The Mercy Seat (22 page)

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.

It was getting dark. The security man on the gate would become suspicious if Mikey didn’t leave soon. He tried to pretend, roll-up on his lips, that he was wating for someone. That he was a copper’s nark.

It wasn’t a million miles from the truth.

Then: chucking-out time.

He clocked all the faces as they came and went, searching.

Mikey had no plan. Was he going to scratch Keenyside’s car? Stab him? He didn’t know. So he watched, waited, hoped an idea would emerge.

More people left the building, came past him, ignored him. Civilian staff on their way home, mostly. Mikey began to feel foolish. What was he going to do? What could he do? He was about to give up, go home, when he came out.

Keenyside.

Mikey took a drag, dropped his butt, ground it out under his heel. Swallowed hard. His throat dry, like ash and embers.

His hand went to the knife again, fingered the handle. His heart was beating fast. He didn’t know whether to approach or watch. However, events soon dictated he would be a spectator.

Keenyside swept from the building, arrogance worn like a kevlar vest; bullets would bounce off him. But there was something else. Something unusually set and determined about his features. Keenyside made for his car, the only Jaguar on the lot. But didn’t reach it.

A woman burst from the building after him. Mid- to late twenties, Mikey reckoned, although he was no good at those sorts of things, dark-haired, thin. Could have been attractive if she had made the effort. But she hadn’t. All her effort seemed to have been used up just to function. She was dark-eyed, haunted-looking. Hair unwashed, clothes plain and tired. Face devoid of make-up.

‘Alan,’ she called to him, ran across.

Keenyside sighed in tired exasperation, turned to her.

Mikey struggled to hear what was being said, picking up only occasional words:

‘Promised, Alan …’

‘… go on, Janine. It’s finished …’

‘… don’t know … feels … left me like …’

And body language.

Janine: imploring, almost begging, barely restrained hysteria bubbling beneath the surface. Eyes fixed on him like a drowning woman to a life raft.

Keenyside: arms folded, defensive. Unmoving, not letting her in. Eyes looking anywhere but at her.

After a final speech that left her in no uncertain terms where she stood, Keenyside got into his car and backed out. Janine had to jump out of the way as he manoeuvred past her. He made for the gate; it lifted and he was off, speeding up the West Road, not once looking back.

Janine ran alongside the car and out into the street. She watched it recede, shoulders slumped, like her final hope had just disappeared.

She didn’t move.

‘Excuse me …’ Mikey had walked up slowly behind her.

She jumped, turned. Mikey could tell instantly from the look she greeted him with that she found him frightening, repulsive or at the very least unpleasant.

‘Please,’ he said, raising his hands, ‘I’m not … not goin’ to … hurt you …’

She backed away, unconvinced.

‘No,’ he said quickly. ‘It’s Keenyside. Alan Keenyside.’

Her mood changed at the mention of his name. Still cautious, she became curious. ‘What about him?’

‘Well,’ he said, ‘I know him as well. And I think you like him as much as I do.’

She kept staring at him. ‘So?’

Mikey scratched his head. Sighed. ‘I came here today to … to do him some harm. I don’t know what. And then you came out. And then …’ Mikey shrugged.

‘What’s he done to you, then?’ she asked.

‘Taken my life away.’ Anger accompanied his words.

Janine nodded. Recognition in her eyes.

‘Listen,’ said Mikey. He felt awkward. ‘Maybe we should … get … together …’

She looked like he’d just made an improper suggestion.

‘No, no, not like that …’ He was conscious of his waving arms, his red face. ‘No, I mean … talk. He’s done us both wrong, from the sounds of it.’ He shrugged. ‘Y’know. Problem shared, an’ that. Two heads … Find a way to … I don’t know. Deal with him.’

Janine stared hard. She made up her mind.

‘OK,’ she said. ‘But I’m phonin’ a friend, tellin’ them where I’ll be.’

‘That’s all right.’

‘Just so you know.’

‘That’s all right.’

She checked her watch. ‘Listen, my shift’s nearly finished. Wait here and we’ll go to a pub when I come out.’

She went back inside.

Mikey watched her go, lit another roll-up, began working his way down it.

For the first time in ages, he smiled.

Keenyside loved the summer. But the summer was gone. Instead, he sat and stared at the autumn rain.

He closed his eyes, tried to will the season back. Apart from his villa in Lanzarote, his mock-Georgian executive home in Wansbeck Moor, Northumberland, was the place he most enjoyed spending those summer months in. The warm air, sweet from honeysuckle and lobelia in nearby gardens, the pastel-pink and blue sunsets. He would come home with the other commuters, shed his work clothes, take up tools of leisure; hedges would be trimmed, lawns would be mowed. Later, he would cook meat on his gas-fired barbecue and, along with his wife and children, dine al
fresco on the decking-wood patio, drink bottled beer and sip Australian Chardonnay.

They would talk, laugh, smile. Be content in each others’ company. He was a good husband. A good father. His two children were helped with their homework, praised for their schoolwork, allowed out to play with their friends.

He sighed. Opened his eyes. That had never happened. Only in his idealized fantasies. The house was a money hole, the mortgage a monthly struggle. The car on the drive; its payments unmade for the previous month. From beyond his study door came the over-raucous sounds of the twins, their voices shrill and overeducated, even at their early age. Like strangers to him. And his wife in their bedroom, trying on her latest must-have designer creation that his near-maxed-out credit card had taken a hammering for. And the villa would have to go.

He breathed in, exhaled, hoping all the stress and tension would leave his body too. It didn’t. He took a large mouthful from the glass of malt in his hands, hoping that would help. It didn’t.

The house was meant to be his refuge, a retreat from the job; the mindless violence, the filth and squalor of the lives he had to come into contact with, the scum on scum killings. Human garbage, and he was the one who had to cart it away. A retreat from his past. A way of escape.

He sighed. No good. No escape. He thought of Palmer’s face that afternoon.

‘Investigated?’ Keenyside had said.

The chief super could barely contain a smile. ‘Only rumours, little ones. Ripples.’

‘Yeah, before a tidal wave,’ Keenyside said. ‘I know.’ He looked around the room. Back at Palmer. ‘What can I do?’

Palmer looked surprised. Shrugged. ‘Not my place to say. Just thought you ought to know.’

Keenyside felt something well within him. Panic. Fear. ‘Can’t you … say something? Put in a good word? Stall it? I mean, you’ll be dragged along too.’

Palmer’s gaze became hard and cold. ‘Don’t know what you’re taking about.’

Keenyside stared at him. Couldn’t speak.

‘In feudal Japan,’ said Palmer, gaze unwavering, ‘disgraced samurai fell on their swords.’ He sat back, fingers steepled. ‘Think on it.’

Keenyside couldn’t think. Heard only his heart pounding, his blood rushing in his ears.

‘I have a meeting to attend. So …’

And that had been that.

His glass was empty. He couldn’t remember drinking it. He refilled it.

He sighed. Autumn. The season of death and dying. Leading to winter, the prison season. Lockdown.

Rain lashed the windows. Stormy Northumberland weather.

Walking through the station he had felt eyes on him, mouths moving behind hands, words coming in whispers, heads nodding. He tried to ascribe it to paranoia, but could feel it.

Marked.

But by who?

Names had gone round and round in his head all day since Palmer told him, until it had spun. None of his team had grassed. He was sure of it. They were on the books with him. Had nearly as much to lose as him.

Then who?

Janine had been off with him. But that was only to be expected. Like the others, she was following the pattern. And he loved it. The power. The complicity of corruption.

But she wouldn’t have had the nerve. Not the way he had left her.

So who?

He looked around his house again, seeing it as nothing more than an expensive prison, his family as grinning jailers. He wanted to stand up, take hold of something heavy and smash everything. The wide-screen TV. The DVD player. The hi-fi system. His wife’s crystal collection. No one but him could wreck everything. Break it all up.

Break free.

He felt himself hyperventilating, beginning a panic attack. Forced himself to calm down.

He looked at his watch. He had to speed things along.

Stop pissing about, being lenient. Patient. Put his plan into action.

Move that payday closer.

The escape. Really escape.

Not to Wansbeck Moor or Lanzarote.

To a land further away, where it was summer all year round.

The street was dark when the Saab convertible pulled up outside the block of flats. Donovan, body still aching but unimpaired, exited the passenger side first. Amar uncurled himself from the cramped back seat, bemoaning convertibles for the lack of space in the rear. Peta got out of the driver’s side, centrally locked the car.

No more taxis. No more subterfuge.

No more hiding.

‘My pride and joy, this car,’ Peta had told Donovan when they had gone to pick it up from the car park it had been left in.