by Jane Ryan
I left the hotel in the dark hours, nearer to dawn than midnight and made for my second location.
Chapter 44
Gavin rang back with an address. It was long. Seán got the first words of the address inked out on his hand, using the dregs of a biro he found near the phone boxes, Numancia 30. He stopped writing, his heart raced and the words swam in front of his eyes. He must have said something before he sank to the ground as Gavin had shouted at him.
‘Hold on, Seán! I’ve a driver coming to get you!’
He was exhausted, dehydrated and dizzy as a newborn foal. Gavin sent a pre-paid taxi for him. The driver was well compensated and dragged the half-conscious hobo into the back of his Skoda.
Seán sat in the back seat and asked for a phone. He punched in Gavin’s number.
‘Hey, man?’ said Gavin. ‘How you holdin’ up?’
‘OK.’ Seán sounded rusty as though he’d borrowed someone else’s vocal cords and they didn’t quite fit. ‘Thanks, Gavin. You still got Guy with you?’
‘Right here beside me, Seán. Glock 19 to his head, ready to squeeze the trigger the second you say.’
‘You tell him, if he’s sending me to Fuentes contacts he’ll be dead before I’ve walked in the door.’
‘He knows, Seán.’
‘Tell him, Gavin. I want to hear his voice.’
‘Guy,’ said Gavin, an upbeat menace in his voice, ‘is Seán going to a safe house? Will Fuentes grab him when he walks in the door?’
‘No . . . no.’ Guy sounded as frightened as Seán wanted him to be. He heard the connecting crunch of bone on bone and a splatter.
‘Just giving my man here a reminder of what will happen if you’re jumped, Seán,’ said Gavin.
Seán heard a low moan in the background.
‘And, Guy?’ said Gavin. ‘Don’t think your razzer friends can help you – no one knows where you are. If anything happens to Seán I’ll take my time with you, so think on. Kept a man alive for four days once. I reckon that’s a record.’
Guy was weeping and with each sob Seán felt drops of cold relief.
‘Who am I going to see?’ said Seán.
‘Bloke called Pablo Gar-ce-ah – that how you say it, Guy?’
Seán heard another low whimper from Guy and hoped Gavin hadn’t lost the head too soon – he had a bloodlust when activated that he struggled to switch off. Seán wanted nothing more than Guy dead – Guy’s fingerprints were all over his current predicament – but Guy would die at his hands.
‘Pablo Garcia,’ said Guy. ‘He’s a pawnbroker, high end. Gold and diamonds, I’ve used him before for personal stuff. He’ll make sure you have money and can get out of the country. You should know Interpol have an international warrant out for your arrest.’
‘Mr Helpful now, are we, Guy?’ said Gavin.
‘I’ve arrived,’ said Seán. ‘I’m giving the phone back to the driver. If you don’t hear from me in ten minutes start cutting his fingers off.’
‘Sound,’ said Gavin.
The pawn shop was at the base of a huge block of flats – to Seán everything in this city sat under blocks of flats. He walked past the smoked-glass frontage, a filthy loon in ridiculous shiny shoes. An older man with a head of pomaded hair pranced out of the shop. He was a black sparrow in a three-piece suit with his moustache manicured to the last hair.
‘Señor Seán?’ he said. ‘I am Pablo Garcia, and Señor Guy said to expect you. This way, please.’
He indicated to a doorway next to the shop, opened the door and waved Seán in. It was a modern foyer that smelled of regular cleanings and green plants. Pablo called the lift and kept his eyes ahead, one hand playing with the side of his moustache. He opened an apartment door, clean and clutterless, lived in by a person with precise habits. Seán assumed it was Pablo.
‘Please take this phone and ring your friend Gavin,’ said Pablo. ‘After your call I will show you where the bathroom is and make something to eat for you.’
‘No,’ said Seán. Not because he wasn’t famished – he might faint from lack of food and water – but because he couldn’t change his nature. His need was for control at all times. In all things. He rang Gavin.
‘Seán, man?’ said Gavin. ‘How’s it looking? Good?’
‘Yeah, so far. I’m going to eat and cleaned up. If I don’t call you back in three hours kill Guy.’
‘No worries, man,’ said Gavin. ‘Did you hear that, Guy, I’m to kill you if Seán doesn’t ring back in three hours.’
Seán hung up.
‘Please tell your friend to calm down,’ said Pablo. ‘I don’t work for the cartel and Guy does, but if they try to contact him, because you’ve escaped and he is compromised, the cartel will kill him and there will be no one to pay me. Also, do you want the cartel to come looking for you, en serio? In earnest? They’ll start by killing everyone in your organisation in Dublin. Your friend Gavin will be first on the list.’
He indicated to a soft forest-green chair to Seán’s right.
‘Please sit. I will be well paid for my services, so rest, eat. Then I will take you in the boot of my car to the port, where a yacht is waiting and you can sail back to Ireland. Or anywhere you care to. Guy said you are a master yachtsman.’
Seán’s mind was unable to package his thoughts in any rational way.
‘OK, I’ll eat first and you eat what I eat.’
‘Of course, Señor Seán, come into the kitchen and watch me prepare.’
‘Can you make ham and cheese sandwiches?’ They reminded him of Sunday tea in the convent, where the sandwiches were more cheese than ham, but he’d liked them. You had to like something.
‘Of course. In Spain we call them bikinis, because they are triangles, you see?’
Deftly he made a sandwich and held up a half, cut on the diagonal. Pablo was quick, with compact movements in his tiny kitchen, nothing a full arm’s length away. He made tea to go with the sandwiches.
‘Please come and sit in the salon to eat,’ he said and smiled at Seán. ‘Can you call your friend Gavin and ask him to get back to normal. I will buy a burner phone for you when we leave the apartment as that is my work phone and I will need it back.’
He was wearing a ‘Kiss the Cook’ apron so ridiculous it was comforting, but weariness threatened to lay Seán out.
‘You are not well and, were my intentions bad, it would take nothing to overpower you. Sit. Eat.’
The man had a point and Seán sat in the armchair and let it swallow him. He watched the man nibble at the sandwiches and sip his tea. It was like dining with a hamster. Seán wolfed into the food, drinking two pots of tea and losing count of how many bikinis he ate.
‘Why not call Gavin?’ said Pablo.
Seán punched in Gavin’s mobile number. ‘Gavin?’
‘Yeah, man – everything still on the up and up?’
‘I’m good, going to rest for a bit now, then I’ll get a burner and sail for home. Let Guy go – you can’t keep him there anymore – someone’s bound to notice. Fuentes might call him and we can’t let them know I’m safe. Make sure Guy knows you’ll slice his face off if he tries to alert Fuentes. Cut him now to give him a taste.’
‘Will do, Seán, but you’ll call me in a couple of hours?’ said Gavin.
‘Yes, maybe five hours, have your phone on.’
‘Cool. If anything happens I’ll come back and kill Guy.’
‘I know you will, Gavin.’
Seán hung up and Pablo regarded him.
‘You know, Guy isn’t a bad man. He does want to help you, Señor Seán.’
Seán sat back and crossed his legs, a feeling of warmth stealing over him. He listened to Pablo patter on about when he first met Guy, how he helped him buy gold pieces and good diamonds to be kept safe for a rainy day.
Seán looked out the apartment window and saw it was dusk. He jumped up.
‘How long have I been here?’ He swayed.
‘Only an hour and a half,’ said
Pablo.
Seán’s head pounded and he flopped back down into the chair. His eyelids had a mind of their own and started closing like theatre curtains at the end of a show. He shook himself.
‘There’s no point in fighting it,’ said Pablo, ‘and you’ve had much more than me. It was in the tea. Rohypnol. You’ll be unconscious in minutes. I’m going to call Fuentes now.’
Seán couldn’t see anything and his system was shutting down. His mind thrashed like a bird caught in a net, but his listless body didn’t stir.
He heard Pablo Garcia’s phone call but couldn’t say anything.
‘I think Guy is compromised – you may want to retire him. This happened because Seán’s associate found him. I’m going to go now as I’m close to collapse. Send the men in the service entrance, you have the keys.’
Chapter 45
Bobbles of gold hung off the departing night’s curtain. I was in 20 Carrer d’En Roca, an alleyway of eight-storey buildings lying between Las Ramblas and Placa del Pi. An Airbnb Amina had reserved in her name. My apartment was the size of a foldaway bed and Ramon’s words unspooled in my head as I breathed in ribbons of muggy air. If I opened my window, I could reach across to touch the balcony of the building opposite. The fifth floor of a sandstone building with a barrel-tiled roof. The barrio had a ferrous smell, as though rusting from all the angry graffiti on its architecture.
Fully dressed I lay on the bed, too early to get up, too late for sleep. My phone was face down on the jaded pine locker. Light leaked from the sides and it made the same sound as a faulty desk fan.
The number was withheld.
‘Yes?’
‘Bridge?’
‘Amina? Is everything OK?’
‘No.’
It was a tiny sob.
‘I’m sorry, Bridge. I was told it was confidential.’
She was keening now, a hopeless sound.
‘I don’t want to do this to you because you’re so far away, but if I don’t tell you I’m no friend. Your dad’s being brought into the station later, to be questioned about money laundering.’
The room melted and slid down its own walls.
‘Bridge? Bridge?’
‘I’m here, Amina. It’s OK.’
The frontal lobe of my brain looped with civilities while the rest screamed. I made for the double windows and flung them open. The tang of a port city rushed into the vacuum of the apartment.
‘It’s my fault, Bridge – I followed the trail – and it was so convoluted – there’s so much not filed –’
She was chuffing, a small toy train doing endless figures of eight.
‘Slow down, Amina. Start from the beginning.’
‘Joe told me. He knew I’d tell you. Muldoon called him up to the office yesterday – he said your dad would be called in to discuss money laundering. He’s not being arrested. He’s helping with enquiries.’
It was a blow to the side of my head. A fuzzy pain fogged my vision.
‘Not being arrested,’ I repeated.
‘Bridge, it’s to do with two companies Chris and I have been investigating. They’re involved with a massive money-laundering service. They’re using a Finnish cryptocurrency company operating on the dark web using tumblers –’
‘Stop!’ I couldn’t process details.
In a few short hours my dad would be in his dressing gown and pyjamas. Turkey-skin neck with white bristles, sitting at the breakfast table feeding the dog scraps.
Amina snuffled on the phone.
‘My father has trouble logging onto his laptop – how in God’s name is he supposed to have access to the dark web?’ I said.
‘He wouldn’t have to. Money was dumped from a clean wallet – as a legimate currency – into the Isle of Man branch of Munster Banks plc in the name of Nasda Holdings.’
The edges of my mind curled up. Nasda Holdings bank statements winked up at me from the floor of my mother’s study.
‘Remember the Ansbacher accounts? The tax evasion scheme set up by Des Traynor? Politicians, builders, judges – oh sorry, Bridge!’
Heat pulsed down the phone.
‘It’s fine, Dad knew them, but it was from the cocktail circuit. He wasn’t in their camp.’
Amina’s embarrassment continued to radiate until my ear was hot.
‘The Ansbacher accounts weren’t concealed, just the Revenue weren’t wise to how devious those bastards were. Can I just point out these accounts were set up when the weekly wage was less –’
‘Amina! Please stay on track. This is my dad!’
‘Sorry, sorry. Nasda Holdings is a different animal. It was set up in the seventies in the Caymans, same as the Ansbacher accounts, and had a bank account that was managed out of an office in Fitzwilliam Square, but the company never traded. Nasda Holdings was set up to look banjaxed.’
‘Never traded? Then it’s defunct.’
‘That’s what I said and it’s a sign of criminality.’
A gnarly stone rolled around the pit of my stomach.
‘It’s forward planning on an epic scale, Bridge. The company never traded and is lost in time, you’d never know to look for it. But Nasda Holdings bank account receives crypto-currency, bitcoin and Ethereum. Both are a red flag for –’
‘Money laundering,’ I said.
Amina was silent.
‘But doesn’t crypto currency leave traces?’ I said. ‘The bitcoin blockchain is a public ledger?’
‘Yes, in theory, but it’s an unregulated market with new blocks being added every ten minutes. It’s not as simple as typing into a search bar.’
‘So what are Nasda Holdings doing?’ I said.
‘When the crypto-currency is clean it’s traded for pounds and transferred to Munster Bank Isle of Man. Nasda Holdings shouldn’t have a bank account so there’s some crooked employee helping in the bank. It’s the only way this account could receive money.’
‘So that bank branch is colluding in this fraud. So what’s my father got to do with this?’
Amina gave a hard swallow. ‘Your mother’s one of the named directors of Nasda Holdings, the other is a company which we know –’
‘Jesus! There’s no way my parents are involved in this! How can my mother be a director of anything?’
‘I don’t know, but there’s something else of interest.’
‘What?’
‘The guy who set up the whole Ansbacher Scheme – guess who was his articled clerk in the fifties?’
I had nothing. My mind was pinballing around the facts Amina had given me.
‘Richie Corrigan. You know him, right, Bridge?’
Chapter 46
I didn’t suffer from prescience. Richie Corrigan inveigling my mother into some financial misdeed shouldn’t have surprised me – after all, I had read their letters. It was too early to call my father and today he would need all the rest he could get. He needed a plan for his upcoming interview and my feet took me to the local bakery, while I tried to understand my parent’s involvement in Nasda Holdings. I wasn’t having much luck.
Panaderia del Nuestra Señora was no more than a window with a half door for serving. The buying of bread in the small panaderia had a timeless quality to it, a challenge and response going on for hundreds of years unchanged. I walked back to my apartment with a couple of croissants, needing the morning chill and the thought of coffee bubbling on my stove to keep me upright.
My burner phone rang.
‘Ramon?’ I was walking up the stairs and the phone reception bounced with metallic-sounding holes. ‘I can’t hear you, wait until I’m in the apartment.’
I ran to my floor, unlocked the apartment door and rushed inside.
‘I have Flannery’s location, Bridge.’
A moment of eerie stillness.
‘Where is he?’
‘Tranquila – let’s take a beat on this.’
‘Where are the Mossos? Have they taken Flannery?’
Ramon sighed. ‘Fuentes want Flan
nery dead, but they don’t want some cock-up killing disturbing their business. The Mossos in the Fuentes pay have to earn their keep, but the Intendents – you call them inspectors – want to manage the capture of Flannery and the dirty cops. You’re up against many agendas.’
‘Will the corrupt Mossos get caught?’
He gave a bark of dry laughter. ‘Unlikely – and it’s another reason you’ll be kept in the dark. The Intendents don’t want another national police force to see how we’re struggling with corruption. I’m going to give you some information, what you do with it is your business. According to my informant Flannery’s in Carrer del Marquis de Barbera. It’s in the old town, but it’s full of rat runs, alleys backing onto laneways barely the width of a person and everything enclosed by high-density buildings. It’s where the chicas and the illegals live.’
‘Chicas? Girls?’
‘Few of them are girls now. It’s home to the black economy. The cleaners, childminders, everyone middle-class Barceloneses use to make their lives easier. My point being, people will turn a blind eye.’
‘What else have you got?’
‘He’s in Building 38 and from what I understand he’s in the Fuentes’ custody.’
A cold finger pulled an invisible thread, puckering my insides.
‘Custody? So you were right – he was abducted from Dublin.’
‘My source says he’s handcuffed with some other men the Fuentes have scores to settle with.’
‘Are you sure of your source?’
‘Yes, she’s a chica, cleaning the building Flannery’s in. There’s a pop-up brothel above him, run by one of the low-level gangs Fuentes use to ship product.’
‘Why is she telling you this?’
‘Her son’s in the gang, she wants to keep him safe, says the bosses are like rabid dogs.’
