by Jane Ryan
He snorted and laughed, looking at the baggies with hard, glittering eyes.
‘We’re not saying anything to Granny Dev and we’re not touching those baggies either, Gavin. Those are for mugs who are going to pay us. We get some start-up money then we can buy ourselves protection, get some other lads to sell for us and see where it goes.’
‘You’re like an auld wan, Seán. Always so cautious. C’mon, let’s see where this lot gets us,’ said Gavin.
‘Don’t take it all – twenty wraps each. Put ten in one pocket and ten in the other. Take this.’
It was a kitchen knife. Gavin put it down the back of his jeans and Seán took a small, sharp paring knife, good for close-quarter fighting – a skill he’d honed over the years together with bare-knuckle boxing in St Augustine’s.
They left Gavin’s grandmother’s house, taking the bus in to Dame Street, and made their way to O’Donovan Rossa Bridge. There were plenty of punters waiting and Seán was edgy with excitement, knowing he was starting into a new, profitable future.
They walked onto the bridge – and a knife plunged into the back of Gavin’s thigh and nicked his hamstring, leaving a weakness he would feel for the rest of his life.
‘Did you fucking think you could walk onto my bridge with yizzer baggies? We saw youse getting off the bus, pair of dumb fucks!’ said a voice behind Seán’s back.
He had both legs taken from under him and he hit the cement pavement, a boot pressed into his face as hands rifled through his pockets, taking his merchandise. His mouth filled with blood from the pressure and the grooves of the boot’s sole suctioning his skin.
‘Do you know me? Young fellah? I’m Larry Dunne.’
The pressure on his face stopped and Seán looked at the pinpoint pupils staring out of a mad head. A beast of a man. He flashed the paring knife Seán had brought with him, flicking the blade under his nose. Gavin was screaming out wounded howls, high-pitched and terrified.
‘Guy set youse up royally, didn’t he?’
Seán’s insides contracted. The rain slowed and an iridescent light bounced off the side of one of his eyes. He thought it was his life-light flickering out as the knife point leaned into the white skin of his neck.
‘Dunne! Back away! Touch him and I’ll shoot.’
It was Garda Joe Clarke, his snarling face and gun aimed at Larry Dunne. The pressure on Seán’s neck was gone and he scrabbled his way off the bridge onto the street. People were everywhere, junkies running away with their score, gardaí fighting with Dunne and his gang, pedestrians getting shoved aside. In the melee Seán could see Gavin crouching, a messy red stain spreading on his trousers, a garda standing over him and talking into her radio. Seán heard sirens hacking up the air, so loud his teeth hurt. He hoped one was an ambulance for Gavin.
Chapter 24
2019
‘Morning, Bridge. He’s waiting for you,’ said Ms Goddard. ‘I’ve left a flask of tea on his desk – help yourself.’
This didn’t bode well. Kindness from DCS Muldoon’s secretary meant I was in for a right dressing-down.
She winked at me. ‘Best get it over with.’
Joe Clarke was already seated there when I opened the door.
The atmosphere was frosty, and a saucer of cut lemons flavoured the air. Muldoon preferred it to milk with his morning tea. He sat stirring a spoon around his cup – it scratched the sides, reminding me of a screw being drawn down a ceramic tile. He used a saw-tooth tongs to pick up a slice of lemon and drop it into his tea.
‘Sit down, Bridget.’
My backside found the nearest chair. I didn’t dare look at Joe. He was ramrod straight, eyes forward. I cursed myself for not going straight to DCS Muldoon the moment Chris had rung me. If I was in trouble thanks to Maitland and O’Connor, nothing I could do would stop that train, but if O’Connor hadn’t told Muldoon I might yet have an escape route.
‘Do you want to bring me up to speed on Burgess Data Centre? DS O’Connor was in to me early this morning. In receipt of a call from a DI Maitland of the West Midlands Constabulary.’
So much for that plan.
‘Yes, DCS Muldoon. Detective Chris Watkiss of West Midlands rang me a day or so ago and –’ I twitched, a sleeping dog chasing phantoms, and my voice cut out.
‘Take your time, Detective Garda Harney. Get a cup of tea.’
Joe had one ready and passed it to me.
I gulped at the warm tea – apprehension had left me cotton-mouthed.
‘We missed something significant when we were investigating Emer Davidson’s murder,’ I said then. ‘We were focused on the family and it transpired Mike Burgess was having an affair with Emer and his wife found out. She confessed to killing Emer.’
‘But the case’s conviction was sound, isn’t that so?’
‘The confession still stands, DCS Muldoon.’
My omission hummed in the space, separating my breaths. Joe looked at me, sensing my hesitation, but DCS Muldoon didn’t know me well enough.
‘There were no connections to organised crime we could see at that time. The only thread was Seán Flannery. Mike Burgess had a legitimate connection to him through a sailing club and contacted him to get rid of the body.’
‘But we couldn’t convict Flannery due to evidence going missing?’
‘Yes, sir.’
I had impregnated a rug with Flannery’s DNA and left it at Emer Davidson’s flat in Birmingham. Joe convinced Chris Watkiss to ‘lose’ the evidence, telling Chris he’d take the fall if anyone ever found out. The distress of this memory made my voice waver.
‘You all right, Harney?’
‘Yes, DCS Muldoon.’
‘Joe, I want you to look at the Property and Exhibit Management System. There’s too much evidence kept in lockers, not turned in and lost RFID tags.’
‘Yes, DCS Muldoon,’ said Joe. Not a flicker.
‘Harney, at the time you believed you got the right person and the evidence corroborated that?’
‘Yes, DCS Muldoon.’
‘So what’s changed?’
‘Chris and I believe Declan Swan absconded with BDC’s money, best part of two million pounds and he’s a person of interest in the Kumran ‘Shabba’ Stephenson murder.’
‘What else?’ said Joe.
He was right to push me.
‘I believe Declan Swan murdered Emer Davidson. Anne Burgess confessed, we don’t know why. Chris went to see her – and will continue to work on her – but she’s not withdrawing her confession. The chief financial officer in Burgess Data Centre contacted Chris about the missing money and traced it to an account in Brazil, where there was a sighting of Declan Swan.’
‘So the whole bloody case is unsound?’ said DCS Muldoon, fist bunched on the table. ‘You don’t do things by halves, Harney. DS O’Connor said drugs were found.’
‘Burgess Data Centre had an expensive cooling system installed, which was never operational and turns out the towers were hiding kilos of drugs.’
‘Down the rabbit hole we go. What’s happening now?’
‘We’re not reopening the investigation into Emer Davidson’s murder, we don’t have enough evidence, but Chris has opened an investigation into Burgess Data Centre. It’s a financial forensic audit to understand where the transactions lead and what connection there is to organised crime. Amina Basara from our division is helping.’
‘Good,’ said DCS Muldoon. ‘Keep Joe updated. I’ll speak to DI Maitland myself. That’s all, Harney.’
I was dismissed. Joe hadn’t said anything but having him on my side of the desk was a comfort. I pulled the door to the catch as I went out, and stood to one side as the secretary’s pod was empty.
‘What’s O’Connor’s issue with her?’ said DCS Muldoon.
‘Loyalist cases early nineties. O’Connor coerced suspects. Justice Harney tore through him. Wanted him removed.’
Ms Goddard returned, clutching a batch of archive files.
‘Eavesdroppers ra
rely hear good of themselves, Bridget Harney,’ she said.
I scuttled away, my face brick-red.
Chapter 25
1998
Seán sat on an old Vespa some thick had left outside the corner shop near Alexander Terrace in the East Wall. Fools who lived in the new apartments in the Irish Financial Services Centre wanted some local ‘colour’ and came down to the corner shop for a morning rasher butty. Well, it had cost this thick his scooter. It was a warm autumn day, but the wind cut Seán’s face and his eyes streamed as he rode out to an almost middle-class suburb of South Dublin. In the days after the drug bust on O’Donovan Rossa Bridge, Gavin’s grandmother had come looking for retribution. Gavin had been patched up in the Mater Hospital then put on remand in St Patrick’s Institution for Young Offenders. The idea of Gavin in prison, even one as soft as St Patrick’s made Seán’s guts gurgle with yellow bile. He gripped the Vespa’s handlebars and the sharp edges of his knuckles stretched his skin. He was on his way out to Guy’s house, determined to get answers, not only for Gavin’s grandmother.
Guy lived off the Knocklyon Road in Idrone Close. Knocklyon was beige to Seán’s eyes, didn’t have the working-class bite of East Wall or the prestige of South Dublin, despite being located on the southside of the city. What it had was bland aspirations and culchies who had moved to Dublin for a life they never got. Guy’s house was a detached dormer bungalow of surprising ugliness though Seán didn’t consider he knew much about architecture. Still, he saw the intelligence behind the house and the location. O’Dwyer had told him Guy was worth millions, had paintings stashed away and gold bars in a Swiss bank. He was wealthy and hid it.
Seán had followed Guy to work and home on many occasions, borrowing a motor bike from an ex-resident of St Augustine’s who worked in a chop shop. Despite Guy’s line of work, he wasn’t observant. When he clocked off he was a street stiff, same as everyone else, on the conveyor-belt home. Too wrapped up in the thought of his dinner to notice a tail. Seán believed in the most direct route possible to whatever he wanted. He didn’t like Guy, but he admired his subterfuge, hiding his money and living well below his means.
It was a Saturday and Seán figured Guy would be at home. On the way out to Knocklyon he decided to leave the stolen scooter near Guy’s house. The idea appealed to him. The gardaí would find it at some point and might cause Guy a moment of panic when some of his pals gave a ding-dong on his front door. Seán parked it beyond the house and looked around.
The usual work routines were suspended, and children ran everywhere with soccer balls, dressed in team colours and shouting goodbye to waving parents on the doorsteps. A breaker of anger threatened to drown Seán, a block of emotions he had no name for pulled at his feet as though he were cemented into it and thrown off a pier. His footsteps slowed, his breathing shallow.
Guy’s wife brought him back to the present. She was good-looking in a blowsy way, but her mouth was a red line of discontent bleeding outwards. Seán knew if Guy saw him outside his home, he’d be furious. He took cover behind an obliging hedge and dialled Guy on the Nokia he’d given him for the Amsterdam trip. He picked up after the fifth ring.
‘I’m outside your house – yer ball and chain is standing waving at some neighbours.’
He listened to Guy’s wife’s nasal whine.
‘She’s saying something about Knocklyon United?’ said Seán.
Guy appeared at the top of his driveway and turned towards his wife, said something Seán didn’t hear, and walked towards him with a face full of sunshine.
‘You’ll be taking that fucking stolen scooter with you when you leave, Seán. And you’ll be leaving soon.’
The words fell from his cardigan-wearing-Saturday face, a genial smile as though Seán were some local teen offering to mow his lawn.
‘You set us up. Me and Gavin. He’s in prison now and you did nothing. What’s to stop me from going to some of your pals and snitching?’
‘Nothing, Seán, except you haven’t. That tells me something. You’re in it for the long game, which is intelligent.’
‘Why did you tell Larry Dunne we were bringing our gear to the O’Donovan Rossa Bridge?’
Seán hated the hurt he heard in his own voice. It wasn’t for himself – it was for Gavin. Gavin hadn’t been to St Augustine’s, didn’t have the skill set to survive prison.
‘We needed to get rid of Larry Dunne. He’s a liability, a junkie, and sells product on street corners in full view of the gardaí, brings too much heat on everyone. This way he’s behind bars. I’m sorry about Gavin, but he’ll be compensated when he’s out.’
He stopped speaking and looked right into Seán. ‘You watch out for his granny. Sheila Devereux’s a tough woman.’
Seán wanted to spit in his face – nothing was scared to Guy – so Seán settled his face and looked like he couldn’t imagine a better way to spend a Saturday morning.
‘I want to do something bigger, Seán. We have thousands of miles of unprotected coastline. I can make you rich and important. Are you listening to me?
‘I don’t want to be important.’
‘All right, invisible then. Bags of money and your own pigeon loft, that’s what all you greasy little East Wall degenerates aspire to, isn’t it? Don’t go to the horse races, no sir, you like to race pigeons. You could be the Aga Khan of East Wall!’
Seán wavered. He distrusted Guy. A memory of sitting in the Home’s refectory came to him. The nuns had hung flypaper over the tables. Attracted by the kitchen smells, the flies found a way in but got stuck on the sticky coils of paper. He remembered them, with their wings pinned to the brown ooze, hairy legs waving in distress.
‘Can you shoot a gun, Seán?’
He shook his head.
‘What good was going to St Augustine’s if you can’t handle a weapon?’ said Guy.
‘You want to arm the nutjobs in St Augustine’s?’
Guy threw back his head and gave a showy laugh, despite the fact the close was empty but for a few faraway knots of women talking, the family cars packed with kids gone.
‘You know your trouble, Seán? No sense of humour.’
Seán ignored him, but Guy spoke into the silence.
‘I want you to learn how to shoot a gun, clean it and be professional around firearms. There’s a couple of men in Monaghan have an underground shooting range.’
‘Underground?’ Seán hated tight, enclosed spaces.
‘Has to be. It’s lined with old tyres to muffle the sound. The Provos use it but of course they won’t be using it as much now, with the Good Friday Agreement.’
Guy clapped at his own humour, but Seán didn’t join in – anything to do with Republicans frightened him.
‘You’ll go and be trained.’
‘Are you going to get them to kill me?’
‘No, Seán. We’ve known one another for a long time. You’re more useful to me alive.’
Scant consolation.
‘Now fuck off back to the East Wall and your pigeon club. You’ll need a well-trained bird for when Gavin winds up in Mountjoy. And don’t come here again or follow me home. You do that one more time I’ll have Gavin chivved in prison – do you understand that, you cretin?’
Seán walked away, trying to mask his unsteady legs, suddenly aware he was not the observer but the observed.
Chapter 26
2019
I flicked on a table lamp and read Richie Corrigan’s idea of a love letter.
‘You must try harder, my darling. You’re so close, 90 or 95 percent, so keep going. I will always keep my part of our bargain. Your ever-constant friend, Richie.’
Was he grading my mother? His father had collected subs for Our Lady Crowned Credit Union in a poor area of rural Ireland, calling in on his neighbours in the evenings to collect punt notes they could ill afford and taking a cut before he handed it over to the credit union. No surprise his son would measure and weigh everything, including love. Richie had cuckolded my father
and inserted himself in our lives at every turn. Showing up in the nursing home was a kick to an already grazed cut. But my mother had loved him, and perhaps still did. I couldn’t tell. Yet one pile of his Basildon Bond Blue letters was tied with kitchen twine, the type my mother used to truss up chickens for the oven. It must have been a deliberate choice.
We had driven her to the nursing home four months ago. She had wanted to make our forsaking of her easier and smiled when we deserted her. It was a plastic bag over my head. I put the letters down, winded at the memory, and took deep breaths, lifting my chest against the bank of tears that would never leave, could never be cried away. Mum had got some comfort from the sight of Sister Finbarr’s letters so I would bring in more correspondence. It was invasive, riffling through my mother’s private affairs. Her life, so precious and ordinary, fanned out on the floor in old bank statements, prize bonds, recipes and letters.
Dusk moved to darkness and I flicked on the main light in my mother’s study, the brightness hardening her absence, giving it a shape.
Richie’s letters told her she was fortunate to have him as a friend, after her parents cast her off. He hadn’t judged her, instead he’d secured a place in a hostel near Stephen’s Green. They might walk there on Sunday after Mass in Newman University church. He told her about when he first came to Dublin and worked in Haughey Boland in the fifties. He wrote of how well he was doing in the bank and that his mentor Mr Traynor was advising him to study law at night. He was looking at houses in Donnybrook and advised her to reconsider his offer. He had no objection to their age difference, so what objection could she have?
His tone was imperious yet wheedling. The letter was dated 1981, the year of a princess bride, yet there was no romance I could read in Richie’s letters, or passion. The floor was carpeted with his correspondence, his ardour lay in volume. My hand found another parcel of his letters, dated some years later when my mother was married and I was born. They were written on a more expensive thick white paper. His tone was more confident in these letters, less smarmy, but I couldn’t imagine these letters would bring any comfort to my mother now.
