‘Fuck me,’ said Finney, ‘where did those twats come from?’
‘No idea,’ said Vince, ‘it happened just like you saw. They came in, they decked all four of our lads and gave them a proper kicking, then they left, didn’t take a thing, didn’t say a word, just did what they came here to do and went. Our boys are all in hospital. I sent Kathy with them. That’s why there’s no one on the door.
‘I’ll make a call,’ I told him, ‘get you someone down here. I doubt they’ll come back again tonight but in case they do… ’
‘What good will it do?’ He asked me. ‘I’m not being funny but you saw that… ’
‘We’ll make sure the next lot have baseball bats,’ said Finney.
‘Fuck that,’ I told him, ‘I want them armed. Those guys weren’t just a bunch of arm-chancers or local lads with a grudge. Someone was sending us a message.’
‘Yeah, probably best to be tooled up after this,’ Finney conceded.
‘Have you ever seen Benny Evans take a beating like that?’ I asked him.
He shook his head, ‘I’ve never even seen him take a beating.’ He banged his fist down on the desk, ‘I don’t care how hard they are, I’ll fucking murder them. All of them, personally,’
‘Give me that tape,’ I ordered.
‘What are you going to do?’ asked Vince
‘Show it to Bobby.’
‘He’ll have someone’s eyes for this,’ said Finney.
I took the tape up to Bobby’s house. It was a big mansion style building in Gosforth. The posh-end as he liked to call it. He’d come a long way since he was a youngster. The house lay behind two massive wrought iron gates.
Bobby poured us both a drink, ‘you can come through, Sarah’s at her mate’s house.’ Sarah Mahoney was the one person who could wrap Bobby round her little finger. She was twenty years old, had gone off to college a year early and was now graduated, back home and living with the old man again. Her graduation picture held pride of place on his mantelpiece. She was still beautiful, even in that ridiculous get-up they make you wear when you pick up your certificate. I think Bobby was delighted she was home and he was in no hurry to move her out. His missus had been dead nearly ten years now and he’d shown no interest in replacing her. He had women when he wanted them of course, but nothing permanent. Like every dad I’ve ever met, he thought his girl was the most special thing on the planet. Bobby would have done anything for his daughter, anything.
He watched the tape silently then asked me, ‘what the fuck does this mean?’
‘I think someone is testing us, sending us a message. They are trying to say they can take over whenever they like.’
‘That’s bullshit.’
‘I know but I think that’s what they are telling us.’
He thought about this for a moment, ‘Who has got the balls to come after us like that?’
‘What about Anderson? There was that row in Ibiza.’
‘Nah, he wasn’t too happy about it but he’s got too much on his plate for this. His accountant’s not as slippery as ours. Now he’s got ARA all over him ‘cos he can’t explain how he’s got the house, the cars and all the bling with no visible means of support.’
ARA was the Assets Recovery Agency, tasked under the Proceeds of Crime Act with confiscating the ill-gotten gains of career criminals. Sensible people always had legitimate businesses to demonstrate where their income came from, which is why Bobby owned pubs, clubs, restaurants, a catering company, a property agency, even a couple of newsagents, anything with legitimate turnover that we could use to launder cash.
‘Didn’t he have anything legit?’
Bobby shook his head, ‘stupid bastard was still signing on in Toxteth.’
‘That is sticking two fingers up at the man,’ I said, ‘queuing up at the dole office with your Rolex and a wodge of drug money in your back pocket.’
‘He’ll need benefits by the time they’ve finished with him. They filmed him secretly for one of those uncovered, fly-on-the-wall documentaries,’ and he shook his head, ‘I tell you, if that Macintyre bloke came near me looking to make a name for himself I’d stick him in the boot of his own car, lock it and push it into the Tyne, I really would.’
‘I know you would. How about our friends in Glasgow?’ I offered, ‘the Gladwells?’
Bobby thought for a moment, ‘too old, maybe ten years ago but not now. We’ve had our scrapes me and Arthur Gladwell but we always sorted them in the end. Imagine the stress of being the Top Boy in Glasgow for that long.’
‘There’s a lot of competition.’
‘They’re fucking psychos up there. Remember, it was us that built the wall, to keep those buggers out.’
‘I’ll have to remember to tell Laura that. Her old lady’s a Scot. So you don’t think it’s him?’
‘Gladwell? No, too old, too busy and he’s got enough on his plate keeping his boys out of trouble.’ He’s got four sons. Remember we met the eldest and his shrew when we went up there a couple of years back to sort out that construction scam? What was her name again?’
‘Martine,’
‘You called her Lady Macbeth.’
‘With good cause,’ I assured him, ‘but not to her face. She was as sour as a bag of lemons that one.’
‘Imagine fucking that,’ and he whistled as if he was contemplating the demands of the SAS selection process.
‘Tommy Gladwell must have done it, at least a couple of times. They’ve got two kids.’
‘He’s a twat that bloke.’
‘Known as ‘wee Tommy Gladwell from what I remember, even though he was fat and forty by then.’
‘He’s like all the Gladwell lads, carries on like he’s hard as nails but he can’t shit without his old man’s permission and now he’s got his wife involved in his business, imagine that,’ he clearly thought that was taking feminism a step too far.
‘London then?’ I suggested.
‘Met’s all over it. You’ve got Super grasses and SOCA, the ARA and not to mention all the competition, Albanians, Russians, Yardies and Turks. Who’d have time to come up here?’
‘Maybe they think it’d be easier?’ he gave me a filthy look, ‘I’m not saying they’d be right mind but, you know, with some people, the grass is always greener,’
‘It’s possible,’ he conceded then reconsidered, ‘no, no, you’re telling me that some fat cockney twat’s gonna come all the way up here, shooting his mouth off, while we let him get away with taking over the place? Nah, I can’t see it, can you?’
‘I dunno,’ I said, ‘it happened to the football club.’
He laughed so hard at that I thought he was going to choke.
‘Who then?’ I urged him when he’d calmed down.
‘What about closer to home?’ he asked.
‘You mean our crew or beyond?’
‘Either.’
‘Our mob? Only one man with the balls and the brawn and, how can I put this nicely? I can’t. He’s not got the brain.’
‘Finney? I know and he’s loyal, at least he always has been and we pay him a lot. I mean what’s he going to spend it on? He wouldn’t make a boss and I can’t see him working for anybody else after all these years. So, not Finney, anyone else?’