The Dead

19

Things had not been going all that well for Golden Boots, not that you’d notice it from the way he carried himself. As far as he was concerned, he was still Billy Big Bollocks, an unlikely media darling with legions of Twitter followers, a blog and a weekly tabloid newspaper column, ghost written of course. He never had to worry about having enough time for all of this verbal diarrhoea, because he rarely played any football these days. If he wasn’t suspended for kicking, punching or head-butting opponents on the pitch, or his own teammates on the training ground, there were always the scuffles with members of the public he met on his regular nights out.

On the rare occasions that Golden Boots was not in trouble of one sort or another he was injured, his ageing joints struggling to cope with the wear and tear of a decade of top flight football and a history of poor refuelling choices; mainly a preference for beer and cocaine over fruit juice and pasta. His long-suffering club had grown tired of paying the man eighty thousand pounds a week to not play football and were desperately trying to offload him to anyone who was willing but, amazingly, there were no takers.

When I went round to see Golden Boots, I took Joe Kinane with me. I knew that would concentrate what little mind the Premiership’s finest possessed, because he was shit scared of Kinane, with good reason. A little while back, our late but legendary enforcer, Finney, almost broke both of his legs because he tried to get violent when we interrupted a minor drug deal he was doing with Billy Warren, one of our dealers. Now, by way of making amends, he ‘does a bit of business’ with us, as he puts it, selling heavily-cut cocaine at ludicrous prices to a group of his Premiership mates.

We both get something out of this; we get the money, for Golden Boots it’s the chance to pretend he’s a gangster in his spare time and he loves the kudos that comes with being a ‘face’.

The guy who answered the door didn’t look like an athlete. He was sporting a three-day stubble and, even at this hour of the afternoon, he looked a bit out of it. His eyes were glassy and he was sniffing, but he didn’t have a cold. As usual, he pretended to be pleased to see us but I knew he dreaded our little visits. He showed us into his cavernous house.

‘What do you reckon?’ he asked, all smiles, as we stopped before the centrepiece that dominated the huge hallway in his new home; it was a statue of himself. The sculptor had carved him life-sized, in bronze, kitted out in the England shirt he had worn just once during his mockery of a career.

‘How much did that cost you?’ I asked him.

‘Forty grand.’ He said it like it was nothing.

‘It’s fucking hideous, even by your standards.’

Golden Boots laughed nervously because he thought I was joking. ‘I like it. I think he’s caught me just right.’

‘You’re s’posed to be dead before they put a statue up,’ said Kinane menacingly, ‘them’s the rules.’

‘Yeah, well, I ain’t dead yet, am I?’ answered Golden Boots and Kinane just narrowed his eyes and smiled at that, which made the footballer look even more nervous.

We sat on huge leather sofas in his games room, which was the size of most people’s houses. There was plenty of space for the ubiquitous snooker table and a bar. He didn’t deny knowing Gemma Carlton when we questioned him and admitted he had heard about her death.

‘I can’t believe it,’ he told me, ‘murdered like that,’ but I couldn’t say he was exactly grief stricken.

‘I saw her on the Friday night,’ he confirmed, ‘down at Cachet. I remember that and I remember her. She was a hottie and she knew the score. We had a couple of bottles of the good stuff in the VIP bar then I took her and her mate back to mine for the party. In the end I chose her. Her mate wasn’t too chuffed about that but I doubt she’d have killed her over it.’ At least his ego didn’t extend quite that far, ‘I mean there are always plenty of lasses around but I figured this one was worth the effort.’

The effort? He probably only had to beckon her to his table and he was halfway there. These young, local lasses would arrive at his house with eyes like saucers, not realising it wouldn’t actually gain them much, except a few minutes of Golden Boots grunting and sweating on top of them, before he got them a lift home and never saw them again.

‘So you slept with her?’ I asked.

‘Not slept with, no,’ he answered. ‘I shagged her, but she didn’t stay the night.’ He meant he wouldn’t have allowed it. ‘I got one of my lads to run her home.’

‘One of my lads’ meant a member of his increasing entourage, a bunch of blaggers and hangers-on who ‘looked after him’ as he put it.

‘Did you see her the next night?’ I asked pointedly, ‘the night she died?’

‘No,’ he said, ‘I had another party but she didn’t turn up. At least I didn’t see her, but there were a lot of people here, so she could have been around.’

‘Then someone might have seen her?’

‘I s’pose,’ he conceded, ‘but no, I’m pretty sure she wasn’t here.’

I didn’t think he was the most reliable witness, not these days. He was using more coke and booze than before and I reckoned a girl he’d shagged could walk right past him and he might not notice her.

‘Speak to your lads,’ I instructed him, ‘ask them if they know anything about her, including whether she stopped by on the night she died, even if it was only for a while and you didn’t see her. Maybe someone gave her a lift home. Hey, maybe she wasn’t there at all. Perhaps she was over you by then.’ He just stared blankly at me. ‘This is important. We need to know what happened to this lass, understand?’

‘Because she’s a copper’s daughter?’ he asked.

‘You’ve read that much in your comic then? Yeah, there’s a lot of heat on this one. Until it’s resolved nobody will be able to do any business. Have the law been to see you about her yet?’

‘No,’ he said.

‘They will,’ but I didn’t tell him it was me that would be grassing up his intimate knowledge of Gemma Carlton to the police. I needed to give them something and this was all I had, for now.

‘That’s all I need,’ he said, ‘the law sniffing around me.’

‘Welcome to my world,’ I told him.

When we left Kinane asked, ‘Why didn’t you let me sweat him a little. He’d have spilled.’

‘Because there’s nothing to spill,’ I answered, ‘Golden Boots is a terrible liar. We can spot it a mile off when he’s hiding something and he’s terrified of you. He knew the girl, he shagged the girl, end of. Maybe his lads will tell him something, but I doubt he’ll ask them properly, so we’ll get your Kevin to have a word with them instead, shall we?’

It had been a few days since my meeting with Jinky Smith and I was driving through the city when I took a call.

‘Is that David Blake?’

‘Yes,’ I waited for the next words and when none came, asked, ‘who’s that.’

‘Never mind,’ his breathing was audible, as if the speaker had damaged his lungs and every breath was a struggle, ‘I hear you’re after information about your fatha.’

‘Who told you that?’

‘Jinky passed us the word.’

‘And you have some?’ I asked, ‘let’s hear it then.’

‘It’d be better face to face. I could meet you,’ another raspy breath and he added, ‘Jinky said there was some money in it like.’

‘There might be, if what you’re peddling is worth it.’

‘I think it is.’

‘Then come and see me,’ I told him, ‘you know the Cauldron?’

And the breathy rasp turned into a choked chuckle. ‘I don’t think so. I’ll not see you behind closed doors, no offence, but I’ll meet you out in the open.’

‘Where then?’

‘On the Blinky Eye Bridge.’

‘When?’ I asked, worried it might be a set up.

‘Tomorrow lunchtime. Twelve o’clock.’

I hesitated, but only for a second. I didn’t think anybody would be daft enough to try to shoot me there on a lunchtime, and this fella sounded old and tubercular.

‘Alright,’ I said, ‘I assume you know what I look like. How will I know you?’

‘I know you alright,’ he wheezed, ‘and you’ll know me when I come up and start talking to you.’

‘Okay, but I hope you’re not a time waster.’

‘Oh no, divvent worry about that. What I’ve got to tell you is gold.’