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  Conky halted. Exhaled heavily, chewing over his lover’s stubborn streak like a piece of unpalatable gristle.

  ‘Nigel?’ Sheila asked, marching forwards with her hand held out.

  ‘Sheila O’Brien,’ Bancroft said, flashing a dazzling dentist’s-dream smile that almost lit up the dank quayside scene. He clasped Sheila’s hand between his, leaning attentively in for an air kiss on both cheeks, which Sheila reciprocated.

  Bastard. Couldn’t have been more than thirty-five, unless he’d had work done. Conky mused that he had the kind of face you saw on tired catalogue models. Starting to go at the jawline and underneath the eyes. A vain man, for sure with that fecking hair gel in his hair. A wedding ring on his finger though. Not that that ever stopped men like Nigel Bancroft. His words were being whipped away by a fickle breeze. What was he saying, with that grin plastered all over his nipped-and-tucked bake? There sure as hell was a lot of laughing going on.

  Conky moved a little closer so that he was within earshot of the two once more.

  ‘You’re even more beautiful than they say,’ Bancroft said in that Brummie accent of his.

  ‘Who says that then?’ There was a sceptical edge to Sheila’s voice, despite the coquettish giggle.

  ‘The great and the good of the criminal underworld, Sheila. You and I mix in the same esteemed circles, after all.’

  It sounded like the prick had rehearsed his lines. Ma gavte la nata, Conky said to himself, musing on the classic line delivered by Jacopo Belbo in Foucault’s Pendulum. Take the cork out of his arse and let some of that hot air out. Prick.

  The two started to walk towards the footbridge that spanned the river. Conky followed, straining to catch their conversation.

  ‘I can tell you now,’ Bancroft said, ‘when it’s just between lads, the hardest nuts from Portsmouth to Glasgow all say they admire your assets, and I’m not just talking what you’ve inherited from Paddy.’ Wink.

  Sheila came to a halt, clutching her bag close. ‘Flattery’s all very well, Nigel, but I can’t bank it, and there’s more to me than a pair of tits, son.’ The mirth had evaporated from her voice, leaving only a sour residue behind, Conky noted with some satisfaction. ‘Now what did you come up here to say?’

  ‘I hear you’re looking to offload your traditional business interests to a third party.’

  ‘Who the bloody hell told you that?’ Sheila raised an eyebrow. ‘I certainly never told anyone that.’

  Bancroft’s men had moved from their positions by the river’s guardrail and were now also trailing the couple. Conky studied them surreptitiously through the dark lenses of his Ray-Bans, checking for sudden movements. These tossers had been at Paddy’s funeral. Casting his mind back to some of the lesser-known mourners gathered at the back of the throng, he recalled the black feller. Those dreadlocks, tied in a fat ponytail and that acne scarring that covered his forehead and cheeks were a dead giveaway. He had been standing at the side of your Man-at-Burton Bancroft. And now they were in Manchester, thinking they could simply swoop down and pick over the O’Brien empire’s carcass.

  ‘Let’s just say, I’ve got my sources of reliable information,’ Bancroft told Sheila. ‘News travels fast in our world, and I can help you get on with the things that are more in your comfort zone.’

  Conky noticed that the veins on the backs of Sheila’s hands were standing proud. She appeared taut from her feet to her face, like a gymnast holding her body before executing a finale on the beam.

  She poked Bancroft in the shoulder. ‘You can take that shit-eating grin off your face for a start, mister.’ Taking a step towards him. Matching his height in those heels. ‘Now, first, I want to know which double-crossing little shit you’ve got working for me, earwigging and then mouthing off about my business. And second, cut the flirtatious crap and tell me what you’re proposing. South Manchester’s mine. All mine. I’m a businesswoman, Nigel. Not a bleeding hobbyist or the show pony you seem to be mistaking me for.’

  Bancroft’s muscle marched towards her, puffing themselves up like peacocks, squaring for a fight over a hen.

  Conky withdrew his weapon, pointing it at them but still keeping it for the most part concealed up his overcoat sleeve. ‘Back off, gentlemen,’ he said. ‘Or you’ll have more holes in you than Emmental cheese, before you can shout croque-fucking-monsieur.’

  The Midlander muscle looked to their boss for a signal.

  Holding his hand aloft, Bancroft’s smile no longer reached his eyes. ‘Easy, lads. We’re just talking shop here, aren’t we, Sheila?’ He glanced at Conky’s gun, blinking too hard and fast. ‘No need for any nastiness. Call your dog off, will you?’ He turned his attention back to Sheila. His puffed-up ego seemed to have deflated somewhat, making that camel coat look a size too big.

  ‘Dog?’ Conky took a step towards him. ‘Catch yourself on, you cheeky wee bastard. You call me a dog again, I’ll show you the ferocity of my bite.’ He caught sight of Sheila’s steely glare and flinching jaw. Took a step back again and put the gun away. Satisfied that he had set his stall out for this posing ponce.

  ‘Now. Stop wasting my time, Mr Bancroft,’ Sheila said, checking her watch as though she had some more pressing engagement to attend. ‘I wanna know who fed you information about me and I want to hear your proposal. No dicking around.’

  ‘I’m not giving you my sources,’ Bancroft said, grinning like a bloody eejit again. ‘But I will say this: I’ll run your drugs, protection racket, any girls, gambling … whatever. All the tough stuff, I’ll run and give you fifteen per cent. I take all the risk. You just sit back and take the money.’ He opened his arms, raising them up as though he had just announced he had found a cure for cancer to a hospital ward full of the dying.

  ‘Fifteen?!’ Conky said, hoping the arsehole could hear the derision in his voice.

  Sheila stalked towards Bancroft, pushing her face right up against his. ‘You’re taking the piss. Shall I tell you what you can do with your fifteen lousy per cent?’

  Sheila dipped her slender hand into the handbag. Bancroft’s eyes widened as she pressed her gun into his gut.

  Conky held his breath. Would she shoot?

  ‘You can stick your offer right up your jacksy,’ she said, seeming to grow even more in stature. ‘You’ve wasted my time. Getting me down here, just so you can wave your dick at me before you try to shaft me for my business?’

  ‘No, I haven’t!’ Bancroft said. ‘The offer’s in good faith.’

  ‘Feel that?’ Sheila said, pushing the snub nose down towards his abdomen. Still out of the eyeline of Bancroft’s henchmen, who hung back, too far away to hear this exchange, Conky calculated. ‘That’s my dick you can feel.’ She raised her eyebrows and widened her eyes like an excited child, boarding a ride at a fairground. ‘If you want me to shoot my load, carry on with the insults, pal. Because you’re insulting me right now, and my dick feels a romance explosion coming on that won’t end well for you.’

  ‘Twenty per cent, then,’ Bancroft’s skin had paled to a sickly yellow now. His eyes darted to and fro, as though he was desperate to alert his boys to the danger he faced.

  Conky could see Sheila click the safety off. ‘There you go again with the insults. How about you tell me the name of the grassing little shit who seems to think my business is his business?’

  ‘Twenty-five. There. That’s my best offer, Sheila. Twenty-five per cent to run your drugs and protection and that.’

  ‘Raise your hands where I can see them,’ she said. ‘Any last words?’

  ‘All right! All right!’ Bancroft did as asked, shaking his head vociferously at his two men, as they moved in towards him, guns drawn, aimed at Sheila and Conky. ‘Just mull it over, will you? It’s good business sense, and you know it. Please.’

  Appraising the scene with the swift eyes of a militia man, Conky noted the innocent passers-by some hundred metres away. Made a split-second decision as to whether he could take out these two lumps and their bossman be
fore the situation got out of hand. The specially manufactured prisms in the lenses of his Ray-Bans boosted his weak thyroid-eyes back to better than twenty-twenty vision. He could take them out, all right.

  ‘Put your guns away, lads,’ Bancroft said. A sheen of sweat glistened on his forehead. ‘Sheila here is just being cautious, aren’t you? It’s understandable.’

  ‘She’s taking the piss, Nige,’ the black guy said.

  ‘Stand down, Steve. And you, Trev. It’s okay. We’re all good. Sheila’s just going to chew over my offer, aren’t you, love?’

  Conky could almost taste the adrenalin in the air. Blood rushed and roared in his ears. Here was the crux of the meet.

  ‘Love? Don’t you, “love” me, you presumptuous bastard,’ Sheila said, taking an all-important step away from Bancroft, though she still clutched the pistol in her hand.

  Bancroft lowered his arms uncertainly. Gestured for his men to back down.

  A young woman, clutching the hands of two small children, had started to cross the footbridge. She was moving closer by the second to the shores of the Lowry Theatre. Conky estimated that they had thirty seconds tops in which to negotiate a peaceful conclusion to the ill-fated proceedings. He was relieved to see the black guy shove his weapon back inside his coat pocket.

  ‘This meeting’s over,’ Sheila said, clumsily opening her handbag with the hand that clutched her gun. ‘Now, piss off back down the M6 with your proposition.’

  But the white man-mountain in the leather donkey jacket was still aiming his gun at Sheila’s head. His colour was high. His eyes were glazed. Conky knew a man who had lost control when he saw one. The woman with the two small children was upon him, looking askance at the spectacle of a giant clutching a gun. When she screamed, Conky knew he’d left it too long to react.

  Chapter 4

  Paddy

  ‘Another pint, Marcus, kind sir!’ Paddy thrust his glass out towards the craggy-faced landlord, brandishing it beneath the short man’s nose as if it were a broken bottle. His words were slurring – he could hear that much. Had been for the last hour. But with every pint of bitter he drank, the reality of Kenneth Wainwright’s sad, shitty, low-rent world became more blissfully blurred around the edges; the ache of the scar where his body had been opened up with a boning knife by that little arsehole Leviticus Bell, posing as Asaf Smolensky, had dulled … just for a booze-numbed while.

  ‘You’ve had enough, Ken,’ the landlord said, grabbing Paddy’s wrist with an unforgiving hand. Stronger than he looked. ‘Go home and sleep it off, mate.’

  Swaying slightly, Paddy calculated whether he should accept the rejection or square up to this pint-sized hard nut. He slapped several pound coins onto the sticky bar with his free hand. ‘My money not good enough for you?’

  The landlord released his wrist. Looked down at the money. ‘Go home. Sleep it off. Come back later. Then I’ll serve you.’ His face softened only slightly, revealing a smile that was like a tight fissure in his bark-like skin. ‘Come on, Ken. You’re not worth much to me as a regular if you get knocked down on the way home cos you’re too pissed to see straight.’

  Feeling his pulse thunder with adrenalin, the Paddy of old relished the invincible feeling of The Rage taking over his battered body. But the part of Paddy that was still just about sober dimly acknowledged that he was – for now – no longer the boss of South Manchester. He was not the King. At the insistence of Katrina – the almighty Sister Benedicta – he had taken on the threadbare mantel of Kenneth Wainwright willingly and for a reason. Lie low, Pad. Gather your strength. Sting those plotting, lying bastards when they least expect it. Destroy every last one of them. Tariq, Jonny, Conky, Lev, Gloria and Sheila. Sheila … bring that bitch to heel and reclaim her as your wife. His intentions, not Katrina’s. His sister had hoped he’d use the fresh start to make a new life for himself. But hadn’t she always played the controlling older sibling? Paddy, despite his new-found vulnerability, was in no mood to be ruled by another.

  His sluggish, internal debate was interrupted by his phone ringing loudly. Buzzing its way across the beer-splattered mahogany, where it butted up against a washed-out bar towel. Katrina’s name on the display, of course.

  ‘Oh, bloody hell. Here we go.’

  On the other end of the crackling line, Katrina’s voice sounded edged with hellfire and damnation. ‘Patrick! I got your message. You sounded drunk. Please tell me you haven’t burned through your week’s money already. And please tell me you’re not in that crumbling den of iniquity, The Feckless Oik’s Arms again.’

  In the background, he could hear the noises of the nursing home that she ran with military bombast – the beeping of residents’ alarms; the monotonous verbal ramblings of old Rose, who tottered up and down the corridors all day long on her zimmer, repeating the same demented shit about needing the toilet, though she wore an inconti-pad so big that it barely fit inside her gusset. Swaying slightly on his bar stool, he imagined he could still smell the stale cabbage and cloying stink of soiled underwear.

  He belched down the phone. ‘I can’t live on peanuts, Kat. Drop us hundred quid round, will you? Just til Giro day.’

  There was a muffled noise on the other end – his sister, putting her well-scrubbed hand over the mouthpiece, perhaps, to stop the other nuns from eavesdropping. ‘I didn’t commit fraud to get you a new identity just so you could wash your chance of a new life into a barman’s swill bucket, Patrick O’Brien.’

  Paddy tugged absently at the wadding that spilled out of the vinyl seat cover. ‘Piss off, Kat. You don’t have the first bloody idea what it’s like for a rich man to need state handouts. Do you know how little a sad bastard like Wainwright—’ In amongst the beer fumes, he realised he had slipped up. Eyed Mark the landlord furtively. ‘I mean, a man like me gets in disability benefit? I spent more on my aftershave than I get to live on for a week now.’ Damn. Another slip-up. Putting his mouth into gear before his brain was switched on. That’s what his Mammy would have said.

  ‘Patrick!’ The agitation in her voice was clear. Paddy had called the shots for decades. Now, suddenly, the jackboot was on the other foot. ‘I am not giving you extra money out of the nursing home’s coffers to fund death by cirrhosis of the liver. You’re turning into Dad.’

  ‘Thanks a bundle. Is that a no, then?’

  The line went dead. Paddy smashed his phone onto the bar top, cracking the screen.

  ‘Right!’ the landlord shouted. ‘That’s it, Ken. Out!’

  Surprised to find himself deftly manhandled by the landlord towards the door, Paddy pointed confusedly at him. ‘How did you get over the bar? Fucking … Spiderman!’

  The other drinkers barely looked up from their pints, sitting as they were, in silence around three or four old tables that were dark-stained with ages-old stout spillage and nicotine from a bygone era. Cracked and dirty single-glazed windows barely shed light on the dump, with its swirling brown and lime carpet.

  ‘Shithole!’ Paddy shouted, shrugging the landlord off. Searching for words that came only reluctantly through the hoppy fog of beer-thoughts. ‘Shitty carpet.’

  ‘See you later, Ken,’ the landlord said, pushing him gently onto the street. ‘Go home and eat something.’ The door was closed firmly behind him.

  Stumbling into the street, Paddy clutched at his stomach. Even now, after six pints, he could feel the ache of a body healing reluctantly.

  A horn honked, loud and long. Then, an angry voice.

  ‘Get out of the way, wanker!’

  Paddy jerked himself backwards onto the kerb, surprised that he had veered into the road and the path of a white van without realising. The driver had stopped abruptly, his passenger hanging out of the cab window, screaming at him with an angry red face, peeping out from a plaster-encrusted beany.

  Not registering the words but understanding their sentiment, Paddy stuck his middle finger up at the man. ‘Shove it up your arse!’

  The passenger opened the van do
or and got out. He was tall too, seeming larger in a hi-vis donkey jacket with baggy plaster-spattered cargo trousers and elephantine steel-toecap workmen’s boots.

  ‘Come on, you big bastard,’ Paddy slurred, holding his fists aloft. Squaring up to the far younger man. Couldn’t have been more than thirty. But even in his early sixties, Paddy was certain he was more than a match for this prick. He swung a punch. Missed.

  The enraged plasterer, now accompanied by the van’s driver – a giant of a man who looked like a brickie, judging by his physique – raised his fist.

  ‘Leave him be! He’s an invalid! Leave it, lads. No harm done, right?’

  A woman’s voice to Paddy’s left. He felt someone link him and drag him across the road. With sluggish eyes, he registered that it was Brenda. He grinned.

  ‘Hiya, Brenda, love! I thought you was at work.’ Lunging for her, he planted a wet kiss on her cheek and squeezed her breast through her bright green liveried work fleece. ‘C’mere gorgeous. Give Pad— Kenny a kiss.’

  Brenda giggled girlishly and blushed. Swiped his hand away delicately. ‘Not in public, Kenneth. Come on. I’ll walk you home. I’m not due back off my dinner for half an hour. I’ll microwave you something to soak up the booze. Have you got anything in?’

  Paddy grabbed at his crotch. ‘I’ve always got something in for you, Brenda!’ The polar opposite of Sheila, he thought, eyeing up this new easy lay that he’d met during the pub’s quiz night. All pillowy breasts and a nice big fat arse. He had never thought that would be his thing, but Brenda – recently abandoned by her ex and desperately needing a man to bestow her womanly love on – was comforting and obliging. She made good stew and cleaned his house for him. A man like him shouldn’t go without.

  Sturdy, reliable Brenda steered him along the road towards the purgatorial two-up, two-down that he had rented in Kenneth Wainwright’s name. Rent paid by the dole. Furnished sparsely with MDF shit from the catalogue.