Bad Catholics

by James Green

  The priest laughed. ‘It must have been good to keep your interest that long, Jimmy.’

  ‘Special Branch are watching you.’

  Jimmy’s face hadn’t changed, the smile was still there but his voice had dropped so only Father Liam heard clearly. The priest’s face changed but Jimmy said quickly, ‘I try to listen, Father, but you know how it is, the spirit isn’t very willing and the flesh is worse.’

  The priest laughed again, he was used to making his actions suit the occasion. You don’t bury people’s parents or grandparents twice a week, marry the young on Saturday and baptise babies on Sunday without learning to make your face fit the occasion and keep your own feelings to yourself.

  ‘Next week I’ll preach on football, racing, and the television.’

  ‘I’ll try to listen, Father, but no promises.’

  Jimmy and Bernie walked away from him and another couple took their place.

  ‘Did you say something to him, Jimmy?’ Bernadette asked.

  ‘Nothing important, Bernie, a bit of police info he needs.’

  Bernadette collected Michael and Eileen, who had been talking to friends. She didn’t like it. She didn’t disbelieve Jimmy but it was all wrong. Jimmy didn’t bring police work home and he would never take it to Mass on Sunday. Jimmy kept home and work very separate and home included Father Liam.

  She thought about it as they walked, then she decided she didn’t want to know. It was Jimmy’s world not hers.

  ‘Lunch at half past?’ she asked. Sunday lunch was always at half past. It was her way of saying, ‘I don’t want to know.’

  ‘Yes, lunch at half past is fine.’

  It was his way of saying, ‘I know you don’t.’

  In the darkness, an unmarked police car was cruising the busy night-time street. The two detectives in the car were part of a squad trying to get a quick result on a series of smash and grab raids carried out around this time on jewellers in the area, which the press had decided to feature. Three armed robberies and the police with nothing to go on frightened people and made the police look foolish. Cruising the streets was a waste of police time but at least it meant the press release could say, ‘our officers are out there’, and that made people feel better. They had good descriptions of the robbers and there was every reason to believe they would push their luck and do another job soon. They were just idiots who had been lucky. They would push their luck one job too far.

  ‘Pull in.’

  The detective constable driving the car pulled into the side of the road. Jimmy, in the passenger seat, looked at his watch.

  ‘Is it half past ten?’

  ‘Nearly.’

  ‘Look back there at those kids in that doorway, how old do you reckon they are?’

  The DC looked. ‘Eleven, twelve. Why?’

  ‘What are they doing hanging about at this time?’

  ‘Who cares? Leave it alone. If they’re up to something, we don’t want to know. Nicking kids, it’s twice the time and paperwork and there’s nothing at the end of it. Besides, we’ve got work to do.’

  ‘Come on.’

  ‘Not me, I told you, I’m not interested.’

  Jimmy got out of the car alone and walked over to the kids. The driver watched him talking to them, then all three came back to the car. The kids got into the back and Jimmy got into the front. Closer up, the older one may have been about thirteen but the younger one was no more than eleven.

  It was the older one who said, ‘We going to have fun then? Cost you a tenner each.’

  The DC turned to Jimmy.

  ‘Fucking hell, what are you up to?’

  ‘Get going, back to the nick.’

  ‘Let us out,’ shouted the older kid, ‘we didn’t know you was fucking coppers. You can’t take us in.’

  The younger kid looked frightened. Jimmy turned to them. ‘We’ll take you to the station till we can get you home safely. We just want to know who you are.’

  ‘It won’t do you no good, we belong to Denny Morris. Denny won’t let you do anything to us,’ the older boy smirked, ‘not unless you pay,’ and he began to giggle in an unpleasant way.

  The DC shrugged his shoulders and began to drive. Jimmy radioed in. He wanted a social worker, a doctor, two WPCs and two interview rooms kept available.

  When they got to the station the two boys were taken to the canteen by the WPCs. While he waited for the social worker and doctor to arrive, Jimmy began the paperwork. His partner looked on, clearly unsettled.

  Quite soon, one of the WPCs came into the office.

  ‘We’ve got names and addresses.’ She handed Jimmy a piece of paper.

  ‘Get on with it, then. I want the parents here as soon as you can.’ Jimmy put the paper in his pocket and the WPC left.

  The DC closed the door. He looked worried.

  ‘Look, kids that age don’t throw Denny’s name about, not unless they really do belong to him, which means we’ve run into something of his. Why don’t you slow down until we know what it is?’

  ‘Don’t you know what it is, Andy? Have you got to put your fucking nose in it before you can smell it’s shit? Those kids are on the game.’

  The DC came and sat on the edge of the desk opposite Jimmy. ‘So? Since Lenny Monk joined the angels, Denny runs everything round here including the sex trade. You know that, why is this different?’

  ‘It’s different.’

  Andy tried for a short while but then gave up. There was no reasoning with Jimmy when he got like this. He got up and went towards the door.

  Jimmy called to him. ‘Hang on.’

  Andy stopped.

  Jimmy got up from the desk and crossed the room.

  ‘Try to leave this office and I’ll put you down.’

  ‘Don’t fucking threaten me, Costello.’

  Jimmy hit him once, hard, in the stomach. The DC folded and went down on to his knees.

  ‘OK, Andy,’ said Jimmy pulling his head up by his hair so they were looking at each other, ‘I won’t threaten you, satisfied?’

  He let go of the DC’s hair. ‘I said, satisfied?’

  Andy nodded.

  ‘There’s going to be no phone calls. You’re the only one apart from me who knows Denny Morris’s name has been mentioned. I want this up and running before Denny gets told and puts the stopper on it. This time I’ll nail the bastard.’

  The DC got up, breathing hard.

  Jimmy went back and carried on with the paperwork. It was about twenty minutes later when Detective Inspector Flavin came in.

  ‘Hello, Jimmy. Hello, Andy.’

  Jimmy was surprised. ‘What brings you here?’

  ‘Just passing, Fred on the desk tells me you’ve brought a couple of kids in. What’s up? Found them on the street, worried about their safety?’

  ‘Something like that.’

  ‘Contacted the parents to come and get them?’

  ‘A WPC’s on it now.’

  ‘Good, then they should be home before too long. That’s good, nice to see kids safe. Got anything to do, Andy?’

  Andy looked at Jimmy. ‘Yeah, Tommy, I’ll go and get on with it.’

  He left the office. Tommy closed the door and turned to Jimmy. ‘No point in waiting, Jimmy. There’ll not be any doctor or social worker, the kids will be taken home. The WPCs have been recalled. You should have taken advice first, once you knew this involved Denny.’

  ‘Who told you?’

  ‘Does it matter? That kid was shouting Denny’s name all over the canteen, the whole nick knew five minutes after he got in there.’

  Jimmy nodded. He should have banged the kid up instead of playing by the rules.

  ‘So, Jimmy?’

  ‘Tommy, those kids are on the game, at their age, for God’s sake.’

  ‘People want it, so Denny provides it, girls, boys, what’s the difference?’

  ‘Look, Tommy, the way Denny’s running things now, it’s no good. He takes too much in protection, the owners have
to become thieves themselves so they can make the payments. He doesn’t just do the ordinary trade in drugs, he makes his dealers work so hard they target fucking primary schools now. He runs girls so young that they’re shagged-out slags by the time they’re eighteen and now he’s putting fucking little boys on the street. He’s got to be stopped, Tommy. For all the real difference it would make, Denny might as well be the fucking Commissioner.’

  Tommy didn’t like it. Jimmy was swearing like a real copper and that was a very bad sign. He would have to reason with him. Coming the inspector and ordering him off wouldn’t work when he was like this.

  ‘You’re wrong, Jimmy, and I’ll tell you why you’re wrong. If we nail Denny then he still runs things from inside. Nothing would change except the coppers who sent him down would get it and maybe their families, and if Denny gets replaced it has to be by some bastard who’s worse than he is. He took Lenny out because he was nastier and harder than Lenny. Replace Denny and where does that leave everybody?’

  Jimmy tried not to think about it, but he knew Tommy was making some sort of sense.

  Tommy, like everyone else, put Lenny Monk’s recent demise down to Denny. No one except Jimmy knew about Bridie’s involvement.

  Tommy followed up his argument. He could see he was getting somewhere. Thank God he knew Jimmy as well as he did.

  ‘And we do good work, Jimmy. Not everybody out there is connected up to Denny Morris. We protect a lot of people, put away some nasty sods and keep the place safe most of the time for most of the people.’

  ‘Most of the time, Tommy?’

  ‘OK, some of the time. Look, don’t try to change it unless you’re sure you can fucking well mend it and not just make it worse.’

  ‘What about this one, the kids?’

  ‘It’s out of my hands now. They’re part of something Denny runs, more than just the street stuff, not just straight sex. I think he uses them for special clients and that puts the clients in his pocket. He probably films it or something.’

  ‘We could have got him this time, Tommy. One kid’s stupid, with a big mouth, the other’s scared. We’d have got the stories and medicals so not even Denny could knot it up.’

  ‘What you would have got would have been two dead kids. You could serve up Denny to a court on a silver plate with fucking watercress round him and he’d still beat the charge. He’s too wired in. Too many people, important people, are in his pocket, or frightened, or whatever. Give it up, Jimmy, just give it up.’

  So he gave it up. He stood and went to the door.

  ‘OK, Tommy, let them take the little fuckers home.’

  ‘That’s right, Jimmy. Come on, let’s go and have a pint at the club.’

  At the club they joined Eddy Clarke, who was already sitting at a table.

  ‘Been busy, Tommy?’

  ‘Not really, this and that. You, Jimmy?’

  ‘No, Eddy, social work really, re-uniting lost kids with their parents.’

  The conversation ran on and they were joined by another DS who Jimmy knew. They began to play cards, gin rummy. After about an hour Tommy Flavin stood up.

  ‘Got to go, lads, got a meet at half past.’

  He left the table and walked to the club door. The door opened as he reached it and a very good-looking young girl walked in and looked around. She turned to Flavin.

  ‘Which one is Jimmy Costello?’

  ‘That table,’ Tommy pointed. He couldn’t swear but he got the impression she had nothing on under the coat. He would have liked to stay but the meet was important, this kids thing had to be sorted.

  Late next morning Jimmy sat at his desk doing some paperwork on an arrest he had made the previous evening at the club where a drunken intruder had forced his way in and had had to be restrained. The phone rang, he answered it.

  ‘When?’ He looked at his watch. ‘I can make it. Who will I meet? Why so careful? All right.’

  He got up and left. When he reached The Rose and Crown he went to the bar.

  ‘Anyone in the back room?’

  The barman looked up from the copy of Punch he was reading and shook his head.

  ‘Expecting anybody?’

  The barman nodded.

  ‘So am I,’ and Jimmy went into the back room.

  A few minutes later another man walked into the bar. ‘Morning, Mr Forester.’

  The man ignored the barman and went into the back room. Jimmy looked up and recognised the man, a chief inspector who worked out of a West-End nick.

  ‘Hello, Jimmy,’ he sat down, ‘good of you to come. This is unofficial.’

  ‘If you say so.’

  ‘You went to visit the parents of those boys this morning, Jimmy. Why did you do that?’

  ‘To see if they were all right.’

  ‘It wasn’t a nice thing to do, Jimmy, it made telephones ring in high places. Tommy Flavin said you were OK about this.’

  ‘I’m still OK … maybe.’

  ‘Maybe, Jimmy?’

  ‘One of those kids, the older one, his mum’s on the game and he would probably be as well even if Denny hadn’t put him there.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘The other one is only just eleven, he’s still at primary school. As it happens, it’s the school my kids went to. His parents are respectable people. He got pulled into all this by the older kid, he’s only done one trick so far. He’s scared now, scared of what the other kid says Denny will do if he pulls out and scared of his mum and dad finding out.’

  ‘What are you, a social worker?’

  ‘These people are from where I live, Mr Forester. If they still went to church, it would be the church I go to.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘I want the boy off the street and the parents don’t get to know it ever happened.’

  ‘OK, and what do you give for this service?’

  ‘I leave it alone.’

  ‘No, Jimmy, you’ll leave it alone whatever happens.’

  ‘Will I?’

  ‘Unless you want to go to prison.’

  Jimmy looked at him.

  ‘You see, when that bloke you glassed last night comes up in court for assaulting a policeman, the coppers who were with you will give evidence, and the story they tell will be the story I choose. It could be the drunken intruder, the assault, the struggle, and his face being all cut up when he fell on the glass. Or it could be the truth, the girl you got sent, the bung you asked for, and the glassing when it turned nasty.’

  Jimmy put his hands on the table and looked at his thumbs.

  ‘Denny doesn’t let people go. These kids are on the game, that’s it. Learn to live with it and get on with your own life.’

  He got up. ‘That’s how it is, Jimmy. You can’t make any difference, except to yourself, of course.’

  He left.

  Jimmy sat for a moment, then he got up and went into the bar. ‘A whisky,’ he said when the barman came, ‘and make it a double.’

  He paid for his drink and went to a table. He sipped the whisky, then took a real drink, he never liked the taste of the stuff. He left the glass on the table and went back to the bar.

  ‘A pint of Fuller’s.’

  The barman pulled the pint, Jimmy paid and went back to his table. There was a man sitting at the next table reading a racing paper. He looked up at Jimmy then got up, came across, and sat down opposite him. Jimmy looked at him. He was feeling angry, maybe this man might let him do something about it. Jimmy poured the rest of the whisky into the beer and took a long drink. The man watched him and then spoke with a friendly smile.

  ‘That’s a waste of good whisky, mate. If you need to do it, use gin or vodka.’

  Jimmy didn’t answer.

  ‘You’re Jimmy Costello.’

  Jimmy looked at him. He didn’t know him and he couldn’t hit him yet so he waited.

  ‘I’ve got a message for you, Jimmy.’

  Jimmy still didn’t speak. It all depended on the message. If it was from Denny Morris he�
�d put the man in hospital.

  ‘I was told to say thank you and the favour will be returned when you want it.’

  The man’s accent was not London. Midlands, Birmingham, maybe. Certainly not Scottish. It wasn’t what Jimmy was expecting.

  ‘I don’t know what I’m being thanked for and I don’t take favours.’

  ‘Of course, but maybe you’ll change your mind one day. The people I know have long memories and they never forget a favour, or anything else.’

  Was that a threat? Jimmy wasn’t sure. The man went back to his table and resumed his perusal of his racing paper. Jimmy watched him for a moment then got up and left the pub.

  At the station the desk sergeant called to him as he came in.

  ‘They found a bomb up West, Jimmy. Did you hear about it?’

  Jimmy shook his head.

  ‘It didn’t go off but fucking hell, if it had! I’d like to spend half an hour in a cell with one of those bastards.’

  Jimmy nodded. ‘I know what you mean, Fred. I know just how you feel.’

  That night Father Liam was arrested and in raids across Central London three members of an IRA bomb cell were also arrested and explosives and weapons found in two lock-up garages. They found no weapons or explosives in the priest’s house but there were traces which showed explosives had been stored there. Father Liam was taken away by the police under the supervision of Special Branch officers. A priest nobody knew said the Masses on Sunday. He asked for their prayers for Father Liam, especially if he was guilty of the dreadful charges against him. He also asked their prayers for all the victims of terrorist violence and also their prayers that the men of violence would seek peaceful ways of gaining their ends. He didn’t stand outside the church and nobody stayed around to chat that day.

  Two weeks later a bomb did go off. The coded warning didn’t give enough time and the toll of dead and injured was given out on the news.

  What a fucking world, thought Jimmy. He thought about the two kids in the doorway and the man saying thank you in the pub and he thought, God forgive me for my part in making sure that it all stays that way.

  TEN

  London, February 1995

  The Underground train was travelling north. Jimmy and Sister Philomena had spent most of the journey with their own thoughts. Philomena looked around her. There was no one within hearing distance.