Howard Linskey - The Dead

‘No,’ I told him, ‘but we think she was a regular and we’ve seen her name on the guest list for the VIP lounge, so concentrate on two cameras for now. Get your lads to look out for her in the queue at the main door. You take the one that faces the lift to the VIP area. You can go through it at twice the normal speed and just pause it…’

‘Every time I see a fit, young brunette stepping into the VIP lounge?’ he said dryly. ‘That won’t take long.’

I was starting to get pissed off with Robbie’s attitude. I paid him very good money that nobody else would have given him, not after his prison sentence. We’d rescued Robbie through the Second Chances centre and handed him the opportunity to make more than an honest day’s pay for some dishonest work that did not involve getting his hands dirty. He was a computer whiz kid, an IT geek who could summon up a live feed from any CCTV camera in Newcastle because he had hacked into the city’s main frame, but I needed to remind him who paid his wages.

‘Have I given you anything else to do, Robbie?’

‘What?’

‘Is there somewhere else you would rather be right now?’

‘No,’ he protested, ‘it’s just…’

‘What job do I employ you to do?’ I interrupted and he froze. He could tell I was pissed off with him.

‘IT sp… sp… specialist,’ he stammered. Robbie had a stutter, but it only showed when he was nervous.

‘No Robbie, not the one on your business card,’ I told him, ‘your real job.’

His voice was a squeak, ‘I’m a watcher,’ he managed, ‘for the f… f… firm.’

‘So get on with it,’ I ordered, ‘and stop moaning.’

‘I’m not moaning,’ he protested, ‘I’m just saying…’

‘And of course, the quicker you start…’ I prompted, ‘or do I have to ask Kinane to come up here and keep an eye on you to make sure you’re not slacking?’

‘No, no, I’m on it,’ he assured me, simultaneously tapping away at his keyboard so he could summon up the necessary footage, but then he remembered the other part of my instruction and he called, ‘Mark! Get over h… h… here… now. I need you to plug into the footage for camera s… s… seven on the main door of Cachet. We’re looking for a g… g… girl.’

Mark ambled over and said, ‘A girl? In Cachet? That doesn’t narrow it down.’ He’d obviously not heard a word of the conversation I’d had with Robbie, who quickly interrupted him.

‘Sit down, log on and shut up,’ and he slid Gemma Carlton’s photograph over to the desk he wanted Mark to occupy, before adding, ‘just g… g… get on with it. It’s important.’

Mark looked a bit startled, but when he saw the look on my face he did exactly what he was told.

‘Call me when you find something.’ I ordered and I left them both tapping away furiously on their keyboards.

‘How’s Biggus Dickus?’ asked Palmer, when I joined him outside. That was his affectionate name for Robbie after the friend of the Roman with the stammer in Life of Brian .

‘He’s not moaning,’ I told him, ‘he’s just saying.’

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘I assume you put him straight.’

‘You protected him while he was on the inside, he’d never get another job anywhere else and we reward him handsomely for his expertise, so this is payback time. I expect him to come up with something. Otherwise what is the point of having him?’

Kinane was up before the magistrates that morning and he was still baffled by it. ‘I don’t understand,’ he told me in the corridor outside the courtroom, ‘I thought you’d just fix this.’

‘I tried,’ I told him, with what I hoped sounded like exasperation at the judicial process, ‘but it’s not as simple as that. There were too many witnesses for this to just go away. You did torture the bloke in broad daylight on the hard shoulder of a busy main road. The police have a queue of people who ID’d you and none of them reckon it looked the least bit like self-defence.’

He looked chastened at that, ‘Yeah, I know but…’

‘There isn’t a but,’ and I sighed, ‘you’re going to have to plead guilty. You won’t be doing any prison time, that’s all been worked out, but it’s the best deal I could get you under the circumstances and, if you moan at me about it, I’ll withdraw my help and you can take your chances on your own.’

‘All right, okay,’ he held up his huge hands, ‘I’ll plead guilty.’

The public gallery was surprisingly busy that morning. I put in an appearance even though I don’t normally go anywhere near a court when one of my lads is up on a charge but I wanted to see this. Palmer was with me, plus Vince and a couple of the other members of the crew, including Chris, Peter and Kevin.

The bloke I’d hired was one of Susan Fitch’s colleagues and he did a good job. ‘Joseph Kinane is a hard-working, family man with no previous convictions,’ he told the Magistrates confidently, because the record of Kinane’s short jail sentence in the seventies had mysteriously failed to reach the Magistrates, thanks to the help we’d enlisted from the Court Clerk. Magistrates are all amateurs so you don’t really have to buy them. They rely on the Court Clerk for all of their legal advice, including sentencing guidelines, so if you can get at the clerk you’re half way there and we knew a couple who were malleable.

‘He was unreasonably provoked, then attacked by two young men with a string of convictions between them,’ added the solicitor, ‘both of whom, I should add, were driving without the usual impediments of road tax, insurance or even a licence between them.’

That got a frown from the bench. ‘There has also been some considerable doubt cast as to who exactly grappled with the young man who then fell and sustained a broken jaw. Witnesses have described another man who left the scene suddenly without waiting for the police to arrive.’

I didn’t mind him saying that because no one really got a good look at me, and Kinane had already sworn blind he was the only one in the car that day. ‘I was on my way to visit my elderly mother,’ he had explained, ‘who has been quite poorly lately.’

‘The final factor I wish you to take into account,’ the lawyer instructed the bench, ‘is the failure of either of the young men who claimed to be victims of the alleged assault to take the trouble to attend today’s proceedings.’

‘Someone must have had a word,’ Palmer whispered to me.

Kinane pleaded guilty to the less serious charges and the Magistrates accepted this, which meant he didn’t have to go to Crown Court. He waited for his fine to be handed down but I knew that would never teach him a lesson, so I’d arranged a more suitable punishment.

Kinane looked almost bored as the lady magistrate, a dead ringer for Margaret Thatcher, lectured him on the importance of personal responsibility in a civilised society. Magistrates are like politicians, you have to distrust the motives of anyone who actually wants the job and I could tell she was enjoying every minute of this. I don’t think he heard a word of it until she reached the bit about the sentence. At this point he straightened, so he could hear how much he had to pay.

The Thatcher clone told him, ‘We have decided not to hand down a custodial sentence Mr Kinane…’

‘Right,’ he said, ‘thanks.’

‘… conditional upon your agreeing to attend a minimum of ten sessions of anger-management counselling.’

Kinane quickly interrupted, ‘Do you not want a fine like?’ he asked her, ‘I’ve got money. I’m not a doley, I can pay yer knaa.’

‘No,’ she told him witheringly, ‘we do not want a fine Mr Kinane. We want you to seek professional help in order for you to be better able to control your temper.’