Faceless by Martina Cole Read Free Book Online

Would keep his mouth shut if he was caught and do his time without too much trouble. Young men today opened their traps to their briefs before they were even charged. It was laughable. Big men on the streets and little boys in the filth shop if they thought they had a good capture.
    Winning Patrick’s trust took time and effort and Sonny had come up trumps for him more than once. As he buzzed for entry Pat was smiling again.
    Sonny’s flat was smart, all black leather and cream walls, completely at odds with his appearance. He looked like a walking flag of Ethiopia, Jamaican through and through. In fact Sonny was a Brixton boy, had never even been to Jamaica, but that didn’t bother him too much. His mother was white, a school teacher, his father an African businessman with the gift of the gab. Sonny had never met him, nor had his mother seen him again after their three-week fling.
    Now Sonny was playing with his dreadlocks and smoking a large joint. His permanent grin was in place and he gave off the sweet odour of grass and sweat. He was a plastic Rasta, Jamaican when it suited him, like Connor.
    ‘That fucking skunk stinks!’
    Pat was waving his hands in front of his face in mock horror.
    ‘It’s the plants in the bedroom. Fuck me, the electric bill is like the National Debt!’
    Both men laughed.
    ‘Can you smell it outside, Patrick?’
    He shook his head.
    ‘Nah. Are they nearly ready?’
    ‘A few days, that’s all, then we can harvest. Have you got the stuff?’
    Pat nodded as he was given an ice-cold Bud.
    ‘Tell Devlin if he fucking shoots anyone with that gun it’s a serious drink, right? He knows that, don’t he?’
    Sonny nodded, his grin wider than usual.
    ‘I think he wants to shoot Dicky Tranter with it. I know they’ve had a fucking big tear up over money. Dicky is a cunt to himself. He always has to have a touch, it’s in his nature.’
    Pat sighed and dropped on to the black leather sofa.
    ‘Dicky has been asking for a serious word for a while. He was the
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    same at school, a prat to himself. Have you got me money?’
    Sonny was weighing a gun in his hand and smiling.
    ‘You ever shot anyone, Patrick?’
    His voice was genuinely interested.
    Patrick laughed.
    ‘As I said to Old Bill not six weeks ago. Sonny, that’s for me to know and you to find out!’
    ‘You’re a bad man and no mistake. How’s that little woman of yours?’
    Sonny realised he had said the wrong thing from Patrick’s expression but pressed on.
    ‘Still giving you hag? Listen, you ain’t had hag till you lived with my old woman. Liselle could aggravate Jah himself when she gets going.’
    ‘Where is she?’
    ‘Over Lakeside with her sister. I thank God every day for that place. It is the easiest place for shoplifting in the country, she reckons - and she should know, she’s done them all.’
    ‘She still skanking?’
    ‘It’s in her blood, innit? She can’t help it.’
    Pat laughed.
    ‘Usual rates for the guns and the sniff. There’s a good few cuts in there so you should do a nice bit on top for yourself, OK?’
    Sonny nodded.
    ‘Can you deliver some rocks for Irie?’ he asked. ‘He’s selling out like mad. I had to chase him for the money. I think he smokes most of them himself.’
    ‘Jimmy has a new cook and I’m going to try him out. But tell Irie that if I hear any more about him then he is rowed out once and for all, right? Tell him he’ll disappear like Wilson and I will see to it personally, OK?’ Patrick still looked calm and relaxed. Sonny wasn’t smiling now.
    It was the first time that Pat had ever given an inkling that he knew what had happened to Tony Wilson, and it shocked Sonny. Word on the street had put Patrick’s face in the frame and so did Old Bill, but so far it had only been speculation. Patrick Connor was harder than most people realised. Sonny knew that, had always known it.
    If he was branching out again Sonny wanted part of it, but not if it meant a large lump of