Dark Dawn (ds o'neill)

by Matt McGuire

  As she said the words, another voice in her head was telling her this was why she fell for him in the first place. This was why she loved him. He didn’t back down. He didn’t know how.

  Walking back to the table Catherine saw O’Neill, his mobile pressed to his ear. She knew he would be on the phone to the station as soon as she left the table. That was it. That decided it.

  O’Neill stood up quickly as she approached.

  ‘Listen, love, I need to run. I’m really sorry. Something’s come up. I’ll call you later.’

  And he was gone.

  Catherine stood with the brown envelope in her hand. She stared after her husband as he ran across the street, a car almost running him over.

  ELEVEN

  Marty heard the bass thumping when he was 30 feet from the house. It was 9.30 on Friday night. He knocked and heard a voice over the music.

  ‘This is fucking shite. Get the other CD back on.’

  ‘What the fuck do you know?’ someone shouted back.

  Micky peered through the curtains before answering the door. There was a cheer when Marty walked in the room. It was as much for the gear as it was for him, but he tried not to think about it.

  Ten people sat in Micky’s ma’s front room. They were draped over chairs, on the arms of sofas, huddled on the floor. Marty saw Petesy in the corner talking to Tony Loughrin. Locksy had two black eyes and a white plaster taped round the bottom of his left ear.

  ‘Cunt beat the shite out of me,’ he said loudly to Petesy over the sound of the heavy bass. He took a drink from a two-litre bottle of cider. ‘Still. Fuck him. You should have seen the state of us last weekend. Off-our-faces. Pure brilliant.’

  Petesy smiled, pretending to buy the forced bravado. He looked away and took a drink from his can of Harp. For all his talk, Locksy looked as if he’d gone nine rounds with Mike Tyson. Across the room Marty was laughing, playing the big man, handing people pills and taking the money. He looked up and caught Petesy staring at him. Locksy was the last person he wanted Petesy talking to. Marty tipped his head and raised his eyebrows. For a moment Petesy thought about blanking him, about trying not to like his mate. He looked at Marty’s Ralph Lauren sweater and remembered the crabs story. He grinned, realizing he couldn’t dislike Marty if he tried.

  As soon as he walked in, Marty had clocked Cara and her mate sitting on the floor in the corner. She had on a blue tracksuit top with the zip halfway down. Her hair hung across her face and she kept flicking it back with her hand. Marty decided to give it half an hour. He knew the cheer as he walked in would have done him a favour, but you didn’t want to seem desperate.

  Micky was supposed to be staying with his aunty while his mother was in Benidorm with his step-da. His real da had left when he was six and his mother had taken up with someone else a couple of months later. Micky hated him and spent as much time out of the house as possible. His mother had locked the place up before they left but Micky had climbed the drainpipe and got in through his bedroom like he always did.

  ‘Peter Parker’s got nothing on me.’

  They all scored off Marty and were waiting for the pills to kick in, slagging him off that his gear was shite. Half an hour later and folk were chewing gum as if their lives depended on it. They nodded to the music, rubbing their faces with their hands. Micky was talking fifty miles an hour about who would win a fight between Bruce Lee and Jackie Chan. Locksy stood in the corner, jabbing his hands in front of him in time with the music.

  ‘Fucking brilliant!’ he exclaimed to no one in particular.

  Upstairs, Marty was in the toilet. His head was buzzing. After he pissed he stood and stared at himself in the mirror. He rubbed his face. Warm waves rippled through his body. He smiled, trying to connect the face in the mirror with the mad thoughts whirling round his head. It was OK. It was all OK. No. It was better than that. It was mental. It was fucking mental. He tossed another pill in his mouth and took a slug of water from the tap.

  Outside the bathroom Marty heard a girl’s voice call him from one of the bedrooms. He walked in and saw Cara sitting on the bed. Micky still slept under the same Liverpool FC duvet he’d had when he was eleven. His da, his real da, was fanatical about Liverpool. If you got Micky started he would name every single player that had ever played for them. Positions, previous clubs, everything. The light was off in the bedroom but Marty could still make out the poster on the wall. Thirty men in red sat in three rows, their hands on their knees. They looked out into the room, smiling their encouragement.

  Marty had no fear now about talking to Cara. He was going to get off with her, he knew that. He had been watching her across the living room earlier in the night, trying not to let on. She sat on the bed, chewing gum, sipping her can of Harp. He sat beside her and could smell perfume, mixed in with the odour of beer, cigarettes and the stale scent of Micky’s teenage bedroom.

  ‘Got any pills left, Marty?’ Cara asked.

  ‘Might do.’

  ‘Go on and give us another one, would you?’

  ‘What’s it worth to you?’

  ‘Don’t know.’ She smiled with fake coyness. ‘I am sure I can think of something.’

  Cara reached over and ran her hand up the leg of Marty’s jeans. She pressed down on his fly, raising her eyebrow at his knob underneath. The warmth flowing over Marty’s body rippled towards his crotch. He felt himself start to harden.

  ‘I might have a few left in my pocket there.’ He leaned back on the bed.

  Cara reached into the pocket of his jeans. She moved her hand around, taking hold of his knob through the lining. She squeezed it a few times, and began working him up and down. The pills added to the pleasure and Cara’s hand movements sent warm waves out over Marty’s body. She felt the small bag of tablets in his pocket and took it out, handing it to Marty.

  ‘I think I’ve found it.’

  Marty smiled, taking a pill from the bag and handing it to her. She threw it in her mouth and washed it down with a mouthful of Harp. Marty leaned over and started kissing her. He could hear muffled voices downstairs, the bass coming up through the floorboards, the distant sound of Locksy shouting: ‘Fucking yeeeeow.’

  It was after four in the morning. Marty was downstairs rummaging through the cupboards of Micky’s ma’s kitchen. Heinz tomato soup. Jacob’s crackers. An empty biscuit tin.

  ‘Fuck me, Micky,’ he said to himself, biting into a dry cracker. ‘You call this a kitchen? I’m calling social services. Report your ma for neglect.’

  Nobody was listening.

  Marty turned round and saw Petesy sitting just through the door.

  ‘Come on, Petesy. Twenty-four-hour garage. Let’s go.’

  ‘Ah Marty, I can’t be fucked.’

  There followed two minutes of cajoling, talk of crisps, chocolate bars, cans of Coke. It was the promise to tell Petesy about Cara that finally clinched it.

  At the garage Marty bought twenty Regal, four bags of salt and vinegar, two Mars bars, a Drifter and two cans of Coke. They sat round the back of the garage, eating like their lives depended on it.

  ‘I fucking love these,’ Petesy said, stuffing a handful of crisps into his mouth. Half the crisps ended up on the ground near his feet. He picked up the fallen soldiers.

  ‘It’s OK. The three-second rule.’

  Back at Micky’s there was no talking, no drinking, no dancing. The music had stopped.

  Three men stood in the middle of the living room. Black ski-masks covered their faces. They wore jeans and dark green Army jackets. Two of them held baseball bats. The other held a large flick-knife in front of him. He was turning it round as if it was some kind of foreign object that fascinated him.

  In the hall Micky lay in a ball, wheezing. He’d opened the door and been hit in the stomach with the butt of a baseball bat.

  Heavy footsteps came down the stairs. A fourth man, also in a skimask, entered. He had a deep voice.

  ‘They’re not fucking here.’

  L
ocksy sat in one of Micky’s ma’s armchairs, wishing he was invisible. The man with the knife came over, his eyes bulging, staring out of the mask. He raised the knife and stroked it down the side of Locksy’s already bruised face.

  ‘Where are those two cunts?’

  He didn’t need to name them. Locksy’s eyes were wide open as he tried to pull back from the knife.

  ‘They were here a while ago. They must have gone out.’

  The man pressed the blade harder against Locksy’s cheek. A drop of blood gathered and ran along the metal of the knife. Locksy’s pupils dilated and he winced.

  ‘You tell those cunts we’re looking for them.’

  The man stepped back, sweeping the knife around the room. His eyes were a mixture of disdain and disgust.

  ‘Fucking wee hoods.’

  The four men turned and walked out of the house. When they were gone no one moved. No one spoke. No one put the music back on.

  TWELVE

  O’Neill stood in the corridor outside CID, pretending to look at the noticeboard. Inside the office he could hear two DCs, Larkin and Kearney, talking to one another.

  ‘That Laganview has to win some sort of prize,’ Larkin was saying. ‘I mean, it’s complete bullshit. A total waste of time.’

  O’Neill heard the sound of a file being tossed down on the desk.

  ‘Tell me about it,’ Kearney answered. ‘All I can say is, I’m glad we’re off it.’

  Wilson had pulled everyone off the case. O’Neill was now working it alone. The squad had been on it for three days, making a show of things, throwing some resources at it. No stone left unturned, Wilson had said. It was good for the TV cameras. Once they lost interest though. .

  ‘I’ll tell you what,’ Larkin continued. ‘O’Neill must have pissed someone off in a previous life to get landed with this crap. Chasing after some kneecapping, some wee hood that nobody gives a shit about. I mean, it’s one wee frigger we won’t have to spend ten years running around after. Arresting him every six weeks. Watching him yo-yo in and out of jail, until he can walk in here and recognize us all by name.’ Larkin spoke through his nose, doing an impression of a Belfast hood. ‘Fuck you, Kearney. Fuck you, Larkin.’

  The other detective laughed.

  ‘I’m telling you, whoever did this saved us all a shedload of work. You can’t say it, but that’s the truth. Do you remember being in uniform? Getting spat at, told to go fuck yourself, by a bunch of wee cunts that never worked a day in their lives. You just know no one downstairs is losing any sleep over it. It’s one less piece of shit for them to have to deal with.’

  O’Neill felt his jaw tighten. He remembered the image of the boy, lying naked on the steel slab of the morgue. Pale, skinny, his ribs protruding. Maybe it was because he didn’t have on his customary uniform — tracksuit and baseball cap. Or maybe it was because he couldn’t answer back, and wasn’t cursing his head off. Or maybe it was because he was on his own. Lying there in the cold, in the disinfectant of the morgue, with nothing but O’Neill, the pathologist and a tray of scalpels for company.

  Larkin kept going.

  ‘It’s almost a week and they still don’t even have a name. Nightmare. Total nightmare. Tell you what, I’m glad I don’t have Laganview hanging round my neck — especially with the Review Boards coming up. Talk about being thrown overboard with no life-vest. This will drag O’Neill to the bottom of the ocean. All I can say is, when it’s my turn to get fucked by the third floor, I hope it’s over something better than a shitty kneecapping. Wilson’s going to do him over this. Mark my words.’

  O’Neill’s eyes bored into the noticeboard. Kearney was right. He was nowhere on the case and if it stayed that way, it wouldn’t be long before Wilson came at him. It was almost the perfect crime. No ID, no witnesses, no evidence. It was perfect for Wilson at least. He’d gotten the chance to pose for the cameras, to play the big man, the all-powerful Chief Inspector. Now the spotlight had moved on and it wouldn’t be back. Wilson would be able to hang O’Neill out to dry and no one would so much as notice.

  O’Neill headed for the coffee room. He’d heard enough. He poured some coffee into a polystyrene cup and took it outside.

  In Musgrave Street car park he leaned against the main building, he lit a cigarette and listened to the midday traffic on the other side of the wall. Larkin had only said what everyone else was thinking. All the money, all the man hours. It was true. The kid was a frigging hood. So what did he matter? He would probably mug his own granny as soon as look at her.

  O’Neill had spent the morning reading through the case-files on the other kneecappings that had gone into the Royal since September. Gerard Robinson, ‘Geardy’, father unemployed, mother an alcoholic, kicked out of three schools. Multiple arrests — possession, affray, shoplifting. Michael MacNamee, ‘Mackers’, sixteen, mother with five kids to five different men. She’d been done three times for child benefit fraud. Multiple arrests — GBH, stealing, possession with intent. David MacAtackney, ‘Deags’, father and mother not around, lived with his granny who was disabled and housebound. Multiple arrests — possession, criminal damage, theft of a motor vehicle. They were hoods all right. That was no argument. The world told them to go fuck themselves, so they turned round and told the world to do the same. It was a pretty logical response, O’Neill thought.

  In the car park he threw away his cigarette and went back inside. Up in CID, Larkin joked, ‘Ah, DS O’Neill. How’s our great murder investigation getting on today? Anyone in cuffs yet?’

  It was standard office banter and Larkin didn’t mean anything. O’Neill snapped though.

  ‘What the fuck would you know about it?’

  Larkin stood up from his chair. ‘What’s your fucking problem?’

  Someone cleared their throat in the doorway. Both men turned. It was Ward. The two detectives backed down.

  ‘DS O’Neill,’ Ward said. ‘Can I have a word with you?’

  Four hours later, Ward sat in an unmarked Mondeo watching 16 Tivoli Gardens. The house was a standard piece of Belfast suburbia: three bedrooms, front garden, small garage. Down the side of the house, a five-year-old girl threw tennis balls against the wall, singing a song to herself.

  Ward recognized O’Neill’s daughter, despite the changes in her from a year ago. Even now he was here, sitting outside the house, he wasn’t sure about talking to Catherine. He was violating an unwritten rule. Your loyalty lay with other cops. No one else. Not even their family. Ward knew it was Brothers in Arms bullshit, used to hide a multitude of sins. He’d watched peelers get their partners to cover for them, lying to their wives: ‘Pat’s questioning someone. . he had to go to court. . he’s tied up with a suspect.’ Ward wondered what made cops such prolific cheats. O’Neill wasn’t messing around though, he knew that much. He also knew about the flat in Stranmillis and that he hadn’t been home for six months.

  Earlier that morning, Ward had stuck his head into CID. It was empty, except for O’Neill, sitting in front of his computer. He’d checked with Doris on the front desk. O’Neill had been in for two hours before his shift. It had been going on for months. First in, last to leave. Anyone else, Ward would have been pleased. Showing some initiative, getting a head start. It wasn’t anyone else though.

  O’Neill had done a good job of hiding his personal life from Musgrave Street. The rest of the shift hadn’t noticed a thing. Ward started to wonder if he worked in a station full of blind men. He told himself they were busy, up to their eyeballs in paperwork. He knew though that half the shift couldn’t find a criminal unless he walked into the station, carrying a bloody knife, saying, ‘I killed the bitch.’ With O’Neill it was small things he had picked up on. The same suit. Same three shirts. He looked like shit. O’Neill had even started taking stuff home, reading through police files at night. He looked as if he hadn’t had a proper night’s sleep for months. Ward had been waiting on a sign and the outburst with Larkin was enough to convince him.

  Ward had se
en it before with other peelers. There were three outcomes. O’Neill would burn out, he’d smack someone, or else he’d end up getting killed. It used to be drink was the way most peelers went. Home alone. Half a bottle of whiskey before they could close their eyes. That wouldn’t be O’Neill. Smacking Larkin though. .

  There was also the possibility he’d go down the third route. O’Neill had the kind of obsession that would get a peeler in trouble. When he locked in on something and put the blinkers on, he didn’t care. It was what had made him a good peeler. No matter the situation, no matter the odds, O’Neill would go after it. He said what he thought and didn’t care who was listening. It was also what had got him in trouble with Wilson in the first place.

  Without Catherine and wee Sarah, Ward knew O’Neill would make the job everything. He was still young and it wouldn’t be long before he became reckless. Ward had seen it before. Detectives who reckoned they were invincible. A guy with nothing to go home to becomes a guy with nothing to lose. They start putting themselves out there. Going it alone. Thinking they can do it all. They find themselves drinking in bars they shouldn’t be drinking in. Not knowing the difference between ‘off duty’ and ‘on duty’. Peace Process or no Peace Process, this was still the North. It wasn’t hard for a peeler to disappear. To get into his car one morning, turn the key and. .

  O’Neill hadn’t got that far yet, but he’d started down the path. Ward could see it. There was a car crash on its way.

  The door of 16 Tivoli Gardens opened and a man walked out. He was in his late thirties and wore a sharp grey suit. He was tall, handsome, the kind of man women found attractive. He paused by O’Neill’s daughter, working her tennis balls against the wall. She stopped and they exchanged a joke. Sarah smiled and the man put his hand on her head, ruffling her hair. He got into a black BMW 3 series and drove off.

  Ward took mental note of the licence-plate. Could Catherine have cheated on O’Neill? Had she moved on already? Ward thought back to the first time he met her. It was a Sunday. He’d been walking the dog in the grounds of Belfast Castle and come across the family.