Gang War Read online

  Graham Johnson is an investigative reporter and crime writer.

  This is his first novel.

  Also by Graham Johnson:

  Powder Wars

  Football and Gangsters

  Druglord

  The Devil

  Darkness Descending

  This eBook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licenced or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly.

  Epub ISBN: 9781845968526

  Version 1.0

  www.mainstreampublishing.com

  This edition, 2011

  Copyright © Graham Johnson, 2010

  All rights reserved

  The moral right of the author has been asserted

  First published (under the title Soljas) in Great Britain in 2010 by

  MAINSTREAM PUBLISHING COMPANY

  (EDINBURGH) LTD

  7 Albany Street

  Edinburgh EH1 3UG

  ISBN 9781845966997

  No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any other means without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who wishes to quote brief passages in connection with a review written for insertion in a magazine, newspaper or broadcast

  This book is a work of fiction. It is inspired by real events but all characters are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons is entirely coincidental. Names of real well-known people appear in the story, but the events surrounding those individuals and quotes given are entirely the work of the author’s imagination

  A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

  1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

  To Emma, Sonny, Raya,

  Connie and Clara

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  I would like to thank everyone at Mainstream Publishing, and I am grateful to Tom Williams and Annabel Merullo at Peters Fraser & Dunlop. Thank you to G.W. for his advice and support. In addition, I would like to thank Marcella Edwards for her support and Tony Mitchell for his detailed information about the Mac-10 sub-machine gun.

  CONTENTS

  PART ONE: BUILD-UP

  Chapter 1 Aggravated Burglary

  Chapter 2 Phones

  Chapter 3 Black Hawk Down

  Chapter 4 Body Retrieval

  Chapter 5 The Funeral

  Chapter 6 The Wake

  Chapter 7 WAG Party

  Chapter 8 On the Meet

  Chapter 9 SIM Card

  Chapter 10 Fever

  Chapter 11 The Library

  Chapter 12 Graft Night

  Chapter 13 The Date

  Chapter 14 Mac-10

  Chapter 15 EasyDrugs

  Chapter 16 The Rape

  Chapter 17 The Accident

  PART TWO: THE AFTERMATH

  Chapter 18 Glory

  Chapter 19 Public Outcry

  Chapter 20 Agendas

  Chapter 21 Spin

  Chapter 22 Cult Celebrity

  Chapter 23 Assault

  Chapter 24 Civilian Protection Authority

  Chapter 25 Custody

  Chapter 26 Rendition

  Chapter 27 Memorial

  Chapter 28 Release

  PART THREE: ON CAMPAIGN

  Chapter 29 Militai

  Chapter 30 The Flat Place

  Chapter 31 The World Is Yours

  Chapter 32 France

  Chapter 33 Lacoste

  Chapter 34 Plans

  Chapter 35 Reprise

  Chapter 36 Redemption

  Glossary

  PART ONE

  BUILD-UP

  CHAPTER 1

  AGGRAVATED BURGLARY

  Bang! Door goes in, kicked through. White plastic UPVC, double-glazed, brass handle. It’s hanging off at an angle by the lower hinge. Tax raid. Burg. The lads run in, Lowied up, head to toe in black. Black Berghaus trapper hats, black North Face jackets, ski masks, black Reebok Classic trainies, Lowe Alpine leather gloves.

  Jay, 14, runs into the front room with a golf club, a sand iron. The dealer’s bird’s sat off on the couch, her baby in front of the plasma. Jay swings. Wallops the bird on the side of the arm. ‘Fuuuuck Offf!’ he shouts, like he’s just scored a goal, concentrating on the contact at the same time. He gives a little Stevie G goal celebration, finger pointed lazily to the non-existent crowd. ‘See that arm go, lad,’ he says, as one of the others bails past the living room door, heading upstairs. The girl goes down. Screams. Urine.

  New Loon, hooded up, is right up the stairs into the front bedroom. Knows where he’s going. The dealer’s in his pit. Smell of green and a few stripes chopped out on a CD box. Knocker has his nine millie out, held ghetto-style, turned anticlockwise so that it’s on the horizontal. He’s buzzing off the sight of the Lowie glove gripping the nine. ‘Where’s the gear, lad?’

  Nogger flies through the bedroom door behind him. No messing about. Shiv out. Quilt off. One up the arse. Stab. Stab. Stab. ‘Where’s the parcel, lad?’ Anal prolapse. Shit and blood all over the sheets. New Loon laughs, pure hyena, snorts the lines off the CD case. Nogger, again: ‘Where’s the gear, lad?’

  Bloot goes through the bathroom door. Granma on the bog. She’s only thirty-odd. Bang! Alehouse haymaker right to the side of her head. ‘Fuuuuck Offf!’ She’s banged out straight away. Right into the bath she goes, leg sticking out. KO’d. Looks like she’s still sobbing, but she’s gently convulsing, spittle bubbling off her gob, sighing like a dog.

  ‘Girl, girl? Be quiet, girl,’ says Bloot, convinced she can still hear him. ‘We’ll be gone in a minute.’ Just in case she’s blagging, he tries to give her the chance to save herself from further torture. ‘Where’s y’lad’s parcel, girl? Give it up and we’ll get off.’ Bloot looks side-on and sees one of the lads, Iggo, bounding up the stairs.

  ‘See that, lad?’ asks Bloot, visibly proud of his punch on the auld one, grinning under his Lowies, eyes dancing with fire. ‘Into the bath, lad. One dig. Right into the bath.’

  Iggo stands at the top of the stairs, leaning on his putter, laughing. ‘Go ’ead, lad. She’s a fucking snitch anyway. Remember that, lad.’ The woman registers the statement. Slightly louder moaning sounds. She sighs a denial.

  Iggo gently lifts his club, swings it slightly, taking aim. Carefully to and fro like a pro, aiming for the ball of the ankle that’s sticking out of the bath. ‘Move back, lad,’ he tells Bloot. He nods for Bloot to step back against the tiled wall as he gently moves his feet up and down, wiggling his toes. He loosens his swing, flapping his arms up and down in a gentle, slo-mo version of ‘The Birdie Song’.

  Crack! The putter smashes into the woman’s ankle. The foot dislocates from the leg, and, for a split second, shoots off into the air, before it is pulled back sharp by the bag of skin it is in. It then rotates, Misery-style.

  Iggo: ‘Fuuuuck Offf!’ Stretching the words out slowly, as though tracking a ball flying to his satisfaction over the green. Granma lets out a mad howl. ‘See that go, lad,’ says Iggo. ‘See her ankle just . . . go.’ Iggo, made up with his shot, swaps the putter into his left hand and clacks his fingers, ghetto-stylie, but there’s no sound because of his gloves.

  He turns left into the bedroom where New Loon and Nogger are terroring the dealer. Blood’s still pouring out of his arse but he’s not yet shitting out the goods. ‘Is this prick said nothing yet?’ he asks, speed-growling through his teeth, emphasising the sound ‘ick’ with genuine anger, emitting
a gurgling sound at the same time. Feeling confident after his boss bit of green work in the bathroom. ‘Fucking little prick,’ he repeats, his accent so thick you could wring it out, cracking the putter across the dealer’s back, the word prick bringing him some stress relief. He’s still coming down off the rush of smashing the woman’s ankle, but frustrated that the dealer hasn’t yet collapsed.

  Nogger turns to Iggo: ‘Where’s the iron, lad?’

  ‘Here y’are, lad. Here’s an iron, lad,’ he says, proffering his golf club, laughing at his 19th-hole joke.

  ‘That’s a putter, you soft cunt.’ They’re all grinning under their hoods now, knowing full well what type of iron is being referred to. ‘I mean the Tefal, lad. Or the Rowenta. A red-hot one, if you please.’ Nogger using the banter for effect, casually warning the dealer that proceedings are about to be upscaled considerably – unless he tells them where his stash is. No response.

  New Loon bails out of the room to look for the iron. Down the stairs nearly in one go, then back up, more slowly this time, Morphy Richards 40311 in one hand, the baby, in bits, in the other.

  Downstairs, the younger lads have been in by now – and out. Plasma gone, Xbox gone, Wii gone, Virgin V+ box and all that gone. The dealer’s car – a boss little blue Vectra – is off the drive now, on the main road, ready to go. The young ones are revving it, scanning for po-po. Later, this one’s good for a show, flooring it round the estate in front of the lads, on video.

  New Loon plugs the iron in, Nogger holding it. Bloot leaves the ma in the bath, comes into the bedroom to watch the money shot. ‘Red hot, lad,’ he says. ‘Turn it right up, lad.’

  Nogger: ‘One louder, lad.’ Iggo cranks up the thermostatic dial.

  Word goes round that Dylan’s here now, on the premises, Lowied up, but no black – he’s wearing dark, inky blue instead, and clean, lime-green Adidas John Waynies, fresh from Amsterdam. Unarmed, no shottie, nothing. Just his calm, relaxed self. He climbs the stairs slowly, head down, like he’s at home. He can hear the steam jets from the iron in the bedroom and it bubbling too hot, the baby crying hysterically in the same room, a dry, manic scream.

  He hears Nogger’s voice: ‘Tell us where the gear is, lad. Don’t make me do it, lad. I’ll burn the baby.’ Through the banisters, Dylan sees Nogger dangling the baby Michael Jackson-style with one arm, holding the hot iron in front of its face, slowly, intermittently squeezing the steam out. Finger on the trigger.

  Nogger doesn’t really want to do it, but he will. Everyone knows that. Nogger isn’t bothered too much. He’ll be arsed for a bit, later, pretend to display the right emotions – pity, half-regrets. But he’s a good mimic, is Nogger, an expert at imitating human emotions, the feelings he doesn’t have. Not everyone knows that. Not everyone knows that that’s how he gets through the day. But Dylan does. Nogger pushes the iron a touch nearer the baby. The skin is actually reddening up now. Baby goes skew-whiff, wriggles its body with shocking force, trying to grab hold of someone, despite being upside down. Its cry is grating and repetitive, unnerves the lads. The mother has to be restrained by Jay downstairs. Arses of the lads a bit gone now. They’re in the gone-too-far zone. ‘This is bad, to be fair,’ half of them are thinking. ‘How did we get to here? We only came out for a bit of graft.’ Their thoughts are coming through clearer now that the green is wearing off.

  Nogger orders New Loon to take off the kid’s jim-jams. New Loon rags them down straight away, tears off the shitty Pamper underneath. Nogger moves the red-hot iron closer to the baby’s pink and flabby arse.

  Dylan bounces into the room just in time. ‘What’s going on, lad?’

  ‘Where you been, lad?’ asks New Loon, trying to ignore Dylan’s implicit condemnation of the situation, trying to hide his shame.

  ‘What d’you mean, Dylan?’ asks Nogger, feeling a bit bad about the baby scenario but not giving ground to Dylan.

  Dylan nods towards the kid, staring at the iron. ‘The baby, lad. What are you doing to the baby?’ But he knows that he’s got to be a bit careful here. Be on top with Nogger at your peril. Go about this the wrong way and he’ll pay the price, heavily, later. Sick waters here, lad. Need to be navigated with care.

  All of them are full of the stripes and ready to go. What Dylan half-said was half a slight, stung Nogger, for sure. But the situation, however delicate, is still recoverable. Dylan knows the key is not to make Nogger feel any more embarrassed over the baby. Otherwise he’ll turn the iron on him. Don’t cross the line, lad. No telling him off. Just keep it neutral. Dylan thinks the situation through methodically, even while the baby is dangling and crying before him.

  Eventually, he speaks again. ‘The baby doesn’t know where the gear is, does it?’ Nogger nods slightly in agreement, not knowing where Dylan is going but wanting to go with it all the same, as he can’t think of a solution himself. Dylan nods towards the dealer on the bed. ‘He does, though. So put the iron on him, lad.’

  Good win-win outro to be had here: Nogger can save face with a practical, no-nonsense course of action. Dylan asks Nogger for the iron – asks, doesn’t tell. Once he’s in possession of it, Dylan quickly presses it down onto the dealer’s cock, ragging the lad’s trackies off in the same motion. As the scalding plate touches the tip of his bell, the dealer is already shitting out the goods. ‘It’s in the loft, lad! Fuck off! It’s in the tank!’

  ‘You fucking little prick,’ Dylan shouts at the dealer, agitated that he’s been forced to burn him. Greed, that’s all it is. Not giving up the goods even when they were going to iron his baby. Growling, he punches the dealer in the head with the iron, ripping the cord from the socket as he does it.

  Job done. Dylan gets off, picking up the baby and carrying her downstairs to her ma in the front room. Clegsy’s up through the hatch already, no ladder, up the sides of the wall. New Loon’s stood off below, staring up into the darkness, arms dropped to his sides, machete in one hand, nine in the other, half covering the stairs in case anyone comes through the front door.

  ‘Have you found it, lad?’ he asks Clegsy, up there with a halogen Maglite, all over the gaff now. Iggo kills time by wiping the shoeprints from Clegsy’s black-and-white Nike Air Max Torch 5 trainies off the walls and the frame underneath the loft hatch. The prints are bland anyway because the grip is made up of blocks and horizontal lines. Iggo plays off some small talk with New Loon. ‘Air Force 1, for instance. They’ve got 11 concentric circles on them. You may as well leave a fingerprint.’ Showing off that he is forensically aware. New Loon checks the soles of his black Nike Air Zoom Vapor V1 Tours. They’re a zig-zag repeat with a small circle in the middle. Iggo’s Zoom SPARQs are the same.

  New Loon nods, but he’s not arsed. Still staring up into the void above, waiting for dollars from heaven.

  Downstairs, Dylan shushes the baby, pulls his fleece neckwarmer down so it can see his face. The baby stops screaming. Dylan wipes the tears and snot away with the soft fleece. The ma is sat on the edge of the couch, holding her broken arm. She can see Dylan’s face, but he’s willing to take the risk. Rather that than have a hysterical baby.

  Jay’s guarding her. Now he’s sunk into an armchair, playing a DS he’s found, elbows resting on his sand iron, which is laid across the arms of the chair. Before the off, he tries to get his grabs off the woman. He throws her a little twenty bag of cocaine he found in an ashtray to null her pain. ‘There you go, you dirty baghead,’ he says as he throws the little plastic wrap to her. Jay never takes Class A drugs himself. After she’s rubbed it on her gums and bugled it up her nose, Jay walks past her and grabs her tits, knowing that she can’t stop him because of her broken arm, that she’s momentarily indebted to him for the gear. Dylan calls Jay a sick little twat. But Jay’s just laughing, buzzing with some of the younger ones, until the DS catches his eye again.

  Activity upstairs. Clegsy shouting down from the loft, ‘Got it.’ Nogger steps aside as a heavy, wet kitbag comes flying down the hatch followed by Clegsy, buzzin
g. ‘Come ’ead. Let’s get off.’

  Dylan carries the baby into the living room and puts it in its mum’s OK arm. He tells Jay to get off and on the way out drops the ma a tenner for some nappies or for some credit on her phone. Dylan’s made Jay give her back her Samsung. Life’ll be hard for her in the next few days. They bail into the Vec and offski. Behind them, one of the younger ones is trying to keep up on a Whizzer, a motorised scooter darting through the traffic, another one on a little motorbike.

  CHAPTER 2

  PHONES

  Back on the Boot Estate, everybody’s buzzing. True Nogzy Soljas. Got away with a quarter of green, one corner white and six ton in notes. The younger lads have shot off to the chippy and Mackie D’s. Bubble’s gone the Armenian shop for 24 cans. ‘Only a tenner,’ he says.

  The older lads are sat off in someone’s pad. Some rip off a nearby estate, Danielle, is putting on a floor show, squatting on a half-full bottle of Hennessy on the kitchen floor by the back door. All hands have got their phones out, getting on it. Up and down, up and down, slowly, her hands on her thick thighs, the muscles and tendons in her legs visibly tensed. She’s balanced like a Russian dancer. Pacer’s checking intently. He can see, ever so slightly, her lips, her inner labial folds, sucking on the bottleneck during the upstroke.

  New Loon, top off, skinny twat, wearing just a pair of mountain-gear bottoms and his neckwarmer, covering his grid for the cameras, the toggle tied tight at the back so it won’t fall down. He’s behind her now, one finger up her arse, John Gotti in the other hand. The long feller. All the lads buzzing, Danielle just smiling. Daft, silly Zoo bird. She’ll do as her told. She’ll be getting a good drink for her dirty efforts and all the gear she can snort, up her nose, up her twat, blown up her arse. Danielle: scowly grid, pure tan, blonde bob, boss tits, full tackle from Ann Summers on – white stockings, lacy bra. She’ll be getting walloped all over the gaff in a minute. Tomorrow, all the lads’ll be in the local, the Canada Dock, with their phones out on the bar, Bluetoothing the new Danielle vid to all hands. The match lads will love that.