No More Heroes (21 page)

The door opens on a chain. I can see a guy in the gap.

“Yes?” he says.

“My name’s Callum Innes. Wonder if I could have a wee word with you.”

“What’s it about?”

“It’s a little delicate actually, kind of private. I need to ask you a few questions. Probably best we do it inside.”

He looks at me. Up and down, trying to gauge how important I am. Then he says, “Are you police?”

“No, I’m a private investigator.”

He laughs, then narrows his eyes at me. “You’re serious.”

“I am.” I show him my business card.

He laughs again. “I know you. You were in the newspaper.”

Might as well use it to my advantage. “Yeah.”

“You work for Donald Plummer.”

“That’s right.”

He nods, then slams the door in my face.

I stand there for a moment looking stupid, then I press the doorbell again. From inside the house, I can hear him shouting, “I paid my rent.”

I use the letterbox as a makeshift intercom. “I know you did.”

“I told Mr Plummer, I told the letting agency, I paid my rent.”

“I’m not going to evict you,” I say.

“Direct debit.”

“I know.”

“To the letting agency.”

“I’m not here to chuck you out of your house, alright?” A twinge in my back. “Look, can you open the door so I don’t have to shout?”

“No.”

“It’s not about Plummer, it’s about the student that was assaulted the other night. I need to ask you some questions about it.” Really shouting now, half out of trying to make myself heard, half just because I’m pissed off. The kids have stopped playing football, decided that I’m far more entertaining. “Look, it won’t take up much of your time. And I don’t have to come in if you don’t want me to.”

The door opens. The chain’s on.

I straighten up. “Thank you.”

“I didn’t see anything.”

“Were you at home?”

“The boy was found on Wilmslow Road,” he says. “This isn’t Wilmslow Road.”

“I know that, but I have reason to believe he was here.”

“Why?”

“Did you hear anything?”

“I heard nothing. I saw nothing. I don’t know why you’re asking me these questions.”

He makes a move to close the door; I stick my foot in the gap.

“You’re sure you didn’t see or hear anything out of the ordinary?”

“That’s what I said. I have to be at work soon. I would like you to leave. Take your foot out of the door.”

“If you didn’t hear anything that night, you heard anything since?”

“Please, remove your foot. I don’t know anything.”

“People talk.”

He shakes his head. Stares at my shoe. Doesn’t say anything else.

“Fine.” I take my foot from the gap in the door, hold up my hands. I’m not a threat to him, want him to know that.

“Thanks for your help.”

He frowns, and slams the door.

Wanker.

It’s one thing to be wary of strangers, but this is ridiculous. I should’ve told him that Nunn was planning to burn his fucking house down, see if that jogged his memory. Nothing like fear to get the old grey cells motivated. I walk back down the path, don’t bother to close the gate behind me. I look across at the kids, and they seem to start moving all at once.

“You got something to say, lads?”

The kid holding the football, taller than the rest, could be twelve or thirteen, he jerks his chin at me.

Says, “What’s it worth?”

I stop walking. “Depends on what you’ve got.”

He bounces the ball to one of his mates, walks towards me. As he gets closer, I can make out a strip of hair across his top lip, pulled back in a sneer.

Thinks he’s a hard lad, this one.

“Fifty quid, and I got a fuckin’ witness statement for you,” he says.

“Witness statement, right?” Lad thinks he’s got the jargon down, too. It’d be sweet if he wasn’t so fucking annoying. I nod. “What’s your name?”

“Tariq.”

“How old are you, mate?”

“What, you trying to pick us up or something, eh?” He grins, looking around at his mates, wagging one hand. “Ain’t into that, man.”

There are a few giggles, nothing too much. Nerves in this gang. Anxious about being out in the open talking to me. Which means they might have something.

“I’m not trying to pick you up, Tariq. I’m just wondering what the fuck a twelve-year-old’s going to do with fifty quid.”

“Whoa, fuckin’ fourteen, innit?” he says. “And back up, mate, ’cause I ain’t in the mood for a lecture.”

“Not about to.” I reach into my jacket, pull out two twenties and a ten from Plummer’s envelope. Christ, but it’s feeling light these days. “But how come you were out the other night?”

“What, ’cause I’ve been grounded, yeah? My father says, I don’t go out unless I got a good reason.”

“So you weren’t out?”

“What you smoking?”

“Nothing.”

“You smoke?”

I give him an Embassy. He lights it up, sucks on the filter. Turns the lit end of the cigarette to his palm like a soldier. Or, and this is probably the effect he’s going for, a con. Playing it up for his mates.

“I don’t listen to him, man,” he says. “He’s not the boss of me.”

“So you were out.”

“Wants me to stay in and do homework. He’s like, I’m gonna be a lawyer, but I’m like, no way, man.” He grins at his mates, and then his voice drops. “He’s a fuckin’
machood
.”

“What’d you see, Tariq?”

Another jerk of the chin. “Show us the money again.” He grins, catching a riff. “
Show me the money
.”

“I’ll show you the money, yeah,” I say, holding up the fifty. “But you look with your eyes, right? Get to look with your hands when you tell me something I can use.”

“You’re a
businessman
.”

“Whatever, mate. What’d you see?”

“Don’t tell him,” says one of Tariq’s mates. Dressed head to toe in Adidas, kid thinks he’s a gangster, but looks like he’s about to piss himself with fear. Shifting his weight from one leg to the other. “Y’ain’t a grass, man.”

“Nah, you’re a fuckin’ rudeboy, aren’t you?” I say.

“What d’you know about it?”

“Tariq, you want to tell me something, you tell it. You want to also tell your mates to back the fuck off, then we can talk.”

“Naz. Chill.”

“Yeah, Naz.
Chill
. This has fuck all to do with you, mate.”

“You calling me, man?” says Naz. None of the fear now, fronting with his trackies in a fucking twist, face following suit. “
Bhanchood
.”

“You want to call me a fuckin’ name, son, try putting it in a language I understand.”

“Fuckin’
racist
, man. Fuckin’ calling me ’cause I don’t speak your English.”

“
My
English?” I shake my head, tuck the fifty in my jeans. “You know what, fuck this. Wasting my time, bunch of fuckin’ mobile thieves, am I right?”

“Hang on,” says Tariq.

“Nah, think I come down here to play gangster with you lot …” I keep walking. “Forget it, son. Had your chance, but you had to keep bucking your gums.”

I’m almost at the car when I hear someone coming up behind me. Turn, and it’s Tariq. Look over his shoulder, and the rest of his mates are still by the garage. Naz watches the ground, knocks the ball between his feet. One of the other lads takes it off him and the game starts up again.

“This don’t go no further, right?” says Tariq.

“Whatever, mate. You think I’m going to tell your dad, I don’t know him.” I lean against the Micra. “And if there’s someone else you don’t want me to tell, chances are I don’t know them either. So anything you say, it’s more than likely private and confidential.”

Tariq opens his arms, then lets them flop to his sides as he takes a breath.

“In your own time,” I tell him.

“There’s this bloke, he’s called Saeed, right? Real gangster, get me?” He chews his lip. “Me and Naz, we do some work for him every now and again. Just deliveries, nothing heavy. He gave us a couple bikes to do the running on—”

I gesture:
skip to the end
.

“Right, so I’m out there, I’m waiting on him.”

“Where?”

“Up by the garage. Always meets us there. And Saeed pulls up in his car, and he’s got this bloke with him, I never seen him before. Says this is his mate, he just got out the ’Ways, he’s sound, gonna be doing some business, yeah? So I do the handshakes an’ that, y’know,
introducing
myself. And then there’s this noise—”

“What noise?”

“Like shouting an’ that, ’cept it’s not really shouting. Like, arguing. But they’re trying to keep it quiet.”

“Right.”

“Then there’s these two white lads come round the corner and they’re proper at each other.”

“Uh-huh. You remember what they were arguing about?” I pull out my cigarettes, hold the pack to Tariq, who takes one and slips another behind his ear. I light an Embassy.

“Summat about that house, weren’t it? I didn’t catch it.”

“What house?”

“That house you was at.”

“If you didn’t catch it, how d’you know it was about that house?”

“Just thought it was, didn’t I? It was summat important, and they were like coming from around the back, like.”

I look at the house. Right enough, there’s that alley that leads round the back. I blow smoke.

“You said two of them?”

“Yeah.”

“So what happened then?”

What happened was that Saeed and his big mate just out of prison, they took offence at the two white lads. Nothing more than that, really. Same as if a couple of Asian lads were looking suspicious in Ordsall and a couple of tap-headed scallies saw them. Saeed and his mate looked at David Nunn and
his
mate, saw a couple of strangers with something to hide.

“Describe them,” I say.

“One of them, he was the bloke you were talking about. The student.”

“What’d he look like?”

Tariq frowns with the top half of his face, grins with the rest. “What, you don’t believe me?”

“No. Convince me. What’d he look like?”

Tariq sucks his teeth, moves his hand over his chin, stroking a beard that isn’t there. “Had one of them beards, fuckin’
tramp
beard. Dressed like a student. What else d’you need? He looked like a student.”

“You know what a student looks like?” But right enough, Nunn had a beard. Not in any of the photos I’ve seen in the papers, though.

“I seen plenty of them, man. They all live round here.”

“What about his mate?”

“No beard. Biggish.” He laughs. “Fuckin’ hell, I knew you’d be asking me all these questions, I’d have took a photo, know what I mean?”

“Biggish like what? Like a bouncer?”

“Like Jonny Wilkinson big. Like thick neck an’ that. Looked a bit like him.”

“Like Jonny Wilkinson, right. And Saeed and his mate, they just laid into these blokes for no reason?”

Tariq shakes his head. “Weren’t no reason, man. Them bastards, they was up to something, you could tell.
We
could tell. So Saeed’s all like, “What you doing, lads?” Trying to shit ’em up a bit, y’know? And it was working, they was getting proper scared. ’Cause Saeed’s a psycho bastard once he gets going, and him having that mate with him, tell you they were putting the shits up
me
. Pfffft.”

“So they kicked off,” I say.

“Shouldn’t have been there in the first place. They should know, we all got bredren in Longsight, man.”

“Saeed and this bloke kicked the shit out of them,” I say.

“You judging us? You hear what I said?”

“I heard some macho fuckin’ bullshit, Tariq.” I look at him. “I’m after what happened, there’s you spinning me a cunt’s yarn. They did the beardy student, so what happened to Jonny fuckin’ Wilkinson?”

“He took off.”

“Didn’t just look like him, ran like him too, eh?”

“Once that student started giving it back with the mouth and Saeed kicked off, he was out of there. Yeah, he fuckin’ took off running.”

“What’s Saeed’s number?”

“No, fuck off. I ain’t doing that. I ain’t a grass.”

“I need to corroborate this, mate.”

“You don’t believe me, you can get fucked.” He backs up a few steps. “You just give us my money and that’s it.”

“You gave me nowt, Tariq. Two white students, they start some shite, one of them takes off running, the other one gets a kicking. Then they dump him on Wilmslow Road? Meantime, there’s people looking at this like it’s a racist thing—”

“Nah, man, don’t be feeding me that bullshit—”

“I’m feeding you nothing. I’m telling you the truth. The fuckin’ news is all about it, son. You’re about to have a march in your own back yard because of this. And let me tell you something, those marchers see a brown face, they’re going to stomp on it until the white meat shows, you get me?”

“Nowt to do with me, man.”

“You going to be out on the streets tonight?”

“Me and the boys, if what you say is true, we’ll be doing
something
. And what d’you mean I gave you nowt, man? I told you what
transpired
. Just ’cause it’s not what you want to hear, doesn’t mean you don’t pay us.”

I pull out the fifty, frown at Tariq. We both know I don’t need to corroborate any of what he told me. “Do yourself a favour, mate. Get a DVD or something, get drunk, sniff some aerosols, have a night in. Because there’s nothing you told me that I can use to stop them coming down here with fuckin’ sticks.”

Tariq plucks the money out of my hand. Closes his fist around it and pokes his bottom set of teeth with his tongue.

“I mean it, man. You care about your fuckin’
boys
, don’t make this into a war. You’re too young to be fighting that hard for fuck all.”

I get into the Micra, start the engine.

“See you tonight,” says Tariq, giving me the wink.

I shake my head, pull the car away from the kerb. Fucking kids.

Heading towards Didsbury when my mobile rings. I turn the radio down, check the display. Not a number I recognise.

“Hello?”

“Mr Innes? This is Karyn.”

“Right. How are you?”

“I’m okay. I just wondered if you’d managed to find anything out yet.”

“About David?” I shift in my seat, think about what I’ve just seen. “No, I haven’t had a chance to look into it yet, Karyn.”