Howard Linskey: The Dead

‘I was about two years old when that happened.’

‘It looks like he left your ma in the lurch to bring up two little boys on her own while he fucked off out of it. He wouldn’t be the first or the last to do that, would he? But there are no records of the man anywhere.’

‘So it’s possible something bad happened to him down south?’ I asked.

‘It’s possible,’ he admitted, ‘or he could have changed his name and emigrated to Australia. We just don’t know.’

I had never cared about what happened to my father before now. I had always taken the view that, since he walked out on ma, Danny and me when I was little and I don’t have any memories of the man, I didn’t give a fuck what became of him.

Then we had Emma and it changed my view almost overnight. I could never imagine a time when I would be happy to sit down and have a pint with the old git, assuming he was still alive, but I was curious to know what happened to him and to hear from his own mouth why he did what he did, mainly because of Emma. I wanted to be able to tell her something about him, to be capable of answering her questions about her grandfather when she grew older, so I’d asked Sharp to look into it for me. Danny figured we should just leave it as a mystery, because there was nothing the guy could say to either of us that we would actually want to hear.

‘So you reckon members of the old crew might know what really went off before he left the city?’

‘I dunno, yeah, maybe,’ he admitted, ‘he used to hang round their old haunts and didn’t Bobby’s crew always know everything that went on?’

‘Yeah,’ I admitted, ‘but there aren’t many of them left,’ I reminded him, ‘they might all be dead…’ I was going through a list of old names in my head; Geordie Cartwright, Jerry Lemon, Mark Miller, Hunter, Finney and the man himself, Bobby Mahoney; all dead, every last one of them and I was responsible for more than one of those deaths.

‘There must be somebody,’ he said.

‘Maybe. Leave it with me. I’ll ask around.’ We stood there for a while looking out at the skyline until I said, ‘out with it then.’

‘What?’ he asked.

‘Whatever it is that’s bothering you. You’re still here and I thought we were done.’

He exhaled, ‘I think I am being investigated.’

‘You always think that,’ I reminded him.

‘Yeah, I do,’ he said, ‘but what if it’s true this time? You still attract a lot of interest. Maybe someone followed you and saw me with you.’

‘Then you explain it away. I’m your high-level source, remember, your grass who’s selling everyone else down the river.’

‘That story might have held when you worked for Bobby Mahoney but who’s bigger than you these days? No one,’ he told me without waiting for an answer.

‘You sure they are watching you?’ I asked and he nodded emphatically.

‘I’ve been hearing things,’ he said, ‘they’ve been asking questions about me, speaking to colleagues, some I haven’t worked with in years. What else could it be but them thinking I’m bent? I reckon they are onto something. It’ll be ten years minimum if I’m caught, more maybe,’ he said.

‘I know,’ I replied.

‘So I need you to take this seriously,’ he urged me, sounding a little panicked.

Detective Inspector Sharp didn’t strike me as the kind of man who would go quietly off and do ten years without cutting a deal and the only thing he had to bargain with was me. I figured I’d probably get life for that.

‘I am taking this very seriously Sharp,’ I told him, ‘believe me.’

Basically, if Sharp went down, well, he would have to go.

I was wide awake, my body clock skewed by a doze on the flight home from Istanbul. As soon as I got in I went straight upstairs, because I knew Sarah was waiting for me and I was ‘on a promise’. The light was still on in our bedroom and I walked in to find Sarah lying on the bed, but she wasn’t alone. Our little girl was fast asleep next to a fully-clothed Sarah, who was passed out like she’d been drugged.

‘Hold that thought,’ I muttered to myself and trudged off to the spare bed.

I left Kinane to stew in the cells overnight, so he’d know I was pissed off with him. He was bailed late the next morning and we picked him up off the street. He climbed slowly into the passenger seat next to Palmer, who drove away, then he turned back towards me, like he was trying to weigh up my mood. I must have looked pretty narked because Joe did something that he almost never did. He apologised.

‘Soz,’ he said.

‘What?’ I was being deliberately awkward. His form of apology made him sound like a surly teenager, so I was determined to treat him like one.

‘I’m sorry,’ he told me, ‘but those two little cun…’

‘Deserved it?’ I interrupted him, ‘of course they did. They were vermin. A small part of me enjoyed kicking that little bastard in the face but I know that it achieved nothing and so should you. There’s hundreds like him and his mate in this city Joe, hundreds. Now do you want to become a one-man vigilante group, trawling the streets of Newcastle, looking for wankers like them and administering punishment beatings for the rest of your days or do you want to work for me instead?’

For a moment I thought he was going to argue with me but then he seemed to think better of it. ‘I know you are right,’ he told me, ‘I do, honestly. It’s just,’ he groaned then, like he was reliving the moment when they cut us up, ‘I can’t bring myself to take shite from scummy little fuckers like them.’

‘No one says you have to Joe but beating them up on the side of the road, in front of three dozen passing cars, is just taking the piss. The police have to do something about that, no matter who you are and we are supposed to be keeping a low profile.’

‘I know, I know,’ he held his hands up, ‘I’m sorry. I am. It won’t happen again.’

‘It had better not.’ I told him.

‘Can you fix it?’

‘I’ll do my best, but you’ll have to go to court and you might have to plead guilty to something.’

‘What?’

‘There are too many witnesses for it to be called self-defence. You put that lad in the hospital and who’s ever going to believe they attacked you . Look at yourself man,’ I sighed, ‘no, you’re guilty and you are going to plead and apologise to the court. We’ll get the lawyers to come up with a convincing bit of bullshit about why you snapped that day and how you were provoked by them. That’s as good as it gets.’

‘But I’ve been inside,’ he reminded me. He was worried that might get him another custodial sentence.

‘That was years ago. I’ve already talked to Susan Fitch. You went inside but you’ve reformed your life since then. You’ve been an honest, upstanding member of society, who has worked in the entertainment industry as a night club manager ever since. You put your troubled past behind you.’

Susan Fitch was our solicitor. She had been looking after members of the firm for nearly twenty years now and the police hated her for it.

‘What if they don’t buy it?’ he asked me, ‘what if they send me down?’

‘Then you’ll have nobody to blame but yourself,’ I told him, and he looked like he wanted to hit me this time, ‘I’ll do my best. I can’t promise anything more than that.’

‘You’ll be right Joe,’ Palmer chipped in, ‘no sweat.’

‘Pull over here,’ I told him because I had just spotted the familiar, balding, paunchy figure of Henry Baxter emerging from his apartment block. He was edging cautiously towards the kerb, like a blind man approaching a pedestrian crossing. Our accountant had been with us for more than two years now but he still treated Newcastle like it was chock full of muggers and murderers, who could leap out on him without warning at any time. We pulled over. He spotted us and climbed into the back seat next to me.