OOM: Weekend Warriors
1/5
It’s Saturday afternoon and he’s missing the match because of these bastards. He’d been on the way over to Maine Road when the call came through; reports of a violent assault out the back of a pub in Rusholme, the victim stabbed and critical. He’d sworn, of course, and did a U-turn in the street, forced to squeal off in the opposite direction. When he got there, Ray and Chris were standing around while the ambulance drivers loaded the bloke in - a glance at him made it pretty clear that they’d have to get any information out of him as soon as he woke up, if he woke up. He’d sent a couple of uniform off with him, trusting that they’ll get something before he carks it.
‘Where’s Tyler?’
‘Dunno, Guv. Haven’t seen him, an’ they haven’t been able to raise him on the radio.’
He swears again. ‘Send that plonk round to his place. He’ll answer the door to her. An’ then you two, get in there an’ bloody find me someone who knows something.’
‘Right, Guv.’
They don’t look too chuffed at having their weekend interrupted either, but he couldn’t give a toss. They didn’t have tickets for the match - a tasty little number, Liverpool at home. He’s starting to think he shouldn’t bother getting a season ticket anymore, the amount of games he misses.
An hour later, and it seems like the patrons of the Queen’s Head are all perfect, shiny, squeaky-clean examples of humanity. Not one of them knows anything about the two men who were supposed to have done this, none of them saw or heard anything. Just a bunch of fat, hairy, beer-swilling bastards who were in this shithole of a pub, on a Saturday afternoon, on match day, for a quiet pint and a game of dominoes. Because that happens all the time, doesn’t it?
‘Ray? Pick the two biggest sods an’ bring them into my office.’
He opens the door to the pub kitchen, which looks like a place nothing edible should ever see the inside of. Ray grins and drops his fag. ‘Yes, Guv.’ Five minutes later, with two likely looking victims placed inside, Gene shuts the door.
‘I don’t care which one of you speaks first. I won’t tell your mates you squealed, so if you promise t’keep it between yourselves, no one’ll ever know. But make no mistake, gentlemen, one of you - or both, if you like - is going to tell me what I want t’know.’
They both sneer. They’re both big, beefy twats, easily his height, and look like builders or something. He couldn’t give a toss. If he has to be here on a Saturday afternoon, then there’s no reason they shouldn’t suffer as well, particularly as they’re making his scumbag radar scream like an air-raid siren.
‘Sod off, pig. We don’ know nothin’, an’ we wouldn’t tell you if we did.’
‘There’s where you’re wrong. Ray.’
The mouthy one gets a punch square in the nose; he chooses to start on the ribs of the other one. Probably a good thing Tyler’s gone AWOL, really. It’s a nice little scrap. The blokes, big as they are, are wary of hitting coppers for the first few minutes; it’s only when it becomes apparent that getting done for assaulting a police officer isn’t going to be the main issue here, that they start fighting back. Ray takes one on the chin, and a glancing elbow splits his own eyebrow, and that’s when they have grounds to really go to town. The two of them have done this so many times before, nothing needs to be said. At the first sight of blood, the adrenaline kicks in and three minutes later, one of the bastards is out cold and the other is handcuffed to a chair.
‘What shall we do to him, Guv?’
He walks to the door and opens it a crack. ‘Chris, fetch me a lamp from the bar, and a roll of tape.’
Ten minutes is enough time to fill the room with the smell of burning skin. ‘It were the Morton’s OK? OK!? Jus’ stop, alright? The Morton brothers, tha’s what I heard. The bloke owed them money from a card game an’ couldn’t pay in time.’
‘The Morton brothers?’ He and Ray exchange a glance. It isn’t a name that’s come up before. ‘Right then. You, my friend, are going to accompany my good DS here down t’the station and tell us everythin’ you know about these blokes.’
‘I can’t, they’ll kill me!’
The expression on Gene’s face seems to get the message across that he really couldn’t give a toss if that happens, because the bloke starts looking properly scared. He doesn’t care about that either, and leaves Ray to mop up.
‘What do we do now, Guv?’ Chris had been left on guard duty, told to keep inquisitive punters out of the way. Punters, and Tyler, if the nancy-boy ever decides to show his face. Gene lights a fag, and flexes his hand, ignoring the sting of his split knuckles.
‘Help Ray get them two back to the station. Write up your reports, an’ be sure you mention how willing and eager they were to help us with our enquiries. Model citizens, who we barely had to ask a question of before they were fallin’ over themselves to help, got it?’
‘Yes, Guv.’
‘Stick it on my desk, I’ll get to it Monday mornin’. Oh, an’ keep an’ ear out for word from the hospital. If that fella wakes up, get round there an’ take a proper statement. I don’ trust uniform to do it right. We need descriptions of these Morton brothers.’
‘On it, Guv.’
Chris disappears into the kitchen, and Gene blows out a lungful of smoke. A cracked mirror, set into the old crockery dresser by the kitchen door, reveals a line of blood painted down his cheek from his eyebrow, and what looks like the start of a nice black eye. Oh well. He’ll just have to cancel that modelling contract he’d planned for tomorrow.
As soon as he gets in the car, he flicks the radio on. 3-0 City at full time. Bloody bastards. They could at least have had the decency to lose, if he wasn’t there to see it. Still. Good result, and United lost so that makes it even better. By the time he pulls up outside his front door, the afternoon hasn’t seemed such a waste. The Morton brothers. New names on his patch - a violent assault, and the hint of organised gambling, is a hell of a way for them to introduce themselves. Definitely ones to look out for, and look out for them he shall.
~ ~ ~
When he opens the front door, he’s greeted by the smell of something in the oven, and the tones of Roger Whitaker. In the kitchen, Barbara is facing away from him, peeling onions and singing along. He leans on the doorframe and watches, running his gaze down her body. She’s had that old dress for years and would never be seen out in it; she doesn’t even like him seeing her in it, anymore. But he thinks it suits her; just a bit too tight these days. She’s filled out in the last five years, and he doesn’t mind. He always liked a bird to have a nice, round arse and it’s displayed well this evening. He lights a fag with a snap of his Zippo, causing her to squeal and spin round, brandishing the knife in her hand.
‘Gene!’ She puts the knife down and places her hand over her chest instead. His gaze stays on it for a moment. ‘Bloody hell, you about gave me a ‘eart attack! What’re you doin’ here?’
‘I live here, last I looked.’
She’s taking in the state of his face, he knows. Her expression is turning from fear to concern, and he doesn’t move as she walks over; her thumb brushes his hair off his forehead so she can get a good look, and he doesn’t flinch. ‘Either City lost an’ you didn’t take kindly to some comments made, or you never made the match. Seein’ as you’re early an’ you don’t smell like a brewery, I’m guessing you got called into work.’
‘It’s nothin’.’
‘It’s always nothin’, with you. Sit down, I’ll clean it up. Dinner’ll be an hour - oi, get your hand off that! - - if you’re stayin’ for it.’
He drops his hand from her breast reluctantly, and shrugs his coat off before sitting down. Barbara looks a bit sorry, like she might have snapped too fiercely, but he can’t blame her. Saturday evenings are usually her own; most of Saturday night, too. He only turns up on the days he hasn’t made the football and the job doesn’t require him too long. On normal Saturday nights, his dinner is made about now, but he takes it from the oven about midnight, and eats alone.
‘You off down the bingo tonight?’
‘Well, I was goin’ to.’ She puts a beer down next to him, and waits for him to open it before wetting a ball of cotton wool. ‘But if you’re goin’ to be in, I’ll stay.’
He can’t work out if that means she wants him to be in or not. He has the suspicion that she really quite likes it when he stays out. She can see her mates then, and gossip about whatever it is girls gossip about when they’re on their own.
Sometimes he thinks he should really stop thinking of her as a girl. She’s nearly forty. But she’s always nineteen in his head, and her smile hasn’t changed over the years. Nor has her body, really, unblemished as it is from the lack of children.
‘Think I’ll go to the fights, seein’ as I missed the footy.’
‘Oh.’ She looks disappointed, and there’s a swell of something in his chest. Relief, maybe. Her hands are so gentle as they tend to him. ‘Well, alright.’
‘They don’ start ‘til nine though.’ His hands run up the outside of her thighs, under that dress. This time she doesn’t snap at him. She smiles a little bit.
‘Bingo’s at half seven.’
‘An hour off. What’re you goin’ t’do with the other forty-five minutes?’
‘You mean fifty minutes. It’ll give me time to have a bath, an’ look presentable.’ She is perfectly deadpan, right up until she cracks a grin at his sour expression. The cotton wool gets tossed on to the table, and she leans down and kisses the cut, then his lips. ‘Daft sod. Come on.’
He follows her up the stairs, thankful as he always is that ten minutes in her presence can stop him from being just a copper. He might not get any proper dinner tonight, but it’ll be worth it.
~ ~ ~
The Grand Theatre hasn’t been grand for thirty years. Before the war, it was apparently the place to go for a posh night out, all red and gilt, and no entrance if you weren’t dressed up to the nines like a nancy poof. These days, they try to maintain the illusion, but nothing can hide the flaking paint and threadbare seats. It probably doesn’t help that it’s used less as a theatre now, and more somewhere for staging bouts like this. Gene looks down at the ring from the top of the stairs. Its sagging ropes and patchy surface conceals the stories of ten thousand dancing feet, countless broken faces, any amount of shattered dreams. It’s hard to believe that a ring like that can be freedom for these men, even if only in their heads - they dream of titles and championship bouts, the big prizes and money. It even happens for some of them, and good luck to them. But they’re not the ones Gene comes to watch. He likes the ones who are not just fighters. The ones who are men that fight, those are who he stays out for. Not the lads who shine, and sail through with ease, but the ones who come out as underdogs and scrap their way through it, putting their balls on the line, fuelled by passion and heart and spirit. Whether they emerge victorious or not, it doesn’t matter to him. Just by laying themselves out there, they prove their worth. He has all the time in the world for men like that.
‘Gene! You made it.’
‘Terry. Yeah, found myself at a loose end.’
Terry Haslam’s hand is large, and uneven. When he shakes it, he’s always put in mind of a bag of carrots - bits stick out where you don’t expect, but it’s firm and strong as anything. A fighter’s hand. Haslam’s another that pulled himself up out of the gutter, using nothing but his fists and his brain.
‘Come on then, Chief Inspector. Nothing but ringside for Manchester’s finest, eh?’
‘Cheers, Terry.’ He knew it would happen, of course. It always does. He hasn’t sat anywhere but ringside for years. But unlike the bankers and judges he sits next to, he hasn’t bought this seat. Not with money, anyway. And that never used to be a problem. Haslam’s already leading him down though, and he follows, cigar in hand. Just once more won’t hurt, will it? He can ignore that animal in his stomach, and Tyler’s voice, for one more night.
Davie Mackay is fourth on the bill. He’s always worth a watch. By the time the first round is over, he’s forgotten any lingering doubts over whether he should be here; he’s forgotten how much the loudmouth git on his left is annoying him with his swish clothes and faux-posh accent. He’s just roaring with the rest of the crowd, bobbing his head and mentally weaving along with Davie, muttering instructions under his breath as he follows his every move. Stay tucked in...mind his left...c’mon, Davie, use your feet... He lives and dies with the man in the ring, and things are looking bad at the end of the second, when Terry comes to sit next to him.
‘He’s in trouble, Terry.’
‘Wilkes’ll sort him out. Dunno how the man does it. Every time I think he’s about to fall over, Pete says something in the corner and he comes out like someone’s branded his arse.’
‘Fightin’ spirit, I think that’s called.’
‘Well, he wouldn’ be much without it.’ Haslam eyes his man as the bell rings again. ‘He’ll be down the club tomorrow mornin’, Gene. If you want to come down, you know you’re more than welcome.’
He hesitates, his eyes riveted on Mackay as he takes a bruising left to the eye-socket. ‘Might do that, ta. I’ll see how much work I’ve got on.’
Haslam laughs and stands up, clapping a hand on his shoulder. ‘Well, you look like you’ve had a job or two today. I reckon you won’ look much better than Davie there, come morning. Well, it’s up to you, Gene. We’ll be there from ten.’
He has no real intention of going. Meeting the fighters, going down to training sessions - they’re not a favour to a friend, no matter how much they’re made to look that way. And he’s been stopping all of that kind of behaviour. But then, in the fifth, Mackay goes down. He thinks it’ll probably be a miracle if he isn’t in hospital at ten tomorrow morning, judging by the state of him. His opponent, some Geordie twat wearing Newcastle United shorts, starts blowing kisses to the crowd; he can feel the mood starting to turn ugly, even before the booing starts. By the time the next bout kicks off, half of the posh twats down here have legged it, but he has no intention of going anywhere. If the place kicks off, that’s just fine with him.
~ ~ ~
He wakes to an empty bed, though there’s a bacon sarnie and a cold cup of tea on the nightstand next to him. A note reads, My turn to take Mrs. Williams to church. Probably stop for tea after - back by one, for lunch. Your Sunday suit’s in the bathroom. See you later, B x
He eats the sandwich and drinks the tea. His head hurts, but not as bad as it usually does on a Sunday morning. The one advantage from missing the football, obviously. His thoughts are on Davie, lying unconscious on the mat with the ref counting ten over him, and that young Geordie lad riling the crowd. Git. Rumour has it that a few blokes met him as he left out the back of the theatre last night, but he hadn’t seen anything. Or heard anything, even though he’d been leaning on the wall at the end of the alley when the ambulance flashed past him. Sometimes a few drinks puts that animal in his stomach straight to sleep, and Tyler’s voice is never that hard to quash when he wants to. He isn’t changing his behaviour to please him, after all.
The boxing club has looked the same for as long as he’s been coming here. He’d paid a couple of visits when he was a lad, mainly to look for Stu. It has that same smell of sweat and testosterone, the same dirty cream walls, and he swears those are bloodstains on the floor by Haslam’s office.
‘Didn’t think you’d make it Gene, after the trouble last night.’
‘Weren’t nothin’ t’do with me, Terry. Alrigh’, Pete? How’s Davie doing?’
‘Ask him yourself, Mr. Hunt.’
He follows the man’s nod, turning to see Mackay over in the corner with the skipping rope, sweat running in rivulets down his broken face. ‘Bloody hell. Thought they’d have kept him in hospital.’
Haslam and Wilkes both laugh, as though he really should have known better. He probably should. ‘Jus’ fifty more, Davie. Don’ overdo it now.’ Pete Wilkes has the air of a football manager about him, despite being a scrawny old bastard. But it’s clear that his word is law when it comes to training. Gene has no doubt that any one of these fighters would walk through fire for this man. He recognises the same respect from his own lads.
‘Scotch, Gene?’
‘Aye. Ta.’
Sitting in Terry’s office these days has that uncomfortable doctor’s-surgery feel to it. You’re faced with a man who knows intimate things about you, yet you’re forced to talk like the balance of the relationship is equal, or thereabouts. The thing with doctors is that they’re bound by oath, and law, to keep their mouth shut about your dirty little secrets; with Haslam, there’s only the equilibrium to maintain that privacy. Gene knows that an hour’s probing by his team, directed by him, could turn Haslam’s life to shit. It’s just that an hour after that, the bloke would use his phone call to ring his lawyer, who’d then deliver some pertinent information straight to the Chief Constable. They both know it. So he sits here as a boxing fan, nothing more; they watch some sparring and he points out where he thinks the weak points are. Wilkes nods, and yells over the ropes, ‘You hear that, lads? Don’t even need t’be a boxer to see where you’re goin’ wrong. So concentrate!’
Terry laughs at that. ‘Wouldn’ be so sure, Pete. Gene here’s a bit handy with his fists, isn’ that right, Chief Inspector?’
‘Never stood in a ring, though.’
‘Don’t have to stand in a ring to be a fighter.’
It’s not a conversation he’s comfortable with, especially when he sees Davie standing nearby, and easily within earshot. Haslam notices him too, and calls him over to greet their ‘esteemed guest’, which only makes him feel worse. The man is a mess, his face one big bruise, his lips swollen to double their usual size. But his eyes are sharp as ever; Gene’s careful when he shakes his hand, in case it’s damaged, and the scorn he sees in them makes this whole visit that bit more uncomfortable.
‘Bad luck last night, Davie.’
The pause seems indeterminable. Mackay’s eyes flick to Haslam, who clears his throat, and Gene pretends he doesn’t notice. ‘Aye.’
His broad Scottish accent is made flatter by unenthusiasm, and the damage to his mouth. There is nothing relaxed about his stance; Gene takes him in and then turns away. He needs to get out of here. But Haslam is already calling another one over, ‘championship contender, this lad!’ and he’s shaking another hand, looking in another set of eyes, only these ones hold nothing but willingness to do what they’re told. He feels Davie standing behind them, next to Wilkes, and feels like he’s become of those twats he shares ringside with, the ones he despises.
It’s half an hour before he can get away, claiming a previous engagement. It happens to be true; Gene doesn’t miss Sunday lunch at his mam’s for any reason except an emergency at work, and not just because she’ll shout if he does. He’s almost at the door when a voice stops him.
‘Mr. Hunt.’
Mackay is in the ring, his arms hanging over the ropes, looking loose and comfortable. Gene lights a fag and nods, wondering when he became a man that someone like Davie can’t relate to.
‘Pete says you’ve got a good eye for a fighter.’
‘Nice of him.’
‘What’d you really think of last night?’
He doesn’t hesitate. ‘Either you’d had a hell of a curry for lunch an’ were still too full to move, or your legs are goin’, son.’
It’s hard to tell what his expression would be if his face were normal, but Gene thinks maybe the steel in his eyes lessens a touch. ‘Maybe.’ There’s a pause. ‘If you’ve never stood in a ring, where’d you learn to fight?’
Gene snorts, turning away and flinging his cigarette to the floor. He’s done with this. ‘Me ol’ man taught me.’
He vows, as he leaves, that next time he’ll be watching from the cheap seats, where the real people sit.