Dark Times in the City

by Gene Kerrigan

  ‘What’s—’

  ‘Send me the paperwork and we’ve got a deal.’

  There were now two cops standing in the doorway. The builder recognised the one in plain clothes. ‘How’s she cuttin’, Henry?’

  ‘A few questions, Ruairi.’

  ‘No problem.’

  The builder leaned towards the supplier and said, ‘Not to worry – back in the old days the Special Branch did this three or four times a week. Either they’re just keeping their hand in or someone’s been naughty and they’re rounding up the usual suspects. Show them your driving licence and they’ll let you walk away.’

  He turned to the plain-clothes garda. ‘What might I have done now?’

  ‘We’re knocking on a lot of doors this afternoon – asking people if they’ve got any class of a grudge against Frank Tucker.’

  The builder shook his head. ‘It’s a long time, Henry, since I was under the delusion that I had any role to play in sorting out this country’s woes.’

  ‘All the same, you won’t mind if we check on your comings and goings?’

  Stella Roeper hadn’t seen her husband in three days but she was damned if she’d tell the police that.

  ‘I’m not my husband’s keeper. Look around the house, and if you find him tell him I’ll be in the front room with my feet up.’

  She was long past the fervour of the old days when Republicans greeted police raids and search warrants with defiance or contempt. Long ago the joke was that anyone with connections to Sinn Fein and the IRA had a sure way to get some free gardening done. Just make a phone call to another Republican and whisper that you had some hot material buried in the garden and you could be sure the phone tappers would throw the alarm switch and the uniformed grafters would be along in jig time to dig up your garden.

  In truth, it was no joke. They might dig up the garden on occasion, but mostly they’d tear up the floorboards and ransack the living room. The contents of the attic might be dumped onto the landing and every last paperback stripped from the bookshelves and tossed in a heap. It came with the territory, and sometimes they could wreck the house and still miss the gun or two in the false back behind the wardrobe.

  Since the end of the Troubles the police had scaled down their anti-terror operations, but Stella Roeper’s house remained a regular port of call, given Declan’s contempt for the peace and love brigade.

  ‘It’s about carrying the torch on, for a new generation,’ he said. ‘Sooner or later the real thing will start again, as long as the Brits lay claim to a single acre of this island.’

  Back in the old days, Declan would disappear without a word, for a night or a week – once he was gone for twenty-three days – and Stella didn’t ask any questions. Best not to ask about what you didn’t need to know.

  There hadn’t been anything like that for almost four years.

  ‘A neighbour tells me that Declan hasn’t been around for a couple of days. That right, Stella?’

  ‘If she knows that much, go back and ask the nosy bitch where he might be.’

  ‘Declan’s a bit long in the tooth for playing soldiers, wouldn’t you say, love?’

  She looked past him, as though he’d ceased to exist.

  ‘Well, when he comes back, would you tell him we’d be honoured if he’d give us a call?’

  The only reply he got was a look of stone-faced resentment.

  Stella Roeper was happy that she’d kept the worry off her face.

  *

  When they rang the bell and the smart bastard didn’t answer, Karl Prowse and Robbie Nugent tried knocking the door in. Robbie hurt his shoulder, Karl kicked the lock several times but it didn’t budge. Eventually, Robbie stayed at the door of Callaghan’s apartment, just in case, while Karl went down to the car and got a small crowbar. It took him two minutes of prying and grunting to get the door open and thirty seconds to scope the flat and ring Lar.

  ‘Long gone.’

  Lar said, ‘Plan B.’

  The movie was halfway over. Danny Callaghan was in Cinema 6 of Cineworld, in Parnell Street. The movie had something to do with the CIA, but beyond that he hadn’t bothered to follow it.

  Before seeking refuge in the cinema he’d booked a room in the North Star Hotel, near the train station. All going well, he’d be on his way to Belfast first thing next morning, finding somewhere to hide until he figured out the best move. He half expected Hannah to ring, seeking more information, but nothing happened. No word from Novak, no further calls from Lar Mackendrick. The phone was in silent mode, and he held on to it, hand in his pocket, in case he missed the vibration.

  He was coming down to street level on the escalator, having abandoned the movie, when he felt the phone shudder.

  ‘Where are you?’ Lar Mackendrick said. ‘You were supposed to stay at home.’

  ‘I’ve just dropped out to get some milk.’

  ‘Liar.’

  ‘Look – what’s the—’

  ‘I want you to come and meet me. Now.’

  ‘Look, whatever you think was—’

  ‘We’ve got a friend of yours, name of Novak.’

  Fuck.

  ‘Karl wants to kill him right off, I say give you another chance. There’s things I need you to do. That okay by you?’

  ‘Let him go.’

  ‘Say yes.’

  ‘Yes – yes – let him go.’

  ‘Kimmet’s Ale House. Upstairs. You’ve got half an hour to get there.’

  ‘Okay, I’m on my way – but half an hour isn’t—’

  ‘Not a minute more.’

  ‘Please—’

  ‘We’ve got Novak tucked away and Karl’s with him. You call the police again, you do anything stupid, Karl will ring you, just so you can hear your friend die.’

  Mackendrick ended the call.

  Chapter 44

  That’s odd.

  The shutter was down.

  Derry Tynan had been due to arrive at work at The Big Fat Tomato at two o’clock, to take over for a couple of hours. He was ten minutes late.

  Maybe the other two had got pissed off waiting and left.

  Tynan used his key to open the padlock, pulled up the shutter. He didn’t know what to make of the bunched-up bags of potatoes in the centre of the shop. Then he saw a foot sticking out.

  Karl checked that Novak’s wrists were securely tied. He pulled a corner of the tape loose from the bar owner’s mouth – last thing they needed was this piece of shit choking on his own vomit. Not while he was still useful.

  ‘You okay?’

  ‘Fuck you.’

  Karl kicked him on the hip and was rewarded with a grunt. He smoothed the tape back across Novak’s mouth.

  Karl was worried. He wanted to believe in Lar Mackendrick, and you had to give him credit – they’d taken out half of Frank Tucker’s inner circle. But Callaghan had screwed things up and by now Frank Tucker would be kicking shins, looking for answers. Lar would need to come up with something special if this still had a chance to work.

  Detective Sergeant Bob Tidey reached for his mobile.

  ‘Colin?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Bob Tidey. This Frank Tucker thing – it gets worse.’

  Assistant Commissioner O’Keefe waited.

  ‘One of Tucker’s hard men – Brian Tolland. He runs a fruit and vegetable shop in Cullybawn. I’m down here, and he’s got a big hole in his face. One of his mates is lying on top of him. And he’s not breathing either.’

  O’Keefe said, ‘Someone’s thinking big. Fiachra O’Dwyer, an abortive bombing – now these two.’

  ‘Anything solid yet?’

  ‘Not for public consumption – an old soldier named Declan Roeper who never bought into the peace process. Quit the Provos, set up his own outfit. We reckoned the Interim IRA were all piss and wind, now he seems to have gone offside for the past few days. Special Branch suspects he has access to explosives – two and two.’

  Bob Tidey remembered a case he’d
worked on twenty years back. A local thug terrorised the neighbourhood, smashing windows, stealing cars, running a half-assed protection racket with shopkeepers. The Provos gave him two warnings, then they brought him to a playground one night, held him down. Tidey was canvassing the shopping area the next day and the pensioners had a spring in their step. He’d imagined they’d be frightened and upset by what had happened – instead, they were delighted that the troublesome little shit had got his kneecaps blasted.

  ‘There’s mileage in playing the paramilitary social worker game – kneecapping burglars and blowing the heads off drug dealers. A lot of people see it as fair game.’

  ‘They do,’ O’Keefe said. ‘But when the likes of Frank Tucker start fighting back and no one knows where the bullets might fly – that’s when everyone gets religion.’

  It makes sense now.

  Frank Tucker took a deep breath and leaned back against the bedroom wall. He looked down again at Tom Richie’s body. Tom was staring straight up, his mouth open, as though he’d died trying to say something. His eyes were as lifeless as marbles. A line of stringy blood, like red snot, lay across Tom’s face, from his nose to his ear. The back of his head was a mess.

  Since the bombing attempt, Tucker had been texting warnings to close associates, following up with phone calls. Making and taking one call after another, he’d been aware of gaps in the flow. No answer from Brian, nothing from Tom or Jason or Mick.

  He’d come to Tom’s house, he’d broken the glass in the front door and it had taken his people less than three minutes to find the bodies upstairs. Tom and some little tart Tucker had never seen before. As they pulled the bodies out from under the bed Tucker’s mobile rang and the police told him about Brian Tolland.

  On the way here the radio news told him that Emergency Response Units were kicking in doors, mostly those of former members of the IRA.

  Tucker nodded to one of his minders. ‘I told the police you’d wait here for them.’

  Before he left the house, Tucker hunkered down and whispered to Tom. ‘Looks like the patriots are eager to die for Ireland.’ He kissed the tips of two fingers and touched them lightly against his friend’s forehead. ‘That can be arranged.’

  Chapter 45

  The upstairs room in Kimmet’s bar had been cleaned but it had a stale smell, as though there’d been a lot of drinking last night and the room hadn’t been properly aired. There were small tables around the edge of the room and one long table near the window. Lar Mackendrick was sitting at the long table, the window behind him. There was a coffee pot on the table and an untouched cup of coffee.

  Danny Callaghan said, ‘Wherever Novak is, let him go.’

  ‘No hurry,’ Lar Mackendrick said.

  ‘I’ll do whatever you ask.’

  ‘You said that before, then you ratted. You had a job to do. The payment was your life and the lives of your ex-wife, members of her family – all you had to do was deliver a van and keep your mouth shut. Tell me why you couldn’t do that?’

  ‘A pub, all those people, Jesus, a bomb – come on – you were never going to give a warning, we both know that—’

  ‘You put your ex-missus on the block.’

  ‘She’s safe – we—’

  ‘She’s mine. You sold her to me when you called the cops.’

  ‘You don’t know where she is.’

  ‘How long can she hide? Here, or somewhere my people can reach on a cheap flight? A week from now, a year from now? My people will use her for practice. Then they’ll open her up, from crotch to throat. She’ll never be safe, unless I say so.’

  Callaghan said, ‘You want something.’

  Mackendrick smiled.

  Callaghan said, ‘I should be dead – instead, you want a chat. You need something.’

  ‘Maybe I’m just a big softy.’

  ‘Maybe you need something in a hurry, and you haven’t got anyone else to do your shit work.’

  ‘We need cars – four of them.’

  ‘I got the cars you needed.’

  ‘All ditched. I’d reckoned this would be over by now. Thanks to you, it’s not. We need two more cars, and a couple to spare. Rigged so we can use them without any fucking around with the ignition. We need them by first thing tomorrow morning.’

  ‘You need to bomb some more pubs?’

  ‘That was a diversion – a hoax. No bombs now, we just need transport.’

  ‘First, let Novak go.’

  ‘You bring the cars to this street – get them here by seven-thirty in the morning. You stick on clean plates, fill the tanks, park them across the street from here. Put a copy of the Daily Mail on the dashboard of each one, so we can identify them. Leave them unlocked.’

  ‘What if they get stolen?’

  ‘When you bring the fourth car you park it, you unlock the other three and you wait in the car, make sure no one messes with them.’

  ‘What about Novak?’

  ‘I’ll be in touch and I’ll make arrangements for you to collect him. Once we’ve got transport, it’s all over, you can piss off, and take your friend.’

  ‘And my ex-wife?’

  Mackendrick moved his head as if stretching his neck. He stared off to one side for a moment, as though he was inspecting something mildly interesting written on a far wall. Then he looked back at Danny Callaghan.

  ‘You screw this last chance – your friend gets his skull opened. We’ll find your ex-missus, as long as it takes. Do this right and I scrub the record – he’s safe, she’s safe, you’re safe, everybody gets what they want.’

  Knowing Mackendrick was lying, Callaghan said, ‘Okay, I’ll do it.’ Mackendrick said, ‘You could call the police again – tell them everything – but you don’t know where I’m going to be, you don’t know where the rest of my people will be. The police show up this time and your friend’s dead and there’s nothing on this earth will stop us finding your ex and taking her apart.’

  ‘I said I’ll do it.’

  Novak was sitting on a rough floor, his arms around a steel support, his hands bound by a plastic tie, the silver tape across his mouth. He was aching where one of the bastards had punched him a couple of times in the ribs. He licked his lower lip and could taste blood, where another of the bastards had backhanded him. He could hear them talking in the distance.

  This was some kind of warehouse. The steel support to which he was bound was one of a line that stretched all the way to the door. It was cold and the place had the feel of somewhere that had been empty for a long time.

  There were three of them. Two young guys – one of them sullen, the other nervous. The third was a tall, thin man who didn’t say much. No one had said anything about why they’d taken Novak. When he’d asked he’d got the backhand across the face. Had to be the people who had Danny Callaghan by the throat. Maybe this was revenge for screwing up the bombing, maybe it was some new move they were trying. Whatever it was, they had no problem letting Novak see their faces, and that wasn’t good. They had no fear he’d identify them later, and there were only so many ways of making sure of that.

  Feeling the onset of cramp, Novak moved his legs, bent them under him and leaned against the steel support for relief.

  At the sound of a car, the sullen one hurried to the door of the warehouse, opened it a couple of inches and peered out. He turned to the others and gave a thumbs-up. He opened the door wide. A bulky older man came in. He said something to the sullen one, then he walked towards Novak.

  Driving from Kimmet’s Ale House to the Carrigmore industrial estate, Lar Mackendrick suddenly felt a surge of hopelessness. On the lower end of Kilturbet Road he pulled into the Topaz forecourt and parked. His forehead was sweating and his hands were icy.

  His confidence seemed to have drained out of him in an instant. Had everything gone right, Tucker would be dead now, his organisation in shreds. Lar would be free to pull together the threads of his own outfit and to recruit the best of the remnants of Tucker’s. Instead, his fa
llback position involved a chancy manoeuvre, against the odds.

  There was always the option of copping out.

  To where?

  Looking over our shoulders for the rest of our days.

  No.

  The Chinaman’s book was in the side pocket of his red anorak. He took it out, the spine creased, the cover worn. The fallback plan was a good one, he believed that. And he still had the element of surprise.

  Do not repeat the tactics which have gained you one victory, but let your methods be regulated by the infinite variety of circumstances.

  Whichever way this went, Danny Callaghan was going under the earth. He had his uses, but there was only one answer to his kind of betrayal. By close of business tomorrow, when Frank Tucker was history – please God – Lar would take time to enjoy Callaghan’s last moments. The bar owner he’d leave to Karl, but Lar would keep Callaghan as a treat for himself.

  The thought gave him hope. He pulled out of the forecourt and waited for a chance to slide into the traffic flow.

  Now, in the warehouse on the Carrigmore industrial estate, he stood over the bar owner, leaned down and pulled the tape from his mouth.

  ‘My lads taking good care of you?’

  Novak didn’t look up. Looking off to one side, he said, ‘What have I done to you, for this to happen to me?’

  ‘You know a Danny Callaghan, right?’

  Novak said nothing.

  Lar bent and grabbed Novak under the chin. He turned the bar owner’s head around until they were face to face. Mackendrick said, ‘You take it up with him.’ He straightened up and walked to the other side of the warehouse, where Karl and Robbie were sitting on a couple of kitchen chairs. Dolly Finn was leaning against an old table.

  ‘Tomorrow, phase two, we kill Frank Tucker.’

  Karl said, ‘You’ve gotta be kidding. No way we’re getting within an ass’s roar of Tucker’s house.’

  ‘I never said we would.’

  Dolly Finn was looking down at his feet. He said, ‘How long do you intend to continue this thing?’