Oak and Stone

by Dave Duggan

  Internal Security are at Detective Sergeant level or above, though they’re routinely referred to as Officers. It is best to assume they’re on higher pay grade than yourself.

  ‘I sent you three messages. That’s the limit. After that, I call the boss. Isn’t that right, DI Hamilton?’

  ‘Oh, yes. Perfectly in order. Slevin, cooperate here. Cossie’s not the worst of them. Me and him tramped the beat together, so at least he knows what that’s like.’

  Right on cue the message tone on my phone sounded and I reached into my jacket pocket.

  ‘Excuse me. Police work.’

  It was Hetherington’s Tip Line Top Five. Every morning there’s a survey of tips coming in on phone lines, social media, emails, messenger services, tweets and even the occasional letter. Detectives can search the survey for tips on cases they’re working on. I scanned what Hetherington had sent me. As he’d said, nothing.

  ‘Just following up some tips. It’s the usual jigsaw in cases like this, but we’re getting some of the pieces to fit.’

  ‘You can tell DI Hamilton all your good news later. For now, another simple question. Why are you talking to Dessie Crossan?’

  ‘Dessie Crossan?’

  Cosgrove pulled a small notebook from his inside pocket, flipped and scanned some pages, then said,

  ‘Twice you’ve been with him in the past while. It’s a case of re-connecting with old mates, old comrades, is it?’

  ‘Oh, that Dessie Crossan. As I told you, DI Hamilton has me focusing on the Todd Anderson murder. Top priority. He told the CC he particularly wanted me on the case. She seemed pleased.’

  ‘I’ve seen the photo, Slevin. On her office wall, alongside her golfing shots and other trophies. You both look well. The CC has a grip on your arm, which is the first move towards a choke hold. I took it she was trying to arrest you. Dessie Crossan, then?’

  If I thought I could jump him by mentioning the Chief Constable, I was wrong. He simply trumped me by letting me know he was in her office. And by letting me know that whatever her intentions were in that regard, he wouldn’t mind getting me in a choke hold and arresting me.

  ‘Dessie Crossan is a source. One of many. I interviewed him in the course of my police work.’

  Tell me who killed him.

  Who?

  Come on.

  Roger Rabbit?

  An aul’ one, eh? Good film. I like Bob Hoskins.

  Never in a bad film. Dead now.

  This isn’t a film. One shot. In the back of the head.

  Professional hit man? Mafia job?

  Pack it in.

  You still haven’t told me who got killed.

  You know.

  Lots of people got killed.

  Todd Anderson.

  English, was he?

  Yes.

  Lots of English men killed in Ireland. Hardly surprising.

  Lots of them not killed here too.

  Yeh. When they went home. Maybe he shot himself?

  In the back of the head?

  It’s been done before. English man, you said.

  Yeh.

  Lots of suicides in barracks.

  Anderson wasn’t a soldier.

  He was over here.

  And that’s enough reason to shoot him in the back of the head?

  People have been shot for less. Irish people. What was he? A do-gooder?

  A footballer.

  Ah. Can’t have been much good if they shot him. You investigating this?

  Among other things.

  Such as?

  You’re telling me you know nothing about Anderson’s death?

  I coach the under tens. Gaelic Football. You were a handy corner-forward in your day. That’s the height of my interest in any kind of football.

  Cosgrove would not let go.

  ‘I don’t need to remind you that Dessie Crossan is one of a number of people on your “don’t go there” list. People, former associates we call them, that you’re not to see without your superior’s knowledge and express permission.’

  My superior officer, DI Omar Hamilton, was finally satisfied with the dusting job on his tie and turned his full attention to the meeting. He infused his comments with the perfect blend of indignation, disapproval and chastisement.

  ‘When Officer Cosgrove told me of these meetings, Slevin, I was shocked, I have to say. No, not shocked. Nothing shocks me in this job. But I was dismayed. You should have come to me, Slevin. You know I went out on a limb bringing you here. Other voices said you should have been deployed elsewhere. Up the country somewhere. But I said your unique talents and well, your rather unique background, could be most beneficially put to use here, in your home city. Perhaps you’re not ready for that yet. Perhaps you would be better off in Belfast. Or Armagh.’

  If that was a threat, I soon realised it was directed at Cosgrove, not at me, who wouldn’t want me where it might be harder to keep on eye on me.

  ‘I don’t think we need to consider such a move, Hammy,’ said Cosgrove. ‘Not just yet. But DS Slevin needs to realise that his special experiences and contacts need to be used in the service of policing and not in the cause of subversion. Dessie Crossan is known to be actively fermenting dissent and he’s exactly the sort of senior militant …

  ‘He served his sentence,’ I interjected.

  ‘... around which disaffected young fellas would gather. And so are you, DS Slevin.’

  ‘I’m a detective in Police Service North, Officer Cosgrove. The only thing disaffected young fellas want to do with me is kick the tripe out of me. Sir. I met Mr. Crossan as part of my investigations into the murder of Todd Anderson.’

  ‘You could have sent another detective, Slevin. Hetherington perhaps.’

  ‘Wouldn’t get in the door.’

  ‘Do you think paramilitaries killed Anderson?’ Hammy asked.

  ‘Too early to say yes or no to that. No clear motive at this stage.’

  ‘But you wouldn’t rule it out,’ Hammy persisted.

  ‘It’s all up in the air, sir. If you’d like a full update now, I can get my no …’

  I began to get out of my chair. Cosgrove snapped at me.

  ‘Sit down, Slevin. Remember why you are here.’

  ‘Because I didn’t return your call and you’re hurt.’

  ‘Eddie!’ Hammy snapped.

  ‘Because you’ve been meeting with someone you’re not supposed to meet with and not telling anybody.’

  ‘There’s nothing to tell. When there’s something to tell, I’ll update my superior officer immediately.’

  ‘So you intend to meet Dessie Crossan again?’

  ‘I can’t say, but now that my superior officer is aware of my contact with him, I will inform him of any future interviews I may have with him’.

  ‘And you’ll inform me. Because, given the transgression in this current instance, it will be better for you in the future if I’m kept informed. In fact, you can do the service a favour – and help yourself, Detective Slevin – if, next time you speak to him, you do so with a recording device.’

  ‘A button? You want to fit me with a button?’

  ‘Yes. The techies would love to fit a nice button on that fine suede jacket there. Or on your shirt cuff, if you preferred. They’re tiny nowadays and offer greater range. They’d pick you up no matter when or where you and your associate – your former associate - held your reunions.’

  ‘Dessie Crossan is a source. I have many sources. The service has often found it useful to have someone with such sources. Fitting me with a recorder, no matter how tiny the button is, is a sure-fire way of shutting him up. Is that what you want?’

  Officer Cosgrove stood up, shook himself loosely into the jacket of his three piece suit and pressed his palms onto Hammy’s de
sk. He leaned over me, as an adult giraffe leans over its young to bite fleas off its back.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I want. I want to know what you and Dessie Crossan are concocting. I want to know that you’re not supplying him with juicy titbits of confidential police business. What I don’t want is boys like you jumping the wall with a chestful of nuggets for the bastards outside.’

  ‘Ah. I should have known. From the fetid smell I got when I came in...’

  ‘Slevin, watch your mouth,’ Hammy interjected, but I drove on.

  ‘… you’re old school. One of the boyos who thought it was all about apples in a barrel and as long as the apples were the same and the barrel stayed round and fat everything was grand. But you couldn’t have an ex-con about you, even though you know that the barrel of apples was rotten and that it needed turned upside down and readied for a whole new harvest.’

  He was quicker than I expected and had me out of my chair with vice-grip hands on my lapels before I could react. Hammy put an arm on his shoulder.

  ‘Cossie! Put him down. Don’t let him rile you.’

  I guessed Cosgrove had balsamic vinegar on a salad for lunch, as his breadth billowed across my face. Small speckles of froth creased his clenched lips and his eyes sparkled like glass shards.

  ‘You’re right, Slevin. I never trusted the scheme that brought fellas like you, and the likes of you, in. I’d have let ye all rot away in prison. No coming back. But this goes on your record and stays there. You met with a man, a known, unrepentant ex-con, like yourself …’

  ‘Cossie, for God’s sake!’

  ‘… and if you don’t record the next time you speak to him, I’ll grab your heels and I’ll pull you in front of a panel so fast you’ll think your arse was coming out your mouth.’

  ‘Put me down, sir. Or your techies will have to replace all the buttons on this jacket.’

  The glass shards in his eyes dulled. He licked the froth speckles from the corner of his mouth and released his grip on my lapels, opening his arms into a wide gesture of harmlessness.

  I sat down again, making a show of checking my lapels and jacket for tears. Hammy had had enough. He grabbed the back of his chair pulled it square and centre behind his desk. Then he sat and framed his face with both forearms, his elbows firmly rooted to the shiny maple-effect surface.

  ‘Slevin, a note has been made by IS in your file. I have been informed. You know what to do in the future. All further contact with Dessie Crossan or others on your proscribed list …’

  ‘… only if you wear a button,’ finished Cosgrove, pointing a finger at me.

  I began to get out of my chair once more, but Hammy continued.

  ‘Sit down. We’re not finished here, you and me. Cossie, let’s wrap up your business here, with an assurance that I will secure full compliance from Slevin in this matter from now on.’

  I didn’t get up as my superior led Cosgrove out of the office. When they had closed the door behind them, I went to the window once more. A buzzard flew above the oak trees in the park on the opposite bank of the river and, in a gap between the Technical College buildings, I could see water glistening like a simmering syrup in the sunlight. I was smiling when I turned to face Hammy, as he re-entered the room. My boss was laughing.

  ‘Jesus, Slevin, what kind of circus do you think this is? All that stuff about apples, barrels and cores. I thought I was in a fruit market. You don’t want to upset Cossie too much. In the grand scheme of things, he might be one of the good guys, though who am I to judge that? I’ve got you out there, all eyes and ears, and Cossie thinks you’re leaking the lot to the bold boys, your old mates.’

  ‘And what do you think?’

  ‘I think you should avoid Dessie Crossan for a while. IS are obviously watching you. Or someone is. You haven’t been using your phone to message Crossan have you? Or calling him or anything?’

  I let that go. He knew the answer.

  ‘Okay. Don’t go near him unless you’ve got something solid that links him or his acolytes to the Todd Anderson murder. And when you do, come to me and we’ll figure something out. Pull him in on some pretext. Get you in the room as the good cop, so he thinks you’ll get him out. We’ll figure something.’

  ‘He won’t fall for that, sir.’

  ‘Don’t tell me my job, Slevin. I just saved your bacon. Maybe even your whole carcass. I know what Crossan’s boys would do if they knew you were recording and transmitting meetings. And you may have more to worry about than that. Here.’

  He tossed me two sheets of paper.

  ‘Last paragraph on page one, running on to the top of page two.’

  I quickly scanned the two pages, going twice over the paragraphs he noted. The key sentences read,

  ‘We can say with confidence, given the form, the residue and the vestigial, though partial, striations, that the bullet is a .357 Magnum round of a generation of handguns from paramilitary arsenals. Further forensic analysis, including comparisons with appropriate decommissioned handguns, would be required.’

  ‘“Vestigial”. That’s a fine word in any report,’ I said.

  ‘Not if the vestigial striations take us back to a .357 magnum used by a certain militant who served twelve years of a prison sentence before morphing into a detective in our Serious Crime Team. Imagine the fun Cossie and IS could have with that.’

  ‘You’re not suggesting ...’

  ‘I’m not suggesting anything. Except that it’s been my experience that, when investigations are not going well, bombshells from the past blow up in our faces. Coincidences turn out to be simply the run of events. Nothing is chance, Slevin. Certainly not in this game. Now get the fuck out of my office and, whatever else you do, don’t bring IS round here again.’

  I left with my tail not quite between my legs but not exactly waving proudly behind me. The confrontation with Officer Cosgrove rattled me, but no more than a spittle-sharing exchange with screws on B Wing. What stung me was the venom of Hammy’s final remarks. I sensed my account with him was in danger of running out of credit.

  Yes, I know a .357 Magnum. Yes, I had used one. Yes, I had it on me when I was arrested. Yes, it was used as an exhibit in my trial. Yes, I understood it was filed away under lock and key in police archives. Or was it?

  I returned to my desk. Not even a ‘thumbs up’ from Sharon, as she browsed her magazine, lifted my gloom.

  SIX

  Early the next morning, I pulled back the curtains and looked down at the riverside walk, letting the sun find my bare chest, as I stretched my arms high above my head and yawned loudly. That woke Karen Lavery. I heard her turn in the bed behind me.

  ‘That time already?’ she said.

  ‘That time always,’ I replied. And added, ‘There they go.’

  A clutch of runners went past, rarely more than three abreast, hugging the rails along the river. The triple glazing meant I couldn’t hear the chatty couples, who were always scattered among the groups.

  ‘Who’s that?’ Karen boosted herself upright and reached for her watch on the unit beside the bed.

  ‘The morning runners.’

  ‘At this time. Quarter to seven. What makes them do it?’

  ‘Death.’

  ‘You’re in fine form this morning. You dreaming again? Your mother?’

  ‘I slept great,’ I lied.

  ‘You’re a detective. Even in your dreams, you want to know what happened.’

  ‘I sort of know that. I’m not sure about the “why?”. Like the runners out there. I know what they’re doing, but I’m not sure about why.’

  In flashes of Lycra, the runners jogged by. Many wore shorts and sleeveless singlets, the running and the sunshine warming their flesh.

  ‘They want to get fit, lose weight, get in better shape and, if that all works, stave off death. Or they damage themselves, wea
r out, accelerate a syndrome with an injury and infection and bring death closer.’

  ‘I don’t suppose you could crank up the coffee machine while you lecture on such gloomy matters.’

  I turned from the window and leaned across the bed. Karen was sitting fully upright, fixing her watch to her wrist. I kissed the triangle between her breasts.

  ‘You’re the woman who works with death, day and daily.’

  ‘But never before morning coffee.’

  I lay beside her and felt a calm ease suffuse me. Light from the open curtains fell across us. Dust motes, enlivened by the heat, celebrated their dawn dance.

  ‘You good?’ Karen asked.

  ‘Great.’

  ‘You are, you know. Great. And I don’t just mean this. You’re just a great fella.’

  I turned my head to look at her open and fresh face, her warm and clear eyes. She was wide awake and set to say more.

  ‘And you’re lonely.’

  ‘You phoned me at half ten. You came round here.’

  ‘I was lonely too.’

  ‘And now?’

  ‘I’m still lonely. But I’ve had a good work-out. Better than pounding the tarmac out there.’

  The city is awash with runners, joyous people in the main, led by enthusiasts who coach them in times, diets, muscle stretches, footwear and mental strength. The runners all want something. Aspire, then perspire. They’re all reaching for something. A better time; the loss of a few pounds; to outpace a friend; to make themselves feel better in the face of woe at home or at work; to replace work.

  ‘When I was inside,’ I said, ‘I was always lonely, even though I was never really alone. Near the end, I spent a lot of time buried in books and people did leave me alone. Kept out of my way. I went a bit crazy, they said. So, now, I suppose, even though I’m out a brave while, I’m still the same. Loneliness and me run along the river together.’

  ‘I’ve had enough of being lonely, I think.’

  This was the moment to get up and put on the coffee. To get up, shuffle into underpants, pad across the wooden boards to the ceramic tiles and start to grind the well-roasted beans. Fill the flat with the aroma of mornings in far away places, where the sun is permanent and where we face death by snoozing in the shade, not running in the light. Instead, I hesitated too long in the cosy bed.