The Reckoning (Carter Brothers), page 10
‘Do you really hate me that much?’ Danny interrupted. ‘Is that what this is all about?’
For a long moment, Maxine paused.
Her response told Danny everything he needed to know, and he gave a tight laugh. ‘Do you wanna know something?’ he said. ‘For years, I’ve put up with you dictating when I could or couldn’t see my kids. Everything had to be on your terms; you never gave a shit about what I thought or what I wanted. How many birthdays and Christmases did I miss out on, eh, all because of you and your fucking selfishness? And if I didn’t dance to your tune, what was it you used to say? Well, come on, Max’ – he tilted his face towards her and cupped his ear – ‘spit it fucking out, what was it you used to say to me?’
‘I don’t remember.’ Pressing her lips together, Maxine turned her head away, and as an image of her children sprang to her mind, she felt the urge to cry. She would have given everything for her second husband Steve to have been Logan and Lexi’s biological father; it certainly would have made her life a whole lot easier. Unlike Danny, Steve was kind and gentle, he would never even dream of cheating on her like Danny had. Oh, her ex-husband might have denied his infidelity until he was blue in the face, but she knew the truth, Danny was a cheat and it was as simple as that.
‘Well, let me fucking remind you,’ Danny snarled. ‘You used to threaten me that you’d stop me from seeing my kids, that Steve could easily step up and take my place. Well,’ he said with a hint of sarcasm, ‘let me tell you now, sweetheart, that’s never going to happen. They’re my kids, mine and yours, and unless it’s escaped your notice, they’re adults now. That means you don’t have any control over them, you don’t get to shout the odds any more.’
‘It wasn’t like that,’ Maxine cried.
‘Yes, it was,’ Danny snarled. Sitting back in his seat, he lifted the mug to his lips and took a long sip. For the first time since their divorce, her tears meant nothing to him. They had always been her weapon of choice. Every Christmas and birthday, she would turn on the waterworks and plead with him to allow the children stay with her, knowing full well that he would finally give in and back down. Well, enough was enough, he’d swallowed his knob for far too long, and had just about had enough of her and her shit to last him a lifetime. In fact, it would be fair to say that he’d had a gutful.
Scraping back his chair, Danny got to his feet and, leaning his weight upon the table, he looked down at her. ‘You asked me what I’m going to do about this,’ he said, his voice low and menacing. ‘What do you think I’m going to do, Max? That’s my little girl up there,’ he said, jerking his thumb towards the ceiling. ‘Did you honestly think I was going to let the bastard get away with this?’ He shook his head and gave a low, throaty chuckle. ‘I thought you knew me better than that. After all, that’s what you keep on telling me, isn’t it, that I’m no good, that I’m tainted, that I’ve put our kids in danger. Well, let me tell you now, Max, you know fuck all about me. I’d die for our children, and I’d kill for them, too.’
As she looked up at her ex-husband, fear gripped at Maxine’s heart. Since their divorce, he’d never so much as raised his voice to her, and she wasn’t afraid to admit that the venom in his tone chilled her to the bone.
‘So, in answer to your question of what I’m going to do.’ He leant in even closer. ‘I’m going to kill the fucker. In fact, when I get my hands on the bastard, he’s going to wish he’d never been fucking born.’
Instinct told Maxine that he was telling the truth, that Danny would not only commit murder but that he’d take pleasure from it too, and not for the first time she wondered what kind of man she’d allowed into her life.
Two hours later, Danny was in his and Moray’s office at the club and sitting opposite him was the head doorman, Callum Riley.
‘I don’t know what else I can tell you,’ Callum stated as he scratched at the stubble covering his jaw. ‘Everyone was searched, I know they were, and like I’ve already said, I didn’t leave the foyer, not even to go for a piss.’
Danny narrowed his eyes and, sitting forward in the chair, he leant his forearms on the desk. ‘Let’s start again,’ he said, ‘but this time tell me who wasn’t searched.’
Confusion spread across Callum’s face and, as he finally cottoned on to what Danny was getting at, his mouth fell slightly open. ‘Oh,’ he said, trying to think back, ‘well, the staff, obviously, they’re never searched.’
Danny nodded; it was exactly as he’d expected. ‘Who else?’
Callum rubbed his lips together, his mind going into overdrive. ‘Your kids. I mean, that goes without saying, doesn’t it?’ he said, speaking so fast that his Irish accent had become even more prominent, forcing Danny to have to crane his neck forward to keep up with what was being said. ‘We wouldn’t have searched them, why would we have?’
Thinking this over, Danny leant his chin on his steepled fingers. ‘So,’ he said, ‘my son, for example, wouldn’t have been searched.’
Callum shook his head.
‘What about Moray’s boys?’
Again, Callum shook his head. ‘It would never have even entered our heads to search them.’ The door to the office opened to reveal Moray standing in the doorway and, picking up on the tension between his two bosses, Callum cleared his throat and got to his feet. ‘I should get back to the doors,’ he said, feeling somewhat relieved to get out of their way. Should either one of them kick off, he knew for a fact he wouldn’t be able to break them apart or do much to calm the situation down; they were a law unto themselves, always had been.
Once Callum had left the office, Moray jerked his thumb behind him. ‘Did I interrupt something?’ he asked, his tone accusing.
‘Nah,’ Danny answered, kissing his teeth. ‘Cal was just clarifying something for me.’
Moray’s eyes hardened. ‘Well, seeing as we’re partners, do you want to pass on what that something might be, you know, keep me in the loop? This is my club, too, unless it’s escaped your notice.’
‘Aaron,’ Danny said, leaning back in his chair, his eyes equally hard. ‘He wasn’t searched.’
A heavy silence filled the office, both men sizing one another up. Equally matched, they were both tall, broad-shouldered, and physically capable of causing one another some serious harm.
‘You just couldn’t leave it, could you?’ Moray spat. ‘What is this, a vendetta against my son?’
Danny shrugged and, maintaining eye contact, he leant back in his seat, locked his fingers together and rested his elbows on the armrests. ‘Maybe you should ask yourself why you’re so worried? I mean’ – he spread open his arms – ‘if this was Logan we were talking about, I’d laugh in your fucking face.’
Moray swallowed deeply. Unbeknownst to Danny, he had just hit the proverbial nail on the head. If it had been his youngest son, Colm, accused of attempted murder then Moray would have laughed too, a huge belly laugh that would have had him doubled over with tears streaming down his cheeks. The very notion that his youngest son would even think about trying to kill him was ludicrous. He and Colm were close, always had been, and yeah, admittedly his son had done wrong in the past, but he’d served his time and ever since his release from prison, he’d managed to knuckle down and turn his life around, and Moray couldn’t have been any prouder of him if he tried. Only it wasn’t Colm they were talking about, it was Aaron, the son who he suspected was not only capable of trying to top him but who would do so with a grin on his face.
‘I’m not worried,’ he said with a slight shrug which even by his own admission was a weak attempt at disproving his son’s involvement.
‘Well, in that case, you won’t mind me having a little chat with him, then, will you?’
His heart sinking, Moray inwardly groaned. In the past, Danny’s little chats had been anything but friendly, and he’d seen first-hand the damage Danny had inflicted on men he’d supposedly only been having a friendly conversation with.
‘He’s my son,’ Moray implored, ‘and yeah, I’ll be the first to hold my hand up and admit that he’s a cocky little fucker, as you well know. He’s got a chip on his shoulder the size of a fucking boulder, but he’s still my boy, and I can’t let you go to town on him, you know I can’t, he’s my flesh and blood.’
‘Who said anything about going to town on him?’ Danny answered as he got to his feet and walked around the desk, filling the gap between them. ‘Like I said, me and him are gonna have a nice friendly little chat, that’s all, nothing more and nothing less.’
As Danny walked from the office, Moray closed his eyes in distress. He needed to speak to Aaron, he decided, and find out one way or another if he’d had any involvement in the shooting before Danny laid his eyes upon him.
10
Stretching out on his brother’s leather sofa, Aaron yawned loudly, then nudged Skinny awake with his foot.
Sound asleep on the matching reclining armchair, Skinny awoke with a start. ‘What?’ he cried, gripping onto the armrests for dear life. Instantly he regretted the action and, as pain tore through his swollen ankle, he hissed out a number of expletives.
‘Is it still playing up?’ Aaron asked, eyeing the bruising with a grimace. In the daylight, the damage was even more prominent, and Skinny’s foot and ankle were so swollen that his ankle bone was no longer visible.
Skinny rubbed at his eyes, then nodded. ‘Have you got anything on you?’ he pleaded. ‘Anything that’ll take the edge off this bastard pain, it’s had me awake for most of the night.’
Aaron’s gaze darted towards the kitchen, where his brother was pouring boiling water into three mugs. ‘Here.’ Digging his hand into his pocket, he pulled out a tiny white pill and discreetly passed it across. ‘Don’t let him catch you, whatever you do,’ he said, nodding in his brother’s direction. ‘You know what the miserable little fucker is like; he’s been around my old man for too long.’
Snatching the pill out of Aaron’s hand, Skinny popped it into his mouth and swallowed it down dry, just as Colm brought through the mugs of tea.
‘Cheers.’ Wrapping his fingers around the mug handed to him, Aaron sipped at the hot sweet tea. ‘You’ve done this place up nice,’ he said, looking around the lounge where he and Skinny had spent the night. ‘It looks the bollocks.’ And it was true, the walls had been painted a soft grey; a plush dark grey carpet thick enough for his toes to sink into was laid throughout the flat; and on the wall, a sixty-two-inch television took pride of place. In the middle of the lounge was a glass and chrome coffee table where a games console and a neat stack of video games were housed on the lower shelf. His brother even owned coasters, thick, black ceramic ones that he guessed were to protect the glass table from any heat rings or smears.
The flat looked every inch the bachelor pad that it was and had obviously been well cared for. The leather sofa and matching recliner chair alone must have run into the thousands and he wondered if their father had dipped his hand into his pocket and stumped up the cash to pay for the three-piece, not to mention the carpet and the rest of the furniture; it wasn’t as though Colm would have been able to afford to buy any of it outright on his salary working at the club. From what he could remember of his short stint working at the club, their father had paid them peanuts, and he doubted much had changed over the years.
‘Yeah, I like it,’ Colm answered with a nod as he followed his brother’s gaze.
As much as he didn’t want it to, a pang of jealously rippled through Aaron’s veins. Colm’s flat made his own place look like a shit hole in comparison. The furniture, including the white goods and kitchen utensils, had been sourced by their mother, the majority of it donated by her well-meaning church friends as though he was a charity case, which in a way he supposed he had been. Fresh out of prison, he’d had nothing to call his own, not even a sleeping bag or a tent, and if that wasn’t bad enough, she’d expected him to be grateful that he was forced to sleep on a stained mattress complete with several springs that poked through the stuffing and dug into his back.
A heavy silence fell across the room and, perching on the edge of the sofa, Colm sipped at his tea. ‘Do you want a lift to the hospital?’ he asked, eyeing Skinny’s ankle.
Inspecting his foot, Skinny thought the question through. The swelling and bruising alone was enough to tell him that his ankle was broken and that was without the throbbing pain that had kept him awake most of the night. ‘Yeah, man,’ he finally answered.
‘Right, then.’ Gulping down his drink, Colm placed the empty mug on a coaster and stood up. ‘Shall we make a move? I could drop you off home,’ he said, addressing his brother, ‘after I’ve given Skinny a lift to the hospital.’
‘What… now?’ Aaron’s eyes widened; he’d been hoping to at least sit it out at his brother’s flat for a few days before Colm threw him out.
‘Yeah.’ Colm shifted his weight from one foot to the other, his cheeks flushing pink. ‘I’ve got some things I need to do…’ It was a lie, and he had a feeling they both knew it. The truth was, he couldn’t wait to get them out of his home. From the very moment he’d agreed they could stay the night, he’d regretted his decision. ‘Besides, Dad will be over soon.’ Another lie. He made a show of checking the time on his watch, then deliberately glanced out of the window, knowing full well that his brother wouldn’t want to stick around should their father turn up.
‘Looks like that’s our cue to leave, then,’ Aaron grumbled. He placed his full mug on the coffee table, then swung his legs around and pulled on his trainers. He was starving and had been eyeing up the pack of bacon in his brother’s fridge ever since he’d arrived the previous evening. He could think of nothing he wanted more than to sink his teeth into a bacon sarnie and just the mere thought of the crispy bacon piled between slices of thick buttered bread with a dollop of brown sauce was enough to make his stomach grumble even louder. Other than a tin of tuna that he suspected was months out of date, his own cupboards were bare, and with no cash to fall back on until his next giro came through, it looked as though he’d be going hungry for the considerable future. ‘Can you drop me off at Mum’s instead?’ he asked, hoping that his mother would have some food in; she usually cooked for an army and, if luck was on his side, she might even have some bacon in.
Colm nodded and, twirling the car key around his index finger, he inched closer to the front door, eager to get Aaron and his friend out of the flat before they had any ideas about staying for the long haul or, God forbid, moving in.
With four brothers-in-law, Stacey Carter was no stranger to picking up on tension between them. When they’d been younger, the brothers falling out had been a daily occurrence and that was without the physical fights she’d often had to contend with. The fact they were a boxing family had made their brawls all the more legendary. The strained relationship between Danny and Moray was no different, she’d been able to pick up on the atmosphere as soon as she and Jimmy had entered the club.
Seated in the office, Stacey sipped at a cup of coffee and observed Danny over the rim of her cup. She knew him well enough to know that he was not only tired but that he also had the weight of the world hanging over him like a dark cloud.
‘How’s Lexi?’ she asked.
Rubbing the palm of his hand over his face, Danny sank back in the chair. The fact Stacey was concerned enough to ask how his daughter was doing spoke volumes. Maria, on the other hand, hadn’t even bothered to enquire about her future stepdaughter’s health. ‘She’s doing well, considering,’ he sighed. ‘She’s been moved on to a general ward.’
‘Well, that sounds promising.’ As Stacey smiled, an image of her late husband sprang to her mind. Like Lexi, Tommy too had been shot, only a part of the bullet had imploded on impact, and even after surgery, shrapnel had been left behind. His liver had taken the brunt of the damage and, as a result, his injuries had been too severe; he’d never even made it out of the intensive care unit.
Moray cleared his throat and, shooting Danny a surreptitious glance, he turned his attention back to Jimmy. ‘And you reckon it’ll be worth us paying Evans a visit?’ he asked, keen to get back down to business.
Jimmy nodded. ‘It can’t hurt, can it, and believe me,’ he said, laughing, ‘if he knows something, he’ll open his trap, you know what he’s like,’ he said, giving a slight shrug, ‘he’s shit scared of his own fucking shadow.’
Moray nodded; they’d had enough run-ins with Clifford Evans over the years to know that the man was nothing other than a waste of oxygen who’d do anything to save his own skin, even if that meant giving up his nearest and dearest in the process. His only saving grace was that he had a vast network; nothing went down on the streets without Clifford knowing about it first. ‘What do you reckon,’ he asked Danny, ‘it’s gotta be worth a shot, hasn’t it?’
His expression remaining hard, Danny steepled his fingers. As far as he was concerned, it would be a waste of their time; they already had the culprit in their sights, whether Moray wanted to acknowledge the fact or not. ‘You already know what I think,’ he growled, stabbing a finger in his oldest friend’s direction. ‘We need to look closer to home.’
Looking between the two men, Stacey narrowed her eyes and pondered the cryptic meaning behind Danny’s words. ‘Look,’ she said, trying her utmost to keep the peace, ‘if you go and see this Clifford fella, what’s the worst that could happen? You could walk away empty-handed, or,’ she said with a slight smile, ‘you might just get a name out of him and then you’ll know one way or another who was responsible.’
‘Stace has got a point,’ Jimmy conceded. ‘If he knows something, he’ll squeal louder than a pig, you know he will.’
Reluctantly, Danny nodded, if for no other reason than to be able to prove he was right about Aaron being the shooter. ‘Fair enough,’ he said, not taking his hard stare away from Moray, ‘we’ll pay him a visit and, believe me when I say this, I won’t be walking away until I get a name out of the fat bastard.’
