The End of the Line Read online

  ‘I was. I did.’

  ‘Then how is it this man can call and you just drop everything?’

  ‘Because he’s the boss and we’re running out of fucking money. Where are my boots?’

  ‘What do you think he wants?’

  ‘I don’t know. He could have a job for me. Or he wants to take a cut like the old boss used to…’

  ‘What I’m asking is should we be worried? Should I contact my people?’

  Amanda stopped, closed her eyes, ran a hand down her face.

  To the outside world, Simon was a painter who had made a name for himself after an article on black artists a few years before. Behind closed doors, he made most of his income from art forgeries, a lucrative market if ever there was one. He worked anonymously for a number of groups, most of his dealings online. Both knew what the other did for a living but tried to know as little about the day to day dealings as possible. So long as their work didn’t come back and upset their family, they kept it that way. One phone call and AK was already pushing that. They both knew that Simon calling his people would be a risk. Ultimately, they knew little about them but just because they dealt in art forgeries didn’t mean that they weren’t dangerous. Running to them could get them in as much trouble as what they could be fleeing from.

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘No, I think we’re fine.’ She ducked her head under the bed, moving boxes this way and that. She meant it. Mostly. If it was bad, Jamison would have told her to get Simon and the kids out of there. ‘He’s just new. I’ll talk to him. Explain how I like things. Soon as I find my fucking…’

  She threw open the wardrobe and started ripping through the shoeboxes at the bottom.

  ‘I’ve just got to figure out what I’m going to say. Can’t say he likes me much but if he’s calling… Ah!’ The last box yielded a pair of black, low-heeled boots. She fell back onto the bed to pull them on, fumbled at the zips and stood. ‘Right. I’ve got to go.’

  ‘Hey.’ Simon stood fast in the doorway, not letting her past. He looked cute in his dressing gown, the embodiment of cosy days indoors. He pushed his hand, sketchpad, pencil and all, against her shoulder, stopping her in her tracks.

  The kiss was warm, smooth and tasted of his coffee.

  ‘Do what you need to do. I’ll get some bags packed, you just say the word and we’ll be gone. We’ll meet you somewhere. Then we’ll figure the rest out.’

  She took a breath. The man always knew how to calm her. ‘I’ve got to go.’

  The kids were downstairs. Both she and Simon kept them at arm’s length when it came to business but had never kept secret what they did. Like the unveiling of the truth about Santa Claus they had allowed the children to come to their own realisation and, as such, to them it was only part of the only life they knew. But though they often paid as little attention to their parents’ jobs as any family, they were smart enough to know when something was happening.

  Emily was sitting forward in the corner armchair, arms wrapped around herself, the pout she saved for her exams now aimed at her.

  Michaela and Darren were dealing with stress the way they always did; by arguing. Darren was making the most of now being the tallest of the three by holding the remote from his younger sister’s reach.

  ‘I’m out,’ said Amanda, pausing in the doorway.

  ‘Mum, Darren’s being an arsehole,’ said Michaela.

  ‘Yeah, I’d say he is,’ she replied.

  ‘Promise to be safe?’ asked Emily.

  ‘Yeah, I promise. I’ll be back later.’

  ‘Can I come?’ asked Darren.

  ‘You know the answer to that.’ Her son had been asking that more and more, something that both she and Simon discouraged. They had both taken to the life in their own way but hoped that none of their children would ever have to. They would be eaten alive.

  ‘Yeah,’ said Michaela. ‘When she needs some little boy to leave his sports socks over the radiators she’ll text you.’

  ‘Hey, fuck you…’ The pair started arguing again.

  ‘Good luck, Mum,’ said Emily, fixing a smile over her disapproval.

  ‘Thanks, sweetie.’

  She left them to it. Simon was waiting for her by the front door, still clutching his sketchpad, pencil tucked behind his ear. Lazy Saturday thwarted.

  ‘Just be careful,’ he said. ‘Call if I need to know anything.’

  ‘It’ll be fine. What were you drawing?’ she asked.

  He turned the pad so she could see. Her own face stared back up at her, her head back, mouth open in a full-bellied laugh. ‘You. Before you picked up the phone.’

  * * *

  Powers to the people!

  The streets were thick with protesters, the air saturated with the steel-edged taste of illegal magics. Homemade placards jabbed at the rooftops, held aloft by students, skinny jeans, tweed jackets and chips on their shoulders. Prohibited homemade sigils were sewn into their clothing and worn defiantly before the watching gendarme. Amanda saw wind and water wards, defence against tear gas, pepper spray and water cannon.

  Not that they’d need them. Their main defence glowed in every free hand; smart phones ready to record every transgression committed by the watching police.

  Re-legalise magic!

  Head down, shoulders up to her ears and twenty minutes late already, Amanda pushed her way through them.

  Trains rumbled on their tracks across the bridge high above their heads, bringing in more of them. Reporters fought for good camera angles. The social media networks were a battleground already.

  Magic = economy!

  The tubes had been a nightmare. She should have opted for the longer route. Instead, stomach churning and sweat running down her spine, she barged her way past a tangle of bearded men casting minor glamours over their placards to make the paint glow and shift.

  Her mouth was full of the taste of tin, like she was chewing foil. There was an ache behind her eyeballs. Her shoulders burned with tension. She felt like a caged animal, ready to lash out or run back home.

  Fucking children, they didn’t know what they were talking about.

  My future is magical!

  The placard almost hit her in the face, painted in bright rainbow colours, stickered haphazardly with My Little Pony stickers and glazed in glitter. The sparkles travelled all the way down the handle and up the arms of the child who held it, like some contagion.

  The sight made Amanda itch. She resisted the urge to snatch it from the kid’s hand. The idea of bringing a child to something like this made her ill. She wondered if the girl had any scars under her sleeves.

  She kept on pushing. She trod on toes and left behind a wake of indignation until she broke through the skin of the crowd.

  The police were out in force – a neat military line of riot shields, helmets and batons. Their sigils were factory made. Uniform buttons gleamed.

  Behind them, the tattoos around the government sanctioned mage-officers’ eyes were sharp as they picked out trouble makers in the mass with their enhanced vision. The horses beneath them whickered and shifted uneasily at the magic-tainted air.

  The two sides squared off against one another, police stone standing against the tide of idealism. It would end in blood and another wave of hangings by tonight. Just like the time before and the time before that.

  Magic, regulated for the past two hundred years, outlawed since the 1940s, was back on the debate table. Camberley’s death six months ago, if anything, had acted as a clarion call to the movement but that wasn’t the only reason. It was harder and harder to control something when a kid could just post a charm on the internet and reach millions. Harder still since India had completely deregulated its use.

  Amanda just wanted the whole thing to fuck off. Even organised crime stayed away from it these days. After her father had died his organisation had collapsed, the legacy of the war and his actions tarnishing the appeal of illegal magic for good. Magic was something they stayed away from, the risk of attr
acting anti-magic enforcement far outweighing the reward when there were easier pickings like drugs, guns and people to be had.

  She paid both police and protestors little attention. They paid her in kind as she slipped up an empty street, walking fast without running, breath hard in her chest.

  It had been six months since the boss had died, only a month since the subsequent war had ended and his successor decided upon. It had been hard on everyone; murders, arrests, disappearances and worse. For someone like Amanda, the safest way through had been to stay out altogether.

  But that didn’t mean to say that she was happy with the outcome. AK was young, arrogant and the two of them were far from friends.

  Thank God for Jamison. The old man had played it canny, as usual. Instead of picking a side, he’d made himself part of the prize. Win the throne and the wise old advisor with the police contacts came with it. Jamison knew everybody. He knew which lawyers to hire, which politicians owed him favours or had something they’d rather be kept quiet. And more importantly he knew how to work everyone he knew, how to get them, no matter how briefly, to align their thinking with his. It was what had kept Henderson’s gang from jail for decades and it would do the same for the new boss if he let Jamison do his thing.

  That worked for Amanda. Nothing like having your eldest daughter’s godfather be the right-hand man to the new power in town.

  Twenty-five minutes late. Not far now, she told herself. The home straight.

  ‘You’re late.’ Caleb was waiting at the nightclub entrance, sunglasses on against the hot morning sun.

  ‘I know,’ Amanda hurried the last few steps. ‘Traffic. Whatever happens, we’re in this together.’

  ‘Good. Because I really need another job.’ Caleb thumped a fist on the nightclub door. ‘How’s the family? Enjoy having you around?’

  ‘Hard to tell if they’ve even noticed.’ Amanda touched her lucky pack of cards in the breast pocket of her shirt. ‘They’re asking for you. You’re invited to dinner.’

  ‘Whatever’s good for you.’

  Amanda took a deep breath. They’d apologise, go straight up, start pitching. ‘Fuck but I do not need this.’

  The door opened. Amanda blinked as she stepped inside. Sleek, stylish and full of mystery at night, under the clinical strip lighting the club was just cheap, scratched Formica and indelible sticky patches. The place hummed with the buzz of the aircon. To the right, a staircase led up to the VIP area which overlooked the DJ’s pedestal, the dancefloor and bar. Stools performed headstands on tables, legs reaching for the ceiling and casting neat shadows.

  When it was quiet, the rumble of a passing Central Line train could be felt up through the toes.

  The old doorman nodded to them from his stool, his brown, sun-leathered skin at odds with the anaemic lighting. ‘You’re late.’

  ‘We’re sorry. My fault.’

  ‘Don’t worry. Boss is behind, anyway.’

  The old man went back to what he was doing – balancing a pound coin on its edge. Biting his lip in concentration, he was trying a simple incantation to spin the coin. It was kid’s magic, something you’d see on the playground but the best the man could achieve was a slight wobble. Every time he flicked his hands the air would take on the battery taste of failed magic. It faded quickly but not enough to prevent Amanda from feeling uncomfortable.

  ‘So how they doing?’ asked Caleb, picking up their earlier conversation.

  ‘Simon’s good. Sold a few pieces. Talk of a new exhibition. Michaela’s always on her phone, Emily’s studying every minute and if it didn’t happen in a video game Darren doesn’t give a shit.’

  There was a flicker of a smile on that big, wrinkly mug. ‘Just like his godfather was at his age.’

  ‘Fuck, if it wasn’t me had the baby I’d start to get suspicious. So, dinner tonight?’ She watched her friend furrow his brow around the decision. It always did. Caleb was rarely a man for snap decisions. Years ago, it had been his partner, Michael, who had been the social one, always with a ready ‘yes’ and a wide smile, teasing his big, gruff soulmate from his shell. In a way, he had been so like Simon that Amanda and Caleb had only needed to sit back and watch. Drinking and smiling to themselves, their partners had filled the room with laughter and jokes, allowing the two friends time to bask in the presence of their significant others.

  They still invited Caleb round after Michael died. Simon insisted. Amanda felt a knot in her guts every time she asked him. Michael’s absence was always there and Amanda’s guilt at what she’d done was as real to her as the empty chair at Caleb’s side.

  ‘You’re late.’

  Everything about Jamison was smart. Even this early, in a windowless nightclub, his suit was pressed, his grey hair coiffed. He told people he was in his sixties. Amanda suspected he was actually in his seventies. His face was weathered, his sagging cheeks making him look like a basset hound, but the way he skipped down the stairs there mustn’t have been a single creak to his bones.

  ‘Amanda. Caleb.’ They would normally have embraced but each was keenly aware this was no longer their house. Instead, Jamison shook their hands, one hand to their elbows like a trained politician, his warm eyes drinking them both in. ‘How have you been?’

  ‘Bored,’ Amanda replied. ‘Care to give us a hint on how this is going to go?’

  ‘Come on up. We’ve got a few minutes.’

  ‘Still sucking up to the Indians?’ Caleb took the stairs three at a time.

  Amanda shot him a look.

  ‘Sucking up can get you where you want to go,’ Jamison replied, ‘like winning a war for example. Or getting a position in a new organisation. A bit of kowtowing and the man you are about to meet has found himself with a lot of people begging for a share of what he has. Some come with money, others with information and they all come with their opinions. Who he should recruit, what jobs he should be doing, how he should be running things. So you both should be glad that the one opinion he actually listens to is on your side. But one quick remark like that behind those doors and all the groundwork I’ve done won’t mean a thing. So today you are polite, courteous, cooperative.’

  ‘He’s sorry,’ said Amanda. ‘He’s nervous.’

  ‘Good. I pulled favours for this meeting, I hope you understand that. Your absence in the war was noted.’

  ‘We didn’t feel we had anything to add,’ said Amanda.

  ‘And to the likes of me that doesn’t matter. But to men like AK it’s the show of support that counts.’

  Despite the hour, the VIP area maintained its nocturnal habits, the low-watt bulbs in the lamps doing little to illuminate the black leather sofas and chairs. There was a polished black bar at one end, next to the double doors that led to the boss’ office. Two guards were lounging beside it, feigning deafness to the laughter coming from the other side.

  ‘How are the children?’ the old man asked.

  ‘Good. They were asking after you.’

  Jamison gave a little laugh. ‘I’m sure they were. Teenagers can be so thoughtful. Let me fix you something.’ Jamison slipped behind the bar. He didn’t wait for a reply, fingering out three glasses, setting down some top-shelf whisky.

  ‘Truthfully,’ said Amanda, lowering her voice so the bodyguards wouldn’t hear, ‘I didn’t think this one’d be the one to come out on top. Or the one you’d support.’

  Jamison slid the drinks over – on the rocks for Caleb, neat for Amanda.

  ‘Thought you’d have looked good behind the desk,’ said Caleb.

  Jamison looked down into his drink. ‘I’m not sure I’d have wanted it. And AK, well, when he came to me, he had quite the proposal on the table from the Indians already. I was just…’ He sighed. Amanda hadn’t spotted it before but the old man looked tired, his wrinkles deeper etched into his features, bags like bruises under his eyes.

  ‘So why are we here?’ Amanda pushed. ‘It was a straight “yes” or a “no” you could have done it on the phone.’
/>   ‘I want you to promise me that you’ll stay calm.’

  The office door opened, laughter and light spilling across the floor.

  Jamison, his eyes pleading a moment before, stood straighter, twitching his suit. The mentor was gone and the crime boss’ right-hand man was back.

  The boss’ office was decorated a lot like the room before except for the expensive-looking mahogany desk and plush rug.

  The furniture had been rearranged. Henderson had preferred to have his desk in the corner, sofas and seats taking up the middle of the room. Now the desk was front and centre, a balustrade from which to dictate to the smaller chairs before it.

  The room erupted with fresh laughter, the new boss’ loudest of all.

  Andrew Kavanagh, the new boss, was helping himself to another line of coke. His suit was as sharp as that of his second-in-command. Or at least it had been the night before. The top buttons of his shirt were open. The tie lay coiled to one side of the desk. His eyes were bloodshot and there was a touch of stubble to his jaw. On the street, he’d have looked like just another city-boy wanker slouching home. To Amanda he was young, twenty-eight. To his cronies he was the eldest. To the Indian gang that had backed him with money, guns and the odd problem smoothed over, he was a foothold on the market.

  Lads in various chemical states littered the room, draped over chairs, holding up walls. They tried their best to make Amanda feel unwelcome.

  Most criminals now under AK’s dominion were like Amanda, they did their thing how and when they liked and paid the man a percentage. Failure to pay meant violence, maybe against you, maybe against your family, friends or property. In exchange, AK offered criminals in his fiefdom the security of not having the tar beaten out of them.

  But these lads were the new breed, the tip of the iceberg that made up Kavanagh’s empire. These were AK’s favourites. The ones with his ear. The ones who got given the choice jobs that those with the brains but not the nerve or skills brought to him. This was the room to be in.

  When Henderson had been alive Amanda had her pick of the seats. Not any more.