‘Why are all surveillance photos so blurry?’ asked James.
Inspector Ryan guiltily adjusted the lens on the projector, and the image snapped into sharp focus. James waited for the chuckles to die down, before resuming a more serious tone.
‘So, this is our man,’ he said. ‘As you can see, he is dressed head to toe in black; always Armani. I know you can't see his eyes properly in a photograph, but that's what makes him so dangerous. They are cold and dead; like most of his opponents. Thank you.’
He stopped his pacing and sat back down at the table, finishing his can in one gulp.
‘Thank you, Detective Murray,’ said Inspector Ryan.
He signalled with his head at another guy across from James, sat in the middle of the ranks of Cork detectives.
‘Detective Fitzsimons, would you mind continuing?’ he asked.
James's ears pricked up. As well as being one of his best mates, Sean Fitzsimons was also one of his rivals for the upcoming sergeant’s position. It would be interesting to see how the two pitches compared.
‘Thank you, Inspector Ryan,’ said Detective Fitzsimons.
He pushed his chair back a little from the table, and relaxed. His style was much more laid back, but he always needed a bit of room, as he tended to use his arms a lot when speaking.
‘Detective Murray mentioned a man called McCabe in his presentation,’ said Detective Fitzsimons. ‘Well that is where the other side of the story picks up.’
He took a sip of his cranberry juice; a bit of a health nut was our Sean.
‘McCabe senior was a successful businessman; self-made and ruthless. But within a year of hiring a young ambitious accountant, he had been forced out of all of his businesses. Not only that, but within a year of being deposed from his position of power, he was shot dead while sitting at the bar of his local pub. No one has ever managed to pin it on Black Swan; no one ever could, but even the dogs in the street knew who ordered it.’
‘McCabe left behind two teenage sons; identical twins in fact, David and John McCabe,’ he continued. ‘Their mother had passed away years previously of ovarian cancer. They were seventeen when their father died, and both struggled to come to terms with their changed situation. David was the stronger of the two, but John really went off the rails by all accounts. David had a hard time reining him in.’
‘One night, about four months after their father’s death, John and David were standing outside a nightclub. They had gone to Limerick for some reason, instead of staying where they were known and feted, and John got into an argument in the line outside the club. Because of his family background, he was used to getting his own way; used to being able to push people around. The problem for him was that in Limerick, he was essentially a nobody. He ended up with a switchblade in the chest, which transected his aorta; he was dead before the ambulance made it to the hospital.’
‘All this made David intensely angry and all the more determined to get revenge,’ he continued. ‘You can understand how he blamed Black Swan for his father’s death; in all likelihood he was responsible for his father’s death, but in David’s head, Black Swan had killed both of them, and that is what makes it personal for David.’
‘Don’t get me wrong. Revenge is a very powerful emotion in itself, but young David was also intensely greedy and ambitious. He wanted a slice of what his father had, only much more so. He wanted the whole of Cork united under his rule, with Black Swan dead into the bargain.’
‘So, he targeted the other side of the city; the weaker side; the side where Black Swan had much less of an influence. Through ruthlessness, bloody mindedness and sheer hard work, he built his business up from virtually nothing. He didn't do it by facts and figures; by calculation and accountancy.’
He stopped briefly, to let his next words sink in.
‘Make no mistake, gentlemen,’ he stated distinctly. ‘Black Swan may be ruthless, but David McCabe makes him look like Snow White. He uses threats and intimidation; stabbings, beatings and punishment shootings. That’s how David McCabe rules his Kingdom; absolutely. Thank you for listening.’
James looked across at his colleague admiringly. It had been a confident and assured presentation.
‘Oh, and by the way,’ said Detective Fitzsimons, as he settled himself back at the table. ‘McCabe also has a nickname. He is known as the Bullock.’
Across the table, there was a single guffaw of laughter. Detective Fitzsimons held up his hand for silence.
‘I know it sounds faintly comedic,’ he added, ‘but his nickname is based on the character the Bull McCabe.
He paused.
‘Which is also incidentally where his father’s nickname originated too,’ he finished.
One of the Dublin detectives clicked his fingers in recall.
‘That film the Field; Richard Harris played him, if I’m not mistaken. Set in the west; Galway somewhere, John B Keane wrote it.’
‘That's the one,’ said Sean. ‘And I don’t have to tell you how driven, focused and downright scary that character was. He was almost psychotic in the range and scope of his behaviour. In short guys, let’s just say the nickname of the Bullock is well chosen.’
Inspector Ryan let the murmurs of chat grow into a hubbub of conversation for a few minutes, before holding up his hand for quiet again. As the noise died away, he spoke into the ensuing silence.
‘So in summary,’ he said. ‘We have two very powerful and equally vicious gangs, vying for the supremacy of our streets. Secrecy is paramount to both organisations. It is incredibly difficult to get intelligence on either of them.’
He paused.
‘In short gentlemen, we have a very tough job ahead of us.’
Chapter 15 – Survival
13th May 2011 – Three Days after the Storm.
To live is to suffer, to survive is to find some meaning in the suffering. – Friedrich Nietzsche.
The first thing that struck me, on landing back in the country of my birth, was the duality of language. I had completely forgotten, being so long in the US, but it was strange and vaguely unsettling to see the Irish words on the airport signs, as well as the English.
I wasn't sure what to expect, but Dublin Airport certainly wasn't what I had expected. I knew I was Irish; my birth certificate said as much. I remembered the tears that had fallen, as the Emerald Isle had receded to a dot on the horizon. I remembered all the rebel songs; the ones I had sung, emboldened with one too many pints of Guinness, in the ludicrously overpriced and maudlin Irish bars of New York. I even remembered a smattering of the hard learned patois; prided myself on it in fact.
But somehow this airport; this gleaming cathedral of steel and glass just didn't feel like the gateway to my home country. I knew some of it was me. I’d been away for twenty four years, so some things were bound to have changed. I was certainly different, but some of the Irishness, the ceol agus craic, seemed to have been stripped from the place.
Walking down towards the baggage reclaim, you could've been in any airport in Europe. The two employees I’d met so far were both of eastern European origin; I’d had difficulty understanding what they were saying. In fact, the only Irish person I’d encountered so far was the guy at passport control.
The official had been very stern and had fixed me with an unblinking stare. For a second, I’d felt as though he could see right through me. My first instinct had been to run away. Don’t be stupid, I’d said to myself, he doesn’t know anything. Just as the doubt was forming in my brain, the man had relaxed and smiled.
‘Coming home?’ he’d asked, with a welcoming grin.
I’d smiled back in return.
‘Something like that,’ I’d said. ‘We’ll see how it goes.’
Walking on through the baggage claim and straight out through the green nothing to declare, I continued on. Travelling light, with only a rucksack, I headed out of the terminal building and down to the coach park.
I hopped onto the train-link; the coach that co
nnects the airport with Connolly and Heuston railway stations. The journey was long and uneventful. I recognised none of the roads or buildings, as we drifted inexorably onward toward our final destination. Dublin wasn’t my place; it wasn’t where my particular angels and demons dwelled.
As the coach pulled up outside Heuston station, I felt the first jolt of familiarity. Like a reconnection of sorts; small though it may have been, it was definitely there. I walked through the grand colonnaded entrance and was reminded briefly of my last visit to Dublin; my one and only visit, in fact.
I had come up with Mum on the train. The eighth of December was the day when the country people converged on the capital, the big smoke, to do their Christmas shopping. I remembered the jostle of the crowds, the large tree with lights strung across the street like a mantle of stars, and the Christmas decorations in Switzer’s department store window; a regular treat for the kids.
After buying my ticket, first-class, I couldn't relax until I was safely on that midday train to Cork. I jumped from leg to leg and only finally started to calm as the leviathan slowly enlarged from the dot on the distant horizon, and glided to a stop with a reptilian hiss. I placed my bag on the rack above my head, sat back in padded comfort and closed my eyes for a few minutes.
The brakes suddenly released and the train jerked a few inches forward, startling me, before slowly building speed.
Inevitably my mind strayed back to the night of the storm. My god, I’d gone through the emotional mangle that night, and suddenly I was standing back in that spot; I could even feel the rain on my body.
#
I experienced the feeling again; the distinct and immediate euphoria I’d felt, after I read the words written in the box marked father: Thomas Eugene Mary O’Neill.
Almost immediately afterwards, I received the proverbial kick to the solar plexus. There was a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach; the sick realisation that I’d probably killed my own son. I felt myself descending into a gnawing chasm of hopelessness and despair, but something at the back of my mind refused to let me fall into the abyss; kept telling me that something wasn't right.
I forced my wounded brain to seize on the practicalities and then, in an instant, I knew what it was that was wrong. Kathleen had never known my confirmation name. It had been a standing joke between us. Apart from the fact that I’d been embarrassed to have a woman’s name, she hadn’t told me hers either, so it had been pure stubbornness on both our parts.
I tried to make sense of the discovery; tried to make sense of its significance. If she hadn't known my confirmation name, then she couldn't have added it to the birth certificate. If she hadn't added it, then it followed logically that she hadn't had anything to do with the birth certificate at all.
Seizing on that suddenly empowering information, my brain started connecting all of the dots. If she hadn't been party to it, then in all likelihood it was a fake and in all probability, Alan Murphy was the assassin after all.
My brain started recalibrating; I could feel the cogs working. I could hear them whirring, as the emotional baggage was ruthlessly dumped out, and the cold calculating killer was slipped effortlessly back into place. I could feel the anger rising, but it was a cold hard edged anger; I could sustain this for days if I needed to.
As I stood there, gazing up at the sky, I’d felt the pressure of something on the back of my neck. As I thought about it now, with the benefit of hindsight, I realised that all the pent up emotions I’d experienced in that fateful minute or so had been funnelled into that split second.
At last, my subconscious seized on something; at last it could react in a way it was trained to do. The truth was simple; reaction to danger was like breathing for me, it just happened naturally.
I heard the first part of the whispered statement.
‘Guido....’
The rising wind whipped the rest of it into the driving rain. While the O was still forming in his mouth, I whirled around, instinct and experience telling me I had the benefit of surprise, but only milliseconds to act.
As I spun, I caught the outstretched hand of my attacker with my left hand, just below his weapon. My right hand, still holding my own gun, came around in a blurred arc of speed, hitting the would-be assassin square on the side of his neck.
Still keeping hold of my now dazed assailant, I stepped in and whipped my hand across his chest. I swept my right heel backwards through the base of his ankle, taking the leg completely out from under him, and his balance with it. As he lost his footing, I kept up the pressure of my arm across his chest and he passed the point of no return, hitting the floor with a bang; I could hear the whoosh as the air was forced from his lungs.
Following up my advantage, I dropped my knees savagely into his chest. I heard a couple of cracks and a sharp, injured intake of breath. Grabbing my assailant’s weapon hand and holding it tight, I placed my own gun against the sinews of his wrist and fired a single shot.
I felt the hand go limp, and at the same moment heard the agonised scream.
‘Arrrgghhhhhhhhh!’
I let go of the arm, and watched dispassionately as the gun dropped out of the now powerless fingers. Getting up off his chest, I waited until the agonised shrieks had dissipated and had been replaced with shouted profanities; he was now ready to talk, even if he didn’t want to.
I knelt beside him. He was frantically trying to stem the blood loss from his shattered stump.
‘Who sent you?’ I asked conversationally.
‘Suck my dick,’ said the man, in a voice strained with pain.
‘Who sent you?’ I asked again, more pleasantly and conversationally this time.
‘Are you fucking deaf?’ asked the man.
‘Piece of advice,’ I said pragmatically. ‘In future, never give your target any chance at all.’
I placed my pistol to the man's forehead and pulled the trigger, without even pausing.
Most people, when they fire a weapon, close their eyes instinctively. I had trained myself to do the opposite. I didn’t want to miss a millisecond. I saw in an instant the expression change from panic to realization to acceptance. I felt rather than saw the track of the bullet; saw the explosion from the back of the head, the blood spraying like paint carelessly slopped out of a tin. The faint rustle of clothes as the already lifeless body settled back onto the ground.
This was not some grotesque killing ritual. I did not do it through any sadistic pleasure, but purely because it could be the difference between life and death; my life and death.
My survival mechanism started to kick in. I glanced at the house, filled with my meagre personal belongings, overlaid on someone else’s past. I glanced at the gleaming rental car and a plan started forming; the same instant reaction to situations that had kept me alive for twenty odd years. I caught a glimpse of the future; of myself strolling into New Orleans Airport and booking a one way ticket to Dublin.
Ireland was as good a place as any to find out who I was.
#
As I watched the green canopy flash past the carriage windows in a blur of movement, I realised that I was back in the present again. I picked up the bottle in front of me and took a swig. I wasn't even sure why I’d got myself a beer. I didn’t like drinking during the day, but there was a strange and unfamiliar feeling in the pit of my stomach. I thought about what it could be. It took me a while to work out what it was, and then it struck me with a slow realisation; it was anxiety.
In my game, if you were anxious, you didn’t live very long. But this was different. As the countryside unfolded past my window, I knew that I was getting closer and closer to old memories; ghosts that maybe should be allowed to sleep easy and undisturbed.
Extracting my hand from my jacket pocket, I placed my keys on the table top in front of me. I picked up one and looked at it. This key had been on my key ring since I was fifteen. It had born witness to my first serious kiss, my first serious relationship, and later, my first killing. I wasn't even su
re why I had kept it for so long; or the house it belonged to, for that matter.
I'd never been able to bring myself to sell it, but I’d never been able to bring myself to rent it out either, so I had a management company look after it for me. They checked it out on a regular basis; made sure there were no leaks or disasters, forwarded on the mail and kept it clean and tidy.
In a sense, I think I’d mothballed my previous life. It was easier to wrap it up and preserve it; ring fence it, if you like, than it was to come face to face with something unsavoury or unsettling about my new life.
Mum had a way of making me face things, even in death, that I really didn’t want to know or recognise about myself. I hadn’t dealt with her leaving me; I didn't want to get rid of anything from her life, but I didn’t want to face up to her death either. It would be an interesting reunion.
Chapter 16 – Home
13th May 2011 – Three Days after the Storm.
Where thou art, that is home. – Emily Dickinson.
I picked up the beer bottle and turned to look out of the window, trying to forestall the memories. I took a long swig, shuddering as I swallowed, and watched the forty shades of green flashing past in an emerald blur. It wasn't just tourist bullshit; it really was a very lush and green country.
The further I got from Dublin, the further back in time the countryside seemed to regress. The names of the towns resonated from my youth; Portlaoise, Templemore, Thurles, Mallow, town-lands of an earlier time.
Where I'd found Dublin modern and soulless (it could have been any modern European capital city), I found these towns timeless in their Irishness. The old-fashioned shop fronts, the whitewashed stone cottages; for every mile of track I travelled, I found the republican rebel spirit seeping back into my bones. I knew why I’d come back, but I also knew why I’d been reluctant to come back. I knew the pull would reassert itself, but I had to find out. I had to know for certain, and the only place I could think of to start my quest was where it had all began; where I had begun, in fact.
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