Two Kinds of Blood

by Jane Ryan

  Seán doubled his steps to refocus his mind. He was making his way to St Matthias’s parish hall, where he’d been a fixture at the early morning Narcotics Anonymous meeting for over three months. He’d met a girl too, though she was more of a woman.

  The endless NA meetings he’d attended over the last year rose in his mind’s eye. Sometimes he’d gone to seven or eight in a single week, more than one a night. A manic quality to his behaviour that let him fit right in. He was weary from it. As someone who never took drugs he had no sympathy for junkies, but he needed a recovering addict. Once they relapsed there was no telling what he couldn’t get out of them. Seán needed a chemist, someone with specialised knowledge who could guarantee the purity of his cocaine. He’d heard cocaine cut with blood-thinners, like Warfarin, gave a quicker high, brought the social drug-takers to dealers in droves. If he wanted to be the supplier’s supplier, he needed his own pharmacist. Seán wanted off street corners, to be nothing more than a shadowy figure.

  The sky over Montrose dangled grey strings of rain and Seán jogged, keen to get his seat before he got wet.

  The meeting opened with a non-denominational prayer. It was a Church of Ireland parochial hall and he had chosen this group after so many failed attempts. He bypassed the table with the NA literature. His could paper his house in St Martin’s Gardens with all the leaflets he’d taken over the last year. He sat down on a row with some seats taken, making sure he was beside a vacant chair. If she wasn’t here today, he’d come back tomorrow. These NA meetings weren’t packed but had regular attendees. He steered clear of meetings in Ballyfermot, Finglas and Clondalkin, knowing all he’d find there were broken-down users one fix away from being back on the gear. He was looking for professionals, well-educated generation Y who were fighting their habit hard and hiding it.

  At first he’d tried the meetings in Lower Abbey Street, Gardiner Street, out as far as Coolmine, expecting to find neo-yuppies away from their homes in Howth and Dalkey, but all he found were cowering hipsters dotted among some of society’s most abandoned. It was depressing. He had searched Dublin before finding this good, puritan group. The moment he had walked into the hall he knew he’d find his prey here. The neat but not showy suits and dresses, the smell of baked scones from the vicar’s wife, warm strawberry jam and Brown Betty pots of tea told him he was in the right place.

  Now Avril Boyle sat beside him.

  ‘Sorry I’m late, I missed the opening prayer,’ she said.

  At some point she would have been fresh-faced and new-pin neat. Not now. Addiction had desiccated her, taking vitality, leaving her short of confidence and bowed. Her nutbrown hair was clean but had lost its shine from years of injecting between her toes. Her father was Boyle Pharmacies, travelled to his five branches throughout the country and prided himself on knowing his customers by name. He saw himself as a fair man but was in fact an arrogant bastard. At least according to his daughter. She had told Seán of her older brothers, each installed in a Boyle mega-pharmacy and she’d been given the small shop in Ringsend. How she was lonely and had never wanted to work in the pharmacies. She hated retail. Seán hadn’t blamed her. He was never surprised at the amount of chemists who took drugs. After all the fun in college, to be stuck in a pharmacy doling out pills day in day out and working newsagent’s hours. They needed relief after that reality.

  ‘Nice to see you here,’ said Avril. She gave a short laugh somewhere between a cough and a giggle.

  Seán turned to her, as if seeing her under a microscope, saw the broken vessels in her nose and the sweat beading on her hairline. He’d found with women the less he said the better it served him. Nature abhors a vacuum. His story for Avril was part truth, he’d grown up in a Mother and Baby home – and part invention, he worked in the Irish Financial Services Centre as an accountant and had developed a drug problem because of the pressure in work.

  ‘Addictive drugs work on the mid-brain,’ Avril had told him. ‘That part controls the release of dopamine. Addiction isn’t the drugs, that’s the side effect or symptom. Most addiction is brought on by chronic stress. Like yours.’

  Of course she had assumed he was middle class – not a tosser who wanted a high – that was for the working class. There were medical reasons for middle-class addiction.

  The meeting moved on, dreary and talkative. Some of the addicts had a nasally tone he associated with his high-end customers, the eco-Hibernians who would take molly, bars and coke but wouldn’t touch a cigarette or a bag of chips. Seán zoned in on Avril and complimented her dress, giving her small smiles throughout the group’s testimonies. He tuned out the pain in their voices, he had plenty of his own.

  At the end of the meeting he asked could he walk her to Sydney Parade DART station.

  ‘Will we go and get our usual coffee?’ he said. ‘Leave the folks here to the tea and scones?’

  Avril smiled and fell into step with him. The coffee concession was good and they would get their respective DARTS after a quick chat. She to Sandymount and on to the shop in Ringsend, he – lying – to Connolly and the IFSC.

  Seán insisted on getting the coffee each time.

  ‘Seán, you’re spoiling me,’ she said.

  ‘Yes, but you’re smiling. Anyway, it’s nice to have a chat with a beautiful woman.’

  Avril flushed an ugly red.

  Seán was microdosing her every time they got coffee, a tenth of an actual hit – tasteless and working on the cellular level, it didn’t give a high – more of a softening at the edges, but for an addict it was a path back to enslavement. Avril attributed the new calm feelings to her progress at NA and her friendship with Seán.

  Chapter 33

  2019

  The motorway northbound was wedged with cars and we were moving at fifteen kilometres an hour. This was the type of traffic I expected in the rush hour on the Ring Road in Birmingham, not on the way to Dublin airport at ten in the morning. Two cars had pranged and blue lights pulsed, a Roads Policing unit moving the cars onto the hard shoulder. I left them to it.

  My mind had turned on me during the previous night’s sleep, images of Paul Doherty dismissing me, Seán Flannery dumping Shabba’s hacked-up body at sea and laughing behind our backs. It had left me clinging to the toilet bowl in the early morning. I was edgy. The echo of the dream repeating unsettling my stomach. In the car I switched on the radio to occupy my mind and dialled Chris’s number. He didn’t pick up, but the fact it was ringing told me he’d landed. We’d arranged to meet at the back of the short-term car park in Terminal 1.

  When I pulled in he waved and dashed over to the car, agile for a large man. He was cleanshaven and had a rucksack slung over one shoulder. Chris wasn’t the bowler hat and briefcase type.

  We were out of the airport and heading southbound on the motorway quick smart.

  ‘Good to see you, Bridge, and I’m grateful you could collect me.’

  ‘As if I’d leave you getting a taxi or the bus, Chris Watkiss.’

  He gave a schoolboy grin, a most endearing feature.

  ‘How are Swapna and the girls?’

  At the mention of his family Chris split with pride and fumbled for a recent photo.

  ‘The girls look great, Chris.’

  ‘They’re great lasses. Got a lot on your plate, little ’un?’

  The rich inflexion in Chris’s voice was unexpected balm.

  ‘I’m a bit overwhelmed.’ I surprised myself and the admission brought heat scorching to my face. ‘Sorry, that’s too dramatic –’

  ‘It’s fine. Hard yards at the moment in Birmingham with Maitland, for me an’ all. Amina tells me Flannery’s missing and you might as well be plugged into your Garda system. What’s it called?’

  ‘PULSE.’

  ‘Says you’re like a ruddy cyborg!’

  I laughed. ‘No, but I have alerts on any system I can get into and Interpol have issued a Red Notice for Flannery, but they haven’t found anything. I’d say he’s hiding.’


  ‘Will you find him if those cartel boys have him?’

  ‘I’m not convinced they do.’

  ‘Don’t mind me saying, Bridge, but you’re wound pretty tight.’

  The knotted face in the rear-view mirror was mine.

  ‘I don’t want Flannery to get away. I’m well over the threshold test for evidence. He’s heading for prison.’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘Body in the Dublin Mountains, Georgian national came over illegally on a trawler to Dublin. He doesn’t appear to have any organised crime connections. A loner for hire.’

  ‘How do you know he’s illegal?’

  ‘Interpol traced him to Holland – he used his Georgian passport – we’re not dealing with a criminal mastermind here. Ireland isn’t in Schengen –’

  ‘Neither is the UK. Mind you, we’re in bloody nowt lately. I’m leading the charge for an independent North of England.’

  We both laughed and the strain reaching out from Chris slackened a notch.

  ‘We believe the Georgian met some like-minded individuals in Holland who brought him to Dublin and he fell foul of Flannery’s gang,’ I said. ‘We don’t know exact details, but it’s a working theory.’

  ‘And Flannery killed this Georgian guy?’

  ‘Yes, judging by the evidence – his blood and DNA were all over the body. Tyre marks from a van that was later abandoned in East Wall.’

  ‘Sloppy. Not like our man Seán.’

  ‘It’s the pressure of the having the Fuentes cartel breathing down his neck.’

  ‘What if the cartel’s kidnapped him? Because of the seizure?’

  ‘I’m not sure. If the cartel wanted retribution they’d have shot Flannery in his doorway. They have form.’

  Chris blanched. ‘They’ve murdered people in Dublin before? Fuentes?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘Couple of years ago Fuentes sent over an Estonian hitman for a particular individual. They don’t leave corpses dangling from electric wires – as I said, they’re more of a crook-dead-on-his-own-doorstep type of organisation. Flannery’s well aware how Fuentes operate and he’s hiding. Something went wrong in the Dublin Mountains.’

  ‘So Flannery might try to flee the country? Would he go looking for his old mate Declan Swan?’

  My mouth curled up at the thought of Swan. ‘Nothing’s impossible, but I wouldn’t have thought Swan would be Flannery’s first choice. Tell me about Burgess Data Centre.’

  Although Chris wasn’t a man for ill-concealed tension, he was tetchy and wore it around the edges of his mouth. He was here for a reason and it wasn’t Flannery.

  ‘I’ll come to it straight, Bridge. You’ve been neglecting the BDC case. Amina’s struggling.’

  My mouth formed an O. Traffic slowed enough for me to open a window and let some air into the stuffy car.

  ‘BDC’s serious. We’ve found kilos of narcotics in those water coolers. Two hundred to be exact.’

  ‘What! Why did no one tell me it was that big?’

  ‘Well, I’d imagine Amina tried, but you’re obsessed once you’ve got Flannery’s scent in your nose. Plus, she’s tearing her hair out trying to figure out BDC’s business processes and financial transactions. This has cartel written all over it to me.’

  Once the spectre of a cartel rears its head, bystanders rush to lay all ills at the cartel’s door. Public prosecutors are particularly susceptible to this pinning of unsolved crimes on a likely cartel – it keeps their overall conviction rate solid.

  ‘I haven’t had much experience with cartels,’ I said.

  ‘Lass, you’re the one in the Drugs and Organised Crime unit. I’m a plod in West Midlands and over my head.’

  ‘No, you’re not, Chris. You are a superb detective. We investigated a murder together. You’re good police, but we think of cartels as bogey men. Despite popular opinion their reach is limited. And they never leave drugs lying around or piling up – they’ll burn them if they have to. There was a drugs-haul twenty-four hours ago in Hamburg, of over four tonnes, close to one billion euros street value. It was on a Uruguayan ship. The crew were trying to burn it before the trawler was boarded – some of them were shot dead.’

  ‘You’re joking!’ said Chris.

  ‘I wish I was.’

  ‘Were it on the media?’

  ‘Not yet, I got it on an Interpol alert, but it’s only a matter of hours before it’s in the public domain. Hundreds of duffel bags stuffed with cocaine. Some customs official won’t be able to resist a picture on social media. Intel puts Fuentes in the frame and a new route via Hamburg, but Fuentes don’t do anything by halves. They’ll have used this route for months, testing it. Of course, they’ll dump it now, but we’ve no idea how much product they shipped through it before we caught them. I’m guessing tonnes.’

  ‘Could Fuentes be the source of Burgess’s kilos?’ said Chris.

  ‘Yes, they’re one of the biggest suppliers to Europe at this point, but they don’t deal in small loads and two hundred kg’s is small to them.’

  ‘I take your point. Burgess is down the food chain, but why’s BDC full of narcotics? Someone was bound to find it at some stage.’

  Chris pulled his seat belt out to give his stomach some room.

  ‘I’d say Mike Burgess and Declan Swan were importing from Flannery. You remember Mike gave us a story about meeting Flannery in a yacht club? I’m not saying it wasn’t true, but there’s more to their relationship. When Burgess was sent to prison and Swan absconded, there was a vacuum. No one was left to dispose of or distribute the drugs.’

  We’d arrived in Harcourt Square. The car doors let out arthritic creaks on opening.

  ‘God Almighty, you need some new motors here.’

  ‘It’s rented. Avis have Garda squad cars now.’

  Chris harrumphed, but cutbacks and inconvenience were nothing new to any police force.

  We made for the station, a cadet-blue sky above and bracing cold below. Chris stood outside for a moment longer, slaking his need for fresh air – there wouldn’t be much of it inside.

  We made our way up to Amina’s desk.

  They shook hands and Chris waved away an offer of refreshment.

  ‘No, thanks, Amina. I’ve been sat on a Ryanair flight drinking tea – any more and I’ll be waterlogged. So we’ll get straight down to business, if that suits?’

  ‘Of course,’ said Amina. She piled folders of printouts into her arms and moved towards the glass meeting room in the middle of our floor.

  Three gardaí were already in situ.

  I halted. ‘Looks like there’s a meeting in progress.’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ said Amina. ‘I booked the room online and I have the confirmation printed out.’

  She walked into the meeting room and we followed.

  With a smile and quick hands she piled up the men’s documentation, moving them out of the room with gentle conversation and the ease of a high jumper arcing her body over the bar. A thing not everyone could do.

  We took our seats, warm from the previous occupants, and Amina fired up her laptop.

  ‘Right,’ said Chris. ‘I haven’t done much of the finance stuff as it’s not my area, but I’m good on the ground. After what Andy in Burgess Data Centre told me, I did a bit of digging around, spoke to employees in the warehouse and on the tech desk. Not much from anyone other than a wary silence, but I got a lad on field support and he was a mite more chatty. BDC have a small field-service business.’

  ‘About £370,000 in revenue annually,’ said Amina.

  ‘Which is a tidy sum, but they’ve around eight field technicians,’ said Chris.

  ‘Seems a lot of staff to support – unless it’s a lossmaking unit?’ I said.

  ‘Aye. My contact says he and a couple of other lads do all the onsite work, drive to the client location and fix cabling, motherboards, whatever it is they do. He was a bit cagey at first, He’s got a nice business in refurbished laptops. Sells ’em privately and works on ’em in BD
C time. When I told him I’d no interest in his nixers, he warmed up. He’s aggrieved that two of the other technicians don’t do much work. They’ve got the uniform, tools and use their own vans, but they never take customer calls or do site visits. They used to trundle off on a daily basis, but my lad never knew where they was going. Said the place was like Paddington Station until Burgess went to prison, now it’s a morgue.’

  ‘So what’s going on?’ I said.

  ‘Amina tracked these two employees,’ said Chris. ‘They’re contractors and ex-employees of Burgess Gas Networks – ring any bells?’

  ‘The business Mike and Anne Burgess sold years back that made them all their money?’ I said.

  ‘Yes! It was a gas-appliance fitters and service company and much as it made good money, Amina here found out Burgess only got three million for it when it were sold to Centrica. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to see that kind of cash in my lifetime but . . .’

  ‘But the Burgesses lived well beyond that,’ I said. ‘The house in Dalkey must have cost over two million, never mind the yacht and their main home in Newton-on-Severn. Where did they get the money?’

  ‘I tracked down the ex-gas networks technicians. First lad wouldn’t say owt other than he were on long-term sick leave. But second man is getting on a bit, told him I’d see him in prison for obstruction if he didn’t tell me what was going on.’

  Amina stifled a cry, but it was a good strategy and I’d have used it.

  ‘What did he say?’ I said.

  ‘Mike Burgess was supplying street dealers for years. Rumour had it he bought off an Irish bloke. He used the field-service team in the gas-networks business to drop off the drugs. Burgess had about thirty gas-installers going at one point – about eight delivered drugs under the guise of servicing boilers. When Mike Burgess sold the gas business and set up Burgess Data Centre, he kept this man and the man out on sick leave as contractors. But the business was different – less drops and bigger consignments. Five-kilo blocks to a designated parcel motel. He said it were never violent and paid well. When Burgess went to prison, he and the other driver left. Neither wanted to work with Declan Swan – he couldn’t be trusted.’