Down Among the Dead Men by Ed Chatterton Read Free Book Online

clubbers limp up Hardman in flimsy clothing, their conversation loud and rich with
fucks
and
twats
and
'ey dickheads
. A girl with the figure of a supermodel and make-up as thick as that of a kabuki actor squeals something to a friend behind her as Keane passes and he flinches. Jesus. Her voice scrapes his skull. The group disappear towards the university district, singing a song Keane doesn't recognise. The squealing supermodel puts a finger under the clinging Lycra of her micro-mini and shows her arse to the patrol car. She's not wearing underwear.
    Frank feels approximately eight hundred years old.
    Thoughts of a clean-living alternative self pop into his head, as always at times like this. A fresh, ascetic Frank, walking across some unspecified breezy, bracing moor. A sober Frank. A Frank who is happily married again. A Frank who doesn't drunk fuck his colleagues.
    A different Frank.
    Halfway down Hardman he turns into a side road and into the warm embrace of The Majorca.
    The twenty-four-hour taxidrivers' caff is packed with the post-club-run drivers but Frank manages to bag a seat in a corner. Enzo lifts one of his chins in acknowledgement and tea the colour of mahogany appears like magic. It's followed by a full English and more tea. At five-thirty or so, and feeling slightly more human, Frank goes through the usual routine of offering to pay Enzo before leaving without money changing hands.
    'Be good, Frank,' shouts Enzo as the door to The Majorca rattles shut.
    It's time to go home.

Ten
    When Noone notices the two clowns clumsily following him from Maxie's he places the big one right away. He's the guy Quinner was speaking with at the top of Huskisson Street on Tuesday.
    Noone briefly considers ignoring the two guys following him, just slipping inside his flat and letting them fade away, but then the familiar, half-welcome anger hits him hard.
    Checking that the two guys in hoodies and trackpants are still behind him, he turns past the street leading to his apartment block and drops down onto the Pier Head.
    The Liver Building is lit from below, a white-iced cake against the night sky. He walks north and crosses the dual carriageway onto Great Howard Street. Here the buildings begin to lose their scrubbed-up appearance. He walks past a shuttered car dealership and a ragtag collection of half-boarded shops and businesses. Looking back over his shoulder to confirm that his tails are still in attendance, he turns left down Oil Street, a dank, dark road connecting the parallel traffic arteries at either end. The street's deserted, and hemmed in on both sides by ancient brick walls oozing oil and mysterious industrial-yellow chemical pus. The glass-flecked road is patched and re-patched and what pavement there is is treacherous underfoot, even in the dry. About fifty metres from the junction with Waterloo Road there's a hole kicked through a breezeblock wall into a derelict triangle of no-man's-land between two corrugated engineering sheds. It's pitch black and he slips through taking care to be observed. One last glance back up Oil Street tells Noone there's a conference taking place. He waits at the gap in the wall and watches as the smaller of the two would-be trackers walks away, back towards the city and outof view. After a moment the big guy starts walking down Oil Street and Noone smiles to himself.
    One will be easier.
    Big Niall is conscious of his own fear but there's no turning around now, not after telling Jason he was carrying on. The feller he's following has gone from view but Niall's pretty sure he saw him dive through a gap in the fence. Trying to be clever.
    Niall slows as he closes on the gap in the wall. He glances back up Oil Street in the direction he's come from and sees no one. For a moment he considers abandoning the plan, giving Deano a call and saying they lost him. Then he squares himself up, a working man doing his job, and steps through the gap in the wall.
    As he does, something metallic