Born Bad Page 5

  Silence between them put a temporary sticking plaster over the acrimony.

  ‘So, what are we gonna do?’ Lev asked, trying to be calm. He stroked his son’s hair, wishing he could somehow draw the tumour out through his hand and take it on himself. ‘We can go private. Get a second opinion. I’ll ask my bosses for some money.’

  Resignation in Tiffany’s voice. She turned to him, treating him to a dead-eyed stare. ‘All they can do is try to shrink it. Radiothingy. They said it’s grown into his nose and around the optic nerves. He’s going blind. Doc said there’s not a surgeon in England has got the savvy to get it out. He’s shafted …’

  Lev looked down at Jay and felt tears leak onto his cheeks. Imagining the tumour within his son, wrapping itself around the boy’s beautiful green eyes, suffocating the healthy tissue, eating into space that his brain should by rights fill, replacing thoughts of Postman Pat and Chuggington and whatever other shit the kid watched on CBeebies with pain. Somehow, he had failed the boy. Somehow, it was his fault. There had to be a way to make it better. His mother had always told him the Lord was merciful.

  ‘… Unless we can get him to the States.’ Tiffany inhaled her cigarette deeply and blew the smoke over Lev’s closely shorn hair.

  A glimmer of hope. ‘You what?’

  She nodded slowly. Flicked her fingernails with her thumb. ‘There’s this brain surgeon in Baltimore. The place is called John Hopkins Brain Centre or summat.’

  ‘Right,’ Lev said, wiping the tears from his cheeks determinedly. ‘He’s going. We’ll take him.’

  ‘It’s a hundred and fifty grand. Maybe more. Where you gonna find that kind of cash, smart arse? Flogging baggies of coke in town on a Saturday night? Get a grip!’

  Lev’s heart, buoyed instantly by the thought of a cure that glittered with promise on the other side of the Atlantic, took a slow trip back down to the soles of his Nike Air-Max trainers. He mentally rifled through the hiding places he had for cash in the Sweeney Hall high-rise he called home. The toilet cistern contained £2,500 and a gun that was worth a few quid, wrapped up in plastic bags. There was another £1,900 at the back of the gas meter in an old Brillo box. £5,000 in a carrier bag, gaffer-taped to the underside of his wardrobe. He couldn’t even make ten grand.

  ‘We’ll find it,’ he said. ‘I’ll ask Tariq and Jonny for more work. Maybe I can help out as muscle. The Fish Man gets paid a mint.’

  Tiffany snorted. ‘You? Muscle? Where, in your pants? That’s the only place you ever had muscle, Le-viti-carse.’

  His hours spent at the gym every week were clearly lost on that cheeky, head-wiggling cow. Or maybe she was bitching because she wasn’t getting it any more. Yes, that was it. The jibe stung less when he looked at it that way. But this was no time for hurt sensibilities over the quality of his six-pack.

  ‘I’ll have it saved, borrowed or stolen inside six months. I promise. The full whack.’ The words came out as a half-whisper, bound for his sleeping son’s ears.

  ‘Six months? You are joking,’ Tiffany said, picking her cigarette dimp out of the ashtray. She put it back inside her cigarette packet, stood and grabbed the empties from the table. No trace of emotion in her indifferent face. ‘The doctor reckons he’ll be dead in three, even with radiowhatsit. We need a miracle. How about you talk to that shithouse, your mother. She’s pretty fucking friendly with God, isn’t she?’

  But the words he’ll be dead in three were ringing in Lev’s ears like bad tinnitus. He looked down at Jay, frowning in his sleep. Golden downy hairs on those honeyed, rubicund cheeks. The only beautiful thing in this godforsaken hole. The only beautiful thing in Lev’s entire beleaguered existence. Lev imagined his son lifeless and stiff, his eyes, staring blankly into the abyss, the childish shine all gone. His small body, interred in the autumn-hardening ground of Agecroft Cemetery, a fancy white coffin the only cold comfort remaining at the end of a life left unlived and mourned bitterly by wailing female relatives who should have looked after the poor little bastard better. Then, he pictured himself by his son’s graveside. Wearing his only suit, normally worn for court appearances, weddings and the odd stag night. Here is the homecoming for the son of Leviticus Bell – a pure soul begat by a sinner, snatched back to heaven by an unforgiving God that expects more from his flock than petty drug-dealing, cheap sex and knife crime.

  Lev allowed the darkness to engulf him. Chastised himself for being useless at a time of need. Reminded him- self that he was one of life’s fighters. Remembered that Jay still had a chance while Dr Whateverhi‌sorhernamewas at Johns Hopkins in Baltimore existed. ‘Jesus Christ, Tiff. Our Jay can’t die. I won’t let him. I’m gonna sort this.’

  Chapter 7

  Gloria

  Gloria Bell was finding it hard to praise Jesus that Sunday in the Good Life Baptist Church. Her bunions were stinging for a start. She looked down at her feet, grimacing at the protrusions through the brown patent leather. Perhaps the Lord was punishing her for vanity. There had been no real need to wear heels, if she was being honest. Flats would have been a more sensible choice, even though she was wearing her new best summer dress and matching shrug. But in her heart of hearts, Gloria admitted that she quite liked the way the pastor looked at her legs when she was wearing these heels. And maybe Jesus would appreciate her suffering and self-sacrifice to brighten His servant’s Sunday morning spiritual travails with a nicely turned ankle. The pastor did put an awful lot of passion into his sermon and singing, after all. That had to be tiring.

  ‘He’s got great stamina,’ her friend Winnie whispered in her ear, almost taking Gloria’s eye out with the sharp petrol-coloured feathers that protruded from her best hat.

  Gloria nodded, never taking her eyes off the pastor’s shapely, muscular bottom in those too tight suit trousers he wore. Whipping the choir into a frenzy was hot work. Ordinarily, Gloria liked it when he took his jacket off and turned his back to the congregation. But today, she was distracted by her infernal bunions and by the conversation she had had only yesterday with Sheila O’Brien.

  They had been sitting at Sheila’s breakfast bar: she, drinking a simple mug of boiled water, Sheila, guzzling a vodka tonic. The call that had precipitated the visit had felt like a summons, judging by the frost in Sheila’s normally warm voice. Small wonder, then, that her one-time boss turned business partner had delivered a body-blow she could never have anticipated.

  ‘It’s over, Gloria,’ Sheila had said. ‘Our business. I’ve got to jack it in. Me and Pad are moving to Thailand. I’m so sorry.’

  Gloria had set her mug carefully back on its coaster and studied Sheila’s serious expression. Her eyes were clear, despite the early V&T. She’d looked at her hands to see if she had the shakes. But the myriad of platinum charms on her ostentatious bracelet always rattled; it was hard to tell. ‘Are you drunk?’

  Sheila had sighed. Her white skin, normally warmed with spray tan and cosmetics, had looked wan that morning, giving her a flat, defeated look. A developing bruise beneath the skin on her forehead had been evident. ‘I wish I was. We’re selling up. It’s all decided. ’Cos of his heart attack.’

  Pressing her hands to her mouth, Gloria had shaken her head. Visualising the Nigerian women from the church whose families back home were all dependent on their cleaning business for income. What would she tell them? How could she look any of them in the eye? And the girls in the flat … The illegals.

  ‘We’re responsible for over a hundred women, Sheila,’ Gloria had said, folding her arms and feeling the Lord’s righteous indignation puff a little wind back into her sails. ‘I’m a respected figure in my community.’ She poked herself in the chest with an honest, unpolished, work-worn finger.

  ‘I know. Look, I said I was sorry. What can I do?’ Sheila had held her hands up, as though this somehow absolved her of any guilt for dismantling Gloria’s hopes and dreams – carefully built into something edifying and impressive over many years – in under twenty minutes.

  ‘Can
’t you sell me my share of the business?’ she had asked, mentally calculating how much she would get if she remortgaged her modest Chorlton semi and sold her beloved Mazda MX-5. ‘We were just on the cusp of doing really well, Sheila. You know we were.’

  ‘No.’ Sheila had shaken her head. ‘Paddy wants a clean break. I don’t want any trouble following me to Thailand. It’s not like selling a proper business. We run a bent cleaning agency, Gloria. I can’t let you take the reins for something I set up. If it goes tits up and you get your collar felt, it will come back to me.’

  In an ungodly way, Gloria had found herself balling her fist and wanting to make contact with Sheila’s Botoxed forehead. What would Jesus do, Gloria? The meek inherit the earth. Take a deep breath like the pastor advised. Be better than your animal impulses. She had hidden her fist beneath the worktop. Had barely been able to get the words out, her mouth had been so tight. ‘We’ve got girls in their teens from Benin City that we rescued from those heathens in Birmingham. Remember? They’d shaved off the poor mites’ intimate hair and told them they’d cast spells so they’d die painful deaths if they didn’t cavort with dirty old men. Those girls had been beaten and burnt and thrown out of moving cars. But we made them safe! We gave them jobs! How can you turn round now and tell them they’ve got to go back to the hell they were living before?’

  ‘Look. I don’t like this any more than you do.’ Sheila had stood and trotted to the large Maytag fridge–freezer. Poured herself another vodka and dropped three ice cubes into the glass with a merry plink. Fizzing tonic making that kitchen sound like a cheerful place, with its super-modern chandeliers and its shining surfaces.

  ‘Then, name me a price!’ Gloria’s fist had had a life of its own, thumping the granite worktop. She had gazed at it, alarmed at the pain that had ricocheted up her arm. Refocused on her business partner. ‘I bet Paddy’s selling his blasted enterprises. I bet he’s not giving his life’s work up, as though the O’Brien empire had never existed. Eh? Am I right?’

  Sheila had blushed. Colour finally creeping into those pasty, duplicitous cheeks.

  ‘Oh, so I am right. He gets to sell. But let me guess. He ordered you to just walk away from the lot, because anything we’ve done as women counts for nothing. Is that it? Have I hit the nail on the head?’

  Sitting on that hard pew in the church next to old Winnie, Gloria remembered with dyspeptic discomfort how she had left the O’Briens’ Bramshott mansion, feeling like a member of the domestic staff who had been summarily dismissed after being caught stealing the silverware. Exacerbated by the knowledge that she had, in fact, started out as Sheila’s cleaner, all those years ago.

  ‘Just a white woman’s rubbing rag,’ she muttered under her breath as the pastor was otherwise engaged in speaking in tongues. Mindful that the pride and wrath and envy she was currently entertaining would not be doing her any favours in her journey along the path to righteousness.

  As the service ended, Gloria braced herself to pass the woeful news on to her employees. The Nigerian women, colourful in their traditional batik print wrapper dresses and head scarves, came towards her, smiling. Greeting her with warmth, clasping her hand and sharing embraces as though she had always been some revered elder in their inner circle. And there were the young girls from Benin City. Dressed in their modest best. Waving to their beloved Auntie Gloria. In a way, these were her children, whom she had led from the heart of darkness into the arms of a loving and forgiving Lord. Only right, then, that one day, she and the pastor should be together, instead of that ugly, fat wife of his, Kitty.

  Gloria knew that her strong point was her faith. She had faith that Kitty, who smelled of three-day-old chicken and who looked like a side of beef in Primark knitwear, would one day be history. She had faith that she would be able to break the bad news to her employees and safely lay the blame at Sheila’s pedicured, lazy, white-woman’s feet.

  ‘Sisters,’ she said, ushering her flock towards the vestibule of the Good Life Baptist Church, making sure the pastor got a good look at her legs and her shining, relaxed hair beneath her best fascinator, bought in the John Lewis sale. ‘Let’s go for coffee. We need to talk.’

  Being brave, like she had always been brave, winking surreptitiously at the pastor while Kitty Fried Chicken was shaking hands with an elder, Gloria led the group towards the harsh daylight streaming in through the ecclesiastical arched door. They piled out into the bustle of Parson’s Croft high street, thronging with satisfied church-goers, shoppers on a mission for bargains and gaggles of over-excited Muslim girls wearing hijabs and pretty sequinned salwar kameez, squealing with laughter into each other’s mobile phones.

  At first, she did not notice the tall, dark figure standing outside Clyde’s Caribbean Takeout. A figure, wearing a burnt orange padded gilet, a long-sleeved T-shirt and those jeans that they all wore with zips and too many pockets and silly logos. Trainers on his feet. No. There was no reason why she would have paid any attention whatsoever to this man, who looked like every other self-styled gangsta fool under the age of maybe thirty in Parson’s Croft. On his head, he wore a branded baseball cap. Stylish, sporty sunglasses with mirrored lenses hid his eyes. But ambling along towards the café, surrounded by her beloved Nigerian sisters whom she would let down gently, it barely registered with her that this was a familiar man, overly dressed as though to conceal his identity. There was something about the line of his nose and the almost delicate point of his chin. His build. His body language. The way he stepped off the stoop of Clyde’s with hands in pockets – hands that were empty of the delicious Caribbean offerings sold inside. The way he started to keep pace with her, though the wide pavement was four or five people deep. Kept shooting her glances from behind those creepy sunglasses. Now, Gloria had started to take note of this man, though he lurked in her peripheral vision.

  She sped up. ‘Come on, ladies. Cake beckons! My treat.’

  Protected by the laughter and the sheer number of bodies that surrounded her; there must have been twenty of her cleaners, bustling along that road. Maybe it was a coincidence and she was just on edge.

  But no. The man was still there. He took his hands out of his pockets. Extended a hand towards her. Opened his mouth to say something.

  Gloria stopped short. Held her handbag to her chest defensively, ready to clobber the scumbag with it if needs be before he had a chance to snatch it.

  ‘Get away from me!’ she yelled.

  Before her companions realised that an attack was afoot, the man pulled the sunglasses from his face to reveal soulless, sinner’s eyes she would recognise anywhere. Her own eyes.

  ‘It’s me, Mum,’ he said, reaching for her. Brushing her fingers with his.

  She snatched her hand away as though it had been burned and took a step back. Trod heavily on somebody’s foot, though she could not tear her gaze from her son’s anguished face to see who she had injured and offer apology. She was filled with a mixture of dread and fear and that old, familiar poison – hope.

  ‘Leviticus Bell. You treacherous, criminal toe-rag. What in the Lord’s name do you want?’

  Chapter 8

  Paddy

  ‘Don’t open your mouth,’ Paddy told Frank. ‘Let me do all the talking.’

  On the back seat of the XJ, in semi-darkness that was lit only by the street-lamps flashing by, Paddy saw his brother nod. Cock his head to the side, as if letting the simple words soak in.

  ‘Alright, Pad. No worries, man.’

  Paddy patted Frank’s knee, though even that felt like over-exertion since the heart attack. Frustrated, he was still very much King of the Alphas in his head, but now, his body had finally betrayed him. Katrina had been right. He was pushing his luck. Age and a hard, fast lifestyle had finally caught up with him, and boy, was he feeling mortal now. Vulnerable too, since he had been sent home from the hospital with nothing more than some poxy meds and a flea in his ear regarding his abysmal diet. Left to his own devices, the care of the medical staff
now felt too far beyond easy reach.

  As Conky steered the gliding car from the opulent, leafy suburbs of Bramshott down the M56 towards Manchester, tension started to mount inside him, stiffening his limbs and the set of his jaw with ice. The pressure of the impending meet bore down on his shoulders; he felt he might simply disappear down the back of the leather seat.

  ‘I haven’t seen those bastards, Tariq and Jonny since 2005,’ he said to the back of Conky’s head. Met his gaze through the rear view mirror – a rare occurrence, since Conky only took those ridiculous Roy Orbison glasses off to drive, revealing his bulging eyes in all their frightening amphibian glory. The arsehole’s hair-piece was showing through the comb-over. He resolved to say nothing. ‘Do you remember?’

  ‘Aye,’ Conky said, slowing for a speed camera on Princess Parkway. ‘There were a lot of sawn-off shotguns, pointing at a lot of hard men in that tower. Troubled times.’

  Had he felt this vulnerable over a decade ago, standing in that half-built shell of the Hilton Hotel’s tenth floor, with the wind and the rain biting into his younger man’s skin? Calling a cease fire, after the turf war between the O’Briens and the Boddlington gang had escalated to the point where there were fresh bodies stacking up in the morgue every single day for more than a month. It had been madness, then. It was still madness now.

  ‘Are you tooled up?’ he asked Conky. He looked behind him through the rear window at the large black Mercedes four-wheel drive hugging their tail. It carried their small army of foot soldiers. ‘Your lads packing?’

  ‘You just leave all that to me, boss,’ Conky said, leaning over and patting the closed glove compartment. ‘I’ve taken care of everything. And Maureen’s arbitrating. Sure it’ll be fine.’