Tom Graham - Life on Mars - A Fistful of Knuckles

‘Not until you’ve answered a question for me, Boss,’ Ray replied.

‘Okay. What’s your question?’

‘What do you say to a bird with two black eyes?’

Instantly, Annie stiffened and looked away. Sam wearily rubbed his forehead.

‘Ray, you have picked the single worst possible moment to start telling that joke. And besides, I’ve heard it. And it wasn’t funny the first time.’

‘Only trying to raise a smile,’ said Ray, stuffing a strip of Juicy Fruit into his mouth. ‘Perhaps I’ll bring that plastic thing back in again. That gets a few laffs.’

‘No you won’t bring that plastic thing back in again, Ray! I’ve bloody warned you!’

‘Suit yourself, you tight-arsed get,’ shrugged Ray. ‘We all need to get through as best we can. Go off our rockers, otherwise. At least Chrissy-wissy’s got a sense of humour round here. He likes that plastic thing.’

Chris’s head popped up from behind a mountain of paperwork weighed down with an overflowing ashtray.

‘I love that plastic thing!’ he said eagerly. ‘Have you brought it in again?!’

Ray sauntered over to him: ‘’Fraid not. Orders from the laffin’ gnome over there. But I got a question for you, Chris. What do you say to a bird with two black eyes?’

Ignoring him, Sam turned back to Annie.

‘Sorry about that,’ he said. ‘It’s just Ray being Ray.’

Annie smiled at him and said: ‘Thanks, Sam – you know – for not being like all the rest.’

Across the office, Ray reached the cruel punch line and Chris brayed with laughter.

Keeping his back to them both, Sam leant closer to Annie and dropped his voice: ‘Listen, maybe I can cheer you up by taking you out for dinner some time?’

‘You asking me out on a date, Boss? ’

‘As your superior officer I suppose I could order you out on a date with me.’

‘How romantic. Where have you got in mind? The canteen downstairs?’

‘I think we can go a little more upmarket than that. You choose the restaurant. Anywhere you like, Annie. Don’t worry about the expense. Manchester is your oyster!’

Sam stopped suddenly. Oysters. They made him think of whelks. And whelks made him think of the fat-bellied coroner belching and grunting in the morgue.

‘Anywhere you like, Annie, but – please – not seafood.’

‘Why not?’

‘I’ve sort of … gone off it recently. Well? Am I tempting you?’

Annie swivelled playfully in her chair and said: ‘I don’t know. You’ve taken me by surprise, young man.’

‘Not the first time you’ve said that, I’ll bet.’

‘I’ll have a think about it and get back to you,’ she said, making a show of moving folders and files around on her desk. ‘I’m busy. But if you’re lucky I might be able to squeeze you in somewhere.’

‘And not the first time you’ve said that , I’ll bet.’

‘You are as bad as the rest of ‘em!’ Annie cried at him, blushing.

‘ I’m the king of the bad ‘uns round here!’ Gene suddenly intoned from the doorway of his office. ‘Tyler! Stop fiddling with DI Bristols and start acting like a copper with a job to do. Raymondo! Christopher! I’m bored of reading the paper and I don’t feel like a taking a dump just yet; catch me a killer so I can play pat-a-cake with him in the interview room ‘til it’s home time.’

‘Got a possible start for you, Guv,’ said Ray, waving a piece of paper. ‘I’ve been digging up what I can about this half-darkie lad what got whacked.’

‘Mixed race,’ Sam corrected him, knowing nobody was interested. ‘It’s so simple: it’s mixed race .’

‘Looks like he was a local boy,’ Ray went on. ‘In and out of trouble as a kid, got himself nicked a couple of times – thieving, spot of aggro here and there, nothing serious. Worked around and about as a bouncer, did a spot of lugging down the warehouses. Then he started picking up a living as a bare-knuckle boxer at illegal fights.’

‘ Is there a living in that?’ asked Sam.

‘If you know what you’re doing, Boss, aye, ‘course there is,’ said Ray. ‘There’s a lot of money slopping around in that game. But most of them lads are trying to go legit now – like Denzil Obi. It’s safer being a pro. Life in the boxing underworld can be pretty rough.’

‘Inside the ring and out of it,’ said Gene, nodding to himself. ‘So – our boy Denzil was looking to go straight, make an honest living at last. But somewhere along the way he’d piddled on somebody’s chips – and aforesaid somebody caught up with him, popped round his flat and aired his grievances. Come on, Ray, get me some names – who were Obi’s acquaintances? Did he have a trainer? Sparring partners? Boxing buddies?’

‘I don’t know about none of that – but this was found at his flat,’ said Ray, and he passed a laminated card to Gene.

Gene peered at it and read out loud: ‘ Stella’s Gym. Denzil ‘The Black Widow’ Obi. Full membership. ’

‘The Black Widow!’ grinned Chris. ‘That’s wicked, that!’

‘Stella’s Gym …’ Gene mused. ‘Don’t know it. Got an address for it, Raymond?’

‘It’s on the back of the card, Guv.’

‘Excellent. Ray, you stay here with ‘wicked’ Chris Skelton and carry on digging up everything you can about Obi. Go through the arrest files, see what dodgy underworld boxers we’ve got on the records. And find out who’s in town – boxers, brawlers, shady fight promoters, anyone Obi might have come into contact with. And as for you, Sugar Ray Tyler-’

‘Yes, Guv?’

‘Grab your shorts and skipping rope. We’re popping down the gym.’

‘Can this really be the right place?’ asked Sam as he and Gene clambered out of the Cortina and approached the entrance of a gloomy, filthy alleyway.

Gene sniffed the air with contempt: ‘Much like the aroma in your flat, Sammy. I can see why you try to cover it up with that druggy pong.’

‘They’re not drugs, they’re joss sticks,’ replied Sam. ‘How many times do I have to explain that, Guv?’

‘No amount of explaining’s going to make your gaff stink any less like a dope-smoking pansy-boy’s boudoir. Now then; lead on, Samuel, and boot any dog-eggs out the way. I don’t want to get my loafers soiled.’

‘Heaven forbid you should soil your loafers,’ said Sam, and gingerly he stepped into the alley, picking his way through the heaps of reeking garbage. ‘This place is worse than a pigsty! Doesn’t seem like a good location for a gym.’

‘Get over it,’ Gene growled as he loomed menacingly after Sam. ‘Real men ain’t frit by a spot of dirt.’

‘It seems they are if they’re wearing their best loafers, Guv.’

‘ Second best, you prannet. First best’s for the ladies.’

They reached a set of filthy doors, above which hung the remains of a sign. The few letters still attached to it said: ST LLA’S YM

‘This must be it,’ said Sam.

He pushed open the doors and revealed a gloomy passageway beyond, with a set of stairs leading down into even deeper darkness. For a moment, a sharp, icy sensation passed through Sam’s blood. He sensed something – something he could not define. For a moment, he could not bring himself to descend that bleak staircase and enter the darkness at its foot.

But why? What am I afraid is down there?

But it wasn’t the descent into Stella’s Gym that froze his blood with fear. It was that deeper descent into the even greater darkness of the subconscious that terrified him. Because he had glimpsed into that pit of his own psyche before, not least when he had been pistol-whipped unconscious in the compound of the Red Hand Faction and found himself lost in a black, nightmarish void.