The Sudden Arrival of Violence Read online

  Richard’s starting to cry. Can’t help it. Not able to kid himself any longer. This is it. This is the end. What a remarkably stupid way for his life to end. Can’t stop thinking how absurd it all is. He’s not the sort of person who should have an ending like this. It makes no sense. Part of him just wants to laugh at the whole thing. Can’t laugh when he’s crying this hard, though. Completely uncontrollable. Tears are streaming down his face, his shoulders are rocking, he’s grunting repeatedly. He can see through the blur of tears that Russell’s stopped. The cop leaning forward, hands on hips. Coughing, spitting. A sigh from Mullen. Just the sound of his own panic now. A gesture from Mullen–Richard can’t see what. Russell’s digging again, with more vigour this time. Louder, though, grunting with every movement. A touch on Richard’s back.

  ‘Sit down,’ Mullen’s saying, still so quiet. That calmness. God, that calmness is shocking now. Sickening.

  Mullen’s pressed him down. Richard’s sitting on the tarp, leaning forward. He doesn’t want to look at Russell any more. It’s cruel that they’ve made him. Callous. Making him watch a man dig his grave. Why should he try to be nice to them? Why do what he thinks they want him to do? From now on, he’ll do as he pleases. He’ll cry. He’ll lean forward. He’ll look away from what will be his final resting place. And for what? Because of Shug Francis, apparently. Such a nice young man. Always ready with a smile. Always asking after Richard’s health, making sure he’s content. Yes, there were questions about his business. He was up to all sorts, that boy. But this? How is this fair punishment for the work Richard did? He made numbers add up that shouldn’t. Is that so bad? Another moment of realization. This isn’t to punish him. This is to punish Shug Francis. That, somehow, makes it even worse. Dying just to inconvenience someone else.

  Russell’s still digging. Slowed right down again. Mullen’s still standing next to Richard. How long have they been like this? Five minutes. Ten, perhaps. More, actually. He’s lost sense of time.

  ‘Bring across that towel,’ Mullen’s saying. A little louder than before, talking to Russell.

  Russell climbs out of his hole and walks slowly across with the white towel. ‘It’s deep enough,’ he’s saying as he passes it across to Mullen. You can hear he’s exhausted. Leaning forward, hands on hips again.

  ‘No, it isn’t; another couple of feet,’ Mullen’s saying. That cold, hard voice. The sort people don’t argue with. The sort Russell doesn’t argue with. He’s going back to dig.

  Richard can feel something press on the back of his head. He’s reaching up a hand.

  ‘No, leave it,’ Mullen’s saying. ‘Lean forward.’

  There’s a moment of confusion. Richard isn’t sure what’s happening. Something on the back of his head, pressing him down. Then nothing.

  3

  They’re back outside. Glad to be out. Into the car, driving away. Should be a moment of celebration. It isn’t. Shug’s not saying anything. He knows exactly what Fizzy’s going to say. He doesn’t want to hear it. He’s going to hear it anyway.

  ‘You just gave it all away,’ Fizzy’s saying. ‘For what, huh? For what? So that things can carry on exactly the same–that’s what. If you’d gone to Jamieson and done a deal, you could have ended the threat. You’d still have lost just about everything, but there wouldn’t be anyone trying to kill us any more. All you’ve done is make matters worse. You’ve given everything away and pissed off Jamieson even more.’

  He keeps saying ‘you’ instead of ‘we’. Shug’s noticed that. Twenty years David ‘Fizzy’ Waters has been best friend to Shug Francis, and now it’s suddenly ‘you’ and not ‘we’. Started as kids messing around with cars together. Turned it into a string of garages and the only effective car-theft ring in the city. Profitable business. Profitable car-ring. But not profitable enough. Shug wants more, and that’s why they had this meeting. Meeting with a leading figure in the drug trade to talk about attacking another leading figure in the drug trade.

  ‘We’re going to beat him,’ Shug’s saying. Talking about Peter Jamieson, a man they’ve been failing to beat for months. They’ve attacked him, attacked his people. Trying to take over Jamieson’s patch. Jamieson always too powerful, smart or lucky to be harmed.

  ‘We’re not going to beat him,’ Fizzy’s shouting, incredulous. ‘Listen to yourself, man. If Jamieson does get beat, it won’t be by us. It’ll be by MacArthur and his mob. We get the risk of leading the charge. We’ll get the glory, the man says. Fuck’s sake! Glory? We get the glory and he gets the rewards. Is that all you want, glory? Well, whoop-dee-fucking-doo. I’ll make sure they write it on your gravestone. “He had glory.”’

  They both know Alex MacArthur doesn’t do things out of the goodness of his heart. You don’t lead one of the biggest criminal organizations in the city because of the goodness of your heart. You don’t last the decades at the top that MacArthur has because of the goodness of your heart. Quite the reverse. MacArthur has a brutal love of money and power. That’s what persuades him to accept the deal on offer. The chance to make some money and attack Peter Jamieson at the same time. Jamieson a rival to MacArthur. Shug attacking Jamieson. My enemies’ enemy is my profitable friend. Shug’s too desperate to see the obvious truth.

  Everyone thinks of Shug Francis as this happy-go-lucky kind of guy. Mostly that’s true. But he has his moments. Fizzy’s seen him when he’s in a huff. Shug doesn’t go into a rage, scream and bawl and get it out of his system. He sulks, and it can take a while to leave him. He can hide it from most people. People who don’t know him like Fizzy does. It can make Shug reckless. Happened last about three years ago. An old man had been doing forged documents for them since they started the car-ring. He ditched them, went to work for someone else. Not doing vehicle documents; doing bank statements and the like instead. They were ditched for a twobit con racket because it was easier work. Shug was furious, demanded that the old man come back and work for them. He told Shug where to get lost. Treated Shug like the car business was a joke. Shug sulked for a few days, and then hired some gorilla to deliver a message. Didn’t kill the old boy, but it was still a stupid thing to do. Everyone knew who was behind it. Reckless. Unnecessary.

  They’re back at Shug’s house now. Along the corridor and into what he calls his playroom. Office, really. There’s no real tension between them, even in this moment of disagreement. They know each other too well, trust each other too much. But they do disagree. Fizzy is still trying to chip away at him.

  ‘You need to end this. Find a way of backing out. Something that leaves you with a business.’

  Shug’s shaking his head and slumping onto the couch. ‘It’s done now. Pull out now and we piss off MacArthur, which would be even worse.’ Took a lot of work to set up the meeting. MacArthur playing coy. Multiple meetings between contacts. Always dealing with Don Park, one of MacArthur’s senior men. It was PC Paul Greig who did most of the work for Shug. Another one Shug knows he shouldn’t trust. Greig’s a cop, after all. A man playing all sides at once, who still gets pissed off if you imply he’s bent. But he negotiated well: a 20 per cent cut of Shug’s car-ring and garages for MacArthur’s support in destroying Peter Jamieson. A fifty-fifty split of the proceeds from Jamieson’s network.

  Fizzy’s running both hands down his face. This is madness. Madness born of stubbornness. They were never going to get out of this with everything intact. There’s a price to pay for failure in the criminal industry. It’s typically a high one. Escaping Jamieson would have meant paying him off with a share of both the legit business and the car-ring. Could have been done. Jamieson’s a businessman, first and foremost. It just meant accepting that Jamieson had won.

  ‘You show weakness and those bastards will rip you apart anyway,’ Shug’s saying. He sounds depressed. Fizzy can take the credit for that. Spoiling what should be a hopeful moment. ‘We let Jamieson in and he’ll have the whole business within two years. He’ll force us out. Make our lives a misery. How does that help us?’


  He’s right. Fizzy knows it. A man like Jamieson doesn’t forgive and forget, not even for the right price. It’s about prestige. About PR. Someone challenges you, attacks your business. You accept peace with them and start working with them, just because you’re making money from it. Other people see that. Other people think it’s worth attacking you, because they can buy you off later, if things don’t go their way. It creates a sliver of vulnerability that others will seek to exploit. A man like Jamieson can’t have people think that attacking him comes with a safety net. So, yeah, Jamieson would take the deal. Then he would carefully destroy Shug and Fizzy and anyone else linked to them. Anyone watching would know that there are no get-out clauses in a fight with Peter Jamieson.

  ‘So selling out to him destroys the business. Doing it this way just means the bugger kills us.’

  ‘Not if we get to him first,’ Shug’s saying.

  ‘Uh-uh, not us–MacArthur. MacArthur gets to him first. He gets all the reward. Then he does to us what Jamieson would have done anyway.’

  Shug’s shaking his head. ‘I don’t think so,’ he’s saying. Speaking quietly, thoughtfully. ‘See, Jamieson can’t be seen letting us off the hook. Same time, MacArthur can’t be seen to hurt someone who’s done him a service. Then nobody wants to work for him.’

  It’s a theory, but not one Fizzy’s sure of. He’s shaking his head. ‘Nah, I don’t think so. He doesn’t need people to see him rewarding us. Didn’t he say that he wanted us to be the face of this? He’s going to be in the background, out of sight. So people think we took down Jamieson. Then people think we’ve tied up with MacArthur afterwards. He can do what he wants. Treat us how he likes. So it’s him destroying us, instead of Jamieson.’

  The naivety of the amateur. That’s what Shug thinks of Fizzy. He forgives his friend, but it’s annoying. There are too many people working in the background for MacArthur to stab him in the back after the event. People like Greig. He works with a lot of criminals, but he’s still a cop. He still makes arrests. He commits to Shug, and it sends a message. Shug is a guy on the rise. Greig wants to be close to him. And say MacArthur does screw them over after they’re finished with Jamieson. What does that say about Don Park? One of MacArthur’s own senior men. He organized this. He set up the meeting they just came from at the engineering-company office. It would trash Park’s reputation within the MacArthur organization. MacArthur couldn’t do that to him. It would cause a split in his own business. See, Fizzy doesn’t think of these things. He still has the mindset of the small business. He needs time to grow. Or maybe this is too big for him.

  Shug’s frowning, and sighing. ‘I don’t want to talk about this any more. We have a lot to plan. There’s going to be some serious action. New stuff for us, and we have to be ready for that.’

  ‘Jesus, Shug, will you listen to yourself! Being led to the edge of the cliff by these fucking gangsters, and you’re just going along with it.’ Fizzy’s raised his voice. Frustration is getting the better of him.

  Shug’s glaring back at him. ‘You keep your voice down. You want the whole bloody street to hear? Just you remember something, Fizzy. This is my business. It was me who set it up. It was me who got this running the way it is. If I want to gamble with it, then I will gamble with it. You were along for the ride. You’ve always been useful, you’ve always been there. Don’t go thinking that this is your business, though. It ain’t. It’s mine.’

  There’s tension between them now. Real, angry, dangerous tension. Something completely new, and something Fizzy doesn’t know how to react to. He can’t remember this happening before. How long have they been friends? More than twenty years now. Never had a moment like this. Been tense times with other people in the business, and they’ve always been forced out. Shug wouldn’t allow them to stick around after falling out with them. He was always convinced those differences would resurface at some point, become an issue again. Is that what this is? Is this the beginning of Shug trying to force him out? Bloody hell, no. It can’t be. Twenty years of being best friends, practically brothers. Since they were kids. This can’t be what it feels like. This can’t be the end.

  Fizzy’s getting up. Not saying a word. Anything either one of them says now is only going to make things worse. The tension’s too thick. Anything would sound like an insult, like provocation. Sure, they need to talk this through. Need to sort it out before any moves are made. But this atmosphere–damn, he just doesn’t know how to handle it. He’s walking towards the door, glancing back at Shug. Shug isn’t even looking at him. He’s just looking at the floor. Letting Fizzy go because there’s nothing left to say. Fizzy’s opening the door and he’s out into the corridor, half-hoping that Shug will call him back. Half-expecting it, if we’re being honest. But there’s nothing; just silence. A silence that says this relationship has changed, maybe forever.

  4

  It was an unpleasant kill for Calum MacLean. Whole thing feels wrong. Counter-intuitive. Dressing up as a cop and picking the guy up in the city in the evening. Taking this long with the whole damn thing. Depending on Kenny McBride to dig the grave properly, something he has spectacularly failed to do. Kenny’s a good driver, but that’s all he is. And now he’s stopped digging, just because Calum’s pulled the trigger. Now is when he should be hurrying up. Not how Calum would have done it, if he was freelance. But he isn’t, any more. He doesn’t get to decide. Peter Jamieson does.

  ‘Keep digging,’ Calum’s saying quietly, ‘I have this.’

  He’s using the towel on the back of the head to stop the blood-spray. He doesn’t want one drop going further than the tarpaulin that Richard Hardy will be wrapped and buried in. They need to move fast. Make the assumption that someone heard the gunshot and that you’re racing against the clock.

  Unlikely anyone heard it, though. Calum picked the location for that reason. This has been his go-to location for a burial in bad circumstances for a while. Long way from the road, away from any occupied buildings. He was keeping it as his place to use for a daytime killing, on the assumption that such a killing might occur. This isn’t daytime, but it is still unusual and worthy of this precaution. He came out here and found the place on the first visit. Came back two weeks later and checked the barn, made sure it wasn’t in use. Didn’t look like it, but you have to know. He broke in, which involved nothing more than shouldering the rotten side door, and looked around. Big holes in the roof, and completely empty. Not in use. A safe place, if such a thing exists. At least the location’s right.

  Nothing else about this night is right. Calum’s pressing the towel down against the wound, not letting the blood flow out. Holding it tight as he presses the old man down into the tarp and rolls him gently onto his side. Going through his pockets. Car keys, a wallet and a few coins. No mobile. Calum noted the fidgety fingers letting it drop onto the driver’s seat of the car back at the office. An ageing man in a nervous hurry to help the police. The wallet and keys Calum takes, the coins he leaves. He’s lifting the tarp up and wrapping it around Hardy from both sides, creating the burial sheet. Hope ful he’s done enough to make sure that no blood escapes before Richard Hardy’s put in the ground. The tarp will serve another purpose, now that Kenny’s proven his incompetence as a gravedigger. It should keep the smell in for longer. It really doesn’t look like a deep grave, which it should be. Shallow graves are for the unprofessional.

  ‘Right, that’ll do,’ Calum’s saying to Kenny. There’s a last lazy swipe of the shovel from the driver, and now he’s placing it on top of the mud pile he’s created. Clambering out of the grave, not watching where he’s going. Stumbling, exhausted. He has no sense of caution. No sense that even muddy boot prints could be a giveaway. Someone walks a dog through the area, past the barn; sees the boot prints, realizes they’re fresh. They go over and poke around, see the disturbed ground where Kenny hacked the turf. It could happen. But Calum won’t criticize Kenny. Not to his face, anyway. He’s a driver. He chauffeurs Peter Jamieson,
their boss, around. He delivers stuff. This is way out of his league. He was obviously shocked when John Young, Jamieson’s right-hand man, told him he’d be working the job with Calum. A little horrified. He’s done it, though. Done it to the best of his ability, such as it is. He probably hasn’t seen a hit up close before. Hasn’t been involved in something this tense. That excuses his nerves.

  Kenny’s plodding across towards Calum and the body. Looking to Calum for guidance. Calum has to lead the way. He’s the one who’s been here before. The one who knows how this works. He also appears to be completely at ease. No obvious nerves. No sweating, no shaking, no quivering voice. Seems like it’s no big deal for him.

  ‘You take the legs,’ Calum’s saying.

  Kenny’s reaching down, grabbing the tarp in his hands. He’s starting to drag it a little. Then he’s startled by the raised voice.

  ‘No,’ Calum’s saying, louder than intended. ‘Don’t drag. You’ll leave a mark. Lift it up; carry it clear of the ground.’

  Kenny’s doing what he’s told. Struggling to lift, the sweat running off him. But being obedient. What else can you do in this position? He’s conflicted, and it probably shows. He needs to do a good job, because he doesn’t want a bad report going back to Jamieson. Last thing he needs is to lose his job, especially now that they’re moving against Shug Francis. At the same time he doesn’t want to do such a good job that this becomes a regular thing. Please, God, let this be a one-off.

  They’re lifting Hardy up now, carrying him across to the grave. Placing him down at the graveside. Calum’s starting to sweat a little now. Not used to manual labour. Burials like this aren’t common. Most of his jobs have been gun and run. This is how it’s going to be from now on. When you’re the lead gunman for a major organization there’s a lot of cleaning up. His last kill had a burial too, but he doesn’t want to think about that now. Kenny’s moving to lift the body again–Calum’s stopping him.