Born Bad: A gritty gangster thriller with a darkly funny heart

‘Alright, our Pad,’ Frank said, greeting his older brother at the door deferentially. He thrust a full whisky tumbler towards him. ‘Come on. Come on, man. That Dutch bloke’s been waiting hours and he’s boring as fuck.’

Conky eyed the gaunt, twitchy figure of Frank O’Brien, wincing as Paddy grabbed the drink from him with one hand and administered a brotherly blow to his kidney with the other. Frank was already waxy-faced from whatever cocktail of drugs the daft wee fecker had managed to lay his hands on that evening, dressed like a 1990s throwback in a baggy long-sleeved top and cargo jeans. Shuffling through his giant temple to dance music in grotty old sneakers. A reluctant Pontius Pilate, Conky mused, serving beneath Paddy who was always channelling Tiberius on a good day; Caligula on a bad.

The bass-heavy music enveloped him, pulsating through the hot, damp air – it was almost tangible. Deafening shite. It was certainly no Dvorˇák or Mozart – it made Conky’s teeth sensitive and aggravated the pains in his legs whenever his thyroid was out of whack. Strobe lights flick-flickering all around, dimmed only slightly by the tinted prescription prisms in his Ray-Ban lenses that mitigated some of the thyroid eye disease that plagued him. Lasers flashing green and red in precise fans, pointing upwards, moving downwards to slice through the fog of the dry ice. Everybody caught in nanosecond freeze-frames. Hands in the air. Shaking that thang. Fecking eejits. Staccato dancing like possessed puppetry where the DJ was the puppet master.

‘Make some noise, M1 House!’ the DJ shouted as he blended the groove of one track into another, perfectly maintaining 128 beats per minute.

Jack O’Brien. Son of Frank O’Brien and number one nephew to Paddy. An accidental Adonis thanks to his dead mother’s Balearic colouring. The crowd worshipped this man, turning towards him in unison. Screaming and cheering up to the distant warehouse ceiling – above the lighting rigs, through the corrugated Perspex to the night sky beyond; out into the universe where their love would mingle with the stars.

Frank cheered. Pointed towards him.

‘Spin those records, son!’

The heaving sea of firm, slender young bodies parted to let them through. As they did so, Conky spotted the enemy: a mixed-race lad with a lightning flash shaved into the dark stubble of his scalp. Bell something, if memory served. A biblical name. Deuteronomy or something of that ilk. Paddy elbowed Conky in the ribs and nodded, giving the order. Dutifully, he grabbed Frank by his baggy top and yanked him at speed through the cavorting crowd to the backstage area.

At his side, Paddy had thunder behind his eyes.

‘Twat!’ He cuffed Frank on the side of his head.

Frank was ashen-faced. ‘What’s up, Pad? How comes Roy Orbison here has got a grip of me? I babysat your supplier, didn’t I? I wanna go and vibe with me adoring public, now. Know what I mean?’ Frank toyed with the sleeves of his top.

‘Who’ve you got dealing tonight?’ his older brother asked, gesticulating towards the dancefloor, visible beyond Jack in his booth.

Frank shrugged, still twitching as though he had withdrawals from the dancefloor. ‘Business as usual, man. You know? The Parson’s Croft kids. Degsy and his girls. Nicky, Maggie. They’re flogging Hong Kong Colin’s latest batch of E and meth, like you told them. Dealing some super-fine super skunk. Few baggies of coke. Making the happiness and contentment go round, man.’ He drew a heart in the air, ending with both hands making the peace sign.

But Paddy looked anything but peaceful and content. He smashed his whisky tumbler on the floor. Grabbed his younger brother by the back of the neck like a mother cat taking its wayward kitten in its maw. Pushed his face towards the crowd. ‘It’s crawling with Boddlingtons, you dozy wanker.’ Slapped him on the back of his sweaty head with a freckled, hairy hand.

Narrowing his eyes, Conky refocused on the sea of faces. The boy with the lightning flash was palming tabs in a baggie onto some girl and pocketing cash. That much, he could see. Very shoddy procedure.

Frank opened and closed his mouth. Rolling his head, as though panning for an explanation in his empty druggy head like a prospector hoping to find an elusive gold nugget in the mud.

‘I don’t know how he got past the fellers on the door, Pad. Honest. Maybe someone let him in the back. Maybe he just slipped through with a group of people. There’s two thousand kids in here. I can’t keep tabs on them. Know what I mean?’

Turning to Conky, Paddy’s thin lips arced downwards into a scowl.

‘Find Degsy. And get that little Boddlington shit back here. I’m not having stray dogs pissing on my territory.’ Hunched shoulders beneath the suit said he was bristling with anger.

‘Well, strictly speaking, Pad, it’s my territory,’ Frank said, wide-eyed. ‘As long as people are having a good time, I’m not bothered, me.’

‘Fucking dickhead.’

The slap that Paddy gave him across his face clearly had some weight behind it. Frank rubbed his cheek, suddenly looking like a small boy. Conky knew better than to intervene.

‘Get that Boddlington arsehole and Degsy back here,’ Paddy said.

Amidst a flurry of disingenuous apologies, Conky returned with Degsy and the Boddlington interloper, kicking them at the heels to make them move forwards with his gun trained on their backs. Taking pride in the fear he instilled in Degsy, at least. He was the O’Brien firm’s Loss Adjuster. He had a reputation to uphold. All who came before him in the Conky McFadden court of justice quaked in their boots.

‘This is Leviticus Bell,’ he announced, pushing the Boddlington low-level dealer to his knees. Not Deuteronomy, but still a biblical-standard cheeky arsehole. ‘And our very own lovely Derek.’ He poked Degsy in the back with the barrel of his gun.

Paddy cracked his knuckles. Took something shining from his breast pocket and slid it onto his hand. A knuckle duster. Degsy, a tall bundle of oversized G-Star Raw and Diesel with spots around his mouth that said he smoked just as much meth as he sold, paled instantly.

‘On your knees, you lanky twat!’ Paddy said, breathing heavily through his nostrils.

Degsy’s Adam’s apple bounced up and down in his scrawny neck.

‘Sorry, Mr O’Brien. I don’t know why I’m here, like, but whatever it is, I’m sorry. I told Mr McFadden.’

The left hook that Paddy delivered to Degsy’s temple sent the dealer’s head spinning to the right with a crack. Blood spatters clinging in a jaunty red to the black nightclub walls.

‘Christ, Pad. There’s no need for that,’ Frank said, wincing.

‘Shut your trap, Frank. I don’t give a stuff if Queen Elizabeth’s name’s on the liquor licence above the door. I’m the boss here. Me.’ He dug into his chest with a stubby thumb.

Paddy dragged Degsy to his feet. Though he towered above even Conky, Degsy seemed small next to the King. ‘You want to work for me and stay alive, Derek, you keep Boddlington scum out of my venues, right?’

Degsy nodded contritely. Seemed a little dazed. Touched the blood on the side of his head that now seeped onto his clothing.

‘Yes, Mr O’Brien. Sorry. It won’t happen again.’

Struggling against Conky’s grip, the young mixed-race Boddlington interloper spat at Degsy.

‘Parson’s Croft piece of shit!’ he shouted at him. Turned to Paddy and Frank. ‘I’m not bleeding scared of yous, man.’

Conky cuffed his ear with his pistol. ‘You’d better be, you wee shite. I’m gonna enjoy putting a bullet in you.’ His practised words came out automatically as he dwelled all the while on his missed book club and the strangeness of Sheila’s behaviour. Decades of doing the same job could do that to a man.

The boy turned to Conky, frowning. ‘Oh yeah? You want the Fish Man to come and fillet you, old man? ’Cause that’s who you’re dealing with if you lay a frigging finger on me.’

‘What’s your name again, son?’ Paddy stepped closer and grabbed him by his chin. Pushed his face upwards, examining his delicate bone structure to see if nobility was hidden in his genes.

The boy spat a second time on the floor at Paddy’s side. ‘Leviticus Bell.’

‘Plucky little bastard, aren’t you?’

The boy somehow wriggled free of Conky’s grip. Lunged at Paddy. A flash of something metallic, under the dim backstage lights. Red, spreading quickly through the suit-fabric covering Paddy’s forearm. The boy, running away; sprinting like a hunted gazelle through the emergency exit.

‘Boss!’ Conky shouted. He pushed his glasses onto his forehead to get a better look at the wound. His breath coming ragged with an accelerated heartbeat as he stared down at the gash.

‘It’s just a scratch!’ Paddy said, pressing his fingers into the wound.

But then, something more sinister, as Paddy’s look of surprise and anger turned into a wide-eyed hundred-yard stare. Clutching at his chest, he began sinking to his knees.

‘Jesus. I feel—’ he said. Grimacing, then, his eyes clamped shut.

‘Call an ambulance!’ Conky barked at Frank.

As Frank punched 999 into his phone, he seemed to be watching with part-glee, part-dread as his brother slumped to the floor, unconscious.

Chapter 3

Paddy

The heart monitor beeped in syncopation with the bing of the oxygen saturation gauge. Constant noise, in those bloody places. Bright lights that made Paddy squint. And that smell. He hated that smell.

‘What is that stink?’ he asked Katrina. ‘Do you reckon it’s …? I dunno. Floor cleaner like Mam used to use and … human shit, maybe?’ He sniffed the air. Wrinkled his nose. Felt tired. ‘I can’t stand it. I want to go home, Kat. Tell our Sheila she’s to come and get me.’ He shuffled uncomfortably on the hard, rubber mattress. ‘My arse has gone dead.’

At his side, Katrina sighed and patted his hand. Her freckled Celtic skin looking so pale next to his. Her nails had been bitten down into utilitarian submission. Requirements of the job.

‘Ah, Patrick. You always were a terrible patient,’ she said, smiling wistfully as she watched his jagged heart rate peak and trough and peak and trough in a thin blue-green line. ‘Remember that time when you were doubled up in pain in the middle of the night and Mam called the doctor on you? You couldn’t have been more than ten.’

Paddy smiled weakly. ‘Eleven. I told him I was just constipated.’

‘It was peritonitis.’ Katrina smoothed her navy habit. Her hand travelled down to the large, silver crucifix hanging over her heart. She tapped it thoughtfully. ‘You’ve always played the hard man, Paddy O’Brien. Trying to impress Dad.’

A mental image of their father foisted itself on Paddy’s memory. A stocky little hard-nut of a man, who robbed the local bookies and did two years in Strangeways. Smelled of Marlboro cigarettes and stale ale, with breath like a dog’s fart. His hands and the pores on his face had always been ingrained with motor oil, when he could get work as a mechanic. Chasing him and Frank down the street with a tyre-iron for a laugh. Taking a swing to test their reflexes. They had been thirteen and seven.

‘Dad was a pure bastard,’ Paddy said. ‘At least he laid off you, though. You were his favourite because you were clever.’

Katrina smiled wryly. ‘Well, you can pretend all you like. I know you tried to live up to his expectations. But now this ridiculous life you lead is catching up with you. Time you made some changes.’

He rolled his eyes. Remembered how much he hated his sister’s well-meaning sermons. Yanked at the wires connected to his chest in irritation, scratching at the itch from the gel adhesive pads. ‘Save it for your flock, Sister Benedicta. I just need to get out of this dump. I’m fine.’

Brandishing his notes, Katrina looked down her nose through her thick-framed, plain glasses, as though about to give a schoolboy a ticking-off. She tutted loudly. ‘A heart attack, Patrick. And a stab wound. You are absolutely not fine. Too much of the high life, too much of the low life and too much stress.’ She hooked the clipboard of notes indignantly back onto the end of the hospital bed. Sniffed pointedly as Paddy’s heart rate picked up, ragged and hasty, as though it were somehow trying to flee the scene of a crime. ‘You carry on like this and you’ll not make sixty.’

‘I am sixty.’

‘Smart Alec. You can’t die on me, Patrick. I’ve got the Lord’s work to do. I’m not babysitting our Francis. That’s your responsibility.’

Paddy tried to shuffle himself up the bed. Didn’t have the energy. Hated himself for being weak. ‘I’m a businessman. I do business.’

His older sister leaned in close until he could smell the convent’s nursing home on her. A permanent whiff of institutional dinners, industrial laundry and maybe talc.

‘Dirty business,’ she said, frowning. ‘The heavenly Father is watching, Patrick.’

Paddy started to cough violently. Beep, beep, beep, complained the heart monitor. Bing, bing, as his oxygen levels took a dive. Too many cigarettes and fry-ups, he knew. He could feel his sister’s well-meaning eroding his conviction.

‘It’s taken its toll, hasn’t it? Admit it. It’s time to get out.’ Her well-scrubbed face – perhaps handsome in her youth, but never beautiful – was etched only with fine lines, far fewer than could be expected for a woman of her age. The face of a woman who had never seen drunken debauchery at 3am in Ibiza or a sunbed or a surfeit of gin. The face of a woman who slept nights with a clear conscience.

What did she know about real life?

‘It’s alright for you,’ he said. ‘The church takes care of you. I’ve got a family and the firm, all looking to me for money, support, leadership. I’m the heavenly fucking Father in this town, Kat. I’ve got the O’Brien name to uphold.’

Abruptly, Katrina stood up, shaking her head and glowering at him, as though she was channelling the displeasure of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. She scraped the visitor’s chair noisily along the lino. Smoothing down her drab navy skirt, her feet perfectly together in those ugly flat shoes they all wore. Prim and righteous – no different from when she was a kid, Paddy mused.

‘I’ve not got time for any more of your nonsense, Patrick,’ she said, dabbing at her nose with a white cloth handkerchief. ‘You should be thinking about your future. Carry on like you have been doing and you face an early death, and worst of all, the eternal fires of damnation.’ Her voice was quiet. Considered. Deadly. ‘Sheila and the girls will be left to fend for themselves. Francis will end up in jail, overdosed or killed. But that’s fine, because you’ll be gone, you selfish, thoughtless man. Think about how you could be spending your ill-gotten millions in a more meaningful way. Do it, Paddy! Make the changes before Death comes for you early, like it did for Mam and Dad.’

Alone in that side room in the hospital, Paddy wept openly, perhaps for the first time since he was a small boy. Let the fear of losing everything flood through him. I don’t want to die, he thought. Wiping his eyes on his crisp bedsheet, he rifled among the scores of Get Well Soon cards from neighbours, friends, family, lackeys and sycophants on his bedside cabinet. Drew out the framed photograph of Sheila and the girls. Taken at Christmas time last year, when he had paid for them all to spend a fortnight at the Rayavadee Resort in Krabi. They had been snapped by their waitress, dining as a family around a table situated on the beach, their togetherness framed by the limestone cliffs that rose sheer out of the turquoise Andaman Sea and the lush jungle green that fringed the shoreline. Amy and Dahlia, fully grown now, with lives of their own. One at university and one working a proper job in the City of London. But they had still found time to be with their old dad, hadn’t they? It had been the most perfect time in his life. Turning sixty, surrounded by his girls. After six decades of struggling to get as far away from the grime and stink of his childhood home and those foetid, rotten roots, that trip had epitomised his success.

He clutched the photograph to his chest. Tried to conjure the smell of the sea and the sound of the palms, rustling in the warm Thai breeze. At his side, the beeps of the heart monitor spread further apart. Slowing, slowing until they settled into a gentle rhythm.

Paddy knew what to do.

‘What do you mean, you want to sell up?’ Sheila asked, her baby-doll beautiful face freezing mid-smile. Paddy was relieved to see she had covered up the bruising to her forehead. No need to remind him of that.

She dropped her oversized handbag onto the hospital lino. Flung her slender frame onto the seat that Katrina had occupied earlier. Michael Kors or Armani or whatever it was she wore, clinging to her curves. Fur. Leather. Silk. Louboutin stilettos that cost him a small fortune. The antithesis of his sister. When she dared to get angry, it made him want to conquer her.

Paddy forked baked potato into his mouth enthusiastically. Chewed the fluffy mush with relish, as though this was the first time he had ever really tasted food. Sheila would come round. She always did as she was told with a little persuasion.

‘I’ve thought it all through, She. I’m selling the business.’ He set his fork down authoritatively on the tray. Grinned.

But Sheila’s scepticism was etched across her face. Those fine eyebrows raised archly.

‘It’s not a sodding barber’s or a chain of corner shops, Paddy.’ She lowered her voice. Looked over her shoulder, though they were alone, with the hustle and bustle of the ward on the other side of a heavy fire door. ‘It’s a Criminal. Fucking. Empire.’ She leaned in further with each word. Tapped every syllable out on his dinner tray with almost perfectly manicured electric blue nails – one shorter than all the rest.

Undeterred, he ushered more potato into his mouth. Pictured the tropical paradise of Krabi, so very far from Manchester’s never-ending rain and Frank’s idiot schemes and the daily grind of having to look over his shoulder continually. Spoke with his mouth full.

‘Tariq and Jonny. They’ll have it. I bet you. I reckon ten mill, and me and you can just get on a plane and swan off to Thailand. Open a bar.’

Sheila shook her shining blonde mane.

‘You’re tapped,’ she said. ‘You think the Boddlington gang are gonna shove you ten million quid for something they’ve spent the last twenty years trying to nick for free?’

Paddy nodded, beaming at his own brilliance. He felt happiness register itself in his groin, overpowering the agitation that she had dared to call him tapped.

‘Suck us off, She.’ He pointed at Little Paddy, making his presence felt beneath the honeycomb blanket.

Eyes narrowed, Sheila was folding her arms. Paddy mused that the blow-job was looking unlikely. He didn’t have the energy to insist otherwise.

‘Tariq Khan and Jonny Margulies are a pair of thieving bastards, Pad. You’re a thieving bastard, too, or had you forgotten?’

‘They’ll snatch me bleeding hand off, She! Especially if they think there’s a chance I might sell to some hip-hop, drive-by snot-rag from London with his arse hanging out his trousers. Or some Scouser. It’s what they’ve always wanted, Tariq and Jonny. They’ve got north Manchester and now I’ll sell them the south. Fair and square. The gambling dens, the pharmaceutical side, the guns …’ He started to count his interests on his fingers, as though this would somehow curry her favour. ‘… The endangered species shit that the Chinese love, the nail bars, the moody art, the lot! Bollocks to it. If they pay up, they can have our kid’s club and your cleaning business too.’

Out of her chair like a jack-in-the-box.

‘My frigging company?’ She shook her head. Waggled her finger. ‘Oh, no, no, no, no you don’t, Patrick O’Brien.’

Her pixie chin stuck out defiantly. Reminded him of the time he had asked her out on that first date, after a Wednesday night at the Haçienda’s Zumbar. He’d spotted her during the intermission – before the cheesy cabaret act had come on. Parading down the catwalk, modelling clothes from some local fashion school wannabe. Legs that went on forever and tits that had a buoyancy all of their own. She had been seventeen. He, thirty-seven – old enough to have his minions selling drugs in clubs, but too old to enjoy them himself, as a rule. But it had been Frank’s birthday that particular Wednesday, with his band playing downstairs in the Gay Traitor bar, so Paddy had relented. His cash hadn’t impressed young Sheila, but he had worn her down with sheer romantic persistence and, later, rightful dominance. She’d relented in the end, just as she would relent now, he felt certain.

‘You can get a new hobby in Thailand, babe. I’ll buy a big fuck-off villa. You can get it done out like a five-star spa hotel. That’ll keep you busy.’

‘Nine years, Paddy,’ she shouted. ‘Me and Gloria have built that sodding cleaning company up over nine years! I’m just about to get a healthcare contract, cleaning a big private hospital. I’ve done quotes this week for two law firms in town and a bank! It’s not a hobby, you cheeky bastard.’

‘Hey! Wind your fucking neck in, woman, or I’ll wind it in for you!’

‘I’ve got women relying on me.’ Her generous, pink lips had thinned and were now arcing downwards.

‘They’re bloody trafficked skivvies from Um Bongo, aren’t they?’

‘The Democratic Republic of Congo, Patrick. Not bloody Um Bongo. And some of them are from Nigeria and Ghana and are legal, actually! Gloria knows them from church, the Ghanaians and Nigerians. They’re glad of a job. I am a responsible employer.’

Paddy snorted. ‘What? You don’t reckon you’d be leaving your nice African ladies in good hands? You think Tariq Khan and Jonny Margulies are incapable of screwing over slave labour and refugees as good as you? Do me a favour!’

Sheila glared at him. She clearly thought she could gain the upper hand, while he was laid up and at the mercy of a medical team. Cocky bitch.

‘I care about my staff.’

‘You’re full of shit, is what you are, Sheila O’Brien.’ Paddy picked up the framed photograph taken in Thailand. Thrust it towards her. Pointed at the girls. His heart rate picked up pace, as it occurred to him that – for perhaps the first time ever – without his being able to squeeze the defiance out of her physically, Sheila might put her foot down and refuse to bend to his will. ‘This isn’t about money, She. We’ve got enough to last us ten lifetimes. This isn’t about some scrubbers you don’t even know, or that nagging, sanctimonious bitch, Gloria. This is about me, staying alive for our daughters. For us. Family.’

Sheila’s face had a pinched look to it as she chewed her bottom lip. Her gaze flicked from the photo to Paddy and back. She was refusing to make eye contact with him and staring intently only at his chin or his forehead. Nostrils flaring gently, as though she were processing some internal argument.

‘You’ve made your mind up, haven’t you?’ she asked in a quiet voice.

‘Yes.’ He held the photo to his chest. ‘For better or for worse, She. How bad could twenty years of tropical sunshine be?’ He grinned triumphantly. ‘I’ll buy you an elephant.’

‘Piss off, you daft bastard.’

‘You’d save a bomb on the sunbed.’

She dropped her gaze to her eternity and engagement rings, running her index finger over the large, solitaire diamond. Closed her mournful eyes.

‘If I agree, does this mean you’re getting out for good? No controlling the business from the end of a phone or a laptop? A clean break?’

He nodded. Felt his neck muscles start to relax.

‘It’d better be a damned big elephant, Paddy O’Brien.’

Chapter 4

Jonny

Biting into his bagel, Jonny Margulies mused that it was a fine morning. From the vantage point of his desk, positioned by the office window, he could see the sun hitting the dreaming spires of Strangeways prison. The red brick was on fire today, giving an impression of baking warmth in a city that never thawed or properly dried out. The steep slate roofs shone – slick from the overnight rain, now reflecting sunshine like the solar panels on some distant satellite. Negative energy inside those walls, though. He imagined the poor bastards in the central building, walking round and around Her Majesty’s Victorian hotel, wondering what on earth had gone wrong with their lives. At least he was safe. And the warmth that spread from his groin to the rest of his body was genuine.