LITMIR.BIZ

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But he made an okay living. He owned a large detached house on Coxcombe Avenue, which was on the Cotely Barn estate on the edge of Crowley golf course, an affluent part of town; he drove a decent enough motor – a metallic beige Ford Galaxy; and he and his family went on a nice holiday once a year – cruising was the in-thing currently, and they’d so far done the Western Med, the Eastern Med, the Caribbean and next August they were looking forward to doing the Norwegian fjords. On the surface, everything was hunky-dory.

      But in actual fact, this commonplaceness was the problem.

      For quite some time, Joe Lazenby had been deeply frustrated by his none too awe-inspiring status. Throughout his adulthood, he’d felt that, unless he was to diversify into something much more lucrative, and dare he say it, dangerous, he was never going to fulfil his lifetime’s ambition, which was to be a man of substance, of ingenuity, of latent but undeniable power.

      And so he had diversified, and it had been a rocky road – he’d taken chances, both financial and actual, first getting into the drugs-importation market through former school-friends who’d long ago taken to crime and shipped their produce in through the Liverpool docks. But having earned the trust of his Colombian suppliers by providing all the cash required upfront and on time, and wowing them with tales of his previously untapped middle-class market, he had completely divested himself of those awkward, insolent middlemen. Lazenby got a huge kick from this alone, convinced that his forward-planning was second-to-none, and that his nose for a deal and an innate working knowledge of the real world made those elitist, muddle-headed book-dwellers at the college shrink to childlike insignificance. He’d been running his low-key op for three years now, the money had poured in, and the respect he’d so long yearned for had finally arrived; perhaps not up there in the surface world, but certainly among those who mattered.

      And then today had come along.

      When Lazenby got home that night, he couldn’t settle. His wife, Geraldine, had already made dinner. He was late and so it had gone cold, but she didn’t comment about this because she knew he was putting in such enormously long hours at the college these days – at least, that was what he told her – which meant they were far better off financially than they’d ever been before.

      After dinner, Lazenby kissed his two children, Maggie and Joseph junior, and Geraldine put them to bed. The normal process now would be for Lazenby and his wife to shower, change into their pyjamas, slippers and dressing gowns, and snuggle up on the sofa in front of the real-flame gas fire and mid-evening TV, sipping mugs of cocoa and commenting casually on the events of their respective days; Geraldine cosy in her knowledge that they were living the middle-class dream, Lazenby cosy with thoughts of his secret but ever-expanding empire.

      But tonight when Geraldine came back downstairs changed, her husband was still in his work clothes and sitting stiffly in one of the armchairs. He looked pale-faced and distracted, and even though watching the day’s second instalment of Coronation Street, he clearly wasn’t following the events on screen; his eyes were almost glazed. When Geraldine tried to speak to him, he was curt to the point of being dismissive. A few minutes later he apologised, explaining that he’d had a tough day and that there were some difficult decisions to make in the department. She perched on the chair’s armrest and tried to cuddle him, cooing that it would be all right, that he was a good departmental boss and that he knew what was best for everyone. She even tried to massage his shoulders through the back of his suit jacket, but he remained rigid as a board, his eyes locked on the TV screen despite not seeing anything that was happening there.

      ‘It’s just, I wish …’

      He’d been about to say: ‘I wish things were as normal as that. That all I had to do was either sack someone or put them on a warning, or something.’

      But even if he had said that, it would have been a lie. Because deep down he didn’t wish for normality at all. He wanted his dukedom back; he didn’t want to suddenly be a servant again.

      Which started him on a new train of thought: How much of a servant would he actually be?

      The Crew must see some value in him, otherwise they’d have – what was it McCracken had said? – had the meeting ‘out back’. That encounter could have been a lot more frightening, and perhaps considerably more painful. Maybe this meant that an equal partnership still awaited him somewhere up the line? Assuming he proved his worth.

      But how far up the line? How much would he have to demean himself to make this happen?

      How much more humiliation could he go through when he’d thought he was past all that?

      But then, did he even have a choice? It wasn’t as if Frank McCracken had been negotiating. If anything, he’d been laying down ground rules. And how had McCracken even known that Lazenby would be in Hogarth’s, or who he was for that matter? Had they been following him?

      Lazenby’s anxiety grew exponentially, his shoulders stiffening even more under his wife’s fingers.

      ‘My God, Joe … you really need to try and relax,’ she said.

      Lazenby couldn’t answer; his mouth was dry, his teeth locked.

      They clearly knew everything about him. How else would they have closed in on his business affairs so quickly? But there was still no need to panic. This was the Crew, after all, not some bunch of drugged-up nutcases. But even so, why make it easy for them?

      Abruptly, he stood up.

      ‘What’s the matter?’ Geraldine asked. ‘I didn’t hurt you, did I?’

      ‘No, it’s fine.’ He walked across the room, opened the door and went out into the hall. When he reappeared, he’d donned an anorak over his suit. ‘I’m going for a drive.’

      ‘Joe, what’s the matter?’ she pleaded. ‘Tell me what’s bothering you.’

      ‘It’s nothing … it’s really nothing. There are some things I need to work out, and to do that I need to get some peace and quiet. Okay?’

      She regarded him worriedly. ‘Do you want me to get Mrs Gallagher to sit in, so I can come with you? We can talk about it.’

       ‘For Christ’s sake, no … it’s fine!’

      As he climbed into his Galaxy on the drive, he realised that that parting shot had been far sharper than he’d intended it to be. He loved Geraldine and the kids. He loved everything about his family. They were the ones he was doing this for. He wanted them to share in the dream, even if they didn’t know about it. And by the look on Geraldine’s face after he’d snapped at her, he’d upset her, which he regretted – but that couldn’t be helped at present.

      As he drove out of Coxcombe Avenue and onto Mulberry Crescent, and then onto Leatherton Lane, the main thoroughfare connecting Cotely Barn with central Crowley, he wondered if he was now about to do something he’d come to regret even more.

      Only slowly, after driving a mile or so, did he finally conclude that he probably wasn’t.

      The Crew hadn’t become who they were through cowboy antics. Okay, working on the basis they already knew everything there was to know about his operation, it was safe to assume they would soon twig what he was up to now – if not tonight, probably as soon as tomorrow. And they wouldn’t like it; it would certainly inconvenience them, but perhaps, being arch-professionals, they’d expect nothing less. Surely, they’d anticipate that he’d try to protect his own corner at least a little bit? It might even impress them, and from his own point of view, though it would be no more than a gesture – as effective an act of defiance as flipping them a V-sign – he might even feel that he’d regained a little bit of what he’d lost.

      In truth, he might regain even more than that.

      He and McCracken had been talking in round numbers earlier on. The Crew might know an awful lot, but it wasn’t as if they had access to his secret accounts, for God’s sake.

      Unless they’d hacked him.

      That was an ugly thought.

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