Howard Linskey - The Drop

‘Two… ’ I raised the gun again and pointed it straight at Bobby’s head.

He grinned, ‘I’ll see you down in hell Tommy Gladwell you fat little queer!’

‘One.’

‘Do it,’ screamed Bobby, ‘fucking do it!’

So I did. I blew Bobby Mahoney’s brains out.

I couldn’t take my eyes off Bobby. I couldn’t tear them away from what I had just done. That’s why I hadn’t even realised what Tommy Gladwell had been doing while I was killing my boss. It was only when his extended arm slowly came round in a big arc towards me that I realised he was holding a mobile phone. ‘Smile son,’ he told me, ‘you’re on Candid fucking Camera,’ he handed the phone to Vitaly who put it in his inside jacket pocket, ‘nice phone Vitaly,’ he said and then he laughed. It was a big, gleeful, triumphant laugh because he knew he had won. I didn’t care about that just now. All I cared about was the fact that I had just shot Bobby Mahoney through the head – and Gladwell had filmed the whole thing on Vitaly’s mobile.

I took one last look at Bobby; his head forced back by the bullet, brain matter splattered all over the white wall behind him, then they took the empty gun from me and hauled me out of the room.

‘Leave a couple of your lads to deal with the bodies,’ Gladwell told Vitaly, ‘put them in the incinerator.’

The Russian just nodded without enthusiasm. Why did I keep getting the impression Tommy Gladwell didn’t really have a clue who he was dealing with? Six months down the line, with the city under their full control, it could just as easily be Gladwell who was staring down the barrel of a Makharov, on his way to the incinerator. I couldn’t imagine these guys wanting to play the hired hands for long. They looked too bloody sure of themselves. None of that really mattered though. One way or the other, I was history.

I didn’t expect for one minute that Tommy Gladwell would honour his promise and let me go, even when they didn’t shoot me straight away, even when I was taken from the building, bundled into the back of the Porsche Cayenne and driven away. I was vaguely aware that my car was gone but I didn’t care. I still expected Gladwell to order them to pull over somewhere quiet, drag me from the car, and shoot me in the face, just like they had done to Geordie Cartwright, Jerry Lemon, and Alex Northam; just like I had done to Bobby Mahoney. As we drove back into the city I still didn’t believe it. I couldn’t have done it. I hadn’t just murdered Bobby Mahoney in cold bloke. I wasn’t muscle, I wasn’t a gangster, not really, but now it seemed I was a murderer. How the fuck had that happened?

We were getting closer and closer to the bright lights of the city and I had to stop myself from actually believing they weren’t going to kill me. I tried not to even think about the possibility they might let me go because then, when they didn’t, it wouldn’t hurt me quite so much. I was numb, inside and out, and the quicker this hell ended then the better it would be. I played out the scene in my mind over and over; everything that was said before it happened, me firing the Makarov like I was doing it in a dream, the bullet hitting the target, smacking into Bobby’s head, jerking him back, jolting his body in the chair like it was a crash test dummy and all the blood that blew up out of the back of his skull, painting the wall behind him, sending dark red splashes out over the chipped, white plaster. Jesus Christ, what had I done?

I was vaguely aware of Gladwell in the car, wittering away to the two Russians or was it to me, or perhaps he was just talking to himself. He was like some excitable child on Christmas morning who had just found out Santa’s been and given him everything he ever wanted.

Gladwell was in the front passenger seat, Vitaly was in the back with me and one of his men was driving. Gladwell kept shifting about in his seat, he couldn’t keep still and he was turning round to talk to us, ‘did you fucking see it, did you fucking see it?’ he kept asking us, ‘he just stepped up to the plate and bam!’ he banged his hand on the dash board in front of him, ‘I give this guy, this civilian, who’s never so much as punched a bloke in his life probably, a shot at the title, a once-only offer to save his life but he has to kill a bloody legend and does he take that chance? Too fucking right he does! Nooo messing! Bang! Ten seconds I tell him and he waits right till the last one and I was thinking, oh wait a minute, he’s not going to do this thing, then wham,’ he hit the dash board again, ‘he looks Bobby Mahoney in the eye, Bobby Mahoney mind you, king of the whole city, and he slots him, cool as you like. Oh, hello man, you were awesome son! You should be in my crew. Do you want to come and work for me, do you?’ they all laughed like this was a hilarious suggestion, ‘anyone needs slotting, he’s our Top Boy from now on, I’ll get him right on it. Oh yes! You’ve earned this son, you really have. But tell me, for the listeners,’ he held out his hand and angled his fist towards me, as if he was holding a microphone, ‘what’s it like to be the main man, the cock of the fucking north? How does it feel to kill a legend?’ I just stared right back at him because I had absolutely nothing to say to anyone, ‘no? Cat got your tongue, has it? Oh well.’

The car swung over the Redheugh bridge and followed the one-way system back round in a loop to the railway station. They parked in the short term car park outside. Gladwell, Vitaly and the driver got out and I followed them dumbly. Could it be true? Were they really going to let me go? Surely they wouldn’t just put me on a train like this – but how could they kill me now in front of hundreds of people at a railway station with everything captured on CCTV? Then I remembered the Russian’s little camera phone and Tommy recording Bobby Mahoney’s last moments on it. They were happy to let me go because they knew I couldn’t talk to anyone about this. How could I explain I ended the life of the biggest crime boss in the history of the north east? Even if the police accepted I was forced to do it under duress, there would be a big queue of people with short fuses and long memories, who would never be so understanding. Gladwell knew, as long as he had that clip on his phone he was Bank-of-England-safe, it was his insurance policy. I was in no fit state to even attempt to get it back from his Russian. It was perfect for Tommy. If anybody did try and link him to the disappearance of Bobby Mahoney, if the heat got too intense, he could make sure the powers that be received the footage of me shooting Bobby – then they’d be looking for me all over the country instead of him.

Letting me go wasn’t such a risk when you thought about it. From their perspective, there was really no one left to come after them now. Even Finney was dead and I’d always thought Finney was invincible. Bullets bounced off Finney, punches had no effect, he’d faced men with knives, guns, machetes and iron bars and come away with barely a scratch. If you took on Finney you ended up dead, or in hospital or a wheelchair. Nothing could stop him. But these Spetsnaz guys managed to bring him down in a night and they weren’t even out of breath.

The concourse was alive with noise, from the trains arriving and departing, from the chatter of people, from the high-pitched chirrup of the birds circling high above us. I stood under the big, old, metal clock with the Russians, while Tommy went into the ticket office. All around me, people were going about their lives and I watched them dumbly. I was aware of young couples meeting for Friday night dates. One in particular, a boy who met a girl from her train and they embraced, before linking arms then heading off into the city together. I used to be like that, lifetimes ago. They seemed normal, happy, hopeful, inhabiting a world I now realised I had left behind years ago. One which I was finally fully wrenched from tonight, at the exact moment I put a bullet through Bobby Mahoney’s brain.