Born Bad: A gritty gangster thriller with a darkly funny heart. Marnie Riches

lunacy of having the meet on neutral turf, rather than in his club, before slamming his hand over his brother’s mouth.

      ‘See, this is why you keep your gob shut when we get in there. Understand?’

      Frank looked him in the eye. An appropriate amount of fear and respect, there. He nodded. Fell silent once more as Conky navigated the bright lights and double parking of Chinatown, pulling up at the back of Manchester City Art Gallery.

      Inside, Maureen Kaplan stood at the top of the grand, stone staircase with her arms outstretched. She was wearing a sharp navy trouser suit, though now that she had piled on a good couple of stone in her middle years and her hair was short and expensively dyed blonde instead of those gorgeous, brassy blue-black curls she’d once sported, Paddy wondered that he had ever fucked her with such enthusiasm.

      ‘Patrick,’ she said, smiling the lethal, self-assured smile of a woman who held sensitive information about every crook in town. ‘Punctual as ever.’

      ‘Maureen. My favourite number cruncher. Rachel Riley’s got nowt on you, cocker.’ He winked.

      ‘Schmoozer! Come on up.’

      Flanked by Frank to his left and Conky to his right, with five of Conky’s bravest taking up the rear, Paddy climbed the stairs slower than he would have liked. Tried to conceal the fact that, only half way up, he was practically asphyxiating with the effort. Praying that his dicky ticker wouldn’t burst. One step at a time. Appear statesmanlike. Don’t show weakness or grimace. He pretended to admire the pre-Raphaelite masters on the walls and the chandelier above him, though in fact, he was praying to Jesus, Mary, Joseph and whoever else would listen that he wouldn’t cark it there and then.

      Blithely unaware of his brother’s suffering, Frank trotted ahead, treating Maureen to a smackeroo on the cheek and offering her the too-warm embrace of a man who had spent his youth eating mainly E. Only Conky stood by Paddy, discreetly taking him by the elbow. Nodding at the artwork and playing along with this façade that his King was merely moving at a leisurely pace through his own choosing.

      ‘Where are they?’ he asked Maureen, finally reaching the summit. Even more lined around her eyes than she had been last time they had met.

      ‘In there.’

      Allowing Conky to frisk her, she gesticulated towards the large gallery up more stairs, to her right. She wore the flowery scent of a girl but gave off pure essence of fully grown praying mantis.

      ‘Jesus. Couldn’t you have got a venue with a sodding lift?’ Paddy whispered in her ear.

      ‘I always did like to hear you pant,’ Maureen said, winking.

      The gallery was stately in its proportions, lit fully as though the place was still open to the public and this wasn’t 10pm at night. Giant, priceless oil paintings hung on the wall, reminding Paddy that the O’Brien empire was but a small footnote in local history compared to Manchester’s stake in a grand Victorian past. The parquet floor shone. The air was scented with beeswax polish. It could have been an evening to enjoy, had it been a private viewing or a charity function. But it wasn’t. And there were his nemeses at the far end of the space. All turning towards him, now. Jonny Margulies. A bald wide-boy, wearing a pink shirt that accentuated his pregnant paunch over pin-striped suit trousers. Grinning hungrily, with arms folded. He looked like he had spent the day prosecuting criminals in court, as opposed to trafficking drugs and people through north Manchester from every major hub in the world. And there was Tariq Khan. All boyish-looking, despite his forty-odd years. Silver-grey streaked through his thick thatch of otherwise black hair. Decked out in designer versions of the young man’s clothing that his underlings wore, as though his supremacy within the Boddlington organisation was beyond question or doubt. Sitting on the edge of a display cabinet, giving the impression that this was his living room and Paddy was just a visitor. But there, lurking at the back, was that little dick who had stabbed him. The one with the lightning flash.

      Paddy grimaced at him. Drove himself forward, stifling the urge to seize a painting from the wall and smash it down onto the lad’s delinquent, disrespectful head.

      Maureen abandoned the safety of her sons – Zac, Steven and Louis – and her son-in-law, David Goodman to quickly seize control of the posturing men.

      ‘Boys! Boys. Welcome.’ She beckoned them to her, encouraging them to close the gap until they were within killing distance. Turning to Paddy, she smiled confidently. ‘Paddy here has requested this meet, as you all know.’ She turned to the Boddlingtons. ‘Tariq and Jonny have agreed to parlay.’

      Paddy watched with admiration as Maureen faced down the various muscle on the warring sides: Asaf Smolensky, standing like a faux-Hassidic approximation of Death in his long, black coat. Holding a shining machete in his right hand as a warning, though this was Friday night, and Paddy was sure religious Jews weren’t supposed to be hanging around like long streaks of threatening piss in galleries on a Friday night. Damned fraudster. And there, like a distorted reflection, was his very own Conky McFadden, holding a sawn-off shotgun which he’d had concealed about his person until now. Equally as demented-looking, Paddy mused, with that Just For Men clip-on quiff of his and the specs. What was it with muscle?

      ‘Now, I don’t need to tell you, do I,’ Maureen said. ‘… That there’ll be no bullshit while I’m arbitrating. No violence. No heated words. No sudden moves.’ She seemed taller than every man in that room. She too had her support in her sons and son-in-law, suited and booted on the sidelines. Everyone in the room knew they had something far more deadly than knives or guns at their disposal. They had receipts and invoices for nefarious dealings that would never be declared on a VAT or tax return. Cold, hard evidence. Enough to put everyone in the room away at Her Majesty’s leisure indefinitely.

      ‘Don’t worry, Mo,’ Jonny said, unfolding his arms and clasping them before him like an overweight choirboy. ‘We’re on our best behaviour. Promise. Aren’t we Tariq?’

      Tariq nodded. Looked deferentially down at his stupid sneakers when Maureen scanned his face for bullshit. Smolensky and Conky stared straight ahead like robots who had had their batteries temporarily removed. The lesser players hung back out of earshot at Maureen’s behest.

      ‘Right, lads. Paddy and Frank are here to sell. Jonny and Tariq are here to buy.’ She turned to Paddy. ‘The floor’s yours.’

      Taking a deep breath, Paddy ran through the speech he had prepared in his head at double-speed. It came out somewhat disappointingly as, ‘Ten million in cash for the south side. All drugs, all girls, all gambling, all imports and exports. All subsidiary enterprises. The whole south side. Ten mill.’

      ‘Apart from my club, like,’ Frank blurted. Beaming winningly. Sticking his hands in the pockets of his tracksuit, as though he were willing himself not to go disco, despite the sobriety of the situation. ‘That’s not for sale, man. Soz.’

      ‘Why would you think we’d pay you all that money when we’ve got successful business interests of our own?’ Tariq asked.

      ‘Not that it’s not a very interesting offer,’ Jonny clarified, cocking his head as though he were listening intently for what came next.

      Paddy could see they were playing good cop, bad cop or some such nonsense. He had no time for it. ‘I want to retire. I don’t want my business going to some cocky dipshit from London or those Scouse twats. I’ve worked my arse off for what I’ve got. Like yous.’

      ‘Listen,’ Tariq said, running his hand through that hair. Stroking his short, chinstrap beard. ‘We’ve been at war for how long? Fifteen years? More? Why should we trust you?’ Perched on the edge of the display cabinet, he crossed and uncrossed his legs nonchalantly. A slight whiff of whatever shit he spoke at home coming through in his otherwise pure Oxford-educated accent. Certainly no trace of the Lower Boddlington origins in him. ‘I mean, why would we want to do business with a man who’s put thirty-two of our men in the ground since we took control of the north side?’

      ‘We respect you as our competition, Paddy,’ Jonny said, placing a conspiratorial