Two Kinds of Blood

by Jane Ryan

  ‘So Swan was in on this? Will your driver testify to that effect?’ I said.

  ‘No chance, Bridge. First off I coerced him, so what’s his testimony worth?’

  ‘And Anne Burgess is still maintaining she killed Emer?’

  ‘Aye, no budging her. I don’t understand it.’

  The idea of the Emer Davidson’s murder being opened up again and at a minimum facing a major crimes review wasn’t a happy prospect. There was no way I’d have time to pursue Seán Flannery if a case I’d investigated was re-opened.

  ‘Amina, need you to crack the financial records open,’ I said. ‘If Burgess was buying off Flannery there’ll be money being laundered somewhere. If we can find Burgess’s cash, we’ll be able to find a link to Flannery’s money. When we can freeze Flannery’s money it will flush him out. He’s dropped out of sight and it must be costing him a fortune.’

  ‘Aye,’ said Chris with a side serving of doubt.

  ‘I’m starving and wrecked,’ said Amina. She yawned and showed us the fillings in her molars.

  I’d lost my audience.

  ‘Me an’ all,’ said Chris.

  I waved away the offer of a takeaway, wanting to stay and work through Interpol alerts and the financial summaries Amina had prepared for me.

  My energy was flagging towards the close of the day, but I insisted on taking Chris to the airport. He was quiet on the car journey. I used the Port Tunnel, muggy and confined but faster this time of the evening. We were sitting in a companionable silence which made Chris’s explosion all the more unexpected.

  ‘You can’t keep running Amina this hard!’

  ‘What? I’m not. At least I don’t think . . .’ Confusion fought with disbelief.

  ‘You are!’ Chris gave a cut-off breath of irritation. ‘This is you all over, Bridge. Pushing at everything until it breaks. You push yourself and it works, but Amina’s floundering. You need to get her warrants and accesses she can’t get – so much of what she’s doing is under the radar and she’s terrified she’ll get found out.’

  ‘So why hasn’t she said it to me?’

  I wasn’t sure what upset me more, Chris’s tone of voice or Amina not confiding in me.

  ‘She doesn’t want to let you down.’

  ‘Chris, that’s daft!’

  ‘No, it’s not! You’re a hard taskmaster and when you’ve got the bit between your teeth you can be blind to everything around you.’

  I stayed silent for the rest of the journey, processing what Chris had said.

  As he headed for Departures I reached over to give him a hug, but he stepped away. A stinging sensation in the space between us. The idea of falling out with Chris was unbearable.

  He saw my upset and his shoulders sagged.

  ‘You’ve nothing to lose, Bridge. The rest of us have.’

  Chapter 34

  I had been dreaming of noise. It was a dream I’d taken from childhood. A pitch-black square of a weightlessness full of eerie warbling, so loud it thrummed inside my head as though my skull were a bell, hit with a clapper. I sat up and waited for my room to come into focus. It was the small hours of the night when everything and everyone found natural rest. Unlike me. November was a dark month but, even so, light leaked from the lamp in our garden, giving my curtains a hem of amber. I struggled out of bed, my movements slow, my body swollen.

  And my period late.

  In my bathroom cupboard was a first response pregnancy test. I had bought it in a chemist’s on Baggot Street, deciding not to use one near Harcourt Square. I had wanted a baby for longer than I could remember, but I’d never seen myself as a single parent. I wasn’t concerned about the chattering classes or unkind remarks, but the enormity of doing it on my own. My mother was ill and couldn’t advise me, my father – although a good man – was distant and I had struggled with his exigent parenting. Quicksilver beads of sweat ran down my back. My bathroom had a light-switch cord hanging down from the ceiling and forever put me in mind of a disabled toilet. I felt less than able-bodied as I dithered, wanting this cup to pass. Finally, I grabbed the test. If I was pregnant I was pregnant, and there was no point in waiting until I had my morning pee.

  The underfloor heating tickled the balls of my feet as I sat, propped forward on the toilet trying to keep the litmus end of the stick in a stream of urine, and soaked my fingers. I replaced the cap and sat on the loo, legs akimbo and knickers slung around one ankle. Hope and fear twisted themselves into flesh-coloured knots inside me. I didn’t see myself as mother material, I wasn’t good enough. My mind flicked up a showreel of failings faster than any play button: Kay dead, her children left motherless, Lorraine Quigley forever frozen, full circle to Emer Davidson’s dismembered arm.

  I looked down at the two blue lines bisecting the small white screen. Pregnant. White hot panic.

  I pulled up my pants and went to my mother’s bathroom cabinet, pulling open the mirrored door. She had pill bottles of every description – pain killers, sleeping tablets and anti-psychotic drugs.

  I stood there looking for a long time.

  The dog let out a single bark. I was halfway down the stairs when he settled. I dialled Liam, despite the late hour. He answered on the fourth ring.

  ‘Bridge! What the . . . are you OK?’

  ‘Yes.’ My quietness was born of despair rather than composure.

  ‘Then why are you calling me at – four o’clock in the morning?’

  A rustling of sheets floated down the phone, a sleepy voice asking Liam who was calling. A giggling shush, and the gentle sounds of intimacy.

  ‘Sorry, Liam, mis-dial.’

  I needn’t have bothered with an explanation. He’d already gone.

  Sleep wasn’t coming back. A night light in the hall guided me into my mother’s study. I had boxed all her letters by year and now I pulled out the pile from Sister Finbarr in 1984, the year I was born. My mother’s hands had touched these letters when she was happy and strong. It helped the yammering in my head.

  I chose a letter which Finbarr had written shortly after my birth.

  Dear Elizabeth,

  Go to confession, my little cousin. It’s not to enumerate your sins. God knows us, faults and all, but the sacrament itself will give you healing. Give any pain or guilt you feel to God. Let Him carry it. He wants to carry it for you, He wants you to live a full and happy life. Glory in your new baby girl. I pinned her photograph to my notice board. She is beautiful – and those little fists, all wrinkles of fat and love. You deserve to be happy and love Vincent so much and he’s a good man. Can you not trust him with the truth? You were so young, and I suspect didn’t know what was happening when you conceived. The Kelly boy left for America before he knew you were pregnant, but it wouldn’t have made any difference. He wasn’t the type to come back.

  You wrote that Richie Corrigan traced the baby you gave up for adoption. I didn’t realise you were still in touch and now understand the source of your worry. You need help with a man like Corrigan. He has darkness in him. Please tell Vincent. With his connections I’m sure he will be able to help.

  I blame myself for leaving you, but when the Reverend Mother asked me to go to Nova Scotia I jumped at the chance. God forgive me, I wanted adventure. However, I left you, my beloved cousin. With no sisters for either of us, we were as tight as a cross-stitch quilt. I hope you feel we still are. I do. I will do anything I can to help you.

  Your loving cousin

  Aileen

  She hadn’t written ‘Finbarr’ which was her usual sign-off. The letter hurled me into a cold sea of shock. A child? A sibling? I sat at my mother’s desk, on her chair, looking down at the dove-grey carpet banded with a brown stain. It spoke of a cup, fallen from a hand, years ago.

  Chapter 35

  Snatches of conversation floated out from the DOCB squad room. I was on the corridor looking for scraps of information and hoping an ex-colleague would give me access to their touts, if any of them had spotted Seán Flannery. My o
wn sources of information were dry. I was relying on the bug in Gavin Devereux’s car, which was worse than useless since I’d heard about Flannery being missing. I’d listened to hours of mundane rubbish and Devereux family squabbles.

  The squad room disgorged, and I was surprised to see Paul Doherty among those exiting. He was shielding the commissioner and other superintendents chattered in his wake, as did notetakers with clipboards.

  I slipped into the squad room unnoticed.

  Detectives were stretching, knuckles and knees clicked.

  ‘That Doherty’s a right lick-arse,’ said a voice I didn’t recognise.

  Laughter.

  ‘Bridge?’ said Joe Clarke.

  A few startled looks and flaming faces.

  Joe gestured to one of the incident rooms lining the back wall and we went in.

  ‘Sit down,’ he said. His liver-spotted hand touched his hairline to smooth back a few grey strands.

  ‘Everything OK, Joe?’

  ‘Yes and no. The Hamburg seizure’s a nightmare, four tonnes of narcotics – there’s coke bleeding into the country for the Christmas rush. Do people have no sense or realisation where this crap comes from? Social drug-takers my eye. They’re the most lucrative market for these godless gangsters. Young fellah kneecapped this morning in Clondalkin – they threatened to kill his mother if she didn’t pay off the debt. And this isn’t new.’

  Joe was mad, but it was windy swagger – underneath we were both diminished in the face of such a vast haul, the thought of it on our streets.

  We sat in silence for a time.

  ‘You wanted to see me?’ I said.

  ‘Yes. Bridge, this fellah Watkiss is causing all sorts of problems.’

  ‘Chris? What’s happened?’

  ‘He’s blaming you, saying your obsession with Flannery being involved in Emer Davidson’s murder made him miss the narcotics in Burgess Data Centre.’

  I was so floored words failed me.

  ‘You like him and he’s a pal, but he needs to stop giving his DI Maitland ammunition to give O’Connor,’ said Joe.

  My eyes darted back and forth, searching for an explanation of Chris’ behaviour.

  ‘Doesn’t sound like Chris,’ I said. ‘He’s a good copper. But he was a bit annoyed about the BDC case last time he was here. Said I wasn’t giving it enough time.’

  ‘But that’s his case! Why are we working on it?’

  ‘Looks like Flannery was supplying Burgess with drugs. Amina’s doing all the financial work on it. The data centre’s financial records are complex for no good reason –’

  ‘This isn’t our jurisdiction!’ said Joe.

  ‘Well, if Flannery’s involved it could be, and if we can find Mike Burgess’s money I believe it will lead us to Flannery’s money.’

  ‘That’s too tenuous a link for us to allocate resources,’ said Joe. ‘I don’t like this. Chris Watkiss should be doing this from his end with his financial-audit resources – not using ours then complaining to his DI!’

  Joe had a point and it stung.

  ‘You sure it’s not O’Connor using Maitland as a Trojan Horse to get at us?’ I said.

  ‘No such luck. I’ve had Maitland on the phone and he’s a right overbearing git. Go and ask Amina how much time she’s spent on this and if it’s more than twenty hours tell her to stop. Next time O’Connor comes at me with this Maitland stuff, I’ll land Chris Watkiss in it up to his neck.’

  ‘No, Joe, please don’t do that!’

  ‘You’d rather Watkiss buries you with O’Connor? Because that’s what’s happening.’

  ‘I know,’ I said – but I didn’t. The unpleasant nature of what was happening gave me prickly heat. ‘Give me some time to look into this, will you?’

  ‘Hours, not days, Bridge.’

  I left at a run to find Amina, worry tearing up my gullet at the thought of Chris against me.

  Amina sat with her legs crossed at a circular desk in the middle of the open-plan office. She was surrounded by printouts and was tracking columns of numbers, up and down with her biro nib.

  ‘Amina?’ I said.

  ‘Yes?’ A small, distracted smile.

  ‘Can we get a coffee?’

  She looked up. ‘Sure, why not?’

  We walked out of Harcourt Square.

  ‘You know I don’t drink coffee, Bridge, don’t you? No wonder you’re jittery with all the caffeine you consume.’

  I touched my palms together and steepled my fingers in mock dismay. ‘I’m an addict.’

  We walked at a brisk clip for the pleasure of it, down Harcourt Street and on to Stephen’s Green. Through the gates and into the park itself, bare branches latticed against the sky.

  ‘How did you get on with Chris last time he was over here?’ I said.

  ‘Fine, why do you ask?’

  ‘Do you like him?’

  ‘Yes.’

  It sounded qualified so I waited, let the quiet set. Talk about underestimating Amina – she matched my silence grain for grain until there was a hill of sand between us.

  I caved first. ‘Anything else about Chris?’

  ‘I don’t know him as well as you do. We don’t have a history and he’s polite to me.’ Her hands flapped. ‘Please don’t think I dislike him, but he’s a great delegator. He hasn’t done any work on Burgess Data Centre other than field work. He doesn’t understand the financial side at all, doesn’t grasp how vast it is. I’m searching transaction by transaction.’

  ‘I get it, but not many gardaí would have your level of knowledge or expertise.’

  ‘I have no expertise, just Leaving Cert accounting. I’ve had to learn on the job. Chris doesn’t get it at all.’

  ‘He’s an old dog – hard for him to get into the digital era. But you’ve done all this with school-level accounting?’

  ‘Yeah. Could you look less shocked, please? You’re embarrassing yourself.’

  ‘Sorry.’

  She gave a cheeky grin. ‘But your man Chris is great for saying ‘get back to me today’. I’d say Chris overuses admin resources in Holloway too.’

  ‘How do you know?’

  ‘Said so, but not in so many words. He said Maitland is on his case because he wants Chris to retrain. I’d say his back is to the wall, Bridge. He told me BDC is a big case in West Midlands. To us it’s a cog in the larger story, but it sounds like this could make DI Maitland into DCI Maitland. Did you know Chris is over thirty years in the police force?’

  ‘No! Did he tell you that?’

  ‘Yes, and he thinks he’s too senior to be “digging around int’” records.’

  She did a good West Midlands brogue.

  ‘Don’t judge Chris,’ I said. ‘He’s a good egg, but his strength is in common sense. Not something to be underrated. Maitland is a pal of O’Connor’s from way back and a piece of work.’

  ‘It’s nice the way you stick up for Chris,’ said Amina.

  She was trotting beside me on the outer ring of the park, as I strode past Ardilaun Lodge and towards the Grafton Street entrance. The city was busy mid-morning, the sounds being caught by the evergreen bushes in the park and whittled into murmurs. It struck me, as we walked through the park, how difficult it was for Amina. Since she had stopped wearing her niqab weeks ago in favour of a regulation hijab, she must have felt unprotected and ordinary in everyday clothes.

  ‘Chris mentioned something to me last time he was over, about you feeling overburdened?’ I said. ‘Are you struggling to get access to systems? Can I help with warrants?’

  Amina stopped and turned to me, clearly surprised. ‘No, not really. All I said to him was I would need access to a couple of systems, one UK bank in particular which I wanted him to get for me, not you. That’s what I mean by delegation.’

  ‘Are the HM Revenue and Customs investigating Burgess Data Centre? Under the Proceeds of Crime bill?’

  ‘Yes, but it’s different to here,’ she said. ‘We have access to the Revenue Commiss
ioners through CAB. Chris has no such links with the Inland Revenue. And their forensic financial units are underwater – Brexit has been such an unholy mess they’re bogged down with black-market issues in the North and a million other things.’

  ‘Talk about unintended consequences of divorce.’

  ‘I’m just going to say this and don’t get mad,’ she said, ‘but Chris isn’t as sound with me as he is with you. Also, I might need some retrospective authorisations for accounts I’ve accessed.’

  ‘You slipped that in quietly.’

  ‘Well, you were about to go off on a monologue again about what a decent bloke Chris is and I’ve had enough of that.’

  I smiled. ‘Sure, what do you need?’

  ‘I’ve been getting access to various banks accounts under existing court orders –’

  ‘Christ, Amina! Why didn’t you tell me? That’s illegal. Get me the names of the financial institutions you need to investigate and I’ll get the relevant court orders.’

  ‘OK, Bridge. It wasn’t such a big deal in Revenue.’ Amina was bright red with embarrassment.

  ‘Sorry, Amina. I forgot how Revenue works. Were you investigating the offshore scandals?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You’d have an open court order on that, given the volume of transactions. How long has the Ansbacher investigation been going on?’

  ‘Twenty years,’ said Amina.

  ‘How long?’

  ‘It’s not a live investigation anymore, but we, I mean the Revenue, can still access accounts and prosecute people under its remit.’