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  Jonny finally abandoned his stool. Pulled the belt of his trousers up. Positioned himself next to Tariq, standing shoulder to shoulder. Presenting a united front that made Lev wish for the solidarity and support of a reliable friend, relative, woman … anybody at all!

  ‘I don’t see what our accounts have got to do with you, detective.’ For a man with a high-pitched voice who normally came across as affable, Jonny sounded like the dangerous gangster he was. ‘And I don’t see the point in you being here at nearly midnight unless you’ve got a legitimate reason to be here and a warrant. Now, we’ve got homes to go to and we’ve got to be up very early in the morning. And I think you’ll find, if you check our company’s records, that we pay enough tax to keep you and all your little harassing friends back at the station in your jobs.’

  ‘Where’s Smolensky?’ the detective asked. Beady eyes through the lenses of those glasses had clearly clocked all of them on their approach in the people carrier.

  ‘Don’t know what you’re talking about,’ Jonny said.

  ‘Asaf Smolensky. The lunatic fishmonger. Where is he?’ Ellis James took those steel-rimmed glasses from his nose and started to polish them on the edge of his coat, as though he had time to kill.

  ‘I don’t know Asaf Smolensky personally, detective, but my wife tells me he gives excellent weight and his smoked salmon’s the best in Cheetham Hill. You fancy some herring or a nice piece of hake, detective, I suggest you go to see Mr Smolensky yourself at his splendid fishmonger’s on Monday. Because it’s Friday night right now, and I’m sure even an ignoramus like you knows that religious Jewish people are tucked up at home on the Sabbath. So, as for him being here …’ Jonny cast an arm around the empty, dimly lit factory. ‘I really don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, I’m afraid.’ Glanced at his watch. ‘Now, if you don’t mind, my associate here will show you to the door.’

  ‘Well, wish Mr Smolensky a happy Sabbath from me, won’t you?’ Ellis said with a maniacal smile that barely belied the pure acid in his voice. ‘I’ll see you again very soon, boys. Very soon.’

  Nasim ushered the persistent interrogator out. Finally.

  ‘Shit,’ Tariq said, tapping at the face of his watch. ‘We’ve got to get this cash down payment across town to McFadden in fifteen minutes or the O’Brien deal’s off.’

  Chapter 11

  Conky

  ‘Have a drink, Conks,’ Frank shouted over the thud, thud, thud of the garage music. Thrusting a bottle of Cristal in his general direction, so that the foaming liquid sploshed onto his suit trousers.

  Conky pushed the bottle away. Stood abruptly, sick of being penned into that damned VIP area, surrounded by a wall of gyrating young girls dressed like cheap strippers, though the club had only just started to fill up in earnest. Early birds, catching the worm. All of them, on the lookout for a man with a fat wallet, a small dick and lack of moral fibre. He hated it. This was nothing more than a prison made from fat silken rope instead of bars.

  ‘No. Thanks all the same.’

  Frank looked momentarily crestfallen. ‘But we’re celebrating.’

  ‘The boss is celebrating,’ Conky said, looking over at Paddy, who was in the process of pouring champagne onto the cleavage of a blonde girl, sitting on his lap. Licking it off, as though that was merely hors d’oeuvres for the main course, which would inevitably be enjoyed in the back room of the club later. Poor bloody Sheila. ‘I don’t see why you’re so happy, Francis.’

  But Frank wasn’t listening. He shrugged. Smiled. Swigged from the bottle himself and started to dance along to the deafening music as though he hadn’t a care in the world. A harmless prick, but a prick nonetheless.

  Checking his watch, Conky assessed with some relief that it was time to escape the childish, hedonistic bullshit of M1 House. He didn’t bother excusing himself. Paddy would not thank him for the interruption.

  Pushing his way through the phalanx of sweaty bodies, careful to avoid having his hair arrangement knocked by the dancing, prancing kids’ flailing arms, he wondered how life would be once he was no longer in the employ of the O’Briens. Frank had offered to keep him on, but he sure as hell had no intention of working for that gurning buffoon.

  Outside, the air was fresh and smelled only a little of diesel from the passing buses and taxis. The night reverberated with the beat of the music, as though the club contained within it a giant throbbing heart, trying to burst its confines. Conky lit a cigarette and exhaled heavily.

  ‘Three months,’ he told the pink haze of the city’s sky. ‘After twenty long years.’

  In three months Paddy would be up, up and away, Thailand- bound – Sheila on his arm, which would be more than enough for any man under normal circumstances – hell, he’d be happy to spend his life in Glasgow’s Gorbals or Runcorn if Sheila was his – and without a care in the world. Until then, Conky had agreed to work out his notice for severance pay that was more than generous. No doubt he would be paid his six-figure sum out of the first mill he was about to take receipt of from those arseholes, Jonny Margulies and Tariq Khan. Conky McFadden – an independently wealthy man. What a thought! He would somehow launder it to pay off his mortgage, raised ten years ago on a lacklustre end terrace in Didsbury, using fake payslips from O’Brien Construction Ltd.

  Paddy was a generous benefactor. Too generous. And that was the problem.

  On the drive to meet the Boddlington bosses, Conky took a detour, slowing the Jag as he traversed the city’s invisible borders into Parson’s Croft. Peering down street after anonymous street of Victorian terraced housing, where Degsy and his girls dealt drugs. From here to the outskirts of Wythenshawe, every shitty pub operated as a hub where locals would go to receive Maundy Money even on a Thursday from their monarch. Those were places where disputes were solved, work was asked for, respects and dues were paid. The shopkeepers whom Conky collected protection money from paid up on time. The disloyal and disobedient were punished by him at Paddy’s behest. There was a pecking order. There was structure and routine. People liked that sort of thing.

  ‘This place is going to be bedlam,’ he said aloud over the top of the Dvorˇák cello concerto that resounded from the car’s stereo. Sped up, not stopping until he pulled into the builders’ yard.

  Checking his watch, he saw that it was already gone midnight. Where the hell were the Boddlingtons? Under normal circumstances, being late to an O’Brien meet at the yard attracted a physical penalty. Usually trapping the miscreants’ hands in the jamb of the door. He was good at releasing the pressure before the fingers actually broke. A skill he would soon have no need of.

  In the kitchenette at the back of the neat little office, he made himself a cup of redbush tea, using bags that he carried with him everywhere. Sat out front in the shop with the fluorescent lights blazing. Surrounded by builders’ merchandise. Tape measures. Brickies’ protective gloves. Overalls for asbestos workers. A broad-shouldered mannequin wearing very useful cargo trousers with in-built knee pads and an excellent quality tool belt. Conky eyed the utilitarian garb, thinking how, if he had chosen another path, he too, like so many of his brethren from across the Irish Sea, would be spending his back-breaking pre-retirement days on wet English building sites, toiling over fine brickwork or perhaps taking pride in a handsome slate roof. He might have a wife and children. Live in an over-developed bungalow in Saddleworth. Drive a white van during the week but a nearly new Range Rover at the weekend. Go on holiday to Torremolinos during the winter to ease the rheumatoid arthritis that would almost certainly be settling in by now. Too late to go back, however. He had chosen the path of the Loss Adjuster.

  Waiting. The clock showed 00.13. He took out his copy of Conn Iggulden’s Lords of the Bow. It was the third time he had read the novelised series describing Genghis Khan’s life, but Conky liked to channel a little Genghis when a confrontation was afoot: marvelling at a chapter where the disciplined training regime of the Mongolian army was laid out in detail, he waited for
that vicarious rush of adrenalin and pseudo-military pride to wash over him; expecting the sheer bloody-minded determination of Genghis himself, in the face of all adversity when his horsemen were woefully outnumbered by the enemy, to strengthen his own spine. Though the Mongolian Emperor would have little chance to inspire him tonight. Headlights at the builders’ yard gates, shining onto stacks of timber. Abandoning his book, he stood and watched a dark people carrier advance to the Portakabin shop. It parked out front. But there was only one man in the vehicle that he could see. The tall figure of Asaf Smolensky emerged, carrying a black sack.

  ‘Oh, shite. Not that nutter,’ Conky said under his breath. ‘He’s the kind of eejit keeps a shovel of shit on the table to keep the flies off the butter.’

  A merry tinkle as the door to the shop opened. There he was – his opposite number, dressed in all his eccentric religious regalia, with those unhygienic ritual tassels hanging down his trousers and that ridiculous black satin coat. Conky had read enough about Judaism to know that the imitation Hassid who stood before him constituted nothing short of blasphemy.

  ‘Smolensky,’ he said, proffering his hand.

  The Fish Man cocked his head to the side and peered at Conky’s hand quizzically. Ignored the gesture, thrusting the black bin liner towards him.

  ‘It’s all there,’ he said.

  ‘I’ll count it if you don’t mind. In the back, there. Sit out here or follow me and watch. Suit yourself. But don’t try anything stupid.’

  ‘Please don’t insult my intelligence and professionalism.’ The Fish Man’s mouth settled into an uncompromising straight fissure in an otherwise impermeable flint-face. His thick, dark eyebrows knitted together over too-shiny mad man’s eyes.

  Many a time had Conky met this man’s type in prison. Bat-shit crazy. Probably.

  Smolensky trudged through to the office, bringing with him a pernicious trail of eau de fishmonger. Conky coughed. Wondered if he should bother trying to make conversation with this odd character whom he usually saw only from a distance, on the opposite side of the battle lines.

  ‘The money counter’s banjaxed,’ he explained, omitting the information that Paddy had broken it during one of his episodes, hurling it towards Degsy’s head. ‘You’ll have to be patient.’ With practised fingers, he started to count the money manually. ‘Would you like a tea?’ he asked, thumbing through the twenties. ‘Help yourself.’ Nodded to the kitchenette. ‘There’s all the facilities. Milk in the fridge.’

  Smolensky sat in a typing chair. Took a green packet out of his inside pocket – the word Noblesse emblazoned across the front, followed by something written in Hebrew. He removed a cigarette and tapped it on the packet.

  ‘Not in here,’ Conky said, pointing to the no-smoking sign. ‘Rules are rules.’

  ‘This is not O’Brien’s place any more,’ the Fish Man said.

  The sentence sounded hostile, spoken in a clipped Israeli accent with an upwards inflection that irritated the shit out of Conky. Exercise Genghis-like control, Conk. You are a disciplined warrior. Do not stove the eejit’s head in.

  ‘It is until your bosses have paid in full, my friend.’

  ‘I am not your friend. We have merely been two soldiers with the same rank, fighting for warring armies. But maybe now it is almost like we are brothers-in-arms.’ He flashed Conky an unexpected smile.

  Pausing to sip his redbush brew, Conky studied Smolensky’s somewhat younger face. Hard to judge a man’s expression under a big, messy beard like that. But there was a certain earnestness behind the fervour in those eyes.

  ‘Do you really think this deal is going to be a success, Fish Man?’ he asked. ‘Do you think your bosses are going to sweep aside all that my boss has built over decades and replace it with their own structure, culture and processes?’

  ‘Of course. I am a man of faith. I believe that some things are beshert – that means—’

  ‘Meant to be. Fated.’

  ‘Precisely. It’s fate that the Boddlingtons should rule Manchester.’

  Conky sipped his tea. Fell silent. Visualised those tired, dog-turd-studded streets, those beer-sticky pubs, those mildewed houses where desperation was mixed into the very mortar and where the O’Briens were worshipped like Jesus Christ’s own emissaries on earth. ‘Communism.’

  ‘Pardon?’

  ‘The Bolsheviks thought they could sweep Russia’s glorious regal history and religious commitment aside and replace it with a new order. The Nazis thought so too. And the British thought they could take Northern Ireland and remould it in their own image. See how that’s all worked out for them over time.’

  ‘I don’t understand what you’re getting at. Can you count the money please? I get low blood sugar. I need to eat regularly.’

  Crossing his legs and sitting back in his chair, the truth of the situation became clearer to Conky with each lesson from history that occurred to him.

  ‘You want to know what I think?’ he said to the Fish Man. ‘I don’t think Manchester is going to let Paddy O’Brien go.’ He interlaced his fingers behind his head. Full of philosophy in the early hours of Saturday morning. ‘Too many people have a vested interest in my boss staying the King. Changing the order of things from the top down is not as simple as people think.’

  Smolensky sighed. Tugged at his beard. ‘Just count the cash, McFadden. Business is business and you’re talking too much for my liking.’

  ‘I’m a man of words and a man of my word.’ Conky nodded slowly. ‘People will continue to fight for their King long after the throne’s been given up or taken. You usurp a leader and try to crush an established culture and you’re gonna get an uprising on your hands at the very least.’

  His phone rang, just as he was about to explain the finer points of revolution to Smolensky. It was Sheila, sounding harassed on the other end.

  ‘Calm down, She,’ he said, ignoring the Fish Man’s obvious irritation. ‘What’s wrong?’ A pause. ‘Who’s come to the house? I’ll be over as soon as I can.’ He hung up. Irritated at this transaction having been interrupted. But flattered. Torn. Sheila needed him urgently to help with an unwanted visitor. A woman in a big house like that on her own. It was Conky she had called. Not Paddy. But by rights, this was Paddy’s jurisdiction. He should be there to defend his own wife in his home in the middle of the bloody night. But he wasn’t. The boss was in M1 House, celebrating like a twenty-year-old with his idiot brother, no doubt pausing in his champagne consumption only to go in the back and hump that blonde teenager he’d pulled.

  ‘Let’s pick up the pace,’ he told Smolensky. ‘I’ve got somewhere I need to be.’

  ‘Woman trouble?’ The Fish Man treated him to a knowing wry smile.

  ‘I’m not likely to discuss my personal business with you, Fish Man. Now shut your bake and let me concentrate.’

  Thinking of Sheila in need, Conky leafed through the money as quickly as his stiff fingers would allow him. Agitated that he couldn’t just down tools and go to her aid immediately. Counting a million pounds wasn’t a five-minute job. Irritated that Smolensky was sitting too close to him, sharpening a gutting knife with a whetstone and breathing noisily through his mouth. When he took out a bagel wrapped in cling-film that stank of egg and onions, he tutted loudly.

  ‘Do you have to do that in here?’ he asked. ‘It fucking stinks.’

  Smolensky took a large bite from the bagel and spoke with his mouth full. ‘I told you. Low blood sugar.’

  He proceeded to chew with his mouth open, making an angry clacking sound as his molars ground the food down. Conky grimaced, reasoning that his retirement pay-out was probably peanuts if he took some of the shit he had had to put up with over the years into consideration.

  Two cups of tea later, feeling the burn of lactic acid in his overworked hands, Conky was done.

  ‘Consider the Boddlingtons’ down payment met, Fish Man. We’ll be in touch about paying the balance.’

  ‘Sign the receipt,’ the Fi
sh Man said.

  With a flourish of his pen on a piece of paper that Maureen Kaplan would later file in her safe room, no doubt, and a reluctant shake of the hand, the first stage of the sale was concluded. Conky’s thoughts turned to Sheila …

  When he reached the O’Brien mansion, he recognised Gloria’s Mazda parked out front immediately. Using his key, he let himself in. Drew his gun, more as a reflex action than anything. Surely the situation couldn’t be that desperate if it was just Gloria. And time had passed since the call. Surely they had calmed down and made up.

  The yelling took him by surprise. Super-heat in women’s sharp-edged, steely words, conducted all the way from the TV room in the back of the house to the entrance hall. And there Sheila and Gloria were, entangled in something that looked like two cats fighting in a pro-wrestling match. All hair and nails and, ‘You bitch!’

  ‘Ladies! Ladies! Break it up!’

  Conky pulled Sheila from Gloria as gently as possible, though the two women fought against him with balled fists and venomous slaps.

  ‘About time too! Get her out of here!’ Sheila said.

  ‘You’re making a big mistake!’ Gloria shouted. Normally so primly dressed, Conky was surprised by the defined, almost manly musculature of her arms. She was grabbing at Sheila again. Shaking her like a wayward child. ‘I need this final deal to go through. I need money. It’s all right for you.’

  But the diminutive Sheila was no pushover. She pummelled Gloria towards the door like a mini-Sumo pushing her opponent to the chalk line. ‘All these years, we worked as business partners and you’re still thinking it’s all right for me? You cheeky, chippy cow! You were my cleaner and I made you rich.’

  Gloria halted in her offensive. Stepped back suddenly, her hands in the air, her neck at an awkward, sassy angle. Blinking hard like the Ricki Lake show had never been taken off air. ‘You made me rich? I’m sorry. I cleaned your mess up for the first ten years of your marriage and have all but run your business single handedly. But you. Made me. Rich. You. In your frigging mansion.’ She gasped. ‘Look at that. You made me swear, you terrible woman.’