From ‘Across The Water’ published by Northodox Press
book 2 of The Liverpool Mysteries
1974 and Paddy a character from Across The Water is panicking.
He kept the door open with his foot to combat the smell of piss and held the coin above the slot. Once it dropped, there’d be no going back. Beep… beep… beep… the coin hovered, beep…beep… beep. Fuck it. He pressed the 2p, and with a mechanical click, it was swallowed by the machine.
‘D. I. Barlow.’ The voice that answered was clipped and distant.
‘Mr Barlow. We need to meet.’ Paddy’s head was banging.
He’d drunk too much at the funeral the day before.
‘Who is this?’
‘It’s me, Paddy Connolly.’ He called from the Parade. The public box was outside Damwood Hall. There was a beat of silence.
‘Mr Barlow?’
‘Why are you calling me?’
‘You said if it was important.’ Paddy walked a fine line between respect and hatred—respect that the bastard was using everybody, and hatred for the same reason.
‘I said if it was urgent. I hope you’re not playing games.’
‘I’m not. It’s fucking important.’ Paddy’s stomach churned, head aching.
Barlow was no longer distant.
‘Don’t take that tone with me,’ he snapped.
‘Fuck you, then, we’ll wait and see what happens.’ Paddy raised the receiver, about to slam it down in anger and frustration.
Barlow’s voice was distant but urgent.
‘Wait… wait.’
As Paddy placed the receiver back to his ear, an old man appeared all coat and cap. He shuffled up to the phone box and waited. His dark eyes looked out from under the cap directly at Paddy.
Who was he? For fuck’s sake. Paddy glared at him, then turned his back and looked across the road at the public swimming baths. He couldn’t trust anyone.
‘What is it?’ Barlow asked, then added, ‘No, don’t tell me here, I’ll meet you. Where are you?’
‘In Speke. How about the Dove?’ said Paddy.
‘No. Not in a pub.’
‘Down the Yonk.’ Paddy used the local name for the riverbank.
‘Where?’
‘The Yonk, Oggie shore.’
‘Okay, half an hour.’
The line went dead. Paddy stared at the phone before replacing the receiver. It was done. The old man shuffled forward; a young woman was behind him now in the queue, collar turned up against the cold and damp.
The old man pulled the door open. ‘It stinks.’ For a second Paddy thought he knew that he’d been talking to the police.
‘It does,’ Paddy replied unnecessarily, ‘of piss.’ He walked around the back of the flats where his car was parked and slid into the driving seat. Jesus – he had to do something; he didn’t have a choice. It took a couple of minutes to get from the Parade to Dungeon Lane, along Central, and then Eastern Avenue.
The compass point names indicated an estate without history or identity. He left the main road, turning onto Dungeon Lane, an older place of farms and functions, now squeezed up against the airport runway.
He parked next to a burnt-out car on a rise overlooking the riverbank. He lit a ciggie – he didn’t know whether it was the flame or his hand that shook – and waited. Across the water was Stanlow Oil refinery, an island in the Mersey. It had once been home to monks, the first settle in the area. Now it was an international oil terminal. To his left beyond the lighthouse in Hale stood a jungle of interconnecting pipes in the ICI chemical works of Runcorn. This place stank some days, and all their shit went in the river. He peered into the burnt-out car next to him, a Ford Cortina, no telling how old. Some poor bastard was looking for it. He’d even seen posters on lampposts, looking for stolen cars like lost dogs. Fuckin idiots, he thought.
He heard the Inspector’s car coming down the lane before he saw it turned round to face the river. Fuck him too.
The Inspector skidded to a halt a few yards away, tyres sliding over the greasy earth. Paddy watched him get out of his car.
His square frame and movement marked the DI as ex-military.
‘This is your kind, off the estate,’ Barlow said, pointing to the burnt-out car.
‘Kids,’ said Paddy in explanation, then added, ‘Where the fuck are your lot when they’re needed?’ His only form of defence was attack.
‘Don’t get lippy with me. Here, give me one of those.’ Barlow reached out.
Paddy threw the ciggie packet to him.
‘There was a problem. A young guy got done in.’
‘What do you mean, “Got done in?”’ asked Barlow.
‘What do you think I mean? He’s dead.’ Paddy threw him his lighter, annoyed at the interruption.
‘Are you sure?’
‘What kind of stupid question is that? If he’s not dead, then he’s fucked because we buried him.’
‘Where?’ Barlow lit his cigarette and handed the pack and lighter back. ‘Wait, don’t tell me, I don’t need to know.’ They were side by side facing the river, as though for a second, despite everything, they were on the same side. ‘Weren’t you at the funeral yesterday?’
‘You know about that?’ Paddy asked.
‘Of course, we know. The news of a soldier’s suicide gets around. Such a waste. You and all the boys were there.’
‘Yeah, strange day. We ended up burying two bodies yesterday.
The legal one, at Allerton cemetery. Then the other, private burial, you might say.’
‘You mean a hole in the ground?’
‘What else?’
Paddy stared out over the Mersey. The tide was in, and the river slapped at the banks below.
‘What happened?’ asked Barlow.
Paddy turned to face him. ‘It was Charlie Power’s fault, the fuckin eedjit.’ Paddy’s accent slipped back into his native Tipperary. ‘He was to give the man a slap and he-he fucked up, and the fella come at me with something so I had to knock him on the head. Turns out he’d a skull like an eggshell, so here we are.’
Barlow tried to sound casual. ‘So, what do you want me to do?’
Paddy didn’t hide his anger. ‘Get me out of this. You’re the reason I’m still involved. You know I wanted out. “Stay,” you told me, “it’ll all be alright. I’ll look after you.” Well, we’re both fucked now.’
‘Stop panicking. Who was he?’
‘Mark Riley. He was calling Jack Power a snitch. He was in the Blue Union passing remarks. So, we got a call.’
Barlow walked back and forward. ‘Is he local?’
‘No, he was a sailor, off one of the boats in the docks. He’ll not be missed, not around here anyway.’
‘That’s good. They’ll think he jumped ship, happens all the time. No one here’ll be looking for him.’ continued in Across The Water
Jack Byrne 
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