tower. Troubled times.’
Had he felt this vulnerable over a decade ago, standing in that half-built shell of the Hilton Hotel’s tenth floor, with the wind and the rain biting into his younger man’s skin? Calling a cease fire, after the turf war between the O’Briens and the Boddlington gang had escalated to the point where there were fresh bodies stacking up in the morgue every single day for more than a month. It had been madness, then. It was still madness now.
‘Are you tooled up?’ he asked Conky. He looked behind him through the rear window at the large black Mercedes four-wheel drive hugging their tail. It carried their small army of foot soldiers. ‘Your lads packing?’
‘You just leave all that to me, boss,’ Conky said, leaning over and patting the closed glove compartment. ‘I’ve taken care of everything. And Maureen’s arbitrating. Sure it’ll be fine.’
The Jag slowed at the lights. An eerie tangle of shadows that was Southern Cemetery on the left, reminding Paddy of where he could so easily end up if tonight went badly. He tried to visualise swaying palms on a Thai beach to slow his heartbeat but could only think of that little Boddlington shit with the lightning flash shaved into his head, lunging at him with the knife in M1 House. Wondered if the lad would be there tonight and if he might have the opportunity to exact revenge on him in some way; Paddy’s forearm was not the only thing that had been punctured.
Moss Side flashed by in vapour trails of neon light and bong smoke. Parson’s Croft beyond it. The streets would be filled with O’Brien girls and boys, he knew, doling candy out to the starving, unwashed masses. On the other side of the Mancunian Way, the Hilton Hotel’s Beetham Tower, long-since finished, punctuated the Manchester night sky like an exclamation mark without a point. A brightly lit, uncompromising phallus, reminding Paddy that in this tough place, men ruled. Men like him. Once he had grown old enough to realise he could shed the rough skin of the dirt poor that had been the crappy legacy of that snake, his father, this fine, hard city, and all that lay south of the dividing line, had become his very own playground. He was Manchester’s number one son. He knew all of her secrets. The thought calmed him.
‘Am shitting myself, me,’ Frank said, breaking the silence. ‘And why are we meeting in a gallery of all places? I haven’t been to one of them since we was at school.’
Wired, as usual. Paddy listened to three further minutes of Frank’s musings on the lunacy of having the meet on neutral turf, rather than in his club, before slamming his hand over his brother’s mouth.
‘See, this is why you keep your gob shut when we get in there. Understand?’
Frank looked him in the eye. An appropriate amount of fear and respect, there. He nodded. Fell silent once more as Conky navigated the bright lights and double parking of Chinatown, pulling up at the back of Manchester City Art Gallery.
Inside, Maureen Kaplan stood at the top of the grand, stone staircase with her arms outstretched. She was wearing a sharp navy trouser suit, though now that she had piled on a good couple of stone in her middle years and her hair was short and expensively dyed blonde instead of those gorgeous, brassy blue-black curls she’d once sported, Paddy wondered that he had ever fucked her with such enthusiasm.
‘Patrick,’ she said, smiling the lethal, self-assured smile of a woman who held sensitive information about every crook in town. ‘Punctual as ever.’
‘Maureen. My favourite number cruncher. Rachel Riley’s got nowt on you, cocker.’ He winked.
‘Schmoozer! Come on up.’
Flanked by Frank to his left and Conky to his right, with five of Conky’s bravest taking up the rear, Paddy climbed the stairs slower than he would have liked. Tried to conceal the fact that, only half way up, he was practically asphyxiating with the effort. Praying that his dicky ticker wouldn’t burst. One step at a time. Appear statesmanlike. Don’t show weakness or grimace. He pretended to admire the pre-Raphaelite masters on the walls and the chandelier above him, though in fact, he was praying to Jesus, Mary, Joseph and whoever else would listen that he wouldn’t cark it there and then.
Blithely unaware of his brother’s suffering, Frank trotted ahead, treating Maureen to a smackeroo on the cheek and offering her the too-warm embrace of a man who had spent his youth eating mainly E. Only Conky stood by Paddy, discreetly taking him by the elbow. Nodding at the artwork and playing along with this façade that his King was merely moving at a leisurely pace through his own choosing.
‘Where are they?’ he asked Maureen, finally reaching the summit. Even more lined around her eyes than she had been last time they had met.
‘In there.’
Allowing Conky to frisk her, she gesticulated towards the large gallery up more stairs, to her right. She wore the flowery scent of a girl but gave off pure essence of fully grown praying mantis.
‘Jesus. Couldn’t you have got a venue with a sodding lift?’ Paddy whispered in her ear.
‘I always did like to hear you pant,’ Maureen said, winking.
The gallery was stately in its proportions, lit fully as though the place was still open to the public and this wasn’t 10pm at night. Giant, priceless oil paintings hung on the wall, reminding Paddy that the O’Brien empire was but a small footnote in local history compared to Manchester’s stake in a grand Victorian past. The parquet floor shone. The air was scented with beeswax polish. It could have been an evening to enjoy, had it been a private viewing or a charity function. But it wasn’t. And there were his nemeses at the far end of the space. All turning towards him, now. Jonny Margulies. A bald wide-boy, wearing a pink shirt that accentuated his pregnant paunch over pin-striped suit trousers. Grinning hungrily, with arms folded. He looked like he had spent the day prosecuting criminals in court, as opposed to trafficking drugs and people through north Manchester from every major hub in the world. And there was Tariq Khan. All boyish-looking, despite his forty-odd years. Silver-grey streaked through his thick thatch of otherwise black hair. Decked out in designer versions of the young man’s clothing that his underlings wore, as though his supremacy within the Boddlington organisation was beyond question or doubt. Sitting on the edge of a display cabinet, giving the impression that this was his living room and Paddy was just a visitor. But there, lurking at the back, was that little dick who had stabbed him. The one with the lightning flash.
Paddy grimaced at him. Drove himself forward, stifling the urge to seize a painting from the wall and smash it down onto the lad’s delinquent, disrespectful head.
Maureen abandoned the safety of her sons – Zac, Steven and Louis – and her son-in-law, David Goodman to quickly seize control of the posturing men.
‘Boys! Boys. Welcome.’ She beckoned them to her, encouraging them to close the gap until they were within killing distance. Turning to Paddy, she smiled confidently. ‘Paddy here has requested this meet, as you all know.’ She turned to the Boddlingtons. ‘Tariq and Jonny have agreed to parlay.’
Paddy watched with admiration as Maureen faced down the various muscle on the warring sides: Asaf Smolensky, standing like a faux-Hassidic approximation of Death in his long, black coat. Holding a shining machete in his right hand as a warning, though this was Friday night, and Paddy was sure religious Jews weren’t supposed to be hanging around like long streaks of threatening piss in galleries on a Friday night. Damned fraudster. And there, like a distorted reflection, was his very own Conky McFadden, holding a sawn-off shotgun which he’d had concealed about his person until now. Equally as demented-looking, Paddy mused, with that Just For Men clip-on quiff of his and the specs. What was it with muscle?
‘Now,
