Kevin was so laid back he might as well be in a fucking coma for all the good he was doing at this moment in time. Bertie’s old woman had made more noise in the sack and that was saying something. His Deirdre was a lovely girl, an exemplary mother, and an all-round decent bird, but she wasn’t exactly what you’d call a live-wire in the fuck department.

Bertie, on the other hand, was a doer by nature; if anyone fucked him over, he done them, simple as that. It was a credo he had lived by and which had kept him alive and kicking this long in a very dangerous game. All his instincts were telling him to go after Jonny P mob-handed, guns blazing, pickaxes swinging, and maybe even a few fucking machetes thrown into the mix just for the irony factor. And that was exactly what he was going to suggest to Kevin. He couldn’t sit here like a fucking Victorian mistress any longer. It was, in effect, doing his head in.

Bertie liked Kevin; he probably knew him better than anyone else, and he respected him, and saw his good points as well as the bad. But this fucking silence was deafening; he could almost hear his own brain turning over, and at every little noise he expected to be overrun by a mob wielding giant machetes.

Kevin was watching Bertie placidly; he knew exactly what was going through his mind and, in a way, he could sympathise with him. Bertie didn’t have the patience of a three year old, and when a bit of chastising needed doing he was the man to call on. Unfortunately, he had the brains of a fucking gnat and, whereas Kevin had never been that loquacious, Bertie could talk for England. He never shut his fucking trap from the minute he got up till the moment he fell into a fitful sleep. Kevin would like to bet he was still talking even then.

‘Get your coat.’ As he spoke he stood up and his considerable bulk seemed to fill the small room to capacity.

Bertie smiled, this was more like it!

In the small outer office of his scrap-metal yard, Kevin opened the arms safe and, taking out a semi-automatic he had purchased from an old acquaintance, he proceeded to arm himself to the hilt.

‘Shall I call the boys?’ The excitement was already overflowing in Bertie’s voice. He was thrilled at this turn of events; there was nothing he liked more than a good tear-up, a serious fucking straightener was always something to be enjoyed. Violence as far as he concerned solved everything, there was nothing like a good fucking tear-up to sort out the men from the wannabes.

Kevin shook his head. ‘Not yet. Make a cup of tea.’

Chapter Twenty-Nine