A Fistful of Knuckles Read online

  ‘Anyway. I waded in, and from then on we were mates. We looked after each other. Of course, I got a lot of stick for knocking about with a darkie, but I didn’t care. Stuff ‘em. Denzil was sound. He was always there for me. And after a bit, we got these done-’ – he indicated the tattoo on his neck – ‘-the Spider, and the Black Widow. Two against ‘em all – just me and him.’

  ‘Two against them all,’ said Sam, nodding. ‘I can understand that.’

  ‘Bollocks you can,’ said Spider, without a scrap of anger. He wasn’t insulting Sam; he was just stating a fact. ‘You don’t know it, not the way we knew it. Anyway. Time goes on, this happens, that happens, and we find ourselves in the boxing game, making a few quid, trying not get on the wrong side of … certain gentlemen. But it don’t work like that, coz it’s them ‘certain gentlemen’ what run everything. You understand what I’m saying?’

  ‘Yes. Go on.’

  ‘Me and Denzil, we get a visit. We’re told it’s in our interests to help out a certain gentleman with a problem he’s got. We’re told it wouldn’t be polite to refuse. We’re told the certain gentleman in question would take a refusal very personally.’

  Sam nodded.

  ‘So we had no choice but to do what we were told to do,’ said Spider.

  ‘And what were you told to do?’

  ‘The certain gentleman in question had a grievance. Something to do with things being said that shouldn’t have been said. Something to do with a … I remember the phrase: a distinct lack of respect. Somebody had been speaking out of line.’

  ‘Who had been speaking out of line? Was it Patsy O’Riordan?’

  ‘Yes. O’Riordan was a boxing legend. A real hard bastard. Everybody went up against him – but nobody could crack him. Me and Denzil included. He flattened us both. Patsy was hard. And he knew it. He was full of himself. And when a bloke like that gets too full of himself, he starts saying things he shouldn’t. He starts mouthing off when he should keep his trap shut. He stops showing respect to … to certain gentlemen. And then he finds himself in trouble. It can all get pretty serious.’

  ‘I see,’ said Sam. ‘So – you and Denzil were pressured into … what? Punishing him? Disciplining him?’

  ‘We had no choice, not if we didn’t want our hands busted, or worse. We agreed to sort Patsy out, but secretly we were scared. We’d both been up against him – we knew what he was made of – and we reckoned he could have the two of us even if we came at him together.

  ‘Then Denzil comes over to my place one night. He looks real scared. He’s got this thing all wrapped up in a cloth, and I says to him: what’s that? And he says: we’re gonna use this. And he shows me. It’s a gun. And I says: Denny, we ain’t cowards, and we ain’t bloody cowboys – we can’t use a shooter. But Denny says: we got no choice – think about it. And he was right. Patsy’d make mincemeat of us any other way.

  ‘So we set up a fight. Patsy versus me. We make him think it’s the usual thing, an illegal bout, the sort of fight he wins without breaking into a sweat. He agrees to show – it’s easy money – and he turns up to fight. It was round some old warehouse, out of the way. But when he gets there, he finds there’s just me and Denny, and he knows at once that it’s a set-up. It’s an old trick, it’s been done before, it’s been done since – nobody likes falling for it – makes you look like a mug.

  ‘Patsy clocks what we’ve done, and he goes mental. He comes right for us. And Denny shoots him, once, in the stomach. Patsy keeps on coming. Denzil shoots him again. And then again. Third time does it – Patsy goes down. He’s lying with his face pressed on the floor. I can’t see if he’s breathing. Denny’s shaking. I say: stick another one in him – right in his head, but Denny says he can’t pull the trigger again, he just can’t do it. I says: don’t think about it, Den, just do it! But he won’t. He just won’t. So I says: give it to me – I’ll do it. And I take the gun, and I stick it right next to Patsy’s head. But I’m shaking, even worse than Denny, and I’m thinking to myself: I can’t do it – I can’t do it. But I tell myself you gotta do this, Spider – you’ll be in real trouble if you don’t. So I close my eyes, and I’m shaking, and I pull the trigger, and the gun goes off.’

  ‘And?’ Sam prompted gently.

  ‘I bloody missed him!’ said Spider. ‘At point bloody blank! I’m shaking and I got my eyes closed and I miss him! All I do is catch his ear – blow it off. But even then, Patsy doesn’t move. He doesn’t say anything. He just lies there. He’s dead. He’s gotta be dead. He’s not moving. And I say: we’ve done it, Denny, let’s get out of here. But Denny’s being sick. And I feel sick too. It’s not … it’s not because we give a damn about Patsy, it’s because … well, it ain’t right, what we done – tricking a bloke like that, then using a shooter when he ain’t got nothing but his fists.’

  ‘You had no choice,’ said Sam.

  ‘When do blokes like me and Denzil ever get a choice?’ Spider suddenly spat out. ‘In this world? You think, if we had any sort of choice, we’d choose to fight like bloody animals just to earn a few quid? Eh? You think living like that is a choice? It’s not like joining the bloody police! It’s not a career. It’s either that, or you’re dead. That’s the nearest thing me and Denny ever got to ‘making a choice’ – do this, or end up dead!’

  Sam shrugged. He didn’t know what to say. Spider glared at him, then calmed himself down.

  ‘Anyway,’ he said. ‘As far as we was concerned, Patsy was dead. So we ran off. And we told … we told a certain gentleman that we’d done what he asked, and we got our wages, and that was that. And if you want to nick me for what I done, I can’t stop you.’

  ‘It’s okay,’ said Sam. ‘All this is just between you and me. I told you – it’s Patsy we’re after, not you. Go on with your story. You left Patsy for dead, you got your money – then what?’

  ‘It was years ago,’ he said at last. ‘I thought … we thought, me and Denny … we thought Patsy O’Riordan was history. And then he turns up again. Out of the blue. Back from the grave.’

  ‘Back from the grave …’ muttered Sam. The phrase sent a chill running down his spine – a chill that had nothing to do with Patsy or Spider or Denzil. He forced himself to concentrate on the interview. He said: ‘I’ll tell you something, Spider – as a copper, I’ve met men like Patsy before. They get shot, stabbed, blown up, have bloody great anvils dropped on ‘em – and they’re so damn hard they just keep getting up again. They’re like Terminators … what I mean is, it feels like they’re indestructible.’

  ‘Nobody’s indestructible,’ said Spider, and there was a hard glint in his eyes. ‘Not even O’Riordan.’

  ‘Spider, I understand how you feel about Denzil, but this isn’t the Wild West. You can’t go roaming the streets, a man alone, looking for revenge. It’s a police matter now. I know you don’t want to hear that, but that’s the reality of it. If you really want to see justice done, you’ve got to work with us.’

  ‘The police,’ said Spider, smiling bitterly and shaking his head.

  ‘We can help you.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘First up, we can keep you safe. Patsy can’t hurt you if he can’t find you. I know it’s not the Ritz but we can put you up in one of the cells here. You won’t be a prisoner, Spider, I promise you – you’ll be out of harm’s way, that’s all.’

  ‘For how long?’ asked Spider. ‘How long am I supposed to live in one of your cells?’

  ‘Until we’ve got a case against O’Riordan strong enough to move in and nick him.’

  Spider laughed bitterly and shook his head: ‘You won’t get your case. Patsy knows you’re onto him. He’ll disappear when the fair moves on; go to ground and bide his time, just like he did before. He waited nearly ten years before he took his revenge on Denzil. He’ll wait again. He’ll wait for you coppers to lose interest in this case, then he’ll come after me. Or are you going to keep me locked up safe and sound in your cells for the rest of my life?’r />
  ‘We can build a case, Spider – if you help us. Tell me something. Denzil had a spyhole fitted in the door of his flat. He could see who was there. And yet, he opened the door to his attacker. My guv’nor reckons it was you he saw, that you betrayed him to buy your life. He believes you led Patsy to Denzil’s flat that night. But he’s wrong, isn’t he.’

  ‘Who’s going to take my word over your guv’nor’s?’

  ‘I am. Denzil saw somebody – somebody he trusted, somebody who in reality had led Patsy to his door – but that somebody wasn’t you.’

  ‘Of course it wasn’t me.’

  ‘Who, then?’

  ‘I don’t know. I’ve thought about it …’

  ‘And?’

  ‘I can’t think of anyone.’

  ‘What about Stella?’ asked Sam, but Spider shook his head emphatically. ‘If it wasn’t her, what about your trainer, Dermot?’

  ‘Why would any of these people have it in for Denzil? Stella’s been good to us. So’s Dermot.’

  ‘But Spider, there must be somebody who connects Denzil to Patsy – somebody Denzil trusted – somebody willing to betray him.’

  ‘If I knew who it was,’ said Spider, ‘they’d be suffering right now. Believe me.’

  Sam sighed and sat back. There was a missing piece in this puzzle, something that was eluding them. Were they overlooking something? Were they wrong about Denzil opening the door to his attacker? Was Sam seeing all the evidence but from the wrong angle, trying to fit the different elements together in the wrong way?

  ‘If Patsy can’t find you,’ said Sam, ‘you think he’ll disappear?’

  ‘I know it,’ said Spider. ‘He’ll wait until the heat’s off, then come looking again.’

  ‘I don’t want him to do that. I want him to get impatient. I want him to do something that’ll give himself away.’

  ‘Don’t underestimate him. He’s smarter than he looks.’

  ‘Then we’ll just have to up our game,’ said Sam. ‘We’ll keep you here in one of the cells, Spider. As a precaution. I’ll see you get what you need. If Patsy can’t find you, he’ll get frustrated – he’ll get impatient, no matter how smart he is – and the more frustrated and impatient he is, the greater the chance he’ll make a mistake that gives himself away. We’ll raise the pressure. We’ll provoke him.’

  ‘In other words, you’ll use me as bait,’ said Spider.

  ‘No,’ said Sam. And then, with a shrug: ‘Yes. In a way. But what choice have we got?’

  ‘All I want is revenge for Denny,’ said Spider quietly. ‘If that means using me as bait, I ain’t got a problem.’

  ‘We won’t do anything that’ll put you in danger,’ said Sam. ‘However we play this, you’ll be safe. I promise.’

  ‘You can’t promise that,’ said Spider. ‘This is Patsy O’Riordan. Nothing’s safe. No one’s safe.’

  ‘We’ll see about that,’ said Sam with resolve.

  ‘Yes,’ said Spider, almost inaudibly. ‘We will.’

  CHAPTER TEN: GENE PISSES ON A PLAN

  As good as his word, Sam came looking for Annie so she could take him to casualty. But the figure who confronted him in the corridor, dressed in a camelhair coat with a cigarette smouldering in his gob, wasn’t Annie.

  ‘Your bird’s busy on the phone,’ Gene intoned. ‘I’ll drive you. And on the way you can tell me all about your little chat with Spider.’

  Sam followed him to the Cortina. Gene gunned the engine and roared off into the Manchester traffic.

  ‘Spider didn’t betray Denzil,’ Sam said. ‘I don’t know who did, but it wasn’t him.’

  ‘Pity,’ said Gene. ‘That would have made our lives a lot easier. So what did you do with him – send him home?’

  ‘I think home’s the last place he should be. He’s not safe there. I put him in one of the cells, out of harm’s way. He’s willing to cooperate with us, Guv.’

  ‘Cooperate how? By acting as bait?’

  ‘Spider’s convinced that Patsy’ll disappear when the fair moves on – he’ll lie low, wait for us to shelve our investigation, and then come back for Spider when the heat’s off. We need to somehow make it clear to Patsy that he can get his hands on Spider right now, that if he acts straight away he can have his revenge, that he’ll never get his chance otherwise. We need to provoke him into doing something – anything – to give himself away.’

  ‘Such as?’ asked Gene. After a few wordless moments, he said: ‘Your silence tells me you don’t actually have a plan, Tyler.’

  ‘I do have a plan, Guv. I’m just not sure how you’re going to react to it.’

  ‘I don’t like being second guessed,’ said Gene, scowling at the road ahead. ‘Try me.’

  ‘Okay, Guv. This is my suggestion. We go and see Patsy O’Riordan in person.’

  ‘Undercover, I take it.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Sam. ‘We’ll pose as fight promoters.’

  Gene barked out a single, contemptuous laugh.

  ‘What was that for?’ asked Sam, offended.

  ‘I was trying to imagine you as a hard-as-nails underworld fight promoter, Sam.’

  ‘Sporting this bruise I reckon I look the part, Guv.’

  ‘No, Tyler, you just look like a weedy bloke with a big angry missus.’

  ‘Hear me out, Guv. We go and see O’Riordan. We tell him we’ve got a score to settle with Spider, and we’ve heard that he has too. We tell him we’ll set up a fight between them, but that the whole thing’s a trap, that Spider’ll get there, expecting a fight, and instead he’ll find just us and Patsy. A trap – a chance for Patsy to really go to town on Spider.’

  ‘But in reality we will have officers ready to swoop in and nick Patsy first,’ put in Gene. ‘Sounds like a right laff, Sammy, but your imagination’s starting to run away with you in your old age. This plan’s bollocks.’

  ‘It’s not bollocks, Guv, it’s sound,’ insisted Sam. ‘It’s exactly the same sort of trap Denzil and Spider tricked Patsy into all those years ago. It’s the sort of trap Patsy’ll understand. It’s part of his world. And I’m betting on the fact that Patsy’ll go for the chance to turn the tables on Spider, to trick him in the same way. The thought of it’ll cloud his judgment, get him fired up and eager to take his revenge. He won’t want to disappear and bide his time, not when he’s got the chance to give Spider a taste of his own medicine right here and now.’

  ‘And Spider’s dopey enough to risk his neck going along with this scheme, is he?’ asked Gene.

  ‘Not dopey, Guv. Brave.’

  ‘Dopey or brave, there are times when it’s hard to tell the difference,’ said Gene. ‘But this isn’t one of those times. I can sense a hundred and one things that could go wrong with this plan of yours, Sammy, and a thousand and one ways Spider and you and – worst of all – me could end up getting royally bashed in the process. One slip-up, and we could be in serious trouble.’

  ‘There are risks, Guv, but we’ll make sure we minimize them.’

  Gene shook his head in incredulity.

  ‘We’ll wear wires, Guv,’ Sam went on. ‘We’ll record everything Patsy says to us. We’ll get him to admit he killed Denzil.’

  ‘Which he’s bound to do – sure he is – good as gold, bang on cue.’

  ‘If we’re smart, Guv, if we can entice him to give himself away, why not?’ Sam pressed on. ‘If we don’t act now, Patsy’ll slip through our fingers! This way, there’s a damn good chance we’ll have him bang to rights!’

  Gene rolled his eyes silently.

  ‘It’s dangerous, I know,’ said Sam. ‘It’s going to take bottle. Nerves of steel.’

  Gene said nothing.

  Sam tried a different tactic: ‘Of course, Guv, if you don’t feel you can handle it, I can always team up with Ray.’

  ‘You won’t convince me like that, Tyler.’

  ‘Ray’s up for undercover work, I’m sure he’ll have the balls for it.’

  ‘I said forget it, Tyler.
’

  ‘I’m just saying, Guv. It’s going to be dangerous. I understand if you don’t want to get too involved. You can stay out of the way, if you like … monitoring the recording … at a nice safe distance …’

  ‘You’re wasting your time playing these games with me.’

  ‘I’m not playing games with you, Guv. I’m just saying there’s no pressure on you to take risks you don’t feel comfortable with.’

  Without warning, Gene hit the brake. The Cortina howled to a stop in the middle of the road. Sam damn near went through the windscreen. Behind them, car horns bleated and complained, but Gene ignored them.

  Turning to Sam he glowered at him, his eyes narrow, and said: ‘I’m not in this job to prove my manhood to twats like you. I’m here to bring justice to these mean streets. There ain’t enough avenging angels in this world, Tyler, and there sure ain’t enough in this city. But one good man in a Cortina can make a difference. That’s why I’m here – to see the right thing gets done once in a bleedin’ while – to see the scum of the earth get what’s coming to ‘em – not to swagger about comparing dicks with gormless berks in poncey leather jackets. You getting my drift, Tyler?’

  Behind them, car horns were braying. But Gene’s eyes remained fixed on Sam.

  ‘Guv, I was just-’

  ‘That poofy bruise on your gob might make you feel like the Man With No Name, Tyler, and it might very well get D.I. Crumpet dripping in her knickers, but it don’t cut no ice with me. If I put a plan into action, it’s not to prove the size of my John Thomas – it’s because that plan’s the right plan, the plan that’ll get the job done, the plan that’ll put some bastard behind bars and see this city one degree safer come nightfall.’

  Honk! Parp parp! went the car horns.

  ‘There’s only one person I’m out to impress,’ Gene growled. ‘That bird you might have seen around – the one with the sword and the scales, and the hanky tied over her eyes. You know the one I mean, Tyler?’