‘Not until I’ve spoken to him,’ I told him sharply, ‘did you not just hear me?’
‘Hey, no problem, it’s cool.’
I must be slipping, because I didn’t see the uniformed bobby who came walking up to the car from behind and tapped on the window.
Sharp let the electric window wind down and the uniform said, all sarcastic like, ‘would you two lover boys like to tell me what you’re doing out here?’ and he nodded at the empty office opposite, ‘casing the joint are we gents? Well you can forget about that now.’
Sharp raised his hand to the window and showed the uniform his warrant card, ‘DS Sharp,’ he said firmly, ‘you just compromised a confidential meeting with a major criminal source,’ which even I found amusing but I didn’t crack a smile.
‘I’m really sorry Detective Sergeant,’ and the uniform didn’t look so smug all of a sudden, ‘but I had no way of knowing… ’
‘Fuck off,’ Sharp interrupted him, ‘go on, fuck off, now.’ And he did, sharpish.
‘Fucking uniforms,’ said Sharp, ‘really piss me off,’
‘You were one too,’ I reminded him, ‘once.’
‘Not for long,’ he said quietly, ‘I knew the real money was in plain clothes.’
‘I’m curious,’ I told him, ‘were you always bent, or did you only cross over to the dark side when you realised how far a policeman’s pay goes?’
He chuckled but didn’t really answer the question, ‘well, I do have a wife and kids… and a mistress… a girlfriend… and a couple or three floozies when the mistress and girlfriend are busy.’
‘Expensive.’
‘Yeah, all of them. Believe me.’
‘Well, let’s make sure we don’t kill the golden goose then, shall we? Find Cartwright for me and find him quick.’
‘I’ll do my best,’ he assured me, ‘there is one other thing you should know.’
‘Yeah?’
‘My new boss,’ he told me, ‘he’s got a hard-on for Bobby.’
‘Really?’
He nodded, ‘He’s a careerist, my new DI he knows the quickest way to the top is a high profile bust. There’d be nobody bigger round here than Bobby Mahoney.’
‘True.’
‘That doesn’t worry you?’
It did but I wasn’t going to tell him that, ‘Should it?’
‘Dunno, he’s a determined little shit. He’s got a picture of Bobby on the office wall with arrows going down to other pictures of Finney, Jerry Lemon and Mickey Hunter. It’s like something out of one of those Mafia films where the FBI are trying to take the whole family down, you know.’
‘Yeah, I know. Is my picture up there yet?’
‘No but it’s only a matter of time.’
I’d never heard Sharp talk like this before. He seemed resigned. ‘You’re worried aren’t you?’
‘Bit,’ he said, ‘he’s a quick one this bloke. Not like the others. He’s ambitious, you know, wants to be a Chief Super one day.’
‘Well, he won’t be the first to try will he?’
‘No, nor the last.’
‘What’s his name?’
SIX
That afternoon I decided to check out all the small, low key boozers in the Bigg Market and the Quayside. There weren’t too many left that had that combination of decent ale and 80’s music that Cartwright favoured but I went in them all, starting in the Quayside and working my way up the hill and through the Bigg Market, right up to Newcastle’s ground. I started early, as soon as they opened, because it was match day and they’d be filling up before you knew it.
From my own knowledge of the man, he had half a dozen regular haunts, all of which looked likely to close down at any minute, judging by the number of old blokes that were slowly nursing pints that could keep them going until closing time. I don’t mind these old-man pubs myself but they don’t make any sense financially, not when a bunch of teenagers can spend more in five minutes than some bloke in a flat cap is willing to part with in four hours. They were a relic of a bygone era, about as relevant to the modern age as pit boots and football rattles. I walked in one and, no word of a lie, they were playing Dean Martin. While Deano was singing
When I reached the top of the town, I walked right up to the ground and looked into the Strawberry. When I was a kid, the closest pub to St James Park used to almost always have its broken windows boarded up. Now it had a roof terrace; a sign of the times. It was fairly quiet as it was still early, just a few die-hards in there, sipping beers and craning their necks to watch the wall-to-wall Sky coverage. Anyone who didn’t have a ticket for the game could wait here until Jeff Stelling announced the inevitable black and white collapse.
The bitter taste of my pint rejuvenated me. I figured I’d start again and do the rounds of all the pubs and clubs Cartwright didn’t drink in just in case it turned out that he did drink in them after all. I knew I was clutching at straws but that was what drowning men did. I went from the Strawberry to Rosie’s, my own preferred pre-match venue. Most of the crew had a couple in one or other of these pubs before the game, and I half expected Cartwright to be sitting there with a pint in his hand but then, if he had been, he would have been a dead man. There was no sign of him of course and no fresh sightings either.
I called in at the Newcastle Arms then outside Faces a teenage girl in a bikini, with goose bumps on her arms, stuffed a leaflet into my hands promising me ‘live entertainment’. An obscure former Toon ‘legend’ was due to talk to the fans and there would be more girls in bikinis plus a couple of strippers. With football, beer and half-naked girls on offer I would have been surprised if I hadn’t spotted at least one of our lads in there, so I walked in. The music was pumping and it was pretty dark. I ordered another pint while I waited for my eyes to adjust to the gloom and then I spotted Billy Warren heading towards me. He fought his way through a crowd of football fans ogling a blonde stripper with a boob job that made her look like an adult Barbie doll.
‘Good to see you man,’ he told me like I was a long lost friend. He offered me a cold and pasty hand which I shook. He looked terrible. I didn’t know how much of his own product he was using these days but he definitely had the undernourished look of the professional dope head.
‘How’s business Billy?’ I had to shout it into his ear to make myself heard.
He raised his hand and wobbled it from side to side, ‘Same old, same old,’ he said, ‘it’s all gone a bit credit crunch thanks to K.’
‘Ketamine?’
‘Yeah, time was when everybody did a bit of blow, which is pretty pricey so it had more profit. Now they all want Ket, which is cheaper so… ’
‘Less profit.’
‘Exactly,’ he said it like I was the Brain of Britain for working that out. ‘Can’t blame ‘em I s’pose. K is half the price of coke. Twenty quid a gram these days so all the young ‘uns want it instead of blow.’
‘Yeah but vets use it don’t they?’ Call me old-fashioned but I wouldn’t take something that’s used to tranquilise horses.
‘I s’pose,’ he admitted, ‘but it works for people too. It gives them that nice boozy high without the paranoia, know what I mean?’
