Howard Linskey - The Drop

Not one.

Well, maybe one.

Jesus, after all, I was the man who really shot Billy the Kid.

And there was one more thing that clinched it. I’d tried hard not to think about her. I’d told myself there was nothing I could do, no way I could help. It was somebody else’s problem now but I knew that wasn’t going to work. There was no way I could just ignore it. I’d been so damn scared, I wanted to banish any thought that kept me from putting at least three hundred long miles between myself and Vitaly but I couldn’t help myself because I knew I had to help her. Sarah .

I got off the train at Darlington.

It was starting to rain. There were some young lads standing around outside the station trying to look hard. I walked straight up to them,

‘I’ll give you a tenner for a use of your phone.’ The lad looked at me like I was mental. I stuffed the note into his shirt pocket and I must have looked as if I’d had a very bad night because, without a word, he handed me his mobile. They all eyed me suspiciously, as if I was going to run off with his precious Nokia, ‘don’t worry,’ I told him, ‘you’ll get it back.’ And I turned away as I dialled Palmer.

‘Jesus,’ he hissed, ‘where’ve you been? I’ve been ringing you for ages.’

‘My phone’s gone but don’t worry about that. Get in your car and drive. I need you to pick me up, now.’

‘Okay,’ he said, ‘where are you?’

‘Standing outside Darlington station.’

‘Darlington?’ he asked, ‘what are you doing there?’

‘Just get here,’ I snapped, ‘on your way down I need you to make sure I have a car, a phone and a few hundred quid waiting for me when we get back to Newcastle. Get one of your boys to meet you with that outside my brother’s place.’

‘No problem,’

‘And I want you to bring something with you now.’

‘What?’

I kept my voice low as I told him then I rang off and threw the phone back to the young lad. I walked out of the station and down the ramp, turning the collar of my jacket up against the rain.

Palmer didn’t say anything when I climbed into the car. There was plenty of time for explanations on the drive back to Newcastle. I waited till we were on the main road before I asked him.

‘Did you bring it?’

‘Glove compartment.’

I opened the glove box and took it out, weighed it in my hand but kept it low, out of sight, ‘loaded?’

“Course,’ then he gave me a look, ‘not taking the piss, but have you ever fired a gun before?’

‘Yep,’ I told him casually, not adding how recently.

‘Fair enough,’ he said.

I put the Glock back in the glove compartment and closed it.

‘I need to tell you what’s been going on,’ I told him, ‘I am going to be relying on you, so you’d better be on your game.’

‘Right,’ he said simply. What I liked about Palmer was that he never seemed fazed about anything. It was hard to imagine a jeep through some plate glass doors. He didn’t look like that sort of guy – but then I probably didn’t look like a murderer.

‘Tommy Gladwell and his Russians are trying to take over the city tonight,’ I said.

He nodded sagely, ‘and we are going to stop them?’

‘Yeah,’ I said resisting the temptation to add, ‘we are going to try.’

‘There’s just one thing,’ I told him, ‘you know that Tommy is Arthur’s boy and you know all about Arthur Gladwell?’

‘That scussy wee shite. Aye, I’ve heard of him but he doesn’t scare me if that’s what’s worrying you?’

‘It’s not that,’ I said, ‘it’s just, you’re both from Glasgow so, if that’s going to be a problem, I need to know it now.’

‘If it’s a question of loyalty,’ he said, ‘Tommy Gladwell didn’t put food on my table when I was cashiered out of the army. You did.’

I wasn’t expecting a big speech and I didn’t get one but what he’d said was good enough for me.

‘In any case, Arthur Gladwell is a boil on Glasgow’s arse, always has been. He won’t be winning any popularity contests up there.’

Palmer had a couple of questions but it didn’t take long to put him in the picture. He’d already tortured most of the story out of grey-hair, whose real name turned out to be Terry apparently, but there was one last piece of the jigsaw that I still didn’t have.

‘Did you get that name for me?’

‘Yeah,’ he said thoughtfully, ‘I did.’

And when he told me who had been selling us out, I have to say that, for some reason I still can’t fathom, I wasn’t even a bit surprised.

I’d never been happier to experience the unmistakeable smell of tobacco and stale piss outside the flats, especially when I noticed there was a light on in Our-young-un’s window. I left Palmer in the car to watch my back and wait for his man to show up with the cash, the phones and the car. I went to collect Danny. I didn’t want to hang about. We needed to be gone from there as soon as. I couldn’t afford to be caught in the city by Vitaly and his thugs.

I was pretty sure Danny would be okay. I couldn’t see why anyone, even someone who had been tailing me for weeks, would consider my bro to be anything other than a washed-up version of his former self. He was obviously a civilian who had nothing to do with any part of Bobby Mahoney’s business but, just to be sure, I had the Glock.

The bell has never worked as long as I’ve been coming here, so I banged on the door. No answer. I hammered again, a bit louder this time, and still he didn’t come to the door. That wasn’t like him. Danny wasn’t a heavy sleeper even when he’d been drinking. I reached for my keys and found the spare one for the front door that I kept on the fob for emergencies. This was definitely an emergency. I told myself everything would be alright, as I opened the door, but I was already beginning to have a very bad feeling about it.

My brother could be a bit jumpy, what with his war experiences and everything, so I made sure I didn’t burst in there unannounced. Instead I pushed the door wide and, before I stepped in, I called his name. No answer. The flat was quiet, the lights were on but he didn’t seem to be about. I called his name again, louder this time and that’s when I saw him.

Danny was sitting in his old arm chair in the lounge. Because his back was to me, the only bit of him I could actually see was his left hand, which was resting on the arm of the chair. It was quite still. My brother wasn’t moving.

‘Danny,’ I called quietly at first, because my heart had shot up into my throat, and it was stopping the words from coming out. How could he have not heard me banging on the door? Unless…

Oh no, not him, not my brother as well.

‘Danny!’ I called his name louder now. After all, he could be asleep. I told myself that he could be asleep but I knew he wasn’t asleep. A sleeping person would have heard me by now, ‘oh Christ,’ then I was running across the lino towards him. The bastards had killed my brother.

I reached the chair and in the same moment I put my palm onto his hand and leaned round to see his poor, dead face.

And he screamed.

Danny screamed. He spun towards me and grabbed me by the throat. Next thing I knew I was being lifted off the ground and I was so relieved to see his scared, startled, lovely face that I forget to be annoyed when he upended me in one instinctive, fluid movement and threw me down on the deck. Then he was standing over me, one hand tight round my throat again and the other pulled back and formed into a fist like he was about to smash my bloody face in.

‘It’s me, it’s me,’ I gurgled and at that point he seemed to snap out of whatever auto pilot he was on. His eyes narrowed in confusion and he looked at me like I’d gone mad, ‘you’re alive,’ I said, not quite believing it myself, ‘I knocked, I called your name,’ I blurted out by way of explanation, ‘Christ I thought they’d killed you.’ And it was only then I finally realised why he didn’t answer, why he couldn’t hear me. There was a long, thin, white wire hanging down from his ear.