The Dead

by Howard Linskey

  ‘Get away from me!’ ordered Carlton, all sense and reason gone from him now, as he pulled the girl’s flimsy corpse closer to him, ‘she’s my daughter, that’s my Gemma!’ and he began to weep, as he held the girl tighter still. The other men seemed to give up then. Perhaps they realised the crime scene was already hopelessly contaminated or maybe, like Fraser, they just couldn’t bear the sound of Detective Inspector Carlton sobbing like a child, as he rocked the lifeless body of his daughter in his arms.

  2

  There is really only one way out of this world for me. In a pine box. I wish I didn’t know that but I do. I’m not stupid. You can’t walk away from a life like mine. You don’t just retire and hand it all over to someone else or sell the business on as a going concern. There are too many people with a stake in the firm and if any of them ever believed I was looking to get out, they’d make sure I was retired permanently. You see, I can stay alive only as long as the people who work for me, and all the others I pay at the end of each and every month, reckon I am contributing. The minute I cease to add value to their lives they start questioning whether I am really anything more than a drain on their resources. There’s no sentiment in this business. As long as I am bringing in a lot more than I’m taking out, they are happy. If anyone starts to suspect I’ve gone flaky they will forget everything that has gone before and they will kill me. And I wouldn’t blame them either.

  So I can’t walk away, ever, and that’s my punishment. The day I pulled the trigger on my boss, Bobby Mahoney, was the day I was handed my very own life sentence. I just didn’t realise at the time that it will only ever be over for me when I’m a dead man. My flight back from Istanbul was delayed and that gave me plenty of time to think about how I ended up here. You don’t set out to be a gangster. At least I didn’t. I’m no Henry Hill and the road I travelled was long, tortuous and made up of a million little baby steps, each one a decision that eventually, years later, led me here. There wasn’t just one turning point, a single chance to turn my back on this life before I fell too deeply into it. I know that now and often wonder what my life could have been, if I’d suddenly decided to just jack it all in, long before I became Bobby Mahoney’s indispensable right hand man, a Geordie Consigliere to the north-east’s most notorious criminal, a man who held the city in the palm of his huge, gnarled hand for more than three decades.

  Then, when Bobby was killed, I stepped into his shoes and found they were a perfect fit. I may not have the brute strength, fearlessness and raw fighting ability of Bobby Mahoney, but what I lacked in those departments I more than made up for with my ability to read people and work things out before they did.

  I had time to contemplate my situation because I was waiting for my suitcase to make an appearance on the carousel. I’d travelled first class but it was my suitcase that was acting like the diva, insisting on keeping me waiting and I was the last one there, apart from Palmer, my head of security.

  The Gallowgate Leisure Group has gone global. These days we are an offshore company that uses lawyers and bankers more than enforcers or hit men and I have to oversee all of it. I try to look the part of David Blake, Chief Operating Officer, but apart from a few expensive suits, I’m pretty much the same guy I’ve always been.

  In my business, you have to keep on growing and expanding, so you can earn the money you need to pay all of the people who will keep you away from prison or out of the grave. Bobby’s era of armed robbery and protection, of gaming machines, porno movies and illegal gambling may have been a brutal and bloody place but it has nothing on the world of international drug smuggling and money laundering I’ve been forced to take us into.

  But business is okay, the money is still coming in and we haven’t killed anyone in a couple of years now, which is as good a barometer of the health of our firm as any. As Kinane is fond of saying, ‘We’ve got fingers in more pies than Mister Fucking Kipling,’ and he knows because he’s one of our inner circle, our main enforcer, the man you fuck with if you fuck with me. Since the guy is huge and looks like he’s made out of breeze blocks, this acts as a pretty big deterrent.

  My bag finally put in an appearance and I was relieved because I wanted to get going. We left Heathrow airport, then took the underground to Kings Cross for a train north. I got off it at York but Palmer stayed on for a meeting in Edinburgh with Fallon, a Glasgow hard case who shares the city with us, because we are a sleeping partner in his Glasgow operation. I didn’t expect to be gunned down on the mean streets of York but you can never be too careful, so I got Joe Kinane to drive down and meet me. He picked me up in his Lexus and drove me to view an old Georgian hotel I had my eye on. I wanted to buy it, renovate the place and run it as a going concern, while laundering some of our drug money through its gilded doors. Once I’d viewed the hotel, we were free to drive back north again, which gave him his chance to brief me on everything that had been going on while I was away. Thankfully it wasn’t much. Everyone prefers a quiet life and I’m no exception.

  ‘Amrein’s been on a couple of times,’ he informed me, ‘something about a meeting. He wants you to get back to him.’

  Amrein; our fixer, the guy who oils the wheels, greases the palms and keeps us all out of trouble, in theory.

  ‘I know about Amrein’s meeting,’ I admitted. ‘I’m trying to avoid it. I’ll call him tomorrow.’

  I spent the final miles of my journey in a relaxed frame of mind. I was looking forward to seeing Sarah and my gorgeous little girl again. I’d missed them both. We were almost back in the city, just a few miles to go. I was tired and the last thing I wanted was an incident of any kind but that’s exactly what I got. As we were speeding up the A1, a car suddenly shot out from the slip road and cut us up big style as it crossed both lanes. Kinane slammed on the brakes with a ‘Fooking Hell!’ and scowled at the driver in front.

  ‘Simmer down,’ I told him once I realised we weren’t actually under attack, ‘it’s just some young tosser,’ the car was small and old but it had been souped-up somehow and the boy racer who owned it had spent a lot of time adding spoilers and spray painting it black. I couldn’t even tell what make it had been before he started.

  Kinane ignored me and pounded the horn with one hand while he gripped the steering wheel tightly with the other and stepped on the accelerator to give chase. I tried to reason with him, even though I knew it would be hopeless. ‘I haven’t got time for this Joe,’ I said, as he swiftly gained on the other car, ‘I don’t need the grief of bailing you out if you lamp the lad.’

  Kinane forced the car level with the boy racer, undertaking, so we were right next to him on the inside lane. The window on their passenger door immediately came down and the guy riding shotgun put his arm out and gave us the finger. I doubted he would have done that if he could have seen inside our car but the darkened windows meant he had no idea who he had just insulted. I could see the bloke’s pig-ignorant face clearly. It was twisted into a violent snarl of hate, as if we were totally out of order, preventing him and his mate from doing exactly what they pleased.

  ‘Little tosser,’ muttered Kinane, his voice going as high as I had ever heard it.‘Joe,’ I said it quietly, by way of warning, but you don’t give Joe Kinane the finger and get away with it. If you did, there wouldn’t be much point in employing him.

  Kinane moved as if he was about to wind the window down and give this bloke the shock of his young life but, as he took his eye off the road ahead, I noticed the rear end of a lorry coming up at such speed it seemed to be reversing into us.

  ‘Joe!’ I shouted and he slammed the anchors on and swerved to the right just in time, ‘Jesus!’ I watched the back of the lorry veer past me.

  Kinane gave it no attention. He was busy steering the Lexus through the rest of the traffic, chasing the little car as it slalomed amongst the other vehicles on the road. One or two of the other drivers looked a bit panicked as we came charging through them but Kinane paid them no heed. This kind of driving was not new to him
and his blood was up.

  The little black car suddenly cut across two lanes again, this time from right to left and it shot off the A1, taking the slip road into the city. Kinane followed. I had no idea how we missed the car in the slow lane, as we cut between it and the turn off. ‘What the fuck are we doing?’ I demanded.

  ‘Chasing-these-two-little-cunts,’ Kinane emphasised each word through gritted teeth.

  I grabbed the door handle and held on to it tightly as our car swerved to the right and shot across the flyover, the driver of the car that was trying to get onto the road from our left must have had several heart attacks as we flew out and cut him up but Kinane just expected the bloke to brake and get out of our way, which thankfully he did. By the time he’d wrestled with his car, realised he was still alive and composed himself enough to sound the horn at us, the noise was already a distant one.

  On the straight, comparatively empty stretch of road we soon caught up with the snarling boy racers. Kinane drew alongside them. This time we were on their opposite side, so it was the driver I could see on my left. His window was down and he was shouting and swearing at us. I couldn’t really hear the words over the din of our engines but it looked a lot like he was shouting ‘Come on! Come on then!’

  Kinane needed no further bidding and he slammed our car to the left. They managed to miss us but it was close. The driver must have shit himself, as he simultaneously slammed on the brakes and swerved wildly onto the side of the road. We did the same thing and Kinane stamped on his brakes until we skidded to a halt, kicking up gravel and clouds of dust in the process. As soon as both cars came to a stop, they were out of theirs and starting their angry march towards us, their biggest worry that we might drive swiftly away and rob them of their vengeance.

  I wasn’t too concerned about their aggression but I was annoyed with Kinane. As far as I was concerned, he could sort this mess out on his own, ‘Fucking hell Joe, you could have killed us.’ I told him.

  ‘No danger of that,’ he said dismissively but he wasn’t giving me his undivided attention. Instead he was watching them in his rear view mirror, ‘come on, come on,’ he was urging them. He didn’t want them to realise who they were dealing with until it was too late.

  I sighed and put my hand on the door handle and clicked it so that the door was still closed but the mechanism for opening it was half engaged. The guy who was coming for my side was a little quicker than the one heading for Kinane. I watched him in my mirror and, as he bent low to lean into the window and call me out, I clicked the door handle again and pushed against it hard. The side of the window frame caught the snarling little bastard right in the face, and he shot backwards, falling onto the waste ground at the side of the road.

  Kinane opened his door and climbed out. I got out just in time to see the look on the young driver’s face as he registered Kinane’s huge presence and it was an absolute picture. Normally I would have enjoyed that moment but I was too annoyed at Kinane for putting us in this position to gain any real pleasure from it. Before the lad could turn and run, Kinane snaked out an arm and grabbed his fleecy top in one gnarled fist. ‘Come here!’ he bellowed and I reckoned the guy probably filled his pants for the second time in two minutes.

  Kinane must have given the lad a couple of slaps because he started yelping like a little girl and screaming to be let go. I was preoccupied by the young thug’s mate, who was crawling to his knees. He shook his head and blinked, then put his hand to his forehead and wiped fresh blood from it. He surveyed his palm, got angry again, snarled at me and tried to get up but I’d had time to pick my spot. I sent a kick Alan Shearer would have been proud of right into his chin. His head shot back then snapped forwards again until gravity intervened and he dropped face first onto the hard ground, his chin smacking into the concrete with a sound like teeth breaking. He wouldn’t be getting back up again after that.

  I turned away then and set off down the road. I knew I could walk over the Redheugh Bridge then get a cab. Behind me, I could hear the sounds of Kinane’s violent retribution. Whatever he was doing to that thug, it must have been creative, because there was an awful lot of screaming going on.

  I walked on as the screams continued but slowly grew fainter. Eventually, as I knew it would, a police car could be heard heading Joe’s way. I doubted his young victim had ever been happier to hear the shrill sound of its sirens.

  3

  By the time I got back my little Emma was already asleep. Sarah was at the top of the stairs when I walked in and she greeted me with a big grin but immediately placed her finger to her lips, so I’d know to be quiet. Missing my daughter was another thing I’d blame Joe Kinane for.

  We lived in a house on a new development on the edge of the city; one that was built and wholly owned by the firm. The street we live in has twelve properties, a mixture of houses and flats in a horseshoe shape, making a cul-de-sac. It has a gated entrance and tall fences with CCTV cameras everywhere. From the outside it looks like a normal little residential estate with our house at the centre but nobody else lives on our street, except members of the firm, or security men on a retainer, and the gate is manned twenty-four hours a day. The only genuine civilian resident is Sarah’s best mate Joanne, who lives in one of the apartments and helps Sarah with Emma. It’s probably as secure an arrangement as I could get in Newcastle.

  When I reached the top of the stairs, Sarah was leaning against the door frame looking down at our daughter, who was in the kind of deep sleep only little ones can achieve. She was tucked up in her bed, arms wrapped tightly around her favourite teddy, eyes tight shut, breathing regularly into her pillow. Every time I see her like this I think there is nothing I wouldn’t do for our little girl, to protect her and walk her safely through this world.

  Sarah grinned at me. ‘Isn’t she gorgeous?’ she asked. ‘I know I’m her mother but…’

  ‘She is,’ I replied, ‘everybody says so.’

  And they did. Everybody, even the hardened gangsters we employed in the firm came over all smiley if they had to come to the house and saw our little girl, with her big blue eyes and the golden-blonde hair she inherited from her mother. ‘She gets it from you.’

  ‘From both of us,’ Sarah said, ‘she’s so cute,’ she added in wonderment. Like me, Sarah couldn’t quite believe our luck. Neither of us ever thought we deserved Emma, not after the stuff we’d seen and done, but she was here with us now and though we’d only had her for two years, sometimes we honestly struggled to remember a time when she had not been in our lives.

  Just when I was feeling that all was well with the world, Sarah said, ‘You know there’s not a day goes by when I don’t think about my dad and Emma. I wish he could have seen her. He’d have loved her so much.’

  ‘He would,’ I agreed, but I wasn’t thinking about the way that big, bad Bobby Mahoney, Newcastle’s former top boy, would have balanced my little girl on his knee and played with her. Instead I was remembering how I blew Bobby’s brains out in a derelict factory and it made me feel sick to think that, along with everything else I took from him, I had robbed Bobby Mahoney of time with his granddaughter. I’d had no choice but to kill him but Sarah didn’t know it was my finger on the trigger and I was desperate to keep it that way.

  My mobile rang then and Sarah winced. I grabbed it quickly but Emma didn’t stir. I walked back down the stairs as I took the call. It was Vince, a long-standing member of our crew who kept an eye on some of our pubs and clubs in the city and Privado, our lap-dancing bar. ‘Did you know Kinane’s been arrested?’ he asked me, his tone betraying his surprise, ‘for bitch-slapping a couple of knuckle draggers?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said and he hesitated before continuing.

  ‘Oh, right. I was just wondering if you wanted us to try and get him out of there,’ he offered tentatively, ‘you know, phone the lawyer or summat?’

  ‘No, fuck him,’ I said, ‘he’s been a dick, let him stew.’

  ‘Oh right, fine, I didn’t realise.
I was only saying like, sorry.’

  ‘It’s alright Vince, you weren’t to know. Kinane will be out in the morning but he has to learn.’

  Sarah followed me down the stairs and when I’d finished talking to Vince she asked me, ‘Are you hungry? Do you want a drink?’

  ‘I’m hungry,’ I told her as I leaned in and kissed her. It had been two weeks since I’d seen her, ‘but unfortunately I’ve got to go out again.’ Her smile faded. ‘I’m sorry, but I promised our Danny.’

  ‘Oh yeah,’ she said, ‘I forgot it was tonight.’

  I kissed her once more and told her I’d be back in a couple of hours. When she didn’t break free from the embrace I leaned in and kissed her again and the kiss gradually became more serious. She ground herself against me and I slid my hand under her T-shirt and slowly drew it upwards till it cupped her breast. Then I told her in graphic detail what I was going to do to her when I came back later and she sighed. I slid my hand inside the cup of her bra and her nipple stiffened at my touch. She lifted her hand and let one finger trace the outline of my cock through my trousers, teasing me.

  ‘Hold that thought,’ she said, as she broke away from me.

  I missed the start and hoped he hadn’t noticed. He looked like he was well and truly zoned out, oblivious to everything else, including my presence. Danny was out on the edge of the court and, just as I sat down, he was passed the ball by one of his team, catching it cleanly, then immediately dummied his nearest opponent, ghosted past him like he wasn’t even there and threw the ball to another team mate, before powering towards the opposing basket once more. His team looked like they were running the opposition ragged already, judging by the evidence of the electronic scoreboard, the frenzied whoops of encouragement from a sizeable home crowd in the stands and the way they casually flicked the basketball around like it was on a string that stretched between them. Their opponents seemed capable only of waving their arms forlornly as the ball flew by. It looked like the league title was going to be Danny’s team’s for the taking.