Chapter 91

INNER MONSTER

“I am not the man I was, Spencer,” said Hanbury, “but it would be very easy for me to be him again. He hangs about in my head, son. He keeps asking if he can come out and play again. But I says to him, ‘No, you ain’t coming out, old Roy, Jesus is in my heart now, and he’s my friend.’ Did you give them Sharpleys the games console back? Thought not. Maybe if you had, all this wouldn’t have happened.”

“Don’t hurt me, Mr Hanbury.”

“I cannot promise that, son.”

Spencer had been told to sit quietly on a blanket in Faultless’s flat. Hanbury had given him water and some bread. “Jail food, son, so you get used to it.” After he’d eaten, he’d fallen asleep. When he woke up, Hanbury rang Tash to tell her.

“Send Charlie over,” he’d said. “We can play good villain, bad villain with Spencer. Or maybe just bad villain, bad villain.”

As he waited for Faultless, Hanbury thought about his former apprentice.

The boy had been ruthless. Hanbury’s lieutenants had marked Faultless out from the time he’d been eleven or twelve. Most lads of that age, you had to discipline. You scared the shit out of them so they learned to stay under the Old Bill’s radar. Not Charlie Faultless. He knew how to keep out of trouble while causing as much as possible.

Hanbury started using him to deal drugs and dole out threats when the lad was fourteen. Charlie knew nothing about it at the time—he was dealing for someone on Hanbury’s payroll, that was all.

But Faultless really made a name for himself a few months after he was first recruited, when he saved Tash from a pervert.

After that, Faultless entered the fold. He was a Hanbury lieutenant. He was a future Face. And because Hanbury had no sons, he was a possible heir.

But then the Graveney murder happened.

Hanbury shook his head now, the pain of having to exile Faultless sapping his strength.

And then he comes back, thought Hanbury. And the gates of hell open wide.

At first it seemed that Charlie Faultless was a changed man. But now bad was coming out of him again—like sweat. He was shedding his respectable skin. His eyes were darkening. He sported that grimace he’d worn as a youth. He was always menacing, but now he reeked of something else. He reeked of malevolence.

All men have a beast in them, Hanbury knew that. But most could control their inner monster. They had different ways of doing it—he’d let Jesus into his heart, while Faultless trained his sights on a different career.

But when the call came, the beast would rear up. The seed of barbarism in a man’s heart sprouted again.

“You ever heard of Charlie Faultless, Spencer?” said Hanbury now. “I knew Charlie many years ago, when he was your age. You think you’re tough? You don’t know Faultless. He was a right cunt. Still is. I can see it in his eyes. And I’m telling you, he ain’t got Christ in his heart. He ain’t got nothing but darkness in him.”

Spencer whimpered.

Hanbury went to get a sack that lay under the desk. He’d brought it with him when they’d smuggled Spencer into the flat. Its contents would be used to scare the teenager into talking.

Hanbury picked up the sack. He reached inside and brought out the python. He draped it over his shoulders. The reptile writhed. Its skin was cool and smooth on Hanbury’s nape.

Spencer cried.

Hanbury wondered where Faultless was but thought he’d get the session underway.

“Please don’t,” begged Spencer.

Someone knocked on the door.

Faultless, thought Hanbury. He went to answer it, the snake still around his shoulders, but as he opened the door he thought, Why doesn’t Charlie have his key?

The hammer cracked Hanbury in the middle of his forehead.