Two Kinds of Blood

by Jane Ryan

  Chapter 38

  2019

  I got off the DART at Sandymount and walked to Harcourt Square, needing some air. The morning train was jammed this time of year, dead-eyed commuters jockeying with school-bagged children. As I walked, I reread the text from Joe telling me DCS Muldoon had given me the go-ahead on Barcelona. The Spanish authorities were allowing one detective to observe and DCS Muldoon had chosen me. Not telling my commanding officer I was pregnant before a challenging assignment broke any amount of Human Resource rules. That didn’t bother me but putting the spark inside my womb at risk whipped me as I walked to work.

  I’d started to keep a notebook. It helped me fill out the shape of my emotions without guilt, to name what I was feeling and gauge it. Some days I was depressed, others I was driven to the angry end of exhaustion. At no point was I calm and at times I was wretched. It explained why I craved the oblivion of pursuit. The day itself trudged by with little relief, unreturned calls and paperwork awaiting sign-off. There was no information about Flannery or Fuentes. Most of the day was spent justifying travel expenses and making sure Human Resources had my itinerary for Barcelona.

  ‘This is a cost overhead analysis so CAB don’t go over budget. We don’t need your itinerary to protect you, that’s not our job,’ said Bluntface, her voice shellacked in spite.

  Muldoon and Joe Clarke were curt today, no more information on Barcelona forthcoming. The silence pressed down on me and I found myself outside Paul’s floor. It was shut up tight at 7.30pm. The faint shadow of long-gone employees hung in the stale air. I took my phone out, about to face-time Paul. He had the ear of our superiors and might have information I wasn’t privy to.

  O’Connor burst through the doors of the third-floor stairway.

  I stifled a scream.

  ‘There you are.’

  ‘You were looking for me, Detective Superintendent O’Connor?’ The mouthful of title gave me a chance to compose myself.

  ‘You’re always here, aren’t you, Harney? No boyfriend to go home and make dinner for?’

  He didn’t spit the words or leer at me. O’Connor’s sexism wasn’t casual, unlike some of the fossils in the force who called the secretaries ‘pet’. O’Connor’s brand was different, knowingly used and designed to keep women down, but hell hath no fury like a woman on form.

  ‘I’m not sure speculation on my private life is appropriate, Detective Superintendent O’Connor. Is there something I can do for you?’

  He gave a wolfish grin, all threat and no charm.

  ‘I hear you’re angling to get yourself to Barcelona? Chasing down Seán Flannery at the taxpayer’s expense.’

  I refused to be drawn or yield to the impulse to take a step back. He would see me flinch.

  ‘What information do you have on him, Harney?’

  ‘It’s all in the briefing documents I sent to DCS Muldoon.’

  O’Connor was silhouetted against the fading light, a black sun against a backdrop of dusk. The stillness of him was unsettling, no doubt his desired effect.

  ‘It would be a terrible pity if Seán Flannery was ready for you when you turned up. I wouldn’t rely on support from the Spanish, they don’t like other police forces on their turf. It might not end well for you.’

  He gave a sly smile and leaned further forward. I was rocked back onto my heels. He supressed a snort and in the semi-darkness emanated the aggression of a pack hyena when a wounded beast was all but in its jaws. Now, more than ever, I was convinced O’Connor was Flannery’s informant.

  I cursed the eco-lights and smacked my hand on a sensor. Light flooded the foyer and I made for the stairs.

  O’Connor’s laughter bounced off the tiled walls behind me.

  Chapter 39

  Joe’s speech pattern was off – he had the intonation of a high-flowing syllable-timed language, where each sentence lolls around. It sounded peculiar in English, which was a stress-timed language. I put it down to worry and talking to Sergeant O’Driscoll too much.

  ‘Look, I’m not sure you should go at all. I spoke to O’Driscoll – he says there’s not much by way of support on the ground in Barcelona for us. You’ll be on your own – which I’m not happy about – and unarmed.’ He rubbed a spot of speckled sun damage at his temple. ‘You’ll have to stay in whatever station the local police put you. If you do not have permission to accompany them on an operation, you stay in the station. Don’t charge off trying to catch Flannery.’

  I could hear the capitals in Joe’s voice. The neat blue collar of his work-shirt rubbing against sagging skin, a wrinkled man in an ironed shirt.

  ‘Joe, I’ll play by the rules and if the Mossos Esquadra tell me I have to sit in an office and watch on a monitor while they apprehend Seán Flannery, I will. You have my word. Now what’s the update?’

  He pulled a manila folder from his desk and clicked on his monitor, tapping the keys in quick rhythm to log in.

  ‘Flannery was caught,’ Joe turned his monitor towards me, ‘on CCTV. This is from O’Driscoll. It’s in Plaça de Catalunya.’

  Plaça de Catalunya was wide and open, a square with lush green areas and a whirling colourful centre. A haven for tourists, it wasn’t an obvious choice to conceal a person of interest. Flannery was being shunted across it by two black men. He looked pale and stunned. The video reeled on and Flannery was caught from a side angle by a different camera, then lost into a side street and a CCTV blackspot.

  ‘It’s him, but as you can see he’s got company,’ said Joe.

  ‘How did he look to you?’ I said.

  ‘Like he always does, maybe less cocksure.’

  ‘Is he a bit out of it?’

  ‘On drugs?’ said Joe.

  ‘Not willingly. The body language is all wrong. He’s between those two thugs – they’re all bunched up. Doesn’t feel right.’

  ‘He may be meeting new buyers or associates. Those lads aren’t the trusting type. O’Driscoll said they go into a block of flats off Catalunya Place and we lose sight of them.’

  ‘Could he still be there?’

  Joe shoved down his metal window, letting clean air into the cramped office. A spotted magpie landed on the flat roof outside and warned off fellow scavengers with a harsh yew yew.

  ‘No idea, Bridge. You’ll have to put yourself in the hands of the Spanish police on this one. Human Resources have reserved a hotel room for you and you’re on EI 562 leaving Dublin airport at 6.45am tomorrow. According to the Mossos Esquadra you will be met by one of their detectives – O’Driscoll said there’s a fifty-fifty chance of that. Be ready to get yourself to Carrer de la Marina, which is the station the Mossos are coming from, if no one meets you.’

  ‘Not the welcome wagon then?’

  ‘Spanish don’t want us in their back yard looking for criminals, no matter what the EU directives on organised crime say. You have five days. Don’t go missing or looking for trouble. O’Driscoll has all your permits filed with the Madrid and Barcelona authorities. Buy a burner phone and text me the number, I’ll get it to O’Driscoll. He and I are the only people who will have that number.’

  The subterfuge swayed in the air between us.

  ‘Why?’ I said.

  ‘O’Connor. He wants in on this operation. I can keep him out of the loop for five days.’

  ‘Tell him I’ve gone quiet, Joe.’

  He made a smacking sound with his lips. ‘And give him a chance to set the Spanish police on you? No, Bridge. Let me handle O’Connor. You’ll have more than your fair share going on.’

  ‘We need to call O’Driscoll, make sure you have the latest update,’ I said.

  He put his phone on speaker and punched in numbers, a run of blips and a single long beep denoting an international ringtone.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Brendan?’ said Joe. ‘You’re not a man to give away anything.’

  ‘Well, it’s my private line, Joe. If you’re ringing it you should know who you’re talking to. Am I on speaker?’r />
  ‘Yes, Bridget Harney and myself. The room is secure.’

  It was a scene from Dad’s Army. I raised a single eyebrow.

  ‘Hello, Sergeant O’Driscoll.’

  ‘Garda Harney.’

  I didn’t correct him.

  ‘Take me off speaker, please, Garda Harney,’ said O’Driscoll.

  ‘Why? Joe and me are the only people in the office, Sergeant O’Driscoll.’

  ‘Walls have ears, Garda Harney, walls have ears.’

  The handset was cold in my ear. ‘You can call me Bridge.’

  ‘Fair enough. I take it Joe has told you the gardaí aren’t wanted here. It’s all politics.’

  Sergeant O’Driscoll’s voice lowered and thinned. I pictured him crouching under a neat Mediterranean desk with his wide Irish face.

  ‘It’s a viper’s nest here. There’s no other way of putting it. They all inform on one another to their bosses while trying to keep central government in the dark. Bloody embassy’s bugged, but we don’t know by who. The whole place is crawling with cartel money. Your best hope are the lads in Customs – they have civilian status in Spain and are clean. I’ll put you in touch with a fellah there. Ramon Mendes. But remember this, you get into a situation where the Mossos Esquadra are coming to your rescue, you run. Got that, Detective Garda Harney? They’re not the cavalry.’

  The fast delivery of his information had us both breathing hard.

  Joe took the handset and wound the call up.

  I turned to face him.

  ‘By the look of you, you’re getting the picture,’ he said.

  I left his office and made my way to Amina’s desk. I would use the Garda-approved hotel but book a second place to stay in Barcelona. A bolthole. Amina could book it in her name.

  Chapter 40

  Arrivals in Barcelona international airport was busy with suited businesspeople looking for drivers with signs. I guessed it was twelve degrees or so, a pleasant change from minus one in wintry Dublin. Barcelona’s airport was a bright, efficient place and I’d plenty of time to admire it, as no one was flashing a sign with my name. It gave me the chance to get my bearings and I took the RENFE train to Passeig de Gràcia stopping at a Movistar outlet to get a burner phone. I texted the number to Joe and took the Metro to Liceu, letting Maps recommend a churros and chocolate café on Calle Petritxol. I played the enraptured tourist with ease, Gaudí’s flair seducing me. This was a city people had given their lives to and made it vibrant in doing so.

  Calle Petritxol was a tiny street with any number of cafés and I was in no hurry to get to a budget hostel Human Resources tried to convince me was a hotel. I ordered at a café window and took a seat at an outside table, relishing the buttercup-yellow sunshine. The chocolate didn’t disappoint either – it was thick and rich, the roasted cocoa beans and honey smell had my mouth watering. My burner rang and I swallowed a piece of crunchy soft churro, dusting away confectioners’ sugar from the side of my mouth.

  ‘Hello?’

  ‘Bridget Harney?’

  ‘Hi, Brendan, thanks for calling.’ My voice was too jolly-hockey-sticks – I needed to take it down a notch. He hadn’t called for a chat.

  ‘You came through as a regular tourist? Gave your passport to border control and weren’t stopped?’

  ‘Yes, I was waved through.’

  ‘So you think, but there’s an alert on your passport – nothing sinister but it will have gone on the national database as soon as I put in for application to travel. Were you met?’

  ‘No, or not by anyone I could see.’

  ‘Fair enough. First time here?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Right so, get to know Barcelona fast, the centre’s small enough. You can’t trust anyone here. Not when you’re investigating the cartels. So you need to know your way around.’ He cleared his throat every time he paused, a nervous tic. ‘Barcelona’s worse than Madrid. The Mossos Esquadra do the policing here, not the Guardia Civil. The Catalan thing is so strong you might as well be in another country. The Ministry of the Interior will try to get involved because it’s the Fuentes cartel but the Mossos won’t let them. Stay out of that conversation and play dumb.’

  This I could do.

  ‘No one met you, officially – it’s the Mossos way of telling you this is their turf. You must assume you’re being watched. Even if you’re any good at losing a tail you’ll shake them for a couple of hours, no more. The Mossos own Barcelona and no amount of Guardia Civil boots on the street will make them give it up. The fellah I told you about, Ramon Mendes, will call you on your Irish cell later today. You have one advantage, the Mossos think you’re a low-level gobshite over from Dublin who wanted a jolly to Barcelona.’

  ‘I have to thank Joe for that, do I?’

  ‘If it wasn’t for Joe Clarke, you’d have been met at the airport, put into a bulletproof vest and thrown into a Comissaria Mossos d’Esquadra station. Where you’d spend your five days. This way at least you can move around. But be careful. The Mossos are known for catching bystanders in crossfire. You’re expected at Carrer de la Marina. That’d be my first port of call to show the Mossos you’re harmless, although from what Joe says you’re anything but.’

  With a click he’d gone.

  His advice left me shaken despite my bluster on the phone and I darted off across town and into the faceless but clean hostel. Joe had pegged me as a cop who fancied a mini-break and I was going to live up to that. I put my burner in the air vent at the top of my room and lick-stuck a hair across the base. I left my rucksack with everything, bar my badge and money, under the bed. From what O’Driscoll said, the room would be searched. I couldn’t look like a complete idiot, so I rolled €150 in a pair of knickers and flung it in the back of a drawer as though it were my emergency money.

  A memory floated back to me. I was ten and walking down the avenue with some friends. My mother gave me thirty pence, with strict instructions the ten pence was ‘emergency money’. The price of a phone call from the call box on Merrion Avenue if I was in trouble. Of course I had spent all my money in a sweetshop and was half an hour late arriving home, with no prior phone call or emergency money. While my mother hopped off me, I found the ten-pence piece tucked into the lining of a back pocket and produced it in sobbed-out breaths. Horrified at how pointless it was against my mother’s wrath.

  The same horror held me now as I stuck a smile on my face and left the hotel, making for Carrer de la Marina.

  Mossos Esquadra on Carrer de la Marina was a pixelated block, with windows turned a blown-glass green by the late November sun. It was a busy station with an open reception. My visit was no surprise and not an occasion of any interest. The Mosso on the main desk greeted me and asked for my passport. He had a bony face, a snippet of authority in a navy uniform, worn parade-style.

  I introduced myself, showed copies of my permits and waited.

  He flicked my passport from back to front, and that was when I knew he wouldn’t return it.

  ‘Garda identification?’ said the Mosso.

  ‘I didn’t bring it. I was told I wouldn’t be armed and my Garda identification would be useless here.’

  No way was I handing over my identification. They knew I had my passport so I couldn’t hold it back, but Irish airlines would take Garda ID if I needed to fly.

  ‘Bienvenida a Barcelona,’ he said in a voice devoid of any welcome. ‘We have your phone number if we need to contact you and we know where you’re staying. As a courtesy we have arranged accommodation for you at our headquarters in Sabadell, if you find anything . . . cutre,’ he waved a tanned hand at me, ‘not good, with your Garda accommodation.’

  ‘Thank you.’

  ‘What do you plan to do now?’

  ‘I was going to get the hop on/hop off tourist bus and try to get to know the city better.’

  ‘Vale.’

  He gave me a patronising look – I was an idiot abroad.

  Chapter 41

  2010
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  Seán had worked all day in the house. A frenzied quality to his efforts made his blood pump close to the skin, thickening his fingers. Lumps of plasterboard lay in chalky heaps around the hall, together with lumps of old feathery fibreglass. He had dust in his hair, up his nostrils and when he coughed it caught in his chest. The downstairs of his terraced house was covered in a white film. The mess made him redouble his efforts. His girlfriend and her daughter were due back tomorrow evening, and everything had to be back to normal. No one could see him hiding his money. The plasterboard internal wall between the hall and the living room had been pulled off exposing its timber frame and a tic-tac-toe of hollows now emptied of their insulation.

  Seán looked at the bundles of money he’d packed into square plastic packets. Six blocks to fit into six hollows, each square of money worth €420,000.

  It didn’t bother him the cartel took the majority share of profit from their joint enterprise – they were the manufacturer so deserved their cut. Seán was the distributor in this arrangement and entitled to the next largest share. Guy, on the other hand was the money pimp, making nothing, distributing nothing, yet still getting a slice of the pie. Fuentes had a wholesale price which had to be paid, no matter what police seizures or rival gang thefts, and that came out of Seán’s end, but it still left plenty of room for profit at the retail level. Guy didn’t know how much Seán sold his product for, because Seán never kept to a minimum price. He let market conditions be his guide – he had a nose for desperation, dates of social welfare payments and genteel sham. His army were trained in the subtle art of persuasion, violence alone didn’t achieve lasting results. Keen middle-class customers gave their phone numbers to their suited dealers who met them at local car parks, or called to their door as the takeaway guy. A simple phone hack got their contacts and the threat of exposure was all it took to get a price increase. Not everyone was afraid of exposure and in these communities Seán believed in making an example of one individual, something so awful it would travel through the hive mind of junkies. While in Drogheda, he had held down a transgressor and knifed him up the ass, finding that single act was enough to keep all the others in line.