Howard Linskey - The Drop

‘I’ve been thinking about that,’ he said, ‘why leave a body out in the open like this, in a Police no-go area that’s crawling with gangs, unless you want it to be found?’

I’d thought about that too. I figured somebody was sending us a message.

‘Word on the street is; Cartwright disappeared with some of Bobby’s money,’ he said, ‘a lot of Bobby’s money.’

‘Word travels fast,’ I said, exasperated that the whole damn city seemed to know what was going on, except me, ‘good.’

‘What?’

‘Sounds like somebody’s been talking, bragging about taking on Bobby, stealing from him and getting away with it, which means we’ll hear who it is soon enough and we’ll lift him. End of problem.’

‘Maybe.’

‘You know that’s how half the young villains on Tyneside get taken down. They can’t resist blabbing about what they’ve done. They think it gets them respect.’

‘Yeah, you’re right there.’

‘I know I am,’ I snapped. I didn’t need him to tell me. I walked away from Cartwright’s body and Sharp followed me across the cracked concrete floor of the warehouse, stepping over puddles. Most of the roof had caved in years ago, leaving it open to the elements and I shivered.

‘How did you find him?’ I asked.

‘I put the word out I was looking for George Cartwright, unofficial like. I said there was a couple of grand in it if anyone found him, alive or dead. I assumed that was okay.’

‘Yeah, no problem.’ That was pennies in our game.

‘A few hours later, I get this call. It seems the Western Boyz discovered him when they were patrolling their patch.’

‘Shit name for a gang. They sound like a bunch of queer cowboys.’

‘This is their area apparently. It’s a no-go zone for civilians and uniforms keep away from it as well.’

‘That’s good, should make it easier for my lads to get rid of the body. No one would take their dog for a walk down here.’

‘Not unless they had a death wish. The Western Boyz called me first. They’re good lads, know the score.’

‘Good lads?’ that was an unusual description.

‘For drug peddling, robbing, raping scum bags,” he shrugged, “it’s all relative. We meet worse believe me.’

‘They’ll get their two grand. I’ll sort it. Cartwright’s body will be gone in an hour. Tell nobody about this and tell the Western Boyz to keep it schtum too. If they do we might be able to use them again, put some money in their pockets from time to time. Would that appeal to them?’

‘I’d say so,’ we walked back to his car and got in. ‘What the fuck was Cartwright doing with Bobby’s money in the first place and how would they know who to hit?’ he asked reflectively, like he wasn’t expecting an answer and, to tell you the truth, that was what was worrying me the most right now. Even Sharp didn’t know about the Drop. He didn’t know how much it was or who it was for, let alone the fact that Cartwright and me were both responsible for delivering it. Only a handful of people in Bobby’s organisation knew about it, which meant we had a rat – and a high level one at that.

‘Sharp?’ I called to him as we were climbing into our cars, ‘tell no one about this. I want it buried.’

‘Okay,’ he said, ‘what are you going to do?’

As soon as I could, I called Bobby.

‘We’ve got a problem,’ I said.

‘Go on.’

‘We found our rep,’ I was speaking in that guarded way he preferred over the phone. We treated every conversation like it was being taped or someone could be listening in, ‘it turns out he hadn’t resigned.’

Bobby sighed, like he’d known it all along but didn’t want to believe the truth.

‘Someone’s retired him?’

‘Yep.’

‘Right,’ he said suddenly, a flash of anger in his voice now he had proof that one of his men had been killed. ‘Find out who and sort it,’ before reminding me, ‘that’s what I pay you for,’ then he added the single word, ‘Monday,’ as if I needed reminding of the deadline.

Laura was still asleep when I got in but I knew I wouldn’t be able to rest if I’d wanted to. The whole thing was going through my mind, over and over again but it boiled down to very simple questions. Who has done this thing and why? I’d gone through everybody I could think of. I’d started with the main players in cities within striking distance of us, the family firms who controlled large patches of Glasgow, Edinburgh, Manchester and Liverpool, but surely they had enough on their plate without starting a war with us over our city. I put myself in their shoes, dispassionately weighing up the risks and advantages of launching an attack on a rival family in a city I didn’t know and I came to the conclusion I wouldn’t risk it myself, not for millions. It was too dangerous, too likely to threaten their current empires and would just result in tit-for-tat killings with no side fully destroying the other. It would be messy, bloody and expensive and it might just give the police all of the evidence they needed to put everybody involved away for years.

I poured myself another beer and thought about the smaller local crews that operated under our noses and, if not always with our outright permission, a tacit understanding that as long as they didn’t tread on our toes, they had a right to earn a living. Had the leader of one of those crews suddenly become too ambitious? It was possible, natural even. That was how Bobby became Top Boy – by being more ruthless than the guy who was in his way. There must have been a day when Bobby looked around him and suddenly thought ‘I want to be the man. I’m good enough, hard enough and I’m going to make it happen. Men will die as a result but it’s a price I’m willing to pay’. And he did pay that price, displacing the guy at the top by killing him and all of his main men, with Finney’s help of course. But that was twenty-odd years ago now and the world wasn’t quite the same. You had to be a very political animal to cope with life at the top these days. That was what the Drop was all about, after all. You had to understand politics, big business, the legit world as well as the criminal one, you had to feather nests and keep the money flowing, you needed bent coppers and shady politicians, dodgy journalists and crooked accountants. You had to know when to scare people and when to pay them off. It was a tough job running an empire and somehow I couldn’t see any of the local hoodlums having the grey cells to even attempt it.

So, who then?

I was lying in bed that night next to Laura, not sleeping, when suddenly in a flash of realisation it hit me – the reason that Bobby should trust me. It was a risk phoning him in the middle of the night for a meet but my instinct told me it was the right thing to do. It might have been late but he wouldn’t be sleeping either. I knew him too well. He’d be up and pacing, churning over all of the same thoughts in his head that I was having.

Sure enough he answered his mobile on the first ring. He sounded guarded, defensive.

‘Yeah,’ he said impatiently.

‘I want a meet,’ I told him.

‘What? Now?’

‘No not now,’ I told him, ‘tomorrow, as soon as you can do it. There’s something I need to tell you.’

There was a short pause on the line while he digested this. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘meet me at Frank’s in the morning.’ We agreed a time and I rang off. I went back to bed then and slept like a baby.

We were both naked, lying face down on two massage tables, a pair of soft white towels draped across our arses to preserve our modesty. Tina and Susan, the two fittest young lasses in the place, no coincidence there, were expertly kneading the tension out of our necks with their soft, oiled hands and it felt good, really good.