Liz Mistry - Last Request

‘The Fighting Cock, The Sparrow …’ Sajid began counting them off, one by one on his fingers.

‘Yeah, I know. But I’m a creature of habit and Gordon and Nancy need all the trade they can get.’

Apart from Nikki and Sajid there were only five others in the entire bar. Old Stevie who propped up the corner most nights and the regular Monday night dominoes tournament in a table in the snug. As Nikki positioned a beer mat before each of them, Gordon ambled over, a tea towel draped over one shoulder, his rotund belly preceding the rest of him by a good couple of feet and two pint glasses of Cannonball, one in each hand. Nikki often wondered how he maintained balance. Gordon was a man of few words and most of them were unintelligible grunts which seemed to signify anything from, ‘hallo’ to ‘goodbye’ to ‘nice to see you’ to ‘fuck off, you’re barred’. His wife Nancy was his opposite in every respect. Almost as short as Nikki, and skinnier, she could and would, given half a chance, talk the proverbial hind leg off any four-legged creature that deigned to enter her domain. Her saving grace was that she was an expert reader of human nature and seemed able to gauge exactly what each of her customers wanted, whether it was a sympathetic ear, a babble of meaningless tittle-tattle or a serious confab over one of her rare whiskies, reserved only for her favourite customers. Nikki had partaken of said whisky a fair few times in the past.

With a grunt, which Nikki took to mean ‘enjoy your drinks’, Gordon placed both glasses on the mats, took a packet of salt and vinegar crisps out of his pocket and tossed it on the table, before beating a slow and rolling retreat.

Sajid took a long sip, wiped the froth off his mouth with the back of his hand and grinned. ‘Can’t stay long. Langley’s got a surprise lined up. It’s our anniversary. A year.’

Nikki’s lips twitched. He looked so damn proud of himself, which was more than he’d looked at the crime scene. ‘Yeah, well, you could’ve fooled me earlier, Saj. Poor Langley, he must be a saint to put up with the huge wedge you drive between the two of you in public.’

Sajid picked up his glass and had another sip. ‘Well, truth is he is getting pissed off with me. Says I’m ashamed of him.’ He looked at Nikki a slight frown marring his forehead. ‘I’m not ashamed of him, no way. It’s just like … complicated.’

Complicated family life was nothing new to Nikki, but she really felt for Sajid. He was clearly in love with Langley – they’d been living together for a year now, but he still kept their relationship secret, in case his family found out. Every so often, the strain of that reared its ugly head. She nudged Saj’s arm. ‘God! Surprised he managed to put up with you for so long. You should be the one treating him.’

‘Ha bloody ha.’ He took another swig of his beer. ‘Langley’s spitting. Springer and her sidekick Bashir caught that skeleton case we were called out to earlier. Turns out it’s a murder, skeleton had its head smashed in. Lang says Springer’s being an arse already.’

Nikki snorted. She’d had run-ins with ‘The Spaniel’ before and always tried to give her a wide berth. Thankfully, cold cases and current investigations rarely overlapped. ‘Now why doesn’t that surprise me? The woman’s a bitch.’

‘Yeah, well, they found a passport on the body, so it looks like it’ll be all tied up soon.’

‘Lucky Spaniel. She’ll be wagging her tail at that, won’t she? She doesn’t like to get her hands dirty, that one.’

Stuffing a handful of crisps in his mouth, Sajid studied her. ‘So, you gonna tell me what all that was with Deano?’

Nikki sighed. She trusted Saj. They’d worked together for years now, since before he’d met Langley, and they’d been through a lot together, but this thing with Deano and by extension, Franco, was personal. Of course, Sajid knew about the E on the streets and it was a pretty fair assumption that Franco and his cronies were behind it. Sajid was aware that Nikki had evicted both Franco and Deano from Listerhills the previous year and, if the details were a bit sketchy, he wasn’t going to complain. He probably thought she was just cleaning drugs off the streets.

However, her reasons for keeping schtum about the whole Franco and Deano thing were nothing to do with her job – no, it was personal. This was about her family and she kept family matters close to her chest. Now though, she couldn’t decide whether to trust him with Haqib’s involvement. Maybe that was pushing his loyalty a step too far. By rights, she should have taken Haqib in for carrying the amount of shit he had, but then Charlie had been the one in possession, not Haqib. ‘Got a load of Es and they link back to Deano. Needed to make him aware we didn’t want his shit here. I’ll get a couple of uniforms on him tomorrow, hassle him a bit, make it hard for him to deal.’

‘Franco back too?’

Nikki drained her glass, plonked it down and rolled her shoulders. ‘Yep, looks that way.’

Sajid studied his half-full glass for a few seconds, then, ‘You gonna tell me where the Es came from?’

‘Got a lead. Some local lads, but they ran before I got them. At least they’re off the streets, eh?’ She knew her partner didn’t believe her, but that didn’t matter. What mattered was that she didn’t make him complicit in anything dodgy.

Draining his glass, Sajid stood up. ‘When you’re ready to give me the full story, I’ll be here.’

‘Aw piss off, Saj. Go and get wined, dined and laid. It won’t make you any prettier, but it’ll make you better company tomorrow.’

Sajid grinned and with a wave to Gordon and Nancy, he was off.

Nikki stayed where she was, using the time to text Marcus. With everything that had gone on, she needed to touch base with him. He was looking after the kids and she should really have told him she’d be a bit later. Truth was, she was reluctant to go home. Marcus had proposed yet again and just as she’d done every other time, Nikki had refused. Why couldn’t he understand that they were fine the way they were. Their relationship worked. If they moved in together … got married … whatever, it would all go tits up. Nobody knew that better than Nikki.

When Nancy came over ten minutes later, Nikki put out the feelers about the Es. Despite its quietness tonight, when the weekend rolled round, The Mannville Arms perked up with both university and college students as well as locals. Nancy was one of the many eagle-eyed landlords that the Bradford police approached to keep their eyes open for possible dealing. The latest batch of MDMA, or Es as the kids called them, were particularly potent and Nikki wanted everyone on alert.

How many years have they been blind? The thing is, they all think they’re so smart – so damn smart – but they’re not.

Every one of them I killed deserved it. Time and again they proved that they’re not only stupid, but weak too. At first, I wanted them to prove their superior intellect – show me how they were better than me. Show me they deserved what I was denied, that it was more than just privilege. That they’d earned it through hard work and dedication. Then, I wanted them to pay for the way they’d let themselves down. Taken opportunities and then just fucked it all up. One by one, despite my best efforts they failed and at some point – maybe after the fourth or fifth – I realised that this was something in which I excelled. I’d found my forte – my calling, if you will.

I’m not inhuman though, not at all. Despite my social experiment I gave them something before the end. Some little salve as they realised what the end was going to be. Each of them got their last chance – each of them bared their soul and made their last wish. Whether their last request was ever granted though is a different matter. That’s how it is. That’s life.