Howard Linskey - The Dead

I took a long hard look into Henry Baxter’s eyes, so I could tell if he was bluffing, then I sat back down again.

‘I am going to stay quiet and calm while you explain to me exactly what you have done, Baxter.’

‘It’s very simple, he said, ‘I knew they would come for me, as soon as they got my DNA because of that stupid driving offence. I knew they would be back. I went to a lot of trouble to evade that same test ten years ago when they did it on every man for miles around.’

‘I’ll bet you did Baxter. Did you pay someone off or just disappear for a while? Actually, don’t tell me, I don’t want to know.’ Baxter was lucky he did time for fraud back when they weren’t big on taking DNA from everyone who went inside. He was a white-collar criminal who stole some money, not a high-risk danger to the public.

He chose to ignore me. ‘I knew I’d have at least a week before the results came back but I had nowhere to run to and no real money. I wouldn’t last six months on the lam in any civilised country with an extradition treaty, and men like me weren’t built to live in mud huts halfway up the Amazon. It would be worse than this place. So I needed a little life insurance policy; something that would get your attention and secure your help. I changed the access information for that bank account in the Caymans. Your money’s still there, but you can’t get it. Not without my help.’

‘Your money is perfectly safe,’ Baxter continued, ‘but I am the only one who can release it for you, which I am prepared to do,’ he pronounced the last bit like he was doing me a huge favour, ‘in return for something from you.’

‘Baxter you are going to give me my money regardless of whether I help you or not, because we both know that I could have you killed in here.’

‘I actually seriously doubt that,’ he said, and when I gave him a look he continued, ‘you’re hardly going to murder me here in front of your tame prison officer and, in case you have forgotten, I am a Rule 45, segregated prisoner. I’m in solitary. That’s what they do to the “nonces”.’ Baxter did that stupid thing with his fingers that denotes speech marks and rolled his eyes at the absurdity of his prisoner classification as a sex offender.

‘You are a nonce Baxter,’ I told him, ‘you raped and murdered a little girl. There’s not a man in this nick that wouldn’t torture you and kill you for the fun of it. They hate cunts like you in here and, come to mention it, people aren’t too fond of your sort out there either. You wouldn’t last ten minutes outside these walls. Solitary is the only place where you are safe, for now.’

He gave me a sour look, ‘And that’s my point. While I’m locked up on my own in a wing that is wholly populated by sex offenders, none of your usual contacts can get to me. Because, forgive me if I’ve misread this situation, the firm does not tolerate nonces and won’t do business with them. Frankly, even if you did, there’s no one on my wing more than five foot six. Have you seen them when they line up for their lunch? All of them; pathetic, seedy little men,’ and he looked disgusted, as if he himself was excluded from that group. ‘I know the firm has people in here but they’re on C wing with all the other killers, armed robbers and enforcers. I also know you’ve paid people to get rid of men you don’t need any more but I’m no Toddy, oh yes, I’ve heard that story. He didn’t see it coming did he? But I do see it coming and I don’t care, because you are not going to kill me, you are going to get me out of here, otherwise it’s bye-bye five million pounds and, oops, I seem to have no more money to pay my suppliers, or the men on my payroll, and you wouldn’t want that, would you? If that happened, you’d be about as popular in Newcastle as I am.’

I was hating this and hating him. Partly because of what he had done but mostly because he was right. I wasn’t sure I could get at him on a solitary section of a sex offenders’ wing. That was the whole point of separating the nonces in the first place and, even if I could have Baxter killed in here, it would lose me my five million. Without that money I wouldn’t be able to trade for very long before I was struggling to meet our commitments and I dealt with people who were a hell of a lot scarier than the tax man.

‘You’re going to get me out of here,’ he told me.

‘How?’

‘That’s your problem, but you’d better work it out and fast. That five million is locked up safer than the Bank of England and if I go down you’ll never see a penny of it.’

‘You killed her. You just told me that and there is DNA evidence linking you to the dead girl.’

‘I’ve admitted nothing, not to the authorities and that’s what counts. To them I have denied everything except teaching the girl to play the piano. I gave her a few unofficial lessons and I could easily have come into contact with her then. You can pass on your DNA by shaking hands.’

‘Not that kind of DNA, Baxter. Not the kind they are going to cite in court.’

‘Then find a way to discredit them, Blake. Get me off and get me free and I’ll be out of here. Then I’ll give you your money back. You have my word.’

‘Your word?’

‘Yes,’ he assured me, ‘I am a man of my word.’

‘Of course you are,’ I said, ‘how could I forget that? You’re a proper English gent.’

‘Don’t take the moral high ground with me Blake. I may have killed a girl but not because I’m sick in the head. I’m not a psychopath. She was going to tell the police and get me locked up for a very long time. You, on the other hand, have had numerous people killed for exactly the same reason. It’s all about self-preservation in the end. We are just two sides of the same coin, you and I. We both dare to do what is necessary to survive.’

‘Don’t compare yourself to me Baxter.’

‘Why? Because it hurts? It’s true, isn’t it? How many people are in their graves because of you, Blake? Why don’t you admit you have killed people when it proved necessary? Or do you struggle to look at yourself in the mirror these days? Is that why you are so bloody coy?’

‘Shut up!’ Before I had even thought about it consciously my fist shot out in a jabbing motion and crashed hard into his nose. He’d been leaning forward too far and I hit him with a blow that was packed with anger. Baxter’s head jerked back and he let out a high-pitched cry as it fell forward again and he put his hand up to his face. He looked down in horror at the blood on his palm — more was pouring from his nose.

The prison officer rushed towards us in a panic. ‘Get back there,’ I ordered him angrily and he froze in his tracks, unsure what to do.

‘You’ll pay for that Blake,’ Baxter told me, his voice a nasally whine, as he wiped the blood and snot from his battered nose. ‘That’ll cost you fifty grand; to get me back on my feet when this is over.’

He got out of his chair and walked to the door that would take him back to the safety of his cell in solitary, then he turned back and reminded me, ‘You think about everything I’ve just said. It’s not as if you have any other option.’

‘How did it go?’ asked Palmer as I climbed back into the car outside Durham nick.

‘Great,’ I said, ‘we had a lovely little chat.’

‘And we’re cutting him off,’ he reminded me, ‘once we unravel everything?’

‘It’s not going to be that simple.’

Further discussion was interrupted by the sound of Palmer’s mobile ringing. He answered it, grunted and handed the phone to me. ‘It’s Robbie.’

‘We’ve been through the CCTV footage,’ he said, ‘hours of it.’