Grimms 92
By celticman
- 1793 reads
Jaz feigns unconsciousness, not difficult with a stiff body and a head vaguely attached to sensibility, as he feels the floor moving and van doing a U-turn. The voices in the back of the van with him have English accents, one of them recognisably Geordie. It elicits a memory that the North of England is roughly the place where the Dunnes buy their drugs wholesale. Out of the side of his swollen, Panda, eyes he notices their uniform is the kind of green khaki and their haircuts a throwback to the fifties, no-nonsense short-back-and sides, and boyish, innocent, clean-shaven faces. They josh with each other in a familiar bantering tone as the van takes one turn then another, throwing them from side to side. One of them prods at him with the toes of his boot. Jaz coughs, a whirlpool of phlegm and watery blood. He lifts his head, bobbling up and down, as he turns to the side to grog and spit out broken teeth out of his mouth, which makes them laugh and jeer. His fingertips run over his face and it feels like the mush of an overripe banana.
‘Cunt,’ says one of the voices
A remark directed at Jaz, who flinches and holds his arms out protecting his face and head, expecting to be kicked and mauled, but the fresh faces look down at him with curiosity and detachment, which worries him more. The van comes to an abrupt stop and the muggy heat of the back of the van is relieved when the back door opens and they pile out. Jaz tries looking around corners hoping for the chance to escape, but windmills of arms reach in and hands tug him out and bundle him to the ground.
Jaz lands on his feet, but his legs feel wobbly. He’s allowed to get his balance and his bearings.
The Audi is parked in front of a child’s drawing of a cottage with rough white walls and cattle grazing in the far away fields. The van blocks off the entrance to the lane and the front of the homestead in the Old Kilpatrick hills is screened by drystone walls and overgrown fir trees. Proximity and anonymity points to the kind of professionalism that even Dougie would have been proud.
Someone to his side grips him by the elbow and directs him along the short path towards the cottage. Jaz makes a run for it, twisting one way and another, but gets no more than a few steps before his legs are kicked from under him, shifting the pain in his body downward and spreading across his back. His escape attempt causes great hilarity among his captors, who whoop and cheer and call the man that let him go ‘a fucking nugget’ and curse him, good naturedly, in a medley of English accents.
Two men leave bruises on Jaz’s arm, as they grip and flank each side of him. He is propelled towards the cottage door, his feet barely touching the ground. Inside the stench of damp and mould inflames his nostrils. Furniture is hastily arranged. An unlit Calor Gas fire. Camp beds line the whitewashed walls. A couple of wooden chairs and a table in the centre of the room. A big man with a trim figure but with a little weight around the stomach directs the men to put Jaz in one of the chairs. He sits in the other seat, facing Jaz, adjusting the knap of his jacket with leather patches on the elbows. Grey hair, precisely cut to be neither too long nor too short and a weathered face that might once have been handsome gazes across the table at his captor. Behind him old photographs on the wall, faded sepia, father, mother and son, falling into the darkness of people that had once lived here.
‘You’ve led us a pretty chase,’ he says, in a slightly upper-class, clear tone, soft on the consonants that is used to being heard and obeyed. He strokes his forehead. ‘Running about like a windy-up Action Man. But careless with the casualties. Careless with the fingerprints. They seem to be all over the place. And your brother…’ he cocks his head and seems to be listening, ‘…John Junior, we had a cosy little chat, didn’t we?’
It’s not a question Jaz can answer. The eyes of the old man are like those of an alligator and his smile matches it.
‘I’m going to ask you some questions and I want straight answers.’ He chortles. ‘All off the record, of course.’
‘You want me to grass,’ Jaz says.
Jaz has taken little notice of the other men’s brood presence. They take their job seriously. Nursing dimly lit gloom, monitoring the peaks and troughs of silence and movement, and waiting to be called into action. The old man gives a sign, a nod of his forehead. Jaz’s head is locked in a grip and his arms held. Four or five blows hit him on the face, harder than he has been punched before and it flattens his nose towards his cheek and pain radiates across his head and neck. Another nod, and Jaz is let go. They watch him going from shock to anger and a feeble attempt to get out of the chair, before slumping down again. Jaz closes his eyes, remains still as an ornament. A broad presence appears in front of him and he feels the blood being wiped gently from his face. He is handed a tea-towel to clean himself up and he looks at the gloop from his nose, blood-red centre in the shape of the Japanese flag.
The old man doesn’t let the silence settle. ‘We’re not buying bullshit son. We’re selling. I want you to tell us everything you know about your Irish connections.’
‘Fuck you,’ says Jaz, spitting a spray of blood towards the old man and laughing, hysterically. ‘You’re gonnae kill me, anyway.’
Only a little phlegm reaches the old man’s jacket, which he ignores. ‘Yes, we can kill you. And believe me, there are more than one way to die. Some of them, one finds, very unpleasant indeed.’ He sighs and shrugs. ‘There’s certainly the option of being shot in the head and being buried in some out-of-the-way place, as you well know. But we’re waging a war and there’s going to be some casualties. Your friends Del and Dougie, for example, might not be here for much longer. They’ve been making some very unrealistic demands. We have some very good information that you are going to get a foot up. When you come back from Ulster you’ll be in charge of operations in Scotland, which opens up a whole new ball game for us.’ His laugh is like the bark of a distant border collie.
Jaz sits straighter in his seat, wiping at his bloody nose. ‘Whit dae I need to dae?’
‘We want you to be our eyes and ears.’ The old man points across the room to a man with bushy eyebrows, slightly bowed, watching them ‘Report in once a week to Mr Hawkins over there.’
‘Is that aw?’ says Jaz.
‘Don’t be so downbeat,’ the old man says, pleasantly, noting the irony. ‘We’ll give you all the help we can.’
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Comments
Well, this is an interesting
Well, this is an interesting turn of events. I wonder who those people are? Is there some kind of estabilishment link coming along perhaps? Very intriguing! Also (if true) I'm astounded that anyone would think of putting someone a reckless as Jaz in charge of anything
'Jaz has taken little notice of the other men’s brood presence. Conservatives. They take their job seriously.' - brooding presence? Not sure I understand why conservatives is used here
'Your bosum friends' - bosom
Finally, this part says 18 like no other so am changing it for you
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Heaven help me, I feel sorry
Heaven help me, I feel sorry for Jaz. Up against the big boys. .
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Hi Jack,
Hi Jack,
It's becoming clear to me that Jaz is like a cat with nine lives.
Really looking forward to reading more.
Jenny.
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