House of Birds: Forget who you were before... (The Azo Coke thrillers Book 2) Read online

  House of Birds

  The second Azo Coke adventure

  Roland Lloyd Parry

  Papalulo Press

  Copyright © 2020 Roland Lloyd Parry

  All rights reserved

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  ISBN: 9798642980873

  Cover design by: Serifim

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2018675309

  Printed in the United States of America

  1

  There was this boss offie on Smithdown Road with these big bottles of cherry cider. The first glass chilled you out and the second made you punchy. The third glass made your face go numb. The fourth had you on your back, seeing lights and fairies. I’d go straight to the fourth without stopping. I couldn’t afford to be getting in fights.

  I was just out of the posh hossie and still not feeling right. I had scars all over, one big one still sore on my right arse cheek so I had to sleep on my side. I was living on my own in that little safe-house flat off Lodge Lane. No one to talk to. I tried going to the gym and hitting the bag. But it wrecked. I had this weak spot in my chest where some twat had shot me.

  I wanted to go and see Ali but Leanne wouldn’t let me near him. Paterson told me he could fix that for me. But I had to finish the job first, he said. Then I could see my little lad again. He was always telling me that. Paterson, my handler. My spymaster. My almighty smartarse. He’d been running me for the best part of a year. The shittest part. But it was all there was.

  He had let me see Ali just once after I’d come out of the hossie. We spent a couple of hours at Frank’s. I used the time wisely. Gave him his fifth-birthday pressie. Only a few months late, eh. A Hot Wheels set.

  Then I taught him some pickpocketing tricks. How to nick someone’s watch. We had a better laugh with that than with the toy cars. I always had a laugh when I got to see Ali. But those two hours were my lot for now, Paterson said. Till I got the job done.

  I couldn’t go to the school for a glimpse of my little lad. Not after all that had happened last September. There were bizzies with guns posted outside there now. I couldn’t get in the playground. Couldn’t even wait outside. It wasn’t enough to be the dad of one of the kids. Your name had to be on the list.

  Worst of all, I had no leads to get the job done.

  I didn’t know where Maya was.

  I’d eat sausage and chips from the Chinese for tea and then glug myself daft on cider till I fell asleep. Wanted to get some draw but I didn’t know who to go to anymore. Things had changed in Tocky. Had to be careful who I talked to, didn’t I, after all that had happened.

  I said to myself I’d get out and about in a bit. I just needed a few weeks’ rest first.

  Paterson had briefed me in the hossie before I came out. Not much to it. Find Maya. Right. How? You’re the last one who saw her, spy lad, he said. You work it out.

  He’d given me a new Huawei smartphone. Told me to call him on the secret number I had in my head and wipe the call list after. I’d been cut loose a week and all I’d done with it was play Fortnite. I didn’t have anything to tell him yet. Didn’t dare talk to him and have him guess how lost I was.

  Find Maya.

  I sat there on the settee, eating Monster Munch and swilling the cider round my gob to wash the mush off my teeth. I tried to think through the last day I saw her. After all those weeks living with Raz and Rodney and the other crazies in the house of lads.

  The day they tried to attack the school.

  She’d gone off in a car with Rodney with the belt strapped on her. They’d headed for Saint Rock’s. Then the bizzies had turned up thanks to me, so they’d run for it. No one knew where. Not even Paterson.

  I thought through all the places Raz and Rodney had snooped off to, in those weeks before. Warrington. Widnes. But they’d never taken me with them. I’d have to start right back at the beginning.

  I made up my mind to go back to Litherland. I’d plod round Raz’s old haunts. The shipping container where they battered that gyppo. The park where we played cricket. Maybe something would give us a clue. Maybe someone.

  I gave myself one last day’s rest in the flat.

  Next day, I needed a bit of getting ready.

  I had a snifter for brekkie. Then I reckoned I’d get on a bus.

  Thought I’d drop by the offie first though.

  I walked all the way up Lodge Lane. Past the greengrocer’s and the barber’s. The old newsagent’s where I’d worked for Raz the summer before.

  It was boarded up now.

  I was sweating under my Bergie by the time I made it to the offie. I picked up four bottles of the juice of champions.

  I was coming back out onto the street with my placky bag when I heard a voice.

  “’Ey. ’Ey, lad.”

  I stopped in front of the offie window and looked left.

  He was stood there on the pavement.

  “‘Ey, lad,” he said.

  Younger than me, he was. His hair was clipped close. Mousey blonde shine on his head and eyebrows. Pale freckly face.

  “Remember me?” he said.

  I shook my head.

  I looked him up and down. Grey sweatshirt. New and smart. Neck chain, pulled out over the top. Black trackie bottoms with a white three-stripe. White trainies. His hands were down by his sides, fidgeting.

  The right hand dipped behind him and came back out again with a black semi. He held it loose down by his side.

  I took a step back. Tightened my grip on the shopping bags.

  Last time some twat had pulled a gun on me, I’d ended up nearly karking it on the floor.

  I tried to think it through. Never used to have to think. I used to just do stuff. But I was a mess these days. My brain was fuzzy. I’d have to just charm my way out of it.

  “I’m Sanky,” he said.

  “Who the fuck’s that?”

  Some granny scuttled past him with her trolley. He stepped forward to let her by. He raised the gun halfway so it pointed at my foot.

  “You had a lot to say last time I saw you,” he said. “Let’s hear you say it now.”

  I sighed so deeply I ended up wheezing and coughing. Had to put the bags down on the pavement till the spluttering stopped. I looked at him again.

  I remembered now.

  “The shop,” I said. “On Lodge Lane. Last summer.”

  He’d filled out since then. That time I’d battered him in the Syrian newsagents. When I was trying to get Raz to like me. So I could get in with Raz and spy on him like Paterson told me.

  “You messed with me little bro’. Then you messed with me,” he said. “Now you’re messing with this.”

  I was glad I’d had that snifter before I left the flat.

  “Listen, lad, erm… ” I coughed and yawned. “Erm… I’m dead sorry. I was out of order with your bro’. He was only fifteen. I should have known better.”

  “Say it like you mean it.”

  “Erm... I should well have known better?”

  “You’re a tit.”

  I shrugged and nodded. He frowned harder. I wasn’t licking his arse the way he’d reckoned I would.

  “You Paki shithouse,” he said.


  I just stood there.

  “You Islami scum.”

  I looked him in the eye.

  He stepped forward and jabbed the gun in my chest.

  “You fuckin’ Islami, Paki, shithouse.”

  I held his gaze for a sec. Then I snorted and giggled. “You daft sod,” I said. “I’ve just stepped out of an offie. Did you not get that far in school?”

  I pointed at the bags of booze. He looked at them. His jaw slackened a tad. I dropped my shoulder and slammed him with an uppercut.

  I was out of shape alright. He didn’t even go down. He just grunted and staggered back a step. He lamped me on the cheek with the butt of his Sig and I was on the pavement.

  It was like that first time but the other way round. He was on top now, the kinky sod. He straddled me. The butt came smashing down on my nose.

  I was numb. I sank into the ground.

  He’d got a bit hard since last time. I didn’t know which side of Park Road he was from but he must have been in with one of the Toxteth families. Coming at me with a gun? It was rough, Tocky, but it wasn’t the jungle. You needed an order for something like that.

  I wondered what kind of job this was. A nosebreaker, a kneecapper, or a full-blown slot-job? Ah well. It was out of my hands now.

  Last time some prick had shot me I’d had the crows and the demons flapping round my head. I’d felt death knocking, or so I thought. This time I felt nothing.

  “’Ey! ’Ey, lad!”

  A woman’s voice.

  “’Ey, you. Get up!”

  Right bossy cow, she sounded like. Then I got it. She wasn’t talking to me. She was yelling at Sanky.

  I opened my eyes.

  Sanky’s head was turned. He was trying to push her away with one hand. His other still had the gun in. But she’d grabbed it. She had hold of his wrist. She was yanking it up and back, pointing into the sky. Away from me.

  Sanky swiped out to shove at her. He lifted an inch or two off me. I braced my arse against the pavement and whonged my knee up into his knackers.

  He grunted and folded forward. I shoved him off me to the side. The girl still had hold of his hand.

  I picked up my bags of cider and ran.

  I pegged it down Lodge Lane. Slowed down a tad when I got near the greengrocer’s. Looked over my shoulder.

  No sign of Sanky.

  I trotted all the way back to the front door of my terrace. Stepped inside and shut the door behind me. I sank down to my arse on the mat to catch my breath.

  The bell went, right above my head.

  I jumped. Swore. Shat myself.

  I stood up and tried to peer through the frosted glass. Someone was standing there, but it wasn’t Sanky. Someone shorter. I made out a smear of red hair and a black jacket.

  I stood still and hoped she’d go away.

  She didn’t.

  She rang again. Opened the letterbox and looked through it, right at my crotch.

  “Azo,” she said. “You dropped your phone.”

  I looked down. The thin black end of the Huawei was poking through. I grabbed it. Checked it was still locked.

  I said nothing. I kneeled and looked through the slot.

  Green eyes.

  “Azo?” she said.

  “Eh?”

  “My name’s Becky Suarez.”

  “Get lost.”

  “No. I want to talk to you about Maya.”

  2

  The cider frothed down the side of the bottle. It pooled on the glass coffee table. My hands were shaking.

  I sat back on the settee and necked it. I didn’t offer her any. Didn’t ask her to sit. I’d had all my good manners knocked out of me.

  She sat down on the beanbag.

  I slumped so far back into the cushions, my eyes ended up level with hers. Black paint on her lashes. Her hair and eyes. Dark red and green. Stop and go. Clever face. Freckles on her nose.

  Weird she had that foreigny name. She spoke like a Scouser though. All the best foreigners do.

  I filled my mouth with sticky sweet cider, glugged it down and let out my breath. I lit up a Regal.

  “Have you got any weed?” I said.

  She shook her head.

  I sighed. I’d live. My tummy was warming up with the cider. The noise in my head was easing off.

  “You know Maya?” I said.

  “Never met her.”

  “You said… “

  “I said I wanted to talk about her.”

  “You know where she is?”

  She shook her head.

  My smoke filled the space between us.

  “How do you know my name?”

  She took one of my fags and sparked it up.

  “I spoke to Frank,” she said.

  “You train at the ring?”

  “No. I tracked him down. I talked to a friend of his. Gibbs.”

  “Gibbsy?”

  “That’s the one. At The Grace.”

  The name of the pub sent a squirt of anx through my chest. My old wound started aching. I chugged on the bottle.

  “What were you doing there?” I said. Though I didn’t much feel like finding out. “I thought it was shut.”

  “It is,” she said. “But Gibbsy’s still there.”

  “Don’t tell me you’re a mate of his.”

  More head-shaking. She kept her eyes on mine when she did it.

  “I talked my way in,” she said. “That’s my job.”

  “You a bizzie?”

  She smiled. “No. I’m a hack.”

  “How much do you charge?”

  She chuckled and rolled her eyes. “I write for the papers, Azo.”

  Nothing shocked me anymore. But some things still got on my tits. I stood up.

  She’d put her handbag on the table. I leaned over and picked it up. I rooted through it. She piped up but I gave her a look and kept rooting.

  She scrambled to her knees and tried to grab it. I shoved her back down into the beanbag.

  I found her purse. Her cards. Some beep badge for where she worked.

  “Rebecca Suarez.”

  “I told you.”

  Weird vibe she had about her. Bossy like a bizzie, but cleverer. Scruffier than a bizzie, but better looking. This grungy purple cardie with a hood. Biker jacket on the floor beside her. Black jeans and these Karrimor hiking shoes with pink streaks.

  I dropped the purse back in her bag. I walked over to the door, opened it and chucked the bag down the stairs to the doormat. I pointed after it with my thumb.

  When she wouldn’t budge I went back and dragged her up off the beanbag by the arm.

  “Back to town.”

  “Don’t you want to talk about Maya?” she said.

  “Don’t know no Maya.”

  “Then why did you ask me where she was?”

  I dragged her across the sitting room. I shoved her through the door. I was about to slam it when she spoke again.

  “Don’t you want to know why I was talking to Gibbsy?”

  I paused for a sec with my palm on the handle.

  “I heard what happened there in the summer,” she said. “In The Grace. The day of the attacks.”

  I shoved her further away out onto the landing. She was staring at me hard the whole time. I couldn’t meet her eye.

  “A bizzie told me what happened,” she said.

  I reached for the door again to slam it.

  “A good bizzie,” she said.

  “My arse.”

  “A friend.”

  “You’re all in it together.”

  I slammed the door. Leaned my head against it. I saw shapes and colours flashing on the white paint. They clouded my eyes over. I sank to my knees on the scratchy carpet. I breathed and waited for the clouds to clear.

  I heard her voice through the door.

  “She told me the stuff they kept out of the papers,” she said. “About Maya. How she went missing.”

  “I don’t… “ I raised my voice. But she c
ut me off.

  “I’ve got a lead,” she said. “To find her.”

  I let her sit by me on the sofa while I went through her bag again. All kinds of fussy shit she had in it. Six pens. Four pencils. Two notebooks. Two voice recorders.

  She took another of my fags. I didn’t say anything.

  “So who’s this bizzie?” I said.

  “Sandra. My girlfriend.”

  In it together. I didn’t say anything.

  “She was there last September. At the gate of Saint Rock’s school. She saw Maya there.”

  I took a glug from the bottle.

  “She had bombs on her,” I said.

  Becky nodded.

  “Sandra and her partner were the first officers to get there. They saw Maya with a man.”

  “Rodney.”

  Raz’s top lad from that last summer. He’d gone off to Syria for training, like Maya and the others. He’d helped Raz plan the attack.

  Me and him, we’d had it in for each other from the start. I’d duffed him up in front of the other lads when he’d tried it on the first week.

  He was the one I was after.

  He knew where Maya was.

  “Sandra tried to stop them reaching the school,” Becky said. “The girl made a run for it.”

  “Through the gates?”

  “No. Away. And he was off after her, yelling her name. Maya.”

  I smiled to myself.

  “Sandra’s partner got hold of Rodney,” she said. “Sandra legged after Maya. A car ragged up. They shoved her in it.”

  “Who did?”

  She shrugged.

  “And Rodney?” I said.

  “He knifed Sandra’s partner and made off.”

  “He stabbed a bizzie?”

  Paterson had never mentioned that.

  “The bizzie lived,” she said.

  Becky Suarez stopped talking. She’d stubbed out my fag a while back. She took a pack of her own from her cardigan pocket.

  My pack had a piccie of a black lung on it. Hers had a baby on it breathing smoke.

  She lit one and held it out to me. I hauled myself up from the cushions and leaned over to take it.

  I slumped back again.

  So Rodney took on a bizzie. No one told me anything.