Read Online The Baby And The Brandy (Ben Bracken 1) by Robert Parker - Free Book Online
Authors: Robert Parker
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more than I can chew. I’m stronger now, more lucid - less of an angry haze surrounding my actions. I feel more assured, composed and ready. This is me. This is now. Jack wouldn’t like to hear it... but the Berg are firmly on my radar. That can be my secret, my ulterior motive. Find Royston Brooker’s killer, and bring them to whatever justice we can. Then I’ll turn my attentions to the Berg.
‘You impressed them...’ I say.
‘They intimated as much,’ he replied. ‘First they replaced my car with this one. I hate it.’
‘I love it.’
‘Then they asked me outright. I got the whole spiel, the whole explanation as to who they really are and why they do it, with all the grim details spared. It felt like the Hollywood version, but after I’d seen that guy crushed to a pulp in that ditch on the M62... There’s no glamour there, only ugliness. A life lurching from one grim foray to the next. I don’t want it and told them so.’
I see where his thoughts drift to, but can also tell that the place they end up at is frequented too often for Jack’s liking. ‘But your hands are already dirty, aren’t they?’
Jack looks down into his lap, wearing regret like a lead cloak. ‘Yes. In trying to help Dad, I... made compromises I can’t take back. So you see, I know what it’s like to kill. And I will kill again. I’ve shown I have what it takes.’
It’s with a shred of sadness that I feel Jack’s transference in joining me in murky lawlessness is complete. We are both killers, but only ever wanted to do the right thing. Those are the hands we were dealt, and we both chose to play them - and for that we only have ourselves to blame.
8
Only five minutes of stop-start travel had passed, before Jack directed me off the main carriageway, and down by a principal intersection next to Old Trafford, the vast, giant, cavernous home of Manchester United. I watch the high red neon lettering blink in the drizzle as the car wheels away down around the stadium, towards the visible water of Salford Quays.
We follow the road around, and end up traveling in direct parallel to the water itself. The Quays are essentially a trade stop-off along the Manchester Ship Canal, which now shows off Media City, the northern home of the BBC, and the Lowry Centre, a commerce and theatre flagship. All of this is bolstered by a heady volume of commercial and residential real estate, offering a new way of waterside living just outside Manchester city centre.
I haven’t been back here since I left the city for the armed forces, and the changes are wholesale. It is barely recognizable from the quirky shipping district I remember, and now there is more than a hint that this is a place to see and be seen in.
‘There’s a right ahead, just take it and park up,’ Jack instructs. I do just so, and we both hop out of the car in a small car park that overlooks the entirety of the Quays, the full vista spread in front of us atop it’s watery foundations. It’s a good sight, and I feel a hint of pride at my adopted city’s accomplishment.
‘I take it you know where we are?’ Jack asks, carrying a dark undertone to his voice.
‘Yes. Salford Quays,’ I reply, resting against the railing to take in the view, the water’s surface of the canal about 15 feet beneath my feet.
‘Right. When the explosion of building work took place here, the general thought was that it would be the end to the traditional trade route usage of the Manchester Ship Canal, and certain protocols were relaxed accordingly simply down to the lack of requirement for it. Less stuff was coming in, therefore less regulation was needed. Obviously the viability for using this route was clear, and it is something that the Berg played on big time. They went from pretty much writing off the Quays as too difficult to use in any kind of import export sense, to embracing the Quays fully as a gateway for their own expansion.’
That certainly makes sense. If checks on this
‘You impressed them...’ I say.
‘They intimated as much,’ he replied. ‘First they replaced my car with this one. I hate it.’
‘I love it.’
‘Then they asked me outright. I got the whole spiel, the whole explanation as to who they really are and why they do it, with all the grim details spared. It felt like the Hollywood version, but after I’d seen that guy crushed to a pulp in that ditch on the M62... There’s no glamour there, only ugliness. A life lurching from one grim foray to the next. I don’t want it and told them so.’
I see where his thoughts drift to, but can also tell that the place they end up at is frequented too often for Jack’s liking. ‘But your hands are already dirty, aren’t they?’
Jack looks down into his lap, wearing regret like a lead cloak. ‘Yes. In trying to help Dad, I... made compromises I can’t take back. So you see, I know what it’s like to kill. And I will kill again. I’ve shown I have what it takes.’
It’s with a shred of sadness that I feel Jack’s transference in joining me in murky lawlessness is complete. We are both killers, but only ever wanted to do the right thing. Those are the hands we were dealt, and we both chose to play them - and for that we only have ourselves to blame.
8
Only five minutes of stop-start travel had passed, before Jack directed me off the main carriageway, and down by a principal intersection next to Old Trafford, the vast, giant, cavernous home of Manchester United. I watch the high red neon lettering blink in the drizzle as the car wheels away down around the stadium, towards the visible water of Salford Quays.
We follow the road around, and end up traveling in direct parallel to the water itself. The Quays are essentially a trade stop-off along the Manchester Ship Canal, which now shows off Media City, the northern home of the BBC, and the Lowry Centre, a commerce and theatre flagship. All of this is bolstered by a heady volume of commercial and residential real estate, offering a new way of waterside living just outside Manchester city centre.
I haven’t been back here since I left the city for the armed forces, and the changes are wholesale. It is barely recognizable from the quirky shipping district I remember, and now there is more than a hint that this is a place to see and be seen in.
‘There’s a right ahead, just take it and park up,’ Jack instructs. I do just so, and we both hop out of the car in a small car park that overlooks the entirety of the Quays, the full vista spread in front of us atop it’s watery foundations. It’s a good sight, and I feel a hint of pride at my adopted city’s accomplishment.
‘I take it you know where we are?’ Jack asks, carrying a dark undertone to his voice.
‘Yes. Salford Quays,’ I reply, resting against the railing to take in the view, the water’s surface of the canal about 15 feet beneath my feet.
‘Right. When the explosion of building work took place here, the general thought was that it would be the end to the traditional trade route usage of the Manchester Ship Canal, and certain protocols were relaxed accordingly simply down to the lack of requirement for it. Less stuff was coming in, therefore less regulation was needed. Obviously the viability for using this route was clear, and it is something that the Berg played on big time. They went from pretty much writing off the Quays as too difficult to use in any kind of import export sense, to embracing the Quays fully as a gateway for their own expansion.’
That certainly makes sense. If checks on this
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