The Dead db-3

by Howard Linskey

  I didn’t want to get into a discussion about the guilt or innocence of Golden Boots so instead I asked, ‘Did you see him? The guy who came to pick her up?’

  ‘No, he was waiting around the corner in his car. She asked him to do that so Louise wouldn’t see.’

  That was bad news. If we knew who the guy was, if we had a description even, we could have found him and made him tell us what really happened when she got to the house. ‘So you didn’t see him at all?’

  ‘No,’ she admitted, ‘but I know who it was.’

  ‘You do?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘How could you know who he was, if you didn’t see him?’

  ‘Gem told me who was picking her up. She joked about him, because he was a bit weird looking. He was a regular at those parties, so he didn’t mind taking her.’

  ‘Do you know his name?’

  ‘No,’ she admitted, ‘but Gemma used to call him “Jaws”.’

  ‘Jaws? Like the shark?’

  She shook her head, ‘Like those old James Bond films they put on the telly. There was a man in one with funny teeth.’

  ‘Oh yeah, I remember. He was a big guy.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘This fella was big too, I s’pose?’

  She nodded, ‘I saw him once through the window when he called to pick the girls up.’

  ‘You saw him.’

  ‘Yes,’ she said.

  ‘And he was a big guy?’

  She nodded. ‘Could you describe him a bit more, do you think?’ I was trying to sound like it wasn’t that big a deal, hoping I could coax it out of her.

  ‘He was really big and he had the funny teeth, like that Jaws guy?’

  ‘He had metal teeth?’

  ‘No,’ she scoffed, ‘just funny teeth.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘His front teeth were missing.’

  She brought her finger up till it was right in the middle of the top row of her front teeth and pressed it against them, ‘Just there. He had a gap where his teeth should have been and it was just there.’

  38

  I could tell Kevin Kinane was pleased I’d sent for him. He looked relaxed when he walked into the Cauldron with his father. He’d done a good job investigating the death of Gemma Carlton; I’d already told him that, and he was expecting the reward that was coming to him.

  ‘Did you ever do any history at school, Kevin?’ I asked him, when he was seated opposite me with a drink in his hand. His father was to one side of him, nursing a good whisky while we talked. I made sure Palmer was in the room with us.

  ‘I didn’t do much school at all, if I’m honest,’ and he smiled self-consciously at that.

  ‘He was always out on the rob or twocking cars with his mates,’ said Joe Kinane.

  ‘I’ve read a bit of history,’ I continued, ‘there was a king once who fell out with his archbishop, who happened to be an old friend of his but, in a rage, he demanded of his courtiers “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?” Two knights got the wrong idea about that so they went round to see this archbishop and they cut him to pieces, thinking they were doing the king’s bidding. Of course when the king found out he was devastated. He couldn’t believe that a casual remark had led to a man’s death. Worse than that, everybody thought he’d ordered the killing, so his reputation was destroyed in an instant. It didn’t matter what he said or did, everybody just assumed he was a murdering bastard.’

  ‘Tough break,’ acknowledged Kevin Kinane and he sipped his whisky a little too casually.

  ‘It was,’ I said and I stayed silent for a while to see what he would do. When he said nothing in reply I asked, ‘Is that what you did Kevin, heard me say something about what a pain in the arse Carlton was, then went away and thought how can I really fuck up this copper’s mind and throw him off the scent, without actually killing him? I know, I’ll murder his daughter.’

  ‘What the fuck are you talking about?’ demanded Joe Kinane.

  There hadn’t been a reaction from Kevin at all, not even a glimmer, so I continued, ‘A senior policeman once told me that he didn’t like my organisation but he couldn’t believe I was stupid enough or so far beyond redemption that I would arrange to have a young girl murdered to further my own ends. You are though Kevin, aren’t you?’

  ‘What did you just say?’ asked Joe Kinane sharply and he was leaning forwards in his seat now like he was about to launch himself at me. I could sense Palmer tensing in readiness.

  ‘It was him Joe, your son. He killed Gemma Carlton. Your eldest here heard me ranting about DI Carlton getting in our way. There I was, wishing this annoying copper would just pack up and fuck off out of it, because his obsession with bringing me down was getting to me, so he decided to solve the problem, though he had a funny way of doing it. I can understand your shock Joe, but Kevin has to account for it.’

  ‘Don’t be bloody stupid,’ Kinane told me, ‘you’ve got this all wrong…’

  ‘Kevin hangs out at Cachet all the time, meets loads of girls there, always chatting to them, so who’s gonna remember one more, eh? And the CCTV doesn’t cover the VIP bar, only the lift, so he could meet anyone he liked up there. One day he hears about Gemma Carlton. Maybe she’d mentioned to someone that her dad was a copper so Kevin took an interest, then he realised who she was. He figured getting rid of her would knock the stuffing out of her old man, and he was right about that. So he got to know her, just a little bit, enough to slip her a VIP pass on the QT and give her a lift home. He was seen doing that. Did you get her to introduce herself to Golden Boots too Kevin, or just encourage Louise to do that for you? I reckon so. She was his type wasn’t she; young, pretty and a bit naive, the way he likes them. When he shagged her you had the perfect patsy; a suspect that surprised nobody.’

  ‘I’m warning you,’ Joe Kinane told me and he got to his feet. Palmer took a step towards him and they eyed each other.

  ‘Hear me out Joe, you’d be wise to. We’ve been looking for the driver, the one who took Gemma Carlton from that party out into the woods but I found him. I’ve had Kevin looking for the guy and it was him all along. That’s why he volunteered to work with Sharp to hunt for the killer. It was him and he didn’t even take her to the party. He didn’t have to. Kevin arranged to pick her up at her student house, drove her somewhere and killed her in the car. That’s why nobody really remembers her being there. Not because they were all off their tits on drugs but because she really wasn’t there. Kevin told everyone she’d been seen there that night but she couldn’t have been. She was already dead.’

  ‘You’re out of your fucking mind,’ Joe Kinane told me. He looked at his son, but Kevin was saying nowt. Instead he was listening intently so he could learn what I had against him before he tried to deny it.

  ‘Kevin stuck her body in the boot of a car he’d lifted from Golden Boots’ place, leaving traces of her hair and fibres from her clothes all over it. His too, probably, but then nobody was looking for him and he could just say he’d driven it before, loads of people had. The important thing was leaving traces of Gemma for the police to find, so they could build a case against Golden Boots.

  ‘Kevin drove her out to the woods and dumped her body. It looked like someone had panicked and ditched her there but Kevin wanted her to be found. The bit he thought was really clever was taking her phone and handbag and planting them at Golden Boots’ house later. That, and the DNA in the boot of the car, is doing the work of the Prosecution for them.

  ‘Gemma’s dad was out of the picture and we had a fall guy he knew the police would love to put away. Trouble was, DI Carlton immediately thought it was me who’d killed his daughter. You see he thought she was a blushing virgin, tucked up in bed at night with her school books and a hot-water bottle for company. He knew nowt about Golden Boots and his parties, so obviously he thought I was responsible for her death and he was right, wasn’t he Kevin? I was, indirectly.’

  ‘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.

  39

  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.


  40

  With two murder trials behind us and the police off my back, I was keen to be rid of the rest of my problems. Only one man could help me do that.

  Amrein was taking afternoon tea in his hotel on the Quayside when I arrived. He was sitting on his own at one table, with two burly bodyguards occupying another, watching over him.

  ‘Amrein, I keep telling you, I need you to persuade this crazy Russian you set me up with that I don’t want to climb into bed with him, no matter how much he is offering. I need you to scare him, buy him, kill him if you have to, do whatever it takes, but I want him off my back permanently. Have I made myself incredibly clear about that?’

  ‘Yes you have… it’s just…’

  ‘It’s just what?’

  ‘Okay, you pay us for this kind of thing, usually, I understand that and so do the people I work for. They are highly sympathetic to your plight but we have a major problem here that we are thinking is beyond our capability.’

  ‘I don’t believe this.’

  ‘We anticipated you would be reluctant to do this kind of business with him, for obvious reasons, but the man is not known for accepting a refusal of any kind.’

  ‘I gathered that.’

  ‘And now you know a little of his plans, he will be even more reluctant to allow you to carry on outside of his Krysha, as he calls it.’

  ‘Are you telling me he is not scared of your organisation? Not in the slightest?’

  ‘The FSB and the GRU have been trying to get Vasnetsov for a decade. You think he is frightened of us?’

  As well as attracting the ire of the FSB, Vasnetsov had to contend with the GRU, the Russian Foreign Military Intelligence service. He had made some powerful enemies.

  ‘Then kill the fucker.’

  ‘This is exactly what the Russians have been trying to do. They’ve had agents penetrate his organisation with the sole purpose of assassinating the man.’