Howard Linskey - The Dead

‘Why are you saying all this?’ Joe Kinane’s tone had changed to one of pleading. It was hard to tell what was upsetting him more, me talking or his son staying silent.

‘Because we have a witness, Joe. More than one, in fact. A girl in Gemma’s street, for one, who saw the man who took Gemma Carlton away in a car that night. He’s a distinctive-looking lad, your Kevin. Not a face you’d easily forget,’ then I looked Kevin right in the eye, ‘you should have had your teeth fixed Kevin. If you’d done that I might never have known.’

Kevin Kinane looked sick. I’d deliberately worded the bit about the witness so he wouldn’t know who it was or how many people had seen him that night. I didn’t want him charging down to Theresa’s house and trying to shut her up. The way I’d told it, he was screwed.

Eventually I said, ‘Your dad is waiting for you to deny it, Kevin, but I know that you won’t. I just want to know why. What the fuck got into your stupid, sick head that made you think killing a copper’s daughter was a good idea?’

Kevin Kinane stared back at me, then he turned to his father. Joe Kinane looked as if he was finally really seeing his son for the first time.

‘It isn’t true,’ said Joe, ‘tell him it isn’t true Kevin, please. Tell me and him that he’s got it wrong. No son of mine could…’ and his words tailed away.

‘We killed a girl before, remember?’ Kevin told his dad. ‘She was innocent too, or have you forgotten about her?’

‘Jesus, that wasn’t… that was an accident,’ Joe Kinane protested, ‘and no, I have not forgotten about her. I think about her every day. Not a single night goes by when I don’t wish I could turn the clock back and find a way to see off Braddock that doesn’t involve killing that poor lass. All this time it’s been eating me up inside,’ and I believed him, ‘And you? What do you do? You don’t lie awake at night thinking about her. You go off and do something far worse. How the hell could you do this Kevin? How can you live with it?’

Kevin Kinane wouldn’t, or couldn’t, answer that one.

‘You once told me that when we finally found the lowlife who’d killed this young girl we should kill him,’ I reminded Joe, ‘you told me that was what he deserved. I said no, that we needed to hand him over to the police to clear my name and when he got a life sentence that would be justice of sorts. Well, now you know it’s Kevin, so what are you going to do, kill him or send him down for life? You tell me Joe, because I have run out of answers.’

I had never seen Joe Kinane knocked down by anyone before but those words, and the knowledge that came with them, floored the big man. He took a step backwards and his legs seemed to give way, as he dropped back onto the couch, brought his huge hands up to his face and buried his head in them.

It took the jury eleven hours to reach its verdict. It was a big day for the Premier League. They finally had their first convicted murderer.

Afterwards the Press had a field day, going into moral overdrive, reminding us that Golden Boots was a beast of our own making, while conveniently forgetting their role in the feeding of that monstrous ego. It was our misplaced adulation, our distorted sense of the importance of celebrity that had really killed Gemma Carlton, or so they told us. By indulging Golden Boots throughout the whole of his pampered life, by never saying no to him, always finding excuses for his behaviour, giving him more second, third and final chances, than any human being should reasonably be allowed, we were all of us complicit in her death. They told us it was only ever going to be a matter of time before a footballer had such an overblown sense of the importance of his own life that he thought nothing of robbing a young girl of hers.

Of course, like much of what passes for journalism in this day and age, it was bollocks. Golden Boots didn’t kill Gemma Carlton at all. I knew that, but I wouldn’t have been able to save his worthless hide even if I’d wanted to.

He wept in the dock when he heard the verdict. The next day he was sentenced and he sobbed again, as if getting life, the only permissible sentence for murder, was a surprise. Perhaps even now, at the very end, he still believed there was one rule for him and another for the rest of us mere mortals.

The judge was particularly critical of his complete lack of remorse and failure to admit guilt, even when the evidence against him was overwhelming, further compounding the misery of Gemma’s family by putting them through the agony of a trial. His final words were reserved for the sickening manner in which he had blackened the good name of a policeman’s daughter by indicating she had been a promiscuous drug-user. The judge hinted that this alone might be enough to deny him his first shot at parole and, since Golden Boots would be at least forty by the time he was released, his football career was effectively over. The club wasted no time in cancelling his contract, so they could stop paying out any more of his eye-watering wages. A civil suit from Gemma’s parents was expected to wipe out the rest of what remained of his fortune

After sentencing, Golden Boots was sent down and placed in a holding cell. He was told someone would be along soon to offer him a sedative, to alleviate some of the shock he was feeling. I’m reliably informed he sat there, intermittently weeping and staring off into space. When the sedative finally arrived it came with a message from the officer who delivered it.

‘A little tip when you are on the inside, Mister Billy Big Bollocks; there’s time and there’s hard time. You keep your mouth shut about some of the people you’ve been doing business with and you’ll find you’re less likely to be stabbed in the exercise yard or raped in the showers, you hear me?’ Golden Boots looked up into our tame guard’s eyes in disbelief. ‘If you’re sensible, there’ll be a little protection for you but if you’re not, if you get to thinking you can get a bit shaved off your sentence, by spinning the police a bunch of lies about gangsters you knew on the outside, well, that’s when the really hard time will start. You think you’re tough, but the proper hard men are queuing up to make you their bitch. You got that?’

Golden Boots started nodding vigorously to show he had got the message.

‘Good lad,’ said our guard, then he put out a hand and patted him on the cheek, ‘take care now and you watch yourself, you hear, because we sure as hell will be.’

I suppose there is an irony here. Henry Baxter was judged to be innocent of a crime he actually committed, whereas Golden Boots was starting a life sentence for a murder he had nothing to do with. It could convincingly be argued that real justice was eventually served in the case of Henry Baxter. No one in my crew thought he got anything less than the fate he richly deserved. It could also be argued that Golden Boots merited a few years jail time, for all of his collective misdemeanours put together, and I wouldn’t argue too strongly against that, but he was inside now for one reason, and one reason alone. I had to keep my main enforcer’s son away from a life sentence because, if Kevin Kinane went down, there would be no knowing what Joe might do. This way he stayed by my side and now he owed me big style. Like I’ve said before, loyalty is everything in our game.

Kevin Kinane had to be punished though. We all knew that, even Joe, especially Joe. I gave Kevin seven days to get his life in order, before making him leave the city he had known all of his life.

There was no opposition from Joe. His disgust at what his son had done was very clear to me. He didn’t even see him off at the station. We left that job to Peter and Chris Kinane who, early one bright morning, put their older brother on the first train out of Newcastle Central Station to London, with one suitcase, then reported that he was gone for good. I could tell they were as shocked by what he had done as their dad. Aside from the obvious evil of murdering a young girl who had done nothing to offend us, which was a bad enough sin on its own, he had brought a huge amount of heat down on our organisation, putting all our lives and livelihoods in jeopardy in the process. That was indefensible and there was no future for him with us anymore. I had no idea what he was going to do with the rest of his life and I didn’t care. For such a big man, he went like a lamb.