Jimmy Moore was angry, and he wasn’t a man who could hide his emotions. All this questioning of his business practices was getting on his nerves. As far as Jimmy was concerned, he did what the job required, and that was that. He might skim a little on the side, but that was just a perk of the job. At the end of the day, he still managed to deliver a decent wedge every week.
He poured himself a large glass of vodka. It had no real taste or smell, but it did the job required, and that was enough for him. He glanced around his office. It was a real shithole, but why would he care about that? It was no more than a base for him to work out of. His uncle Terry was always on at him to clear it up, make sure that there wasn’t anything that could be seen as incriminating evidence hanging around. As if the Filth were ever going to come near here!
His uncle Terry was turning into a right tart lately. He couldn’t see that it was the 1970s, not the fifties any more. He couldn’t see that the world was changing on a daily basis. He had been Jimmy’s role model all his life, but now Jimmy hated that the man he had tried so hard to emulate was, in reality, no more than a fucking dinosaur. He was young, he could see where the world was heading. From the punks to the skinheads, the message was as clear as a fucking bell: you had to look out for number one. There was no other choice.
He lit a cigarette, and pulled on it slowly, savouring the taste of the tobacco. He had a bit of coke in his wallet, and he was sorely tempted to have a quick toot. But his uncle would suss him out and they would end up arguing again.
Jimmy glanced at his watch; his uncle was late. It was after ten, and he had been the one to insist that Jimmy be there by nine-thirty at the latest. He sighed.
Hearing the outer door open, he downed his vodka quickly. It was strange, though – he had not heard a car pull up or seen any headlights. Normally his uncle parked right outside, it was impossible to miss him. The silly old fucker had probably parked up the road. He was paranoid lately, seeing skulduggery around every corner.
The office door opened, and Jimmy was startled to see Declan Costello’s minder, Danny Briggs. Danny was a large man of West Indian origin, with dreadlocked hair, and a body-builder’s physique. He was carrying a large machete and, as Jimmy registered the significance of that, he was too stunned to even try and defend himself.
Chapter Nine
‘It’s awful, isn’t it, Mum?’ Josephine was as shocked as everyone else about Jimmy Moore’s death.
Lana Callahan sighed. ‘Well, he was a fucker, Josephine. I hate to say it because his mum’s lovely. But, be honest, he was a lairy little fucker.’
Josephine didn’t answer; she was still shocked by the brutality of the murder. The local news had reported that he had received over twenty blows from a machete, and that the police were encouraging anyone who had been in the vicinity between nine and eleven p.m. the previous evening to contact them with any information.
Josephine’s father had remarked at the end of the news bulletin, ‘Well, that says it all, girls. The plod have more chance of arresting Bill and Ben for smoking Little Weed than catching the fucker responsible.’
‘His poor mum, though.’
Lana lit a cigarette and, pulling on it gently, she inhaled the smoke. As she blew it out, she said honestly, ‘It’s a tragedy, all right. But he upset a lot of people with his bad attitude. Look at how he treated your Michael. He’s a saint, that boy. Let’s face it, Michael can have a row if needs be – and how he kept his hands off that little fucker God only knows. But that’s the point, really, isn’t it? Unlike Michael, Jimmy didn’t have a sense of place, didn’t have the savvy to know when to back off, he didn’t have the brain capacity to realise that the only thing he had in his favour was his uncle. Michael swallowed his knob because he had enough sense to know that, until he earned his own creds, he had to take whatever Jimmy dished out.’
Josephine was staring at her mum now; the turn that the conversation had taken was scaring her. She didn’t like Michael’s name being used like that. She was frightened that Michael might be a suspect.
‘Michael was with us, Mum, you know that as well as I do.’
Lana shook her head slowly in disbelief; sometimes her Josephine really was as thick as shit.
‘No one’s saying that, love. If you listened to me, you’d know that all I was trying to say is that your Michael has self-control. That is very important in his line of work. I think that his ability to keep his emotions in check is why Patrick Costello took him on. The Jimmy Moores of this world never really prosper, Josephine, whereas the people like your Michael are a rarity. They are reliable, dependable, see?’