It was pitiful. The Cornel brothers actually believed that Michael Flynn was going to arrive here at some point, with the Colombians in tow. As if that would ever happen! As if anyone truly in the know would think that a man like Michael Flynn would actually come to a shithole like this, and bring his overseas guests with him.

He had told the bar staff to give them what they wanted, and to make sure the drinks were large and plentiful – the drunker these prats were the better. The Dooleys had made a major fuck-up by not paying the Cornels out for their brother’s murder. The fact that they were on remand didn’t really mean anything – they were running everything from the prison, business as usual. Rumour had it that they had a problem with the brother who had died, but so what? No one in the world they lived in would swallow something so outrageous. It was their brother, for fuck’s sake! And that needed sorting out. It was a piss-take, an insult to them as a family, and especially when it was perpetrated by people like the Cornels – a pair of prize cabbages, whose combined IQ was equivalent to a fucking mongoose.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of the situation, Declan blamed the Dooleys’ tardiness for the Cornels thinking they were on course for the big time. Now the Cornels were his problem, and that wasn’t something he would forget in a hurry. The Dooleys owed him. He was doing their dirty work for them after all, and he was going to make sure they compensated him for his aggravation. It was going to be a very expensive oversight on their part.

He stepped back into the office quickly. They were drunk as cunts, but Jack would know there was something amiss if he saw him there.

He had told the doorman to clear the club by two a.m. The Cornels would think they were getting a lock-in. His lads had already told them they had arranged it so they could be there when Michael arrived. They were drunk and vulnerable and, as far as Declan Costello was concerned, that was exactly as it should be. The treacherous pair of filthy, dirty bastards! Wanting to fucking shoot Michael Flynn dead, and then to assume that would be enough to give them credibility, turn them into real Faces, real villains. They thought he would allow them to step into his shoes without a fight? It was so demented, it was almost comical.

Declan Costello could feel the beating of his heart as his anger smouldered. If the Barkers had not given him the heads up tonight could have been a blood bath; it could have brought the Filth down on everyone concerned, including the visiting Colombians, and that was something, he had a feeling, that would not have been taken lightly.