Close by Martina Cole Read Free Book Online Page A

to the open sea depending on the tides. Either way, they were gone, and that was all that mattered to these men and their earlier counterparts.
    As they sipped their drinks and chatted, money exchanged hands and the bags of green, sweet-smelling herb were put into the boots of cars.
    Dicky and Pat went back years and had an easy camaraderie. They were both products of their environment and knew the pavements better than they knew their own families. It was home to them and they were comfortable with it.
    Lately, they had entered into a partnership of sorts that had been as enjoyable as it had been lucrative. Between them, they had sewn up most of the main scams and, even though no one had named them outright as the new Faces on the block, people were approaching them and asking their permission before undertaking any kind of skulduggery on their streets.
    They found this amusing, as well as indicative of the way they were now being regarded by the main players in their fields. If the average man on the street was giving them their due, it meant Lily Law would not be far behind them. They acknowledged this as part of the price they paid for their lifestyles and both wanted to make sure they stayed this side of the visiting room. They loved the notoriety, but they also had no intention of being five-minute wonders. Here today, going down tomorrow, was not in their plans. They wanted to be around for many years to come and they wanted to maximise their potential. In short, they thought, like many a man before them, that they were too clever to be caught.
    'One thing about that freezing fucker though, he loves a gossip and he hears everything. He told me a little old bloke has been bandying our names about.'
    Pat nodded. This was, it seemed, old news to him. He didn't say a word and eventually the silence was too heavy for the brothers.
    'So what do we do now?' Dicky sounded stressed, unsure of himself.
    Pat shrugged.
    It was a statement not a question, and Dicky was more than aware of the underlying menace in Pat's voice as he snapped. 'We do what we always do: keep it fucking quiet. That is what gets people's collars felt, too much fucking rabbit. Remember the old adage, careless talk and all that.' His eyes were cold, dead. His voice was without any kind of inflection at all.
    Dicky grinned. His smile was, like a lot of his contemporaries, ruined by a combination of bad diet and missing teeth. In Dicky's case though, it made him look amiable, foolish even. A mistake many men had made over the years. His demeanour hid a vicious and vengeful personality that came to the fore whenever he felt he was not being given his due. This was another thing he had in common with Pat Brodie: neither of them looked the least bit capable of the violence that bubbled away under the surface of their friendly, smiling faces.
    Dicky though, brought up in a family of thirteen, was a pack-fighter. Like dogs, if one of the Williams brother went off, the others followed suit. Pat was a loner, a dirty fighter who would use anything that came to hand, be it a bottle, bicycle chain or gun. He had no preference as long as whatever it was would cause untold pain.
    'I think it's time we gave everyone a fright, Pat, you know, talked to a few old Faces and reminded them about what can happen when someone speaks out of turn.'
    Pat had heard this from Dicky a lot over the last year or so and he knew that he could not hold him back indefinitely. He had a point though, so he sighed gently and nodded his agreement.
    The fact that Dicky consulted him before he did anything of import spoke volumes, not just to Patrick Brodie, but also to Dicky's numerous siblings and their hangers-on. Pat had no hangers-on, he had people who worked for him and he kept them, for the most part, at arm's length. A few were invited into his inner sanctum, but even they had no real knowledge of the man they professed to know.
    He had no actual friends though, not in the real sense. Dicky