The Drop

out Santa’s been and given him everything he ever wanted.
    Gladwell was in the front passenger seat, Vitaly was in the back with me and one of his men was driving. Gladwell kept shifting about in his seat, he couldn’t keep still and he was turning round to talk to us, ‘did you fucking see it, did you fucking see it?’ he kept asking us, ‘he just stepped up to the plate and bam!’ he banged his hand on the dash board in front of him, ‘I give this guy, this civilian, who’s never so much as punched a bloke in his life probably, a shot at the title, a once-only offer to save his life but he has to kill a bloody legend and does he take that chance? Too fucking right he does! Nooo messing! Bang! Ten seconds I tell him and he waits right till the last one and I was thinking, oh wait a minute, he’s not going to do this thing, then wham,’ he hit the dash board again, ‘he looks Bobby Mahoney in the eye, Bobby Mahoney mind you, king of the whole city, and he slots him, cool as you like. Oh, hello man, you were awesome son! You should be in my crew. Do you want to come and work for me, do you?’ they all laughed like this was a hilarious suggestion, ‘anyone needs slotting, he’s our Top Boy from now on, I’ll get him right on it. Oh yes! You’ve earned this son, you really have. But tell me, for the listeners,’ he held out his hand and angled his fist towards me, as if he was holding a microphone, ‘what’s it like to be the main man, the cock of the fucking north? How does it feel to kill a legend?’ I just stared right back at him because I had absolutely nothing to say to anyone, ‘no? Cat got your tongue, has it? Oh well.’
    The car swung over the Redheugh bridge and followed the one-way system back round in a loop to the railway station. They parked in the short term car park outside. Gladwell, Vitaly and the driver got out and I followed them dumbly. Could it be true? Were they really going to let me go? Surely they wouldn’t just put me on a train like this - but how could they kill me now in front of hundreds of people at a railway station with everything captured on CCTV? Then I remembered the Russian’s little camera phone and Tommy recording Bobby Mahoney’s last moments on it. They were happy to let me go because they knew I couldn’t talk to anyone about this. How could I explain I ended the life of the biggest crime boss in the history of the north east? Even if the police accepted I was forced to do it under duress, there would be a big queue of people with short fuses and long memories, who would never be so understanding. Gladwell knew, as long as he had that clip on his phone he was Bank-of-England-safe, it was his insurance policy. I was in no fit state to even attempt to get it back from his Russian. It was perfect for Tommy. If anybody did try and link him to the disappearance of Bobby Mahoney, if the heat got too intense, he could make sure the powers that be received the footage of me shooting Bobby - then they’d be looking for me all over the country instead of him.
    Letting me go wasn’t such a risk when you thought about it. From their perspective, there was really no one left to come after them now. Even Finney was dead and I’d always thought Finney was invincible. Bullets bounced off Finney, punches had no effect, he’d faced men with knives, guns, machetes and iron bars and come away with barely a scratch. If you took on Finney you ended up dead, or in hospital or a wheelchair. Nothing could stop him. But these Spetsnaz guys managed to bring him down in a night and they weren’t even out of breath.
    The concourse was alive with noise, from the trains arriving and departing, from the chatter of people, from the high-pitched chirrup of the birds circling high above us. I stood under the big, old, metal clock with the Russians, while Tommy went into the ticket office. All around me, people were going about their lives and I watched them dumbly. I was aware of young couples meeting for Friday night dates. One in particular, a boy who met a girl from her train and they embraced, before linking arms then heading off into the city together. I used to be like that, lifetimes ago. They seemed normal, happy, hopeful, inhabiting a world I now realised I had left behind years ago. One which I was finally fully wrenched from tonight, at the exact moment I put a bullet through Bobby Mahoney’s brain.
    I killed him, me, a civilian, not a gangster. I’m not that kind of