Becoming Saint Peter Read online

  My phone rang, and I saw the caller’s name. A knot tightened deep in my stomach and I was tempted not to answer it. But problems the size I was facing don’t go away.

  “Hi Tammy,” I said, as cheerily as I could.

  “Meet me at the garage in 20 minutes,” he snarled in his thick Glasgow accent. “If you’ve got the money you owe me, I suggest you bring it.”

  “Listen Tammy...”

  “Shut up. And don’t get any stupid ideas about not coming.”

  “I’ll be there.” I didn’t have a choice.

  Tammy ran his business from a car garage off the back of Keppochill Road, tucked away behind the industrial estate. It was a legal front for his nefarious activities and welcomed a varied group of customers daily—picking up or dropping off gear.

  I shuffled quietly into the workshop, which was empty. Two battered cars were hoisted up on the mechanical ramps. The smell of petrol and oil was momentarily overwhelming.

  “In here,” commanded a voice from the back office. I found Tammy sat behind his small wooden desk, covered untidily with paperwork. In the corner, I saw the giant bulk of Big Stevie, Tammy’s enforcer.

  In front of Tammy’s desk and shuffling nervously from one foot to the other, was a young lad I knew as Wee Rab. I nodded at him. He was about two years younger than me and white as a sheet. His swollen, broken nose and two black eyes gave me vivid flashback to my mum with her teeth knocked out. I turned away from Wee Rab, sickened by his bloodied appearance.

  Tammy looked at me. “You owe me two grand—”

  “I’ll get you the money.”

  “Shut up. Stop interrupting me, you little shit.” He continued. “You owe me two grand and I’ve got a job for you. Do it well, we’ll call it quits.” He sat back and poured himself a large whisky. “Do it badly, and you’ll get it worse than Rab here.” He waved a finger at Wee Rab, whose legs wobbled under him. Big Stevie held him up roughly.

  He turned to Wee Rab, his voice suddenly gentle—and dangerous. “So Rab, tell us again what happened.”

  “Well boss, like I said, I had the drop for Finnie’s lot over in Milton. But someone jumped me, and...”

  “You got mugged.” He sipped his whisky and laughed. “Ten grand of grass gone because you didn’t take any care.”

  “That’s not true, boss, I—”

  “Shut it.” Tammy stood up abruptly. “I’ve heard enough whining from you. I hate being let down. I’ve a business to run and I can’t do with runners who drop their load at the first sign of trouble.”

  Tammy picked up a foot-long rusty monkey wrench from his filing tray. In two long strides, he was round the desk and facing Wee Rab, who instinctively put his hands to his head. Tammy swung the wrench at Wee Rab’s trembling left knee, shattering the kneecap.

  I’ve never heard a scream like it, and I felt vomit rising in my throat. I choked it back. Wee Rab was writhing around on the floor, blood seeping through his torn, blue jeans.

  “Get him out of here,” Tammy ordered to Big Stevie. He calmly placed the monkey wrench on the desk and downed what was left of his whisky.

  Big Stevie got his hands under Wee Rab’s shoulders and dragged him like a bag of garden compost out of the office. Even when Big Stevie closed the door, Wee Rab’s sobs still floated back in.

  Tammy tightened his jaw. “I can’t have people letting me down. The same goes for you. You owe me two grand. I’ve got a drop of fifty grand of Class A for a friend. You do this right, and we’ll call it even. Understand?”

  I nodded feebly. From the workshop, I heard another high-pitched yelp as Wee Rab tried to hobble out.

  Tammy opened a drawer in his desk and pulled out a black sports bag. He gave me the instructions for the drop. “John, don’t lose the gear like Wee Rab did. Have you got that?”

  “Yes, Tammy,” I said solemnly.

  “Because if you mess this up, I’ll kill you.”

  I gulped. “I won’t let you down.”

  He poured another whisky, and I repeated his instructions back exactly. After that, he told me to get out and call him when it was done.

  Chapter 4

  The drop was something I’d done a dozen times, but never with a stash this big. I slung the sports bag over my shoulder and climbed up the stairs from the train station at Dalmarnock, in Glasgow’s notorious East End. The clock at the station entrance read 6:25 PM.

  Across the road, in the shadow of a twenty-story high rise, was an overgrown football field and kids play park. I crossed the road between the slow-moving traffic, daydreaming about my future. Tammy said this job would clear my debts with him, something I never expected to do in a million years. I vowed to give up booze and gambling tomorrow and make a clean break.

  In the damp darkness of a mid-winters’ night the park was lit only by a single underpowered streetlamp which cast a dull orange glow. Following Tammy’s instructions, I sat on the bench near the streetlamp and waited. Broken glass covered the park floor like sand on a beach and every swing was swung up round the top bar. I watched a group of kids kicking a glass bottle, and a stoner leaning on the metal fence smoking a joint.

  The stoner put his head to the side, as if sniffing his collar. His walkie talkie caught the orange light from the streetlamp. On the main road, blue lights of a police car lit up the football pitch and I knew it was a setup.

  I ditched the sports bag and ran towards the high-rise.

  The stoner left his post and charged after me.

  I glanced behind to see the glass-football-playing kids blocking his way.

  “You runnin’ off somewhere, Mister?” they asked, giving me a head start.

  Round the back of the high-rise, the door to the communal bin store was ajar. I scrambled inside and pulled the door closed. The stench of rotten meat made me gag. The floor was an inch deep with sludgy brown water and piles of black bags overflowed the steel bins. I balled my fist up inside my sleeve and punched out the solitary light.

  I scrambled over rancid burst bags to the very back corner, with my hands and arms covered in putrid waste. I vomited, and instinctively wiped my face with a sludge-covered hand. I spat out furiously. Then hunkered down to wait.

  All I could think of was Tammy, who would hear quickly what had happened. His last words to me echoed like a drum beat in a tunnel. An hour later, he called my mobile, and I didn’t answer. He called back every minute for the next twenty minutes.

  I had to face the music, so I made a phone call. But I didn’t call Tammy.

  “Saint, you’ve got to help me,” I croaked into the phone, my throat raw from vomiting and having nothing to drink.

  “It’s been a while.” My brother’s voice was calm and professional.

  “I need your help.” My voice trembled. “I’m a dead man.”

  “Tell me.”

  “You remember Tammy Hall?”

  “The teenage gang leader?”

  “Yeah, but he’s not a teenager any more. He owns most of his patch now. I’ve worked for him for years, running errands and drugs. You know, to pay off gambling debts.”

  After I finished, Peter said, “So why the panicked call to me?”

  “I had a drop of Class A to do for him. But I was set up or something. The coppers were there.”

  “Did you get caught?”

  “Naw. I ran, but I dumped the stash. He’s calling me every minute.” I told him what happened to Wee Rab. “He’ll kill me!”

  My brother laughed maniacally. “Oh dear, dear, dear. You’re deep in the shit, little brother! You lost your nerve, like the weakling you are.”

  A rage boiled inside me and I felt my face reddening with anger and hatred. “Even at my lowest point, you’re still twisting the knife. You’re just like our father.”

  “I’m much worse than our father. Unlike you, I didn’t inherit his opportunity-limiting dependence on alcohol.” He paused while I had a coughing fit as a fruit fly buzzed into the back of my throat. “Look, little brother, this is your lucky night. I’ll be your knight in shining armour and save your sorry arse.”

  “On what condition?” Peter never missed an opportunity to put people into his debt.

  “I’m working on a deal at work and I need someone like you to do a job for me in a couple of months.”

  “What’s the job?”

  “You don’t need to know that. Do you want my help? Yes or no.”

  “I don’t have a choice, do I?” I spat back.

  He burst out laughing. “You could always take your chances with Tammy. I wonder where he’ll hit you with a monkey wrench. I bet your elbow would make a satisfying crunch!”

  I winced at the thought. “Fine. I accept your oh-so-generous offer.”

  “Here’s what we’ll do. Stay where you are. I’ll send one of my drivers up to get you tonight. The first thing we’ll do is sort out your weakness for alcohol. Addictions make people feeble and unreliable. Then, when you’re clean, you’ll work for me until I give you this job to do.”

  I gave him details of where to find me. A few hours later, a driver picked me up, and we drove straight to a residential detox clinic outside Liverpool.

  Chapter 5

  A month later I stood outside the front door of my brother’s top-spec modern mansion in affluent Formby, just outside Liverpool.

  Our shared genes were clearly strong. Despite lifestyles that were poles apart, we still looked remarkably similar. He was more tanned, cut his hair shorter than mine, and used hair gel liberally, but we still shared the same physique.

  In the years since leaving Glasgow, my brother had done well for himself. The house was over two floors and the outside walls were as white as snow. The garden was the size of a football pitch. Surrounding the property was a ten foot high metal fence, and the entrance had electric gates. The mansion had a sweeping driveway of white pebbles, like a foaming river cutting through an immaculate green lawn.

  I stared open-mouthed at the small palace my brother lived in. “Your mansion is bigger than the houses we lived in growing up. I mean, all of them together!”

  “It’s a good little place, isn’t it?” he asked, clearly delighted that I was impressed. “This is what a decade of hard work with the right people will buy you.”

  “How did you go from being a looked after kid in Glasgow to living in a millionaire’s mansion?

  “In a nutshell, I made the right choices when I moved down here. My apprenticeship was in the finance team of Mersey Construction and I worked my way to board level.” He opened the front door and walked into a hall with white marble floors and big enough to park four cars in. “The company folded but I made enough money to set up Janus Angelica Investments.”

  “Looks like it’s paid off for you.” I gazed around the open plan living space on the ground floor.

  “Unlike you, I didn’t waste my chances on booze and bookies.”

  I ignored his taunts.

  “Let me show you around,” he continued. “The sitting room, dining room, office and kitchen are on this floor.” Peppered across the white hall hung awards for his philanthropic donations.

  “An award for outstanding contributions to the City,” I read aloud. “I see you’ve preserved your saintly image. How did you get all these?”

  “Just by donating money to the right people,” he smirked. “It’s good for business.”

  He turned away from the gold embossed award printed on cream parchment and waved upstairs. “There’s five bedrooms up there, all with bathrooms. My room has a full sized jacuzzi.”

  I pointed up the grand staircase. “Is my room up there too?”

  He sneered. “No, it’s best you stay outside. I often have business clients around and I don’t want you bringing the tone down.” He waved out the back. “There’s an annex attached to the garage. It’s got a gym and movie room in it, and a bedroom. That’s where you’ll live.”

  We walked into the kitchen, which had a marble counter and pristine cooker. All the white goods were integrated into the cupboards and there was an island in the middle. He waved towards the back door. “There’s a utility room and drinks cellar through there.”

  I assumed Peter was rich from the snippets of messages we’d exchanged over the last thirteen years, but I gawked like a goldfish as I took in the scale of his wealth. “The last house I stayed in had shit on the stairway and dirty needles on every landing.”

  “Sounds disgusting! Go through the utility room to the cellar and bring me a bottle of vodka. There’s every drink you can imagine there, but...” he chuckled, “you won’t be getting any of that. Remind me, how long will detox take?”

  I shrugged. “Up to a year, but I’m over the worst of the post-acute withdrawal symptoms. They gave me a load of techniques to manage my urges. I could have a drink every so often, maybe.”

  He put his hand on my shoulder and leaned close to me. The feeling of his warm, damp breath on my neck made me shiver. “You’re not touching a drop while you’re working for me, got that? I’ve spent a packet getting you clean. Next month, you’ll carry out an important job for me. After that, you can leave here and do what you want.”

  “What’s the job?”

  “You don’t need to know that. All you need to do is what I tell you to do. I’ll provide you food and a roof over your head,” he said. “But no boozing or gambling. Do you understand?”

  I shrugged him away, but nodded my compliance. I went to get his drink.

  ***

  Peter told me to chauffeur him to his office most days, although he always made his own way home. His company, Janus Angelica Investments, had offices in The Plaza building in the heart of Liverpool’s Commercial District.

  After a week of dropping him outside the imposing glass revolving door of the Plaza, I asked if I could come up and see where he worked. “All in good time, John. Just now, you need to keep your head down. The job I have lined up for you will come off in a few weeks. Until then, I need you to stay incognito.”

  “D’you want me to I pick you up later?”

  “No. I’m meeting some clients later and don’t want you hanging around.”

  And that became a standard routine. I’d drop him at the office and more often than not, he’d make his own way home. That left me with nothing to do for the rest of the day. I’d waste time at the house watching films, lifting weights or playing the PlayStation on the huge surround sound setup in the home cinema. Apart from a phone call once a week with my addiction counsellor, I didn’t meet anyone else. With the meagre allowance he gave me, there was nothing else I could do.

  The only thrills I got were driving his cars as fast I dared up country roads and round hairpin bends in North Wales. He had an Alfa Romeo Giulia and a Mercedes S-Class in the garage attached to the annex where I lived. I could while away an afternoon lovingly cleaning and buffing each car until I could see my reflection on the paintwork.

  My parents never had a car. Our father spent money on vodka and cider like it was going out of fashion. The money Mum saved from his wastefulness, she spent on necessities for the house and, occasionally, treats for Peter and me. Tammy Hall, the local drug-baron I worked for in Glasgow, had a fancy car—bought on the black market, no doubt—but it was only fancy compared to the average car in Springburn. It was nothing like these cars.

  Peter’s cars were in a league of their own. As I drove them through the twisty mountain roads, the cars responded like an award-winning show dog. The leather interior was as luxurious as the engine was powerful.

  After a few hundred miles of driving, I became confident and pushed them near the limit of my capability. I revelled in the adrenaline boost I got from pushing myself and the car to the edge.

  One evening, after a long drive near Llanfwrog, Peter was waiting for me on the drive as I pulled up.

  “Where the hell have you been?” he shouted, wrenching open the driver’s door.

  “What do you mean?”

  “You’ve been gone all day.”

  “So now you’re checking up on me?”

  He grabbed my shirt collar in his fist and yanked me forward, my neck burning on the seat belt. “Don’t give me that crap. Tell me where you went.”

  “I just drove around in Wales. Nothing special,” I stammered, then smiled hoping to break the ice. “You’ve got two beautiful cars there, the type a secret agent would drive. I enjoy taking them out for a spin. I’m bored hanging around your house.”

  “Well, don’t do it again. The job you’re going to do for me comes off in a few weeks. The last thing I can afford right now is you killing yourself in a car crash trying to be James Bond. You’ll screw up all my plans.” He let go of my collar and pushed me back into the car seat and turned to go back in the house.

  I rubbed my neck where the seatbelt had grazed my skin. There was an irony in his words, although neither of us knew it then. “What’s this job you keep talking about? That’s why you brought me down here. You’ve got something you need me to do and I want to know what it is.”

  He spun round angrily. “You don’t need to know that. You just need to do what you’re told.”

  “I’ve got to have some freedom, Peter.”

  He narrowed his eyes and looked at me in a way a bullfighter might tease a bull. “What are you going to do? You’re a washed up drunk in your mid-30s with no money. You might not enjoy living here with me, but you’ve got no choice.” He leaned in close to me and I smelt the stale hint of coffee on his breath. “I could always send you back up to Tammy in Glasgow if you prefer.”

  “N-no. It’s fine.”

  “That’s more like it. Now, go and cook something for dinner. I fancy steak.” He walked away, impatiently fiddling with his gold-embossed fidget spinner.

  Chapter 6

  A few days later, tired of Peter’s obsessive controlling and fed up not knowing what job he had planned, I took the Alfa Romeo for a drive up the coast to Blackpool. I arrived at the house in the late afternoon, pleased to see it deserted. After tucking the car up for the night in the garage, I ordered a pizza.