Silent as the Dead

by Scott Hunter

  O’Shea had raised both hands. ‘All right, all right, I hear you. It’s not the Hilton, but it’s safe. I can’t–’

  ‘Being safe isn’t going to get me very far,’ Moran broke in. ‘We do this together, or not at all.’

  O’Shea shook his head. ‘Don’t start, Brendan. You’re not in Berkshire now.’

  Moran was looking at Aine. ‘If Black can’t find you, he’ll try something different. Another way, another approach.’

  ‘Like what exactly?’ Aine’s arms were still folded. She was wearing an open-necked blouse which emphasised her cleavage, the more so by the supporting action of her posture. Moran noticed O’Shea’s eyes straying.

  The islander took a packet of gum from his jeans pocket and offered it to each in turn. Both declined; he carefully unwrapped a stick for himself. ‘Our policeman’s right, Aine. He’ll want to flush you out.’

  ‘Oh God. Padraig?’

  Moran shook his head. ‘He’ll start with the weakest. The target that’ll be sure of success. Padraig’s a big lad. Might be problematic. Donal’s on his guard. Who are you closest to?’

  ‘Well, Caitlin, but she’s–‘

  ‘He’ll not touch her,’ O’Shea broke in. ‘No way.’

  Moran was taken aback by the islander’s reaction. O’Shea’s hands were balled into fists and his mouth was twisted into a grimace of – what? Anger? Fear?

  Aine plonked herself on a faded armchair. A faint cloud of dust rose with the small impact of her behind on the cushions. Her fingers worked busily, twisting her wedding ring around her finger. Her face was drained of colour. ‘He wouldn’t. He can’t. Not Caitlin. I mean, she’s in England …’

  O’Shea, chewing vigorously on his gum, went to the window and checked the street. Moran noted that he did this without disturbing the curtain. Satisfied, the islander turned and faced the room again. He’d composed himself, but Moran could see that some weighty conclusion had been arrived at in the preceding few moments.

  ‘Aye, he might. You’d better believe it.’

  Moran frowned. ‘You’re saying he’ll send someone that far afield? The UK’s well out of his jurisdiction these days, surely?’

  O’Shea shook his head, swept a hand through his hair. ‘Not at all, Brendan. The UK’s bang in the centre of his thinking. Always was. He’ll have people there already.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  ‘Best get word to your daughter.’ Moran spoke to Aine gently. ‘Just in case.’

  ‘She’s in the process of moving. To Reading,’ Aine said, half to herself, her voice quavering. ‘London’s too expensive, and there’s Crossrail coming, you see. She’ll commute … let me think…she’s moving this weekend, or was it last weekend? Oh God, now I’m losing track of time…’

  ‘Well, Reading is my jurisdiction,’ Moran said. ‘I’ll get my DI to contact her. What’s her address? Mobile phone number, email. Whatever you’ve got.’

  ‘It’s a new apartment,’ Aine said. ‘She’s doing so well.’ A brief smile. ‘I’ve got the address somewhere. Hang on. It’s in my handbag.’ She made for the stairs.

  There was an uneasy silence as they listened to Aine bumping around in a bedroom. Eventually O’Shea shook his head. ‘You’d better get this right, Brendan.’

  ‘That sounds like a threat. We’re on the same side, remember? My DI can handle it. Trust me.’ Moran finished his coffee and grimaced. Cold dregs.

  O’Shea grunted. ‘I have a laptop, registered to a dummy name and address.’

  ‘Fine. So we could use social media.’

  ‘Traceable.’

  ‘But not easily. IP addresses take time. Wifi?’

  ‘Hacked into the local bar’s wifi. It’s down the street a wee bit. Signal’s pretty dodgy. Won’t give you long if he susses you, but maybe long enough.’

  ‘OK. We’ll have to risk it.’

  ‘Here.’ Aine came back into the room, her face flushed. She’d applied a little makeup and had a cardigan thrown over her blouse. She handed Moran a scrap of paper.

  ‘I’ll fetch the machine – and other stuff, while I’m about it.’ O’Shea went out. They heard the front door close, a key turn in the lock. Aine shot Moran a look.

  ‘Precaution,’ Moran said. ‘He’s not taking any chances.’

  ‘Joseph’s all right,’ Aine said. ‘I don’t know what I’d have done without him.’

  ‘Right. An angel compared to some of his friends.’

  ‘What’s that supposed to mean?’

  ‘Forget it,’ Moran said. ‘Let’s focus on Caitlin, get her into protective custody. We’ll worry about us later.’

  ‘Where is he?’ Aine paced the front room. She lit another cigarette, took a long drag and exhaled. Blue smoke filled the air and Moran coughed. He wanted to open the window, but O’Shea had been insistent that they opened neither windows nor curtains.

  ‘Hell, sorry. Bad habit, I know.’ She flicked the filter with her thumb, an automatic gesture Moran had grown used to in the preceding hours.

  Moran waved a dismissive hand. ‘Not a problem.’

  ‘What’s the time?’

  He glanced at his watch. ‘Just after eleven.’

  ‘Where is he, then?’

  Moran studied Aine. She was a few years his junior, five-two or three, still slim, quite attractive. They’d never hit it off, right from the word go. Nothing unpleasant had occurred between them; it was simply that they were different. The times they’d spent together had been as members of their social group with little one-to-one interaction. Donal quickly discovered he’d landed a girl with strong political views, which Aine hadn’t shied away from airing whenever the opportunity presented. The occasions when she and Moran had chatted, argued maybe – about life the world and everything – had been few and far between. Moran had been as good a listener then as he was now, and so he’d listened, maybe proposed the odd counter-argument, perhaps begged to differ on occasion, backed off when things got a little too heated.

  Aine’s background had been implied rather than fully known. Now, it seemed, there was more to her politics than anyone in the old group could have guessed at the time. Moran wanted to know more. He cleared his throat. ‘Probably nothing to worry about. He doesn’t strike me as the sort of guy who’d say one thing and do another.’

  ‘What if he’s run into trouble?’ Aine dragged on the cigarette. ‘What if they know where we are?’

  ‘Like I said, he’s probably just being cautious. That’s how he operates. At least that’s the way it seems to me.’

  ‘I have to call Caitlin. What if they’ve got to her already? … Oh hell.’ She stubbed the cigarette out in the already overflowing ashtray.

  ‘Ten minutes. Then I’ll go to the bar and make a call.’

  ‘All right. All right. Yes.’ She sat on the sofa, face pinched. ‘Thank you, Brendan.’ She felt in her pocket, took something out – a small photo booklet. ‘Here, look. This is Caitlin.’ Aine flicked through the clear plastic leaves, selected one, held it up.

  Moran examined the print. A pretty girl sitting in a restaurant, smiling. The red hair, the warmth in the eyes – the inherited Hannigan good looks, all in place. Moran smiled appreciatively. ‘She’s a beauty. You must be proud.’

  ‘I am. Very.’ Aine gave the photo a long look before closing the booklet and returning it to her pocket.

  ‘Tell me about Sean Black. You knew him pretty well, I’m guessing.’

  Aine compressed her lips. ‘Well enough, I suppose.’

  ‘You were involved in frontline stuff, back in the day?’

  ‘Hardly frontline.’ Aine smoothed her jeans with both hands. ‘I – I knew people who were, of course. I suppose I moved in those circles, a little. Then I met Sean. He was young then, just a boy really.’

  ‘As were we all,’ Moran murmured.

  ‘He … he had a compelling kind of personality. He was–’

  ‘Charismatic?’

  ‘Yes, that’s exactly right. C
harismatic. People would listen to him. Even as a young man, he had something about him. A passion. Or a vision, maybe.’ Aine examined her nails, first one hand then the other.

  ‘You were an item?’

  She looked up. ‘No. Maybe I’d have liked that. I don’t know. It’s a long time ago.’

  ‘But he hasn’t forgotten you. Why’s that, d’you think?’

  Aine’s brow furrowed. ‘Are you interrogating me, Brendan? Or telling me how unmemorable I am?’

  ‘No, no. I didn’t mean that. Listen, the more I know, the more I can help. You have to be one hundred percent honest with me, Aine. If you’re not, you’re putting more lives at risk.’

  ‘What do you mean, more? Who–?’

  ‘Jerry O’Donaghue was murdered.’

  ‘Jerry? Oh my God.’ Aine’s shoulder’s slumped. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Not sure, yet. Someone killed him, put him in my car. Wanted me to take the rap for it.’

  Aine’s head lowered. When she looked up, she said ‘It’s ten minutes now. Nearly.’

  Moran nodded. ‘OK. Stay put. Do not leave the house.’

  The bar was pretty typical. No frills, Formica top on the counter. Fluorescent lighting, Mary Black easing her silken voice through the speakers:

  Last night I dreamed you were back again. Larger than life again, holding me tight again…

  Placing those same kisses on my brow – sweeter than ever now, Lord I remember how…

  Black. No relation, Moran supposed; it was a common enough name …

  The song played on.

  …I wonder if I’m past the point of rescue…. Is no word from you at all the best that you can do ?…

  No word. He thought of Donal, waiting. Not knowing. Maybe he should call, tell him Aine was all right. No, he couldn’t risk it.

  ‘What’ll you be havin’?’

  ‘Half of Guinness, please.’

  The barmaid nodded. Her hair was scraped back into a tight bun. ‘Essex facelift, guv,’ one of his sergeants had once described the style. A deft flourish with the knife took the head off the Guinness, and he paid. ‘Thanks. D’you have a payphone on the premises?’

  ‘In the corner, by the fruit machine.’

  ‘Thanks.’

  He walked across the lino to the old-fashioned, Perspex-hooded booth. It had seen a bit of life, right enough. Four, maybe five taped repairs across the nicotine-stained plastic barely held the canopy in place. Moran picked up the handset – in a similar state of disrepair – and dialled the operator. Two minutes later he was speaking to DI Charlie Pepper.

  ‘Why is it I always get a bad feeling when you’re away and you call in?’

  Moran sighed. ‘I can’t imagine.’

  ‘Everything’s OK, guv. Honest. And I’m fine.’

  ‘It’s not you, Charlie. I know you’re fine. Listen up…’

  Moran outlined the situation, leaving out much of the detail regarding himself, the gardai and Jerry Donaghue’s murder; those events didn’t concern Charlie and the team. Instead he majored on Caitlin Hannigan, the potential threat to her life, and the possibility of a UK incident in the making.

  ‘I’ll get onto the chief, guv. He’ll have to sanction any action, of course.’

  ‘He will. And that’s fine. The Met will be on high alert as it is after Westminster, but whatever Black’s planning may wrong-foot them – it may not be London. And his MO is likely to be quite different.’

  ‘Got it.’

  ‘I’ll get back to you when I can. But don’t wait. Just get after that girl and keep a close eye.’

  ‘Will do, guv.’

  ‘Thanks, Charlie.’

  ‘Guv?’

  ‘Yep?’

  ‘Take care, won’t you?’

  ‘You know me.’

  ‘That’s why I said it.’

  ‘Right. Bye, Charlie.’

  ‘Bye.’

  Moran hung up. The smell of cooking was drifting into the bar from the kitchen, and he realised how hungry he was. He hadn’t eaten since the night before – a scrappy plate of fish and chips, courtesy of the two gardai. He ordered sandwiches, two rounds, one for himself and one for Aine, and kept an eye on the street through the narrow window. No sign of the four-by-four. For the first time, Moran considered the possibility that something had happened to O’Shea.

  The sandwiches came. He paid, left the bar, crossed the road and took the steps two at a time to the front door. Which was ajar.

  Moran stepped immediately to one side and the sandwiches hit the ground. With his left arm he eased the door open to the point where he could slip through the gap. A cigarette packet lay on the hall floor, just outside the living room door. Smoke still hung in the air. Moran shuffled along the internal wall and stole a careful glance into the living room. Empty. He went upstairs, came down, less cautious now. Downstairs toilet, kitchen. Nothing.

  An empty house.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  ‘George? You busy?’

  DC George McConnell looked up from his screen. ‘Always.’

  Charlie plonked herself on the end of George’s desk. ‘This is probably more urgent.’

  McConnell frowned. It was Friday. He’d told Charlie once that he hated Fridays – something to do with his Catholic upbringing when his convent junior school had forced the fish thing. His refusal to comply had drawn the attention of a particularly sadistic nun whose modus of encouragement had apparently been to beat the young George with a steel ruler. Charlie supposed that McConnell hated fish as well.

  George was a short, wiry Scot with a close-cropped ginger beard which no one was allowed to refer to as ‘ginger’. It was a banned word in McConnell’s vocabulary and countless new joiners and visitors had fallen foul of his acerbic wit through ignorance of this simple rule. George was a good copper, though. Forensically thorough in his investigations, he was one of Charlie’s ‘go to’ officers when an unscrambling of potentially conflicting facts, alibis or conundrums of one sort or another was needed, even despite his sometimes irritating tendency to over-summarise the current status of an investigation or finer point of detail. Her only real concern was George’s liking for a drink. But he was a Scot after all, so maybe that was just hard-wired, and maybe she shouldn’t worry about it too much.

  Maybe.

  She became aware that George was looking at her expectantly. ‘So,’ she said, before George had time to interrupt, ‘we have a young woman potentially under threat. I’ll fill you in with the details later, but can you pay a quick visit and go over McConnell’s patent security brief, chapter and verse?’

  ‘Righto. Where?’

  ‘Town centre, new apartment block. She’s in the process of moving in.’

  ‘Posh?’

  ‘Irish.’

  ‘Can’t be both, I suppose.’

  ‘Hey – my grandmother was Irish.’

  ‘Oops. Sorry.’ George McConnell grinned. ‘And our source?’

  ‘The guv.’

  ‘What? Really?’

  ‘I know, I know. He dishes out more work when he’s away than when he’s sitting in his office. But this sounds serious. Could be a potential terrorist threat in tandem.’

  ‘What? Not those IS bastards again.’

  ‘The clue’s in the nationality, George.’

  ‘Ah. Got it.’ George tapped the side of his nose. ‘But not the IRA surely?’

  ‘I don’t know any more than you right now.’ Charlie ran a hand through her spiky blonde cut. ‘But the guv’ll be back in touch soon, so he tells me.’

  ‘Can I take Brit?’

  ‘Tess might be better. Female empathy and all that?’ Charlie handed George the address Moran had provided. ‘And keep me posted.’

  ‘OK. Modern apartment’ll have good security, I’d’ve thought.’ George was on his feet, but Charlie still had a height advantage of two or more inches. ‘Video entry system and so on. All helps. They might have installed one of the new–’

  ‘A
ll right, all right, George. Spare me the Gadget Show highlights. Just make sure this young woman is extra vigilant, OK?’

  ‘D’you want Tess to stay with her?’

  ‘Let see how the land lies.’

  George nodded, an action that never failed to put Charlie in mind of a small terrier. ‘Righto,’ he said brightly. ‘You’re the boss.’

  ‘There you go.’ DC Tess Martin’s finger jabbed at a large building swathed in two enormous banners which read, ‘Luxury apartments for sale. One and two bed. Available now.’

  ‘All right for some, eh?’ George McConnell steered the car into the service road alongside the block and eased into a parking space.

  ‘The girl’s doing good if she can afford this, that’s for sure.’

  Several calls to Caitlin Hannigan’s mobile number had gone straight to voicemail. Her old apartment was empty. Her employers had apparently given her the week off. Ergo, George, reasoned, she must have moved – or be in the process of moving – into her new place.

  A motorbike exploded into life a few metres away and Tess flinched.

  ‘You OK?’ George shot her an anxious glance.

  ‘Yes. Stop taking my temperature, George, will you?’

  ‘Sorry.’ George raised both hands apologetically and killed the engine. It had been just over a year since Tess had been maliciously wounded in a revenge attack linked to the Ranandan drug cleanup op. The woman responsible, a young Chinese by the name of Sheu-fuh, was behind bars and likely to remain so for a good many years. The assassin’s MO, a custom motorbike, garrotte and knife, still made George shiver. They’d lost one colleague, strangled in his bed, and almost a second when Tess’ maisonette had been targeted. Tess’ attitude had been commendable from the start, but her determination to bounce back after her encounter with Sheu-fuh had transformed George’s admiration into something else altogether. He knew he was being overprotective, but what could he do? She was his partner in a potentially dangerous job. Which meant that he was obliged to lead her into dangerous situations. It went right against George McConnell’s grain. He bit his tongue and nodded.