Howard Linskey - The Dead

‘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.

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 sleeping 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.