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getting our facts right.’

      Ogburn was still semi-paralysed by drugs but suddenly so filled with fear that he could barely feel his injuries. Whoever these men were, they were all wearing dark clothing with peaked hoods pulled up, which cast them in monk-like silhouette against the high lighting – security lamps maybe, on a construction site. The one kneeling was so close that Ogburn could at last see what kind of mask he was wearing: it was a woollen ski-mask, with holes cut for the eyes and mouth.

      ‘Okay, okay, okay … I know Ron O’Hoorigan, yeah. Course I do. He’s a regular at the Dog & Butcher. But that’s all.’

      ‘No, that isn’t all, Toady,’ the walking stick man replied. ‘He’s a thieving little scrote. And you’re his fence.’

      ‘Ron hasn’t done any real jobs in ages. He got sent down for a while – to a real clink, and it scared him shitless. He’s only a bit-player now.’

      ‘You’re still his mate, though, aren’t you?’

      ‘If … if you mean does he come into the pub and tell me stuff when he gets pissed, then yeah … course he does.’ Ogburn tried to swallow, but there was barely any moisture in his mouth. ‘Loads of blokes do that.’

      ‘We’re not interested in anyone else,’ the kneeling figure said in a Midlands accent. ‘Just O’Hoorigan …’

      ‘That’s all I can tell you …’

      The kneeler slammed another breezeblock down, this time over his groin. Ogburn would have doubled up and screamed had his pain-racked body allowed him to.

      ‘It’ll save us all a lot of time, Toady, if you’d stop kidding yourself that you’ve got choices in this matter,’ Walking Stick said calmly.

      ‘You’ve … you’ve got to take me back to hospital,’ Ogburn wept, when he was finally able to make sounds more coherent than agonised whimpers. ‘I had surgery this afternoon – on a ruptured spleen.’

      ‘My, my … that wouldn’t be a nice way to go.’ Walking Stick sounded genuinely concerned. ‘You’d better tell us exactly the sort of stuff Ron confides in you, and you’d better do it quick.’

      ‘Specifically about the last stretch he served,’ the kneeler said. ‘In Rotherwood.’

      ‘You said something scared him, Toady,’ Walking Stick added. ‘What was it?’

      ‘Nothing … nothing special. He just doesn’t want to go down again …’

      Another breezeblock was laid on him, this one on his stomach, almost directly over his incision. Even though this one was placed relatively gently, he still gagged at the pain.

      ‘Facts, Toady,’ Walking Stick said. ‘Not fantasies.’

      The next breezeblock was placed on Ogburn’s chest; their combined weight was now crushing his wounded body into the crate’s hard, timber floor.

      ‘Alright … alright,’ he said, struggling to breathe. ‘All I know is that Ron got told something that spooked him while he was in Rotherwood. That’s … my understanding from his drunken fucking babbling. Apparently he shared a cell with some bloke who was … who was looking to join a real tough firm when he got out. Said they had something massive going, and that he was going to get rich. But if this fella told Ronnie what it was, Ronnie never told me … I swear it!’

      ‘Did he say who this bloke was?’ Walking Stick wondered.

      ‘Didn’t give me a name, didn’t give me a description. Nothing.’

      ‘There’re lots of hard cases inside,’ the kneeler said. ‘What exactly was it about this one that spooked him?’

      ‘Whatever job he had lined up, I assume … oh, Jesus God!’ The weight on Ogburn’s body was growing worse by the second, particularly over his midriff. ‘It … it was fucking big apparently. Ron used to be prolific, but like I say, he’s small time now. He doesn’t want to get involved in anything really heavy. He probably thought that just knowing about this stuff would make him a target for the Old Bill. And it looks like it did … didn’t it?’

      ‘And you, Toady,’ Walking Stick said. ‘It’s made you a target too, hasn’t it? You had a chat with some officers from Greater Manchester Police this afternoon at Salford City Hospital, didn’t you?’

      Ogburn shook his head feverishly. ‘They asked about Ron too – what he’s been up to and all that. What the fight in the boozer was about. I said nothing. I don’t grass people up, ever. I said I felt too rough to talk to them. The nurses showed ’em the door. Check at the hospital if you don’t believe me.’

      There was a long silence, as if Ogburn’s captors were sharing unspoken thoughts. At last, Walking Stick said: ‘You sure you’re Ronnie’s only mate? He doesn’t have someone else he may have confided in. Girlfriend … boyfriend?’

      ‘He’s a fucking junkie as well as an alkie. No one’d go near him normally.’

      ‘So why’d they all jump to his defence back in that shithole you laughably call a boozer?’

      ‘Just the way we are in our neck of the woods.’ Ogburn tried to speak with pride, but was in too much agony. ‘Some bleeder comes shoving his arse around, we all go in …’

      ‘Even if it’s a copper?’

      ‘Especially if it’s a copper. We … we don’t like pigs, and don’t mind letting ’em know. We don’t give a shit. We look after our own …’

      The kneeler chuckled. ‘I hope to Christ you never have to look after me. A job lot of you, and you got fucking leathered.’

      ‘It … it happens,’ Ogburn stammered. ‘Look … can I go back to hospital now? Please. I’ve told you everything I know about Ronnie. I’m not his mate. I’m the only one he talks to these days, and that’s only coz I’m the other side of the bar when he’s holding it up.’

      ‘Yes, well,’ Walking Stick said, ‘more the pity for you.’

      ‘Eh …?’

      The kneeler picked up a heavy wooden lid which was roughly the same rectangular shape as the crate in which their prisoner lay. Ogburn screamed hysterically as the others closed in with hammers and nails, and the lid was slammed down on top of him.

      ‘What the fuck are you doing?’ he shrieked, hoping his voice could be heard above the deafening blows. ‘What the fuck is this? No, no no … please no, please no! Don’t bury me alive! Please, dear God no, please don’t fucking bury me alive …’

      The hammering ceased, the lid now fixed firmly on the crate.

      ‘Relax, Toady,’ Walking Stick shouted down to him. ‘We’re not going to bury you alive.’

      ‘Oh thank God, thank God …’

      ‘Too much like hard work digging a grave. So we’re going to bury you in the Ship Canal instead.’

      ‘No! NO!’

      But the muffled wail sounded for only a few seconds as they manhandled the heavy box across the disused dock, and then, with much grunting and sweating tipped it over the side. It broke the silt-black waters with a thunderous impact, and sank swiftly from view.

       Chapter 28

      Pat McCulkin was a familiar figure on his home turf of Deptford. But those who knew him would have been surprised to see him walking along Creek Road at six o’clock on a Wednesday morning. As usual, he cut a grumpy figure: he was sixty, with thinning grey hair, and a leathery, shrew-like face. Rings dangled from both his ears and tattoos covered most of his scrawny body, though at present,

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