The Dead

11

The whole firm turned up at the Mitre. We filled the upstairs bar of that old pub and the ancient floorboards creaked under the weight of so many huge blokes. We opened the bar so they could all have a few pints and Vince was in charge of the ancient vinyl jukebox. That used to be Hunter’s job. Once, we’d have been treated to a diet of eighties rock, which never let up. Now that he was gone, Vince had assumed the mantle of DJ and his choices were just as archaic, though different to Hunter’s. You wouldn’t think it to look at Vince, with his suit and tie and permanent presence at our bars and clubs, which churned out endless R amp;B, that his taste was really indie, bordering on Goth. That evening, while we waited for all of the lads to turn up, we got Echo and the Bunnymen, Teardrop Explodes, The Alarm and Hazel O’Connor. Then he started cranking out the really Suicidal Sid stuff with The Sisters of Mercy and The Mission before The Smiths finally took the biscuit with There Is A Light That Never Goes Out.

Finally, when Spear of Destiny’s They’ll Never Take Me Alive faded away, I gave Vince the nod. Everybody had assembled by now so he turned off the jukebox. I needed to speak before they all got too pissed to listen. I drew the lads in close and held up the black and white, ten-by-eight that Austin had given me so they could all see it.

‘This is Gemma Carlton,’ I said.

‘Nice,’ answered Peter Kinane approvingly.

‘She was.’

‘Oh.’ That shut him up.

‘Two nights ago she was killed. This poor lass was murdered and her body dumped.’

I told them everything I knew about the manner in which she died, described the location of the body and gave them all the relevant information. Once they’d digested the fact that a pretty, young thing had been senselessly murdered, I dropped the bombshell.

‘There’s one other thing. Gemma Carlton was the daughter of Detective Inspector Robert Carlton.’

I watched them all for their reaction. They all knew DI Carlton and what he was trying to do to us. I wanted to be sure that none of them had a fucked-up idea of what constituted justice in our world and had taken matters into their own hands. Instead all I saw was a sea of shocked faces.

‘I want this picture circulating. I want everyone to see it. You ask around. This isn’t about business, so the normal rules do not apply. It doesn’t matter what you have heard about her old man or what he has said about me. I don’t care that he wants to put all of us away for a long time. His daughter didn’t deserve this and neither did he. No one does. You got that?’

There was some unintelligible mumbling at that but they were all in agreement.

‘I want you to find the fucking low-life who did this thing. Firstly, I want this done because it’s the right thing to do and that ought to be reason enough.’ I let them digest that and, when there were no dissenting voices, I continued. ‘Right now the Polit are all fired up and they want to crack heads. They are bad enough when someone comes after one of theirs, so you can imagine what they will be like when it’s the only daughter of one of theirs. They are short on brains and common sense at the best of times and they are not thinking straight. They have no leads so they’ve got a very foolish idea into their empty heads. They think that, since Carlton was investigating us, maybe we were somehow responsible for this evil thing.’

My lads are pretty hard to shock, they’ve seen plenty of stuff between them, but you could tell they were floored by this one. There was a sound like a collective sharp intake of breath. Then all of a sudden it was like I was a politician being heckled from the floor, but it was only the competing cries of, ‘No fucking way!’, ‘Hadaway and shite man!’, ‘Have they gone fuckin’ mental like?’ and a half dozen other similar shouts that were lost in the angry din. They were furious and resentful, as I knew they would be, and I ran the risk that this would weaken their determination to find Gemma’s killer, but I needed to let them all know exactly what was at stake here.

I had to hold up my hands to restore order, ‘I know,’ I assured them, ‘I know, and I share your anger and disgust, but they are hurting right now and not thinking clearly. So it’s our job to find the real killer and hand him over.’

‘Fuck that,’ said Kinane, ‘when we find the cunt, we’ll slice him to pieces.’

‘No Joe, we won’t. You’re not thinking either. How is slicing him up going to persuade the police we had nothing to do with it? No, as much as it might disgust us, we hand him over and give them their man. He’ll get a life sentence and it will be hard time, the hardest there is. They’ll realise we are not the men they think we are, for what that’s worth. and it’s not much. Like it or not though, until we catch this sick bastard, normal business will be impossible for any of us, so that’s another reason we need to clear this up, and fast. That, and the fact that someone has put a poor, young lass in the ground and is still out there somewhere. Let’s make sure she’s the last one he kills.’

There were murmurs of agreement at that one. ‘You work your districts, you ask around and I want someone on this twenty-four-seven who can feed all of it back to me.’

‘I’ll do it,’ replied Kevin Kinane without a second’s hesitation, ‘like you said, we can’t do any normal business till it’s sorted and we don’t want some sicko out there walking around our city.’

I admired his eagerness to take this on for me and I knew that might be worth something. I figured this would require leg work and tenacity. It needed someone with the energy to keep at it and Kevin Kinane wanted to prove himself to me. This was his chance.

‘Good lad Kevin,’ I said, ‘you meet me daily until this is over. All of you, I want every scrap of information feeding into Kevin. We’ve some bent law on our books that’ll help but they need leads and we are the people to provide them.’

Joe and I left the Mitre and drove back into the city together. ‘What do you reckon?’ I asked him.

‘Not a glimmer.’

‘There’s nobody?’

‘Every one of them was shocked rigid man,’ he assured me, ‘as I told you they would be.’ There was indignation in that last bit.

‘Yeah, okay, you were right. I’ll give you that, but our boys aren’t saints so I needed you to look them in the eye while I spoke to them, but if you are telling me there is no one…’

‘Listen to yourself man,’ he snapped at me, ‘this is us. We are not some drug cartel from Bolivia, we have rules, remember? They might not be written down anywhere but we have rules and everybody knows them.’

‘Yeah,’ I admitted, ‘you’re right,’ and when he said nothing in reply, I added, ‘I’m sorry. I am. I didn’t really think any of our crew was capable of… but I had to be sure. That’s why I asked you, because I trust your judgement. Remember Joe, I have to think the unthinkable sometimes.’

‘Yeah,’ he answered, ‘I s’pose so.’ But I could tell he still had the hump with me.

‘Let’s get a drink Joe,’ I suggested, ‘after that I need one.’