He marches on. More people are coming out now, braving it, on their doorsteps, at their gates, on their garden walls. They’re staring, shouting, smiling.
He heads through the gated community and onto the estate. Saloons are in the driveways, engines on, ready to go to work. Men are kissing their wives goodbye, wiping frost off their windscreens. Dylan stands in front of Chalina’s gate, clips up the Mac-10 and slings it over his shoulder, IDF-style on a short strap. He has the second Mac-10 in one hand, the .455 in the other.
He boots the black and gold gate open. The white front door opens and Lynda’s stood there in a pink nightgown. Her husband’s behind her in a white short-sleeved shirt and a tie. He’s trying to get her back inside, putting pressure on her shoulder. He tries to kick the door shut but it falls off at the lower hinge.
Blue light sparkles in the double glazing. White UPVC surrounds shuddering. The gate bangs shut, the wind blowing her hair. She breaks free of her husband, makes a run for it down the path. Dylan brings up the guns, spying the reflection of the red dots on his skin, glinting off the brass fittings of the door.
Bang! The first bullet cracks the back of his skull away, lifting a chunk of hair and bone. The second round goes through his cheek. The hovering OH6 above sways mildly with the recoil. The marksman hanging off the side steadies himself for the third, but the ARV on the ground opens up, firing rounds from a Heckler into Dylan’s shoulder and back.
Dylan falls forward, his body straight. He falls into her arms. She strokes his face. It’s laid to rest, the evidence in her hands.
GLOSSARY
baba the Turkish term for ‘godfather’, used to refer to an older, senior Turkish heroin trafficker
back-door betray or rip off
baghead heroin or crack addict
bar £1 million (derived from trading-floor slang for a unit on a bar graph on a computer screen)
base riot van
beak cocaine
beaut general term of abuse
beno benzocaine, a painkiller used to cut street cocaine
bin lid kid (rhyming slang)
brown heroin
bug yellow police van, usually a StreetSafe.
buck bullets (abbreviation of ‘buckshot’)
buff pounds, quid
bukakke to cover something in a liquid or powder by spraying it or squirting it liberally (derived from pornographic film slang for a particularly over-the-top final scene)
burg burglary
cone fat, conical-shaped joint
contact sheets police documents logging meetings with informants and information supplied
cop for ambush or accost; steal in a smash-and-grab raid
corner a quarter kilo of heroin or cocaine
dark heroin
deps court depositions
diesel Mercs Turks (rhyming slang)
dollars money in general
fairsensabough fair enough (backslang)
feds police
the Flat Place Holland
GPMG General Purpose Machine Gun
gorping stoned state in which the smoker stares aimlessly, often characterised by a smirking, gormless expression
green home-grown skunk cannabis
grid face, mouth, teeth or smile
jack undercover CID officer
jarg illegal, stolen, counterfeit
John Waynies trainers (rhyming slang for ‘trainies’)
ken/kennel home
ki kilo
let-on greeting, acknowledgement to an associate, usually understated
long feller full-length shotgun
Lowies black, hooded-up mountain gear, including brands such as Lowe Alpine, Berghaus, Northface
LZ landing zone
militai working on drug deals abroad
mouthpiece bragger, talker
naked not carrying a gun
nine 9-mm pistol
ocifer policeman
OT out of town
quid £1 million
scraigs knickers or boxer shorts
ship police riot van
sick good, dangerous or lethal
side-by-side double-barrelled shotgun
slipping moving through a rival gang’s area, usually covertly
snide sneaky person
The Snow North Liverpool, so nicknamed because it is a predominantly white area
spark knock out
steds steroids
stoley stolen car
stripes (lines of) cocaine
Subutex heroin substitute; alternative to methadone
sussies suspenders
twenty bag a £20 bag of drugs
wagar war (backslang)
whisky cocaine (W in the phonetic alphabet, referring to ‘white’)
white cocaine
winnet general term of abuse
wool from the country or out of town