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  Nodding with vigour, he ushered her towards the buffet table, pleased to see that Vernon, their cousin, had arrived from the wilds of Stretford. Someone to keep the old God-botherer out of mischief.

  ‘I’ll catch you later. It’s sorted, alright? Everything’s bob on.’ He sniffed hard and wiped his nose.

  When he returned to the VIP area, Jonny and Tariq were seated, awaiting the audience. Paddy inhaled deeply. Felt the rush. Lit a contraband cigarette, just to make the fellers wait. He contemplated how best to open this awkward meet. Magnanimously, Sheila had recommended. He didn’t even know for the life of him what magnanimous meant, but she’d opened her arms when she’d counselled him, so now he did the same.

  ‘Gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Welcome.’

  Jonny Margulies looked like he might vomit into the complimentary peanuts at any given moment. He sipped from a margarita that the barmaid had prepared especially for him. Best to make these twats feel wanted. Tariq, not a wrinkle on his face, as usual, was sipping from a Diet Coke.

  ‘Paddy,’ Jonny said, grinning like a piranha. Lounging on the leather sofa, with his arm across the back as though he owned this place. Cheeky, presumptuous fat bastard. ‘I’m glad we can finally parlay again.’

  Standing at his side, Paddy felt Frank stiffen. ‘You killed my son,’ he said in a strangled voice. Twitching like he had St Vitus’ Dance, as per usual, but emitting a dangerous vibe, as though for once in his life as a shag-sack of a Beta male, he might actually make a beeline for Margulies and plant one on him.

  ‘Can it, our kid. This is not the time nor the place.’

  When the omnipresent Conky placed a large hand on his bony shoulder, Frank fell back, taking a seat on a sofa next to some Boddlington muscle that Paddy didn’t recognise. Paddy seated himself regally in the special armchair that had been put out for him. Deliberately positioned at the head of the gathering.

  ‘We’ve come here to discuss terms,’ Tariq said. Sober. His kind always was. All business. He crossed his right foot over his left knee. Confident, the sort of educated, arrogant ponce that Paddy couldn’t abide. ‘We don’t want to intrude on your brother’s grief for any longer than is necessary.’ He nodded respectfully to Frank, who folded his arms tightly and scowled, though the dimpling in his chin suggested sorrow lurked just beneath the façade.

  Paddy poured himself a whisky from the bottle of single malt waiting for him on the coffee table. Took his time deliberately, cigarette hanging artfully out of the side of his mouth.

  ‘Look.’ He leaned forward, legs splayed wide. ‘We’ve had a near miss with Maureen’s man cocking up. We’re all having to take steps.’ He focused on Jonny. Paused until Jonny nodded. Turned to Tariq, who grabbed a handful of nuts from the bowl on the table top – inspecting them carefully, before popping them into his mouth, one by one.

  ‘They’re still holding Smolensky,’ Tariq said, wiping his salty hand on a napkin. Raking his fingers through his black-and-steel-coloured thatch. ‘When he gets out, if he gets out, he’s going to have to dress a lot of actual salmon for a long while.’

  At his side, Frank fidgeted with the sleeves of his best shirt. Erupted suddenly. ‘You killed my fucking son,’ he said, pointing at Jonny with his cigarette. ‘All of this shit …’ he pointed at everyone in the circle ‘… put my Jack in a box. My innocent boy.’

  Quietly, Jonny exhaled a breath he had clearly been holding for a while. ‘Shall I save us all the embarrassment of discussing the rape of my young daughter?’

  With Katrina standing over in the function area, just on the periphery of his vision, watching his every move like God’s emissary on earth, Paddy opted to say nothing. But Frank stood abruptly, kicking out at the table. Swallowing what sounded like a sob, he stormed off towards the far side of the club. Turning back to face Paddy and shouting to make himself heard in the echoing space. ‘You make your entrée cordial or whatever the bleeding hell this is.’ He poked himself in the chest. ‘Count me out, man. I’ve got a wake to sort for my dead thirty-one-year-old son.’

  ‘Look, there’s no need for us to prolong the agony, here,’ Tariq said, meeting Paddy’s gaze with those unfathomable, almost black eyes. ‘We’re all taking heat since the raid. It’s not going to do any of us any good. Bodies stacking up. Fights in the street between our people and yours. Tit for tat. You’ve suffered losses. We’ve suffered losses. And I personally can’t afford to lose my family and my liberty and my reputation.’ He threw a peanut high into the air. Caught it squarely in his mouth. Bumped fists with Jonny. A weird hybrid of a man who dressed and at times behaved like a posing prick of a youth but who abruptly switched back to demonstrating the gravitas and savvy of the man in his mid-forties that he was.

  Paddy couldn’t work the arsehole out. ‘So, you’ll agree to a truce?’ he asked. ‘Deal’s back on?’

  Jonny folded his hands on top of his belly and smiled broadly, though Paddy was sure there was animosity behind the show of teeth. If his own daughter had been raped, he would have executed every last one of the mongrel Boddlington morons.

  ‘If you can guarantee the behaviour of your crew, we’ll keep a tight rein on ours,’ Jonny said. ‘Ten mill. As agreed. No more bullshit and you’re on that plane to Thailand. You’ve already had the deposit, which we broke our backs to deliver in good faith. We want the transfer of all assets inside a week.’

  Paddy nodded. Swigged from his whisky tumbler. ‘What seemed like a shit-storm was lady luck stepping in to deal us better cards, gentlemen. I personally had the leak plugged quickly. We’ve chatted here today like the businessmen we are.’ He held out his hand, which Tariq and Jonny duly shook.

  ‘Our gain is Ellis James’ and the tax bitch’s loss,’ Tariq said.

  As Conky ushered the guests towards the exit, Paddy swaggered back across the club to Sheila and Gloria. With every step, he contemplated those agonising few days he had spent behind bars. Sheila at the helm, running things smoothly. Had she missed him? Had she needed him? Had Frank been glad that his older brother had been out of the loop?

  ‘What you looking at, She?’ he said, grabbing her and sucking on her neck. Feeling disconcertingly less than triumphant.

  ‘Just wondering how it went, Paddy. Are we good to go, then? Is it Thailand, here we come?’ Though she was smiling, he could feel the rigidity in her body.

  ‘Couldn’t have left you and our kid running the day-to-day, could I?’ He laughed too heartily. ‘Pair of spastics like you. Even with me giving orders from inside … You’re a woman and he’s a limp dick. It would have been the end of the O’Briens. Much better this way.’ He jammed a fat Cuban cigar into his mouth. Pretending to be Hannibal out of the A-Team. Where was Conky with another bottle of whisky? He had a thirst on, as could be expected from any King who had just saved his court from collapse. ‘I love it when a plan comes together.’

  Chapter 30

  Frank

  Sitting in the armchair that had been brought for him to the buffet area by a barman, Frank breathed deeply into a paper bag. In. Out. Almost in time to the thumping music that had started up in the club, signifying the beginning of a long night of mourning, O’Brien-style.

  ‘That’s right, Francis,’ Katrina said, rubbing his back. ‘You breathe steadily and you’ll soon be back to normal.’ She held his plate of mini-muffins (with surprise filling), sausage rolls and egg sandwiches on her lap. ‘You should eat. Mam always said life’s trials are easier to conquer on a full stomach.’

  ‘Mam’s dead,’ Frank muttered inside his damp paper bag. ‘Like Jack.’

  He took the bag from his mouth, studying his sister’s well-meaning face. Smooth and wrinkle-free despite her advanced years. A woman who slept nights and who wouldn’t know one bite of a super-skunk hash cake from another. Hers had been a sheltered life.

  ‘You’re not daft, you,’ he said, snaffling his fourth narcotic chocolate muffin. Talking while he chewed, praying the fear would soon be transplanted by the giggles. H
ow he wished he’d done some whizz instead. He wedged a sausage roll into his mouth. Starving now. ‘Getting out of all this crap. Getting away from Paddy before he got his meat hooks into you.’

  Katrina stood. Her swollen knees cracked audibly as she straightened up. ‘Now, now, Francis. I still believe in loyalty to the family name. Patrick is a fallible man, but he’s your brother. Try to forgive him his trespasses and weaknesses. Turn the other cheek.’ She scanned the densely packed function area hived off for the wake. ‘And don’t let Auntie Theresa and Sheila hear you bad-mouthing him.’

  Amid all those people at this hastily rearranged send-off, Frank had never felt so alone and misunderstood. It was hard to tell if it was the gange or stress or the acute stinging pain of grief, but pinned to that seat with the music in the main area pounding like his overburdened heart and with those O’Brien faces reminding him that he had been born into a family of violence and perpetual struggle, Frank felt the world collapsing in on him. Biting angrily on an egg sandwich, he allowed hot tears to well in his eyes, spilling onto his cheeks. Wished at that moment that he could climb into that white and gold coffin beside his son and enjoy perpetual sleep. How could he unmake himself?

  ‘Cheer up, Frank,’ Auntie Theresa said, patting him on the head as she’d always done when they were children. Just like Mam in looks, but much older now. In her seventies. A good two stone heavier, too. ‘Our Jack’s with Jesus, now.’

  ‘Cheer up? Cheer up? Is that the best advice you’ve got to offer? You walking fucking bunion. Why are you still alive when my son’s pushing up daisies in Southern Cemetery?’ A surge of anger galvanised Frank suddenly.

  Launching himself out of the armchair, his plate crashed to the floor, scattering food everywhere. He shrugged Theresa off and barged through the phalanx of distant relatives to the buffet table. Grabbed hold of Paddy’s tie. Paddy, who was standing in the centre of things, holding court as usual. ‘Our Paddy’s got the gift of the gab,’ Dad had said proudly, when he wasn’t pulverising the living daylights out of both of them. ‘Our Paddy’s a chip off the old block.’ Now, Frank’s golden older brother was chugging at one of those stinking cigars. Hand on the arse of one of their nieces, several places removed on Mum’s side. He looked surprised when Frank yanked him nose down to the decks that formed the base of the ice sculpture.

  ‘Is this how you pay tribute to my Jack?’ he shouted, pointing to the ghastly, semi-melted mess. He pulled Paddy back up, fixing him with the eyes of a desperate man so he might see the suffering his bullying ways had caused. ‘Doesn’t matter that the kid is dead, because you paid some arsehole to carve this crap. Well, I can’t hug a lump of ice, Paddy. I can’t leave my club to some melted water.’ Frank tugged the tribute forward with his free hand; the sculpture smashed to the ground, scattering the floor with a soggy veil of ice cubes on the melt. He could feel bitter, festering words trying to force their way out of his mouth. Words that had been proving inside him like hot dough for decades. Rising, rising and now, fully baked. ‘I wish you were dead. You’re a bastard and I wish you’d died when you had your heart attack and then we’d all be free.’

  Paddy was wide-eyed. Face reddening. Trembling. He gripped the table edge in silence, white knuckles testifying to the rage that was blossoming within.

  ‘That’s enough, Frank,’ Conky said, pulling him back by his upper arms. Holding his hand up to Paddy, like a traffic cop heading off rush-hour disaster. ‘You’re upset. We’re all upset and tired and had a bit too much to drink. Why don’t you go for a dance?’

  ‘Tyrant!’ Frank screamed, feeling deliciously high on his own daring and energised by his fury. ‘You’re a fucking tyrant! A violent dictator like Stalin or Hitler. I’ve always done what you said. I always trudged along in your shadow because you told me I couldn’t do nothing without you. Well, shove it up your arse, Paddy. I wish you’d let Dad kill me when I was a kid and he used to batter ten shades of shit out of us, because you didn’t do me no favours by saving me. And I wish he’d beaten you to death too, because then, none of this would have happened and a shit load of people would still be alive. And my Jack would never have been born, so he’d never have died alone and in pain and I’d not be stood here, wishing that God would strike me down just so’s I didn’t feel nothing no more.’

  Aware that the entire gathering of close relatives and trusted friends had fallen silent to witness this dissension, Frank took a final swipe at his brother.

  ‘Bastard!’ he shouted.

  But his aim was cannabis clumsy. Paddy took a step back, giving Conky the opportunity to sweep Frank off his feet – a man mountain and a broken, shuffling figure not much larger than a youth, caught in some strange semblance of choreography like a pair of fucked-up figure skaters.

  Stepping forward to confront him, Paddy grabbed Frank by the throat with a sweaty hand. The feel of his hot clammy skin brought the memories of those arguments in their little shared bedroom flooding back. Once they were older and Paddy had realised he could unleash his frustrations at their father on his physically weaker brother.

  ‘Easy, boss,’ Conky said, setting Frank down.

  ‘Leave him, Paddy!’ Sheila cried.

  Frank could smell the sour whisky on his brother’s breath. Could see the loathing and naked fury in his eyes. So reminiscent of Dad. A bond for life forged in equal measure with love and hate.

  ‘Come on then, Pad,’ Frank wheezed. ‘Finish it.’

  Paddy released him. Smoothed his collar down. Grabbed the back of his neck, yanked him towards his mouth and kissed him hard on the forehead. ‘Twat.’

  The high tide of guests started to ebb away into the main body of the club after that; the older people heading home, offering words of condolence to Frank and curt smiles to Paddy. Even Auntie Theresa, who was often the last to leave gatherings where there was single malt on offer, swiped a plate full of sandwiches into her handbag and left with a mild look of disgust on her face. Finally, with only Paddy, Frank, Katrina, Conky, Sheila and Gloria left, they retired to the office at the back. Frank’s uncharacteristic rage had long since subsided – unavoidably so, given the number of relatives he’d had to put on a brave face for.

  ‘I brought something for you, Frank,’ Sheila said, pulling several heavy-looking packages from a plastic bag she had stowed beneath the desk.

  Gloria looked on silently, opening a bottle of wine and pouring the contents into six glasses. ‘What have you got there, Sheila?’

  ‘Photos,’ Sheila said, smiling. She offered the pile of albums to Frank.

  ‘Photos of what?’ Frank asked, his heart rate loping placidly along once more, calmed even further by Sheila’s kindly attentions.

  ‘Just look.’

  Pulling the five chairs in the office into a circle, Frank felt calm envelop him once more. The fire had subsided in Paddy. Perhaps it had been just another scuffle between brothers, after all. In any case, he was so stoned, drunk and melancholy that he no longer had the energy to rail against the life that Paddy had ordained he should lead.

  ‘Are these pictures of little Jack?’ Katrina asked, sitting down on the last vacant chair, leaving Gloria standing with full glasses of Merlot in her hands and only the edge of the desk to perch on.

  ‘Aw, these are gorgeous, She!’ Frank said, poring over page after page of beautifully mounted mementoes of Jack’s childhood.

  Sheila leaned sideways to examine her handiwork. ‘I thought you’d like them.’

  ‘What a lovely boy he was,’ Katrina said. ‘So much like his mother in looks. So much like the O’Briens in his go-getting spirit.’ She clasped her hands together and chuckled. ‘You know, Frank. Nobody can take your precious memories away from you.’

  Frank nodded thoughtfully, running his fingers over the pages of photos with a certain reverence. Jack as a baby, cradled in his mother’s arms at the time when she was at her most beautiful because she’d been clean throughout her pregnancy. Jack growing into a toddler, holding Mu
m and Dad’s hands. Frank smiled at the photo of himself as a young man. All sinew and shiny, healthy skin, with an optimistic sparkle in his eyes, clutching Jack’s chubby hand on the beach in Ibiza. So vivid was the memory, now that he was looking at the photo, he could almost feel the burn of the hot sand on the soles of his feet and smell the suncream on the boy. Jack with Paddy’s girls, his poor mother six feet under, by then. Jack as a handsome teen – all arms and legs at that stage. By the third album, the photos included shots of Jack DJing in the club, interspersed with clippings from music magazines.

  ‘My lad made something of himself,’ Frank said, smiling sadly, allowing a heady mixture of pride and regret to rinse through him. He shook his head. ‘By Christ, he was something else. I wanted all the things for him that I never had. And he was everything I’d hoped to be as a nipper, except I never had half of the drive and talent in me that that boy did. What a waste.’

  Conky placed a heavy hand on his shoulder. Removed his glasses ceremoniously and scanned the images. ‘These are terrific, Sheila. You’ve given Frank a very special aide-memoire, here. That’s very thoughtful of you.’

  Everybody except for Paddy murmured their agreement. Frank noticed Sheila blushing and smiling coyly out of the corner of his eye. He glanced back down at the pictures, his attention snagged by a series of photos taken in the winter – at the New Year’s Eve party in M1 House, in fact. He felt Gloria’s eyes on the photos as well. Unsurprising, because when Frank scrutinised the faces in the background of the photos taken of Jack with his arms around various promotions girls, he noticed a scenario that was distinctly off. And he wasn’t the only one to spot it, because Conky spoke up before Frank had even had a chance to open his mouth.