The Wolves of London (Obsidian Heart book 1) E-Book

Mark Morris

• Herausgeber: Titan Books
• Kategorie: Fantasy und Science-Fiction
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2014

Beschreibung

Alex Locke is a reformed ex-convict, forced back into London's criminal underworld for one more job. He agrees to steal a priceless artefact - a human heart carved from blackest obsidian - from the home of a decrepit old man. But when the burglary goes horribly wrong, Alex is plunged into the nightmarish world of the Wolves of London, a band of unearthly assassins who will stop at nothing to reclaim the heart. As he races to unlock the secrets of the mysterious object, Alex must learn to wield its dark power - or be destroyed by it.

Leseprobe

Contents

Cover

Also by Mark Morris

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

One: Friday, 26 July 1996

Two: Sunday, 30 September 2012

Three: Kate

Four: The Hair of the Dog

Five: Incognito

Six: Reflection

Seven: Unknown Number

Eight: Mutual Acquaintance

Nine: McCallum

Ten: Abattoir

Eleven: Flesh and Metal

Twelve: Adrenaline Crash

Thirteen: The Eye of the Storm

Fourteen: The Dark Man

Fifteen: Scorched Earth

Sixteen: Bad Deeds

Seventeen: Mustard Gas

Eighteen: Dawn Chorus

Nineteen: Madhouse

Twenty: My Drug

Twenty-One: The Soldier’s Story

Twenty-Two: Isle of Dogs

Twenty-Three: Smog

Twenty-Four: Ghosts

Twenty-Five: Scene of the Crime

Twenty-Six: Stolen Property

Twenty-Seven: Gaslight

Twenty-Eight: The Man from the Future

Twenty-Nine: The Menagerie

Thirty: Home

Acknowledgments

About the Author

COMING SOON FROM MARK MORRIS AND TITAN BOOKS

OBSIDIAN HEART Book Two: The Society of Blood Book Three: The Wraiths of War

Obsidian Heart Book One: The Wolves of London Print edition ISBN: 9781781168660 E-book edition ISBN: 9781781168691

Published by Titan Books A division of Titan Publishing Group Ltd 144 Southwark Street, London SE1 0UP

First edition: October 2014 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental. The publisher does not have any control over and does not assume any responsibility for author or third-party websites or their content.

Mark Morris asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.

Copyright © 2014 by Mark Morris

Visit our website:www.titanbooks.com

No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means without the prior written permission of the publisher, nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available from the British Library.

To Stephen and Patricia Volk, with love.

“Monster? But we’re British, you know!”

ONE

FRIDAY, 26 JULY 1996

I was nineteen years old and scared to death. So scared that I had to clench my teeth to stop them from chattering. Which was ironic, because it was the height of summer, 32° in the shade. The inside of the car was rank with the smell of sweat, testosterone and baked leather.

I was aware of Chris sitting beside me, his black-gloved hands gripping the steering wheel as if it was a safety bar on a roller coaster. His face, what I could see of it, was a lumpy, dark blur in its stocking mask, like a sculpture of a human head worn smooth by the wind and rain. Neither of us had said anything for the past five minutes. I didn’t know about Chris, but I was worried that if I spoke the waver in my voice would give away how terrified I was. I stared out through the windscreen at the terrace of derelict houses opposite, and tried to pretend I was calm, in control. But really I was thinking: Why the fuck am I doing this?

I knew why, though. I was doing it for Candice. That’s what I told myself anyway, though in hindsight I have to admit that that wasn’t strictly true. The thing is, with what I earned driving a furniture delivery van six days a week (plus overtime), I could have managed to pay Michelle for Candice’s welfare, and pay my rent on my grotty bedsit in Dagenham, and just about scrape by on a weekly diet of baked beans, mashed spuds and cheap mince. I could have. People do, don’t they? But I was nineteen, and I wanted a bit of a life. Nothing special, nothing extravagant. Just a few extra quid to go out on a weekend, buy some decent clothes, maybe get a car.

So when it boiled down to it, I suppose you could say that I was about to hold up a security van with my mates just so that I wouldn’t have to stay in every night, eating Pot Noodles and staring at my little black-and-white telly. I know that sounds pathetic, but what you’ve got to understand is that crime wasn’t such a big deal where I was brought up. To most of the kids I knew, and many of the adults too, it was a way of life, of getting by. Though when I say ‘crime’, I don’t necessarily mean the sort of crime that we were about to commit. I didn’t live my early life surrounded by murderers and rapists and armed robbers – though I knew of a few people who fell into one or other of those categories. No, I’m talking about petty crime: shoplifting, nicking cars, selling drugs, robbing houses. More serious crimes were still a bigger deal – but at the same time they weren’t that huge a leap. The prospect of being drawn in, as I had been, wasn’t as shocking or unthinkable as it would have seemed to the law-abiding majority.

I’m not sure whether that’s an explanation or an excuse for my actions. I’m not sure whether I’m trying to make you understand or gain your sympathy. I’ll leave my words for you to judge as you see fit. Because the thing is, everyone’s unique, and everyone interprets what they see and hear based on their own experiences. I’m a different person now to the one I was on that hot summer’s day in 1996. And what I’ve learned over the years is that we’re each of us a stew of physical and psychological ingredients, shaped by genetics, environment, upbringing, peer pressure and human interaction. So what’s acceptable, or at least understandable, to one person is going to be unacceptable or inconceivable to another. C’est la vie. When it comes down to it, there’s no black and white. Only grey.

So there I was, sitting in the passenger seat of a ripped-off Ford Mondeo next to my best mate Chris Langtree. From where we were parked, in the shadowy forecourt of one of a row of abandoned warehouses, we had a view of the long, quiet road almost up to the mouldering brick wall at its far end. At that far end, although we couldn’t see them from our position, Ray Duffy and Cosmic Dennis were sitting in a brown Vauxhall Vectra, also ripped off. The Vectra was tucked into the pot-holed entrance of a long-disused textile factory, so snug against the high wall which enclosed the factory grounds that Cosmic Dennis wouldn’t have been able to open his door more than an inch even if he’d wanted to. This meant that the car would be unseen by any vehicle turning on to the street at its far end. I couldn’t help imagining the Vectra as a funnel-web spider, poised in the darkness of its lair, ready to leap out on unsuspecting prey.

The heist had been Ray’s idea. By the time Chris got me involved everything was sorted, all the details worked out with military precision. I didn’t know what I was getting into at first. Chris rang me at work one day – I couldn’t even afford a home phone – and said that he had a proposition for me. I went round to his flat that night, expecting… I don’t know… something mildly dodgy, I suppose. I’d known Chris since primary school and we were like brothers. We didn’t live in each other’s pockets, we didn’t always see eye to eye, but we trusted each other implicitly. Chris worked in a shop selling electrical equipment for DJs and bands – record decks, sound systems, that sort of thing – but he made most of his money from fencing (the kind that involves stolen goods, not poking people with swords) and from selling dope to muso potheads on the side. In the past he’d slipped me a few quid to store ripped-off gear in my bedsit or to look after his stash while the cops were sniffing around. I’d once had a pair of speakers taking up most of the floor space in my bedroom with ‘ZZ Top’ stencilled on the side.

This time it was different, though.

The second I stepped through the door of his grotty Housing Association flat I heard voices. Chris handed me a tin of McEwan’s, which wasn’t anywhere near cold enough, and cast me an odd glance, half sly and half apologetic, which immediately made me uneasy.

‘Come through,’ he said, turning away from me. ‘We’re in here.’

I followed him down the narrow corridor, breathing in the musty scent from the damp-mottled walls, and into a square room which doubled as his bedroom and main living space. The floor was carpeted with a sludge-brown nylon weave and the walls were lined with haphazard stacks of electrical equipment. The low central table was cluttered with crumpled beer cans, empty coffee mugs and joint-rolling paraphernalia. To my left, slumped on the sagging sofa-bed beneath the big window which looked out on to the street, Dennis Jasper snorted in apparent mirth, snagging my attention. He was a rangy, raddled man with a long, bony, deeply lined face and stiff, mousey hair that stuck out at all angles. He wore a ratty old waistcoat over an off-white T-shirt, drainpipe jeans which made his legs look as spindly as broom handles, and tan leather cowboy boots. He was sucking on a spliff pinched between the thumb and forefinger of his right hand, his mouth wrinkling inwards like a contracting anus. He took a good lungful of smoke, the end of the spliff crackling and glowing orange as it burned down, then offered it to me.

I shook my head, not because I was averse to weed, but because I couldn’t face the thought of putting my lips where his fingers had been. Dennis Jasper – known as Cosmic Dennis because of the bullshit he spouted whenever he was high (which was most of the time) – was one of life’s grubby men. His teeth were brown, his over-long fingernails were permanently clogged with black gunge, and his moist-looking, dirt-ingrained skin exuded a faint odour of old toilets.

He gave another cackle, as though my refusal was the punchline to a private joke, and said something incomprehensible about the ‘angel of death’. Still holding the unopened can of beer in my hand, I looked away from him, turning my attention to the other man in the room. He was already leaning forward, an old dining chair creaking beneath his solid, meaty bulk, as he offered his hand across the cluttered table. The chunky bracelet encircling his wrist and the thick silver rings on each of his fingers gave the impression that his body had been strengthened with metal joints, like a cyborg from a sci-fi movie.

‘Alex,’ he said, his voice a husky croak, ‘good to see you, mate.’ He had the amiable but vaguely threatening presence of a man who was so hard that he didn’t feel a need to prove it.

I took the hand and shook it. ‘How you doing, Ray?’

‘Doing good, mate. How about you?’

‘Can’t complain.’

He nodded, his sleepy eyes assessing me, his gaze unwavering. After a moment he said, ‘Sit down, mate, have a drink.’

I couldn’t help feeling I was about to be interrogated, that as soon as I sat he would drop his nice-guy persona and start to pump me with questions. I racked my brains, wondering what he thought I’d done, what he’d been told I might know, but I couldn’t think of anything. I wanted to ask what was wrong, whether someone had been bad-mouthing me, but I thought that might sound like an admission of guilt, so I stayed silent. I glanced at Chris, who was standing behind me with his arms folded, looking pensive. He nodded at me – encouragingly, I hoped. I sat.

‘Aren’t you gonna open your beer?’ Ray said, nodding at the can in my hand.

‘Sure,’ I said. I popped the ring-pull, took a swig of the fizzy, metallic-tasting stuff, and forced it down.

He nodded in approval, his close-cropped hair gleaming with styling wax. When he moved, his black puffa jacket made a dry, slithering sound like a snake. Over by the window Cosmic Dennis watched the sweet-smelling smoke coiling above his head and chuckled for no discernible reason.

‘Chris says you can be trusted, says you can keep secrets. That true?’

Ray’s voice was a rasp in the otherwise silent room. I shrugged, trying not to feel intimidated. ‘I think so.’

‘Think so? Don’t you know?’

I sensed rather than saw Chris tense behind my right shoulder.

‘No,’ I said, ‘I can definitely.’

‘Can what?’

‘Be trusted.’

‘You sure?’

‘Yes.’

He stared at me a moment, then nodded. ‘Okay.’

I waited. Ray reached across, lifted a can from the table and tilted it towards his mouth, before replacing it carefully on the ring of moisture it had formed on the scarred wood. After a moment he said, ‘I hear you’ve got money problems, Alex. That you’d jump at the chance to earn a few extra quid.’

‘Doing what?’ I asked.

‘Does it matter?’

‘It might.’ I swallowed. ‘I don’t want to hurt anybody.’

Ray flashed his teeth in a sudden grin, as though the idea was ludicrous. ‘Nobody’s gonna get hurt.’

Over on the sofa-bed, Cosmic Dennis muttered, ‘We’re not in the crying game, Mr Churchill,’ and dissolved into breathy laughter.

Ray ignored him. ‘So you interested?’

‘I might be,’ I said carefully, ‘but I’d need to know what you want me to do.’

Ray narrowed his eyes and tilted his head to one side, as though contemplating how much to tell me. He’d been in the year above me at school, but I knew him more by reputation than anything; we’d never been on much more than nodding terms.

‘You wouldn’t need to do anything except back us up,’ he said eventually. ‘There’s this geezer, Amir Mahoon, Paki businessman. He owns half a dozen supermarkets round Leyton, Wanstead, Hackney.’

I nodded. ‘I’ve seen them.’

‘Right. Well, every Friday afternoon Mahoon’s brother collects the takings in his van and drives to the NatWest in Walthamstow to pay it in. He follows the same route every week, and part of it takes him along March Road near the cemetery. One side is houses, the other’s warehouses and factories – but it’s all derelict, due to be knocked down. There’s only one way in, one way out. Do you see where all this is leading?’

I nodded. ‘How much will he be carrying?’

‘I’m reliably informed it’ll be somewhere in the region of a hundred grand. Interested?’

I blinked. All I could see at that moment was pound signs in front of my eyes. I felt my throat closing up, my stomach clenching, my limbs tingling. I suddenly got the impression that I was sitting on the edge of an abyss, and that if I leaned forward I’d fall, and keep falling, down into endless blackness. I tried desperately to keep all of this hidden, to not allow any of it to show on the surface. Although warm, fizzy beer was the last thing I wanted in my stomach at that moment, I forced myself to raise my arm slowly, to tilt the can towards my mouth. The liquid lubricated my throat enough for me to ask, ‘Split four ways?’

Ray rocked backwards in his seat as though I’d punched him. His response, though derisory, at least had a bark of laughter in it.

‘Fuck off! You honestly think I’d set all this up and give you equal fucking shares? Do you take me for a muppet?’

I felt my face growing hot and knew my cheeks were blazing red. ‘Course not,’ I mumbled. ‘Sorry, Ray, I wasn’t thinking.’

‘Too fucking right you weren’t.’ He stared at me so intently I thought I’d blown it, but after a moment he shook his head, like a teacher resigned to dealing with dim pupils. ‘I get fifty per cent,’ he muttered. ‘You three share the other fifty. Take it or leave it.’

I made a quick calculation. A third of fifty grand was still about seventeen – which for me was well over a year’s wages. ‘I’ll take it,’ I said.

‘Yeah, me too,’ said Chris quickly behind me. Over by the window Cosmic Dennis seemed oblivious to the conversation. He had a grin on his face and his eyes were darting about the room. I wondered what hallucinatory wonders were cavorting in his frazzled brain.

Chris spent the next hour talking us through what the job would entail, and over the following few weeks we met on at least a dozen more occasions to discuss the finer points. By the end of that period even Cosmic Dennis knew exactly what was expected of him. It did occur to me to wonder why Dennis was on board, but that would have been questioning Ray’s judgement, so I kept my mouth shut. In the end I was glad I did, because when I mentioned my misgivings to Chris one night over a pint he looked at me like I’d just walked unwittingly across a minefield.

‘You know Dennis is Ray’s uncle, don’t you?’

I goggled at him. It had never occurred to me that they might be related. ‘Seriously?’

‘Yeah. Dennis married Ray’s mum’s sister. Sometime in the late seventies this was. Got her pregnant, I think.’

I thought back on all the meetings we’d had over the past few weeks, of how Ray had seemed to push Dennis around, to control him in the same way a dog owner would control an unruly puppy. I wondered what the true nature of the relationship was between them. Was Ray babysitting his uncle? Did he feel he could trust and rely on him because he was family? Or was he maybe trying to help out his mum’s sister financially by bringing Dennis on board? Whatever the reason, it struck me as a weird family dynamic. And it made me uneasy too. It made me feel that Dennis might prove to be Ray’s blind spot.

Chris, though, shook his head. ‘Ray knows what he’s doing,’ he said confidently. ‘Everything’ll be fine.’

I hoped so. I was still hoping so when Amir Mahoon’s brother’s grey van turned the corner on to March Road and began to rattle along the pitted tarmac towards us.

I described it as a security van earlier, but it wasn’t really. It was little more than a ramshackle Transit with bald tyres and a bad paint job. In many ways it was crying out to be robbed – Ray had said on more than one occasion that the Mahoons were taking the piss, and that by robbing them we’d be teaching them a long-overdue lesson. He even made it sound as though we’d be doing them a favour, saving them from a much bigger fall along the way.

That’s not how I felt, though, as Chris tensed in the driver’s seat beside me. Not for the first time I felt as though I was getting in way over my head. Compared to the average nineteen-year-old, I was a pretty hard lad from a rough estate, who had taken more than a few knocks in life. Even so, as Chris said, ‘Here we go,’ and slammed the car into first, it suddenly struck me for the first time how fucking real this was, how serious.

At the same time I knew there was no backing out now, that I had no option but to follow it through. I couldn’t do it half-heartedly either. I’d spent weeks thinking that Dennis might prove to be the weak link, so there was no fucking way I was going to allow it to be me. I gripped the edges of my seat as Chris accelerated and the car shot forward out of the warehouse entrance, veering in front of the van. Through the gauze of the stocking mask, I caught the barest glimpse of a shocked brown face – a boy’s face – in the passenger seat, all wide dark eyes and a gaping oval of a mouth. As the driver tried to take evasive action, Chris twisted the wheel of the Mondeo and turned us sharply to the left, directly into the path of the already swerving van. I saw a wall of grey metal hurtling towards the passenger window, and then – BANG! – the door next to me buckled inwards and the window shattered, a thousand tiny cubes of safety glass showering into my lap and across my legs.

My entire body jolted with the impact, sending hard, jagged shock-waves shooting through my limbs, back, ribcage and head. For an instant I was aware of my body as an inter-connected unit, if only because it felt as though my flesh, bones, heart and brain had suddenly become dislodged from one another. The feeling lasted for no more than a split second and then everything dropped back into place. Next thing, the two vehicles were scraping against one another as they careened sideways, but only until the van hit the high kerb side on and crunched to an abrupt halt.

The Mondeo lurched, skidded in a half-circle so that we were facing the van almost nose to nose, and stopped with a screech of brakes and the sharp tang of scorched rubber. Before I’d even recovered my wits, Chris had snatched up one of the two baseball bats lying in the well between the front seats and was shoving open the driver’s door. I grabbed the other bat and tried to push open the door on the passenger side. But it was jammed solid in the frame, too twisted and buckled from the impact of the crash. I kicked at it a couple of times, then gave up and scrambled over the front seats to exit via the driver’s door, almost falling on to the road in my eagerness to show willing. By the time I’d jumped to my feet and joined Chris, he was already holding his baseball bat out in front of him and screaming, ‘Get out of the fucking van!’

Adrenaline was pumping through me. I felt wild, exhilarated, abandoned. I ran up and smashed my bat down on the van’s bonnet, putting a big dent in it. Through the windscreen I saw Mahoon’s brother, a chubby man with a thick black beard, a white skullcap on his head. He looked terrified, and the skinny kid next to him – who couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven – was crying in fear, mouth wide and drooling as he blubbed.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Ray and Cosmic Dennis getting out of the Vectra, which had come screaming up behind the van and was now jammed tight up to its rear bumper. Like me and Chris, Dennis was wielding a baseball bat, but Ray had a sawn-off shotgun. He strode unhurriedly to the driver’s side of the van, and pointed the shotgun at Mahoon’s brother’s bearded face through the window.

‘Open the fucking door,’ he said, his voice business-like, brooking no argument. When Mahoon’s brother hesitated, he barked, ‘Now! Unless you want to lose your fucking head!’

Mahoon’s brother became a mass of jittery movement as he complied with Ray’s request. As soon as he had pushed the door open, Ray reached in, grabbed his thick beard and wrenched him out. Although I still felt high on adrenaline, I winced as Mahoon’s brother hit the tarmac hard and sprawled in front of us, his baggy white trousers tearing at the knee. The skin beneath tore too, blood mingling with dirt on the white cotton.

Mahoon pushed himself up with one arm. The other he raised as if shielding his face from the sun. ‘Please,’ he begged, ‘please… please…’

Ray stood over him, staring down, and even through the stocking mask I could see the contempt on his face. A chill went through me. For a second I believed that Ray was about to end Mahoon’s brother’s life – and maybe even that of the boy still cowering in the van, goggling at us with big dark eyes. Then Ray jerked his head up and looked at Dennis.

‘Open her up,’ he said.

Dennis cackled and loped like a big black stick-insect towards the side of the van. Curling his long fingers around the handle of the side door, he tugged, and the door slid open on gritty, squealing runners. Inside was a heap of dirty nylon sacks with draw-string tops. Dennis hopped up into the van and tugged one open. He reached inside and plucked out a thick white envelope which he waved above his head.

‘Christmas presents for all the little children!’ he cried gleefully.

We spent the next minute or so loading up the boot of the Vectra with the sacks from the van. Some of them were full of coins, which it took two of us to carry, and which caused the Vectra to creak in protest as we dumped them in. Before leaving, Ray made Mahoon’s brother and the boy – who was so terrified he had to be wrenched from the interior of the van by the scruff of his neck – lie spreadeagled on the road, face down. Both were shaking violently and the man never stopped begging for mercy, even when Ray told him to shut the fuck up. I’d never seen anyone in genuine fear of his life before, and despite the adrenaline still buzzing through me, it made me feel dirty and ashamed for my part in putting the two of them through such an ordeal.

Ray locked the van doors and threw the keys into the overgrown garden of a derelict house across the road. Then the four of us piled into the Vectra – the Mondeo was a write-off, and would have attracted too much attention even if we had been able to start her up – and fucked off. As we drove away, I peeled the now-sweaty stocking mask from my face and looked out of the back window. The last thing I saw before we turned the corner was Mahoon’s brother slowly raising his head to watch us go, his bearded face betraying shock and wonder at the fact that he was still alive.

TWO

SUNDAY, 30 SEPTEMBER 2012

‘You all right, Dad?’

Her voice was soft, but it still startled me. She saw the cigarette jerk in my fingers as I lifted it to my mouth and expressed her amusement the same way she’d done since she was two or three years old, by crinkling her nose in such a way that it tugged the corners of her lips into a smile and squeezed her eyes into slits. Even at eighteen it was an adorable expression, and gave me an unexpected pang of nostalgia, an almost melancholy sense of time slipping away.

‘Sorry,’ she said, putting a hand lightly on my arm. ‘Didn’t mean to make you jump.’

‘I was miles away,’ I told her.

‘What were you thinking about?’

I shrugged. ‘Nothing much. The past. Everything that’s happened. How much you’ve grown.’ I turned on my heel to face her, then leaned forward and kissed her on the cheek. ‘I mean, look at you, Candice. You’re a beautiful young woman.’

She rolled her eyes. ‘Dad,’ she said, drawing out the word like she used to as a kid when I was mucking about, embarrassing her. I put my arm around her shoulders and we stood for a moment, side by side against the wall of the pub, watching the tourists and post-performance theatre-goers streaming to and from the bustling attractions of Covent Garden. The Rusty Bucket, whose upstairs function room Candice had hired for her eighteenth, was a sturdy old London boozer on Russell Street, whose wooden fittings had apparently been constructed from old ship’s timbers. Its status as a grade II listed building meant that it had retained its etched mirrors and embossed ceilings, though that hadn’t stopped the current owner from turning it into a trendy bar-cum-gastro-pub.

After a few moments Candice sighed and snuggled against me. ‘Thanks for coming,’ she said.

A good foot taller than my daughter, I leaned forward and kissed the top of her blonde head. ‘Christ, you don’t have to thank me. I wouldn’t have missed this for the world.’

‘Yeah, I know, but…’

‘But what?’

‘Well, it can’t have been easy for you, can it, what with Glenn’s family here and everything?’

I grunted a laugh. ‘Into the lion’s den, you mean?’

‘Well… yeah, I suppose so, sort of.’

I gave her shoulder a squeeze, suddenly aware of how slight, almost frail, she was. ‘That’s all water under the bridge now,’ I said. ‘It was a long time ago.’

‘Doesn’t mean you haven’t still got the scars to show for it, though.’

I laughed again. ‘They’re old scars. Old scars, old me. I’m not the cocky little yob I once was.’

She muttered something that I didn’t quite catch and I asked her to repeat it. After a moment she sighed and said, ‘I’m not sure Glenn’s changed that much.’

I frowned. ‘What do you mean? He doesn’t knock your mother about?’

‘No, nothing like that. It’s just… well, his attitude.’ She paused. ‘He’s like a big kid. Always going on about “students” and “getting a proper job instead of sponging off the government”.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘He does my head in. I reckon he’d be happier if I was working in fucking McDonalds. Sorry.’

Listening to her, I felt my stomach knot with long-standing contempt for the man who had married Michelle, Candice’s mother. But I also felt a surge of satisfaction that my daughter was confiding in me, viewing me as an ally against someone who I suppose had been more of a father to her over the years than I had.

Michelle and I had never actually been together as such. Candice had been conceived on Christmas Eve 1993, when I was sixteen. Back then Michelle had been a hard-edged punkette, her hair as red and spiky as her attitude, and on the night in question I had staggered out of The King’s Head, where I’d been drinking since mid-afternoon and was feeling the worse for wear after God knew how many pints of Special Brew, to witness a blazing row between Michelle and her long-term boyfriend, a steroid-popping skinhead called Glenn Dass. Once the fireworks were over and Glenn had stalked off after calling Michelle a ‘piss-ugly cunt’, I stumbled across and stupidly asked if she was okay.

Swiping away black lines of mascara that were trickling down her tearful face, she snapped, ‘What does it fucking look like?’

‘Sorry,’ I said, flinching as if I’d been stung. Sober, I might have walked away, but because I was pissed (and horny) I hovered a moment, peering at her through beer-blurred eyes.

‘Is there anything else?’ She spat out the words like bullets, her face scrunching aggressively.

‘Weren’t you in my year at school?’

‘So? What do you want – a fucking medal?’

‘No, I just…’ I shrugged and looked down at my feet, waiting for inspiration to seep into my drunken brain. Finally I asked, ‘What you doing now?’

‘Apart from freezing my tits off in a pub car park, you mean?’

I squinted at her, half-grinned. For a boy of sixteen, a girl mentioning her own tits, regardless of the context, was a big turn-on. ‘You don’t have to stay out here,’ I said. ‘We could go inside.’

‘Oh yeah, and do what?’

My grin widened. ‘I could buy you a drink.’

Her panda eyes, bloodshot from crying, narrowed to slits. ‘It’ll take more than that, you know. I’m not a fucking scrubber.’

‘I never said you were. Forget it if you’re not bothered.’

She stared at me sullenly for a moment, then gave an abrupt nod. ‘Go on then.’

I remember little about the rest of the evening, though I do know that an hour or so later Michelle and I were shagging in a cubicle in the women’s toilets. My abiding memory of that encounter was the wet floor, the stink of puke which clogged up one of the sinks, and having to constantly change position in the tiny cubicle because cold, sharp edges kept jabbing me in the buttocks, legs and back. Ultimately our desperate rutting became more a war of attrition than an expression of mutual desire, both of us wanting it to be over but determined to see it through to the bitter end. When it was over we went our separate ways, disheartened and battle-weary, neither of us expressing any inclination to see each other again.

Just over a week later, on New Year’s Day 1994, Glenn Dass and a couple of his mates jumped me outside the local chippy. I rolled into a ball as they kicked me repeatedly in the spine and stamped on my ribs and head, before rolling me, barely conscious, off the road and down a steep railway embankment choked with weeds and nettles. It was a bitterly cold night and I might well have died if an old geezer hadn’t walked past with a Jack Russell half an hour later. The dog sniffed me out and started barking, and the old boy phoned an ambulance. I was admitted to hospital with three broken ribs, a cracked vertebra, a fractured wrist and various head injuries. The worst part of the experience was not the beating itself, but waking up in a hospital bed a few hours later. Everything had swollen and stiffened up, and despite the heavy-duty painkillers I’d been prescribed, each tiny movement sent an eye-watering jolt of agony through me. Just blinking and breathing were bad enough, but when I tried to chew or swallow it felt as if rusty gears were grinding into life inside my body, each one connected to a cluster of exposed nerve endings. And as for moving my bowels… well, let’s just say it was probably the closest to the torment of childbirth that a man is ever likely to get.

There was never any possibility of Michelle and I getting married, not even when she burst into The King’s Head two months later – just after my seventeenth birthday – screaming the odds and telling me that I was ‘gonna fucking pay’ for getting her up the duff. I was in no mood for a row; the cuts and bruises were only just starting to fade, and I was still moving gingerly. But for the next month or so I refused to accept that the child was mine – until my appointment finally came through for a DNA test, which confirmed what I felt (at the time) was the awful truth.

Glenn was back on the scene by then, and to his credit he stuck by Michelle, despite the fact that she was carrying another man’s child. I think partly because he’d proved his physical dominance over me, and partly because I hadn’t grassed him up, which in his eyes was like me admitting that I’d been out of order and deserved the beating, it helped him come to terms with the fact that I’d violated his ‘property’. It even enabled him to put aside any resentment he might have felt towards Candice and, despite his limitations, become a pretty decent stepdad for her.

In the almost two decades since that New Year’s Day encounter, he and I had never seen eye to eye, though I suppose we’d tolerated each other well enough when we’d been thrown together in family situations. Even so, the fact that he’d once bested me, regardless that he’d caught me by surprise and had been backed up by his mates, was clearly still a big thing for him. It was almost instinctive the way he adopted a cocky, swaggering manner whenever we met, the way a slightly contemptuous arrogance would creep into his voice. Many times I’d felt the urge to tell him to grow the fuck up and move on, but I’d always managed to bite my tongue, and so keep the peace.

As for me and Michelle… well, I can’t pretend that it hadn’t been tricky between us over the years. We were like repelling magnets, always rubbing each other up the wrong way. The main problem was that we had different outlooks on life, which had led to a hell of a lot of resentment, at least on her part. Whereas Michelle had obstinately dug herself into a rut and refused to change her circumstances, even though (according to Candice) she was bitter and unhappy, I had pig-headedly rejected what it seemed at one time was the path laid out for me, and had done my best to turn negatives into positives – most obviously by viewing the misery of prison life as a watershed, an opportunity to motivate myself into crawling out of the sewer, shaking off the shit and moving on to better things.

I don’t mean that to sound smug. I’m not saying it to make you think that I consider myself superior to Michelle. It’s just the way things were, just an illustration of our different personalities. Maybe you have to fall a long way in life before it hits you what a fuck-up you’re making of it, and maybe Michelle had simply never had a jolt big enough to persuade her to change her situation. I don’t know. All I knew was that we were polar opposites, and that it had led at times to arguments over how we each thought Candice should be raised. My worry had been that Michelle and Glenn were holding her back, stifling her natural intelligence, whereas I knew Michelle had been obsessed with the idea that whenever Candice had been with me she’d been exposed to some kind of weird, academic, cultural life that might turn her into a snob, or make her want something that Michelle didn’t understand and couldn’t provide.

Despite all that, though, I think both of us were agreed that Candice had turned out all right – more than all right. She was bright, sensible, funny, tolerant, all the things that ought to make any parent proud. In spite of Glenn’s sneery attitude towards students, she had just started the second year of her A levels and wanted to do Hospitality and Event Management at Loughborough University. Everything was going brilliantly for her.

Or so I thought.

After her outburst about Glenn, I gave her another squeeze and asked, ‘What are you sorry for?’

‘Swearing,’ she said.

‘You don’t have to worry about that,’ I said with a grin. ‘I was swearing like a trooper before I could walk. I think my first word was “bollocks”.’

An elderly woman with coiffured hair and expensive-looking jewellery turned to give me a disapproving glance as she tottered past, and both Candice and I burst out laughing. Her laughter died quickly, though, which prompted me to give her another reassuring squeeze.

‘Ignore what Glenn says,’ I told her, ‘and I’m not just saying that because of the history between us. You do what you’ve set your heart on, and don’t let anyone sway you. I know your mum’s proud of you, and so am I.’

‘Thanks, Dad,’ she said, and sighed.

‘But?’ I asked.

‘But what?’

‘But that’s not the only thing that’s bothering you, is it? There’s something else.’

This time the sigh was big enough to make her shoulders slump as if the air was leaking out of her. ‘Is it that obvious?’

‘Well, maybe not to the untutored eye,’ I said, ‘but I’m a psychologist, remember. I’m trained to notice these things. I can always spot those little signs of discontent – the downturned mouth; the constant sighing; the tears running down the cheeks; the scribbling of the suicide note; the noose around the neck…’

‘All right, Sigmund Freud,’ she said, poking me in the ribs as a smile crept back on to her face, ‘you can shut up now.’

I took a long drag on my cigarette, giving her space to breathe, to think. Sure enough, after a few seconds, she said, ‘Can I talk to you about something?’

I spread my hands. ‘Talk away.’

‘Not here,’ she said, looking around. I couldn’t see who she thought might be listening – the rest of the smokers standing out in the cold with us were strangers – but her expression was furtive all the same. ‘Let’s go inside, get a drink and find a quiet corner in the downstairs bar.’

‘Lead the way,’ I said, taking a last drag on my cigarette before dropping the stub, stamping on it and following her back inside.

There was a little round table next to a group of fat, beardy blokes in T-shirts who were laughing a lot. Candice squeezed herself through to the built-in padded leather bench that ran the length of the wall while I queued at the bar for drinks. By the time I got back she was texting on her phone, a troubled expression on her face, her fingers tapping the tiny keyboard so swiftly they were almost a blur. The tink of our wine glasses on the wooden tabletop and the glassy scrape as I pushed hers towards her caused her face to bob up and produce a tired smile.

‘Cheers,’ I said, sitting down and raising my glass towards her, ‘and happy birthday again.’

‘Cheers,’ she responded, the Sauvignon Blanc catching the light in little darting shimmers as she lifted her glass and touched it to mine. As I took a gulp of my plummy Merlot she barely wet her top lip before putting her drink back down. She pressed her hands together, aligning her fingertips, and hunched her shoulders as if she was drawing herself in. Her eyes flickered downwards and her lips tightened, as though she’d spotted something unsavoury in the bottom of her glass.

‘Think a bit harder,’ I said. ‘My mind-reading powers aren’t what they were.’

This time my comment didn’t provoke even the twitch of a smile. ‘Sorry,’ she said. ‘This isn’t easy.’

‘Why? Because it’s embarrassing? Because it’s complicated? Because you think I’ll be angry?’

She made a face, snatched at her glass and took a hefty swig. The beardy blokes on the next table burst out laughing, drawing her gaze for a moment. Then she said, ‘You know I’ve got this boyfriend, Dean?’

‘The one you’re hiding from us?’

‘I’m not hiding him.’

My comment was meant as a joke, but her reply was enough of a snap to make me raise my hands. ‘Sorry if I touched a nerve. You mean the one who couldn’t come to your party because he had to work a shift at Nando’s?’

‘Yeah… but that’s not the reason.’

‘Not what reason?’

‘The reason why he couldn’t come.’

I looked at her and frowned, but she purposely averted her gaze. ‘So what is the reason?’

It wasn’t only the expression on her face that told me she was in trouble; it was her body language too. She held herself stiffly, the tautly clenched muscles in her neck and exposed arms making me think of a rabbit or deer poised to flee at the slightest sign of danger. I felt a flutter of nerves in my stomach; it was a feeling I hadn’t had for a long time, but it was instantly familiar nonetheless. It seemed to take an age before she said, ‘He’s scared.’

Even now I hoped I was reading the situation wrongly, that my sudden apprehension was misplaced. ‘Scared of meeting us all?’ I asked, but she shook her head.

‘Scared of being out in public. Scared of being seen by… certain people.’

‘What people?’ Unconsciously my voice hardened. ‘What’s he been up to, Candice?’

My daughter flinched as though I’d raised a hand to her. ‘Don’t get angry with me, Dad. None of this is my fault.’

I controlled myself, took a swig of wine. ‘I’m not angry with you, sweetheart. I’m just worried about you. It’s obvious that whatever this boyfriend of yours has done, it’s had a knock-on effect. So why don’t you tell me what you’re involved in?’

‘I’m not involved,’ she said. ‘But that doesn’t mean they won’t take it out on me.’

‘Who?’ I asked, and this time the nerves didn’t just flutter in my stomach, they cramped.

The beardy guys on the next table burst out laughing again, and I glared at them. One had a Dalek on his T-shirt, which was stretched across his fat belly. He caught my eye, and instantly the mirth dropped out of his face and he glanced quickly away. I might be a psychology lecturer these days, but I apparently still have the kind of face that makes people uneasy.

Instead of answering my question, Candice said, ‘Did I tell you that Dean was an art student?’

‘You have now.’

‘Right, well… one night about, I dunno… eighteen months ago, he went to this party in Shoreditch with some friends of his, and met this guy, Mitch, who told Dean that he was a businessman. Mitch talked posh, and had a really expensive suit, and a girlfriend who looked like a model, and Dean was pretty much in awe of him, even though Mitch was only two years older than him. In fact, Dean said that Mitch made him feel like a kid – not in the way he treated him or anything, but just because he was so confident and… sorted, you know?’

I nodded and finished my wine. I could have done with another, but I didn’t want to interrupt Candice’s flow.

‘Anyway, in spite of this, Mitch was really friendly towards Dean, and asked him what he did, and seemed really interested in Dean’s art and everything. They talked for a bit and then Mitch told Dean he had some really great grass and he asked him if he wanted to go outside for a smoke.’

Candice stopped there and gave a little shrug. She reached out almost shyly and ran a forefinger through the frosting of condensation on the side of her glass.

‘By the way, I don’t want you to think Dean’s a druggie or anything, Dad, cos he’s not. He just smokes a bit of pot now and again when he can afford it.’

She glanced at me and I wafted a hand to show it was of no consequence. Where I grew up the use of recreational drugs was an everyday occurrence. Taking a couple of Es or some speed, or smoking a joint to chill out, was no different to having a few pints down the pub. That doesn’t mean I would have condoned Candice popping pills every day, but despite the recent scare stories about marijuana causing long-term mental health problems, I didn’t know anyone whose brain had become fucked up just from smoking the odd joint.

Encouraged by my response, she said, ‘So Dean and Mitch went out on the balcony. And while they were there Mitch started asking Dean about his student loan, how he managed to live on a pittance, all that. At first Dean thought Mitch was taking the piss, but then Mitch said he knew a way that Dean could earn a bit of extra cash.’

‘Let me guess,’ I said. ‘He wanted Dean to sell drugs for him?’

A look of shame crossed Candice’s face. ‘Only grass. There’s no way Dean would have touched the hard stuff. And it’s not like he was getting kids addicted or anything. He was only selling it to other students who would have got it somewhere else.’

‘So what went wrong?’

Candice sighed. ‘At first Dean was only getting a few ounces a time off Mitch. Every week or two Dean would meet some contact of Mitch’s in a pub or a park or somewhere, and Dean would hand over the cash he’d made from selling the stuff, and would get ten per cent back for himself, and the contact would give Dean more weed to sell. Then the last time they met, two weeks ago, Mitch’s contact told Dean that Mitch was pleased with the way things were going, and that this time he was going to arrange for Dean to have a few months worth of grass all in one go, so that he and Dean wouldn’t have to meet up so often.’

‘I’m guessing he told him it was less risky that way?’

Candice nodded.

I sighed. ‘So how much did Mitch let him have?’

‘Fifty ounces. It was too much for Dean to carry home, so one of Mitch’s men drove it round to Dean’s flat.’

I whistled. ‘That’s a hell of a lot of weed to take possession of. How much does an ounce go for these days? Hundred and fifty?’

If Candice was surprised by my knowledge she didn’t show it. ‘More like two hundred.’

‘So that’s ten grand’s worth of weed your boyfriend had hidden in his flat.’ I could see where this was going. ‘Didn’t he suspect anything?’

Candice shook her head. ‘Why would he? He’d known Mitch for over a year, and Mitch had always been straight with him. And Dean had built up a client base of about fifty people, which worked out at an ounce per person. Dean said an ounce would last the average user about ten to twelve weeks.’ She shrugged. ‘The maths seemed to add up.’

‘But?’ I said.

‘But the next day, when Dean was out, his flat was broken into and the entire stash was stolen.’

I sighed. ‘Did the burglars take anything else?’

‘No,’ said Candice in a low voice.

‘Sounds like they knew exactly what they were looking for, doesn’t it?’ I muttered.

Candice was silent for a moment, then she said, ‘Dean reckons the guys who did it were enemies of Mitch’s, that they were from a rival gang.’

‘Maybe they were,’ I said, ‘but I’ll bet that when Dean told Mitch what had happened, he didn’t get quite the response he expected.’

Candice grimaced. ‘Dean rang Mitch straight away. He thought Mitch would be angry about the burglary, but sympathetic to Dean. But Dean said Mitch was really cold. He told Dean that it wasn’t his problem.’

‘And that he still wanted his money?’

Candice’s face flickered with distress, and she swallowed as if trying to hold back tears. When she next spoke her voice was low, strained. ‘Dean was set up, wasn’t he, Dad?’

I shrugged, but tried to sound sympathetic. ‘Looks like it, sweetheart.’

‘But why? Why would Mitch do that? Dean was making money for him.’

‘Yeah, but only dribs and drabs. People like Mitch are greedy, Candice – and totally ruthless.’

‘But why pick on Dean? He can’t afford to pay Mitch back.’

‘Because he’s weak. Because he’s vulnerable. And because if enough pressure is put on him and he gets scared enough, he’ll find that money somehow.’

Candice looked stricken, like she didn’t know which way to turn. Gently I asked, ‘Is that why you’ve told me all this?’

She looked surprised. ‘What do you mean?’

‘Because you want to know if I can lend you the money? Clear your boyfriend’s debts?’

Shame and disappointment chased one another briefly across Candice’s face, but they were quickly replaced by hope. ‘Can you?’ she asked. ‘We’d pay you back, Dad, honest.’

‘How much does Dean owe altogether? Ten grand?’

‘Plus interest. Fifteen in all.’

I tried not to flinch. ‘And when does he have to pay it by?’

‘Mitch gave him two weeks, but that was nine days ago. He’s got till this Friday.’

‘Fuck me,’ I murmured, looking down into my empty glass.

‘Can you help us, Dad?’ There was no pretence in Candice’s voice now. Her words were a desperate plea.

I sighed. ‘I wish I could, sweetheart, but I’m not that plush. I do all right, I make enough to get by, but I haven’t got a lot of savings. I’ve got maybe… six, seven grand in my account. You’re welcome to that if you want it.’

‘Could you maybe borrow the rest from the bank?’ Candice suggested. ‘I hate to ask, but… we’re desperate, Dad.’

I felt a flare of anger – not at Candice, but at Dean, for dragging my daughter into his mess. ‘And tell them what? I can’t just borrow nine grand from the bank without offering an explanation.’

‘Can’t you make something up? Tell them Kate needs an operation or something?’

I scowled. ‘I’m not dragging Kate into this. And I’m not lying for the sake of your boyfriend, Candice – not with my record.’

She put a trembling hand up to her face. Now she really did look as though she was about to burst into tears. ‘Sorry, Dad,’ she said, her voice so low in the crowded room I could barely hear her. ‘It was unfair of me to ask.’

I glanced quickly around the pub, but no one seemed to be paying us any attention. I still had a burning knot of anger in my belly, but I kept my voice calm.

‘What about Dean’s parents? Can’t he ask them for a loan?’

She gave a brief, jerky shake of the head. ‘His dad’s dead. And his mum’s not that rich. And she’s ill a lot of the time, in and out of hospital. He says something like this would really upset her.’

She’d be a lot more upset if her beloved son was found in a skip with his throat cut, I thought.

‘Hasn’t Dean got stuff he can sell?’ I suggested. ‘A car? A computer? An iPhone? At the risk of sounding like an old codger, don’t you kids have all sorts of fancy gadgets these days?’

‘It’s not enough, Dad,’ Candice’s voice was dwindling. ‘Mitch wants all the money in one go. We’d never be able to raise enough.’

‘I’m sure he’d be open to negotiation. Half now, half in a few weeks’ time. People like Mitch might be evil bastards, but at the end of the day they’re more interested in getting what they think is owed to them than in meting out punishment. Physical violence is messy and hard to hide. It often leads to the police getting involved, even if the victim is too scared to go to them himself.’

Candice listened to me intently, but as soon as I’d finished she shook her head. ‘That might be what it was like in your day, Dad, but people like Mitch aren’t bothered about the police. One of Mitch’s guys told Dean that if he didn’t come up with the money in time, his loved ones would suffer. He knew Dean’s mum’s address, and he said something like “Wouldn’t it be a shame if your pretty girlfriend suddenly lost her looks?”’

Candice’s crumbling resolve gave way, and all at once tears were running down her face.

‘I’m scared, Dad,’ she blurted through her sobs. ‘I’m scared of what’s going to happen.’

My guts were twisting now, partly with fear and anxiety, but mostly with a boiling rage. How dare this dumb, fucking boyfriend of my daughter’s get himself into a situation where she might be harmed! How dare some vicious, jumped-up low-life threaten and frighten my little girl!

The natural response of the average law-abiding citizen might have been to advise Candice to go to the police and tell them everything. Far more preferable for her boyfriend to get a rap on the knuckles, they might say, than for her to end up badly hurt or worse. But I knew better than to suggest such a thing. I knew that although the police would take Candice seriously – maybe even seriously enough to find Mitch and bring him in for questioning – their hands would effectively be tied. They wouldn’t be able to detain him for long without evidence, and people like Mitch usually had all the bases covered. Besides which, Mitch had no doubt already informed Dean that if he did go to the police, and if Mitch was arrested, then plans already laid would immediately spring into action – plans which would most likely involve certain of Mitch’s friends paying visits to both Dean’s mother and girlfriend.

Reaching across the table, I took Candice’s small, limp hands in mine and gave them a squeeze. With more confidence and conviction than I was feeling, I said, ‘Nothing’s going to happen, Candice. Nothing at all. I promise you that.’

She looked at me through swimming eyes, and the desperate hope in her face almost broke my heart. ‘What are you going to do?’ she whimpered.

I thought about the past I’d vowed never to go back to, the telephone number I’d once been given that I’d vowed never to use.

‘I know some people,’ I said. ‘People who’ve been around a lot longer than this Mitch bloke, and who’ve got a lot more influence.’ I felt my stomach clench again, but I kept my gaze as steady as my voice. ‘I’ll give them a call. They’ll soon sort this out for us, sweetheart. Don’t you worry.’

THREE

KATE

The bomb dropped from above, a direct hit that crushed my ribs and expelled the air from my stomach in one painful gasp.

‘Dadeeee!’ the bomb cried, slithering off my belly and snuggling with a wriggle of limbs into the warm gap between my left arm and now-aching torso.

Before responding I drew in an experimental lungful of air and slowly breathed it out again. I was surprised and relieved to discover that everything seemed to be working normally. With sleep-gummed eyes I squinted at the squirming creature in the crook of my arm, its fan of tousled, chestnut-brown hair shaking and bouncing as it burrowed into a more comfortable position.

‘Morning, trouble,’ I murmured.

The tumble of chestnut locks suddenly jerked upright to reveal a sleep-creased little face. ‘I’m not trouble!’ a voice piped up indignantly. ‘You’re trouble!’

‘I don’t dive-bomb people when they’re asleep,’ I pointed out.

The face pushed itself into mine. ‘It’s time to get up,’ it argued. ‘Time to get ready for school.’ Then the face recoiled, its nose crinkling. ‘Poo, Daddy, you smell.’

Reaching across to my bedside table, I grabbed my phone, which I was using as an alarm clock. After talking to Candice the night before, I’d come home and – armed with a three-quarters-full bottle of Jack Daniels and a packet of Marlboro Lights – had sat out for God knows how long on the narrow balcony of the third-floor flat that I shared with Kate, my youngest daughter. Barely feeling the cold, I’d demolished the whisky and smoked most of the pack while staring unseeingly over the spiky, uneven Chiswick skyline, my conversation with Candice (and more to the point the promise I’d made her) circling in my head like some mad, clockwork toy. Finally, my guts acidic with alcohol and anxiety, and my throat raw and aching with tobacco, I’d staggered to my little bedroom next to the bathroom and collapsed into a restless, semi-drunken half-sleep, which I’d known even as I crawled under the duvet would leave me feeling more exhausted than rested.

Sure enough, as my senses slowly returned, I became aware of just how groggily hungover I was. Kate was right; I did