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supporting his sagging body with his fist.
    â€˜Joe, go and make sure that door is closed up on deck – I canna remember shuttin’ it. This lad is going to yell some, for I’m going to half-kill him now.’
    When Joe came back down a few moments later, he found that Jackie had made an understatement.
    Geordie Armstrong was dead.
    â€˜He shuddnt ’a done it, Joe … he shuddnt ’a messed with my Laura!’
    The two men stood looking down at the still body lying on the office floor. Both were hardened ex-fighters, with prison sentences for violence, but even they were shaken. There was all the difference between a beating-up, sadistic though it might be, and an actual killing.
    â€˜I fetched him a right hook from off the floor. He went back and hit his head on the deck. Didn’t move after that. What the hell are we going to do with him, Joe?’
    Joe stared at the body with his bovine expression.
    â€˜You overdone it, Jackie – you busted his neck.’ He squatted down by the body and prodded it with professional interest. ‘His jaw’s gone as well.’
    â€˜What we going to do, I said!’ snapped Jackie. He had no remorse or pity for Armstrong, only anxiety for his own skin.
    â€˜It was manslaughter – you didn’t mean to croak ’im,’ growled Joe, trying to be helpful.
    â€˜Ha! Do me a favour, Joe – if you think I’m going to dial nine-nine-nine and get the coppers in, you must be bloody barmy. Any fool can see he’s had a duffing-up. The rozzers would die laughing – pinning a murder on me would send ’em all into hysterics.’
    â€˜What we going to do, then?’
    â€˜Didn’t I jus’ ask you that, you great sledge?’ Stott paced up and down, slamming one fist into the other. ‘Did anybody know that Geordie came aboard with us tonight? I suppose half Newcastle saw you dragging him oot that pub!’
    Joe shook his bull head earnestly. ‘Nah – I met him just outside the door, as he was coming out. Had a bit ’o argument with him, then flung him oot of the front door. Nobody saw us at all.’
    Jackie breathed out his relief. ‘Thank God for that – it’s a break for us.’
    Joe might well have asked why ‘us’ – he might be a party to grievous bodily harm but not to murder or manslaughter. But the old sparring partner was loyal. What was left of his brain, after its years of being rattled about inside his skull, contained a dog-like devotion to his protector. Without Jackie, he would have ended up in a criminal asylum – too thick to earn an honest living, he was even incapable of being a successful criminal on his own.
    His mind slowly ground out the obvious solution to their dilemma. ‘We’ll hev te dump him in the river, then.’
    The club owner nodded slowly. ‘I only wish Thor could be in on this – that boy’s got the best ideas on everything.’
    â€˜Least who knows about this, the better,’ grunted Joe, with a flash of common sense.
    Jackie went to a cabinet and took out glasses and the ever-ready bottle of whisky. ‘Sure the damn door is locked?’
    â€˜Ay – we got all night, no one will disturb us. Bloody good job we’re closed tonight.’
    They sat and had a few stiff drinks ‘to settle them’ as Stott put it. He was uneducated, but had plenty of native wit. He considered the dumping of Geordie, saw the snags and as quickly thought of ways around them.
    â€˜Must make sure he stays down a long time – then he’ll be so bad if he ever comes up that no one will ever recognize him.’
    â€˜What about his clobber – the coppers are clever these days,’ grunted Joe.
    â€˜Take it all off and dump it separate.’
    â€˜Them copper laboratories can tell anything these days,’ objected Joe – he had laboriously read an article in a recent Sunday newspaper