I’ve just had them dry-cleaned, and, well, I don’t want them stained, do I?’
Like a boxer ready for the ring, Mike stood in just his underwear. His legs were as thick as tree trunks and his chest was as wide as a standard doorframe.
‘Staffie, hand me a screwdriver. It’s only fitting, since this prick wants to screw me to the fucking wall.’
Travis let out a high-pitched scream like a girl. Then he began to wriggle and writhe about as if he’d been electrocuted. Mike looked at the others and laughed. ‘Fuck me, I ain’t even touched the knobhead.’
‘No, no, all right, I’ll tell ya. Please don’t hurt me, pleeaasse,’ he begged. The tears were streaming down his face and snot was bubbling from his nose.
‘Getting covered in claret, it’s pretty disgusting, don’t ya think?’
Travis nodded furiously. ‘Please, Mike. I’ll tell ya everything ya want to know. Just don’t torture me.’
‘Torture? Who said anything about torture? No, Travis, it’s called negotiation. Or do I mean interrogation? Well, let’s hear it, then. Who’s paying you?’ He tilted his head to the side and gave a sarcastic grin.
Gulping back the fear, Travis thought about the firm he was just about to grass up. Either way, he was a dead man. If only he hadn’t dated the sister. But how could he not? She was such a good fuck he couldn’t get inside her knickers quickly enough. And then he’d had to prove himself worthy of her affections. Really, though, it was her brothers he needed to impress. He was sucked in; before he knew it, they had him planted in among the Regans’ firm. He wasn’t cut out for all this hard-core bollocks.
He stared at Mike’s lifeless eyes, took another gulp of air, and said, ‘Harry Harman.’ Then he lowered his head and waited for the backlash.
Mike looked at each man with a deep furrowed frown, searching for some explanation. They either shrugged or curled down their lips. No one had a clue who this Harry Harman was.
‘Mikey, do you want the screwdriver or the mallet? What’s ya flavour?’ asked Staffie, now eager to see the carnage.
With his eyes blinking away the sweat, Travis peered up and winced. ‘Look, Mike, I don’t know much, but I’ll tell you everything. Just … please, don’t use a tool.’
In an instant, Mike snatched the screwdriver from Staffie and plunged it into Travis’s left kneecap. No one saw it coming, not even Travis. The pain was slow at first, until it reached every nerve in his leg and forced a demonic scream to leave his mouth. Lathered in sweat and writhing, he couldn’t clutch his wound because his hands were tied to the chair. Mike waited for the blood-curdling cries to die down before he handed back the bloodied screwdriver.
‘Mike, please, please don’t torture me. I’ll tell you everything, I swear …’ His cries tailed off, as his head flopped down from the unbearable pain.
‘And, Travis, me old son, I am a man of my word. Ya see, that weren’t torture, that was a dig. Now then, when you get yaself composed and stop the blubbering, I’m ready to listen.’
Eric started to laugh but was instantly silenced. ‘Shut it, Eric. This is no laughing matter, and you, ya silly git, took this rat on the payroll.’ He shot his brother a deadly glare and bit his lip.
Eric was on the point of defending his actions. Being chastised in front of the men was a piss-take. Furthermore, he wanted to be seen as an equal in command. Ideally, he would have loved to have been the main man, but Mike took that position. He always had – at school, at work, and at home. But it was worse when it came to women. Eric’s mind wandered, as it often did, to the one woman he’d wanted more than anyone – except Mike had got in there first. He was furious that when he’d expressed an interest in the woman, his brother had then dated her himself. Mike insisted he had already been seeing her, but Eric never believed that for a minute. However, he had the last laugh when she left the country, and Mike ended up with Jackie the tramp instead of his one true love.
‘So, Travis, from the beginning, what the fuck are the Harmans doing nosing around my business?’
Travis tried desperately to put up with the pain and concentrate before Mike stabbed his other knee. The Harmans had sworn they had his back. Come what may, he wouldn’t get hurt and when the business came their way, he would have a hefty cut of it. All he had to do was to find out where the lock-ups were, who their supplier was, and to record the evidence. The rest was up to them. Now, he wished he’d never agreed to any of it. It was no secret as to who he was doing over or how hard these men were.
The history of the Regans went back decades. The old man, Arthur, ran the firm with an iron fist. With his crew, they controlled the streets in Bermondsey.
Mike and Eric were Arthur’s pride and joy. He brought them up to be a pair of chips off the old block, and they were – to the extent that they were even more fierce and reckless. Learning everything they knew from their father and his contemporaries, so they wouldn’t have to learn their criminal trade within the walls of Wormwood Scrubs, it was almost an early baptism, except it began when they were aged thirteen and twelve respectively.
Travis often drank in the local haunts frequented by Eric and Mike. For years, he was just there mooching in the background, dealing a bit of cocaine and weed or selling knocked-off merchandise. It was Eric who had taken him on board, totally unaware that he was colluding with the Harmans. Yet, Eric wasn’t as sharp as Mike, and had royally fucked up this time, by not doing his homework on Travis.
‘So, tell me then, Travis, because I ain’t got all night, see. Are you gonna be the problem or the solution? It’s your choice.’
‘Harry Harman wanted me to take pictures of your lock-ups and stuff.’
Mike’s blank expression spoke volumes. Travis had to put more meat on the bones to satisfy Mike’s hunger for information.
‘I was seeing their kid sister, Paris. I swear, I didn’t want to get involved, but they … Oh my God, they’re gonna fucking kill me …’
‘No, they ain’t, Travis, because—’
No sooner had Eric opened his mouth than Mike spat, ‘Shut it! Eric, I do the talking, if ya don’t mind.’
Eric took a step back and bowed his head to hide his clenched teeth. It was outrageous. Mike was really getting in his face now.
‘Sorry about that, Travis. You were saying?’
‘I didn’t want to work for them, but they saw it as payback for seeing Paris. They said I owed them for taking liberties, and the only way to pay them back was to take poxy photos … That’s all I know, I swear.’
Mike held his hand up for Travis to stop talking. He paced the floor and then spun around. ‘Staffie, give me that screwdriver.’
In a sudden panic, Travis screamed, ‘Please! No! They know all your lock-ups and how you’re transporting the guns.’ His breathing was fast, and he was tripping over his words. They left his mouth like a pisshead on the run with his pants down.
Mike twirled the screwdriver around with his huge fingers. ‘You missed out the part about our supplier, Travis.’
Travis shook his head. ‘No, they don’t know, Mike. I swear,
