one twisted voice Read online

  He thought about going to see Johnny Boy Stout.

  Johnny Boy was Ronnie’s cuz, and he was also the big man around town. Nobody fucked with Johnny, not even a crazed family baying for blood. If they wanted war, Johnny would give them it, and there’d be only one winner. But Corrie knew what he’d get if he went to Johnny. It was one thing Ronnie asking for protection: Corrie would get his arse handed to him on a plate. In Johnny’s eyes, he’d lay the blame for his cousin’s death firmly at Corrie’s door. He wouldn’t get a neat bullet in the skull from Johnny. First Johnny would set his boys on him; Big Jimmy Hurt and Crazy Bobby Bowlam would soften him up with pick-axe handles before Johnny Boy did him the kindness of cutting his head off with a rusty saw.

  No. He had to leave town, as much to avoid Johnny Boy as the tribe of Dunns after his blood.

  The blue lights came on behind him.

  Fuckfuckfuckfuckfuck…

  Corrie dropped the whisky.

  No, wait.

  He could still get out of this. Play it cool, be nice to the cops, admit to being a little drunk, and to driving a stolen vehicle, without a licence, and ask them to take him in. He’d be safer in a cell tonight than he would be out on the streets like this.

  The cop car pulled in behind him as he brought the stolen motor to a halt. Corrie checked the mirrors. Apart from the flashing blue light in the windscreen he could make nothing out of the make or model of the cop car. It was one of those unmarked cars that the traffic coppers use to sneak up on you. If it was a regular cop, on any other occasion, Corrie could have spoken his way out of being lifted, but you didn’t fuck with those traffic Nazis. Corrie watched the door come open in silhouette and a big fucker get out and walk slowly towards him. Corrie knew not to get out the car. He hit the button and electric window motor whirred. He waited calmly, both hands on the steering wheel.

  The cop walked directly to the window, his body filling most of the opening.

  “Evening officer,” Corrie said sweetly. “I’ve an offence I’d like to admit to.”

  “Have you been drinking again, Corrie?” the cop asked.

  The use of his name didn’t surprise Corrie. Most of the cops round here knew him well. But he was surprised by the cop’s actual words that came next.

  “I’d like to take a sample of your breath. Would you please blow into this?”

  As he opened his mouth in an incredulous gasp, the silenced-barrel of a handgun was shoved between Corrie’s teeth.

  The back of his skull was blown out, spattering the passenger door and part of the windscreen with blood and tufts of hair.

  Big, red-faced Jimmy Hurt stepped through the open door, stamping his feet and blowing into his cupped palms. His coat was done up to his chin and he had a woollen hat pulled low, but he still looked frozen. “I guarantee you, boys, there’ll be more snotty noses than standing cocks tonight.”

  He came into the kitchen, still blowing warmth at his blue hands. “I’m telling you, boys. You know it’s fuckin’ cold when your dick shrivels up like a prawn vol-au-vent!”

  No one answered him. No one laughed. They’d already heard Jimmy’s lurid take on the cold snap on three separate occasions.

  “Close the door, will ya?” Bobby Bowlam was hunkered down in front of the oven. The door was open and the meagre blue flame inside was the only source of heat in the old house.

  “Thought all the power and stuff was off?” Jimmy moved towards the oven holding out his palms.

  “It is, but the oven’s Calor gas. There was a bit left in the bottle.” Bobby shoved him away. “Fuckin’ hell, Jimmy, I can feel the cold coming off ya! You a fuckin’ ghost or summat?”

  “Gotta admit, I feel like I’m about three days dead,” said the other man.

  Jimmy and Bobby both looked around at the latest speaker.

  Johnny Boy Stout stood up and walked over to Bobby and shoved him side-ways. “Stop hoggin’ all the fuckin’ heat.”

  “Yeah, move it,” Jimmy added.

  “Tosser!” Bobby called Jimmy, but he reluctantly gave way to the older man, his face twisting as he was shunted away from the small flame.

  Johnny Boy was in his late-forties – heavily built, his jowls drooping and his hair turning grey at the sides – his nickname a bit of a misnomer at any stretch. But he was also the hardest of the three and neither Jimmy nor Bobby would argue too stringently. Johnny Boy put his arse to the oven, lifting the tail of his coat to warm his lower back. He stood there smiling at the other two but there wasn’t the slightest mote of humour in his eyes.

  “Is he home yet, Jimmy?”

  Jimmy shoved his hands in his pockets and fiddled round like he was adjusting his underpants. “I froze me fuckin’ bollocks off, but it was worth it. The grass was right. He does live at the house across the road. He’s there, Johnny Boy. Alone.”

  “Good.” Johnny Boy allowed his coat to drop as he transferred his hands to his own pockets. He pulled out an illegal semi-automatic pistol: an imported SIGMA. From his other pocket he pulled out a magazine and slapped it in place. He racked the slide. “You two packin’ like I told ya?”

  Bobby pulled out a sawn-off shotgun with a chopped and taped stock. Double barrelled. A farmer’s gun adapted to fit under his armpit. He clicked it open and fed in a couple 12-bore cartridges.

  Jimmy said, “I’ve a pick handle. Don’t trust meself to pull a trigger, my hands are so cold.”

  “Keep rubbing your balls like that and the friction’ll set em on fire,” Bobby said.

  “I’m not rubbin’ me balls,” Jimmy said. “I’m still trying to find ‘em!”

  Bobby laughed this time. “Heard you often have that problem with your dick.”

  “You wouldn’t like it as a wart on the end of your nose,” Jimmy said. Another of his sadly over-used rejoinders

  “Shut up,” Johnny Boy grunted. “Fuckin’ idiots that I have to work with...”

  He led them out of the house and into the biting cold. It was dark outside, no moon, no stars, just a heavy mist that covered everything. The mist dampened down the sound so much it felt like they were walking through a void between worlds.

  Johnny Boy felt the mist clinging to his face, turning to ice crystals on his eyelashes. He rubbed a palm across his jowls and they felt like they were as tight as a virgin’s arse. He exhaled, and a cloud of frozen breath streamed around him.

  Three days dead, he thought. It was as cold as the fuckin’ grave, right enough.

  But soon things were going to heat up.

  His cousin Ronnie had been shot like a sick dog, fucking executed. So had his pal, Corrie. Not that he gave a flying fuck about either drug-addled punk, but he couldn’t allow any transgressions against his name. If he allowed one hit on his family, it would only invite others. He had to make an example, and he had to do it now, before the fucking Dunns got ideas about completely taking over his parish. And he couldn’t think of a bigger example than going after the target he’d chosen. Killing Jack Dunn would make the others shit their pants.

  A faint glow poked through the mist. Yellowish – like piss spreading in a swimming pool. They had to move closer before they could make out that it was the light from the living room in the house opposite.

  “Can you see him?” Johnny Boy whispered.

  Jimmy pointed, using the pick handle he’d lifted from outside their hiding place. “Saw him in there about five minutes ago. Dunno where he’s at now.”

  Johnny Boy nudged Bobby. “You’re the smallest. Sneak over there and see if you can see him.”

  “What if he sees me?”

  “You’ve got a fuckin’ shotgun, what’re you afraid of?”

  Bobby sniffed a dewdrop from the end of his nose. “It’s fuckin’ Jack Dunn we’re talkin’ about. Hard bastard, I’ve heard. Even with the gun I don’t want to go up against him on me own!”

  “He’s not fuckin’ bullet proof,” Johnny Boy snarled, but even he wasn’t so sure that he’d be here without Bobby and J
immy backing him up. “Fuckin’ big man! Maybe the cops couldn’t prove he was the one who capped my cousin, Ronnie, if I told them, but I know it. An’ he’s gonna pay. Now get over there and see where he’s at. Soon as you give us the nod we’ll be on him like stink on shit. Right, Jimmy?”

  Jimmy didn’t answer and Johnny Boy turned, searching for him in the mist. All that remained of his passing was a faint swirl in the mist.

  “Where the fuck has he sneaked off to?” Johnny Boy completed a slow pirouette. There was no sign of the big man. Only his pick handle lying on the ground. “I don’t believe this; the fucker’s bottled it!” He turned towards Bobby. “Well, it’s just me an’ you, Bobby, but don’t worry we can still do this...”

  Bobby was nowhere to be seen.

  “Bobby? Bobby! Where the...”

  Johnny Boy gripped the butt of his SIGMA, but now the gun didn’t seem the equaliser that he’d originally thought. In fact it felt woefully inadequate. A bit like he felt, really. Moments earlier he’d planned on making the Dunns shit themselves, now it was his guts that were fluttering.

  He took a slow step back, turned, and was about to leg it.

  A form reared out of the mist in front of him.

  Johnny Boy couldn’t make out the face of the big man. It had nothing to do with the cloying mist, but everything to do with the sawn-off shotgun barrels jammed against the bridge of his nose.

  “Going somewhere, Johnny Boy?” Jack Dunn asked.

  “Oh, fuck,” Johnny Boy moaned. His eyes darted sideways; hoping that Jimmy or Bobby would rush to his aid.

  “You needn’t look for those two idiots. They’re out of the fight. Same as you’re going to be, Johnny.”

  “Jack. C’mon, man. This is one big misunderstanding.”

  “Is it? Way I heard it you were planning on killing me, payback for your cousin Ronnie. Well, Johnny, you got the right man all right. It was me who capped Ronnie and his mate. See, the Dunns wanted payback too.”

  “Well you got it, Jack. Let’s leave things at that, eh? Come on. Let’s call things quit, yeah?”

  Dunn shook his head slowly.

  “I want payback with interest,” he said.

  Johnny Boy didn’t even think about lifting his gun. If anyone cared to listen he’d have told them that his fingers were too cold to pull the trigger anyway. The truth was, he was decidedly warm. At least he was in his trousers when he shit himself.

  It was shameful, soiling his pants like that, but he didn’t have long to worry about his reputation.

  The shotgun was reversed very quickly and the stock slammed against the side of his head. Like deaf Carl Dunn, Johnny Boy didn’t hear his death coming either, though his was much slower than either Ronnie or Corrie’s had been.

  It was three days until they were found. The slaughterhouse had closed on Friday evening, so it wasn’t until Monday morning before the staff arrived and found Johnny Boy, Jimmy Hurt and Bobby Bowlam trussed together in the meat locker. SOCO were already on scene, and a uniformed constable guarded the door, recording movement of personnel in and out of the freezer. The constable had to step aside for the Detective Sergeant who arrived at the scene.

  “What have we got?” the DS asked.

  “Three of them this time.”

  “Same gang?”

  “Yeah, it’s the Stouts,” the constable said. “You think that the Dunns did them?”

  “We’ve no proof of that, constable. And personally I’d rather you didn’t mention that name in that tone of voice.”

  “Uh, sorry, sarge,” said the constable. “It’s just that…”

  “The Dunns have got a bad name around town?”

  “Well, yeah. There is that.”

  “You should show a little more respect. The Dunns lost one of their children in a vicious hit and run. Not only that but-” He aimed a finger at where Johnny Boy swung on the end of a chain “-I heard that scumbag threatened to desecrate the child’s grave if the Dunns didn’t give up the man who shot the boy’s killers.”

  “Isn’t that a bit like the kettle calling the pot black?”

  “When did you last complete your race and diversity training, constable?’

  “Uh…oh, I didn’t mean…”

  “Forget about it. But watch your mouth in future, OK. Not all the Dunns are bad guys, constable.” The DS tapped his chest. “Some of us aren’t.”

  “I wasn’t suggesting anything like that, Sarge.”

  “Forget it,” said Detective Sergeant Dunn. “I’ve lived with it all my career.”

  “Are you related to the boy that was killed by Ronnie Stout and Jason Corrie?” the constable ventured.

  “Distantly.”

  Moving past the constable the DS stepped inside the meat locker and immediately shivered. “Bloody Baltic in here,” he muttered, rubbing his hands together.

  “Minus thirty,” a SOCO investigator said from the centre of the room. “They were still alive when they were tied up in here, poor sods. It looks like they froze to death, Jack.”

  Yeah, the DS thought, thinking about Jimmy Hurt’s words that he’d overheard as they planned to kill him, I know there were more snotty noses than standing cocks that night.

  Author’s note:

  A shorter version of this story “Cold as the Grave” first appeared at the webzine “Thrillers, Killers ‘N’ Chillers”, and in the ebook “True Brit Grit” (Guilty Conscience) in its longer form.

  THE SKIN WE’RE IN

  Cousin Billy wasn’t happy, and he told me.

  ‘I’m no happy, Alec.’

  His voice was nasal Glaswegian, the same accent I’d tried for years to lose. Brought me too much trouble this side of Hadrian’s Wall.

  ‘Everything will be okay. Trust me.’

  He gave me the look, eyebrows steepled, tip of the tongue just peeking from beneath his protruding front teeth. ‘Trust you, Alec? It’s because I listened to you that I’m in this shite in the first place. You told me to stand up to him and all that got me was a death sentence.’

  ‘Don’t worry.’ I showed him the Browning pistol. ‘This time things’ll be different.’

  ‘That’s what I’m no happy aboot.’

  ‘I’m not gonna use it. I’m only gonna show them it so they know we mean business.’

  ‘And what then? What if they dunnae listen to you? Are you gonnae use it then?’

  I didn’t have an answer for him. ‘Just quit worrying, will ya? You’re making me nervous now.’

  ‘So let’s just get the fuck oota here and forget all about them.’

  Here was in my beat-up Volkswagen Golf, just across the street from the hangout of the man Billy was so terrified of.

  ‘Can’t, Billy. We do that, we’ll never be able to walk these streets again.’

  ‘Won’t be walking anywhere if Gardy kills us.’

  I laid the bullshit on thick. ‘So go to your grave with your honour intact. I’d rather be a dead hero than a living coward.’

  ‘I’m no a coward.’

  ‘Didn’t say you were. Just making a point.’

  ‘I’d rather be a live hero, but.’

  ‘Exactly my point. That’s why I brought my gun.’

  Before he could say anything else, I slipped out of the Golf, jamming the Browning into my belt at the back. I hid it under the tail of my sweatshirt, pulled up my hood. Billy didn’t follow. Good, lad. He wasn’t there to back me up, just save me if things went tits-up and a quick get-away was in order. Billy scooted over into the driving position, and turned on the ignition. He drove the Golf away and into a parking space next to a Spar shop on the corner. I watched him nose the car round and then reverse into the shadows. The lights went off, but I could still hear the low thrum of the idling engine. Out of sight, but not out of mind, I left Billy there and walked across the street to the pool hall.

  Couple of kids in the doorway gave me the thousand yards stare; eyes like jaundice pouring from manhole covers. High. I pressed between t
hem and they grunted, didn’t want to move, but they’d no option. One of them pressed his forearm to my lower back but that was the extent of his defiance. I gave him the dead eye: the old silent promise. Maybe he’d felt the weight of the gun in my belt cause he quickly moved away, towing his drug buddy along with him. I let them go; they meant nothing to me.

  First thing I noticed was the smell of pot, heavy in the air like a dampener. Next was the stench of sweat. Something else. Wank juice. Smelled like teenagers. There was a short vestibule, which doubled as an occasional toilet judging by the stains on the walls. Then there was a narrow flight of stairs leading up into darkness. From up there in the rafters came the clack of cues on balls. There was the low rumble of conversation, punctuated by harsher curses and raucous cheers. I felt like my arsehole was doing a Betty Boop pout, but I went up the stairs. Like I told Billy, rather be a dead hero...

  If someone had come down, maybe that’s as far as I’d get. I went up the last few steps with my hand tucked under my sweatshirt, thumb on the gun’s grip, ready to tug it out and start blasting. But no one came down. Thought, thank fuck for that, and kept going.

  Another corridor.

  This one was graced with strip-lights. One of them flickered. A blue bottle bounced along the plasterboard ceiling, doing a crazy waltz. I tried to ignore the loud buzz, but it was much the same as the sound inside my head. They blended and grew exponentially, juxtaposing one on top of the other. My mouth felt dry, like Ghandi’s flip-flop. Like Billy’s credit score.

  There was some hip-hop shit playing through a speaker. Couldn’t stand the stuff. All these young lads in the pool hall playing at being gangstas. Would’ve made me laugh if they weren’t so serious. Now I wasn’t happy. Maybe Billy had a point. Wasn’t too late to walk away.

  Of course it was. I’d made it all the way into the pool hall and it was like in those old westerns my dad used to watch on a Saturday afternoon. If there was a pianist, he’d have stopped playing. The hip-hop jagged on, and that was the only thing that spoiled the effect.