Behind Dead Eyes

by Howard Linskey

  ‘Carefully,’ he told her. ‘No matter how bad his reputation is, Jimmy McCree has never actually been convicted of any criminal offence. He’s been arrested on countless occasions, even charged a few times, including once for murder, but was acquitted every time. Everyone knows he controls a lot of the crime in this city but we can’t risk being sued,’ he grinned at her, ‘and I want to be able to walk round without fearing for my life.’

  ‘Do I call the leader of the council?’

  ‘To ask him what the hell he is playing at? Leave that to me if you don’t mind, Helen. Councillor Lynch has a right to reply on this,’ he glanced at his watch, ‘but not just yet. If we give him too long he’ll be making frantic phone calls to the owners of this newspaper and I’ll get the heavy brigade down here. Right now he probably doesn’t know who you’re working for. There’ll be nothing left of your story if our owners come under too much pressure from the vested interests in this city, and I won’t let that happen.’ Graham exhaled thoughtfully.

  ‘But how will we run this?’ Helen asked him.

  Her editor held up the photograph and looked at it closely. ‘You know what? I’m a firm believer in that old adage.’

  ‘Which one?’

  ‘That a picture is worth a thousand words.’

  ‘For fuck’s sake,’ hissed Michael Quinn, ‘do you have to use the front door?’ Before Bradshaw could answer, the burly man steered him into the shop then shut and locked the door behind them, turning the ‘open’ sign to ‘closed’.

  ‘You haven’t got any customers, Michael. I checked.’

  ‘You call it checking,’ said Michael, ‘I call it door-stepping where anybody could see you.’

  ‘Just tell them I was after a tattoo.’

  ‘You don’t look the sort.’

  ‘You see all kinds with them these days; perfectly respectable lasses getting little tattoos on their ankles or the small of their backs. I prefer the good old days when we used to call tattoos barcodes-for-criminals.’

  ‘Times change, Detective Constable.’

  ‘It’s Detective Sergeant, actually.’

  ‘Gone up in the world have we? Who did you nick to get that promotion?’

  One of my own colleagues thought Bradshaw, but he didn’t tell Michael that, or the fact the man hadn’t lived to do prison time.

  ‘It’s alright,’ Bradshaw reassured him, ‘it wasn’t the case you helped me on.’

  ‘Could you not say that out loud, please.’ Quinn winced, even though there was no one else in the shop.

  ‘You did the right thing, Michael. You could have carried on covering up gangsters’ tattoos and done time for perverting the course of justice but, instead, you shopped them, retaining your liberty and the right to continue earning your livelihood.’

  ‘And those people on the inside still have friends on the outside. One careless word from you and I’m history.’

  ‘Is that right?’ said Bradshaw nonchalantly.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then you’d better stay out of dark alleyways,’ said Bradshaw, ‘and on my good side.’

  ‘I don’t know nothing else. I swear it. I haven’t done any of those cover-up jobs since you blackmailed me.’

  ‘Blackmail is a very strong word, Michael. I just gave you the chance to do the right thing, but I’m not looking for you to shop anyone, at least not today. It’s your professional expertise I am after.’

  Bradshaw produced the photograph of the burned girl then and placed it face up on Quinn’s tattoo bench.

  ‘Jesus,’ said Quinn, ‘what the fuck happened to … it?’

  ‘It is a she, Michael, and the answer to your question is undiluted sulphuric acid.’

  ‘Oh my God.’

  ‘We are having a problem identifying the poor victim, which is where you come in.’ Bradshaw pointed at the photograph. ‘Take a close look at this,’ he ordered the man, ‘and tell me what you think.’

  Reluctantly Quinn bent lower and squinted at the area of the photograph Bradshaw had indicated. After a moment he said, ‘It could be.’

  ‘I know it could be but is it?’

  ‘Most of it has gone. It’s just a tiny smudge really,’ and he swung round a desk lamp with a magnifying glass attached to it so he could take a closer look. Bradshaw watched as Quinn turned on the lamp, peered through the glass and examined the light blue mark on the burned girl’s neck. ‘But it does form an angle.

  ‘I think it is a tatt,’ he said eventually, ‘but it could be almost anything.’

  This was not the answer Bradshaw was hoping for. ‘What do you think it is?’

  Quinn looked again. ‘Well it could be a number, a letter or the shape of an animal or possibly the corner of an emblem of some sort.’

  ‘Bloody hell, Michael, I could have told you that.’

  ‘Well, I’d need a bit more time if I’m going to examine it properly and compare it.’

  ‘How much do you need?’ he asked.

  ‘I dunno,’ Quinn shrugged helplessly, ‘a while, possibly quite a while.’

  Bradshaw folded his arms. ‘I’m in no hurry.’

  ‘Look, I don’t mean this disrespectfully, but could you at least fuck off for a bit and come back later?’

  ‘No, Michael, I couldn’t.’

  ‘Christ,’ hissed Quinn, as if Bradshaw was standing there in full uniform and not a suit.

  ‘So if you want me gone, you’d better get a move on.’

  ‘Alright, alright.’ And Quinn did get a move on. He started dragging catalogues containing tattoo designs over to the bench and opening them near the photograph of the burned girl so he could compare the smudge to them.

  ‘Take your time, Michael,’ said Bradshaw, ‘but I’m expecting great things from you.’

  ‘Don’t hold your breath,’ said the flustered tattooist as he leafed through the catalogues. Bradshaw killed time looking at the myriad of designs on the tattoo parlour’s walls before deciding that none of them were remotely appealing to him.

  It took Michael Quinn some time before he felt confident enough to look up from the catalogues and share his findings with Bradshaw.

  ‘If it is a smudge from a tattoo then it could be just about anything but …’

  ‘But what?’ pressed Bradshaw.

  Quinn pointed to an area on the photograph just inside the portion of skin that had been virtually destroyed by the acid, ‘you can just make out what remains of a very faint line.’

  Bradshaw peered through the magnifying glass at the area Quinn was indicating. ‘So you can,’ he agreed, ‘just.’

  ‘That could be a line that moves outwards into an edge, ending here and joining up with this more pronounced line that’s still partially visible,’ said the tattooist and he pointed at the blue mark on the burned girl’s neck. ‘I think this mark you found might just be the curve of a sword or the outer edge of the wing tip of a bird.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Take a look,’ said Quinn, and he slid the images he had found along the table so they were close to the photo of the burned girl. ‘These designs are very popular and small enough to go on your neck, ankle or an inner thigh. I’ve done a few of those.’ He smiled at the memory. ‘The positioning of the smudge would tally with a tatt at the base of the neck and to one side so it’s discreet. You can have it on show or not. Lasses like that.’

  Bradshaw surveyed the images closely then glanced back at the picture of the burned girl.

  ‘Maybe,’ he said uncertainly.

  ‘Hang on,’ said Michael and he peeled a transparent design away from a pile of images and placed it right next to the smudge. Bradshaw could now more easily compare this tattoo and the mark on the burned girl. ‘It’s not quite to scale but …’ Michael slid the image of a dove towards the smudge until its edge slotted into its corner. Now that it virtually overlapped, Bradshaw could tell the faded edge of the tattoo could easily be a match to the outer edge of the dove’s wing.

  ‘Blood
y hell,’ said Bradshaw, ‘you might just be on to something there, Michael. How did you manage that?’

  ‘I just picked the dozen or so most popular designs and this one is the closest match.’

  ‘Well done.’

  ‘Aye, well, I’m glad you’re pleased and there’s a very simple way you can repay me.’

  ‘Go on,’ said Bradshaw assuming he wanted money for his time.

  ‘By telling no bugger about it.’

  ‘Have no fear, Michael,’ said Bradshaw, ‘my lips are sealed.’

  ‘They’d bloody better be.’

  Helen’s Norton’s newspaper ran a front-page lead story about the Riverside tender. It stressed the need for openness and transparency during the bidding process and the importance of getting the very best deal possible from the sale of publicly owned land. Next to it they printed the photograph she had taken, with the caption, ‘Council leader Joseph Lynch enjoys lunch with Camfield PLC owner Alan Camfield and well-known-local-businessman James McCree in a high-class, city centre restaurant.’ The hyphens in McCree’s title were her editor’s idea. They were not quite as blatant as punctuation marks but they ably highlighted the ironic nature of their description of the local gangster

  For anyone outside the region, that photograph would have seemed innocuous. However, if you were from Newcastle the image would have been shocking. The leader of the council was sitting down to a cosy and expensive lunch with a multi-millionaire and one of the city’s best-known criminals.

  Councillor Lynch used his right to reply to offer a flustered and angry response, which Helen’s editor included at the foot of the article. ‘I absolutely deny I had lunch with Mr Camfield and Mr McCree. I was there to meet someone else. Mr Camfield was already at his table. I went over to say hello to a prominent local businessman I have known for many years. While I was speaking to Mr Camfield, Mr McCree arrived at the restaurant to discuss opportunities for his security business, should Camfield Offshore be successful in their bid for the Riverside development scheme. At that point I left both the conversation and the table.’

  ‘I should have waited till the food arrived,’ said Helen, ‘I’ve given him an out.’

  ‘Do you think anyone is going to believe that?’ asked Graham. ‘The people of Newcastle have legendary bullshit detectors. Lynch has been banged to rights. We have done some serious harm to his credibility.’

  ‘Was he angry?’ Helen asked.

  ‘No,’ said her editor, ‘he was apoplectic.’

  ‘So will he try to …?’

  ‘Ruin our lives? Oh yes. If I know anything about Councillor Lynch he will not rest until I’m fired, this paper’s closed down and the building we are standing in demolished, but do you know what? Fuck him. That’s journalism. Sometimes you just have to roll the dice and print the story, otherwise what’s the point?’

  Helen Norton may have been a reporter but right then she would have struggled to put her admiration for her editor into words. ‘Print and be damned, eh?’ she managed.

  ‘Print and be damned,’ Graham repeated firmly.

  Chapter Seven

  ‘Tom Carney?’ The prison officer called his name and Tom, having waited for what seemed like an eternity, was suddenly snapped out of his private thoughts. He got to his feet and followed a burly man in a blue jumper with epaulettes on his shoulders.

  He had expected to be fobbed off. He figured there would at least be a number of bureaucratic hoops to be navigated before he was able to come to the prison. Instead it was almost as if they were expecting him and, to his genuine surprise, he was given an appointment that same day.

  Tom was led into the visiting area. He had assumed he would be among the friends and families of dozens of inmates but instead of a crowded room full of wives and children at visiting time, he found himself alone in a room filled with empty chairs and small tables. Tom chose one and sat down. He didn’t have to wait long for Richard Bell to appear.

  The heavy metal door at the opposite end of the room swung open and the murderer stepped inside. He smiled broadly at Tom and there was a disconcerting excitement in his eyes. Tom was glad of the presence of the barrel-chested prison guard who took up a position a little way from the table Tom had selected. No one else followed Bell through that door. It seemed they really would have the room to themselves.

  Bell walked towards him. He was still a handsome man but those famous looks had been diminished by two years in prison. The effects of an inadequate diet and being locked up for most of the day were obvious. Richard Bell had traded a life of expensive restaurants and foreign holidays for one of extreme stress, poor nutrition and perpetual confinement and it showed. His face, starved of sunlight, was pale, his hair straggly and uncombed, but the most startling alteration to his appearance was the vivid scar on the side of his face. It wasn’t entirely new but fresh enough to provide a stark contrast to the rest of his skin, running in an almost horizontal dark red line across his right cheek. This was a mark Bell would be forced to carry for the rest of his life.

  Tom stayed in his seat because it didn’t feel right to rise for a murderer. He felt decidedly on edge. Seeing Bell in the flesh prompted him to fully recall his crimes. They no longer had the distance created by bland words in a newspaper article. Tom checked Bell’s hands to ensure they were empty but Bell wasn’t carrying anything.

  The killer stretched out an arm to shake his visitor by the hand. ‘Thanks for coming, Tom. I can’t tell you how much this means.’ Tom did not react. Bell’s smile dissolved into a slight frown but it was one of bemusement, not anger.

  ‘I don’t think we’ve reached that stage,’ Tom told him.

  Bell seemed to ponder this for a moment before withdrawing his hand. ‘Fair enough. I appreciate you taking the time to visit me.’

  ‘You were very persistent.’

  ‘Three letters?’ recalled Bell. ‘I’d have written thirty-three if that’s what it would have taken to persuade you,’ he reflected. ‘You are just the man to help me.’

  ‘I didn’t say I was going to help you,’ Tom told him firmly. ‘I’m here to listen to you. I’ll hear you out but I’m promising nothing.’

  ‘Of course, you’ve not heard my side yet. I understand your caution. I’d have been disappointed if you’d promised me cooperation without hearing what I have to say. That would have meant you were more interested in making money out of me than clearing my name. I don’t want the kind of reporter who’s only interested in an-interview-with-a-killer.’ Bell said the last words ironically.

  ‘You are a killer,’ Tom reminded him.

  ‘I’m a convicted murderer,’ Bell admitted, ‘but I didn’t kill anyone, Tom. That’s what I’ve been trying to tell you and if you’ll just keep an open mind …’

  ‘What happened?’ Tom interrupted and when Bell didn’t comprehend his meaning, he stroked a finger along his own cheek, mirroring the scar on Bell’s face.

  ‘Oh, that.’ Bell actually smiled then. ‘One of my fellow inmates fell in love with Rebecca during my trial.’

  Like those doomed rock stars of the sixties and seventies, death had done little to quell Rebecca Holt’s popularity with the opposite sex. ‘Unfortunately for me, he happened to be a particularly vicious London gangster with a bit of an entourage. He got one of his men to come at me armed with a toothbrush,’ his smile turned grim, ‘with a razor blade attached to it. I was actually quite lucky. He was aiming for my throat but I saw it coming and at the last moment I managed to duck. The second slash caught me on the cheek and it opened me right up,’ he said brightly. ‘There was an awful lot of blood and I had a second mouth for a while until they managed to stitch me up.

  ‘I was quite proud of myself though,’ continued Bell. ‘After he slashed me, I managed to punch the guy right in the face. I don’t know who was more surprised by that; me or him. Most people go down, you see. They clutch their wounds and beg for mercy but they won’t get any in here. Not me though. I just got angry and thump
ed him. I think it was all the months of stress and carrying this huge feeling of injustice around with me. I was just waiting to take it out on someone. It’s funny, I used to spend all that time in the gym just to look fit, but I’d been doing weights for so many years that when I finally put those muscles to good use, I dropped that guy on the spot. It might actually be the single most impressive thing I’ve ever done. I mean if a criminal attacked me in the street with a knife and I decked him like that they’d run a story in all of the newspapers, wouldn’t they?’

  ‘I suppose they would,’ Tom conceded.

  ‘But not in here. They ran stories alright, but it was “Ladykiller slashed in face by vengeful inmate”, as if the guy actually knew Rebecca. There was no mention of the fact I knocked my attacker senseless. They gave him solitary for that but he didn’t give a shit. Lifers,’ he added ruefully, ‘you just can’t control them.’ Bell added, ‘I don’t regret it though.’

  ‘You don’t regret hitting him or being slashed open with a razor blade?’

  ‘Either of those things,’ Bell said calmly. ‘He did me a favour, in fact. Up until that point I’d been sharing a cell with two other men,’ he explained. ‘After they stitched me up I had a few days in the hospital under crisp white sheets. Then, when they put me back, I got a cell on my own far away from the nut-jobs and gangsters – because they heard there were several people in here still keen to kill me. Rebecca has quite a fan club. Anyway the governor knew he would look very foolish if anything else happened to me.’ He pointed to the vivid scar on his face. ‘This made the nationals and he doesn’t like newspaper reports that make it seem like he isn’t entirely in control of his own prison. So I am also in a form of solitary confinement, for my own safety, which I appreciate.’

  ‘Is that why we are on our own right now?’

  Bell nodded. ‘My solicitor wanted to sue the arse off them but I persuaded him not to. Let’s just say the governor appreciated my discretion. I get certain unspoken privileges as a result; one of them is time alone with you here today, as long as Andrew is in the room with us,’ he indicated the prison guard. ‘A cell to myself is another – they can’t guarantee my safety any other way,’ he shrugged. ‘I get a little privacy, I feel safer, my cell doesn’t stink of other men; every cloud.’