Howard Linskey - The Drop

‘I was listening to me iPod man!’ he told me with not a little irritation, ‘I said I was going to sort it,’ he was shouting, as one ear piece from the iPod was still in place, the other one had fallen out. He pulled the remaining one free, ‘anyway,’ he asked, ‘who’s supposed to have killed me?’

Palmer’s guy Toddy sorted me out with a BMW 7 series. He gave Danny his semi automatic. I issued instructions and they left without a fuss. Now that I had Danny with me I could leave Palmer to it.

In my pocket I still had the shabby little business card Joe Kinane had given me down at the Cronk. I reached for the new phone Palmer’s man had supplied me and dialled. Kinane answered like he’d just woken up.

‘I need to meet you,’ I said.

He recognised my voice straight away, ‘What? Right now? Where? Why?’

I didn’t have time for subtlety and there was no need for it. I had to get my message across to him so he understood what was going on right away with no pauses, no questions and no fucking about. ‘Bobby’s dead,’ I said and I waited for that to sink in.

‘Jesus,’ he said a moment later. ‘Fuck’s sake,’ he added. ‘I don’t believe it.’ He wasn’t doubting me, it was a figure of speech.

‘Believe it,’ I told him, ‘it’s true. Bobby’s dead and so is Finney. I’ve seen it with my own eyes.’

‘Bloody hell,’ he said as he came to terms with the fact that the man he hated more than any other was dead. I guessed that, more than any other emotion, he would feel cheated.

‘Bobby Mahoney is dead,’ I told him again so it would sink in, ‘Finney’s dead, Northam’s dead. Jerry Lemon and Geordie Cartwright you know about already. They are all gone, all dead.’

‘Fuck! What’s happened?’

I ignored him, ‘I’ll explain it all to you when I see you. I need you to come to the house of a guy called Palmer who works for me. He’s coming round to fetch you now, you and your sons. I’m going to need all of your boys from the gym, but tonight just bring your sons. Don’t bring anybody with you who isn’t family.’

‘Right,’ he said, ‘what have you got in mind?’

‘I’m offering you a deal Kinane,’ I told him, ‘a very good one.’

Our-young-’un and me headed west across the city. I was driving as fast as I dared but I still had to be careful because I couldn’t run the risk of being pulled over by the police, not with a gun on me.

‘I need to know I can rely on you,’ I told Danny, ‘because of what’s happened, you and Palmer are just about the only people left I can trust.’

‘Of course,’ he sounded almost offended. ‘You can rely on me man,’

‘I mean it Danny. You used to say that you and your mates in the army were like brothers, you’d do anything for each other, well I’m your real brother and I need to know what you are prepared to do for me.’

He mulled that over for less than a second, ‘anything, name it.’

‘Even if it’s dangerous.’

‘Well, yeah, no sweat like.’

‘Even if it means killing.’

He thought that one over for a moment. ‘You wouldn’t ask me unless it was the only choice. I know that. I owe everything to you man, everything. Don’t know where I’d be without you but it sure as hell wouldn’t be here.’

‘Thanks,’ I mumbled, feeling grateful and uncomfortable at the same time.

‘Anyhow,’ he said quietly, ‘killing’s not as hard as you might think.’

He was right there.

‘I’ve never asked you this before,’ I told him, ‘and I wouldn’t ask it now but I’ve got to because I’m trusting you with my life and the lives of the people who work for me. What happened to you in the Falklands that made you the way you are?’

‘The way I am?’ he asked as if he didn’t comprehend me.

‘You know what I mean,’ and he fell silent for a time.

‘Aye,’ he said quietly, ‘I know what you mean.’

‘Was it at Goose Green?’

He just nodded.

‘You don’t have to tell me,’ I admitted, ‘but I have to know that, whatever it is, it won’t stop you from being on top form when I need you.’ I was starting to think this might have been a bad idea, that I should have left Our-young-’un in his flat and done this on my own, except I didn’t know how.

‘It’s alright,’ he said, ‘I was only eighteen,’ and he shook his head as if he couldn’t imagine being that young in a war zone, ‘eighteen but I can remember most of it like it was yesterday,’ then he let out a bitter laugh, ‘and I can’t remember yesterday.’ He leant back in his seat, against the headrest. ‘When the battle started we got pinned down, they had more men and about a dozen trenches with machine guns zeroed in. We couldn’t get through them and it looked like we were in the shit big style. I thought we were all going to die, I really did. Then Colonel H, he got up and led the way, went after a couple of machine guns with two of our NCOs and well, you know what happened.’

I nodded, ‘that’s how he got his VC,’ I knew the tale of Lieutenant Colonel H Jones, Commanding Officer of 2 Para, well enough to recite it myself.

‘Posthumous VC,’ Danny corrected me, ‘he went straight at them but the machine guns got him in the end. Bravest thing I ever saw. It was his example that got the boys up the hill that day.’

I could see how much Danny respected bravery and I was starting to get a sick feeling like he was going to admit something to me that I might not want to hear. All these years I’d took it as read that my brother was a hero who went into battle in a hail of bullets, against awful odds. I didn’t think I’d be able to cope with it now if he suddenly told me he was a coward. Having one in the family was quite enough.

‘So what happened?’

‘I did my job,’ he said, ‘but I didn’t do enough,’ his voice faltered, ‘I found cover when I had to, I went forward when the NCOs ordered me to, I fired my rifle, I even killed a man, shot him from a distance and found his body when we went forward again. He didn’t look any older than me, but… ’

‘But what?’

‘That’s all,’ he said, ‘I didn’t distinguish myself. I kept my head down when some of the others were running through the bullets. I moved after they moved. I fired after they fired, I was never the first to get up that hill. I made sure I didn’t get my head blown off. I came out the other side without a scratch. We lost seventeen men. Seventeen dead and sixty four wounded and I didn’t even stub my toe on a rock. When I look back on it now I sometimes feel like I wasn’t really there, the fear stopped me from performing the way I know I could have, the way they’d trained me to. I should have been quicker. I should have been stronger. I should have been first.’

‘Christ!’ I shouted in exasperation, ‘is that it?’

‘What do you mean is that it?’ he looked at me like I was crazy.

‘I thought you’d seen something awful or done something awful. All these years I thought maybe you’d accidentally shot one of your mates, or murdered some Argie prisoners or run away or something.

‘Run away?’ he asked me, ‘Course I didn’t fucking run away. What do you take me for?’

‘I don’t know Danny, maybe not run away but I thought it was something worse than… well what you’ve just told me. Jesus, your whole life,’ I couldn’t comprehend him, ‘you’ve been so messed up since then and that’s all it’s been about? Just because you weren’t bloody Rambo?’

‘I did see something awful,’ he told me calmly, ‘the whole battle was awful, people having their arms and legs blown off, mates from my company getting shot in the head, of course it was awful.’