The Dead

by Howard Linskey

  Our young’un, as I usually called him, even though he was a fair bit older than me, made his way inside until he was in a shooting position and, even above the noise of the supporters, I could hear him demanding the ball. Sure enough he got it, catching it cleanly and powering forward once more. He went past an opponent who tried to grab his arm and I watched with amusement as the guy was left trailing in Danny’s wake. I loved the look of absolute determination on Our young’un’s face as he closed in. He was bloody loving this. As soon as he found himself within shooting distance he released the ball, sending it up into the air in a long high arc towards the basket that I was only dimly aware of, because my eyes were still fixed on Danny and the opponent who had chosen that moment to go steaming into him at top speed. If you have ever seen two wheelchairs collide head on at full pelt you will know the impact is stomach churning. It’s like watching a miniature car crash. There was a loud, metallic smash that sounded like a gun going off and Our young’un’s chair was upended, just as the crowd cheered the basket he had scored. He shot forward and was flung face first onto the court and I winced and turned away. When I looked back he was already dragging himself along the court. Even from my seat I could see the fire in his eyes and knew what he was going to do. He grabbed the bloke who had careered into him by his vest and hauled him out of his chair, so he too ended up lying on the court, then Danny punched him hard on the side of the head.

  All hell broke loose then. The referee, coaches and even some fans ran onto the court, meanwhile blokes in wheelchairs from both sides waded in to one another shouting insults and trading punches. Danny was right in the thick of it as usual. Somehow he managed to right his chair and drag himself back into it. Danny may have been paralysed from the waist down, but his upper body strength was amazing. He re-entered the fray just as the referee and others were trying to calm things down. Even from this distance, as the shouts and the arguments grew more heated, I could tell he was laughing.

  4

  ‘Well, that was mature,’ I told Danny as he wheeled himself towards me, across the carpet of the leisure centre bar, the big grin still plastered all over his face, ‘red-carded or sin-binned or whatever you call it, after how many minutes? My arse had barely touched the seat and you were causing mayhem. You’re supposed to play the game, not miss most of it because you’ve given someone a twatting.’

  ‘I was just messing with him,’ he assured me. Only a former Para could describe a solid punch to the side of the head as ‘just messing’.

  ‘Oh it was nowt man,’ he continued, ‘that bloke just took the piss and he knew it, so I gave him a little slap, but it was all handbags. He’s fine with me now,’ but he could tell by the look on my face I wasn’t convinced, ‘howay man, I’ll buy him a pint.’

  ‘There’s no time for that,’ I told him, ‘I need to speak to you.’

  While the other players congregated around the bar we chose a quiet corner away from them to sip our pints.

  ‘So the Turk wants to retire,’ he said, ‘I was wondering what kept you so long.’

  ‘There was a lot to discuss.’

  ‘Whoever heard of a drug dealer retiring,’ he asked me, ‘especially one who peddles the quantity of powder he shifts? They always have too much unfinished business to just sail away. You know that.’

  ‘Yeah,’ I admitted, and I did know that because I was also a drug dealer. It might not have been the only thing we were involved in but we did a lot of product these days and most of it came from the Turk. Remzi al Karayilan came on board a few years back when our previous suppliers, the Haan brothers, both got life. We had a rocky first year with Remzi and I hated our irregular trips to Istanbul to negotiate consignments but things settled down after that and we started to get along. That didn’t make us friends. It just meant we could do business with each other without constantly looking over our shoulders. He had the contacts in Afghanistan where they grow the poppy and wholesale the powder out to the Turk via, of all places, Iran. They’ll let Remzi ship his powder through their country, in return for a large consideration, in cash. He then collects it in Turkey and transports it in huge trucks through his country and out the other side, into the Balkan states where we take over, moving it on to Amsterdam, then finally the Eastern ports of the UK. Hull takes the lion’s share. Our consignments disappear in among hundreds of tonnes of shipping freight a year in that port alone. If you pay the right people to look the other way it is virtually impossible to get caught.

  But now Remzi has had enough. He wants to quit and enjoy his old age. That’s why I’m asking my brother for advice. I keep him well out of harm’s way these days, since it is my fault he’s in that wheelchair. He stopped three bullets and came close to dying. Danny will never walk again because of me, he’s a civilian, but I still respect his opinion.

  ‘I’m taking over the whole thing,’ I said, ‘paying him a lump sum for the consideration, taking it all in-house.’

  ‘What about his contacts?’

  ‘We’ll take on some of his people, the ones with the know-how. They’ll keep up the contacts and we’ll ensure the money keeps on coming but, without Remzi’s cut and a few other savings I can think of, we should be considerable amounts of quids-in.’

  ‘Why not?’ he asked, ‘that Russian connection is the future.’

  Danny was right. We’ve been pushing product into the east, opening up a cast-iron supply chain with contacts in the Russian mafia Remzi introduced me to.

  ‘That’s what I figured. I’ve just got to negotiate a little golden handshake and he will duck out; the lucky fucker.’

  We talked through the practicalities of taking Remzi’s empire off his hands until we finally ran out of things to say about it. I was pleased Danny was so on the ball. He’d had a very tough time of it these past couple of years. It took him a long while to come to terms with the fact that he would never walk again but I reckoned a lot of his recent improvement was down to the unarmed combat known as wheelchair basketball.

  ‘I’ve got a day lined up at our hotel for that charity gala dinner we’ve been talking about.’ I said.

  ‘Great,’ but then I told him the date and his smile faded.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ I asked, ‘I thought you were mad keen to do this.’

  ‘I am, it’s just…’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Well, that’s my birthday like,’ he seemed a bit uncomfortable mentioning it, as if it was unmanly to care that it was your birthday at his age.

  ‘Yeah, well, we can have a beer on the night,’ I said, ‘at the dinner I mean.’

  ‘S’pose,’ he said, but I could tell he was narked because he thought I didn’t give a shit about his birthday.

  ‘So how have you been? Lately I mean?’ I asked for two reasons; firstly to change the subject away from his birthday but also because I was genuinely concerned about him.

  ‘I still have my bad days,’ he admitted, ‘but I’m a lot better than I was. You know that.’

  He was right. When he first took those bullets in the spine, I was terrified he was going to die on me. As soon as I realised he would make it, I had a different problem. He kept telling me he’d have preferred to die rather than face life paralysed and I know he blamed me for it. If he hadn’t been working for the firm then he would still be walking. It was a visit I organised from two former members of the parachute regiment, who’d had their legs blown off by roadside bombs, that finally started to convince my brother his life wasn’t over. That was just the beginning though. The rest has been a daily struggle that I think he’s finally starting to win.

  ‘I’ve settled for where I am and who I am,’ he said. ‘Don’t get me wrong, I’d have the use of my legs back in a second,’ and he clicked his fingers to illustrate his point, ‘but, I’ve thought about this a lot and I’m probably a better person these days than I was before… you know… all this.’

  ‘You are slightly less of a cunt than you were,’ I conceded.

&n
bsp; ‘Thanks. Anyway, life is reasonably sweet,’ then he added a little self-consciously, ‘I’ve been seeing a bit of that Linda.’

  I couldn’t place her for a moment, ‘Linda that works the bar at the Cauldron?’

  ‘Fuck no,’ he laughed, ‘she looks like Andy Murray in drag.’

  I laughed, ‘actually, you’re right, she does a bit.’

  ‘Then credit me with some taste. No, I’m talking about Linda who dances for us at Cachet.’

  ‘That Linda? Fuck me Our young’un, how did you manage that?’

  ‘Used me charm bro, used me charm,’ he said smugly and I was pleased for him.

  ‘I would have bet against you landing her if you’d used Rohypnol but, well done. What is she though? Nineteen?’

  ‘No,’ he scoffed, ‘she’s twenty-four.’

  ‘I wondered why you kept her on. You usually retire them at twenty. So only half your age then? Reckon it’ll last?’

  ‘Don’t know, don’t care, life’s too short to worry about that shite isn’t it? How many relationships do you know that last forever. Look at you and that Laura bird.’

  ‘You have a point.’ Was there actually a time when I had considered me and my mad ex Laura to be a permanent item? If there was, it was a lifetime ago.

  ‘Anyway, we’re just enjoying ourselves and we can still do stuff, you know sexually and that. I don’t mind you asking.’

  ‘Asking? I wasn’t asking and I won’t be. Whatever you and her get up to in the wee small hours has got fuck all to do with me.’

  ‘I’m only saying that I can still do stuff. I know some of the lads think I can’t but I can and…’

  I put my fingers in my ears at that point and started chanting, ‘La, la, la, la, la, I’m not fucking listening, la, la, la, la.’

  Trouble with Our young’un is he is almost impossible to embarrass, so he just rose to the bait, ‘she’s got a load of toys and she does all sorts of stuff with them. Did I ever tell you how she does this thing with her finger…’

  ‘Oh Christ no, I’ve gone blind, shut up man before I puke. Have another pint for fuck’s sake.’

  He laughed, ‘You’re just a prude, that’s your trouble. No, I’m heading off after this one.’

  ‘Bloody hell. You’re a changed man Danny. It must be that young lass of yours.’

  ‘It isn’t just that,’ he informed me ruefully, ‘hangovers aren’t much fun when you’re hauling yourself around in one of these things. Were you planning on stopping like? I wouldn’t have thought this was your sort of place.’

  ‘No, it’s okay. I’ve got to be off too.’

  ‘Back home to wor lass?’

  ‘Not just yet.’

  ‘She hasn’t seen you for a fortnight.’

  ‘I know,’ I admitted, ‘but I need a word with Sharp. I’ll head home after that.’

  His face became a grimace, ‘oh god.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You’re not still…’ and he didn’t finish but he gave me a look like I was some new species of idiot he’d only just discovered.

  ‘What?’ I repeated.

  ‘You know what,’ he informed me, ‘and you know my view an’ all, so I don’t know why you are bothering to tell me.’

  ‘I know your view but I thought it might have altered since we last spoke.’

  ‘No,’ he said firmly, ‘it hasn’t. I can’t see what good could come of it.’

  ‘Well, as always, Our young’un, I respect your opinion.’

  ‘Aye and, as always, you’ll fuckin’ well ignore it,’ he told me as I drained the last dregs of my pint.

  I was up on the roof of the Cauldron staring out at the night sky and I was here to meet Sharp. Down below me, the city was bustling along, lights gleaming from every window. Detective Inspector Sharp was my main man in Northumbria Constabulary. We had a few on the payroll but Sharp was our best-paid operative and his expertise and information had helped dig me out of more than one hole before now. He liked to meet me here because the building was right on the edge of Chinatown and he could access it through the big Chinese restaurant next door. He would simply flash his warrant card at the waiters then come up the fire escape.

  He was looking stressed when he arrived but I didn’t have time to ask after his well-being and I was keen to get home to Sarah. Sharp was the best I had at finding people but, surprisingly for him, he’d drawn a blank this time.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ he said when he’d concluded his explanations, or were they just excuses?

  ‘I thought finding people was your speciality?’

  ‘It was,’ he protested, ‘it is,’ and he shrugged, ‘but you might have more luck with some of the old crew.’

  ‘Why me?’

  ‘Hey, I’m not being lazy. They just don’t like talking to coppers, you know how those old villains are, always think they are gonna be fitted up for something they haven’t done.’

  ‘Whatever could have given them that idea?’

  ‘Aye well, that was then, this is now. In the seventies if you were banged up for something you didn’t do, it probably meant you’d gotten away with a lot of stuff that you did.’

  ‘So you’ve not found out anything?’

  ‘Only what we know already; your father left town suddenly one day, a couple of years before you were born. There was some sort of job down south, by all accounts, and he never returned home but he kept in touch with your ma for years afterwards. There’s people who’ve corroborated this. She used to go off and see him and always assumed the family would get back together in the end. Then one day, as the story goes, the calls and the letters from your father stopped and he disappeared for good.’

  ‘I was about two years old when that happened.’

  ‘It looks like he left your ma in the lurch to bring up two little boys on her own while he fucked off out of it. He wouldn’t be the first or the last to do that, would he? But there are no records of the man anywhere.’

  ‘So it’s possible something bad happened to him down south?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s possible,’ he admitted, ‘or he could have changed his name and emigrated to Australia. We just don’t know.’

  I had never cared about what happened to my father before now. I had always taken the view that, since he walked out on ma, Danny and me when I was little and I don’t have any memories of the man, I didn’t give a fuck what became of him.

  Then we had Emma and it changed my view almost overnight. I could never imagine a time when I would be happy to sit down and have a pint with the old git, assuming he was still alive, but I was curious to know what happened to him and to hear from his own mouth why he did what he did, mainly because of Emma. I wanted to be able to tell her something about him, to be capable of answering her questions about her grandfather when she grew older, so I’d asked Sharp to look into it for me. Danny figured we should just leave it as a mystery, because there was nothing the guy could say to either of us that we would actually want to hear.

  ‘So you reckon members of the old crew might know what really went off before he left the city?’

  ‘I dunno, yeah, maybe,’ he admitted, ‘he used to hang round their old haunts and didn’t Bobby’s crew always know everything that went on?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I admitted, ‘but there aren’t many of them left,’ I reminded him, ‘they might all be dead…’ I was going through a list of old names in my head; Geordie Cartwright, Jerry Lemon, Mark Miller, Hunter, Finney and the man himself, Bobby Mahoney; all dead, every last one of them and I was responsible for more than one of those deaths.

  ‘There must be somebody,’ he said.

  ‘Maybe. Leave it with me. I’ll ask around.’ We stood there for a while looking out at the skyline until I said, ‘out with it then.’

  ‘What?’ he asked.

  ‘Whatever it is that’s bothering you. You’re still here and I thought we were done.’

  He exhaled, ‘I think I am being investigated.’

  ‘You
always think that,’ I reminded him.

  ‘Yeah, I do,’ he said, ‘but what if it’s true this time? You still attract a lot of interest. Maybe someone followed you and saw me with you.’

  ‘Then you explain it away. I’m your high-level source, remember, your grass who’s selling everyone else down the river.’

  ‘That story might have held when you worked for Bobby Mahoney but who’s bigger than you these days? No one,’ he told me without waiting for an answer.

  ‘You sure they are watching you?’ I asked and he nodded emphatically.

  ‘I’ve been hearing things,’ he said, ‘they’ve been asking questions about me, speaking to colleagues, some I haven’t worked with in years. What else could it be but them thinking I’m bent? I reckon they are onto something. It’ll be ten years minimum if I’m caught, more maybe,’ he said.

  ‘I know,’ I replied.

  ‘So I need you to take this seriously,’ he urged me, sounding a little panicked.

  Detective Inspector Sharp didn’t strike me as the kind of man who would go quietly off and do ten years without cutting a deal and the only thing he had to bargain with was me. I figured I’d probably get life for that.

  ‘I am taking this very seriously Sharp,’ I told him, ‘believe me.’

  Basically, if Sharp went down, well, he would have to go.

  5

  I was wide awake, my body clock skewed by a doze on the flight home from Istanbul. As soon as I got in I went straight upstairs, because I knew Sarah was waiting for me and I was ‘on a promise’. The light was still on in our bedroom and I walked in to find Sarah lying on the bed, but she wasn’t alone. Our little girl was fast asleep next to a fully-clothed Sarah, who was passed out like she’d been drugged.

  ‘Hold that thought,’ I muttered to myself and trudged off to the spare bed.

  I left Kinane to stew in the cells overnight, so he’d know I was pissed off with him. He was bailed late the next morning and we picked him up off the street. He climbed slowly into the passenger seat next to Palmer, who drove away, then he turned back towards me, like he was trying to weigh up my mood. I must have looked pretty narked because Joe did something that he almost never did. He apologised.