Howard Linskey - The Drop

‘Christ almighty. This witness, can we get to him? He might tell Finney a bit more than he’s telling your lot.’

He shook his head, ‘Anonymous. He called it in, left a description of what he had seen but wouldn’t cooperate further and didn’t leave his name,’ he shrugged, ‘who would?’

Sharp puffed away at his cigarette for a while, as if he was reflecting on the fate of Jerry Lemon. We watched as the kids walked down the mud track in front of us. They tried to fly their kite but the wind kept swooping it up high then smashing it straight back down into the ground again. Eventually Sharp said, ‘I’m serious about what I was saying before. It’s grim. I’m worried, really worried,’ then he turned to look at me, ‘you would look after me, wouldn’t you? If I got sent down because of stuff we’d done together?’

‘Yeah, sure. I’ll send you a cake with a file in it.’

‘Will you stop pissing about for five minutes? I mean it. I need to know you’ll look after me, like you would if I was a proper member of the firm. You know what I’m saying.’

‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘I know what you’re saying. You’re implying I’d better look after you or you’ll make a deal and bring me and Bobby down with you in exchange for a lighter sentence.’

‘Now hang on a minute, I wasn’t… ’

‘Yes you were and I would do the same in your shoes but it doesn’t mean I have to like it. You’ll be looked after if it all goes tits-up but remember there’s a flip-side to that generosity. If Bobby Mahoney thinks someone is going to betray him he doesn’t mess about. Know how easy it would be to have a bent detective stabbed while he’s on remand? There’s people inside who would do it just for fun. Throw in a couple of grand and they’d be queuing up, a couple more would make a prison officer look the other way, they get paid even less than Detective Sergeants and we both know what people are prepared to do for money. There’d be no witnesses and about a thousand suspects. Villains in the nick don’t like coppers, especially bent ones. So you better keep your lip buttoned and take what’s coming to you. Getting caught and being sent down comes with the turf for dodgy detectives, but that’s the least of your worries.’

Sharp had gone pale, ‘I never meant anything by it, honest.’

‘My guess is you’re worrying about nothing. Your DI probably lamped a suspect in a past life and they put in a complaint, so stop shitting yourself and start acting like a man.’

‘Yeah, yeah, that’ll be it. You’re right. I’m sorry.’

‘You get any leads on who killed Jerry Lemon you ring me first,’ I left him watching the kids, still struggling to get their kite off the ground.

I walked back to my car. Up ahead of me I could see the high rise blocks of flats from the estate nearby. They were a monument to a different kind of Tyneside. Politicians were always talking about rejuvenating the areas around Newcastle but I reckoned they were kidding us and themselves. Around the turn of a new and hopeful millennium, a housing association in North Benwell had to sell off houses for fifty pence because nobody would pay any more than that to live there. They were on a hiding to nothing.

I knew Bobby would want to hear this kind of news right away. I went straight round to his house.

‘First Geordie Cartwright now Jerry Lemon,’ he said in disbelief. He walked over to the drinks trolley, picked up the bottle and poured himself several fingers of scotch. He found an empty glass tumbler and held it up to me. I shook my head. I realised that lately I’d not seen him without a glass in his hand.

He took a sip of his whisky then sat down on his big old Chesterfield couch and took another mouthful.

‘I’ve know these men for years,’ he said, ‘right back to when we first started out. We’ve been through some stuff… ’ And he shook his head at the magnitude of it all, ‘and now someone’s killing them off, one by one, just like that.’ He clicked his finger and thumb together. I thought for a second he might even be getting a tear in his eye but then his face reddened like he was fighting his emotions, his teeth set into a snarl and he growled the words, ‘I want whoever is behind this dead.’

‘Of course,’ I said.

‘But I want to look them in the eye first,’ he told me, ‘I want them to suffer before they die. I owe Jerry Lemon that much.’

‘I think you should keep Finney with you for a while,’ I told Bobby, ‘until we get this sorted. I know you don’t like the idea of him moving in but look at it as extra insurance.’

‘I dunno,’ he said then fell silent, like he was affronted by the suggestion that he, Bobby Mahoney, might actually need a little extra protection.

‘Bobby, seriously, no one is saying you can’t handle yourself, but we still don’t know who we are up against and it’s my job to keep you secure. You used to say Jerry Lemon was a hard man but they got to him. Whoever did it knows if they can get you out of the way then they’ve won.’

He thought about this for a long while, ‘okay,’ he said finally, but I could tell he still didn’t like it, ‘send him round – but what are you going to do for protection without Finney shadowing you?’

‘I figure it’s time Palmer earned his money.’

‘I hope he’s as good as you say he is,’ Bobby told me.

‘So do I.’

‘Trouble is, nobody in the city knows him.’ said Bobby.

‘And that’s just the way I like it.’

I’d thought it might be a good idea to get the two of them together, sort of like a blind date for ex-squaddies but, after a shed load of beer I was beginning to wonder if it had been such a wise move. Both of them could drink, my brother Danny and Palmer. I mean really drink.

Palmer and I had downed a few pints straight after Jerry Lemon’s funeral but I didn’t want to sit in my flat moping. We’d talked to everybody we knew in the city but we were still drawing blanks. Nobody had any info on our Russians, so we had to assume they were coming into the city to attack us then melting away somewhere. I was starting to think we would have to wait for them to show themselves again. The trouble being that, every time they did, our people got hurt or killed.

We’d bumped into my brother in the Bigg Market and I just thought fuck it, let’s have a beer. Now it was late and we were back in my flat, with three stubby glasses in front of us, looking at a half-empty bottle of scotch.

‘I hear you were in the Paras?’ asked Danny, ‘before you joined the Regiment.’ Like Palmer, my brother never called it the SAS, only the Regiment.

‘Yeah,’ said Palmer.

‘How come you left then?’

‘Danny,’ I warned him.

‘It’s alright,’ said Palmer, ‘I’m not touchy about it. I got RTU’d.’

‘Oh,’ said Danny.

‘Don’t you want to know why?’ asked Palmer. Danny shrugged, ‘course you do. Everybody always does.’ Danny shrugged again but this time the twinkly little smile was an admission. ‘Okay, I’ll tell you, since we’ve had a good drink up,’ he sipped his whisky. ‘It was nothing spectacular though, quite the reverse in fact.’

‘Go on then,’ said Danny, ‘tell us. I could use a laugh.’

‘Fuck me,’ I said, ‘is this how you army boys discuss each other’s hardships?’

‘Aye,’ said Palmer, ‘that’s about right.’ He took another sip of his drink and said, ‘it was the daftest thing. Like you said, I was in the Paras, made a hundred and twelve jumps, no bother at all, never a moment’s hesitation. Then one day, I was out on a routine top-up jump to keep my wings. I shuffled up to the front of the line no different to normal, but something strange happened.’