Hunting the Priest Killer - Day 9

Trying to find a co-operative gang peon is like trying to find a vegetarian in a steak house. Harry and I spent nearly seven hours trying to find out what had happened to Fred when he passed into gang territory without finding a single canary to sing for us.

It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that after seven hours both Harry and I were tired and a tiny bit grumpy…and when I say a tiny bit grumpy, I mean I may have shot out the tyres of a car because it drove through a puddle and splashed me.

We had attracted far too much attention without gaining any information. I would say that things were getting dangerous, but then again we were going after a gang leader with brute force – was never going to be a day playing in a strawberry patch.

What made it more dangerous was the rain. When it rains, it pours and people don’t take to the streets – not unless those people are looking for someone or something. So Harry and I needed to get out of the rain and whilst we waited for it to pass we could think of a way to find out where Fred was.

There were several abandoned properties of both home and warehouse; we decided home was less likely to be occupied by illegal business.

We were wrong.

Harry and I forced the backdoor of the first empty house we saw and walked straight into an interrogation. Fred was tied to a chair in the middle of the kitchen looking as if Mike Tyson, Frank Bruno and Mohammad Ali had all taken it in turns to practise on him.

On the plus side we had managed to find Fred by blind luck. On the downside we were now face-to-face with gang members that actually had more of an ideal of who we were and what they were doing with the guns they were aiming at our foreheads…at close range.

Bluffing seemed like the only way that any of us would make it out of the room alive, but neither Harry nor I had ever been any good at bluffing. So we surrendered, threw down our guns and got knocked out for it.

The next thing I remember is seeing Sykes’ ugly face peering at mine. A piece of advice – even if someone is tied to a chair and has been unconscious for an undisclosed length of time, don’t put your face too close to their’s or you are liable to find yourself suffering from a Glaswegian kiss.

Sykes learnt that the hard way.

Lots of threats and swearing followed, but ultimately the bleeding where I broke his nose stopped and he calmed down long enough to admit that it had been him that had killed Patrick.

I’m not sure how I thought I’d feel when he admitted to that, but it wasn’t nearly as satisfying as I had hoped. I think I would have felt vindicated, right, and then be able to shoot him between the eyes. This clearly didn’t happen. If anything I felt angrier than any of the times that Harry and Fred have been kidnapped or hurt.

I don’t really remember what happened next, but Harry swears from where he was sitting I did a complete Bruce Banner.

But then again, Harry is prone to exaggerate.

Hunting a Priest Killer - Day 5

Somewhere quiet, that was the last place the police – or any one for that matter, would look for me was also a very comfortable place to relax and unwind after sitting in that horrible back room. I started by running a bath and soaking for a while just to get the feel of dank bar gun fight off me.

As to where I was, nobody in the world would think that when I was being hunted by Fred I would go to his apartment to hide. In fact, he was probably sat in my office now waiting for me to come home so it was only fair that whilst he was using my place, I used his.

On balance, I definitely had the better trade. His place was big and warm with lots of plush furnishings; mine was small, cold with furniture barely holding together. Fred’s fridge was well stocked with a variety of food, mine contained milk, eggs and some three week old takeaway noodles.

Sykes wanted to rise to fame and glory in the gang scene and with his meteoric rise he also wanted more territory. At this point there would be little to be gained from just shooting him, well except for an enormous amount of satisfaction. The stunt at the bar had the Snake Devils fighting each other for the moment, but that wouldn’t last long and there were always more peons to be found. In fact, killing Sykes would probably cause more harm than good. It would leave a power vacuum that those within would fight to seize control of the gang, and those outside would fight to destroy the competition. If that were to happen then more people would get hurt, more people like Patrick would suffer. So my usual plan of attack was not one that was going to work.

The more I thought about it, the more I realised that I couldn’t deal with the Snake Devils on my own. Yes I could hold them off in small numbers and pick them off one by one as they started to expand their territory, but the whole gang was a just a bit too much to take on, as were all the possible repercussions of my actions. In truth, I could think of only one thing that I could do.

I called Fred. I hated doing it and the angry response to calling him on his house phone was not at all satisfying when I had to tell him that I needed to talk to him, that I needed his help.

After that phone call I had to take another bath.

Hunting a Priest Killer Day 2

So a warrant for my arrest was issued today. It isn't the first time this has happened and it won't be the last...but the reason for such a warrant is completely ridiculous. It's not like I did anything particularly dangerous...for once...and it's not like the general public were being put in unnecessary danger...for once... The reason for the demands for my incarceration came after I locked Frederick Barlow in a cleaner's cupboard.

Fred is claiming obstruction of justice just because I stopped him from arresting someone he thinks is guilty of murder because I needed to talk to them. In all fairness to Fred, the guy in question is probably guilty of several hundred murders. I still think the warrant was an overreaction.

I went to speak with Mitch, an informant in the gang underworld from the Hornet's Nest gang, who told me where to find Anthony. Now the reason I was seeking Anthony was that if anyone had authorised a hit on Patrick, he would know about it. That would then narrow down my search field. If a hit hadn't been organised then I was looking more at a personal vendetta or a points scoring exercise. Either way I was hoping the hit had been called for.

Anthony proved a difficult man to find. I looked in every darkened doorway, every dumpster, every seedy pool hall, bar and public house and couldn't find him anywhere. I decided to go and sit in one of the parks for a while as traipsing around the more...glamorous sights of the city had left me in need of fresh air and a shower. I sat down on a bench and low and behold opposite me was Anthony feeding the ducks...criminal indulgence really does take on all forms...

After a few minutes of harmless small talk in the park he asked to move to a more secluded location to talk about Patrick, this is when Fred had gotten involved. He walked casually over, sat down next to us and in a low voice told Anthony he was under arrest. Now this made me annoyed for three reasons. 1) It's rude to interrupt people when they are talking, 2) Arresting Anthony took away the only shred of a lead that I had and 3) Anthony ran, making Fred chase him and in turn making ME run...RUN!

Fred managed to get himself caught in the revolving door which gave me a chance to catch up to him, yell at him and throw him in the cleaner's cupboard near to the revolving door. So obviously this means that I should be arrested...fortunately I did get Anthony to tell me that Sykes, leader of the Snake Devils had just risen in power after completing a hit that meant he could start expanding their territory. This was a promising start...well as long as I could avoid Fred and not get arrested...considering the number of squad cars parked around my building right now, that doesn't seem like something I can avoid for too long.