and fresh defiance.
As I got close to my car, two large men in dark clothes appeared. One leaned against my driver’s door while the other walked towards me.
‘Donal Lynch?’
‘Not me,’ I lied, veering sharply to my left and taking a route between two rows of parked cars.
The car leaner read it well, heading me off where the final two vehicles stood off, face to face, like duelling cowboys.
So did we …
Behind him, a large, blacked-out jeep pulled up. The back door ghosted open.
‘Get in,’ his strong Dublin accent insisted, and I found myself hoping to God this was the IRA. At least I had some leverage with the boyos.
But the acid sizzling my gut told me these were Jimmy Reilly’s grunts, and that he’d dreamed up something diabolical for them to do to me today.
One week earlier …
Arsenal, North London
Saturday, April 3, 1993
My drunken mistake hadn’t been falling asleep fully clothed – God knows I’d survived that often enough – but forgetting to remove the pager from my front left trouser pocket. Its sudden vibration sent an electroconvulsive blast through my piss–filled nads, forcing my unconscious mind to perform a urethral emergency stop. I woke to the sound of my own desperate yelps.
‘Tom, Brownswood Red-Light Zone N4 – Check MO’ flickered the blunt paged message. My clock radio’s Martian digits glowered 0754. Below me, a stricken wine bottle spewed red across the cheap laminate. I saluted Shiraz, my fallen night nurse, for delivering almost three whole hours of sleep.
My grudging slumber had been broken only once, by a recurring nightmare that hadn’t afflicted me for weeks. Why did it come back last night? Was he in some sort of danger?
To banish my angst, I flicked on the radio.
Lost in the Milky Way
Smile at the empty sky and wait for
The moment a million chances may all collide
The Lightning Seeds’ ‘The Life of Riley’ seemed way too excitable for this time of day. I padded into the bathroom. Murdered prostitutes, or ‘toms’ to use police parlance, had become my area of professional expertise these days. Anyone would think I was trying to save their souls. But I had a point to prove about solving their murders. A career-salvaging point, I hoped.
Having spent the past six months on the Cold Case Squad dealing with long-dead stiffs, I comforted myself that at least this body would still be warm. Maybe she’d come to me tonight, like those murder victims had two years ago. Before all the trouble …
I’ll be the guiding light
Swim to me through stars that shine down
And call to the sleeping world as they fall to earth
Or maybe those weird, inexplicable episodes had run their course. A large part of me hoped so. In the meantime, I decided to find out all I could about this local vice hot spot that had slipped below my radar, and knew just the man to help, so I cranked up the radio full blast.
So, here’s your life
We’ll find our way
We’re sailing blind
But it’s certain, nothing’s certain
‘Turn off that shite,’ roared Fintan from his room. I knew he’d have to surface for a piss now too. He’d been in a worse state than me, having spent all day with his cop contacts, slumped over some bar like slugs in a saucer of booze.
We’d wordlessly devised a morning routine that kept us apart, leaving our hangovers free to fester in peace. But my older brother’s success as a crime reporter owed much to his unabashed familiarity with London’s carnal underbelly. ‘Vice Admiral Lynch’ they called him. And worse.
So, as he staggered out of the gloom, squinting like Barabbas and scratching his expense-account gut, I seized my chance; ‘I suppose you know that Finsbury Park has its very own red-light district around Brownswood Road?’
‘Well, I thought it best not to tell you –’ he yawned ‘– I’ve seen your patter with the ladies. I didn’t want you getting knocked back by a Skeeger. That could push you over the edge.’
‘A Skeeger?’
‘Yeah, you know, a raspberry. A toss-up. A rock star.’
‘Sorry, Fintan, I don’t speak Snoop Dogg. What are you on about?’
‘Crack hoe?’
‘What, the city in Poland?’
‘No, ya fucking eejit. Crack whores. That’s what they are down there. They sell sex for rocks of crack. Desperate skanks really.’
‘Ooh.’ I heard myself blanche.
‘It’s small scale, probably about a dozen girls. I can’t believe you don’t know about it.’
‘I’m not a vice cop,’ I protested. ‘It’s never been mentioned in any of my cases.’
‘All I know is it’s the scrag end of the game. Guess what the going rate for full sex is?’ he asked, hosing down the porcelain.
‘I wouldn’t have the first idea,’ I said. ‘Hey, this is like a sordid version of The Price is Right, you know, higher, higher …’
‘Or “The Vice is Right”, except my advice would be lower, lower. Fifteen quid for full sex. Fiver for a blow job. Ten without a johnny. I mean, sweet Jesus, most of them don’t have any teeth left. Can you imagine?’
I couldn’t but, as he vigorously shook his cock, Fintan seemed to be having no trouble at all …
‘Putting your unbagged member into one of those scabby gobs? Jesus, you’d have to be one sick pup. Or desperate.’
‘At least the men have a choice,’ I said.
‘Ah, don’t give me that old liberal shit,’ he harrumphed, rinsing his hands. ‘Why slave on your feet in McDonald’s or a factory all day when you can earn a fortune lying on your back? They know the dangers. No one forces them to do it.’
‘Violent pimps?’ I felt tempted to say but I knew it’d be pointless. Fintan’s binary outlook on life was crucial to his job. In a world
