Howard Linskey - The Dead

‘Then the police told us they’d found her,’ he paused to let that sink in, ‘after two months,’ then he looked at me closely before telling me, ‘I had to identify her. I couldn’t put my wife through that.’

‘I’m very sorry,’ I said, ‘for what that’s worth, and I know it isn’t much.’

‘I don’t suppose you can imagine how that felt?’ he asked me.

‘No,’ I replied truthfully, ‘I can’t.’

‘And you don’t want to?’

‘No,’ I agreed, ‘I don’t.’

He seemed relieved that I hadn’t tried to bullshit him and he sighed, ‘Nobody does. I can’t say I blame them. They feel for you but they don’t know what to say. What is there to say? We didn’t get invited to too many parties after.’

‘They were all there for the funeral mind,’ he continued, ‘I’ll give them that; all the friends and relatives. The church was packed. Loads of people we didn’t even know turned up that day. My wife thought that was lovely. Lots of strangers outside the church to pay their respects. I thought they were ghouls, grief-tourists intruding on our pain. I wanted to scream at them to piss off, but I knew it would upset my wife, so I stayed silent. My little girl’s funeral was on the evening news. The presenter was very solemn, for about a minute, then they cut to the football results, like everything was alright again. I couldn’t believe anyone could actually care about the football when my Leanne was lying cold in her grave and her killer was still out there.’

I didn’t say anything. I knew he wasn’t done yet.

‘When the funeral was over, we gradually lost touch with the friends and the neighbours. They didn’t want to come round any more. The ones with kids must have felt guilty that it wasn’t their little boy or girl, or maybe they thought our bad luck would rub off on them. You know the worst part? I used to lie awake at night and wish it on them instead. Isn’t that awful? I used to wish that sick man had taken another little girl, anybody’s, I didn’t care whose, just not mine. I’d see lasses in the street about the same age as Leanne and I’d resent them because they were still walking around when she couldn’t and I’d dream about another reality where it was one of my neighbour’s kids whose funeral we’d all attended.’

‘My wife wanted to try again, after a while, for another child I mean, but I just couldn’t. I felt like we were trying to replace Leanne, betraying her somehow and I wouldn’t go along with it. Eventually she wanted to tidy all of Leanne’s things up, put them in boxes and “move forward” as she called it. Even the counsellor said that might be for the best, that it might stop me from living in the past. I wanted to smash his face in for saying that to me.

‘It was never going to work for my wife and me after that. She once told me, after the divorce, that every time she looked at me, my face reminded her of Leanne and it broke her heart,’ and he gave me a humourless smile. ‘What chance did we have, eh?’

‘I can’t imagine what you have been through, Mr Bell, I really can’t. None of us can. But I know you came here for a reason, so what is it that you want from me?’

‘Henry Baxter worked for you.’

‘Yes, but obviously I never knew… please believe that. I would never have…’

‘You never knew that he was a child murderer, you mean?’

‘Of course not.’

He shrugged. ‘How could you know? They’re not like the psychos on the films, are they? Child killers look quite ordinary. Otherwise we’d see them coming and warn our children to stay away from them, but we certainly didn’t see him coming. He lived a few streets away but we didn’t know what a monster he was. The police didn’t even bother to interview him at the time. I’d lie awake at night knowing he was out there somewhere, whoever he was, getting on with his life, unpunished, enjoying himself, perhaps even planning to do it again.’

I could have told him that Baxter served prison time for fraud since then but I didn’t think he’d view that as any form of justice, so I kept silent.

‘Baxter is no friend of mine, you can be assured of that.’

‘But he has hired a new legal team,’ he told me, ‘expensive ones, the best. The police were surprised he was able to do that. They thought you might have had something to do with it.’

‘I don’t know why they would think that. He’s not been with me that long.’

‘Can you look me in the eye and tell me you are not the one paying for the fancy lawyers, Mr Blake? Can you do that?’

‘I don’t wish to offend you, Mr Bell. You’ve been through a great deal and every man in this room feels for you, but I don’t have to look you in the eye and say anything.’

‘No,’ he admitted, ‘I suppose you don’t. I would like to ask you for something though… I know you don’t have to do anything you don’t want to but…’

‘I’ll help if I can.’

‘Don’t protect Henry Baxter. He killed my daughter. The police know it, the CPS know it, I know it and you know it too. The DNA evidence proves it and I want justice for my darling girl. She was thirteen years old when Baxter murdered her, she’d have been twenty-three now, married maybe, perhaps with a kid of her own. I might have been a grandfather. I understand you are a father too, Mr Blake. The police told me you have a daughter, so now I am appealing to you, as one father to another, not to help Henry Baxter. Please, I’m begging you in fact.’

I knew that every eye in the room was on me. I could feel Kinane staring at me intently and Matt Bell’s gaze didn’t leave mine for a moment.

‘Family money,’ I told him, ‘that’s how he can afford his fancy lawyer, Mr Bell. Henry Baxter will get no help from me,’ I assured him and felt one step closer to hell when that poor man’s shoulders slumped in relief and he thanked me.

I don’t think I had ever needed a drink as much as that night. We started in the Bigg Market and worked our way down towards the Quayside, stopping in all of the old pubs I used to drink in when I was younger. I didn’t want to think, I just wanted to drink and talk about anything other than the man who had just called to see me. Palmer must have sensed that so he stayed off the topic.

‘What was it like growing up around here?’ he asked, while we sank a couple in the Duke of Northumberland. ‘It must have been hard if your ma was on her own?’

‘It was, I suppose. My mum never really had much. Not material stuff. She didn’t want for anything later in her life though. I made sure of that.’

‘Must have been good for her to have you around,’ he said.

‘She could be a difficult woman to help. She wouldn’t let me give her money and if I bought her stuff I could tell she didn’t like it if it wasn’t Christmas or her birthday.’

‘Then one day I had a great idea. Mum was looking tired. So I hired a cleaner to help her round the house. I thought she’d be chuffed. She didn’t say much about it at first but I assumed she needed time to get used to it and she’d come round in the end, once she felt the benefit of all the hours she saved. Instead the cleaner called me up after a few weeks and told me there was no point going round anymore as the place was always spotless.

‘I went straight round to my ma’s to have a go at her. “What’s the point in me paying someone to clean your house if you just carry on doing it yourself?” I asked her.

‘My mum looked a little flustered, but she shouted back at me, “well I don’t want her thinking I live in a pig sty, do I?”’

Palmer chuckled. ‘How did a woman like that end up working for Bobby Mahoney?’

‘Well, it’s not as bad as it sounds,’ I said, ‘she never actually killed anyone. Bobby just used her on the door of the really rough clubs and she’d do the occasional armed robbery.’