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

said, eyeing him carefully. ‘She’ll probably poison you with all that foreign shit anyway, won’t you, She? I nearly dropped my guts down that carsey.’ Paddy strode over and slapped his wife’s behind. Treated her to an aggressive kiss on the neck that she pulled away from.

      Glad to leave the awkward atmosphere behind, Conky bid Sheila farewell and drove the boss beneath the fool’s gold of the streetlights down the A56, away from the leafy Cheshire suburbs, through Stretford and towards Manchester’s trading-estate wastelands. They ringed the centre like a shit city wall – identikit, corrugated iron super-sheds, punctuated only by the terraces of Old Trafford, the space-station-like construction of the Emirates cricket stadium and the gaudy blue dome of the Trafford Centre in the distance. All of that invisible as night fell in earnest, leaving only anonymous, hulking grey boxes behind high iron fencing that rusted in the Mancunian drizzle.

      M1 House looked like any other premises, but for lasers that seeped skywards from the Perspex lights in the roof and the thump-thump of dance music that emanated from within.

      ‘Alright, our Pad,’ Frank said, greeting his older brother at the door deferentially. He thrust a full whisky tumbler towards him. ‘Come on. Come on, man. That Dutch bloke’s been waiting hours and he’s boring as fuck.’

      Conky eyed the gaunt, twitchy figure of Frank O’Brien, wincing as Paddy grabbed the drink from him with one hand and administered a brotherly blow to his kidney with the other. Frank was already waxy-faced from whatever cocktail of drugs the daft wee fecker had managed to lay his hands on that evening, dressed like a 1990s throwback in a baggy long-sleeved top and cargo jeans. Shuffling through his giant temple to dance music in grotty old sneakers. A reluctant Pontius Pilate, Conky mused, serving beneath Paddy who was always channelling Tiberius on a good day; Caligula on a bad.

      The bass-heavy music enveloped him, pulsating through the hot, damp air – it was almost tangible. Deafening shite. It was certainly no Dvorˇák or Mozart – it made Conky’s teeth sensitive and aggravated the pains in his legs whenever his thyroid was out of whack. Strobe lights flick-flickering all around, dimmed only slightly by the tinted prescription prisms in his Ray-Ban lenses that mitigated some of the thyroid eye disease that plagued him. Lasers flashing green and red in precise fans, pointing upwards, moving downwards to slice through the fog of the dry ice. Everybody caught in nanosecond freeze-frames. Hands in the air. Shaking that thang. Fecking eejits. Staccato dancing like possessed puppetry where the DJ was the puppet master.

      ‘Make some noise, M1 House!’ the DJ shouted as he blended the groove of one track into another, perfectly maintaining 128 beats per minute.

      Jack O’Brien. Son of Frank O’Brien and number one nephew to Paddy. An accidental Adonis thanks to his dead mother’s Balearic colouring. The crowd worshipped this man, turning towards him in unison. Screaming and cheering up to the distant warehouse ceiling – above the lighting rigs, through the corrugated Perspex to the night sky beyond; out into the universe where their love would mingle with the stars.

      Frank cheered. Pointed towards him.

      ‘Spin those records, son!’

      The heaving sea of firm, slender young bodies parted to let them through. As they did so, Conky spotted the enemy: a mixed-race lad with a lightning flash shaved into the dark stubble of his scalp. Bell something, if memory served. A biblical name. Deuteronomy or something of that ilk. Paddy elbowed Conky in the ribs and nodded, giving the order. Dutifully, he grabbed Frank by his baggy top and yanked him at speed through the cavorting crowd to the backstage area.

      At his side, Paddy had thunder behind his eyes.

      ‘Twat!’ He cuffed Frank on the side of his head.

      Frank was ashen-faced. ‘What’s up, Pad? How comes Roy Orbison here has got a grip of me? I babysat your supplier, didn’t I? I wanna go and vibe with me adoring public, now. Know what I mean?’ Frank toyed with the sleeves of his top.

      ‘Who’ve you got dealing tonight?’ his older brother asked, gesticulating towards the dancefloor, visible beyond Jack in his booth.

      Frank shrugged, still twitching as though he had withdrawals from the dancefloor. ‘Business as usual, man. You know? The Parson’s Croft kids. Degsy and his girls. Nicky, Maggie. They’re flogging Hong Kong Colin’s latest batch of E and meth, like you told them. Dealing some super-fine super skunk. Few baggies of coke. Making the happiness and contentment go round, man.’ He drew a heart in the air, ending with both hands making the peace sign.

      But Paddy looked anything but peaceful and content. He smashed his whisky tumbler on the floor. Grabbed his younger brother by the back of the neck like a mother cat taking its wayward kitten in its maw. Pushed his face towards the crowd. ‘It’s crawling with Boddlingtons, you dozy wanker.’ Slapped him on the back of his sweaty head with a freckled, hairy hand.

      Narrowing his eyes, Conky refocused on the sea of faces. The boy with the lightning flash was palming tabs in a baggie onto some girl and pocketing cash. That much, he could see. Very shoddy procedure.

      Frank opened and closed his mouth. Rolling his head, as though panning for an explanation in his empty druggy head like a prospector hoping to find an elusive gold nugget in the mud.

      ‘I don’t know how he got past the fellers on the door, Pad. Honest. Maybe someone let him in the back. Maybe he just slipped through with a group of people. There’s two thousand kids in here. I can’t keep tabs on them. Know what I mean?’

      Turning to Conky, Paddy’s thin lips arced downwards into a scowl.

      ‘Find Degsy. And get that little Boddlington shit back here. I’m not having stray dogs pissing on my territory.’ Hunched shoulders beneath the suit said he was bristling with anger.

      ‘Well, strictly speaking, Pad, it’s my territory,’ Frank said, wide-eyed. ‘As long as people are having a good time, I’m not bothered, me.’

      ‘Fucking dickhead.’

      The slap that Paddy gave him across his face clearly had some weight behind it. Frank rubbed his cheek, suddenly looking like a small boy. Conky knew better than to intervene.

      ‘Get that Boddlington arsehole and Degsy back here,’ Paddy said.

      Amidst a flurry of disingenuous apologies, Conky returned with Degsy and the Boddlington interloper, kicking them at the heels to make them move forwards with his gun trained on their backs. Taking pride in the fear he instilled in Degsy, at least. He was the O’Brien firm’s Loss Adjuster. He had a reputation to uphold. All who came before him in the Conky McFadden court of justice quaked in their boots.

      ‘This is Leviticus Bell,’ he announced, pushing the Boddlington low-level dealer to his knees. Not Deuteronomy, but still a biblical-standard cheeky arsehole. ‘And our very own lovely Derek.’ He poked Degsy in the back with the barrel of his gun.

      Paddy cracked his knuckles. Took something shining from his breast pocket and slid it onto his hand. A knuckle duster. Degsy, a tall bundle of oversized G-Star Raw and Diesel with spots around his mouth that said he smoked just as much meth as he sold, paled instantly.

      ‘On your knees, you lanky twat!’ Paddy said, breathing heavily through his nostrils.

      Degsy’s Adam’s apple bounced up and down in his scrawny neck.

      ‘Sorry, Mr O’Brien. I don’t know why I’m here, like, but whatever it is, I’m sorry. I told Mr McFadden.’

      The left hook that Paddy delivered to Degsy’s temple sent the dealer’s head spinning to the right with a crack. Blood spatters clinging in a jaunty red to the black nightclub walls.

      ‘Christ, Pad. There’s no need for that,’ Frank said, wincing.

      ‘Shut your trap, Frank. I don’t give a stuff if Queen Elizabeth’s name’s on the liquor licence above the door. I’m the boss here. Me.’ He dug into his chest with a stubby thumb.

      Paddy dragged Degsy to his feet. Though he towered above even Conky, Degsy seemed