William Boyd - Ordinary Thunderstorms

Jonjo wandered across the cracked dry mud of a grassless central courtyard, looking around him. He was in a wide, two-acre quadrangle, surrounded by four of The Shaft’s apartment blocks. He saw snapped-off saplings, a washing machine with its guts ripped out and its porthole window open, graffiti-ed walls and doors. A few people looked down at him from the upper walkways, elbows resting on the concrete balustrades, smoking.

These places should be razed to the ground, Jonjo thought, and houses built for decent people. Take all the scum who live here, put them down with humane killers, like cattle, incinerate their bodies and throw their ashes in landfill sites. Crime in the area would fall by 99 per cent, families — would relax, kiddies would play hopscotch in the street, flowers would bloom again in front gardens.

Three little girls were sitting on a bench, sharing a cigarette. As he approached, Jonjo saw that they weren’t so much little — just small. He looked at them: eleven? Or eighteen?

“Hello, ladies,” he said, smiling. “Wonder if you can help me.”

“Fuck off, peedlefile.”

“What’s the name of the main crew, round here? Who runs the area, you know? Number one gangsters. I’ll give you a fiver if you tell me.”

One of the girls, with bad acne, said, “Give me ten and I’ll flog you off.”

Another, a fat one, said, “Give me ten and it’s the best blow-job of your life.”

They all laughed at this — giggling, silly, pushing at each other. Jonjo remained impassive.

“Who’s the big guy in The Shaft, eh? I got a job for him. He’ll be well angry you didn’t tell me.”

The girls whispered to each other, then Acne said, “We don’t know.”

Jonjo took a twenty-pound note out of his pocket and dropped it on the ground. He turned away from them and put his heel on it.

“Let’s do it this way,” he said. “I didn’t give you this, you found it. I just need a name and a place, then I walk away and I won’t know who told me. No one will know. Just tell me — and don’t play silly buggers, right? Because I’ll come back and find you.”

He crossed his arms and waited. After about twenty seconds one of the girls said, “Bozzy, Flat B1, Unit 17.”

Jonjo walked away, not looking round.

Jonjo followed the signs to Unit 17 and found Flat B1—it was derelict, on the ground floor, the windows boarded up. For a second or two he wondered if those little bitches had conned him but then he saw that there was no padlock on the door and, peering through a slit at the edge of one of the boarded-up windows, he realised there were lights on inside.

He slid his 1911 out of its holster in the small of his back and held it loosely in his hand, butt first. Then he knocked on the door.

“Bozzy?” he said, in an anxious voice. “I need to see Bozzy. I got money for him.” He knocked again. “I got money for Bozzy.”

After a moment he heard bolts being thrown and the door opened six inches. A bleary, stoned face looked out.

“Give me money. I give it Bozzy.”

Jonjo smashed his gun, held flat, into this guy’s face and he went down with a yelp. Jonjo was through the door in a second, gun in both hands and put his big builder’s boot on the guy’s throat. His nose was broken, askew, and he was spitting blood, feebly.

“Relax. I’m not the police,” Jonjo said in a level voice, “as you can probably tell. I just want a word with Bozzy.”

The room was full of smoke and the strange smell of burnt rope hit Jonjo’s nostrils. He saw a couple of sagging filthy armchairs, three stained mattresses, some empty bottles and a litter of food wrappers and foil containers and, to his vague surprise, halved lemons, squeezed dry. Three other dazed young men were slowly rising to their feet.

“Lie down on the floor,”Jonjo said, pointing his gun at each of them. “Face down. Place your hands on the back of your heads. I just want a conversation with Bozzy, then I’ll fuck off.” He smiled as the young men lay down on the floor. He lifted his boot off the sniffler’s face and with a few prods of his toe encouraged him to turn over also. “So…Which one’s Bozzy?” Jonjo said.

“I am,” said a beefy guy with a hot, flushed face.

“You’d better be Bozzy, mate,”Jonjo said. “Otherwise you’re in deep shit.”

“I’m Bozzy. And you fuckin’ dead, man. I know you face, now. You dead.”

Then, swiftly, Jonjo kicked the other three prone young men very hard in the ribs with his steel toe-capped bricklayer’s boots, feeling ribs give way, stave, splinter, yield. The men shouted and rolled around in serious pain. Every time they coughed or sneezed for the next three months they’d remember this encounter, every time they crawled out of bed or reached for something they’d think of me, Jonjo acknowledged with satisfaction.

“Get out,”Jonjo said. “Now.”

They left slowly, stooped, carefully, clutching their sides like old men while Jonjo covered them with his gun. Then he bolted the door behind them and turned to Bozzy. From the pocket of his jeans he took two plastic cuffs and first bound Bozzy’s ankles and then attached Bozzy’s left wrist to his ankles before heaving him into a sitting position.

“This is very simple, Boz, me old mate,” Jonjo said, taking his knife out from its ankle scabbard. He grabbed hold of Bozzy’s free hand and very quickly cut the web of skin between Bozzy’s third and ring finger — just a nick, really, about a centimetre deep.

“ Fuck! ” Bozzy cried out.

Jonjo dropped his knife and grabbed the pair of fingers on either side of the gash and gripped them fiercely in both fists. Blood was dripping now, welling up from the small cut.

“We used to do this a lot in Afghanistan,” Jonjo said. “The Al-Qaeda guys say they’ll never talk but they always do.” He could see Bozzy looked blank. “You heard of Al-Qaeda?”

“No. Who they?”

“OK. They’re tough fuckers. One thousand per cent tougher than you. We did this to them to make them talk: cut between their fingers, then rip their hands in two, down to the wrist.” He tugged — Bozzy yelled. “It’s like tearing a rag or a sheet. Only the wrist bone stops it, but you ain’t got a hand any more — you’ve got a flipper . And they can’t fix it, no doctor can. If you don’t tell me what I want to know I’ll rip this hand in two. And, if you still don’t tell me, I’ll rip your other hand in two. Then you’ll be drinking beer through a straw for the rest of your life and someone will have to help you piss.”

“What you want to know?”

Jonjo smiled. “I’m betting, I’m having a wager with myself, that you jumped a guy last week on this estate. His name was Adam Kindred. You stole his phone and someone used it.”

“I stole ten phones last week, mate.”

“This one was different. You’d remember him.”

“We jack a lot of minis. I can’t not remember what mim is like another.”

“You would remember this one. Not your usual mim. What happened?”Jonjo tugged gently on Boz⁄y’s fingers.

“Yeah— agh! — yeah…We jumped him. Kicked him proper, took everything. Left him under the stairs. I thought he might of been fucked. But, when we come back, half an hour later. He gone.”

“Gone? Walked away?”

“We left him out cold, mate. Butcher meat.”

“Somebody must’ve helped him.”

“Prob’ly.”

“Where’s the phone?”

“I sold it.”

“Get it back. Who could have helped him?”

“Must of been someone in The Shaft. It was late, like. Only Shaft people round and about. That’s how I remember this mim. He was well lost.”

“Find out who helped him,” Jonjo said, letting go of Bozzy’s hand, picking up his knife and cutting the plastic cuffs from his tethered wrist and ankles. “Call me.” Jonjo gave him a piece of paper with his mobile number on it. “Call me in a week. I’ll give you a grand if you find the person who helped him. A grand — one thousand pounds.” He tossed a couple of £20 notes on the floor.