Tommy put the worries over his sexuality to one side; he needed a night off just to relax and be young. Those worries hung about the back of his brain every day – in his family being gay was still regarded as a sickness and a mortal sin by the parts of their souls that still believed in the validity of the Catholic faith.
Another flaw in his personality that went virtually unnoticed in a land where half the population regarded getting rat-arsed as normal was that he worked hard for the family business and never touched the bevvy during office hours. However, on his rare days off he didn’t know when to stop and just couldn’t hold it like the professional drinkers he kept trying to match. Occasionally when he really wanted to unwind he’d add lines of coke, just to make sure the next day was really fucked up. He always convinced himself that he deserved it, but for an ambitious young man it meant he was exposed and vulnerable, although he never saw it through the blindness of youth.
The doormen nodded him in without checking because McMartins didn’t line up in the pissing rain with ordinary mortals. When Mickey quizzed him about the A-list treatment he said his uncle was a friend of the owner. It was almost true.
As soon as Tommy was inside, one of the bouncers made an excuse that he needed the bog and slipped into the lane at the side of the boozer. He made the call and hoped to God it never came back to him, but felt he had no choice. He’d run up a sack full of gambling debts to the wrong type of lender: the type who offered only a terminal solution unless the liability was not only paid in full but accompanied by enough interest to pay off the national debt.
Tommy staggered out of the club four hours later with Mickey and could hardly bite his fingers or feel them for that matter. He was vaguely aware of the taxi ride back to the flat and snorting a line of powder off Mickey’s pectorals when he got there. Somewhere along the line the lights went out and his memory was just a big black fucking hole.
2
When the bizzies broke the door down in the early hours of the morning he never stirred, his brain still closed for business as it tried to cope with the toxins that had flooded his system to the point of near coma. The local CID had taken the original anonymous call that there was a violent row in the flat. They arrived after the uniforms had broken in and all they could do was sneer at the carnage. It was a fucking result and a half. A near-disembowelled shirtlifter and a McMartin covered in the deceased’s blood and gore. Fresh dabs all over the murder weapon meant it should be an open-and-shut case, so they could have a right piss-up on the back of this result. Unless the fingerprints turned out to be Lord Lucan’s, the job would only need the minimum of work to see the bastard locked up for the best part of his natural.
When Tommy came round he just couldn’t work it out. He’d finally sobered up in a damp cell that was clean enough, but the smell of disinfectant made him gag and didn’t quite conceal the odour of piss it was trying hard, but failing, to disguise. A detective with an extra-wide sneer told him he was the accused and why. Tommy threw up all over the cop’s shoes, which really made sure he was getting no favours on that particular night. He knew he’d been legless and, going by his past record, couldn’t light a fag when he was like that, never mind carve up an unwilling victim. Then there was the real dilemma as his mind cleared and grappled with the reality of his situation. He’d been crazy about Mickey, who was just about as gentle a soul as he’d ever met in the dysfunctional world he inhabited. To be fair, he rarely met gentle souls in his particular trade.
As reality made the toxic sweat pop out of his skin like dewdrops, he struggled to breathe at the trap he’d landed in. Mickey didn’t have a violent side to him or do angry; nothing made sense.
He got up from his mattress again and caught the reek of stale sweat from inside the paper suit they’d given him when they’d seized the gear he’d been wearing. Apparently, stained wasn’t quite the adjective for what was on his clothes when the police had found him. According to the grinning suit his gear was soaked with what had geysered from the deceased when his throat had been cut.
‘What the fuck?!’ he shouted, hitting the cell wall with the side of his closed fist, which amused the bored uniform who was tasked with watching him in case he topped himself before the law took its course.
3
Danny Goldstein was the McMartins’ lawyer of choice and had saved a few of them over the years from serious time in the Big Hoose and other institutions around the country. He was sharp, ruthless and the best at what he did, which was to get it right up the police and prosecution at every opportunity. He never lost a wink of sleep over his lack of morals and always had a ready smile and a politically incorrect joke (especially about Jews) for whoever would listen. That included the cops and prosecutors, who couldn’t help liking the man, although his mother despaired of his lack of respect for the Jewish faith that meant so much to her. Goldstein never took life too seriously – and why would he when the money poured in faster than he could spend it? He loved his wife first, blonde women who weren’t his wife second, good whisky next, and he also enjoyed his profession because it revealed something new to him every day. He never tired of the problems that his clients created, and it played to his ego that some of the hardest and most ruthless men and women in the city would come to him in the hope of salvation.
They’d brought Tommy from his cell to the interview room, where he could have a legal briefing with his lawyer before the detectives got wired in about his mince. Goldstein thought about how times had changed: the suspects rarely had a mark on them nowadays, at least not inflicted by the arresting officers. In the early part of his career it was accepted that a number of prisoners seemed to accidentally fall somewhere or were badly injured when they resisted arrest. It was just part of the game in those days, and everyone expected it. He remembered one client who was a nervous wreck because the detectives who’d arrested him hadn’t given him a tanking. The poor bastard was convinced his team would think he’d turned grass green if he stepped out onto the pavement without a mark on his face.
‘You know the drill, Tommy. When they interview you, say nothing unless I okay it. You hear me?’ He was shocked at the state of the young man who’d been the rising star and a shoo-in for the top seat when the time came. The face that normally looked polished and tight seemed to have aged ten years in no time. What was more shocking was seeing something rare in the company of a McMartin . . . fear. Goldstein told the uniform as politely as possible to give them a bit of privacy. The old constable was only too pleased to go and relieve his bladder, which was swollen to bursting point with a coffee overdose.
‘What the hell happened last night, son?’ he asked. ‘Hell’ was about the strongest language Goldstein ever used unless he was really infuriated; he believed that a real expletive only had value if it was used sparingly. He wasn’t angry at Tommy, at least not yet, and Slab had told him to ‘do whatever the fuck is necessary and get me answers’. Slab McMartin was as confused as everyone else about what had put his favourite in the pokey. Tommy told the lawyer all he could remember, which was next to hee-haw after he left the club. Then it was just a haze, but he was sure that there’d been no problem with him and Mickey up to that point. Goldstein accepted that nearly everyone he dealt with was an incurable liar, but the boy was either the best he’d ever seen or genuinely just couldn’t remember. The problem was that if he was genuine, it kind of defied logic. The crime didn’t really fit, but that wouldn’t stop the detectives on the case.
Goldstein left Tommy in the interview room and went to ‘have a word with the locals’.
When he came back he stared at his client and tried to hide what he was feeling. Tommy saw it clear enough. He knew the old lawyer could have acted for a living, but there was no gushing reassurance – the man was trying to find the right words when none would fit.
‘Come on, Danny, I’m a big boy. Just tell me,’ Tommy said.
‘It’s sewn up – unless there’s a miracle or some police fit-up to rival the Bi
rmingham Six. Your clothes are covered in whatever pumped out of that young man just before he died. In all probability your prints are on the knife, and there are signs of a struggle in the bedroom. There’s CCTV footage from the street near the flat of you and the other young man going through the front gates of the complex and no sign of anyone else entering or leaving the premises until the cavalry arrive. It doesn’t look good, son – not good at all.’
Goldstein stared at Tommy, and although he knew the boy could dish it out, the detectives had described a slaughter. That didn’t fit. Tommy had always been described as someone who was violent when it was necessary but nothing more. The victim had a cut throat that was closer to a decapitation and a slash across the abdomen that had almost eviscerated him. Goldstein was a smart lawyer, had seen it all in his time and tried to keep an open mind, but this one made no sense to him at all. What he did know was that for whatever reason the heir to the director’s chair had just lost everything. A thought passed through his mind about who was left to step into Slab’s shoes, and it made him wonder about the McMartins’ future prospects.
Tommy’s complexion matched the colour of the walls and he was sick to his bones. For a young man with so much life in him he looked beaten already. He just couldn’t make sense of it. His head ached as his body tried vainly to detox, and it had drained the fight from him. The problem was that he couldn’t remember not doing it, so maybe, just maybe, something had gone wrong. It was the doubt that frightened him. The Tommy McMartin with balls who’d blown away the Asian boys in Liverpool was struggling to show up. It was game, set and match to the bizzies for the time being and there didn’t seem anywhere to go.
Normally for a McMartin, and certainly one near the top of the tree, there was always a way out. Brown envelope to a detective, turn the screw on a few jurors or fit up some twat for the job were all options. Unfortunately, this was clusterfuck territory, and the only blessing was that capital punishment had been abolished a long time ago or the boy would have been a swinger of the dead rather than the sexual variety.
He sat with his head in his hands and stayed motionless for what seemed like minutes. Goldstein knew to let him be, take it all in, swallow it and then they could talk about the options, which at that point in time were all bad. The lawyer waited patiently till Tommy lifted his head. Some of the colour flowed back into his face as his jaw tightened, and he looked a bit more like the young hard man he knew. He had to hand it to the boy as he watched him get it together like a real pro – he was a tough little bastard. Tommy tried something like a grin then, which didn’t quite work but was a great effort given the circumstances.
‘Okay. Sounds like I’m fucked but, honest to God, I can’t remember a thing apart from the fact we were having a good time. Jesus, he was just the best guy and nothing to do with the business. I don’t get any of this.’ He stood up, pulled back his shoulders and ran the fingers of both hands through his thick auburn hair. ‘What happens now then?’ He kept hoping Goldstein would give him just something to hold on to, though he knew there were no rabbits that could be pulled out of a hat for this particular situation.
‘The suits don’t need to interview you at any length as they have all the evidence they need, and my guess is they’ll want to get away early to celebrate a good result. That result, my young friend, is you.’
Goldstein knew all the detectives who counted in the city, drank with them and, importantly, understood how they operated; and more importantly, how they thought. It was good business to keep them onside and got him the occasional favour that just might turn a case his way. Goldstein was one of the few people who understood that the McMartins got more breaks than was either normal or just good luck. No one, and certainly not Slab, had ever suggested it to him, but he was sure that when they needed a favour or break from the law they got it. Whether it was bent detectives or one or two of the McMartins having signed on as confidential sources he didn’t know, but the police were usually missing in action if there was a chance to arrest one of Slab’s top team. Of course, the troops at the working end of the operation just had to take their chances with the law, and if Goldstein couldn’t get them a deal then they had to do the time and say fuck all that would get them a close look at the inside of the incinerator or dinner time at the pig farm. It wasn’t much of a choice. For Slab’s top team, though, there would be the occasional arrest for appearances’ sake, but in most cases, it was minor stuff – at least minor in comparison to what they actually did in the course of their business. Goldstein was convinced that at some level deals were done between the family and senior detectives. It might be corruption or just tossing each other favours, but nobody was going to tell him which it was.
Something, however, was puzzling Goldstein this time. When he had spoken to the detectives working the murder case it was like they were celebrating Christmas. Why were the same guys who normally went AWOL when an executive-level McMartin was in the frame so happy about taking out the heir to the throne? It seemed that they’d scored all round. No one could point fingers after arresting a top man, but Goldstein thought that if he was a cynic he might suspect that the detectives had had the nod from somewhere in Slab’s team, if not from the chief hooligan himself. It was confusing, but the day the bad men and detectives started acting rationally was the day they could do away with solicitors like him.
Goldstein’s life was about tidying up clutter, and here he was, standing in an interview room full of it and with a situation that was going to test him to the limit. He just knew it, shook his head and decided that it had to be his imagination running away too far from the facts. He knew that wouldn’t stop the ‘puzzle worm’, as he liked to call the sensation chewing the back of his brain and telling him he was missing something. The confusion he was experiencing meant he was working on automatic lawyer-speak, and for the first time in his life he couldn’t come up with an original line. Normally his whole act was based on displaying an air of confidence, which he just couldn’t apply in this case.
‘They’ll probably ask you a few questions, you’ll make no comment and they’ll go straight to charge. There is no chance of bail, you do know that?’ He waited till Tommy nodded. ‘I’m going to get on with this immediately and see what I can do, but this is a tough one, son.’ He didn’t want to say what came next, but Tommy needed to think about it. ‘The papers are already all over this and apparently your friend was openly gay. And I don’t know how to put this or whether you even knew . . . Mickey Dalton was an escort worker, a rent boy – call it what you like – but at the class end of the business.’
‘No way! Fuck that!’ Tommy flared, his cheeks flushing red, and for a moment Goldstein thought he was in serious trouble. However, Tommy just didn’t have the energy reserves in the tank, and he crashed again as quickly as he’d fired up. There was simply too much that he didn’t know or hadn’t considered. It was time to think. He was a professional criminal, trained since birth by the best in the business, and he didn’t need a shit-hot lawyer to tell him when he was the fuckwit in the middle of someone else’s little game. He shivered at the thought that he’d imagined sharing his life with Mickey Dalton while all the time he was being played. He was finally getting the message that he’d been guilty of arrogance and still had a lot to learn. The question was whether it might be too late to apply the lessons to his future. Did he still have a future?
Goldstein waited again, hoping that the boy would give some kind of explanation that would satisfy his uncle and the less-enlightened members of his family. All he got back was a look that said it all. Tommy was in a bad place, and he knew exactly what the reaction was going to be when it all came out. At least the one person who wouldn’t judge him was the little Jewish lawyer in the room.
Tommy drew in a large breath of air, then sighed like a man who saw the future and exactly what it would hold for him. He was smart, and as soon as he thought about it, he saw exactly what had happened. Not the fine detail but the broad picture.
It was enough to make the bile rise in his throat. ‘We’d been sleeping together for a few weeks,’ he told Goldstein. ‘What else can I say?’
The lawyer stepped forward, put his hand on Tommy’s shoulder and shook his head. ‘I’ll see what I can do. Benny is going to struggle with this, but then you know that already.’ He turned and pressed the bell to bring the uniform back into the room. ‘Tell the CID that we’re ready for the interview.’
Where No Shadows Fall Page 2