The Mercy Seat

by Martyn Waites

  She gave him a smile that wanted to contain hope. ‘Might not even end up with that.’

  Introductions had been made, explanations provided. Maria had shown concern over Donovan’s appearance; he was starting to bruise over, seize up. She had insisted he take a shower, change clothes.

  ‘I should take a look at your injuries,’ she said, eyes tracing the scratchmarks on his skin.

  Donovan smiled. ‘Later,’ he said, and took his shower.

  ‘OK, then,’ Maria said, picking up several A4 sheets. ‘This is top secret. Even the police haven’t got this yet.’

  Peta looked at Donovan, frowned. Donovan shrugged.

  ‘Journalists,’ he said.

  Gary Myers, the report said, died from asphyxiation and a broken neck. ‘But the asphyxiation …’ She read through the pages, head down.

  ‘What?’ said Donovan.

  Maria looked up. ‘They’ve speculated here, but it’s not possible. It says the asphyxiation was caused by a massive blow to the neck which crushed his windpipe. Probably unbalanced him, sent him over the cliff.’ She read on. ‘Here’s where they’ve speculated. They say the blow—’ she looked up ‘—was caused by a fist.’

  ‘Fuck me,’ said Amar.

  ‘Kind offer, but you’re not my type,’ said Donovan. ‘A fist? There must have been some force behind that.’

  ‘And anger,’ said Peta.

  ‘There’s more.’ Maria moved her finger down. ‘Broken left clavicle …’ She flicked over the page. ‘… compacted pelvis, left side … left ankle … all broken. All consistent with the fall and the landing. All left side. But this is interesting. Broken right wrist. Done, they reckon, at least twenty-four hours earlier. Also …’ She shook her head. ‘… they say the break was made pulling away from something. Other marks round the wrist back this up.’

  Peta frowned. ‘Tied up?’

  Maria looked down the pages, then back to Peta. ‘Chained.’

  ‘That’s cold,’ said Amar.

  ‘Shit,’ said Donovan.

  Maria nodded, put the pages down. ‘That’s about it. Forensics and toxicology are still ongoing. Hopefully we should know more then.’

  Silence fell.

  ‘So it seems like …’ said Donovan, thinking aloud, ‘Gary Myers was forcibly abducted, held captive somewhere—’

  ‘Chained,’ said Peta.

  ‘Chained,’ repeated Donovan. ‘Tried to escape …’

  ‘Then taken somewhere remote to be disposed of,’ said Maria, ‘somewhere—’

  Donovan clapped his hands together. ‘Somewhere his body wouldn’t be discovered until it had decayed so much there would be no way of telling which injuries were accidental, which inflicted and which—’

  ‘The provenance of woodland creatures?’ said Amar.

  ‘Wrapping it up nicely,’ said Maria. ‘Death by … misadventure? Accidental?’

  ‘In a couple of years time,’ Donovan nodded, ‘forgotten about. End of story. Talk about forward planning. Someone’s confident.’ He gave a grim smile. ‘Thank God for doggers. Or not, depending whose side you’re on.’

  ‘Of course,’ said Peta, ‘if we’ve reached this conclusion, chances are the police will, too.’

  ‘So what happens next?’ asked Donovan.

  ‘I’ve phoned Sharkey. He’s on his way up.’

  ‘Joy,’ said Donovan.

  ‘We need our arses covering,’ said Maria. ‘And we need Jamal. And the disc, preferably.’

  Donovan sighed. ‘Tried his mobile. No reply.’

  ‘Keep trying.’

  ‘My fault,’ said Donovan. ‘I should have brought him straight back here. Got him sorted out, instead of …’ He sighed. ‘We’ve got to get him out of there. I wouldn’t like to say what’s happening to him.’

  ‘I know,’ said Maria. She sat on the edge of the bed, sighed again. Donovan noticed the minibar had been seriously raided. ‘This isn’t just a story any more,’ she said. ‘One of my colleagues … someone I know has been murdered … Now this boy …’

  She seemed to crumple before their eyes. Donovan sat down next to her. Put his arm round her. Peta and Amar looked uncomfortable.

  Maria stood up. ‘Come on,’ she said, sniffing. ‘We’ve got jobs to do. Get the boy, get the disc. Find out who did this.’

  She looked at the other three, face a mask of professionalism once again, North London back in her voice.

  ‘Any ideas?’

  15

  Mikey’s hands were shaking. He could barely build his roll-up.

  Flakes and strands sprinkled the pub table; the scarred wood looked like diseased skin shot through with old, broken veins.

  He put down the rolling paper with its small hill of tobacco inside, took a dark, bitter mouthful of his pint. Replaced it. Spilled beer soaked through the Rizla, rendering it useless. He scraped the abortive fag into his palm, dropped it in an ashtray. Cursed the waste.

  Started again.

  Another sigh. Atlas-huge.

  The pub was a housing estate local in a particularly rundown area of Scotswood. All low-level, flat-roofed 1970s style, all concrete panelling and wood cladding. All thwarted optimism. The clientele matched their surroundings.

  The jukebox seemingly not updated since before he went inside.

  Queen: ‘I Want to Break Free’.

  You and me both, pal.

  Early afternoon in the pub and already it seemed as dark as night.

  He took another mouthful. No less bitter.

  ‘Bit of a stomach bug,’ he had said earlier that morning. His mobile was incoming calls only, supplied by Keenyside. He had used a phone box, miraculously unvandalized but stinking of piss and other bodily secretions. ‘Don’t think I’ll be in today.’

  Not far from the truth. He felt like throwing up.

  The voice on the other end all solicitous concern, calling him mate. That fake prole accent. Those immaculately flattened vowels.

  He really felt like throwing up.

  ‘Twenty-four-hour thing, back in the morning probably.’ Hung up on the get well soons.

  He did some dealing for Keenyside, a few regulars; small stuff, but it just increased his anger, mixed it with his depression, a lethal lager/cider snakebite.

  As soon as the Magpie had opened, he had been there.

  The Queen song ended. Was replaced by Bryan Adams: ‘Everything I Do, I Do It For You’.

  Mikey shook his head, took another drink.

  This wasn’t what he had wanted. What he had dreamed of all those years.

  What he had planned for, worked so hard for.

  His dreams had been in colour. Blue sky, green grass. Brown trees with green leaves. Flowers of every shade and hue. He had looked through books at the prison library. Done sketches and watercolours in the art class. Became so involved with his dreams he could smell the scents of the flowers, of cut grass, hear a breeze gently crinkle the leaves, feel the sun on the back of his neck.

  It was what had nourished him, sustained him. Given him something to aim for, helped him get an early release.

  Transferred to an open prison; countryside all round him, joking, laughing with the officers, relaxed there. Planning a life beyond. Building up hope.

  Leaving with hope. And dreams.

  Then this. The reality. A brutal truth.

  No colour but grey. Different shades, but grey. The estate where they had housed him. The dead patches of grass. The stunted trees. The sky. All grey.

  And his dreams: dried up and hardened like the concrete of the estate.

  Like prison.

  No time to fear, though, no time to worry about acclimatizing. They found him a job. In a multi-storey car park. Re-creating a false criminal past.

  Get Carter.

  And his bosses on the Get Carter tour: middle-class posh boys playing at working-class hard men. Wearing artfully distressed expensive jeans and T-shirts. Drinking overpriced weak beer from the bottle. Seeing who could out-quote
each other as Pacino from Scarface.

  Looking like students. Mikey hated students.

  Loving Mikey because he ‘conferred authenticity’. Because he’d ‘been there an’ done it’. Because he was ‘the genuine article’. Because he was ‘the man’.

  Tagging him along with them like he was their mascot. Patronizing him, exhibiting him like he was some circus freak.

  Always trying to get him to perform, to live up to what they wanted him to be.

  ‘Tell us about what you got up to.’

  ‘Yeah, y’know, back in the day.’

  Which day?

  ‘About the gangsters, yeah? The criminals. You must have known them.’

  The gangsters. The criminals. Had he known them? Of course he had. Everyone who grew up on those same streets in Benwell knew gangsters and criminals.

  They made their grand gestures, their giving money to children’s charities, their ostentation to hospitals. Their perceived kindnesses to local people. Their looking after their own.

  But all that came later.

  Because there was no glamour, no action about them. Just a hardness, a meanness. A hunger to escape their social boundaries, a willingness to stamp on, humiliate, injure or even kill those from the same streets, in their same class, to do it. Once they had done that, then they could act the benefactor.

  But what they were actually paying for was respect.

  Through fear.

  The communities bought and paid for, acting as eyes and ears, a functioning early-warning system marking out predators or encroachment.

  That was how they operated, thrived.

  And Mikey wanted no part of that. Of them.

  And none of them quoted Pacino from Scarface.

  ‘You should branch out, Mikey.’

  ‘Give gangland tours of Newcastle.’

  ‘We’ll help you do that, set it up.’

  ‘We’ve got contacts.’

  Fingers jabbing, beer bottles pointed at him. Grins belonging to people who think they’ve got the world sussed, but in reality know nothing.

  ‘Get your memoirs ghosted.’

  ‘Do talks, the chat-show circuit.’

  ‘We’ll help you do that, set it up.’

  ‘We’ve got contacts.’

  All the things Mikey had tried to put behind him, to escape from, thrust back in his face on a daily basis.

  Two things he had never been: a gangster and a criminal.

  Two things he had been: angry and unlucky.

  He didn’t know which had come first. Which had given birth to the other.

  But they had both led, ultimately, to murder.

  His mother, all he had, all he loved in the world, died. The painful, messy, lingering kind. And Mikey, devoted, didn’t know what to do.

  Mikey as a teenager: bookish, shy, interested in space and science, happier kicking round an idea in his head than a football off the garage doors with the other kids.

  Mikey at seventeen: technically an adult, emotionally a child.

  With all the cares in the world and no one to care for.

  No one to talk to, to come home to. Cast adrift by the services: social, educational, familial.

  He began drinking. Gave him somewhere to go, something to do.

  He began walking. Anywhere, everywhere. Day and night. Time meant nothing.

  Then came the attack.

  A bench in Leazes Park. At God knows what time in the morning. Mikey’s bed for that night. His dad’s old overcoat wrapped round him, the remains of his giro, bottle and burning liquid in his pocket. Alco-anaesthetized dreams. Lost in space.

  Two college kids on their way home from a club. Decide to have some fun with a tramp. Steal whatever money he’s got. Humiliate him. Give him a good kicking. Set fire to him, maybe.

  Mikey was wrenched back to reality from space to find the two of them roughly hauling him upright, swearing at him, slapping him around.

  Angry and unlucky.

  He reached inside his pocket, fear and self-preservation guiding his hand, found the near-empty sherry bottle. He pulled it out and, hand gripping the neck, smacked it against the side of the nearest youth’s head. It didn’t break.

  This was real life, not a film.

  The student looked up at him, surprised. Then the pain hit him.

  ‘Fuck you do that for?’

  The other one behind him, confused now.

  The first one getting angry. ‘Bastard … fucking bastard tramp …’

  Mikey, scared, hit him again with the bottle, then dropped it, letting it smash over the tarmac. The student was bent double, cradling his head in pain and shock. He looked at the other student.

  Who turned and ran.

  Mikey looked at the first one. His good haircut. His casual but expensive clothes. His confidence. His lack of a fear of failure.

  Angry and unlucky.

  Mikey pushed him away. The student stumbled backwards, hitting the concrete post of the bench with his head in the same place the bottle had connected.

  Hard.

  Light went out in the student’s eyes. His body hit the ground. A darkening stain spread from beneath his head, like a pillow against the grass.

  Mikey ran.

  They found him the next day. Fingerprints on the bottleneck. A clear nineteen pointer. A match for the ones previously on file for a dismissed D&D.

  The other student told the police Mikey had started it. Had attacked them on their way home. It was the story he stuck to, reiterated by his expensive solicitor and barrister all the way through the trial.

  Mikey told the truth. His legal aid solicitor was too distracted, harassed or exhausted to do much with the argument. His inexperienced barrister likewise.

  The verdict: murder. The sentence: life.

  For Mikey: frustration and impotence during the trial. Rage and resentment afterwards.

  And then prison. Which wasn’t as bad as he was expecting it to be. The regime suited him. Gave structure to his life.

  But the lack of colour. Grey everywhere. That was when he made the promise to himself. When he got out he would go somewhere green. With blue sky. Somewhere he was unknown.

  He came back to Newcastle. To Scotswood. The terms of his licence dictated it. His heart sank.

  Chance, his probation officer and the JobCentre intervened. And he became a Get Carter tour guide.

  And then came Keenyside. Mikey hadn’t known who he was.

  ‘Your fairy godfather,’ Keenyside had said, setting down a pint of bitter in front of him.

  The Magpie pub. Same seat, just about.

  ‘I need someone to be my eyes and ears. I can’t be everywhere.’

  It had been only months, but it seemed like a lifetime away. And now he was part of his life. Like a malignant cancer that couldn’t be cut out.

  ‘Why me?’ Mikey had asked.

  Keenyside shrugged. ‘Because I can trust you. Because you’ll do it.’

  ‘Will I?’ An impotent rage rising in Mikey. ‘Why?’

  Another shrug. ‘Because I’ll send you back to prison if you don’t.’

  Mikey felt like he had been punched in the stomach. ‘For what?’

  Keenyside smiled. No humour. Only the joy of control. ‘I’ll think of something.’

  No choice.

  ‘Oh,’ said Keenyside. ‘There’s one more thing I want you to do for me …’

  Mikey had started his second job. Hated everything about it. Being an informer was bad enough, but the drugs … Hated them. Everything about them. The effect they had on people. The effect they had on him. In prison he had avoided drug dealers. Thought they were scum, on a level with child abusers.

  And here he was. One of them.

  People on the estate looked at him, treated him, differently. They either wanted him there, or didn’t want him there, depending on their needs. They served him in the pub here but kept their distance. They knew what he did, and, more important, who he did it for.

 
; Because Keenyside was a very clever man.

  The dirtiest copper Mikey had ever met. He knew who to target, who to ignore. Who to lean on and pick on and who to encourage and allow to flourish. He made arrests, got results. Made convictions stick. But only for those he wanted out of the way.

  No one would speak out against him. No one dared.

  Because whatever else he was, he was a copper. And he could still bring the full weight of the law down to bear.

  Keenyside ruled the west side of Newcastle with a quiet restraint no gangster could match. And without a single children’s charitable donation.

  No respect.

  ‘And Mikey,’ he had said, ‘you’re over the proverbial barrel.’

  Mikey finished building his roll-up. It looked dreadful. He tried to light it, smoke it. It fell apart in his hands.

  Angry and unlucky.

  That familiar impotent rage began to build and bubble. He remembered the words of the Ed. Psych. in prison: don’t get angry at events, only causes. Trace it down to the roots and deal with it accordingly and calmly.

  He traced. It wasn’t his ability to build a roll-up. It wasn’t even the grinning, gormless Get Carter boys.

  No. It was Keenyside.

  He had traced it. Keenyside. Now he could deal with it accordingly and calmly.

  Rage was still building inside him. Hard and strong.

  He took out his tobacco pouch, began to build another roll-up.

  The rage became focused. His hands steady.

  The roll-up successfully built, he put it between his lips, lit it, inhaled.

  Rage: hard, strong and perfect.

  Deal with it accordingly.

  Keenyside.

  Mikey exhaled.

  Perfect.

  Mikey stood by the entrance to the car park, watching.

  Waiting.

  His fingers curled round the kitchen knife in his overcoat pocket.

  He had tried to get into the car park, inside the grounds of the police station, but it had proved impossible. Gated security and CCTV told him not even to bother. He had tried entering from the rear, working his way down the side of the bowling alley next door and over the wall, but that was too risky. It was bad enough just carrying a knife. That was enough to get him sent straight back to prison.

  So standing by the entrance it would have to be.