Howard Linskey - The Drop

‘What the fuck do you want?’ I asked him, though I knew the answer to that already. I was doing my best to sound hard even though I didn’t feel it. I would have given every penny I had to see Finney march through those big metal doors at that moment with a shotgun, with Bobby at his side. I wondered where they were and if they had any inkling of what was going on. Was there any chance they might get here before it was too late?

‘Well first I want to give you a message,’ Tommy Gladwell told me cheerfully then he glanced at the Russian who’d forced me into my car, ‘Vitaly,’ he said simply. Without a second’s pause the guy punched me so hard in the guts I doubled up rapidly and fell face first onto the ground. I went down so fast I didn’t even put a hand out to stop my head from smashing into the concrete floor. I tried to get up but the Russian had hit me with such force I couldn’t even move. I felt blood trickle down my forehead. The pain was like nothing I’d ever experienced before. Christ, this bloke knew what he was doing.

‘That’s from my lad Stone,’ he told me, ‘the fellah you put in hospital with a broken jaw. He’s got more stitches in his face than an eiderdown,’ I made a note to get even with Stone if I ever got out of this mess, which right now seemed unlikely. ‘You’re lucky,’ said Gladwell, ‘he wanted me to break your jaw and carve your face up, an eye for an eye and all that, but I told him I needed to have a little chat with you first. Maybe there’ll be time for breaking jaws later.’

‘You’re making a big mistake,’ I told him when I finally got enough breath back to speak.

‘Am I?’ he asked ‘what do you reckon? Do you think Finney will come after me with his nail gun?’ he laughed and so did his Russians.

‘You won’t be fucking laughing when he does,’ I said and they hauled me to my feet.

‘There’s something I want to show you,’ he said, ‘come on!’

Two of them picked me up, their big hands wedged under my armpits. They moved so fast I was being dragged along, the tips of my shoes scraping against the concrete as I was propelled to the other end of the room. They were still laughing, in obvious high spirits, sure of themselves. The door up ahead was wooden and they used my head to barge it open, rattling my teeth and stunning me in the process. Inside was a smaller room, which contained a little row of offices to one side.

It was pitch dark, so they flicked on the light in the first office to illuminate the scene. At first I could barely register what it was. It looked like some big animal had been mangled at an abattoir. Then it hit me with a sudden shock of realisation and I knew, just knew, that we were lost. There was no hope for any of us.

It was Finney – or what was left of him when the Russians had all had their fun. His eyes were open wide and staring back at me but there was no life left in them. His face had been mutilated with what looked like a serrated knife, and the flesh around the wounds was red and swollen and puffed up like he had taken a hell of a beating. His hands and legs had been fastened to the big metal chair with handcuffs around each wrist and ankle. Someone had had the foresight to cement the chair into the ground beforehand because they knew from his reputation how hard he would have fought. Christ, how he would have struggled to get at them.

It looked like he had been tortured to death at first but then I noticed the ligature around his neck, which had bitten tightly into the skin. They’d finished him off with some sort of wire garrotte. It explained the open, sightless eyes that I couldn’t tear my gaze from. Someone had calmly stood behind him and tightened it round his neck until Finney finally choked to death.

I was sick on the floor then.

‘Pick him up,’ ordered Gladwell and I was dragged up by my arms again and taken along to the next room. This one looked like an abandoned walk-in fridge, with all of the racking taken out. They turned the light on.

‘As you can see, we’ve been busy,’ Gladwell told me. Northam was easier to recognise. They’d not messed him up nearly as much as Finney. Our bent accountant looked the same as usual in fact, except for the bullet hole in his forehead. They’d done him just like they did Geordie Cartwright. ‘And it’s still early,’ Gladwell reminded me, ‘after all, we’ve got all night.’

‘What do you want from me?’ I managed to ask, my voice a low rasp.

‘I’m not sure now. When I ordered you to be picked up we didn’t have the full picture but it looks like I’ve already got what I need. The accountant, Northam, he was very keen to cooperate, once we showed him what we’d done to Finney. We didn’t have to hurt him at all, though we hurt him a bit anyway to make sure he was telling the truth. He told us all about the business, filled in the gaps for us. By the time the lads picked you up we had it all anyway. We reward people who help us and he got his reward. His worries are over.’

‘Where’s Bobby?’

‘All in good time.’

‘What have you done to Bobby?’ he ignored me. It seemed he was keen to let me know how clever he’d been.

‘What do you think of my boys eh?’ he asked me, ‘heavy duty aren’t they? Took out your doormen in double-quick time. I met them in Amsterdam running guns, dope and women. We took a little of all three,’ so Gladwell had no scruples about whether the women in his knocking shops were volunteers or not. Some poor, young lass leaves her village in the Ukraine looking for a better life in the west and instead ends up being raped by a dozen strangers a day with none of the money going back to her. ‘And we stayed in touch,’ he made them sound like old pals from Uni.

‘Vitaly here was a captain in the Russian army. Do you know what the Spetsnaz is?’ I nodded weakly but he told me anyway, ‘Russian special forces. They are just as hard as our boys, but prepared to go that little bit further, if you know what I mean. I put that down to Chechnya. Your average Russian soldier didn’t want to get sent there, not with all the atrocities the rebels were prepared to commit but my boys here? Well, it was manna from heaven to them. They loved it. When they caught one of those rebels they’d cut off his ears, his nose, his dick, while he was still alive’ and he laughed. ‘I’m not kidding you,’ I believed him, ‘then they’d leave him somewhere his mates would find him – because they knew that the greatest weapon you can have is fear. You’re going to understand that by the time you leave here.’

By now I was starting to hope I’d end up like Northam and not Finney. That seemed my best option; to tell Tommy Gladwell whatever it was he wanted to know and hope they’d had enough of inflicting pain for one day. Then it would all be over.

Gladwell wasn’t finished showing off. I guess he’d been waiting a long time to show the world how clever he was. ‘They were just the right people to help me take over a city. My dad wouldn’t have the stomach for it. He’s too old and has no ambition any more. I’m different. I’m expanding our business and you lot, well, you’re in the way. My boys have been watching Bobby and his whole crew for months but we had one big problem; Finney. If we took out Bobby’s enforcer and left Bobby around he’d be well on his guard wouldn’t he? But we couldn’t get rid of Bobby and leave Finney on the streets. No way. That would be far too dangerous. I couldn’t imagine Finney seeing sense and throwing his lot in with us. No, he was too stupid for that. Trouble was, you rarely saw them together these days, Finney and Bobby. But then, lo and behold, a miracle; Finney moved into Bobby’s house,’ his smile was broad, ‘can you imagine how we felt when we heard that? Was it your idea? I bet it was. It would have been a good one too, if your enemy was a couple of hard knocks from Glasgow but I’ve got five heavily-armed former members of the Spetsnaz on my payroll.’