‘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.
5
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.
‘Good morning gentlemen,’ he said, his jowly face contorted into a yawn.
‘Sorry, am I keeping you up?’ I asked.
‘Not at all dear boy, as ever I am hanging on your every word. I’m just a little pooped, that’s all,’ and he yawned again, ‘a late night,’ and he smiled enigmatically, ‘with a friend.’ Then he elaborated, ‘It was Vaughan Williams at the Sage.’
‘Good was he?’ asked Kinane.
‘What?’ Baxter didn’t do anything to hide the incredulity in his voice. Kinane just assumed he hadn’t heard the question.
‘Vaughan thingy; was he any good?’
‘You’re not serious Joe? The man’s been dead for half a century.’
‘Eh?’ it was Kinane’s turn to act confused, ‘well I don’t know who he is, do I? I was only asking.’
At this point Baxter should have shut up, but he carried on digging and I let him.
‘Don’t tell me you’ve never heard of him, that’s tantamount to an impossibility. He was the greatest English composer of the twentieth century…’
‘Listen Baxter,’ interrupted Kinane. ‘I don’t have the time to listen to some poncin’arsed, classical shite like that. I like proper, non-wanky stuff; Dire Straits and Sting and a bit of Fleetwood Mac,’ before adding, ‘something you can tap your fingers against the steering wheel to when you’re driving, like normal people.’
‘Alright lads,’ Palmer said, ‘don’t get your knickers in a twist. We picked Baxter up for a reason and it wasn’t to talk about concerts.’
‘It’s done,’ Baxter told us curtly.
‘What is?’ I asked him.