discoveredinalj | May Day. Part Fifteen.

“Fucking hell, he never said you was a bloody nutter!” The tattooed man nursed his arm close to his body.

“Who, the bastard who hired you?”

“Yeah, he said this would be a simple job. Easy money, he says.”

“What d’you do to him?”

“Nothing, I—”

Bodie let go of the tattooed man’s hair and grabbed his good arm, twisting it up behind his back. “Want to go for the matching set?”

“Didn’t do nothin’ to the bloke who hired us.”

Bodie laughed. It wasn’t a pleasant sound. “Obviously whoever hired you wasn’t shopping for brains. I don’t mean your boss.”

The man Murphy had in the headlock passed out from the lack of oxygen and Murphy let him drop to the tarmac.

“What’s the matter Bodie?” He moved in closer. “Why don’t you want to know who hired them?”

“Priorities.” Bodie pulled at Tattoo man’s injured arm again, causing him to scream, as he wrenched Doyle’s watch off. He showed it to Murphy. “I want to know where Doyle is and what this bastard did to him.”

Murphy put his hand on Bodie’s shoulder. “Look, I understand you being upset, but we need to find out who hired him and we can’t—”

Bodie shook Murphy’s hand off. “Leave if you want to, go and report back to Cowley. Tell him you were never here. But this arsehole is going to tell me what he did with Doyle or there won’t be enough of him left to scrape off my shoes.”

Tattoo man cowered on the ground. “But I told you, we didn’t do anythin’ to the bloke who hired us.”

Bodie lowered the watch in front of his face. “For the last fucking time, I’m not asking about the bloke who hired you. I’m asking about the bloke you got this watch from. Where’s Doyle?”

“Ray Doyle right?”

“Yes. Ray. Doyle. And he better still be breathing else—”

“He was fine when I saw ‘im. I know Ray from when he was a copper. He hired me and me mates ‘ere. I took a fancy to his watch so I got ‘im to throw that in too. Come to think of it, he warned me not to put it on ‘til later. I should 'ave listened to him.” The tattooed man nodded at Murphy. “Pointed out yer handsome friend over there through the pub window, said to wait until he was joined by a ‘short haired bloke with an attitude problem’ and then to slow the two of you down for a while. Said not to really hurt you, but to rough you up a bit. The knife was supposed to scare you, that’s all. I actually thought it was lucky when you spilled me drink, gave me a chance to make it look like it weren't planned, like Doyle asked—”

“Ray hired you? I’ll bloody kill him!”