Beast of Burden (3 page)

WRONG.

WRONG.

WRONG.

I get into the Micra, secure the coffees, muffin and juice. Sit and look at the Hummer as I start the engine. Catch a glimpse of my face in the rear view mirror.

Wrong.

Yeah, that about sums it up.

DONKIN

Looking for Innes, and there was a good chance he was at the poof's place. But the problem with going round the poof's place was the poof himself.

His name was Paulo Gray, and I knew him to look at, talked to him a couple times, but I wouldn't go so far as call us bosom buddies or owt like that. In fact, if anyone was going to refuse their membership to the Detective Sergant Donkin Fan Club (early days yet, only one member, but he was dedicated), it was him. His problem was that he was an uppity fucker, quick to protect his boyfriend Innes. Quick to deny he was his boyfriend, too, but the way I saw it, I didn't live in a world where an older poof took in a younger man and helped him out unless someone was getting his oil changed.

Anyway, it didn't matter when I got to the club, because Paulo was nowhere to be seen. I made a point of pushing the doors hard so they bounced against the wall on either side. I was a sheriff pushing into a dusty saloon, even threw a little swagger into my walk so there wasn't any confusion. Got a few of the lads staring my way, but I didn't stare them back. Headed straight for the office at the back of the place, the one with the daft little sign by the door, like it was a proper business instead of a fuck-around tax dodge.

In the office was the big bastard that worked with Innes. He got me itching, this lad, because I was positive I'd seen him before I caught him working here, supposedly legit. Definitely had the look about him that he'd done bird at some point in his life and he didn't like it one bit. Strangeways sharpened a couple of edges on Innes, but sometimes it worked the opposite way. Like with this bloke, looked as if the time he'd done had drained something important out of him, left him all squidgy and terrified.

I pushed open the office door, parked myself in the doorway. He turned around, saw us there and looked like he soiled himself.

“Y'alright?” I said, all nice and friendly, like.

He kept schtum.

“You seen your mate about?”

He blinked.

“Callum Innes,” I said, just to remind him. “You know him. You work with him.”

“No,” he said, and his voice cracked. “Haven't seen him.”

“Where is he?”

“He's out. Can I take a message for you or something?”

I narrowed my eyes, positive I'd seen this bloke somewhere before. “What's your name again?”

There was a pause before he said, “Frank.”

“Both of them.”

Shook his head a little bit, like he wasn't sure.

“I ask where's Frank, people are going to say Frank who?”

“Oh, right.” He attempted a smile, but it didn't stay long enough on his face for it to register properly. “Collier. Frank Collier.”

“Right.” Name didn't mean anything to us. “I know you around, do I?”

“You asked us that the last time you came round, Detective.”

“So you remember who I am.”

“Yeah.”

“And what did you say when I asked you?”

“I said …” He trailed off, thinking about it. Wanting to get it right for us because I was a copper. Common enough reaction for a recidivist. “I said I didn't know.”

“And you still don't know?”

Frank Collier rubbed his nose. “I don't … Sorry, you're going to have to excuse us, but what did you want?”

“Innes,” I said.

Frank frowned. Frank Collier. That name flicking at something in my head, but not enough to flip the switch. Not yet. Give it time, though. I'd get him in the end.

“I told you,” he said. “He's not here.”

I pulled out my rollie tin. Dipped fingers for a paper and some baccy. “You done bird, Frank Collier?”

When I looked at him, he was bricking it. I rolled a thinnish cigarette and put it in my mouth. When I replaced my tin, started patting around for my lighter, I swear to God I thought this bloke was going to have a heart attack or something.

“Sorry, no,” he said. “No, you can't.”

“What's that?”

“You can't smoke in here.”

“Like fuck I can't.”

“It's a workplace. You can't smoke. It's against the law.”

“I
am
the law, Frank Collier.” But I took the ciggie out of my mouth and used it to point at him. “You know something, you remind us of someone. You sure our paths haven't crossed at some point, eh?”

“I'm sure,” he said. And he crossed his arms, which bumped up his biceps, made him look like a right bruiser.

“You ever work the doors, Frank?” I said. “Maybe down Moss Side, the Buccaneer, somewhere like that?”

“No.”

“You have knocked a few heads in your time, though, haven't you, eh? I'm right in thinking that.”

His face got tight. “I told you already that Mr Innes isn't here—”

“Mr Innes, is it, son?”

“—and if you don't have any other questions—”

“He's your gaffer now, is he?”

“—I've got work to be getting on with.”

“I do have other questions, Frank-mate. I want to know about you.”

Frank pushed back out of his chair with a sharp sigh. He got to his feet and I nudged myself off the doorway.

“Going somewhere, are you?” I said. “Don't think I gave you permission.”

“There a problem here, Frank?”

A different voice, the poof finally making an appearance. Brought out of hiding by the possibility of his loose cannon mate here kicking off with the CID. I turned around and looked at him, this expression on his face like someone'd farted and he was pretty sure it was me.

“I'm looking for Innes,” I said.

“I know you are.” He was nodding. “Every time you come around here, you're looking for him.”

“Because he's never here, is he?” I smiled, tried to keep it light. I heard about this bastard, used to be a bit of a fighter back in his day, and I might've had curiosity about Collier, but this one I
knew
had bird under his belt. Hard times an' all. Not that I was scared of him, mind — we were just two old hands playing an even older game.

“You want to step into my office?” he said.

“Nah.”

He gave us a look, then he glanced at Frank. “Okay, then you want to give us a second there, Frank?”

I didn't see Frank nod, but I guessed he did, because he was out of there sharpish. Paulo backed us into the office and closed the door behind him. Soon as that door clicked shut, I have to say, I got a bit uneasy. I didn't like being in this close with a homosexual. Not that I had owt against them or anything, nothing fucking
homophobic
about it; I just didn't want my arse felt.

So I put the ciggie in my mouth and sniffed at him like I didn't give a fuck.

“You can't smoke in here, Detective,” he said.

“You got a problem with it an' all, do you?”

“You should know the law.”

“Alright.” I put the ciggie back in the tin. “So what is it you wanted to say to us? Hopefully you're going to tell us where Innes is—”

“Why do you need him?”

“I don't have to tell you that.”

“He done something?”

I shrugged.

“The reason I ask,” he said, “is because this is a place of business. You know what we do here?”

I sat on the edge of the desk, folded my arms. I had a million cracks to dish out to him, but this wasn't the right time, so I said: “Boxing.”

“Boxing,” said Paulo. “Yeah, you're close.”

“It's a fuckin' gym, mate. I'm not blind.”

“It's a special gym, Detective. We deal with kids who've been in trouble with the law. They've already served their time and they need a place to deal with whatever impulses put them into care in the first place.”

“I know. I recognise some of the lads.”

“And they know you.”

“That right? My reputation precedes us, eh?”

“Yeah,” he said, stretching it out. “You could say that.”

“Marvellous.”

“Something else you could say — they know you, they know what you're fuckin' like, and the ones that don't think you're a fuckin' joke reckon you're bent as a nine-bob note.”

“Pot, kettle.”

“You know what I mean.”

I took that in, let it settle, gazed out at the gym. There was a couple lads out there watching us. Joke or bent as fuck. I didn't know which one I preferred. Nah, scrub that, of course I did. I preferred bent. Because bent meant dangerous, bent meant I could fuck you up and I had the nous to get away with it.

“Which ones said I was a joke?” I said, nice and quiet.

“Don't get me wrong, Detective. I don't mean to insult you, I'm just spelling out the situation.”

“Nice of you.”

“I don't want you to think that every time you kick open those doors that you're scaring the shit out of us, because that's not the case. You might think that you have an audience here while you wait for Callum to turn up, but what you don't know is most of that audience is laughing at you.”

“Really?” I said. “That's interesting.”

“Plus, if you take him to the floor in here, you'll have to bring reinforcements.”

I pulled myself up straighter on the desk. “And what's that, then? You threatening me, Mr Gray?”

“No,” he said. “I'm just giving you a likely scenario if you get nasty here. I've got the future of this place to think about, so I wouldn't want you pounded any more than you need to be. But I'm warning you, if you keep coming in here thinking you're invincible, spouting off and throwing your sizeable fuckin' weight around, one day someone's going to call you on it.”

“You?”

The poof moved closer to us. I didn't move, wasn't about to let someone like him call the shots, so I straightened up full height to make my point. It'd been a good while since I'd gone the rounds with someone bigger and stronger. And I'll admit, recent circumstances had put us sufficiently on edge that a good fight might've been just what I needed.

“Calm it,” he said.

“Back,” I said.

“What I'm saying—”

“You're saying you want to be arrested for assaulting a police officer, you don't back the fuck up, big lad.”

He stepped off. “Be an adult about this, Detective. All I'm saying is you want to talk to Callum Innes, be a copper about it and find out where he actually is. I'm saying use what they taught you your first day about adapting to situations in order to avoid conflict. And I'm also saying that if you continue to show your face round here, causing trouble for people like Frank — who's done his time, completely rehabilitated himself, and is now a productive member of that society you've promised to protect — then I'll have no option but to file a formal complaint with your superiors.”

I thought about what he said for a good long while, took on his arguments, digested them.

Then I gave him my answer: “Get fucked.”

“I could complain about you now, anyway. And I will if you don't haul your arse out of my club in the next ten seconds.”

I pointed at him. “I won't be threatened.”

“You're not being threatened.”

“Nah, I'm not going to be threatened by some poof fuckin' jailbird—

“You're being
promised
, Detective. Cal's a good lad, but if he's hit, he'll hit back, sometimes a little too hard for his own good. And I don't need you provoking him on my premises. You want to get your jollies harassing ex-cons, do it somewhere else.”

A pause, let the tension bubble for a minute, then I smiled at him, nodded my head like everything was matey. “Okay, I get you.”

“Yeah.”

“Yeah,” I said. “No problems here.”

He moved out of my way, waved at the door. “Glad we understand each other.”

I went out into the gym, saw the lads who'd been watching go back to punch bags and sparring. I opened my baccy tin, pulled out the ciggie I rolled before and put it in my mouth. Halfway across the gym, I sparked it up. Made sure I'd smoked it down by the time I got to the front doors, then I dropped and stamped, turned round to see the poof glaring at us from the doorway to the office.

Let him file his fucking complaints. We both knew I'd be back, and that I'd
keep
coming back until I got a hold of Callum Innes.

DONKIN

I was fucked if I went back to the station, and my hackles were still well and truly up, so instead of calling it a morning, I decided to cruise round the old estates, looking for a familiar face.

Pissed us off that Innes wasn't at the poof's club, but it pissed us off even more that I didn't have an official reason for going round there. I'd heard that he was a mong or whatever, reckoned I had a spare morning, I might as well go round there and take the piss out of him for a bit. But then the poof had to stick his fucking nose in, take the fun out of the situation.

So I had an itch that needed to be scratched. And I didn't think I was going to get any relief until I saw Paddy Reece.

The first thing about Paddy Reece, he wasn't Irish, but every March he'd be on the streets and in most of the pubs, making out he was blarney as fuck in order to get a free pint. Second thing, Paddy was a nine-carat smackhead. Not only that, but he was the kind of bastard you wouldn't want to babysit, not with his priors. Two girls, they were fourteen and he was eighteen. Didn't matter that both girls were early drinkers, and that both looked like they were forty years old with the experience to match. Whatever it said on their birth certificate was what the court prosecuted, and smackhead Reece, for poking the pair of them in a drunken haze, found himself down for a two-stretch as an adult kiddie-fiddler. After he got out, he kept himself to himself, except for when he needed to score or when I managed to get my hands on him.

I drew my car up alongside Paddy as he walked. When I honked the horn, two short bursts, he near shit himself.

“Y'alright, Paddy, I didn't know you were out.”

He saw us, pulled a face. “Aw, fuck.”

“That's not much of a hello, is it?” I cranked the wheel, jumped the pavement. This lad wanted to pump his feet, I could keep driving, run the bastard down. I flung open the car door and he backed up a couple of steps. I got out of the car, pulled out my baccy tin, started to roll a ciggie. “Were you going to run there, Pads?”