Oak and Stone

by Dave Duggan

  ONE

  ‘You know the story, Slevin. You have the skills. A bullet in the back of the head? You have relevant experience. Contacts from the old days. Ask around,’ he said.

  I had a sense, from the moment my boss told me to review the Todd Anderson murder, that it would take me into corners of my life I had been trying to avoid.

  In this game, finding the questions is easy. You just make a list. Who is he? Why is he wearing a club scarf? How many people are involved? Why dump him on the penalty spot, at the country end of the pitch? No shortage of questions. The questions are fine. It’s easy to find the questions. Finding the right people to ask is the hard part. I went back to the start. To Denis Green, the Club Chairman. I asked him why their star centre forward was found lying face down on the penalty spot, at the country end goal, with a bullet through his head, so that the penalty spot glowed red and the body lay sprawled as in some last ditch appeal to the referee.

  ‘He was a good kid. Two great feet. Fearless. Easy to deal with. I thought we’d get another season out of him – at least – before some of the big boys came looking for him. That won’t happen now,’ Denis Green said.

  We were in his accountant’s office. Traffic hummed up and down outside, on Clarendon Street. There were strips of blue sky visible through his window blinds. Bars of light lay across the files and papers strewn across the glass and steel desk Green was anchored behind. A telly, on mute, showed football in the corner. The World Cup was underway.

  ‘You think Belgium will beat them?’ I asked.

  ‘Naw. They got a jammy goal just before half time, but I think the Senegalese will claw them back. Did you ever figure out what those marks were on his neck?’ Denis asked.

  I was surprised he knew about them. A curious set of faint weals and bruises in a regular pattern that were only fully visible when you lifted the club scarf clear of the victim’s neck. They baffled the first responders. Crime scene officers made notes and took photos. It didn’t take Karen Lavery long to identify them, when she got the body back to her lab. She phoned me straight away.

  ‘You still got money on North Korea?’

  ‘I fancy them, yeh. I think they’ll at least make the semi-finals.’

  ‘Detectives must be on a fair whack these days if you can afford to throw money away like that. It’s got to be the Germans.’

  ‘That’s just the scientist in you. What have you got?’

  ‘Dreamtime.’

  ‘Yeh?’

  ‘Just released. “Revolutionary new stud system and layout”. Titanium mixed into a polymer of some kind. Strength and flexibility. Only available on the Dreamtime boot.’

  ‘Somebody stood on his neck.’

  ‘Somebody wearing a Dreamtime boot.’

  ‘And then they shot him?’

  ‘No, he was shot before that. Maybe even somewhere else. And then brought to the pitch.’

  ‘Why do that?’

  ‘Well, it was a penalty. Anyway, you’re the wealthy detective. All you have to do now is find a killer that fits the Dreamtime boot. You get to play Prince Charming.’

  ‘Bet you a fiver Germany don’t make the last four.’

  ‘You’re on. The full report will take a couple of days.’

  Denis Green knew about the marks on the victim’s neck.

  ‘They’re still working on them. I haven’t seen the report yet,’ I told him.

  I wondered if Denis had a sneak preview. Did he know Karen Lavery, our forensics officer? Were they related?

  ‘There’s still no clue, no hints. You haven’t heard anything around the club?’

  ‘Not a sausage.’

  He glanced at the telly.

  ‘Senegal are going for the win. No one saw anything. No one heard anything. Nobody was there. The ground staff were inside drinking tea and watching the opening ceremony.’

  Denis Green thinks everybody is as crazy about football as he is.

  ‘Todd Anderson was liked. Admired, even. Some people may have been jealous of him, his looks and his talent, but nothing heavy. Nobody has a clue, and I mean nobody has a clue, why someone would put a bullet in his head.’

  Todd Anderson. 1.85 metres, 85 kilos. Blond hair, kept short. Clean shaven. Bit his nails, but not badly. Large scar down his left shin where an overly enthusiastic centre-half had tried to cripple him. All of this in Karen Lavery’s preliminary notes, sent by email. But he came back from that. Wore the splints. Did the exercises. And this season, he was back to his best. Some people said he was better than ever. Hungrier.

  I thanked Denis and said I’d be in touch if anything developed.

  ‘When will his body be released to his family?’

  ‘Couple of days now. Forensics are almost sorted. Autopsy nearly done.’

  I assured him we would do all in our power to find the killer. He nodded and chanced a smile.

  ‘And while you’re at it, see if you can find us another centre forward.’

  A crowd bellowed mutely on the telly. A Senegalese player lay spread-eagled in the box. Two Belgians stood over him, waving their hands about. The referee pointed to the penalty spot.

  ‘The beginning of the end for little Belgium,’ said Denis.

  We watched the penalty. The timid round of protests from the Belgians ended in the Senegalese centre-forward getting up, righting his stockings and shin pads, then dusting down his shorts before lashing the ball low to the keeper’s right. Goal.

  I left his office with questions about Denis Green’s inside track on the investigation, but no real information on the killing of Todd Anderson and what anyone might have seen.

  I went straight back to the office from Denis Green’s. The detective building is in a new annexe to the old barracks on Strand Road. The two buildings sit side by side like grumpy relatives. The old one huffs, as it remembers the recent conflict and prides itself on the wounds it bears. The new one preens itself in the sun, glinting high windows and open spaces at all and sundry, proclaiming ‘let’s hear it, one more time, here’s me, the new face of policing’. Neither building fools anybody. Sure, big moves have been made. Sure, another revised service is in place and the politicians have signed up to it. Again. But, no matter how you bill it, it’s what it always was. The Cops.

  And then there’s me. I’m in a room at the bottom of a long corridor covered in a layer of fawn, hessian carpet that claws at your feet as you walk over it. Just off that room, there’s a shared facilities space with office equipment and a pool of clerks. I went there and took a cup of water from the dispenser. I glanced across at the TVs on the wall. 24 hour news channel, national and international, and the football. The score came up. Senegal 3 Belgium 1. Game over.

  My desk is often cluttered and I don’t usually care. The undertow of paperwork is a stream I can float through resolutely. But today, the sight of unfinished reports, a stack of claim forms, a clump of crime figure analysis data and two Styrofoam cups of cold coffee weakened me briefly. The paperless office missed policing too.

  I sat down and pulled the unfinished reports to me. Three more in hand. The new regime meant even more paperwork. Everyone was watching his or her back. And everyone was watching new intake, like me. I was fast-tracked. I had degrees from prison, where I was a ‘political’. I got out just as all the politicos were signing up to the current new deal for policing. I felt that I should give it a go. I did the training and became a detective in a flash. Picture in the paper. The new face of policing. A new dawn in a post-conflict society. The tide of change surged on, with some pushing and some pulling. Some days it was hard being a trailblazer.

  I pick
ed up the two Styrofoam cups and took them to the corner where I sluiced them down the sink, dumped the cups in the bin and prepared to take a fresh cup, when Hammy shouted at me.

  ‘How’s the crime buster today, then?’

  Omar Hamilton – Hammy to the world of policing – was my boss. A lapsed Muslim Presbyterian, there wasn’t a fundamentalist bone in his body. He told me that his father had fallen madly in love with his mother and had married the street trader’s daughter, against the fervent wishes of his family. He got ‘Omar’ from her side of the house. But he was Hamilton through and through. And Hammy to all of us. Some wag said his skin colour was just a darker shade of orange. But he was always straight with me.

  ‘I’m wondering if we’ll ever catch the killer who murdered this coffee machine,’ I said.

  ‘Form’s good anyway. Anything on the footballer then?’

  ‘I interviewed Denis Green again. Like you told me.’

  ‘An obvious and good place to start. And you remain compliant. Good. I asked Forensics to e-mail their report to you too. Hard copy coming up later. Are you having a coffee or are you just communing with the dead?’

  We both looked at the machine and decided against it.

  I went back to my desk and booted up my laptop. While it was humming and chirruping to itself, I checked my voice mail. Karen had phoned from Crime Scene Forensics, confirming Hammy’s news and adding that Bechtimme, the German striker, had come through a fitness test and was expected to feature in all their up-coming games. I went to the next message. It was a male voice I didn’t recognise.

  ‘This message is for Detective Slevin. If you want to talk about Todd Anderson and I don’t mean just about his heading prowess, which is nil at present, then I’ll be in Fiorentini’s at two o’clock.’

  I was never good at responding to orders. My psychological profile in the Police Training College had that underlined in red. ‘Sometimes has a problem with authority’. But Hammy had me reviewing the Anderson case and if I wanted a decent cup of coffee Fiorentini’s was a better bet than the encrusted machine in the corner.

  I walked into the café at ten minutes past two. Allowing for the local habit of reading timed appointments fairly liberally, I was on time. Gino Fiorentini was behind the counter, polishing the inside of one of the ice-cream drums.

  ‘Belgium pulled one back, but Senegal held on,’ he said.

  ‘I fancy them to go all the way.’

  Gino didn’t even bother to answer that. His money was on the Azurri and it didn’t matter that the Italians weren’t half the team they used to be, as far as Gino was concerned, they were the only team in it.

  ‘There’s a fella over there was asking for you.’

  ‘Which fella?’

  I followed Gino’s nod to where a man sat on his own, behind a newspaper. A group of students from the nearby Technical College gathered their bags and swarmed out of their seats and, in the hustle, the man lowered his paper and shuffled in his seat to let people pass, so I got a look at him.

  ‘You know who he is, Gino? ‘Cos I don’t.’

  ‘Heh, who’s the detective here? You find out.’

  ‘Right. I’ll have a cappuccino and a gravy ring.’

  ‘I’m delighted to see you’ve knocked the diet on the head. I’ll bring it over.’

  I left the counter and walked towards the man. I sat at a table just vacated by students and looked at the back page of the newspaper. A young girl cleared and wiped the table and when she left I said,

  ‘Should be no bother to France. They’ll hammer England.’

  The man kept the paper in front of his face but said,

  ‘Don’t bet on it. Larton’s back and he’s on fire.’

  He was English. The sentiment and the accent concurred with what I picked up on the voice-mail. He lowered the paper, which confirmed my judgement. The Daily Telegraph.

  ‘I hope you’re a better detective than you are a football pundit, Slevin.’

  I smiled and waited. He waited too, but I had the advantage of twelve years of prison time behind me – I am used to waiting – and he gave up first. He folded the newspaper and crossed to a seat opposite me. At just that moment, Gino brought my cappuccino and gravy ring and stood beside us. No one spoke. I looked at Gino and, then, in my most polite tones, I said,

  ‘Thanks for the personal service, Gino. I’m delighted you took the time.’

  Gino grinned at me and I felt I owed him something so I said to the man,

  ‘You want anything Mr … er …’

  He just shook his head and I turned to Gino saying,

  ‘Thanks, Gino. I’ll square up on the way out.’

  Gino grinned once more and left.

  The man re-folded his Daily Telegraph and pressed the edges firmly together as he placed it in front of him. Then he reached behind him and lifted his half-filled cup of tea, taking a sip on the way. Finally, he put his hand inside his overcoat, unseasonably encumbering him on that fine June day, and pulled out a business card. He was setting out his terms for the meeting. When he pushed the card towards me, I took a hearty glug of my cappuccino, one I knew would leave a foamy moustache across my upper lip. I followed that with a mouthful of sticky, doughy gravy ring, the local doughnut. The foam moustache and the sprinkle of sugar down my front, topped off by my studiously empty eyes, completed my opening gambit.

  ‘I understand you’re working on the Anderson murder,’ he began.

  I chewed on.

  ‘I have an interest in the case. A professional one. I could help. With background, at the very least,’ he continued.

  I placed him in Manchester or somewhere in the north-west of England. Not Liverpool. Not enough Mersey sea shanty in his accent. It was industrially dry, blowing like a great ventilating fan down a long shaft, almost whispering by the end of each sentence. I took another draft of my cappuccino, relishing the bitter warmth of it.

  ‘A man murdered, is it? Henderson?’

  ‘For God’s sake, Slevin, give over the thick Paddy routine. Anderson. Todd Anderson. Footballer. Dead meat. Bullet in the back of the head.’

  ‘If you have any suspicions or any information on a crime you think has been committed, the police would be keen to have it. You know the Confidential Help-line and all that?’

  ‘You’re the Help-Line, Slevin. For what it’s worth, you’re the police.’

  ‘So. And how might I help you Mr … Dalzell. William. Discretion guaranteed.’

  I read his business card upside down.

  ‘You’ve been told to go over the file again. I know the case is less than a week old, but the good old higher-ups have put you on it. Special talents. They want this one turned around quickly. So do I. ‘Course I do. So’s I can get back home.’

  ‘Manchester, is it? I was never in it. They say it’s a cracker place. Like London, only wetter. Or is that Liverpool? Any roads, you’re across the Irish Sea and a good way off home ground. Even with the guarantee of your discretion, I’m not sure how I can help you.’

  ‘We can ….’

  ‘Hold on, Mr. Dalzell. A call of nature.’

  I got up and walked to the end of the café, winking at Francesca, behind the till. She joined me at the top of the steps leading to the fish and chips area, out of sight of Dalzell. I handed her my phone and continued to the toilet, mouthing and gesturing, ‘Photos. Him.’

  Inside, I checked myself in the mirror. The sugar speckling was more widespread than I’d intended. The foam moustache had faded. I licked the final grey spume from the corners of my mouth. Then I did some practice grimacing, finishing with a final grin above a puffed-out chest.

  ‘Jeepers, Slevin. You’re a terror. You’ll have to grow up.’

  I had a slash, almost as an afterthought, shook the venerable member dry and mused that, apart from this, he’d not seen fro
nt-line action recently, tidied myself up and moved to the sink. The cold tap gave a gentle squeak as it turned, though that was drowned out by the laughter from a group of young voices in the café, loud enough to compete with the wind-rush from the hand-dryer.

  I didn’t need to but I arrived back at my table rubbing my palms down the sides of my suede jacket. A junior staff member sashayed past me with a tray laden with dishes and delft. Dalzells’ leftovers: a bowl of tomato soup; an abandoned crust of toast. A frugal man, careful with his expenses.

  I sat in front of him again and picked up my cappuccino.

  ‘Good man for not letting the young wan away with me lunch. You sure you don’t want anything else? A wee ice-cream? Might be the one good day we get this summer.’

  He looked at me as if my face had turned inside out. His eyes sank deeper into his skull as the creases on his forehead lined up more tightly and jostled one above another to see which could be the most prominent.

  ‘I was a cop for over twenty years and I met some clowns in my day. Both inside and outside the force, but Slevin, boyo, you’re the tops.’

  ‘You were a policeman? Handy aul’ pension now, is it? Bit of an interest, coming over here? Or a holiday, maybe?’

  Then I leaned towards him, letting him have a close look at the spittled edges of my sugar-dusted lips.

  ‘Or is it prising money out of a mother’s despairing hands you are, leadin’ her on with your promise of complete discretion in the search for her son’s killer, no matter what it takes. A fella Henderson, you said?’

  I have to admire the way he kept his cool and simply stood up. I noted he was taller than I expected, with shoulders broad enough to block a door-way. He pulled his overcoat about him and ran his hand through his hair. He had plenty of it, in firm, russet waves, as regular as a barley field in an autumn breeze.

  ‘Well, I tried. Can’t say fairer than that. Here, I’ll leave you the paper. You can finish your coffee and your … lunch.’

  ‘The Daily Telegraph? A bit too rich for me.’

  ‘I thought you’d be smarter, Slevin. And I don’t mean the Thick Paddy Minstrel show. I thought you’d know more, given who you are and what you did. You above all people should know that you need to know what your enemy is thinking.’