Lawson and I followed.
Silent film mode: McCrabban putting the receiver down, looking at us, horror-struck. Me spilling a dart, Lawson dropping a file on to the floor.
‘What is it?’ Lawson asked.
‘He’s been released. An “extraordinary” bail hearing, asked for by Grimshaw, was granted by Sir Michael Havers, and at that hearing he was released into the custody of the Finnish consulate in Belfast.’
‘What the hell does that mean?’
‘I, I don’t know … House arrest?’
‘Passport surrendered?’ I asked.
‘I don’t know.’
‘Jesus.’
Lawson was the first to react. He picked up the phone and called the airport police at Aldergrove. He told them Ek’s details and said that he’d fax them a photograph and the passport number.
‘On no account is he to be allowed into the departures area!’ Lawson insisted.
He hung up and began dialling the City Airport.
Jolted into life, McCrabban and I alerted the other exit routes: the docks at Larne and Belfast and all the official border crossings.
‘Who’s Sir Michael Havers again?’ Crabbie asked.
‘The Attorney General of England, Wales and Northern Ireland!’ I said.
‘Uh oh. So this is a pretty high lev–’
‘Yeah, I don’t care! We’re finding this clown. Lawson, we need to see if he’s really in the consulate, and if he is, a team of watchers need to be put on him twenty-four hours a day. I want a copy of that bail order and the bail conditions,’ I said.
‘Done,’ Lawson said, and got on the blower.
‘I want that bastard found. If he’s in the Consul’s house I want to know it, if he’s in the consulate itself, I wanna know. I want a Polaroid of him, wherever the hell he is, pronto. And while you do that, I’m calling the Attorney General and giving that baldy bastard a piece of my mind.’
‘Sean,’ McCrabban said and gave me the look.
‘OK, forget that last thing, but all the rest. Until we have eyes on Ek twenty-four hours a day, I don’t want any chance at all that he’ll give us the slip! Better call Chief Inspector McArthur, too. Christ, call everybody. Get my MP on the line. Get bloody Gerry Adams and the Pope on the phone, too.’
The High Court faxed us the conditions of Ek’s bail. He was required to remain in a private residence, 11 Ruddles Court, Whiteabbey, until his remand hearing in May. He was allowed to leave the building to shop, exercise and play golf. He had to remain in 11 Ruddles Court from 10 pm until 7 am.
I passed the fax to Lawson.
‘Find out who owns this 11 Ruddles Court,’ I said.
‘The Finnish Consul General owns the house,’ Lawson told me a few minutes later.
The Chief Inspector appeared wet and bedraggled, and didn’t understand the ashen looks. ‘So he’s been released on bail, what’s the big deal? They won’t let him leave the jurisdiction, will they?’ he said.
We glared at him until he left the office, muttering something about needing a towel.
‘This police station must lie at the intersection of two evil lay lines,’ I muttered. ‘We never get a break.’
‘More than two. Half a dozen,’ McCrabban said. ‘If I believed in such pagan nonsense, which I don’t.’
The phone rang. It was the airport police at the Harbour Airport. Ek had been held at the second line of security, attempting to board the direct flight to Amsterdam. I grinned at the lads.
‘Thank God! That, boys, is a prima facie breach of bail conditions, within hours of being released. The High Court isn’t going to like that, Attorney General or no Attorney General. He’ll never be able to pull a stunt like this again.’
The Chief Inspector came in again, to share the good news.
‘He had us panicking there for a minute, didn’t he?’ McCrabban said.
‘That he did, Crabbie. That he did.’
‘Now we can lift him ourselves and take him to Carrick Police Station,’ Lawson said. ‘We can handle the whole process, cut those Castlereagh guys out of it.’
‘We’ll take the Beemer. You’ll not object to a bit of speed, Chief Inspector, will you?’
‘Not I,’ he said, uncertainly.
Downstairs to the BMW.
It’s exactly ten miles from Carrickfergus RUC station to Belfast Harbour Airport. Bit of dual carriageway, bit of motorway, a tricky bit through the centre of Belfast. Still, it was a Beemer and I had my Starsky & Hutch siren, so would you believe eight minutes? Because eight minutes it was. Not quite a complete track on a Yes album.
Screeching tyres. White knuckles. Crabbie aged by ten years.
Run through the airport. Meet the airport peelers.
‘Mr Ek? The Finnish guy?’
‘This way.’
A holding cell in the customs area. A Finnish man.
Not Ek.
‘Let me see the passport.’
It was Ek’s passport. What the fuck?
I passed it to the lads.
I walked to the Finnish man. Older than Ek by several years, but not completely dissimilar in appearance. ‘Who are you? Who put you up to this?’
He shrugged his shoulders. ‘No English.’
I turned to McCrabban, Lawson and McArthur.
‘If we’re here, where is he?’
‘At that house on Ruddles Court?’ McCrabban said.
‘Like hell he is. We’ve got to stop all Finnish nationals from leaving Northern Ireland.’
‘Can we do that?’ Lawson asked.
‘We don’t want an international incident,’ McArthur said.
‘We’ll do it. We’ll bloody fucking do it,’ I said, jabbing my finger into McArthur’s chest.
‘Why would they do something like this?’
I groaned. ‘So that we would come here and Mr Ek would slip out of Belfast International Airport with this joker’s passport.’
Back to the Beemer.
110 mph to Belfast International Airport at Aldergrove.
Through security.
The BA desk.
‘Yes, there was one Finnish national on the 6 pm flight to Copenhagen, connecting to Helsinki.’
We looked at the clock.
8.15 pm.
‘Please tell me that the flight was delayed.’
‘The flight left on time.’
‘It’s supposed to touch down, when?’
‘Uhm, round about now.’
I looked at McArthur.
‘Any ideas?’
‘Interpol?’
‘Interpol,’ I agreed with a groan, knowing their bureaucracy of old.
By the time Interpol issued an international arrest warrant, Ek’s flight had touched down at Copenhagen and had landed at Helsinki.
We had lost him. Lost him for good.
The next morning, the Finnish Consul in Belfast was summoned to a meeting with the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland. It was reported to be ‘cordial’.
Cordial?
We sat in the incident room, staring at each other, in a state of shock all day. Local TV loved the story, but it was only the third item on the national news.
Lawson did the research and confirmed what we already knew: there was no extradition treaty between Finland and the UK. But there was between Finland and the Irish Republic. If he’d skipped bail down South, he could have been shipped back. But not from here. Not from Northern Ireland in the UK. He’d completely out-generalled us.
‘Is this what defeat tastes like?’ Lawson said.
‘It is, get used to it,’ I said.
We went home at quitting time because we couldn’t think of anything else to do. I bought a bottle of vodka from the offie and a fish supper from the Victoria Hot Spot. I ate the chips and gave the fish to the cat. I made a vodka gimlet, easy on the lime and soda. I listened to ‘Master of Puppets’ and ‘The Ace of Spades’ and ‘Crazy Train’. Yeah, I was in that kind of mood.
At just before midn
ight, the phone rang.
‘Hello?’
‘I need someone to go with me to Liverpool. Will you go with me?’
It was Beth. I knew immediately what she was talking about.
‘Is it mine?’
‘Does it make any difference?’
‘I think it does. A bit.’
‘It’s yours.’
‘And you don’t want to keep it?’
‘I knew you’d be all Catholic on me. I should never have called. Fuck.’
She hung up.
I called her right back. ‘I’ll go with you. When do you want to go?’
‘Tomorrow.’
‘Do you have the tickets booked?’
‘No.’
‘I’ll take care of it. You want the night boat?’
‘I suppose.’
‘I’ll pick you up at six.’
‘OK.’
30: WHAT DEFEAT TASTES LIKE
City of dreadful night. City of the damned. City of no escape. Rain hisses on to the cobbles and the open drains. The city hums and seethes. The black Farset bubbles to the surface of High Street oozing human filth. The rusting giant cranes droop over the empty dry docks like the bones of dead gods. Army helicopters sweep the city with a sick white light.
Eyeblink.
Rain.
The Beemer’s headlights carving up the black Lagan, shimmering on the forbidding walls of the West Link. Belfast is the prototype of a new way of living. In 1801 it was a muddy village, by 1901 it was one of the great cities of the Empire, and now Belfast is the shape of things to come. Everywhere is going to look like this soon enough after the oil goes and the food goes and the law and order goes.
Ormeau Road to Rugby Avenue. Rugby Avenue to Cairo Street.
Bottom of Cairo Street, near Agincourt.
There she is, waiting outside in the rain, demonstrating her lack of concern for her personal well-being, for her own body. I’ve already made my decision and you’re not talking me out of it, Duffy.
I scope myself in the rear-view. Look at you. Aren’t you supposed to be a policeman? Aren’t you supposed to enforce the law? Abortion is illegal on the island of Ireland. On both sides of that porous, wiggly line border. Assisting someone in the procurement of an abortion is a criminal offence under the catch-all clause of the Offences against the Persons Act (1861).
Slow the car, flash the lights.
She’s brought a bag with her. Before I can get out to help her, she’s in the front seat. Her hair’s longer and she’s dyed it jet black. It doesn’t suit her.
‘Whew!’ she says. ‘Some night.’
Some night. Aye.
‘Where to, the ferry?’
‘Did you get the tickets?’
‘Cabin. We’re all set.’
‘Good. Thank you, Duffy.’
‘No problem.’
‘You know I can’t go to my family.’
‘I know.’
‘I knew I could count on you.’
‘Yes.’
Car into gear, window wipers on max. Desperate for the radio, but the mood’s not right.
Back up to the Ormeau Road.
‘I heard about you and Tony McIlroy. I called you. I called you but you weren’t home. Terrible business. I’m so sorry, Sean.’
‘It’s all right.’
‘Are you OK? Were you hurt?’
‘I’m fine.’
‘And somebody told me you helped to get that Kinkaid place shut down. Read about it in the Sunday World.’
‘I wasn’t responsible for the place shutting down. That was a recommendation of the RUC Sex Crimes Unit in Newtownabbey. It was only a pilot scheme anyway, and the Northern Ireland Office didn’t choose to carry on with it.’
‘Look at you, dodging the credit as usual.’
‘Not much credit to dodge, actually. In theory it was a good idea, but the paramilitaries had infiltrated the place, destroyed it. The prison service won’t try anything like that again here. Shame, really.’
‘What about your murder case? Did that work out in the end?’
‘We found who did it. In Ireland, you always find out who did it.’
‘But …’
‘But they’re never going to go up for it.’
She lit a cigarette. Camel. Unfiltered. Should you be smoking that? You know, what with you up the spout and everything, is a line I don’t use. This time tomorrow it won’t make any difference.
‘Got one for you, Duffy.’
‘OK.’
‘Why do anarchists only drink herbal tea?’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Because all proper tea is theft.’
‘You should put your seatbelt on.’
‘You’re not doing it.’
‘I’m exempt.’
‘Seatbelts. Jesus. Nobody ever wore seatbelts before Jimmy Savile told us to on the telly. Fucking Jimmy Savile.’
‘Amen to that.’
She’s older. She looks older. The BMW drives up Corporation Street and at the traffic light turns right on to Dock Street.
‘Ever been to Liverpool before?’ she asks.
‘Only to Anfield.’
A man with a clipboard in a duffel coat. The rain lashing him.
‘Where to?’ he asks.
‘Liverpool boat.’
He nods and points.
The BMW joins a queue of cars and vans navigating their way on to the ferry.
We drive up a metal ramp and a man in a high-visibility jacket tells us where to park the Beemer on the car deck.
I kill the engine, take out the key. ‘No turning back now,’ she says.
‘I’m a policeman. I can do whatever I want. You wanna go back? Easy.’
She shakes her head. ‘Let me see this cabin you’ve picked out. I’m expecting luxury.’
I look at her forced smile. It just about breaks my heart.
‘This way, then.’
Out on to the boat deck. Queasy. The deck moving up and down and laterally against the buoys and fenders.
Engine throbbing. The smell of diesel and lough water and the sewage works on Queen’s Island and the cigarette factory on the York Road.
‘I think I’m going to be sick,’ she says.
‘Not surprised. Let’s go up.’
Up three flights of metal steps to the cabins. A problem with the steward finding our room that a fiver sorts out.
I’ve paid for a top-of-the-line cabin, which turns out to be two narrow bunks, a rinky-dink wash basin and a tiny window that you can barely see through. On both beds there are complimentary copies of the Daily Mail, a bar of soap and a pair of shoelaces.
Presumably to hang yourself with? I think while picking up the laces and chucking them in the rubbish bin.
She sits on the bottom bunk, takes off her shoes and puts on a pair of slippers.
‘I’ll never fall asleep in this coffin ship. Is there a bar, do you think?’ she asks.
‘Undoubtedly.’
An hour later, we’re chugging past the Copeland Islands and turning south into the Irish Sea. She’s had two G&Ts and is the better for it. Smile back on her lovely face. Hair loose. Lipstick off. Eye make-up starting to run. Lips pouty. She’s conveying danger in every glance and half the men in the pub are staring at her and then at me. When I get another round, the barman gives me the aren’t-you-the-lucky-bastard nod as he brings the drinks.
The G&Ts have loosened her tongue and she talks about uni and people I don’t know. Finally, however, the booze and the boat knocks the fight out of her and she yawns and bums another ciggie.
I walk her back to the cabin and put her in the bottom bunk.
‘I used to do a lot of sailing when I was a kid,’ she says.
‘Oh yeah?’
In five minutes she’s asleep.
I fix a blanket about her.
‘Sancta Maria, Mater Dei, ora pro nobis peccatoribus …’ I whisper as she curls into the sheets.
I climb into the to
p bunk and wriggle beneath the tight white sheets.
The ship gives a great lurch in the sea and settles again.
Don’t even know the ship’s name. Bad luck getting on a vessel whose name you haven’t even bothered to discover. Turn the reading light on. Look in the rubbish bin. Find the shoelaces. Look at the wrapping label. ‘Compliments of the Hibernia.’
Light off.
Close my eyes.
Sleep.
Dream.
31: IT’S NOT THE LEAVING OF LIVERPOOL THAT GRIEVES ME
Throbbing noise. Light. Where are … oh … yeah. Glare coming not through a window, but what probably should be termed a porthole. I swing my legs out and lower them to the floor, or deck, if you will.
I look out through the glass. The rain is finished and the Irish Sea is aquamarine and calm.
Beth is still asleep.
Watch says 6.17 am. I take out my notebook, rip off a page and leave a message: ‘Gone for smoke, back 15 minutes.’
I put on my raincoat and find my way up to the cafeteria. Look out of the window. No land, no birds, no other ships.
This side of the cafeteria has at least a dozen single women staring at cups of tea and coffee, tears in their eyes, ciggies in their hands. One of them approaches. She’s about fifteen.
‘I couldn’t get a smoke, could I?’
I give her the entire packet and go up on to the freezing observation deck.
Stand there for a long time, getting cold.
With no landmarks to speak of, the ship barely seems to be moving.
A kid with a crew cut in jeans and a big red sweater opens the door and stands next to me at the rail. ‘Jesus it’s brisk,’ he says.
‘Aye it is.’
‘Have you got a fag?’ he asks.
‘I gave them away,’ I tell him.
‘Don’t be a tight bastard.’
‘No, really, I gave them to a wee lassie downstairs.’
He nods and we stand there, staring at the sea.
‘You think that’s England?’ he asks, pointing at something on the horizon.
‘I don’t know.’
Back downstairs.
Toast and a cup of tea on a tray.
Knock on the door. ‘Who is it?’ Beth asks.
‘Room service,’ I say, doing a Butlerian voice.
I go in to find her dressed. She’s wearing jeans and court shoes and a black jumper over a shirt.
‘Toast?’ I ask her and set the tray down on the bottom bunk. She shakes her head. ‘Are you feeling seasick?’
Rain Dogs Page 30
