuffled uncomfortably on the hard, rubber mattress. ‘My arse has gone dead.’

  At his side, Katrina sighed and patted his hand. Her freckled Celtic skin looking so pale next to his. Her nails had been bitten down into utilitarian submission. Requirements of the job.

  ‘Ah, Patrick. You always were a terrible patient,’ she said, smiling wistfully as she watched his jagged heart rate peak and trough and peak and trough in a thin blue-green line. ‘Remember that time when you were doubled up in pain in the middle of the night and Mam called the doctor on you? You couldn’t have been more than ten.’

  Paddy smiled weakly. ‘Eleven. I told him I was just constipated.’

  ‘It was peritonitis.’ Katrina smoothed her navy habit. Her hand travelled down to the large, silver crucifix hanging over her heart. She tapped it thoughtfully. ‘You’ve always played the hard man, Paddy O’Brien. Trying to impress Dad.’

  A mental image of their father foisted itself on Paddy’s memory. A stocky little hard-nut of a man, who robbed the local bookies and did two years in Strangeways. Smelled of Marlboro cigarettes and stale ale, with breath like a dog’s fart. His hands and the pores on his face had always been ingrained with motor oil, when he could get work as a mechanic. Chasing him and Frank down the street with a tyre-iron for a laugh. Taking a swing to test their reflexes. They had been thirteen and seven.

  ‘Dad was a pure bastard,’ Paddy said. ‘At least he laid off you, though. You were his favourite because you were clever.’

  Katrina smiled wryly. ‘Well, you can pretend all you like. I know you tried to live up to his expectations. But now this ridiculous life you lead is catching up with you. Time you made some changes.’

  He rolled his eyes. Remembered how much he hated his sister’s well-meaning sermons. Yanked at the wires connected to his chest in irritation, scratching at the itch from the gel adhesive pads. ‘Save it for your flock, Sister Benedicta. I just need to get out of this dump. I’m fine.’

  Brandishing his notes, Katrina looked down her nose through her thick-framed, plain glasses, as though about to give a schoolboy a ticking-off. She tutted loudly. ‘A heart attack, Patrick. And a stab wound. You are absolutely not fine. Too much of the high life, too much of the low life and too much stress.’ She hooked the clipboard of notes indignantly back onto the end of the hospital bed. Sniffed pointedly as Paddy’s heart rate picked up, ragged and hasty, as though it were somehow tryi
ng to flee the scene of a crime. ‘You carry on like this and you’ll not make sixty.’

  ‘I am sixty.’

  ‘Smart Alec. You can’t die on me, Patrick. I’ve got the Lord’s work to do. I’m not babysitting our Francis. That’s your responsibility.’

  Paddy tried to shuffle himself up the bed. Didn’t have the energy. Hated himself for being weak. ‘I’m a businessman. I do business.’

  His older sister leaned in close until he could smell the convent’s nursing home on her. A permanent whiff of institutional dinners, industrial laundry and maybe talc.

  ‘Dirty business,’ she said, frowning. ‘The heavenly Father is watching, Patrick.’

  Paddy started to cough violently. Beep, beep, beep, complained the heart monitor. Bing, bing, as his oxygen levels took a dive. Too many cigarettes and fry-ups, he knew. He could feel his sister’s well-meaning eroding his conviction.

  ‘It’s taken its toll, hasn’t it? Admit it. It’s time to get out.’ Her well-scrubbed face – perhaps handsome in her youth, but never beautiful – was etched only with fine lines, far fewer than could be expected for a woman of her age. The face of a woman who had never seen drunken debauchery at 3am in Ibiza or a sunbed or a surfeit of gin. The face of a woman who slept nights with a clear conscience.

  What did she know about real life?

  ‘It’s alright for you,’ he said. ‘The church takes care of you. I’ve got a family and the firm, all looking to me for money, support, leadership. I’m the heavenly fucking Father in this town, Kat. I’ve got the O’Brien name to uphold.’