The Damage (David Blake 2) by Howard Linskey Read Free Book Online

making him repeat the act on Jerry – and that was an even worse prospect.
    The day someone chose to blow Jerry Lemon’s head off was one of the best days of Billy Warren’s life. His tormentor had finally got what he deserved. Life might have been sweet but Bobby’s head of security, David Blake, discovered that Billy had done a coke deal without Bobby’s knowledge. This meant Billy Warren now owed his life and continued livelihood to Blake, and he began to hate the man.
    ‘I can’t take a piss in Newcastle without this fucker’s permission,’ he told Kinane.
    Kinane looked hard at Billy through narrowed eyes. ‘You’re lucky Blake lets you carry on breathing, Billy. If it was me you’d tried to rip off like that, I’d have taken you ten miles out into the North Sea on a fishing boat and thrown you overboard.’
    ‘I never meant nothing by it man, honest like,’ Billy stammered.
    ‘I’ll do it too,’ Kinane told him, ‘if I ever hear you say another bad word about David Blake. You got that Billy?’ and Billy nodded, as if his life depended on it, which of course it did.
    In the scheme of things, that exchange might not have been too significant at the time but Peter Dean had been in the bar that day and his ears pricked up. He loved a bit of gossip, did Peter and, if Kinane was taking the trouble to terrify people on his behalf, it showed just how far up Bobby Mahoney’s organisation Blake had travelled. Peter recalled that conversation before he decided who he was going to approach for money for his internet venture. He remembered it again now, as he eased his car into one of the communal parking spaces beneath Billy’s flat.

4
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    J aiden Doyle had a spring in his step. Perhaps it was the weather, which was milder than usual for the time of year, maybe it was having some money in his pocket, or possibly it was to do with the new threads. There was something about the right clothes that could make you feel like you fit in. The ones he’d just bought seemed to have had the right effect on Palmer and Kinane. Things had definitely not been anything like so pally the last time they’d seen him.
    A month earlier, he’d gone to the same Quayside hotel with messages from the Sunnydale estate and a word or two about the week’s takings, along with a request for some more stash. You would have thought the supply of junkies willing to pay top dollar for H would eventually become exhausted, even on these shithole estates, but they couldn’t get hold of the drugs quick enough. Jaiden thought that David Blake’s two closest lieutenants would have been happy to hear that but, when he met them, in the bar of one of the Quayside’s fanciest hotels, they had torn Doyle a new arsehole.
    ‘What do you think you look like you scruffy fucker?’ growled Kinane before Jaiden even opened his mouth. The firm’s enormous enforcer was giving Doyle a look like he was contemplating snapping him in half.
    ‘Eh?’ It took Jaiden a moment to realise they were talking about his clothes, and he wondered if Kinane had a problem with his eyes. Scruffy? Everything he had on was brand spanking and all of it killer reem. Doyle reckoned he looked pretty slick. There was a yellow, hooded Southpole top over a Super Dry T shirt and FUBU jeans worn so low over his hips that everyone could see the black letters of the Calvin Klein logo on the elasticated band of his undercrackers. He was particularly chuffed with his box-fresh bright white Nikes that didn’t have a scuff mark on them. The final addition was the long, thick gold chain round his neck and he kept the hooded top unzipped, so everyone could see it and the designer T-shirt it hung low on. He kept the hood up over his head. Where he grew up you didn’t want to be recognised by the police, remembered by a witness or spotted by a rival gang if you strayed from your home patch. Doyle thought an old hand like Kinane, a proper gangster who’d gone