by Iain Cameron
He descended the stairs in a slow staccato, one at a time, Harris’s gun in his outstretched hand ready to fire at the first sign of movement. Reaching the bottom, he realised he was in what looked like an old factory or warehouse, the main production area in front of him: a huge space punctuated with black, ornate Victorian cast-iron pillars. It all started to make sense, the rooms he’d seen upstairs being the various administration offices to whatever went on down here.
He crouched, his gun panning the large, empty space, his eyes searching for any movement. Finding no one, he threw open the front door. It took him a few seconds to realise they hadn’t taken him anywhere. He was still in Fashion Street.
Chapter 23
It was Monday, two days after Matt’s so-called meeting with Jack Harris. On Saturday night, he’d flopped into bed exhausted. It was only when he got up on Sunday morning he realised he now sported a selection of marks after his tussle with Harris and Pinky. Not only cuts and bruises, but bits of wood embedded in his face and hair, a result of Harris’s associate shredding the door frame with a sub-machine gun.
He’d long suspected Harris of being dirty, the odd backhander or a stash of dope to sell on his own account, but last night proved he was in bed with some serious characters. How else could he rustle up a couple of gunmen and try to take him out at an abandoned clothing factory?
It had to be drugs. Nothing else could deliver the amount of money he’d seen being transferred into Harris’s bank account, or driven him to take the risk of killing a cop who was investigating him. Now, a combination of the money, his sighting of Harris and Wood together, and his admission at being involved in killing Emma, who was investigating Wood, all pointed to Harris being in up to his neck. How deep he had gone, could be answered today when Matt went into the office that is, if Siki managed to crack a password-protected file found on Harris’s laptop.
Matt had spent most of Sunday in a meeting with Gill, Rosie, and the in-house shrink, pulling his story apart. The allegations he’d made were serious: he had been kidnapped by a senior Met police officer who had admitted involvement in the shooting of another Met officer, Emma Davies. In addition, Harris was involved with and knew the whereabouts of on-the-run drugs boss, Simon Wood.
He’d received a grilling, as the Fashion Street shoot-out, evidenced by the Met report, detailed bullet-riddled walls, a shredded door frame and Pinky’s bloody corpse. However, the carnage could have been explained in a number of different ways. For example, Matt might have killed Pinky because he had a grudge against him, or because a drug gang Matt was involved in thought he was trying to muscle in.
Mitigating against Matt’s version of events was the fact there were no witnesses to the incident. In addition, he was the only one who heard Jack Harris’s order to kill him, and his admission that someone called Lamar killed Emma before Harris helped to dispose of the body. This was an important point, as the HSA Director, Templeton Gill, had a stake in this. In addition to his role as head of the investigating agency, Emma was also his niece. His sister, a feisty-when-roused woman who Matt wouldn’t want to upset, was known to be haranguing Gill whenever they met for his failure to catch her daughter’s killers.
In the end, a photograph of the crime scene replete with chair and bindings on the floor sealed it, and Matt’s description of the incident was accepted. There had been no guarantee it would be, as he knew from his time in the Met officers often fabricated a false version of events to suit their own purposes. It might be to protect a source, or someone they were involved with, to cover up wrong-doing or incompetence or to implicate an unpopular colleague.
In accepting it, Gill also gave them the green light to bring Harris in, but unsurprisingly, the bird had flown. Detectives in his unit were, for the moment at least, unconcerned. Colleagues often disappeared for days at a time when working undercover to observe the activities of a drugs gang, or when planning big operations with other forces. These departures were not always publicised, even to their own teams, as leaks could be damaging and might endanger the lives of those involved.
Harris’s partner, Sally Russell, had no idea where he had gone either, but told them he’d gone back to the house they shared to pack a bag. The laptop from which Matt had downloaded the Caribbean bank data wasn’t in the list of equipment taken from the house by a team brought in by HSA to search the place.
Matt heard a car pull up. He looked out into Hamilton Road to see Rosie’s car. He grabbed his jacket, shut the door of his flat, and walked down the path towards her.
‘What’s happened to all the sunshine?’ she said by way of greeting as he got in the car. ‘I thought this was supposed to be summer.’
‘Good afternoon, Rosie. How are you?’
‘What’s good about it?’ she said, driving away.
‘Who’s been pulling your chain?’
‘Bloody Andrew, that’s who. Technical problem with the plane, he’s having to spend a few more days in Puerto Rico. Not only that, because he’s over there with nothing much to do, there’s a chance the airline might send him to Buenos Aires to relieve another crew.’
‘Good experience for a pilot, I would have thought.’
She gave him a feisty look. ‘They can stick their experience. He’ll miss my sister’s thirtieth.’
‘The hot-shot lawyer?’
‘Well remembered. This one is no expense spared. A boozy trip along the Thames followed by a catered banquet in a marquee in the back garden of their big house in Putney. I told him about it weeks ago.’
‘I don’t think I received my invite.’
‘You wanna come? There’s a seat going spare.’
‘I like your sister, but I couldn’t sit in an enclosed space like a boat with a bunch of over-paid lawyers. I’d sooner spend an afternoon with the shrink.’
‘I wouldn’t.’
They sat in silence for a few minutes as Rosie negotiated London traffic.
‘Now I’ve got that little rant out of my system, how are you feeling after your brush with that bastard Harris?’
‘I’ve got a few more lumps and bumps than I had yesterday, but I’ll live.’
‘You sure you’re okay? It’s not every day someone faces down a shooter while trussed up in a chair.’
‘I suppose if I sat down and mulled it over, it might affect me more. When everything happens so fast you don’t think about it.’
‘It’s unnerving when someone is so casual about killing.’
‘I take solace in thinking I’ll do the same to him when we meet up, but this time it will take a huge amount of resolve not to press the trigger.’
She looked over. ‘I would think twice, maybe three times, before doing something like that. Remember, he’s still a senior cop and we still don’t have any tangible evidence we can put in front of his bosses.’
‘We might not have any evidence at the moment, but I’m confident by the time we meet up with him again, we will.’
‘Change of subject. Siki told me he’s got a couple of hits on the job you set him.’
Matt had asked Siki to identify every reported illegal incident along the coasts of Counties Mayo, Galway and Clare. If Patrick Doherty had survived, and on this topic he was more positive than Rosie, he would have needed warm clothing and food. If his wallet was in his back pocket when he jumped from the ship, most likely he could still use his credit cards and dried out banknotes, but he’d know card machine transactions were being monitored.
With no legitimate place to turn, Matt believed he would have to steal whatever he needed. Matt had no idea if the coast around Westport was a hotbed of illegality or not. Would they be forced to wade through pages and pages of crime reports, or were the locals in that area as law-abiding as Swedes, reporting nothing more serious than teenagers cycling on pavements, or someone pinching turnips from their garden?
‘Like what?’ he asked.
‘The main one is a burgled house in Westport. The kitchen window had been broken, which s
ounds like any other burglary, or even a badly-thrown cricket ball, but the only thing taken from the house were some men’s clothes.’
‘When did this happen?’
‘Around the time we raided the fishing boat. The house had been empty for a week, but a neighbour checks it every Wednesday. So, any time from Thursday to Sunday, and Doherty as we know, jumped ship on the Saturday night.’
‘What sort of clothes were missing?’
‘Men’s. One complete outfit, no more.’
‘Seals it for me.’
‘I think I’m coming around to your line of thinking.’
‘Anything else?’
‘I don’t suppose we should be interested in the theft of a jumper from a shop or a smashed car window.’
‘Was the car stolen?’
‘No.’
‘Then no.’
‘The disappearance of a boat also caught my eye.’
‘A boat? What sort of boat?’
‘Wooden rowing boat with an engine.’
‘Fuel?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Where did it disappear from?’
‘I don’t know what you call it, a boat park, close to a place called Doolin Pier. You know it, Doolin?’
He shook his head. ‘If there were other boats around it wouldn’t matter if the missing boat had fuel or not. He owns a chain of garages, he could start any engine in his sleep. Hang on a sec, I do remember Doolin. It’s the place where Doherty’s grandfather used to have his shop.’
‘Hold that thought. We’re here.’
The Grenville Bar and Grill in Crouch End looked a rough place on the outside, but was pleasant and welcoming on the inside. They were shown to their table, where Tracey Darwin was waiting. They introduced themselves and sat down.
Tracey was aged around forty-five, with shoulder-length blonde hair, blue eyes behind trendy glasses, and with a nose that looked too large for her face. Over-white teeth glistened when she talked, and the jewellery on her wrists rattled when she moved her arms.
They traded pleasantries for a few minutes before ordering drinks. When the waitress disappeared, Rosie asked, ‘Have you heard from Jack recently?’
‘No, and I don’t expect to. I don’t often hear from him from one month to the next. Although I can’t complain. He always pops money for the kids into my bank account as regular as clockwork.’
Matt would have liked to ask her the amount, as judging by her expensive clothes, not all of it was spent on the kids.
‘Does he own a holiday place?’ Matt asked. ‘Or is there a relative or friend he stays with now and again?’
‘He’s from a big family, but he doesn’t get on with most of them,’ she said, flashing those big pearly whites in a hearty laugh. ‘Neither did I when we were together.’
The drinks arrived and the conversation stopped until the waitress walked off.
‘Why is it you people want to find him?’ Tracey asked.
‘As I said on the phone,’ Rosie said, ‘we’re working on a big investigation and we need his input. His office doesn’t know where his, but they’re not concerned as he often goes away like this. We thought you, as his ex, might know the places he liked to go when he’d not working.’
The waitress returned, this time armed with a pad, and they ordered lunch. Matt found it hard to find anything that didn’t come with chips; eating stodgy food at lunchtime would find him snoozing in the car on the way back. Instead, he decided to have a chicken wrap which came with potato crisps which he didn’t like and wouldn’t be tempted to eat.
They’d met Jack Harris’s ex in this place as she didn’t drink, so there was no point meeting in a pub. She also didn’t drink tea or coffee, so likewise, coffee shops were out.
‘Where did you go on holiday when you were married?’
‘Anywhere except the UK. Jack couldn’t abide going back to places like Cornwall where he went when he was a kid, or to the Lake District where my family owned a chalet. He hated the weather and the emptiness, he used to say. We always went to Spain.’
‘Anywhere in particular?’
‘At the start, when we had no money, we went to the same apartment complex several times, and after a few years to a decent hotel closer to the sea. About three years before we split, we started going to a swanky hotel on the seafront. We went there every year until we separated. He always said if he ever bought a house abroad it would be in Estepona.’
Chapter 24
His slow reeling of the spinner came to an abrupt halt. There was something on the line. He gave the rod a tug and rapidly turned the handle on the reel to take up the slack. The fish didn’t give too much resistance, perhaps because it was swimming towards him, if so, he expected a fight nearer the rocks. He was about to stand and give this one his full attention, when the line went slack. No bloody wonder, he discovered when he reeled the line in, the bugger had taken the bait off the hook.
He was cold and wet and was tempted to give up, but he liked fresh fish and decided to make a couple more casts. He re-baited the spinner, stood on the rocks, and cast the line. The spinner and bait plunged into the heaving ocean some fifty metres away from the little outcrop where he was standing, the spot where it entered the ocean no longer visible after about a second.
As a lad, Patrick Doherty had always been a keen fisherman, often going out on boats and coming back with half a dozen mackerel and the odd cod or grey mullet. A lot of the old hands on fishing forums said their living had been ruined by Spanish trawlers with their long nets, capable of scooping up everything in the ship’s path. Their method was indiscriminate. The haul would include species they wanted and many they didn’t, and those in the latter group were thrown back into the water, dead.
He could sympathise with the fishermen’s point of view; he’d been out on the same rocks three or four times since coming here and never went back to the cottage with more than three fish. It was important to him, he liked fish and it would provide fresh nutrition as all the other stuff he’d stockpiled at the cottage came out of packets, tins, or from the freezer.
At home in Belfast, he wasn’t the type to order in a takeaway or buy ready-made meals from a supermarket any time his wife was away. He liked to cook. He didn’t do it with any sort of aplomb, but knew how to make a range of straightforward but tasty dishes time after time. He was a practical man and gained much satisfaction from turning a pan of raw ingredients into something palatable.
In a similar way, he used to watch his father fixing cars, and with the skills he’d learned did the same when he took over the business on his untimely death. This skill was noticed by his commanders in the IRA, and they assigned him the job of repairing and testing weapons. He loved his time in the IRA, but hated what they’d ended up with. The island of Ireland got the peace that everyone said they wanted, putting a stop to midnight arrests and internment without trial, but at what price?
Back in the day, he would be involved in discussions upstairs with many of the movement’s top brass at the back of a pub or shebeen. When they’d finished discussing operations and their continued success or otherwise, conversation inevitably returned to what everyone would be doing when the whole of Ireland was united. To a man, as they were all men, their devotion to the cause was unwavering, but they were blinded by the provisions contained in the Good Friday Agreement. To him and his comrades in the IRM, the war would never stop until all their demands were met.
His ruminations came to a halt when he felt a fierce tug on the line. His rod was bending way more than it would for a one-pound mackerel or the one that got away a few minutes before. He reeled in for a couple of turns, let the line go using the brake for a further few seconds before repeating the process. The reeling was getting a little easier but no way could he wind it in faster without snapping the line or testing the durability of the rod. The line was good for about thirty pounds, but if the fish dragged it behind a rock or some other underwater obstruction, it would snap like twi
ne.
Fifteen minutes of reeling and allowing the fish run had all but exhausted him and the fish, as the pressure on the line had eased, and his rod wasn’t bending as much as it had. He kept the line taut as he stepped down the rocks towards the sea, net in his hand. He had to be careful not to slip and break something, as despite having a phone in his pocket, around here it wasn’t receiving any signal. Also, as a wanted man, no way could he hobble the half-mile or so to the nearest settlement and ask for assistance.
He stood on a rock beside the sea, the water surging around his waders. He reeled in the line until he saw a silver glint in the water. He locked the line to stop it spooling out, and pulled the rod towards him, easing the fish close, taking the weight on the rod. With his other hand, he leaned over and passed the net under the fish’s body. In a deft movement, he lifted the net out of the water and was amazed to see a sizeable cod, four or five pounds at least.
The other fish in today’s catch looked miniscule in comparison, and if he’d been using a keep net, he would have let them go. Instead, he picked up all the fish, his tackle, rod and bait, and headed back to the cottage.
He referred to his house on Inishmore as a cottage, but it was far from the Cotswolds idyll with ivy and wild roses growing over a gleaming white stonework. The Atlantic was a hard taskmaster, especially in spring and winter, so the once-white roughcast had morphed into light grey, and the sloping roof from ochre to a soft brown. The windows were smaller than could be found in most modern houses, but to compensate an electrician had equipped every room with plenty of lights.
He’d bought the cottage in the days when he was a respected businessman, lauded by some for his entrepreneurial spirit. Back then, he still had his eye on the long term, mindful his plans could go awry. He’d eschewed any contact with the neighbours, not difficult to do as they were so far away, and this part of the island didn’t attract tours or hikers. Those who strayed too close were warned by signs proclaiming: Private Property – Keep Off.
