Dark Dawn (ds o'neill)

by Matt McGuire

  He reached down to his ankle, running his hand over the duct tape that held the Browning in place. It was secure, still hidden. He knew it would be. He also knew there was a good chance he’d have to use it. They might be trying to get him back in the game but it could also be a set-up. McCann had a tendency to see things in black and white. It was an easy logic. People picked a side. You’re with us or you’re against us.

  McCann had guessed that Lynch was behind Molloy’s accident, and Molloy was one of his boys, so anything that happened to him might as well have been directed at McCann. As far as he would be concerned, Lynch was a liability. People like him didn’t just settle down, get a nine to five, pint down the local, football on weekends. And if he could do that to Molloy, he couldn’t just be ignored. Lynch wondered if the operation was meant to test the waters, McCann giving him a chance. If he wasn’t interested, would there be instructions to get rid of him when the job was done? A working interview? Either way, Lynch knew there was no more stalling. He was backed into a corner and it was time to choose.

  A grey Honda approached The George and parked up, turning off its headlights, but keeping the engine running. One man sat behind the wheel. Even from 40 yards, Lynch could make out Molloy’s profile. He jogged over, going behind the car to check the footwell of the back seat. It was an old trick, to hide someone in there. The target got in and before he knew it he had a gun at the side of his head. It didn’t leave much room for negotiation.

  Molloy had lost the white bandage from his nose. The swelling in his eyes had gone down, and the purple bruising was a mild discolouration, a brown and yellow stain. Lynch got into the car. Pretending he hadn’t shut his door properly, he reopened it. It might have been tampered with, have the child lock flicked on. At least now he knew he could get out, make a run for it if he needed to. Molloy didn’t look at him and drove off without speaking.

  The two men sat in silence as the car made its way up the Newtownards Road. They passed Stormont, its white imperial face lit up against the black night sky. Lynch looked at the building, the home of the Northern Ireland Assembly. For decades it had been a symbol of everything that was wrong with the North. From there, successive Unionist governments had put the boot into Catholics. Now everyone was round the table, the Chuckle Brothers, playing Happy Families. It was easy to be happy when you were taking home thousands every year for sitting round talking all day.

  The roads were quiet, except for a few solitary cars, weaving their way through the dark.

  ‘We’re playing taxi tonight. Making a pick-up,’ Molloy said. ‘Taking it to a drop off. Easy money.’

  Lynch imagined Robert De Niro in Taxi Driver. Was it Travis Bickle, he was called? He remembered the bulging eyes, the psychotic voice. ‘Are you looking at me?’ He wondered who fitted the part better, him or Molloy. Molloy liked to think he was dangerous, that he lived on the edge. Lynch smiled quietly to himself, remembering there was only one of them that had been to see a shrink in the last few weeks.

  The car turned off the main road into a large council estate. Rows of pebble-dashed houses, once white but now a dull grey, were lit up by orange sodium street-lamps. On every corner the kerbstones were painted red, white and blue. Molloy pulled up beneath a 30-foot Loyalist mural. A masked gunman loomed over the car, clutching an AK-47. Prepared for Peace. Ready for War.

  Lynch didn’t like it. Peace Process or no Peace Process. A couple of Catholics, parked in Ballybeen at two in the morning?

  ‘Don’t panic there, Lynch,’ Molloy said. ‘This isn’t a trip down Memory Lane. It’s the new Northern Ireland. You’ve got to remember we’re all in this together.’

  Lynch felt his senses sharpen. They had been slowly tightening all day and were now razor-sharp. He felt as though he was aware of everything. The estate outside — he’d immediately scoped the four places someone might come from. He had an escape route for each scenario. He could sense Molloy’s hands and knew where the other man’s eyes were looking. He heard the other man’s breathing, sensed its rhythm. He was looking for a sign. Anything. A split-second head-start. Half a chance. It might be all he got.

  ‘So what’s the story?’ Lynch asked.

  ‘You don’t need to know that,’ Molloy answered. After a few seconds he continued: ‘It’s purely business these days.’

  ‘I see.’

  ‘You don’t need to see, Lynch,’ Molloy told him. ‘That’s not your job. You just need to do.’

  Lynch rolled his eyes. Molloy had memorized every bad gangster film he’d ever seen. The more Lynch looked at the estate, the painted kerbstones, the mural, the more he wondered if he wasn’t in fact the package. Might McCann be delivering him up to somebody?

  Molloy reached into the back seat and pulled out an Adidas bag. He took out a handgun, tucking it into his trouser belt before tossing one to Lynch. It was heavy steel, black, almost new. Glock 19. Standard issue PSNI. Molloy saw Lynch’s surprise at the make of weapon.

  ‘We’ve got friends all over the place these days.’

  Lynch slid the magazine out of the handle, checked the ammo and hit it home with the heel of his hand. He slid back the chamber, the mechanism snapping back on its spring. He was ready to go.

  ‘Bag’s got the money in it. Anything seems wrong, we keep hold of the cash and get out,’ Molloy said.

  ‘You don’t know these guys?’

  ‘Know them? Yes. Trust them?’

  Molloy raised his eyebrows and exhaled. ‘That’s a different question.’ Molloy now was markedly different from the man Lynch had followed along Victoria Street. He might be full of shit, but he was in control. The adrenaline was pumping through Lynch’s body. He’d been there enough times to know that, even if his heart was pounding, his hands would remain still, his voice steady. Lynch didn’t know why. He couldn’t explain it. It had always been that way.

  Molloy looked at his watch. He left the headlights off and pulled the car round the corner, parking in front of a pebble-dashed house.

  ‘Right. Let’s go.’

  Driving back down the Newtownards Road, the relief in the car was palpable. Everything in the house was as it should have been. The door had opened and they went in without exchanging words. There were two men. A blue sports bag sat on the coffee-table. Four kilos of white powder, wrapped in clear plastic and duct tape. One of the men spoke.

  ‘Do you want to check it?’

  ‘Don’t need to,’ Molloy answered. ‘I know where you live.’

  The three men laughed at the old Northern Irish threat. Lynch didn’t imagine it was the first time any of them had said it.

  When they were out of Ballybeen, Molloy had taken the Glock back off him.

  In the city the car headed along Ann Street, turning in behind the huge stone edifice of the Belfast cathedral. For a second, an 80-foot Celtic cross towered over the vehicle. Behind the cathedral, the narrow cobblestone lanes glistened from the rain. Molloy navigated his way through several tight turns before pulling up at an unmarked door. It looked like an emergency exit.

  ‘What’s this place?’ Lynch asked.

  ‘Enough of the questions. Christ, it’s like being out with Anne Robinson.’

  The two men got out of the car, Molloy carrying the blue sports bag. He kicked the steel door. After thirty seconds it opened and a squat figure with a shaved head stared out at them. Lynch recognized him. It was one of the bouncers from Mint.

  ‘Right, Ivan?’ Molloy said.

  The man stood aside, giving Molloy space to enter. Through the door Lynch could see a commercial kitchen. Stainless-steel counters and white tiles were illuminated by powerful lights. He went to follow but the bouncer put a large hand in his chest.

  ‘Who this?’ he asked in a thick Eastern-European accent.

  ‘He’s with me.’

  The man looked at Lynch as if he was a piece of shit someone had walked across his new carpet.

  ‘No.’

  The heavy steel door closed in Lynch’s
face.

  He stood in the alley, wondering if Molloy would reappear. He didn’t and after a couple of seconds Lynch walked off in the direction of the docks. He rounded the corner and saw the unlit sign for the nightclub overhead. He walked past the doorway where he had waited for four hours the week before.

  He had done the job. His debt was paid. McCann couldn’t complain.

  TWENTY-SEVEN

  It was two in the afternoon. Musgrave Street smelled like cold coffee, stale sandwiches and packets of crisps.

  O’Neill was looking through the material Ward had put together on Spender. He’d brought him up to speed on his visits to Cultra. O’Neill had done some more digging but Spender came up clean. The best O’Neill could do was the complaint from twenty years back and a couple of parking tickets. The son’s record was interesting. It had the classic drug pattern — high on desperation, low on execution. Junkies didn’t make for the most subtle or patient of thieves.

  How did this relate to Laganview though? And what about the notebook? Would Spender go so far as to have someone killed? Was it revenge on whoever got his son into drugs? Did someone go after his son? Was someone sending a message to Spender himself?

  The other DCs on the shift, Kearney and Larkin, were both at their desks typing up. Kearney finished and clicked ‘save’ in theatrical triumph.

  ‘Have some of that, you little bastard.’

  O’Neill’s eyes drilled into the back of his head. Everything felt like an accusation, as if the world was rubbing his face in Laganview. For two weeks the walls of Musgrave Street had been closing in on him. It seemed as if he couldn’t walk down the corridor without bumping into Wilson. The Review Boards were coming up in ten days. O’Neill knew that the Chief Inspector was going to make a move to get him out of CID, and this would be where he’d do it. It would be a committee job. On the surface it would read like standard protocol. But Wilson would have the deck stacked long before the meeting. It would be all polite smiles. They would simply be asking questions. Trying to ascertain O’Neill’s competency in his current role. O’Neill knew Laganview would be the final nail in the coffin. Proof that he wasn’t right for CID. It would be in everyone’s best interest. A fresh start for him. A new challenge. All that bullshit.

  O’Neill looked around CID, wondering if someone had put two more desks in when he wasn’t looking. It felt that way.

  Kearney and Larkin were leaning back on their chairs.

  ‘Did I tell you about going to the ice hockey last weekend?’ Kearney asked.

  ‘No. I never had you down for all that carry-on.’

  The Belfast Giants were the latest must-have ticket. They had started up the year before in the Odyssey Arena. It was a new sport, free from the religious baggage of football and charging enough money to make sure the riff-raff stayed out. The Giants were made up of Canadians and Americans and played against teams from such exotic locations as Nottingham, Hull and Dundee. They won their first season and journalists had fallen over themselves, writing that it showed what Northern Ireland could do, now that the dark days of the past were behind them.

  ‘The kids had been on at me to take them for weeks,’ Kearney said. ‘Guess how much it cost?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘Fifty quid.’

  Larkin raised his eyebrows.

  ‘Yeah — fifty quid. To watch a bunch of Americans beating the crap out of each other. I mean,’ Kearney continued, ‘for fifty quid you’d want to beat the crap out of your own American.’

  Both men laughed. O’Neill rolled his eyes. It was as well they had something to laugh about.

  Kearney and Larkin chatted on, talking about the jobs they were on. They schemed and plotted, figuring out ways to catch folk out. O’Neill couldn’t stop himself from listening in. He was jealous. Jealous of the variety, the different bits of work, the pace of things. Right now, anything looked better than Laganview. One body, no name, no suspects.

  The phone rang on O’Neill’s desk.

  ‘DS O’Neill? John McBurnie down at Forensics. I ran through those additional footprints you had us cast at Laganview last week.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘Well, you were right. The Nike prints coming over the fence were the victim’s. Looks like that is where your boy came in.’

  ‘Anything else?’

  ‘Location? Parallel pair of prints, 2.8 metres out from the fence. Suggests he was in a bit of a hurry. If he’s sneaking over you’d imagine he lowers himself down. The prints would also be facing backwards, towards the fence. They’d be closer too.’

  ‘Agreed.’

  ‘He’s not hanging about. He climbs, jumps down and is off again. Someone’s chasing him.’

  ‘Yeah. There were other prints in that area as well.’

  ‘That’s right. There is one set which have a similar pattern. Quite deep and facing outwards. Someone following him over the fence, most likely. They have the kind of sole you see on an Army boot. I can’t trace the make from the prints though — they aren’t good enough. I am getting someone to drop the pictures over to you in the next hour or so.’

  The prints confirmed what O’Neill had guessed. The chase and the jumping of the fence. The military boot though — where did that leave him? Maybe there was an army connection. Maybe it was nothing. You could buy Army gear in a load of shops in Belfast. He grabbed a set of car keys.

  ‘Oh, O’Neill,’ Kearney said. ‘Forgot to tell you. Some girl called in for you. No name, foreign accent. Said she saw the boy from the river in a nightclub. Some place called Mint. Sounds like a hoax though. That place is pretty ritzy. I’m sure they’re not letting wee hoods in these days.’

  ‘Yeah. Thanks.’

  O’Neill thought about the call as he drove into town. Kearney was right. He doubted Mint were letting wee hoods in. Sean Molloy drank there though. Maybe that was the connection. O’Neill had also seen someone hovering in the toilets, so there was the possible drug angle. The phone call: it might have been a vendetta. It might have been some wee girl. She gets knocked back by the bouncers and decides to stir things up, create a bit of trouble for the place.

  O’Neill parked the car on a double yellow line. Police privilege. He thought more about the call. Most people used the Crimestoppers number. It rang through to a call centre, so you were guaranteed anonymity. This one had come through to CID’s direct line. She’d asked for him by name and all. How did she get the number? And how did she know it was him she needed to speak to?

  O’Neill thought about all the people he’d left his card with since the investigation started. He couldn’t remember any young girls, and none with foreign accents. He could almost hear the culchie accent of Fr Mullan, somewhere in the background. ‘Forty years in Belfast. A life sentence by any man’s reckoning.’

  O’Neill left the car illegally parked and took the photographs of the boot-print to Alcatraz in Corn Market. The place sold ex-Army gear, along with an array of compasses, camping kit and knives. O’Neill looked at the 12-inch bowie knife in the window, wondering what kind of a Boy Scout needed one of those.

  Inside, the shop had the stale fug of second-hand clothes. It mostly sold to students and grunge kids. It was old German stock, and small flags — black, red and gold — adorned the shoulders of green shirts. Along the wall hung pairs of combat trousers with large leg pockets. At the back of the shop they kept the boots. O’Neill pulled one down, feeling how heavy it was. He recalled his own Magnums from his days in uniform, remembering the confidence he felt putting them on and lacing them up. The leather on the Army boot was worn but still in good condition. He thought about the places that it might have marched: Bosnia, Belgrade, Baghdad. He went through each boot on display. None of the soles matched the photograph.

  ‘Can I help you there, mate?’ A man in his mid-thirties with a large beard came from behind the counter.

  ‘Trying to match a boot-print.’

  The man looked at the photograph.

  ‘I
t’s none of these,’ he said, pointing to the wall. ‘They’re too old. You see how thick the treads are on the boot you’re holding? It is standard issue, German Infantry. Leather. Durable. The photograph is probably something lightweight. Goliath. Viper. Magnum. One of those makes. It is the kind of thing you find with Special Forces. You can run all day in them. Run across entire countries if you need to. A lot of police wear them as well.’

  O’Neill looked sidewards at the man. He put the leather boot back on the wall.

  ‘What do you want to know for?’ the shop assistant asked.

  ‘Just curious,’ he said, cutting him off.

  O’Neill threaded his way out, through the racks of clothing. Freed from the shop, the air felt fresher and cleaner.

  O’Neill didn’t want to start thinking about the possibility that the PSNI were involved in this. Still though, it might explain the utter lack of evidence. And Kearney had said it himself, it was one less hood on the streets. He thought back to breakfast with Sam. She hadn’t taken to her new posting. Jennings had great instincts about people and she’d deliberately held back, not wanting to tell tales on the rest of her shift. Going back, the police in the North always had a reputation for bending the rules. On a good day a suspect took a beating, on a bad day it was worse. But that was the past. The PSNI were different, they had to be. Whiter than white, that was the promise.

  O’Neill imagined himself as the cop who investigated other cops. Nobody came out of that a winner. There was no surer way to career suicide. Fuck it though. If there were dirty cops in Musgrave Street, if they were involved in Laganview, they had to go down.

  He tried to consider the other angle. Special Forces. It was equally unappetising. Everyone knew the SAS ran covert operations in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. But that was years ago. Why would they be here now? Why would they be chasing kids into building sites? Leaving them for dead?

  O’Neill didn’t want to go back to the station. The thought of his desk, the file, and now a set of boot-prints that could put the PSNI or the British Army in the frame. He imagined the headlines: PSNI Death Squad; British Special Forces Still in Northern Ireland. If that wouldn’t bring the Assembly down, he didn’t know what would.