Howard Linskey - The Drop

I killed him, me, a civilian, not a gangster. I’m not that kind of man, yet I didn’t pause long before squeezing the trigger and sending a round into my boss’ head. How long had it taken? All of ten seconds. I had known Bobby Mahoney since I was a kid, been tied to him for good or bad, in one form or another, for more than two decades, protected him, looked out for him, taken his money and safeguarded his interests – and his daughter loves me, of that I’m sure. Yet how long did it take me to decide to end his life when the choice was put to me? Less even than a minute to betray everything I knew, just so I could stand here like a dummy on a cold station platform. And what did I get for it? Nothing much, just my life.

I killed a man.

I killed the man.

But I didn’t have any choice, did I? I mean, what else could I have done?

I suppose I could have called out at that point, shouted for help or the police but even in my shocked state I knew that was a really dumb idea. All the cops would be left with was a bit of CCTV footage of me being stabbed and dropped on the ground. They’d issue descriptions of some shaven-headed blokes who’d be back in Moscow before their identikit pictures appeared in the Journal. Even if they didn’t kill me, how could I explain what had happened? The police might not unreasonably deduce I was the real murderer when they received the clip from Vitaly’s phone. So it wasn’t going to happen. They’d won, they’d got me and they knew it.

All in all, I was astonished to be alive and I was almost pathetically grateful when Gladwell came out of the ticket office holding the long, thin piece of card that represented my freedom. I had to try very hard not to sob again at that point, because I was so relieved, ‘I bought you a first class ticket,’ he told me, ‘a little reward for killing your boss for me. I thought it would be nice to give you one last taste of the high life before you disappear for ever,’ and he smiled at me, ‘you know I almost envy you. You’ve been given a great opportunity. You can start all over again with no shite and no baggage, a clean slate. There’s many a man would kill for that, son. But then I guess you did,’ and he laughed again but suddenly his smile vanished. He leaned forward and told me, ‘just don’t come back, ever, you hear. If you do there will be no mercy from me. There’s nothing here for you now, everybody you ever worked with is dead and, if they’re not, they’ll be working for me when the weekend’s out. I’ll not be hanging around just now though. After all, I’m the man who shot Billy the Kid. I’m off to collect my missus then we’re away home on the late train. I’m going to have a hot bath and a nice meal when I get in. Tomorrow night my lads here will be doing the rounds. There won’t be a joint in the city that won’t know it’s under new ownership by midnight. You got that?’

I didn’t have the energy to answer him but I managed a nod and he took that as a yes. He stuffed the ticket into my jacket pocket and one of the Russians gave me back my wallet. ‘No credit cards but I left you a tenner in there,’ said Gladwell, ‘let’s see how far that gets you in London eh?’ and he laughed again, ‘put him on the train.’

The two Russians stood on the platform so they could see me through the window, making sure I didn’t try and get off but there really was no danger of that. They waited until the electric doors hissed then thumped suddenly closed and the train started to pull away before they turned their backs. By then I couldn’t have got off even if I’d wanted to and, believe me, I didn’t want to. Vitaly couldn’t resist lifting his hand in something between a wave and a mock salute.

It was late. I was all alone in my half of the first class carriage and I was glad of it. I slumped back in the chair and my head lolled to one side as the train went high over the Tyne, crossing the railway bridge, speeding away from the city that had been my home all my life, a place to which I knew I could never return. I was so tired I could barely muster the energy to hand over my ticket when the conductor walked through. Despite my exhaustion, the relief flooded through me. It wasn’t me in that chair in a lock up with a bullet through my head, it wasn’t me that had been tortured to death for the numbers of Bobby’s bank accounts and it wasn’t me that had been beaten unrecognisable because four ex-Spetsnaz men wanted to prove they were tougher than me. I was grateful for that. I should be grateful. I was grateful, definitely. But something was wrong.

I wasn’t grateful enough.

All the way down as far as Durham, I kept telling myself how lucky I’d been. I’d survived a war, a war that had killed all of my comrades. Like Gladwell said, I’d been given a chance to start again, to go legit, live like a normal person. When I arrived in London, a whole new world would open up to me. I could live a life without fear. I had half convinced myself I believed all of this by the time the train pulled into Durham station, the illuminated horizon of its castle and cathedral on the hill telling me that a half hour journey had gone by in an instant, so wrapped up had I been in my thoughts.

I stayed on the train. One thing I was definitely going to do was stay on the train. Getting off it would be suicide.

I was worried though. Gladwell had footage that could get me a life sentence should he ever feel like using it. And that was only half of it. What the hell was I going to do in London, realistically? What job was I qualified for and who was going to want to take me on? My business card said I was a sales and marketing director but I wasn’t. I was an ideas man for a gangster and they don’t advertise those posts in the paper. Getting a job like that is about trust and being known by the man who employs you. No one in London knew or gave a fuck about me.

That idea I used to have about owning a restaurant? I knew nothing about restaurants except how to eat in them. It was a load of shite, a dream no more realistic than the one I’d had about playing for Newcastle when I was a kid. Face facts. It was never going to happen. I was going to be nothing in London, a nobody. The money I’d get from selling my flat wouldn’t get me a cupboard down there. I’d end up pulling pints behind a bar or washing dishes in a hotel. Shit job, shit pay, shit life, might as well be dead, which was something I hadn’t thought about when they were pointing a gun at my head.

The train pulled away once more and something began to happen to me. Somehow the fear I felt when I thought I was going to be killed or tortured started to recede. It had become more like a distant feeling and was slowly being replaced by something else. Anger.

We’d been sloppy, we’d taken our eye off the ball, we’d thought we could go on like this forever. Like every top champion that has ever lived, there came a day when we were knocked off our perch by someone else but that wasn’t the only thing burning into my brain. We had been out-thought and out-fought by wee Tommy Gladwell, the unproven, first born son of Arthur Gladwell. I told myself if it had been anybody else, someone more worthy of respect, then I could have accepted it but this just wasn’t right. I knew a bit about Tommy Gladwell and if he ran Newcastle there’d be no hope for anyone. Bobby knew how to be Top Boy. Hell, even I knew how to be Top Boy. I’d watched Bobby do it for years, learned it from him, given him new ideas that helped him to be the successful boss that he so obviously was. Together we knew how to keep order, we helped to keep the city ticking over. His other lieutenants weren’t there to advise him, give him big ideas, work out the strategy and the tactics needed to run an empire. I was the only one who could do that for him. I’d watched him for so long. It was always just a question of judgement. You had to say the right things to the right people at the right time, keep the wheels oiled, control the men who work for you and never give them an excuse to turn against you. Easy, except I still wouldn’t trust anybody from our crew, alive or dead, to do the job after Bobby. There was nobody I could work for without the risk of ending up in prison or the mortuary being way too high. I wouldn’t trust anybody.