Before she could think of anything else to say in front of the other girls I said, ‘I didn’t expect to see you still working here Michelle. I thought you’d have graduated by now.’
When I first met Michelle she was always going on about how she was only doing the lap-dancing short term and part-time. All of the money was going towards her student debt. She told everyone that, as soon as she graduated, she’d be off.
‘I did graduate,’ she told me, ‘ages ago, but there’s a recession on out there, or haven’t you noticed?’
‘Certainly is,’ I agreed, ‘but I’d have thought a bright girl like you wouldn’t struggle too long to get a job.’
This made her flush even more. ‘Maybe not,’ she admitted, ‘but graduate jobs don’t pay half as much as I can earn here,’ and she waved her hand at the room airily, ‘when it’s not dead.’
‘Of course,’ I agreed, ‘and it’s amazing how quickly you get used to a certain standard of living.’ I didn’t point out the obvious; that another year or two working in Privado full time would render her qualifications irrelevant. A little further down the line and she’d be stuck here, competing for tips with twenty-year-olds who had firmer tits and fewer lines on their faces.
‘Anyway,’ she said, ‘my boyfriend’s cool with it, so…’ That last comment was for my benefit.
‘That’s handy,’ I said, then I spotted Vince walking towards me, ‘lovely to see you again Michelle.’
‘Yeah,’ she said and gave me a forced smile, ‘you too.’
‘Sorry to keep you,’ said Vince, ‘I was sorting the books out.’
‘No problem,’ I said, ‘can I have a word?’ And I led him away from Michelle, who went back to propping up the bar.
To begin with, Vince had agreed with me, ‘they’re all dead aren’t they? There’s only Joe Kinane left from Bobby’s inner circle but it’s a bit before his time. I can’t think of anyone who’d go all the way back to… when was it again?’
‘My father left Newcastle back in ’72 and kept in touch with me ma for another four years or so. There was no more contact after about 1976.’
‘Bloody hell, that was an age ago,’ Vince started to drum his fingers on his desk like he was thinking, then he suddenly said, ‘have you tried Jinky Smith? He’s about the only one of the old ‘uns left, I reckon.’
‘Blimey. I’d not thought of Jinky,’ I admitted. ‘He hasn’t been in the firm for years though. You sure he’s still alive?’
Vince nodded, ‘he still gets around, just.’
‘How can I find him?’
‘I haven’t seen him in a while,’ he said, ‘we don’t encourage the old lags to pop in. We’d soon lose our licence if some toe rag was doing coke deals in the bogs or nicking wallets. We get enough grief about having full nudity.’
‘But you’ve seen him around?’
‘Well, yeah, he pops in the bars occasionally but he’s not a regular.
‘So where does he live?’
Vince thought for a while, then finally said, ‘I seem to remember he’s got a flat in Benwell or Fenham or some other shit hole, poor bastard.’
I suppose I couldn’t expect Vince to know the address of every down-at-heel ex-member of the firm. I’d have to get Sharp onto this one.
8
I’m a very light sleeper, but nobody could doze through the sound of a front door coming violently off its hinges. I was out of our bed before it hit the ground, even as Sarah was waking up with a start and screaming for me. I reached the landing and leaned out over the stairs in time to see armed, uniformed police officers crashing through the broken door into our home. I was relieved it was only them. The alternatives would have been far worse. One of them spotted me and shouted for me to stay where I was. I ignored him. Instead I turned back to Sarah who had come out onto the landing looking panicked.
‘It’s okay,’ I assured her, ‘it’s nothing. They are just taking me in but they’ve got nothing.’ We had often talked about me being lifted by the local police or SOCA and we had both agreed that Sarah would stay calm and call the lawyers, but she didn’t look calm right now.
The police had come straight through the heavy front door like it was balsa wood, but they’d failed to take a more simple obstacle into account. I could hear one of them swearing as he tugged at the stair gate we’d installed to ensure Emma didn’t fall down the stairs. Someone shouted at him to go over it and he cursed again as he tried to vault the little metal gate and couldn’t manage it first time.
I looked at Sarah again and repeated, ‘they’ve got nothing. You hear me?’
‘Yes,’ she said and I couldn’t think of anything more reassuring to say because, whatever the police thought they had, it was strong enough for them to arrest every man protecting our property, before smashing my front door down and dragging me from my bed in the middle of the night. That worried me more than I cared to admit. What the hell was this about?
Having finally navigated the stair gate, the police came thumping up the steps, their heavy boots making a din. They were shouting, and Sarah and I both instinctively looked through the opened door of Emma’s bedroom. She was sleeping through the entire thing. Even a busted door and a half dozen burly, armed police officers bursting into our home couldn’t disturb my little girl.
The lead police officer looked on edge. He had his pistol aimed right at me, ‘David Blake?’ he screamed.
‘Yes,’ I said quietly, even though I hate having guns pointed at me, particularly by people who looked as stressed as he did.
‘Don’t move and put your hands in the air!’
I was tempted to point out that I could hardly do both, but instead I slowly raised my hands, then I put the palms on the back of my head, which seemed to calm him. ‘Okay,’ I said, ‘it’s fine officer, I’m happy to assist you with your enquiries. There’s just two little things.’
‘What?’ he barked, straightening his arm and pointing his gun more firmly at me in emphasis.
‘Let me put some clothes on,’ I told him, because I was standing there in just my boxers, ‘and shut the fuck up.’ He looked startled by that. ‘We have a small child sleeping in there.’ I indicated Emma’s room with a faint movement of my head. He stared at me for a moment like I was trying to distract him and might attack if he took his eyes off me for a second. I must have looked pretty harmless though, standing there in my underwear with my hands behind my head, because he finally stole a quick glance through the open door, saw Emma and realised I was telling the truth.
‘Okay,’ he said in something between a gasp and a whisper. ‘Sorry Miss.’ Sarah gave him a murderous look and went to check on Emma.
‘You know why you are here,’ the detective told me for the third time.
‘I have no idea why I am here,’ I answered. Here was the police station on Market Street, a grey, grim, sixties-built, flat-roofed box of a building. The interview room was just as stark; a table, some chairs, two filing cabinets in the corner, a DCI questioning me, three more plain clothes in the room to make sure I didn’t deck him and run off.
‘Are we going to mess about all night?’ asked Detective Chief Inspector Hibbitt, a man I had never clapped eyes on before, until he snarled an introduction at me five minutes earlier. He was the SIO or Senior Investigating Officer in the case I was about to be questioned over, he told me, with barely disguised contempt, while strangely neglecting to inform me what that case was, hence his rather ridiculous statement that I knew why I was here. ‘See if you can work it out,’ he added, ‘go on, give it a go.’
Behind him, a Detective Sergeant, who was equally unknown to me but apparently went by the name of Fraser, paced up and down behind him looking like a caged tiger. I had never seen police officers looking so wound up before. They were treating me like I was the mastermind of some terrorist outrage, not their local, friendly drug-dealing, money launderer gangster. I’d been offered a lawyer but I find these chats about crimes I have been linked with tend to go better if I let the police feel they are more in control. I let them ask their questions and deflect them. Then they let me go home and that is usually the end of the matter. If I involve my lawyer it tends to mean a protracted stay at the station and a tedious impasse, which leaves the police frustrated and angry because I didn’t cooperate. There isn’t much goodwill directed at me from the local plod but Sharp has told me that I get a few Brownie points for at least allowing them to have their little talks with me unencumbered by a posse of lawyers.