Chapter 18

RUNNING INTO TROUBLE

Jason Joseph Thomas, known to himself and his only friend Spencer Drake as Jay-T, said, “You’re still alive, Spence.”

“Looks like it.”

Jay-T, known to everyone else as Slow Joe, said, “Twenty years ago, you wouldn’t have made it.”

“I would’ve been alive, Jay. He said he would’ve cut off my right hand.”

“Hand?”

“Yeah. Right hand. As I am a thief, he said.”

“Fuck.”

“And a sinner.”

“Sinner?”

They strode away from Roy Hanbury’s front gate. As they walked, Spencer clocked the other houses in the terrace. He couldn’t help it. It was so tempting. The properties were red brick and white paneling. They were two-story with high front walls, which were difficult to scale if you were going to rob the place. But once you were in the garden, they provided cover. Swings and roundabouts, he thought.

“Yeah,” he said, “sinner.”

I’m a sinner.

He looked back over his shoulder towards Hanbury’s house. He thought about the TV. If he could sell that—

Sinner!

He turned away, looked at his feet as he walked.

You wouldn’t want to rob Hanbury’s house. That would be stupid. That would be suicide. He’d probably feed you to that snake. He would’ve eaten you himself in the 1970s.

He shivered again, glad to be out of the house, away from the old man’s presence.

Hanbury was a big bloke. He used to be a gangster who tortured and killed, who organized heists and ran drugs and pimped whores. He owned Barrowmore and nearly owned Whitechapel. He tussled with other gangs. Threats were made. Men were killed. Tit-for-tat. Back and forth. Blood for blood. It went on and on, and it still went on. There was always payback.

There is always a judgment.

And Hanbury finally got caught.

Conspiracy to commit armed robbery got him twelve years.

He went in marked by the beast. He came out washed by Christ.

Spencer and Jay-T walked in silence. Jay-T did footballer dribbles with a Coke can. Spencer ran get-out clauses through his head—how to keep the PS3 without (a) the Sharpleys catching him and/or (b) Hanbury finding out?

He couldn’t work it out.

He looked up. The sky was gray. Was there a God up there? He’d never thought about it. He supposed there had to be something.

This can’t be it.

So maybe he should repent. He didn’t know how. Was he supposed to say sorry to God? He tutted, confused. Maybe he should ask his sister. He hadn’t spoken to her for a year. But she was into astrology. Was that the same as God?

Hanbury’s words haunted him.

There is always a judgment.

No one had said that to him before. His mum had said, “You should always try to be a good boy, Spencer.” But that wasn’t the same. Not the same as, There is always a judgment.

He’d always been taught to get away with as much as you can.

His dad got away with it, and he’d burgled all his life—from when his own mum used him in his pushchair to scam old ladies to the day he dropped dead of a heart attack three years ago.

Spencer furrowed his brow.

Maybe that was judgment?

“You think there’s judgment, Jay-T?”

“You what?”

“Judgment. Like a judge.”

“Only if you get caught. Mostly magistrates, ain’t it.”

“Hanbury says everyone’s got to pay in the end. There’s always a judgment.”

“Not if you get away with it.”

“My dad said he got away with it. He never got caught.”

“See?”

“But he died. He was only thirty or forty or something.”

“So?”

“So maybe that was judgment.”

“No, I think it was fags. I mean, like, he went through three packs a day, Spence. And he’d go mental if we ever nicked a fag. Even though he had loads.”

Spencer felt the itch in his chest.

“You got any now?” he said.

“No.”

“Let’s go to the Paki shop. I need a fag.”

They had to turn round now. The Costcutter was on the road leading out of Barrowmore, and Spencer and Jay-T were traipsing aimlessly along the estates back streets, inhabited by lock-up garages.

He glanced at one of the lock-ups as he turned to head back.

The metal door was rusted. A huge padlock hung off the handle. The words “Trespassers will be hunted down and shot” had been painted in red across the brickwork.

Spencer gulped.

People told scare stories of gangsters like Hanbury torturing people in the lock-ups. Some said he still owned them. Spencer wondered if there were any bones in there. Skeletons of victims hanging from hooks.

It took the boys twenty minutes to reach Costcutter. An old man stood outside, smoking a cigar. He wore a leather waistcoat. He was well tattooed. Weird stuff—language and lettering Spencer had never seen before.

Maybe we can nick a fag off him, he thought.

“Fuck,” said Jay-T.

Spencer said, “What?”

Jay-T pointed.

Pissing against the side of the Costcutter was Lethal Ellis. Tall and gangly, Lethal was psycho. He had a very low attack threshold—it wouldn’t take any provocation to make him snap, because he was snapped already.

And he was the Sharpleys cousin. Where he was, they weren’t too far away.

Not far at all.

Both of them swaggered out of Costcutter, Paul carrying a bottle of vodka—nicked, Michael carrying a bottle of gin—nicked.

The Sharpleys stopped dead. Spencer froze. Jay-T wheezed. Lethal Ellis said, “I needed that.”

“You cunt,” Paul said and bolted towards Spencer.

Jay-T legged it. Spencer followed. He bumped into a bloke eating a Twix.

The brothers pursued. Lethal tailed while shouting, “You’re going to bleed, Drake. You’re going to fucking bleed.”