Howard Linskey - The Dead

Cars aren’t designed to make an emergency stop at a hundred and twenty miles an hour and this one was no exception. It went into a slide, then a spin and turned a whole three-sixty degrees, while I tried to ignore the searing pain across my chest from my seat belt, the whiplash I was already feeling in my neck and back and the shock of the driver’s airbag exploding in my face. All I could do was hold on tight like this was a fairground ride that would eventually stop. Then I crashed hard into the metal barrier of the central reservation.

Peter dragged me out of the wreckage. The car had done its bit by crumpling in all of the right places and I was pulled free, feeling like every piece of me had been punched hard, but I was alive. It was the only thing that mattered; that and the fact that the young Serb was lying motionless in the middle of the road way back behind me, his body twisted unnaturally. I’m certain he was already dead when he bounced off the road but Peter’s car going over him at speed removed any lingering doubt.

As Peter got me out of the car, he retained the presence of mind to wipe the steering wheel, gear stick, handbrake and door handles, to remove any of my prints. He carried me to the car and we drove out of there fast, before anyone could come along and link me to the tragic accident, which saw a poor young man somehow lose control of his vehicle, before crashing through his windscreen and drawing his final breath against the cold tarmac of the A-road.

When we got back I called Palmer and he told me there was no deal with the Stevic brothers. We were using pay-as-you-go mobiles so I took a risk and told him about the young Serb’s attempt to lift me and take me to Dusan. He heard me out and agreed it was probably an unsanctioned operation. ‘They don’t need to kill you,’ he said, ‘they’re bedding in, taking over the territory, inch by inch.’

I was in a fair bit of pain from the crash, but pretty sure nothing was broken, and I could arrange to be seen by a friendly doctor in the morning. In the interim, I could dull the pain with booze. I crashed at our hotel again. The next morning I drove home, parked up and took my bruised and battered body inside. Every step was an effort. Sarah and Joanne were sitting in the living room together while Emma played with her toys on the floor. I walked over, picked up my little girl and gave her a kiss. Sarah just looked at me, not mentioning my bruised face, waiting for me to say something.

‘Do you want to do this now?’ I asked her simply. Joanne looked down and Sarah got slowly to her feet.

‘Can you keep an eye on her?’ she asked her old friend.

‘Course,’ said Joanne, and she smiled over at Emma. ‘Come on chicken. Let’s go to Auntie Jo’s and we’ll bake some cakes.’

I put Emma down and she took Joanne’s hand. They left without another word. I sat down opposite Sarah.

‘Are you sure you want to do this?’ I asked her firmly, ‘you really want to know everything?’

She seemed to hesitate for a moment then said, ‘Yes.’

‘Some of it you know,’ I told her, ‘and some you don’t. Your dad controlled a lot of what went on in this city, some of it legal, but not all.’

‘I know he was no saint, Davey, but nor are you. I’m not that naive.’

Maybe it was her tone that irritated me, or perhaps I had been through too much lately to really spare her feelings, so I went on. ‘Protection money; security, by which I mean muscle on the doors of nightclubs; prostitution; drugs; armed robbery; money laundering — and he would hurt people, when it was required.’

I could tell by the look on her face that she had known about this all along but it was still a shock to hear it finally confirmed by me. ‘Where do you think all of the money came from? Your father controlled a city, which made him a powerful man, but it also made him enemies. One day Alan Gladwell came down from Glasgow and tried to take it all away from him. Men died as a result and one of them was your father. I had to take the city back from Alan Gladwell. You don’t need to know the details of how that happened.’

‘I hope you killed the bastard slowly Davey,’ she said. I had done, but I wasn’t about to confirm that, even to her.

‘Before I took back the city, Gladwell and his Russian henchmen took your dad and Finney away.’

‘I was there, remember?’

‘I remember,’ I confirmed, ‘they took them both to a lock up, a disused factory on the outskirts of the city. They brought me there too. By the time I arrived Finney was already dead. They strapped him to a chair, tortured him, then garrotted him with wire. They took Northam, our accountant, there too. They got the information they needed from him, then they shot him in the head. When I got there your father was the only one left alive. They wanted me to see him. Gladwell wanted everyone to know that your dad was finished.’

‘Did they torture him too,’ she asked me, ‘did they hurt him before they…’ She couldn’t complete the sentence. Tears formed in her eyes.

‘They beat him,’ I said, ‘pretty badly, but your dad was the toughest old bugger I ever met. It wasn’t the first time he’d taken a few punches. He could handle that.’

‘What did they do then Davey?’ she asked me, ‘tell me. I have to know.’

‘Your dad was tied to a chair and they made me watch while a man called Vitaly drew a gun and pointed it straight at your father. Gladwell then said he was going to kill him and I assumed he would kill me too. He gave your dad ten seconds, I think he wanted your father to beg for his life, but he didn’t, quite the opposite in fact, he told Gladwell to go and fuck himself. Gladwell counted down the ten seconds.’ I hesitated before telling her.

‘What happened when he finished counting?’ she urged me.

‘Vitaly shot your father in the head.’

The tears were falling from her eyes now, tracks forming on her cheeks. She nodded silently and after she had absorbed that she said, ‘But how did you get away, Davey? How come they let you go? When you’d seen them kill my father, you were a witness, so why would they let you just walk away?’

‘They weren’t scared of me,’ I explained, ‘they didn’t think I was a threat. They thought I was just a suit and I couldn’t possibly harm them. Everyone who could do that was already dead; Jerry Lemon, Finney, Geordie Cartwright, your dad, they were all gone by then. They thought I was the only one left, but they didn’t know about Palmer, Danny or Kinane. I still don’t know why they let me live but I think they needed someone who could tell the world that Bobby Mahoney was really gone. Your father was a legend in this city. Nobody would have believed a man like Alan Gladwell could have brought him down without me to corroborate his story.’

I couldn’t tell her that they had film of me shooting Bobby for them, which meant I was in their power by then and could be conveniently put in the frame for his killing if the heat became too much. ‘The truth is they could have killed me if they’d wanted to, it made no difference to them whether I lived or died. In the end they put me on a train to London, told me not to come back, that there was nothing in Newcastle for me anymore, but they didn’t know how I felt about you, Sarah. I came back for you.’

She could barely speak now because of the tears. ‘I know,’ she sniffed, ‘and I’m so sorry. I’ve just been so messed up about dad, not knowing what really happened to him and then that detective came round, and more or less said you were involved, and I got confused, and then his daughter was killed…’ The words came out in a rush.

‘That had nothing to do with me.’

‘I know that now. I should have always known it. I’m so sorry,’ and she took a deep breath then to try to quell the sobbing. ‘Did he say anything?’ She was in floods of tears now, ‘Before he died, did my daddy say anything?’