The Dead

3

By the time I got back my little Emma was already asleep. Sarah was at the top of the stairs when I walked in and she greeted me with a big grin but immediately placed her finger to her lips, so I’d know to be quiet. Missing my daughter was another thing I’d blame Joe Kinane for.

We lived in a house on a new development on the edge of the city; one that was built and wholly owned by the firm. The street we live in has twelve properties, a mixture of houses and flats in a horseshoe shape, making a cul-de-sac. It has a gated entrance and tall fences with CCTV cameras everywhere. From the outside it looks like a normal little residential estate with our house at the centre but nobody else lives on our street, except members of the firm, or security men on a retainer, and the gate is manned twenty-four hours a day. The only genuine civilian resident is Sarah’s best mate Joanne, who lives in one of the apartments and helps Sarah with Emma. It’s probably as secure an arrangement as I could get in Newcastle.

When I reached the top of the stairs, Sarah was leaning against the door frame looking down at our daughter, who was in the kind of deep sleep only little ones can achieve. She was tucked up in her bed, arms wrapped tightly around her favourite teddy, eyes tight shut, breathing regularly into her pillow. Every time I see her like this I think there is nothing I wouldn’t do for our little girl, to protect her and walk her safely through this world.

Sarah grinned at me. ‘Isn’t she gorgeous?’ she asked. ‘I know I’m her mother but…’

‘She is,’ I replied, ‘everybody says so.’

And they did. Everybody, even the hardened gangsters we employed in the firm came over all smiley if they had to come to the house and saw our little girl, with her big blue eyes and the golden-blonde hair she inherited from her mother. ‘She gets it from you.’

‘From both of us,’ Sarah said, ‘she’s so cute,’ she added in wonderment. Like me, Sarah couldn’t quite believe our luck. Neither of us ever thought we deserved Emma, not after the stuff we’d seen and done, but she was here with us now and though we’d only had her for two years, sometimes we honestly struggled to remember a time when she had not been in our lives.

Just when I was feeling that all was well with the world, Sarah said, ‘You know there’s not a day goes by when I don’t think about my dad and Emma. I wish he could have seen her. He’d have loved her so much.’

‘He would,’ I agreed, but I wasn’t thinking about the way that big, bad Bobby Mahoney, Newcastle’s former top boy, would have balanced my little girl on his knee and played with her. Instead I was remembering how I blew Bobby’s brains out in a derelict factory and it made me feel sick to think that, along with everything else I took from him, I had robbed Bobby Mahoney of time with his granddaughter. I’d had no choice but to kill him but Sarah didn’t know it was my finger on the trigger and I was desperate to keep it that way.

My mobile rang then and Sarah winced. I grabbed it quickly but Emma didn’t stir. I walked back down the stairs as I took the call. It was Vince, a long-standing member of our crew who kept an eye on some of our pubs and clubs in the city and Privado, our lap-dancing bar. ‘Did you know Kinane’s been arrested?’ he asked me, his tone betraying his surprise, ‘for bitch-slapping a couple of knuckle draggers?’

‘Yeah,’ I said and he hesitated before continuing.

‘Oh, right. I was just wondering if you wanted us to try and get him out of there,’ he offered tentatively, ‘you know, phone the lawyer or summat?’

‘No, fuck him,’ I said, ‘he’s been a dick, let him stew.’

‘Oh right, fine, I didn’t realise. I was only saying like, sorry.’

‘It’s alright Vince, you weren’t to know. Kinane will be out in the morning but he has to learn.’

Sarah followed me down the stairs and when I’d finished talking to Vince she asked me, ‘Are you hungry? Do you want a drink?’

‘I’m hungry,’ I told her as I leaned in and kissed her. It had been two weeks since I’d seen her, ‘but unfortunately I’ve got to go out again.’ Her smile faded. ‘I’m sorry, but I promised our Danny.’

‘Oh yeah,’ she said, ‘I forgot it was tonight.’

I kissed her once more and told her I’d be back in a couple of hours. When she didn’t break free from the embrace I leaned in and kissed her again and the kiss gradually became more serious. She ground herself against me and I slid my hand under her T-shirt and slowly drew it upwards till it cupped her breast. Then I told her in graphic detail what I was going to do to her when I came back later and she sighed. I slid my hand inside the cup of her bra and her nipple stiffened at my touch. She lifted her hand and let one finger trace the outline of my cock through my trousers, teasing me.

‘Hold that thought,’ she said, as she broke away from me.

I missed the start and hoped he hadn’t noticed. He looked like he was well and truly zoned out, oblivious to everything else, including my presence. Danny was out on the edge of the court and, just as I sat down, he was passed the ball by one of his team, catching it cleanly, then immediately dummied his nearest opponent, ghosted past him like he wasn’t even there and threw the ball to another team mate, before powering towards the opposing basket once more. His team looked like they were running the opposition ragged already, judging by the evidence of the electronic scoreboard, the frenzied whoops of encouragement from a sizeable home crowd in the stands and the way they casually flicked the basketball around like it was on a string that stretched between them. Their opponents seemed capable only of waving their arms forlornly as the ball flew by. It looked like the league title was going to be Danny’s team’s for the taking.

Our young’un, as I usually called him, even though he was a fair bit older than me, made his way inside until he was in a shooting position and, even above the noise of the supporters, I could hear him demanding the ball. Sure enough he got it, catching it cleanly and powering forward once more. He went past an opponent who tried to grab his arm and I watched with amusement as the guy was left trailing in Danny’s wake. I loved the look of absolute determination on Our young’un’s face as he closed in. He was bloody loving this. As soon as he found himself within shooting distance he released the ball, sending it up into the air in a long high arc towards the basket that I was only dimly aware of, because my eyes were still fixed on Danny and the opponent who had chosen that moment to go steaming into him at top speed. If you have ever seen two wheelchairs collide head on at full pelt you will know the impact is stomach churning. It’s like watching a miniature car crash. There was a loud, metallic smash that sounded like a gun going off and Our young’un’s chair was upended, just as the crowd cheered the basket he had scored. He shot forward and was flung face first onto the court and I winced and turned away. When I looked back he was already dragging himself along the court. Even from my seat I could see the fire in his eyes and knew what he was going to do. He grabbed the bloke who had careered into him by his vest and hauled him out of his chair, so he too ended up lying on the court, then Danny punched him hard on the side of the head.

All hell broke loose then. The referee, coaches and even some fans ran onto the court, meanwhile blokes in wheelchairs from both sides waded in to one another shouting insults and trading punches. Danny was right in the thick of it as usual. Somehow he managed to right his chair and drag himself back into it. Danny may have been paralysed from the waist down, but his upper body strength was amazing. He re-entered the fray just as the referee and others were trying to calm things down. Even from this distance, as the shouts and the arguments grew more heated, I could tell he was laughing.