Tommy nursed his drink for a while, letting everything Eamonn was saying sink in. Then: ‘You want me to join the IRA?’
‘Do I fuck! You’ll be like an independent contractor - I think that’s the best way to explain it - you’d work for us indirectly. I’ll put people into key positions in Liverpool and other Northern cities. You’ll watch the London end of the operation, though everyone else will report directly to you. Believe me, after O’Hare’s death no one will take it on themselves to do anything more than grumble in private. We can, in effect, sew up the whole fucking country.’
Tommy shook his head in wonderment.
Eamonn laughed gently. ‘Listen to me, I know this is a hell of a lot to take in . . .’
Tommy interrupted him sharply. ‘I’m in, mate. No danger.’
The two men stared at one another then smiled.
‘Tonight we make our way up to Scally land and we sort out a couple of faces. I want you seen and noticed by the community we’re catering for. That way they’ll have a working knowledge of what’s in store should any of them decide to step out of line. Do you think you could handle that?’ Eamonn enquired.
Tommy shrugged. ‘Fair enough. What exactly does it entail?’
‘Murder, that’s what it entails,’ Eamonn told him, ‘and if you think you can’t hack it, I need to know now.’
‘I had a feeling you was going to say that,’ Tommy said. ‘What time do we leave?’
Eamonn grinned in appreciation. This time it reached his eyes, enhancing his handsome looks. ‘Good man - I knew I could trust you. Cathy spoke highly of you and your father, which is why you’re here now.’
Tommy smiled lazily, his brown eyes suddenly wary. ‘She always spoke highly of you too, Mr Docherty! I understand you go back a long, long way?’
‘We do that. But between you and me, Tommy, it’ll be a purely business arrangement. We’ll see about a friendship as we go along, yeah?’
Tommy clinked his glass against Eamonn’s and nodded. ‘Sounds good to me. Now, what are we getting up to in Liverpool . . .?’
Terence Rankin was not a big man, not in terms of size anyway. In fact he was small by a hard man’s standards. Barely five foot six, he was stocky, muscular, but short. Terence’s place in the criminal underworld had been won because he was a psychopath, a mean, vicious and unrelenting lunatic. He was the man who always wanted to fight the biggest bloke in the pub, who baited them, took the piss out of them and humiliated them until they were honour bound to take a punch at the little man before them.
The little sober man before them, because Terence didn’t drink, he didn’t smoke and he didn’t take drugs. He needed no artificial stimulants to make him aggressive. It was with him twenty-four hours of the day.
Now, as he sat in his four-bedroomed detached house in the Wirral, he was listening to his mother’s voice as she berated him once more on the subject of his ex-wife.
Livvy Rankin was as big as her son was small, eighteen stone and nearly six foot tall. Her only child was her pride and joy and also the thorn in her side, as she would tell anyone who would listen to her.
‘Why the hell you can’t try and be nice to Tracey, I don’t understand. I want the kids here weekends, and I want them here at Christmas and New Year and all the time you’re roaring at the girl and scaring the life out of her, I don’t get to see the children. Would you not give her a ring and say you’re sorry? Apologise for hitting her father as well. Poor man, he must be sixty-five if he’s a day and you had to thump him.’ She shook her head in consternation.
Terence knew when he was beaten. He would do as his mother asked. He always did.
‘I’ll do it in the morning, go round and see her, then I’ll bring the girls back to visit you. How’s that, Ma?’
Livvy smiled. ‘That would be grand. Now eat your fry. Are you going out at all?’
Terence nodded. ‘I’m meeting a friend. You off to bingo?’
‘Yeah, that’s right.’
Livvy left for bingo with her cronies at 7.35. At 7.40, Terence was on his way to visit a prostitute called Mavis Henson. He was a regular, and saw her three times a week. He would reach her flat at eight o’clock precisely and stay for three hours. It was like a ritual to him. Mavis provided erotic sex, at a price. She was worth every penny.
Terence was whistling as he drove along, oblivious to the rest of the world. He had someone to see first, but would do that quickly. He hated to be late for a date with Mavis.
David Brewster was in the lounge of his small mid-terrace house in Knowsley watching the end of
Coronation Street
. Hilda Ogden and Elsie Tanner were having one of their periodic feuds and he was smiling as the end credits came up. His wife Louisa was sitting with their youngest child, Carrie, on her lap.
She said gaily, ‘That Hilda Ogden is funny, eh, Davie? Playing the radio really loud to annoy Elsie. I thought I’d bust me sides.’
David grinned. He was a tall, heavy-set man with dark wavy hair and a full beard. He was handsome enough, and knew it. His wife, however, was exquisite and David adored her. He loved
Coronation Street
too, though he pretended to watch it on sufferance because his wife liked it. He didn’t fool her and they both knew it.
Carrie was nodding off. David picked her up and said: ‘I’ll put her to bed for you, love. Stick the kettle on and we’ll have a cuppa. I have to slip out later.’
Louisa handed him the child and as he made his way upstairs, she went into the kitchen and put the kettle on. Just then, Terence Rankin walked through the back door of their house as if he owned it. Louisa opened her mouth to protest and he sideswiped her with the back of his hand, barely even pausing as he passed her. She was knocked against the sink. Popping his head into the lounge and finding it empty, he heard David’s voice coming from upstairs.
‘What was that noise, love?’
Terence Rankin’s face was a mask of hatred, lips pulled back over his teeth. He took the stairs two at a time. David’s older children, twin boys of twelve, watched as the man attacked their father on the landing.
He seemed to disappear under a rain of heavy blows and it took a while for them to realise that the intruder had something on his knuckles. The dusters Terence wore smashed through bone and gristle. Little Carrie walked out on to the landing and was knocked flying by the madman attacking her father.
Eventually it stopped.
Their father was lying in a pool of blood on the brand new orange and brown shagpile carpet, and their mother was standing at the top of the stairs, crying, her hands to her face. She looked at the man before her.
‘But why? Why, Terry? What’s he ever done to you?’ She was shaking her head in bewilderment.
Terence Rankin looked at her long and hard before he said: ‘He laughed at me, Louisa, I saw him. He laughed at me, and no one does that and gets away with it. Tell him he’s out. No more work from me or anyone.’
With that he walked calmly from the house. He was fifteen minutes late for his date with Mavis and that annoyed him. She took one look at him and knew she was in for a night of it.
Sighing, she plastered a smile on her face and emptied her mind of everything but the man before her. With the Rankins of this world, you needed your wits about you. Your wits and your cunning.
He was a dangerous and slippery customer but he paid well, and that was the main thing.
Unlike Rankin, Michael Duffy
was
a big man.
Over six foot, he was built like the heavyweight boxer he once was with a handsome battered face from his days in the ring. Women adored him, which was a great shame because he much preferred the company of other men. Not that he was gay, far from it. But Michael Duffy had lost part of his penis many years before in a gang fight, and could not function physically with anyone. Not even himself.
No one knew about it, though, and it was because of this lack in himself that from time to time he gave vent to his frustration in outbursts of savage violence.
When he wasn’t working for O’Hare, he kept himself pretty much to himself. It was the only way he could avoid becoming embroiled in pointless encounters with the women he craved but could not hope to satisfy.
He was in his flat when a call came for him to meet Eamonn Docherty. After feeding his Dobermann, he dressed carefully for the meeting. It was late in the evening and that suited Michael. He liked the night.
Like his counterpart, Terence Rankin, he knew nothing of his boss’s demise. It wouldn’t be common knowledge for a few days and by then it would be too late for him to do anything about it.
Mavis was lying on her stomach trying to rest. It had been a hectic couple of hours but even though Terence had been rough, she’d enjoyed herself. She liked rough sex sometimes, and Terence was a master of it.
However, tonight she was to receive money the like of which she had only ever dreamed of before, and now was the time to start really earning it. As Terence lay on the bed, trying to steady his breathing, she put her arm around him.
‘That was great, Terry, really great.’
He turned to face her and nodded, agreeing with her. His orgasm had been intense and long. Now he felt relaxed and ready to sleep.
She stroked his face. ‘Have a little nap if you like, Tel. Shall I make you another drink?’
He nodded. He felt heavy, his limbs and eyes like lead. As he tried to move once more, he found he couldn’t for some reason and was afraid. He felt the movement of the bed as Mavis got up. He tried to focus and couldn’t - everything was blurred. When she snapped the handcuffs on him, he couldn’t resist. Mavis smiled down at him.
‘Go to sleep, Terry, you’ll soon feel better.’
He had no option; he did as she told him. Feeling much safer now he was contained, Mavis picked up the phone and began to dial. It was strange but she’d miss him in a funny sort of way, although she had a feeling she might be the only one.
By 11.45, both Michael Duffy and Terence Rankin were in a small warehouse by the Albert Dock. Michael had driven himself there, though Terence had been taken, very much against his will. Once the drug had worn off he was not the most happy of men, and his constant threats were beginning to get on Eamonn’s and Tommy’s nerves.
Finally, Eamonn had had enough. He cracked Terence over the head with a piece of wood he found lying on the floor. ‘Now shut your fucking trap, will you!’
Terence stared up at him with deep hatred in his eyes and Eamonn knew that this man had to die, because if he did not Eamonn himself would never be safe again.
Michael Duffy had been easier than they’d thought; it hadn’t taken as much to overpower him and now he lay on the dirty floor, quiet and watchful. He would try and talk his way out of this mess, Eamonn knew, and admired him for it. But there was no way Duffy was leaving the warehouse alive either. No fucking way.
These men were to act as examples for everyone who had worked for O’Hare. Their deaths would show exactly what happened to people who thought they could get out of their trees and tuck up the Irish.
It wasn’t until Tommy and Eamonn had poured petrol on the two prisoners that the enormity of their situation hit home. The smell was heavy in the confined space and the two men were terrified. Tommy found it in his heart to feel pity for them, as bad as they were supposed to be. It was a terrible way to die. But they had asked for it, both of them, and he understood this much: when you ran a big organisation, you needed discipline. You needed the people who worked for you to know that they had to toe the line, had to listen to orders and obey them without dissent. Had to be one hundred per cent trustworthy.
If a few got it into their heads that they could overrule you or take what was yours, then you had to set an example. This was a particularly gruesome example, but Tommy knew that it would do the job.
The two hardest men in Liverpool were to be burned alive for the common good. Once this news hit the streets, together with word of O’Hare’s being found scattered all over the South East like a paperchase, only a raving lunatic would ever attempt to step out of line again.
It meant the Irish could rule from afar with their face installed to pass on orders. It meant peace of mind, not only for Eamonn and his IRA cronies, but also for the lower echelons of their empire. They needed to know that everything was under control; needed to know exactly how far they could go.
It was just good business, really.
‘You cunts! You don’t fucking scare me.’
Terence’s voice was strong again, heavy with malice. Eamonn and Tommy ignored him. They sat at a table and broke open another bottle of Black Label.
Eamonn checked his watch. Five of their men were to witness the execution. It was the best way to keep order in the ranks and ensure that the murders became a talking point among them.
Terence began ranting and raving, spittle clinging to his lips as he writhed on the floor like a snake.
Eamonn laughed. ‘Look at him! He’s a fucking nutcase.’
Tommy laughed with him, the adrenaline beginning to surge through his veins. He knew he was in the company of a stronger will than his own and he relished it. With the Irish behind him, he was laughing all the way to the bank. After all, who would dare to challenge him now?
‘How long now?’ he asked.
Eamonn checked his watch. ‘About another hour and a half. I want them all here to see this.’
Tommy watched the two men again. The petrol smell must have been awful for them. It was bad enough they knew they were going to die; it seemed cruel to leave them so long with petrol all over their clothes and skin.
Eamonn guessed his thoughts and said quietly: ‘I know what you’re thinking, but by the time the others arrive they’ll both have accepted their fate. I know what I’m doing, believe me. I have a lot of experience in this type of work.’ His voice was matter-of-fact. He betrayed no feelings for the men whatsoever.