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

that now seeped onto his clothing.

      ‘Yes, Mr O’Brien. Sorry. It won’t happen again.’

      Struggling against Conky’s grip, the young mixed-race Boddlington interloper spat at Degsy.

      ‘Parson’s Croft piece of shit!’ he shouted at him. Turned to Paddy and Frank. ‘I’m not bleeding scared of yous, man.’

      Conky cuffed his ear with his pistol. ‘You’d better be, you wee shite. I’m gonna enjoy putting a bullet in you.’ His practised words came out automatically as he dwelled all the while on his missed book club and the strangeness of Sheila’s behaviour. Decades of doing the same job could do that to a man.

      The boy turned to Conky, frowning. ‘Oh yeah? You want the Fish Man to come and fillet you, old man? ’Cause that’s who you’re dealing with if you lay a frigging finger on me.’

      ‘What’s your name again, son?’ Paddy stepped closer and grabbed him by his chin. Pushed his face upwards, examining his delicate bone structure to see if nobility was hidden in his genes.

      The boy spat a second time on the floor at Paddy’s side. ‘Leviticus Bell.’

      ‘Plucky little bastard, aren’t you?’

      The boy somehow wriggled free of Conky’s grip. Lunged at Paddy. A flash of something metallic, under the dim backstage lights. Red, spreading quickly through the suit-fabric covering Paddy’s forearm. The boy, running away; sprinting like a hunted gazelle through the emergency exit.

      ‘Boss!’ Conky shouted. He pushed his glasses onto his forehead to get a better look at the wound. His breath coming ragged with an accelerated heartbeat as he stared down at the gash.

      ‘It’s just a scratch!’ Paddy said, pressing his fingers into the wound.

      But then, something more sinister, as Paddy’s look of surprise and anger turned into a wide-eyed hundred-yard stare. Clutching at his chest, he began sinking to his knees.

      ‘Jesus. I feel—’ he said. Grimacing, then, his eyes clamped shut.

      ‘Call an ambulance!’ Conky barked at Frank.

      As Frank punched 999 into his phone, he seemed to be watching with part-glee, part-dread as his brother slumped to the floor, unconscious.

       Chapter 3

       Paddy

      The heart monitor beeped in syncopation with the bing of the oxygen saturation gauge. Constant noise, in those bloody places. Bright lights that made Paddy squint. And that smell. He hated that smell.

      ‘What is that stink?’ he asked Katrina. ‘Do you reckon it’s …? I dunno. Floor cleaner like Mam used to use and … human shit, maybe?’ He sniffed the air. Wrinkled his nose. Felt tired. ‘I can’t stand it. I want to go home, Kat. Tell our Sheila she’s to come and get me.’ He shuffled uncomfortably on the hard, rubber mattress. ‘My arse has gone dead.’

      At his side, Katrina sighed and patted his hand. Her freckled Celtic skin looking so pale next to his. Her nails had been bitten down into utilitarian submission. Requirements of the job.

      ‘Ah, Patrick. You always were a terrible patient,’ she said, smiling wistfully as she watched his jagged heart rate peak and trough and peak and trough in a thin blue-green line. ‘Remember that time when you were doubled up in pain in the middle of the night and Mam called the doctor on you? You couldn’t have been more than ten.’

      Paddy smiled weakly. ‘Eleven. I told him I was just constipated.’

      ‘It was peritonitis.’ Katrina smoothed her navy habit. Her hand travelled down to the large, silver crucifix hanging over her heart. She tapped it thoughtfully. ‘You’ve always played the hard man, Paddy O’Brien. Trying to impress Dad.’

      A mental image of their father foisted itself on Paddy’s memory. A stocky little hard-nut of a man, who robbed the local bookies and did two years in Strangeways. Smelled of Marlboro cigarettes and stale ale, with breath like a dog’s fart. His hands and the pores on his face had always been ingrained with motor oil, when he could get work as a mechanic. Chasing him and Frank down the street with a tyre-iron for a laugh. Taking a swing to test their reflexes. They had been thirteen and seven.

      ‘Dad was a pure bastard,’ Paddy said. ‘At least he laid off you, though. You were his favourite because you were clever.’

      Katrina smiled wryly. ‘Well, you can pretend all you like. I know you tried to live up to his expectations. But now this ridiculous life you lead is catching up with you. Time you made some changes.’

      He rolled his eyes. Remembered how much he hated his sister’s well-meaning sermons. Yanked at the wires connected to his chest in irritation, scratching at the itch from the gel adhesive pads. ‘Save it for your flock, Sister Benedicta. I just need to get out of this dump. I’m fine.’

      Brandishing his notes, Katrina looked down her nose through her thick-framed, plain glasses, as though about to give a schoolboy a ticking-off. She tutted loudly. ‘A heart attack, Patrick. And a stab wound. You are absolutely not fine. Too much of the high life, too much of the low life and too much stress.’ She hooked the clipboard of notes indignantly back onto the end of the hospital bed. Sniffed pointedly as Paddy’s heart rate picked up, ragged and hasty, as though it were somehow trying to flee the scene of a crime. ‘You carry on like this and you’ll not make sixty.’

      ‘I am sixty.’

      ‘Smart Alec. You can’t die on me, Patrick. I’ve got the Lord’s work to do. I’m not babysitting our Francis. That’s your responsibility.’

      Paddy tried to shuffle himself up the bed. Didn’t have the energy. Hated himself for being weak. ‘I’m a businessman. I do business.’

      His older sister leaned in close until he could smell the convent’s nursing home on her. A permanent whiff of institutional dinners, industrial laundry and maybe talc.

      ‘Dirty business,’ she said, frowning. ‘The heavenly Father is watching, Patrick.’

      Paddy started to cough violently. Beep, beep, beep, complained the heart monitor. Bing, bing, as his oxygen levels took a dive. Too many cigarettes and fry-ups, he knew. He could feel his sister’s well-meaning eroding his conviction.

      ‘It’s taken its toll, hasn’t it? Admit it. It’s time to get out.’ Her well-scrubbed face – perhaps handsome in her youth, but never beautiful – was etched only with fine lines, far fewer than could be expected for a woman of her age. The face of a woman who had never seen drunken debauchery at 3am in Ibiza or a sunbed or a surfeit of gin. The face of a woman who slept nights with a clear conscience.

      What did she know about real life?

      ‘It’s alright for you,’ he said. ‘The church takes care of you. I’ve got a family and the firm, all looking to me for money, support, leadership. I’m the heavenly fucking Father in this town, Kat. I’ve got the O’Brien name to uphold.’

      Abruptly, Katrina stood up, shaking her head and glowering at him, as though she was channelling the displeasure of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. She scraped the visitor’s chair noisily along the lino. Smoothing down her drab navy skirt, her feet perfectly together in those ugly flat shoes they all wore. Prim and righteous – no different from when she was a kid, Paddy mused.

      ‘I’ve not got time for any more of your nonsense, Patrick,’ she said, dabbing at her nose with a white cloth handkerchief. ‘You should be thinking about your future. Carry on like you have been doing and you face an early death, and worst of all, the eternal fires of damnation.’ Her voice was quiet. Considered. Deadly. ‘Sheila and the