The Dead

by Howard Linskey

  There was never any shortage of lasses willing to give it a go. I didn’t know what the guys who came here thought of the girls after they left but I knew what the girls thought of the men; mugs, every last one of them.

  I’d not been in Privado for a long time. There was no need. Vince ran it and the place virtually looked after itself. I had bigger things to care about. Big Auty was on the door, as always, with one of the younger lads from Joe Kinane’s gym.

  ‘Evening Davey,’ he said. I’d known ‘Big Auty’ for years, ever since I was a kid in fact. He was a legend on the doors of Newcastle and he had a sideline as corner man for our boxing prospect, Phil ‘The Warrior’ Watson. His hair was silver now but he was still one of the toughest guys in the city. When he was on a door for us there was never any trouble.

  ‘Evening Auty,’ I said, ‘Vince around?’

  He nodded, ‘I’ll get him.’

  I followed Big Auty into Privado and stood in the bar while he went out back to find Vince. The first thing that struck me was how dead it was. Either the economy really was beginning to bite or men had finally realised that going to a lap-dancing bar was about as sensible as keeping a bonfire going all night with ten pound notes. I could only see two punters. They were outnumbered by twelve girls in lingerie or skimpy dresses.

  A voice from the bar said, ‘Look what the cat dragged in.’

  I’d hoped that Michelle wouldn’t be in Privado. I figured she’d surely quit the business by now. She was sitting on a bar stool in an old-fashioned cocktail dress, the ones with the split up the side that go right up to the hip. A couple of the other girls looked a bit uncomfortable, because they knew who I was, but I ignored Michelle’s comment. She wasn’t going to let me off that lightly. ‘I thought you’d forgotten all about us.’

  ‘No,’ I told her quietly, ‘but I lived abroad for a while.’

  ‘So I heard,’ she said, way too brightly. She would also have heard I was shacked up with Bobby’s daughter and a father to boot. I made sure I kept eye contact with Michelle, so she understood she couldn’t push me too far. I knew why she was annoyed at me. We’d had a night, just the one, and I hadn’t bothered to call her for a repeat performance. At the time I was newly broken up with Laura and trying very hard not to climb into bed with Sarah, because I knew Bobby would never have tolerated that. Michelle was single and seemed the ideal solution but she woke up in the morning acting like I was her new boyfriend, while I couldn’t wait to get out of there.

  Under normal circumstances, I would have made more of an effort to ensure there was no lingering bitterness between us. I would have at least called her, or bought her some dinner and explained I was just not ready for a commitment right now, but they weren’t normal circumstances at the time and I had way too much to deal with to worry about her hurt feelings.

  Before she could think of anything else to say in front of the other girls I said, ‘I didn’t expect to see you still working here Michelle. I thought you’d have graduated by now.’

  When I first met Michelle she was always going on about how she was only doing the lap-dancing short term and part-time. All of the money was going towards her student debt. She told everyone that, as soon as she graduated, she’d be off.

  ‘I did graduate,’ she told me, ‘ages ago, but there’s a recession on out there, or haven’t you noticed?’

  ‘Certainly is,’ I agreed, ‘but I’d have thought a bright girl like you wouldn’t struggle too long to get a job.’

  This made her flush even more. ‘Maybe not,’ she admitted, ‘but graduate jobs don’t pay half as much as I can earn here,’ and she waved her hand at the room airily, ‘when it’s not dead.’

  ‘Of course,’ I agreed, ‘and it’s amazing how quickly you get used to a certain standard of living.’ I didn’t point out the obvious; that another year or two working in Privado full time would render her qualifications irrelevant. A little further down the line and she’d be stuck here, competing for tips with twenty-year-olds who had firmer tits and fewer lines on their faces.

  ‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘my boyfriend’s cool with it, so…’ That last comment was for my benefit.

  ‘That’s handy,’ I said, then I spotted Vince walking towards me, ‘lovely to see you again Michelle.’

  ‘Yeah,’ she said and gave me a forced smile, ‘you too.’

  ‘Sorry to keep you,’ said Vince, ‘I was sorting the books out.’

  ‘No problem,’ I said, ‘can I have a word?’ And I led him away from Michelle, who went back to propping up the bar.

  To begin with, Vince had agreed with me, ‘they’re all dead aren’t they? There’s only Joe Kinane left from Bobby’s inner circle but it’s a bit before his time. I can’t think of anyone who’d go all the way back to… when was it again?’

  ‘My father left Newcastle back in ’72 and kept in touch with me ma for another four years or so. There was no more contact after about 1976.’

  ‘Bloody hell, that was an age ago,’ Vince started to drum his fingers on his desk like he was thinking, then he suddenly said, ‘have you tried Jinky Smith? He’s about the only one of the old ‘uns left, I reckon.’

  ‘Blimey. I’d not thought of Jinky,’ I admitted. ‘He hasn’t been in the firm for years though. You sure he’s still alive?’

  Vince nodded, ‘he still gets around, just.’

  ‘How can I find him?’

  ‘I haven’t seen him in a while,’ he said, ‘we don’t encourage the old lags to pop in. We’d soon lose our licence if some toe rag was doing coke deals in the bogs or nicking wallets. We get enough grief about having full nudity.’

  ‘But you’ve seen him around?’

  ‘Well, yeah, he pops in the bars occasionally but he’s not a regular.

  ‘So where does he live?’

  Vince thought for a while, then finally said, ‘I seem to remember he’s got a flat in Benwell or Fenham or some other shit hole, poor bastard.’

  I suppose I couldn’t expect Vince to know the address of every down-at-heel ex-member of the firm. I’d have to get Sharp onto this one.

  8

  I’m a very light sleeper, but nobody could doze through the sound of a front door coming violently off its hinges. I was out of our bed before it hit the ground, even as Sarah was waking up with a start and screaming for me. I reached the landing and leaned out over the stairs in time to see armed, uniformed police officers crashing through the broken door into our home. I was relieved it was only them. The alternatives would have been far worse. One of them spotted me and shouted for me to stay where I was. I ignored him. Instead I turned back to Sarah who had come out onto the landing looking panicked.

  ‘It’s okay,’ I assured her, ‘it’s nothing. They are just taking me in but they’ve got nothing.’ We had often talked about me being lifted by the local police or SOCA and we had both agreed that Sarah would stay calm and call the lawyers, but she didn’t look calm right now.

  The police had come straight through the heavy front door like it was balsa wood, but they’d failed to take a more simple obstacle into account. I could hear one of them swearing as he tugged at the stair gate we’d installed to ensure Emma didn’t fall down the stairs. Someone shouted at him to go over it and he cursed again as he tried to vault the little metal gate and couldn’t manage it first time.

  I looked at Sarah again and repeated, ‘they’ve got nothing. You hear me?’

  ‘Yes,’ she said and I couldn’t think of anything more reassuring to say because, whatever the police thought they had, it was strong enough for them to arrest every man protecting our property, before smashing my front door down and dragging me from my bed in the middle of the night. That worried me more than I cared to admit. What the hell was this about?

  Having finally navigated the stair gate, the police came thumping up the steps, their heavy boots making a din. They were shouting, and Sarah and I both instinctively looked through the opened door of Emma’s bedroom. She was sleepin
g through the entire thing. Even a busted door and a half dozen burly, armed police officers bursting into our home couldn’t disturb my little girl.

  The lead police officer looked on edge. He had his pistol aimed right at me, ‘David Blake?’ he screamed.

  ‘Yes,’ I said quietly, even though I hate having guns pointed at me, particularly by people who looked as stressed as he did.

  ‘Don’t move and put your hands in the air!’

  I was tempted to point out that I could hardly do both, but instead I slowly raised my hands, then I put the palms on the back of my head, which seemed to calm him. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘it’s fine officer, I’m happy to assist you with your enquiries. There’s just two little things.’

  ‘What?’ he barked, straightening his arm and pointing his gun more firmly at me in emphasis.

  ‘Let me put some clothes on,’ I told him, because I was standing there in just my boxers, ‘and shut the fuck up.’ He looked startled by that. ‘We have a small child sleeping in there.’ I indicated Emma’s room with a faint movement of my head. He stared at me for a moment like I was trying to distract him and might attack if he took his eyes off me for a second. I must have looked pretty harmless though, standing there in my underwear with my hands behind my head, because he finally stole a quick glance through the open door, saw Emma and realised I was telling the truth.

  ‘Okay,’ he said in something between a gasp and a whisper. ‘Sorry Miss.’ Sarah gave him a murderous look and went to check on Emma.

  ‘You know why you are here,’ the detective told me for the third time.

  ‘I have no idea why I am here,’ I answered. Here was the police station on Market Street, a grey, grim, sixties-built, flat-roofed box of a building. The interview room was just as stark; a table, some chairs, two filing cabinets in the corner, a DCI questioning me, three more plain clothes in the room to make sure I didn’t deck him and run off.

  ‘Are we going to mess about all night?’ asked Detective Chief Inspector Hibbitt, a man I had never clapped eyes on before, until he snarled an introduction at me five minutes earlier. He was the SIO or Senior Investigating Officer in the case I was about to be questioned over, he told me, with barely disguised contempt, while strangely neglecting to inform me what that case was, hence his rather ridiculous statement that I knew why I was here. ‘See if you can work it out,’ he added, ‘go on, give it a go.’

  Behind him, a Detective Sergeant, who was equally unknown to me but apparently went by the name of Fraser, paced up and down behind him looking like a caged tiger. I had never seen police officers looking so wound up before. They were treating me like I was the mastermind of some terrorist outrage, not their local, friendly drug-dealing, money launderer gangster. I’d been offered a lawyer but I find these chats about crimes I have been linked with tend to go better if I let the police feel they are more in control. I let them ask their questions and deflect them. Then they let me go home and that is usually the end of the matter. If I involve my lawyer it tends to mean a protracted stay at the station and a tedious impasse, which leaves the police frustrated and angry because I didn’t cooperate. There isn’t much goodwill directed at me from the local plod but Sharp has told me that I get a few Brownie points for at least allowing them to have their little talks with me unencumbered by a posse of lawyers.

  ‘Night shift a bit dull, was it?’ I asked, ‘and you wanted to liven things up a bit?’

  ‘Carlton,’ he said.

  ‘I might have known,’ I replied. Carlton was behind this, ‘DI Carlton’s been my biggest fan for a while now. He seems to think I’m a criminal mastermind, not a respectable north-east business man.’

  ‘We know all about you, Blake, so there’s very little point in pissing us around,’ the DCI told me, ‘you used to work for Bobby Mahoney and he has been missing, presumed dead, for years now. He might be on a tropical island somewhere but more than likely he’s buried in the foundations of one of those yuppie apartment blocks you built on the Quayside. You’ve been doing very well since then, haven’t you? Well,’ he added, ‘you were because we’ve never been able to prove anything,’ then he continued, ‘but that’s all about to change.’

  Then Hibbitt put his palms on the table in front of me, stretched across it, leaned in close to me and hissed, ‘there is a line, Blake, and you just crossed it. You are going down for a very long time.’

  ‘Is this the bit where I get to say something like, “I have no idea what you are talking about, Inspector”, because I really do have no idea what you are talking about, Inspector.’

  ‘Carlton,’ he said again, but he didn’t tell me more.

  ‘What about him? Is he here? I don’t know what he thinks he has got on me but it’s nothing. You are going to look very stupid when my lawyer tears you apart and sends you the bill for my front door.’

  The DCI shook his head, ‘You can’t just do anything you want, hurt anyone you want. Don’t you see that? Sooner or later…’ his words tailed away and he shook his head in something like bemusement. He was looking at me like I was shit on his shoes. He stepped back from the table.

  ‘Shall we start again?’ I asked, ‘perhaps you can tell me what it is that you or Carlton think I have done? Would that make sense? You are supposed to do that; under your own code of practice from the Police and Criminal Evidence Act, you are meant to let me know why you have brought me here.’

  The DS, who had been watching me intently, suddenly lost control and let out a roar. He marched up to my table with a ferocious look in his eye and smashed his fist down onto it hard.

  ‘You fucking bastard,’ he hissed at me while he tried to regain control. I just stared at him, wondering what the hell he was on to make him act like this, ‘you… evil… fucking… bastard. You are gonna pay! I promise you that!’

  ‘Look,’ I said, in as reasonable a voice as I could muster, ‘there’s obviously some kind of mix-up here. I haven’t done anything… out of the ordinary.’ I was choosing my words carefully, abandoning the pretence that I was a law-abiding citizen for a moment.

  The DS ignored this. ‘Carlton is a good man,’ he told me, ‘he’s worth a hundred of you.’

  I frowned at him, ‘What’s happened to Carlton?’ I asked. ‘I haven’t seen him in weeks.’

  ‘He was close,’ the DCI interrupted, ‘very close, so he said. He was going to nail you and you knew it. You just couldn’t help yourself, could you, you fucking low-life.’

  ‘Wait a minute,’ I told them both, ‘has something happened to Carlton, because it has got nothing to do with me. You lot have your jobs to do and I might not like you for it but I understand and grudgingly respect it. I’ve never come up against any of you like that. If Carlton has taken a kicking, if he’s fallen down the stairs or been hit by a car, gone missing or stubbed his toe on the pavement, I repeat, it has nothing to do with me.’

  ‘Got an alibi, have you?’ asked the DCI, as if I was pulling the other one. ‘Got your men to do the dirty work? That’s how people like you operate isn’t it? You’re not hard, Blake, you’d be nothing without men like Joe Kinane to back you up.’

  ‘Neither I, nor anyone who works for me in any capacity, has done anything to hurt or harm DI Carlton,’ I told him, ‘and if you think we have, you are definitely on the wrong track.’

  ‘Leave me alone with him for just five minutes,’ DS Fraser was virtually frothing at the mouth now, ‘I’ll get him to talk.’

  ‘Oh please,’ I told him, ‘you’re acting like an idiot.’ And that’s when he went for me, launching himself across the table and swinging a haymaker at me that caught me off balance, even though I saw it coming. I ducked, but he still connected with the top of my head. It wasn’t a crashing blow but the intent was there and the two DCs who’d been standing to one side had to drag him off me. They managed to haul him away but I didn’t get an apology.

  Instead the DCI just said, ‘You killed Carlton’s daughter, you murdering bastard, and if it was dow
n to me I’d bundle you in a car, take you out into the woods where they found her and beat you to death, because I wouldn’t waste the cost of a bullet on you.’

  ‘What? Are you out of your mind? I didn’t kill his daughter. I didn’t even know he had a daughter. Who the fuck told you that?’

  He leaned in close again as he relished giving me the answer. ‘He did.’

  9

  I listened in shock as they told me. Gemma Carlton, eighteen-year-old daughter of DI Robert Carlton, had been murdered and her body dumped in woodland. They’d kept her name out of the papers for now but there would be a press conference later that day, without Carlton, who was in no fit state to appear before the public. Instead, Gemma’s uncle would appeal for witnesses.

  Carlton was being treated for shock and grief and whatever they called it nowadays when your mind shuts down, because you’ve been driven out of it by something so bad you just can’t even begin to process it. At some point though, he had been lucid enough to speak to senior officers. They had gently coaxed from him whether there was anyone who held a grudge against him or Gemma, anybody who could have killed the girl because of it. He told them that person could only be me.

  Gemma was sweet, she was innocent and kind and could never hurt a fly, she loved her mum, respected her dad, didn’t even have a steady boyfriend. The only possible motive for killing Gemma would be to stop her dad from functioning as a police officer, preventing him from closing that big case; the one he’d been working tirelessly on. He had told everyone he was close to breaking the old Mahoney crew and bringing down their boss, David Blake.