If I Never See You Again

by Niamh O'Connor

  ‘But if the name gets out, all our sources will stop talking. The handler’s life could be in danger,’ Friar said.

  Jo put her hand on the paperwork. ‘I promise not to tell.’

  Putting her feet up on the corner of her desk, she raised the document to read it, and scanned through. It was called a Suspect History Antecedent form and was only to be completed in respect of persons believed to be involved in serious crime. This meant it contained the kind of information that would never have seen the light of day in a court of law, which, in Jo’s opinion, meant it might actually be useful.

  CRIME ORDINARY: Yes

  SUBVERSIVE: No

  1. FULL NAME: Anto Crawley

  DATE & PLACE OF BIRTH: 13/6/70 or 13/6/71, Dublin

  ALIAS & NICKNAMES: ‘Anto’; ‘Mr Bad’

  DCR NO.: 1232/08

  2. DESCRIPTION:

  HEIGHT: 5’10” BUILD: Broad/fit WEIGHT: 11 stone

  EYES: Blue HAIR: Sandy COMPLEXION: Fair ACCENT: Dublin GENERAL APPEARANCE: Casual

  GARDA PHOTO: Attached

  FAMILY PHOTO: Attached

  DISTINGUISHING FEATURES (include scars, tattoos, physical disabilities): Tattoo ‘RIP’ on right forearm, along with names of deceased Skid lieutenants – Frank, Johnno, Smurf (see appendix for biogs)

  TYPE OF DRESS SUBJECT normalcLY WEARS: Leather jacket, hoodie, jeans, T-shirt, trainers, trucker cap.

  3. PREVIOUS ADDRESSES: Crumlin, Rialto (see appendix)

  HOME ADDRESS: Oliver Bond

  COMMENTS RE. SURVEILLANCE ON ABOVE: SDU carried out surveillance on his flat.

  4. HABITS & HOBBIES: Pitbulls, pigeons

  5. HOTELS, CLUBS, PUBS, CAFES & SHOPS FREQUENTED BY SUBJECT: Liberties, Smithfield

  6. WEAKNESSES (drink, drugs, gambling, women, homosexual): Likes to watch his girlfriend with other men, or have her describe it in detail – cf phone recordings.

  7. HEALTH: Treated for irritable bowel syndrome. Part of colon removed.

  8. SUBJECT’S DOCTOR: Varies

  DENTIST: Varies

  CHEMIST: Varies

  OPTICIAN: Varies

  Jo reached for a pencil and chewed the top, speed-reading the rest of the headings for the one she needed to find, planning to study the answers in depth later.

  9. ASSOCIATES (names, DCR nos, extent of criminal involvement and relationship with subject):

  10. MODUS OPERANDI (include days and times of particular activity):

  11. GARDAÍ TO WHOM SUBJECT IS KNOWN PERSONALLY/GARDAÍ WHO PREVIOUSLY CHARGED SUBJECT/GARDAÍ WHO INTERROGATED SUBJECT:

  Jo was annoyed to see black lines blocking the answers to this information. She read on:

  12. SUBJECT’S SOLICITOR & COUNSEL:

  13. DETAILS OF ALLEGATIONS AGAINST GARDAÍ MADE BY SUBJECT:

  14. PREVIOUS CONVICTIONS (Last three and others if pertinent):

  15. ACQUITTALS AND GROUNDS FOR SAME, IF RELEVANT:

  16. TELEPHONE NUMBERS (inc. telephones to which subject has access):

  17. VEHICLES TO WHICH SUBJECT HAS ACCESS (Reg. no., colour, make, type; owned or used; mobile/radio or C/B):

  18. CAR-HIRE FIRMS (used by subject):

  19. BOATS TO WHICH SUBJECT HAS ACCESS OR OWNS:

  20. AIRCRAFT TO WHICH SUBJECT HAS ACCESS OR OWNS:

  21. INFORMATION AVAILABLE AS TO OTHER MODES OF TRAVEL:

  22. OTHER PLACES HERE OR ABROAD FREQUENTED BY SUBJECT:

  23. PRIVATE GARAGES TO WHICH SUBJECT HAS ACCESS:

  24. GARAGES AT WHICH SUBJECT normalcLY PURCHASES PETROL OR HAS VEHICLE MAINTAINED:

  25. GARAGES TO WHICH ASSOCIATES HAVE ACCESS:

  26. DRIVING LICENCE NO.; SEAMAN’S BOOK NO.; SOCIAL SECURITY NO.; PASSPORT NO.; EXCHANGE, TIME & DATE OF ATTENDANCE; PHOTOGRAPH REFERENCE NO.; BANK ACCOUNT/CREDIT CARD; BANKER’S CARD/BUILDING SOCIETY PASSBOOK NO.; FOREIGN BANK ACCOUNT:

  27. SPECIMEN HANDWRITING (where available):

  28. FIREARMS CERTIFICATES HELD BY SUBJECT:

  29. RELATIVES (include full name, maiden name, address, DOB, occupation, place of employment and attitude towards criminal activities of subject):

  30. GIRLFRIEND/BOYFRIEND:

  31. EMPLOYERS (current and past):

  32. QUALIFICATIONS OF SUBJECT (skills, education, etc.):

  The last question was the one she was most interested in, and it made her put her feet back on the floor.

  33. HANDLER:

  Jo looked up to Friar, who was standing over her. The space where the answer should be also had a black bar running over the type. ‘What the hell is this?’ Jo put a finger over the bar, then looked up accusingly. ‘The ink is still bloody wet!’

  Friar said nothing.

  Jo tapped the sheet. ‘Whose name have you blocked out?’

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ Friar said.

  Jo reached for the phone. ‘You can explain why to Blaise Stanley. I don’t remember him appointing you chief censor.’

  ‘She won’t need to . . .’ a voice said in the doorway.

  Jo didn’t need to look up to identify the speaker.

  ‘It’s me,’ Dan said. ‘Anto Crawley was my agent.’

  52

  Jo slumped back.

  ‘You happy now?’ Dan asked, striding over. ‘You know how many people will have seen that file, just to indulge you? Once word gets out that Crawley was working for us, everybody will become suspect. All that bloody surveillance, all that overtime – wasted. I’ve got two undercover officers on the ground monitoring a Skids consignment due in the next week – heroin and coke with a street value of 50 million. Those men will have to be recalled in case they get their heads blown off!’

  He looked at Friar and gave a stiff nod in the direction of the door. Looking none too pleased, she took the hint and headed out, Black and Waters following hard on her heels.

  Dan sighed, reached for a chair and positioned it directly in front of her desk.

  Jo leaned forwards. ‘You gave the country’s biggest drug dealer carte blanche to operate with impunity – in return for what?’ she asked.

  ‘Don’t give me that shite! You know as well as I do that the only people with information worth trading are criminals,’ Dan blasted back.

  ‘Oh, I understand perfectly,’ Jo said. ‘Your informant Anto Crawley tips you off about what drug deals are going down, and when. You extend the long arm of the law as necessary. It’s a win-win. He gets rid of the competition, sometimes sacrifices some of his own who’ve got a bit too ambitious, builds up his slice of market share, and you get promoted for all the drug seizures that are put down to you. What I don’t quite get is what’s in it for the parents of the kids dying out there from heroin rubberstamped by our bloody Customs!’

  Dan straightened his tie. ‘When you can come up with an alternative, let me know.’

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me?’ she asked, turning to look at him properly.

  ‘Maybe I knew you’d react like this,’ he said.

  ‘But what about Mac? The Skids were paying him to get them off charges. How did that work? If Mac was being paid, were you? I have noticed you have a nice new wardrobe, and what was that I heard about your plans to buy a new place?’

  Dan slammed his hand hard on the table. ‘Now you’re taking the piss . . .’

  Jo stared at him.

  He dragged his hands through his hair and sighed. ‘Crawley didn’t have carte blanche, that must be why they recruited Mac. I had no idea he was on the take. If I had . . .’

  ‘What about Ryan Freeman’s little girl, Katie? Did you know Crawley had abducted her?’

  Dan rubbed his jaw. ‘Not until recently, no.’

  ‘Only there was another kid hurt by someone connected to this station, and you managed to keep that to yourself too.’

  ‘What are you raving about now?’

  ‘That kid who died on Mac’s watch. Last night, you said that Mac had come to you to ’fess up.’ She paused. Dan said nothing. ‘Do you even know his name, Dan? It was Jimmy W
ren. For future reference.’

  Dan turned his palms up on his thighs. ‘Look, Crawley told me that Ryan Freeman’s wife had a bit of a problem and was visiting one of his dealers. So I thought, why look a gift horse in the mouth? So I asked him to try and get her to get her hands on Freeman’s contacts book. I wanted to find out who was leaking stories to him from the station. If I’d had any idea Crawley would go to those lengths, I’d never have –’

  ‘Did you ever find out what happened?’

  Dan shook his head.

  ‘Katie Freeman is in hospital because her mother couldn’t come up with that book. Everyone associated with her is dead. Maybe you should think long and hard about exactly the calibre of criminal you’re dealing with in future.’ Jo stood up. ‘Full of secrets, aren’t you? There have been five bloody victims, Dan. How many more would it have taken for you to tell me, just as a matter of interest?’

  ‘I had nothing to add to your investigation!’ Dan roared. ‘I’ve got kids too, remember? If anything happened to either of them, I’d –’

  ‘Either, or just one of them?’ Jo asked, pulling her coat on. ‘You didn’t want me to have Harry, remember?’

  Dan closed his eyes. ‘No, I didn’t want any kid of mine so embarrassed by the sad old fart collecting him or the other kids calling me his granddad. I was wrong. I love Harry.’

  Jo took a breath and reached for her keys and phone. ‘Right,’ she said.

  ‘Where are you going?’ Dan asked, as she pulled out the door.

  ‘To interview Stuart Ball’s mother.’ She clicked her fingers like she’d just remembered something. ‘Oh yeah, and after that I’m going to talk to the man we brought in for questioning today, purely to keep the papers off your boss, the minister’s, back, who, by astounding coincidence, happens to be another of your moles. Do you think I don’t know that Merrigan’s been briefing you on my every move behind my back? You can release the details, if you like. I was thinking something along the lines of: “A 52-year-old male is currently helping gardaí with their enquiries. When gardaí called to his home, he agreed to present voluntarily at the station rather than risk arrest.” Keep his name to yourself, though. We don’t want any more bad press, do we?’

  53

  Sad as it was to see Stuart Ball’s mother still in the throes of overwhelming grief, Jo was a lot more comfortable in her company than she had been with Rita Nulty’s mother, who seemed more concerned about herself than with catching her daughter’s killer. In the two minutes since introducing herself to Valerie Ball in the interview room, Jo had been handed Stuart’s laminated mass card, asked to listen to Stuart’s voice on a saved message on Valerie’s mobile and shown a hologram of his face hanging from a gold disc on a chain around her neck. Tears flowed freely down her face.

  Jo passed over a tissue, suspecting that the scaly skin on the interviewee’s hands was caused by over-exposure to water and cleaning agents over the years.

  Valerie Ball was younger than Rita Nulty’s mother too. She was dressed in jeans and a sweater, sported trainers on her feet, and her thick, russet hair was cut in a no-nonsense style.

  ‘There’s a tradition in Connemara, where I’m from,’ she began, blowing her nose. ‘Mourn for a month, and then get on with your life. But the second I saw my baby on the slab, I knew that I’d never be able to feel good about anything again.’ She started to cry again.

  Jo patted her on her back. ‘You mustn’t think like that. You’re still in shock, my love. I’ll organize some tea, with lots of sugar.’

  Valerie sighed heavily. ‘I’m sorry. Please, don’t worry about tea. Just ask me what you need to. I want you to catch the bastard that did this, and not waste any more time. A serial killer, I read. That means more mothers are going to have to go through this.’

  Jo sat down and reached across the table for Valerie’s hands. ‘Let’s start with some pictures, to see if you recognize them for me.’ She held up a picture of Anto Crawley.

  Valerie sighed again, heavily, then sniffed. ‘That’s the bastard my boy owed money to. Sent his cronies to my house looking for money, and called a couple of times himself. Anto Crawley thinks he is somebody, or did, before . . . I paid him whenever I could, got loans off the credit union. Then, a couple of weeks before Stu died, the amount shot up to 50,000. How was I supposed to get that kind of money? I’d have had to sell my home. I’d have done it, ’course I would, but then out of the blue Stu told me it was sorted. Said he owed nothing, but wouldn’t tell me what had happened. I asked him did he kill someone for them . . . How do you write off 50,000?’

  She looked at Jo guiltily. ‘I’d tried everything to get him off drugs. Nothing worked. Got him on a methadone programme – that was just an excuse to pump more poison into his system . . . Did the tough-love thing – put him out, till he told me he’d been selling himself on the street. What would you do? ’Course I took him back in. He was my boy.’ She shook her head and sniffed. ‘Even tried locking him in his room once, with the help of my neighbours. But he threatened to kill himself. I couldn’t take the chance. Stu was all I’d got. I got pregnant when I was fifteen, my family turfed me out, it was just me and him for so long. Even in the worst of it, he was a good boy, always looked after me. Always made sure I had enough, did more for me in his short life than my parents ever did. Twenty-four years old, that’s all he was when he died – twenty-four!’

  She broke down again.

  Jo walked around the desk, knelt down and handed her Rita Nulty’s picture.

  The blood drained from Valerie’s face, ‘She’s the reason my boy’s dead in the grave. She was Stuart’s girlfriend years ago, the one who got him on the drugs in the first place. She’d have sold her own mother, that one. He’d been calling her again, I found out.

  ‘My bill was through the roof,’ Valerie continued. ‘It was through the roof this month. I got it itemized; this mobile kept coming up. I rang the number and recognized her voice the second she answered . . . That’s why he’s dead, isn’t it? That bitch as good as killed him, just like I always told him she would! Said it to her face too when she tried to gatecrash his funeral.’

  Jo pulled Father Reg’s picture from the bottom of the bundle.

  Valerie’s face hardened. ‘Dirty bastard. I caught him in my house once.’ She covered her face and started to cry again. ‘Stu’d have done anything for money for drugs.’

  Jo showed her Katie’s picture. ‘Who’s that?’ Valerie asked, confused. ‘Is she dead too? She’s only a kid, poor mite!’

  ‘No, she’s still alive,’ Jo said.

  Jo produced the last of her images – one of Mac. He was in the foreground of a group shot which had been pinned to the staff noticeboard a few months back after a big trial had resulted in a conviction and the officers attached to the investigation celebrated in the pub. Jo pointed out Mac from the others. He was carrying a tray of pints. Valerie shook her head. ‘Never saw him before.’

  Valerie’s finger moved to a face behind Mac and tapped. ‘But this one called to my flat the day Stu died. I was on my way to work. I didn’t like his attitude. He said he wanted to talk to Stu about something that happened to a little girl he knew personally. He said that he was a copper. Thought that kind of thing wasn’t allowed – conflict of interest, isn’t it? I told him to call back later when I was finished work. Thought I’d seen him off. Stu was still in bed! I couldn’t stay around, I’d have been late. But when I got home, my house had been turned over and Stu was gone.’

  54

  It was 4 p.m., and Jo was in her car, speeding towards Sexton’s home.

  She was absolutely furious with herself. She didn’t deserve a badge, let alone the chance to head up an investigation. She covered her mouth as she thought of all the warning signs she’d ignored, which, when put together, were so bloody obvious. She should have realized the instant she’d seen him showing Freeman around Anto Crawley’s crime scene what he was up to. So Sexton had been to visit Stuart Ball on the
day he died, had he? And was driving around in a car worth several years’ wages. Maybe Katie was in danger even now? Jo hit the accelerator and overtook a car on two continuous white lines. Sexton had been one step ahead of them all the time. Now she knew why.

  ‘Sexton’s wife . . .’ Foxy said, as Jo pulled back on to the right side of the road.

  Jo glanced over. He was holding the bottom of the passenger seat with his right hand and had hooked his left into the overhead handle. Jo had been so lost in thought, she’d forgotten he was there.

  ‘Suicide,’ Jo answered.

  ‘Do you remember the incident at the funeral?’ Foxy asked quietly.

  Jo nodded. The same memory had struck her the second Valerie Ball had identified him. Sexton had punched the parish priest before Maura was even in the ground for announcing during the ceremony that he’d like to see a return to the old days, when suicide victims were not allowed to be buried in consecrated ground, because at least it had some chance of discouraging others. Jo had known the killer would have a big gripe with the church for some personal reason – and here it was.

  ‘What was his wife’s name again?’ Foxy asked.

  ‘Maura,’ Jo said, slamming in the clutch, hitting the indicator and guiding the car into the kerb as she reached for the handbrake.

  ‘What?’ Foxy said.

  Jo flicked the visor down and pulled the street map free. She flicked the fold open on the north inner city and traced her finger along some of the streets. ‘Dear God,’ she said, flinging the map into Foxy’s lap and glancing into the wing mirror before taking off again. ‘The streets where the victims were found form the letter M for Maura, at least they will when the last body is found in East Wall. I don’t think we’ll find Sexton at home – he needs to leave one last body to form the last leg of the letter.’

  ‘Let me see,’ said Foxy, studying the map. ‘In the O2?’

  Jo nodded. ‘That’s what I was thinking.’

  Foxy reached for the radio. ‘Maura was buried in Deansgrange. I’ll dispatch a couple of the lads to the grave, see if there’s any signs of disturbance.’