Howard Linskey - The Dead

He was already there waiting for me. I bought my pint and sat down. ‘Well,’ I said, ‘this had better be good.’

He gave me a grim smile, ‘Why? Will you kill us if it isn’t like?’ He had another coughing fit from the effort involved in asking me that. ‘Well, you’ll have to be quick. I’ve got three months, so they say.’ From the look on his face, he wasn’t bluffing.

‘Is that why you wanted to see me? To unburden yourself?’

‘For the money,’ he told me, ‘I’ve got nowt, man,’ and he shook his head bitterly. ‘I want five grand for me daughter and her kiddie. That’s loose change in your pocket. If you give it me, I’ll let you have the name of the man who saw to your fatha.’

‘And how would you know that,’ I challenged him, ‘if you were on the outside looking in?’

‘Aye, well, I lied about that? I did more for Bobby Mahoney than I care to admit.’ He didn’t look like he was lying this time, so I let it go.

‘Then why didn’t you give me this name before?’

‘Because the bloke’s still alive,’ he explained, ‘and he’s an evil bastard.’

‘And you were scared he’d come after you?’

He shrugged, ‘Doesn’t matter now, does it?’

‘How would I know it’s him?’ I asked. ‘You’re desperate. You could be spinning me any old yarn.’

‘Go and see him,’ he suggested, ‘judge for yourself, persuade him to tell you the truth. I bet you could, an’ all.’

‘Maybe.’

‘If you’re convinced, you can give me my money.’

‘You’re a trusting soul, all of a sudden.’

‘Aye, well, you’ll either give us it or you won’t but, like I said, it’s loose change to you and I’ve heard you don’t welch.’

‘You’ll get it,’ I assured him, ‘if the information you give me is correct. Out with it then.’

He leaned in close. ‘Have you heard of Mickey Crowe?’ he asked me.

‘No.’

‘No reason you should have,’ he admitted, ‘he found God,’ and he let out a little snort of derision, because clearly he hadn’t. ‘Jacked it all in when he was born again, turned his back on a life of crime and went off to save the souls of bad people instead,’ he smiled at that, ‘he must be a busy lad in Newcastle.’

‘Jacked what in exactly?’

‘Killing people for money.’

I don’t know what I was expecting from the church of the Tyneside Bible Fellowship, but I wasn’t expecting this. The place was huge and looked more like a corporate headquarters than a church. I wondered how much the congregation had been fleeced to pay for it. I guessed they didn’t mind. After all, they’d been ‘saved’.

There was a sign on the lawn at the front of the church that proclaimed, ‘The Bible is inspired by God and is the final authority on all matters.’ Not much room for debate there then. I could never understand how quoting lines from a book, written by men, decades after the death of Jesus Christ, could prove anything to anyone about the existence of a god.

There was nobody in the church at this hour, so we ignored the big glass doors at the front and walked around the back. We found a door that was unlocked. Joe Kinane and I walked inside. We followed the corridor until we reached a small kitchen. There, sitting all alone at the table, drinking his tea, was the Reverend Michael Crowe. I recognised the man from his picture on the church’s website.

‘Who are you?’ he asked, clearly disconcerted by our presence. ‘What do you want?’

‘That’s not a very Christian welcome, Reverend Crowe. You know Joe Kinane from your old life,’ I reminded him, ‘it doesn’t matter who I am. Kinane works for me now. That’s all you need to know.’

The reverend looked nervous, but was he scared of Joe Kinane or of having his past life exposed to his congregation? Maybe it was both.

‘Is this what you really do now Crowe?’ asked Kinane.

‘Since I was saved, yes,’ he answered, with the glassy-eyed conviction of the brain-washed.

‘Saved?’ asked Kinane, ‘you’re fucking joking, aren’t you?’

‘I was saved and anointed by God to spread his word,’ Crowe told us firmly.

‘Anointed by God personally?’ asked Kinane. ‘Nice of him to take time out of his day, like that. He must be hellishly busy, poor bastard.’

Kinane went over to the kettle then. He picked it up and filled it from the tap in the kitchen sink. The sound of the water pouring into the kettle made Crowe turn his head and watch my enforcer. Kinane put it back on its stand and switched it on. Crowe continued to watch him as Kinane went to the oven and turned on all of the gas rings. There was a hiss and a click, click, click until each ring fired and flames shot up from them.

‘Good screw is it?’ I asked, ‘making a canny living are you, from your flock I mean? Or is that not what it’s called in your church?’

‘You can mock me all you wish,’ Crowe told me, ‘but the time is fulfilled and the kingdom of God is at hand’ he said; ‘repent ye and believe the gospel; Mark, Chapter one, Verse fifteen.’

‘Shut the fuck up and listen or Kinane will break both of your arms. That’s David; Chapter one, Verse one.’

Kinane opened a drawer and selected some large kitchen knives. He checked that Crowe was looking at him as he placed the knives blade first into the flame of one of the gas rings, then he took a saucepan and filled it with water and put that on a ring too. Finally he took a frying pan and poured a load of oil in it until it made a deep pool and he placed this on one of the rings. I said nothing while he did this and Crowe watched him intently the whole time.‘This is quite a change of lifestyle, I must say,’ I said, ‘was it gradual or did it happen overnight? I mean one day you are killing people and the next saving them. That’s what it says on your website anyhow; the bit about saving them, I mean. You don’t mention the killing. Funny that.’

‘Salvation is a miracle, only through the goodness of God can we be led to repentance,’ he recited.

‘So you repent all of your sins do you?’

‘I have made my peace with God, yes.’

‘But you were never punished, were you? For those crimes you committed, for the men you killed. You just stopped, changed your life and got off scot-free. No prison term, no nothing in fact, just renounce evil one day and set yourself up preaching the word of the Lord to the gullible the next. Does it not feel strange telling fairy stories to nut jobs while fleecing them out of their money? I suppose it’s undemanding work.’

‘I feel sorry for you,’ he told me, ‘it’s obvious to me you are in great pain but it isn’t too late, it’s never too late to renounce evil and hear the word of Christ. He is your salvation, believe me.’

‘I am in great pain,’ I admitted, ‘I’ve got this terrible pain in the arse right now listening to you banging on about your imaginary friends Jesus and the Lord.’

‘There shall be false teachers among you, who shall bring in damnable heresies,’ he was quoting at me again.

I ignored this. ‘Kinane didn’t bring his tool box but he doesn’t need it here, not with boiling water, red hot knives and scalding oil. Kitchens are very dangerous places for men who don’t provide answers to my questions.’

‘What questions?’

‘How many men did you kill for Bobby Mahoney?’

‘I told you, I have made my peace with God.’

‘But not with me and I’m the one that’s in the room right now asking you. God can’t protect you from me, Crowe. If you really think he can, you’d better call on him now and ask him to smite me down, before I get Joe to put one of your hands in that pan of hot oil. Are you taking me seriously? I hope so. How many was it? Some say a dozen, there are others who claim it was more.’ He went silent on me then.