‘Hey, Tony, can I ask you something about the Lily Bigelow case?’
‘Jesus, do you have to? You’ll spoil a nice evening. Sleeping dogs, you know?’
I looked at him strangely. ‘That wasn’t a threat, was it?’
He laughed. ‘Jesus, I forgot how paranoid everybody in this bloody country is. That’s what living in England does for you. Reacclimatises you to the Normal.’
His eyes. Something about his eyes. What was that look? I couldn’t decipher it. Sadness? Exhaustion? What?
‘Something about what you said puzzles me a bit.’
‘Go on, then.’
I took out a piece of paper from my wallet and read what I had written there.
‘Do you remember you were talking about the case and you scoffed at the idea of a huge conspiracy put in motion to protect the Finns and “silence her by hiring a nearly 70-year-old castle caretaker to murder her in a dungeon”. Do you remember saying that?’
‘Yeah.’
‘We found a speck of blood on one of the dungeon walls. B negative. Only two per cent of the population has B negative blood. In all likelihood it’s Lily’s blood and she was murdered in the dungeon, not the courtyard. How did you know that, Tony?’
‘I don’t know. You must have told me.’
‘I didn’t.’
‘Or Crabbie or Lawson. Somebody must have told me. Anyway, Underhill killed her, you proved that. No one else could have done it.’
‘I think Harald Ek killed her, or had her killed.’
Tony paused mid-drink and put down his glass.
‘Why would he do that?’
‘Because Peter Laakso wasn’t happy with what they had on offer at the Eagle’s Nest. You knew he wasn’t going to be happy with what they had on offer there. You’d already been contacted by Ek and told of Mr Laakso’s particular needs. Maybe he even suggested Kinkaid to you.’
‘Remind me what Kinkaid is?’
‘Almost certainly it took place in a private house near Kinkaid Young Offenders’ Institution, where the Tara UVF ran boy mollies from the prison.’
‘What a load of rubbish! I can’t believe you’ve become one of those fucking queer-bashers. You’re a, uhm, what’s it called? A homophobe,’ Tony said, using the same line that Ek had used and becoming suddenly and quite frighteningly sober.
‘You know I’m not, Tony.’
‘You found out Laakso’s gay and you’re using it against him to concoct some sort of crazy convoluted story against him. That’s what living in Northern Ireland does to you.’
‘Harald Ek said the same thing to me. Almost exactly the same thing. It’s nothing to do with being gay, Tony. We both know Mrs Dunwoody caters for both genders. She would have been very happy to sort Laakso out. But Mrs Dunwoody’s girls and boys are all over eighteen. To live outside the law you must be honest. No, Mr Laakso has different drives. Drives that you knew could be catered to by the Rathcoole Tara paramilitaries. Heroin, crack cocaine, underage boy prostitutes, underage girl prostitutes. Every copper in East Antrim knows the Tara unit of the UVF are capable of anything. And apparently the opening of Kinkaid has been a whole new avenue for them. As a connected guy, you must have known that, too.’
‘You’re out of your mind, pal. You’re trying to be funny is that what this is?’
‘No it isn’t me trying to be funny. You left the brothel at 9.45 pm. You didn’t reach the Coast Road Hotel until well after 11 pm. It’s, at most, a ten-minute run, as you yourself said. You went to Kinkaid, or a place near Kinkaid. And Lily followed you and you, being a good cop, spotted that you were being followed. And you told Ek. And you were thinking that maybe Ek would try and buy her off. But Ek’s not that kind of man. He wanted to kill her.’
Tony’s face was white. His eyes were black points of fury. His hands were shaking under the table. This was it. This was the main-line. This was the well.
‘So maybe you arranged a fake robbery to get Lily out of her room and while she was out investigating the commotion, maybe Ek went in there and looked at her typewriter and you pretended to have just arrived as I was leaving. And when Ek knew for certain that Lily was on to him, you two started coming up with a plan. You cooked up a murder plan between you that was designed just for me. The castle was a stroke of genius. A locked room. A suicide, or, failing that, poor old Mr Underhill as the only suspect. And you knew that I would be the investigating officer and I’d already dealt with a case like that. A case you knew about. A case we’d discussed. The chances of getting two locked-room murders in one career were astronomical. I’d never believe it. I’d insist it was a suicide, or that Mr Underhill had done her in.’
‘I’m leaving. You’re raving mad!’
I grabbed his arm and pulled him back to his seat. ‘Hear me out, Tony. If you could kill her in the castle somehow and make it look like a suicide, I would have to buy it, wouldn’t I? And if the evidence made it look like a murder, I’d have to believe that old Mr Underhill did it, because it was impossible to be anyone else. Impossible that I could have two cases like that in a lifetime.’
Tony said nothing but with his free arm he had reached for his leather jacket now. The jacket with the gun inside.
‘It is impossible,’ Tony said. ‘You’re drunk.’
‘DC Lawson told me about Bayesian statistics. I could have two cases like that in one career if the deck was stacked. If the game was rigged. Rigged specifically for me.’
I felt for my gun in my raincoat pocket and its shape gave me comfort as Tony poured hatred into my eyes.
‘And then there’s Eddie McBain. You saw McBain and Bigelow having coffee together in the hotel. You saw him talk to her. You saw him not liking what he was hearing. You knew what Ed was like of old. Very slow to act. Very slow to do anything. But when he got moving he was unstoppable.’
‘McBain was killed by the IRA. A random attack. They blew him up. They claimed responsibility.’
‘Another case you and I worked on together. The McAlpine case. A fake IRA claim of responsibility to cover up the murder of a member of the security forces. I’ll bet there’s one or two of those every year. Ordinary statistics and Bayesian statistics will allow for that one.’
‘A bomb? Come on!’
‘A bomb that was very crude, the sort of thing Protestant paramilitaries who run an underage brothel might have on site, or be able to put together quickly. Or even you, Tony, a dab hand at engineering. All you’d need was the Semtex. And the Rathcoole Tara Brigade could give you that, too.’
‘And how did I kill Lily?’ Tony snarled.
‘I don’t think you did kill Lily. I think you divided the work between you. I think you took care of McBain and Ek killed Lily.’
‘How?’
I shook my head. ‘I don’t know, Tony. I don’t really know how he did it. But I’ll find out. You know me, mate. I’ll find out.’
‘You’ve really lost it, pal.’
‘Have I? What size shoes do you take?’
‘What are you talking about?’
I grabbed his shoe. ‘Size 9, by the looks of it. You were in my back garden. You were scouting my house. You planted the bomb under my car.’
Tony kicked himself free of my grip and stood up.
‘Like to see you prove any of this shite!’ he said.
‘I’ll show Mrs Singh your photograph and ask if you came to her house and went through Lily Bigelow’s belongings in London.’
Derek rang the bell at the bar. ‘Time, gentlemen, please!’
I put on my raincoat. Tony put on his leather jacket. Derek cast us out into the elemental rain and barred the big, heavy door behind us.
‘Why does it have to be me? Why didn’t Ek do it all? Why drag me into this?’ Tony asked, almost desperately now.
I was surprised to see no one on the road and I began walking up West Street towards the harbour. We might need people. We might need witnesses.
‘Ek had to have help from a local source. Someone who knew about Car
rickfergus. Someone who knew the ways of the police. Someone who knew my personal history. Maybe you even staged that whole wallet robbery just so Ek could get a good look at me,’ I said.
‘Why would I do all of this, Sean? What possible reason could there be for me to risk everything to help some Finnish guys I barely knew?’
‘I don’t know. A big stinking pile of money?’
‘You have no proof of any of this,’ he said again. ‘It’s all just speculation.’
‘We’ve arrested Colin Jones at Kinkaid. Maybe he’ll talk, or maybe we’ll get some of the boys and they’ll tell us about the night the Finnish guys came.’
‘Yeah, they’d really defy the paramilitaries to help a police officer.’
‘Why would they need to defy the paramilitaries, Tony? I thought this was all a load of rubbish?’
He took a big breath and let it go.
Tony’s face visibly relaxed.
He was done with the pretence now.
The acting. The fake indignation.
‘So all of this is your own little theory, is it, Sean?’ he asked.
‘For now it is,’ I said. ‘If you come quietly with me, get ahead of the curve, tell me everything, I think we can cut you a pretty good deal.’
Tony was smiling. ‘No one at Kinkaid will talk. They’re too afraid of the Tara boys. You’ll get nothing from them.’
‘What will I get from you, Tony?’
‘You’ll get nothing from me, cos there’s nothing to get.’
I took the Glock out of my raincoat pocket and pointed it at him. I reached in the other pocket and gave him the handcuffs.
‘Put these on,’ I said. ‘I’m going to have to take you in for questioning.’
‘No,’ he said, softly.
‘Come on, Tony, it’s over. This is the end game. You thought you were being clever, but it was incompetent right from the start. All you had to do was look in her hotel bathroom. You would have seen that she had sleeping pills and Valium. You should have faked an overdose that night. We probably would have bought it.’
Tony shook his head, rain pouring down the face of a drowned man.
‘No, not you. Not the dogged fucking Inspector Duffy!’
‘Was it for money? Was that the reason? Surely you can’t have done all this for money?’ I said.
‘You don’t know what it’s like to be broke. To have nothing. To be in debt up to your eyeballs. Kicked out of your adopted country. Going home with your tail between your legs.’
‘How much, Tony? Was it a million? For both McBain and the girl? Is the factory worth that much?’
‘What do you care?’ he said.
‘Why didn’t Ek just kill her in the dungeon and walk out with the others?’
‘You would have found a murderer. You’re good. You would have questioned everybody on the tour and you would have discovered the killer. Had to be a suicide, didn’t it? Only way.’
‘And if not a suicide, poor old Underhill takes the fall, eh?’
Tony shrugged.
‘How did you do it, Tony?’
He laughed. ‘Wouldn’t you like to know?’
He reached inside his jacket.
‘No! Hands where I can see them, Tony. Put these cuffs on,’ I said.
He laughed again. ‘I knew you were going to pull some shite like this. I knew it. You had a funny look in your eye all night.’
‘If you make one more move for that gun I’m going to plug you.’
‘Oh, for God’s sake, Sean. I took the clip out of your Glock, removed all the bullets and put it back in the gun. Look at it, if you don’t believe me. Go on! I’ll put me hands up until you do. No tricks, I promise.’
He put his hands up and I released the clip. It had indeed been stripped of all the rounds.
‘See?’ he said.
I nodded. This was an end game all right, but it was Tony’s end game, not mine. He took out his big .45 ACP and pointed it at my chest.
‘Your mate Ek pointed a gun at me too,’ I said.
‘But this time there’s no Lawson to save you, is there? No witnesses around at all.’
Cold rain pouring down our faces. Rain water pooling on the pavement and running into the gutters. The street the colour of mud and straw.
How easy it is to love the dead, how easy it is to let life slip away.
Just close your eyes.
But now I was afraid and fear releases power. Fear is the precursor of action.
Tony’s eyes were savagely alive and so were mine.
Lightning flashed across the lough in County Down.
‘Tell me something: we searched every bin in Carrick for Lily’s notebook …’ I said.
‘I knew you would, ya big eejit, which is why I wouldn’t let Ek toss it in a bin in Carrick.
‘What did you do with it?’
‘Cremated,’ he said, with a cruel smile.
Thunder cracked like an earthquake above our heads. Tony flinched and I pivoted and turned and ran.
I ran hard into the rain.
BOOM went the first .45 round. BOOM. BOOM.
Those things could stop a charging rhinoceros. Even if one of them only winged me, I’d still be a dead man.
I ran down West Street towards the phone box outside the post office. The Glock still in my hand, dangling there like a phantom limb.
Tony was right behind me.
‘Where are you going, Duffy?’ he screamed at me. ‘I have six more slugs in my clip. You’re a dead man, Sean. At least die with some fucking dignity.’
BOOM and a car’s windscreen shattered.
I ducked behind the phone box.
BOOM and the phone box glass blew apart.
BOOM and the window of the post office shattered.
BOOM and the phone box took another direct hit.
‘See? See? This is why we can’t have nice things!’ Tony laughed.
How many shots was that? Seven? Nine in the clip and one in the chamber, so maybe ten all … Wait a second. One in the chamber? Tony took the bullets from my clip, but did he remember to clear the chamber?
‘Sensible that you’ve stopped running, Sean. I’ll make this quick,’ he said, walking towards me. He made his way round the phone box and raised the .45.
I aimed the Glock at his heart and pulled the trigger.
24: THE MINISTRY MAN
Morning. Downstairs. Coffee.
Out to the garden shed. Man world. Tool boxes. Paint tins. Assorted Allen keys and spanners hanging on the wall. Two-thirds of a disassembled Triumph Bonneville lying on the floor. Piles of books, piles of cassettes. A bottle of white spirit. A bottle of poteen. Cigarette papers. Tobacco. Cannabis resin concealed in a Ziploc bag in a tin of engine grease. A comfortable leather chair. A space heater for the cold nights. Stolen orange cone, stolen one direction street sign. Old newspapers. Narwhal horn, bookmark in a book of stories by Lamed Shapiro …
I sat in the leather chair and sipped my coffee. The cat purred on my lap.
All was safe here, mechanical, greasy, the way I wanted it. Beth had never bothered me out here. She knew.
I thought about her again. She’d been a keeper. Pretty, funny, sarky. I’d messed it up with her. I’d pushed too hard too early. Sure, there was the age gap, but I could have finessed it if I’d played it better.
If, if, if.
Go to the station today?
Have to think about it.
I’d been given another full week of compassionate leave because I’d had to shoot a man. This time I had to take it. This time I had to not come in. A week was the minimum period for Internal Affairs and the union to conduct their investigation before they let me back into a police station.
It was pro forma. The security cameras at the front of the Northern Bank had seen the whole attempted arrest and gun battle.
Phone ringing in the house. Go up the path to get the bugger.
‘Hello?’
No answer.
‘Hello?’
Dial tone.
Pricking sensation on the back of my neck.
Again.
They knew I was home.
Whoever they were …
I went to the hall and got my revolver.
My Glock, of course, had been taken into evidence. But I still had my trusty Smith and Wesson. I hadn’t put in my range time recently, but unless they showed up with an RPG or something, I could handle it.
The clock said 9 am. An odd time for a hit.
Waiting …
Waiting …
Might as well make a cup of tea and put the stereo on.
Tea. Stereo. Dozing by the fire, listening to Klavierstück Number 1 by Wolfgang Rihm. Left hand twitching to the music.
A knock at the front door. Nice that they would knock.
Peephole. An older man in a tweed suit. Grey hair.
I opened the door, revolver by my side.
‘Mr Duffy?’ he enquired, in a been-through-the-wars-Home-Counties accent.
‘Yes.’
‘May I come in?’
‘Why?’
‘I’d like to speak to you for a few moments, if I may? I know it’s awfully early.’
‘What do you want to talk to me about?’
‘I’d rather not discuss that here on the porch.’
I looked him over. Sixty-five years old. Umbrella. Expensive shoes. A tailored tweed suit. Slight tan, upright bearing, steady grey eyes. I knew the type: service in the war, a respectable DSO, recruited into the Security Services by a chap he knew at Oxford.
‘You can come in,’ I said.
I let him go first.
‘Just in to the right there,’ I said. ‘Leave me your coat and umbrella and I’ll hang them up in the hall.’
‘Thank you,’ he said.
When he went into the living room I rummaged through his raincoat pocket and found nothing – not even a tissue – but the umbrella was made by James Smith and Sons, which confirmed my first impression: some kind of high-level British civil servant, or possibly a very classy assassin. It had been raining, but the umbrella and the coat were both dry. He had a car waiting for him. The umbrella was hickory, with a silver lap band. Extremely faint letters on the lap band. I held it under the light.
‘Lt J Ogilvy COLDM GDS Sept 2 1944,’ it said.
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