The woman used her pistol to point towards the corner of the workshop, to the blue table saw. It had a circular steel blade, with fine alternating teeth for cutting oak and mahogany and other hardwoods.
‘Mânios was not so lucky. Mânios had to cut off his hand with an ordinary hacksaw. He did not cry out too much, but I know that it was not easy for him. For you, though – all you have to do is lay your arm across the table, press the switch, and zzzztttt!’
Bula twisted his head around and stared at the table saw. Then he turned back to the woman and said, ‘Is there anything in the world that I can do to show you that I’m sorry about Nwaha? That if I had my time back, I’d jump in the river after her, and save her?’
‘No,’ said the woman. ‘Nwaha is gone, and “sorry” cannot bring her back. And if it had not been for you, she would not have thrown herself in the river in the first place.’
‘I could pay you,’ said Bula. ‘I could manage at least two thousand euros. Maybe even two and a half, if I sold this bracelet.’
The woman smiled faintly and shook her head. ‘You are paying me already, Bula. This is your payment. I do not want your money.’
‘Then I hope you go to hell, you witch. I hope you go to hell and get screwed by three devils for ever and ever, amen.’
Sixteen
Katie was sorting through the papers she needed for the meeting with Michael Gerrety and his lawyers when Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán knocked at her door.
‘Kyna, come in. I thought for a moment there I would have to go without you.’
Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán was wearing a loosely woven white cotton sweater and a short grey skirt. Katie thought she was dressed a little informally for a confrontation with one of Cork’s leading solicitors. She herself was wearing a blue and white striped shirt and a navy-blue knee-length skirt. But then she thought, Kyna’s smart enough, and she’s young enough, and there’s nothing like a short skirt to distract a lawyer’s attention from the subject in hand.
‘Sorry if I’m late, ma’am,’ said Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán. ‘Detective Ryan’s just this minute come up with something.’
With the help of the Crime Prevention Unit, Detectives Ryan and Dooley had been sitting through hours of city-centre CCTV for the past two days, concentrating on the time frame in which the African man had probably been murdered on Lower Shandon Street.
‘There’s this African feller in a purple suit, crossing Oliver Plunkett Street. And can you guess where he’s going into? Amber’s … Michael Gerrety’s sex shop.’
Katie snapped her briefcase shut. ‘Is it up on screen now?’
‘Come and see for yourself. There’s no guarantee that it’s him because you can’t see his face clearly, and even if you could we don’t have much of a face to compare it with. But there can’t be too many Africans in Cork with purple suits.’
‘You didn’t have any luck with the tattoo parlours?’
‘Not so far, though there’s one place on Cook Street I’m going to go back to. Their head tattoo artist wasn’t there when I called, and his assistant was decidedly shifty, as if he knew something but wasn’t prepared to tell me.’
Katie looked around her office to make sure that she had everything she needed for her meeting, then she followed Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán along the echoing corridor and down the stairs to the main CCTV control room. Detective Ryan and a young female garda were sitting in high-backed chairs in front of the bank of thirty-six screens that were fed from cameras located all over the city. Crime prevention officer Sergeant Tony Brennan was there, too, in his shirtsleeves, noisily slurping milky coffee and frowning at what appeared to be the beginnings of a drunken brawl outside An Spailpín Fánach on South Main Street.
On every one of the smaller screens, traffic was silently crawling to and fro, and pedestrians were thronging the pavements. On one of the larger screens, however, the image was frozen.
‘Here he is, ma’am,’ said Detective Ryan, rising from his seat so that Katie could sit down and take a closer look.
Conor Ryan was one of the youngest detectives at Anglesea Street, but he had already made himself a reputation for doggedness. When older and more experienced detectives had abandoned a lead because it seemed to show no promise at all, he would go over it again and again until he had found the evidence he was looking for, or until he was convinced there really was no evidence. He was chubby, with short brown hair that stuck up at the back, and flaming red cheeks, and his jackets always looked too tight for him. He could easily have been mistaken for a trainee bank teller or the assistant manager of a stationery shop, but Katie preferred to have detectives on her team who didn’t look like detectives.
‘Full marks for persistence, Ryan,’ she said, leaning forward and peering at the monitor. It showed an angled view of Oliver Plunkett Street looking westwards from the Post Office towards Robert Morgan Street. Amber’s sex shop was on the corner, with an orange awning. An African man in a purple suit had stepped off the high raised kerb opposite and was waiting for a taxi to pass before he crossed. He was wearing a grey fedora hat which, from that angle, partially covered his face.
Katie looked at the time at the foot of the picture: 11.17.14 a.m.
She squinted at the screen even more closely. ‘It could just be shadow, but I’d say that your man has a goatee beard, like Mawakiya. But that still isn’t one hundred per cent proof that it’s the same feller, purple suit or not.’
‘Of course, we’ll be blowing it up and enhancing it, like,’ Detective Ryan told her. ‘I just thought you’d want to see the whole sequence first.’
‘Yes. Go on.’
He ran the recording in reverse until the African man had jumped backwards on to the kerb and then walked jerkily back as far as Cook Street, where he disappeared. Then he played it forwards, so that the African man reappeared, waited at the kerb again and then crossed Oliver Plunkett Street. He didn’t hesitate for a moment outside Amber’s but walked straight in.
‘I’d say that he knows Amber’s more than reasonably well,’ said Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán. ‘If you watch them, almost all of Amber’s customers hesitate outside the shop for a while before they pluck up the nerve to go in, and even then they look up and down the street to make sure they can’t see anybody who knows them. But this feller – no, he walks right in with no hesitation at all.’
Katie said, ‘Eleven seventeen. Our man on the street would have probably called it a day by then, wouldn’t he?’
‘That’s right. Most of the girls bring their takings in early, around nine, and it’s soon after that when Michael Gerrety shows up, if he shows up at all. Sometimes he sends that gowl Dessie O’Leary, and O’Leary stays longer as a rule, but even he’s usually out of there by ten or ten-thirty.’
‘I’m pretty certain that’s when they tot up their ill-gotten gains,’ said Katie. ‘I’ll bet they keep them in their safe on the premises, too. Don’t tell me that Michael Gerrety would risk leaving the building unaccompanied with that amount of cash on him. I very much doubt that we’re the only ones lamping him, and if one of his rival pimps robbed him, like Johnny-G or that Ambly-bambly one that only Patrick can pronounce – well, he could hardly come to us to report it, could he?’
‘What time exactly did purple suit leave Amber’s?’ asked Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán.
Detective Ryan ran the recording forwards until the black man in the purple suit reappeared from under the awning. The time was 11.41.32 a.m. He turned right and crossed back over the street, heading east towards Winthrop Street, which was a pedestrian precinct leading through to Patrick Street.
‘The butcher boy in Denis Nolan’s said he saw the black man in the purple suit around midday, didn’t he?’ said Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán. ‘So the timing would fit, wouldn’t it? It shouldn’t have taken him more than ten minutes to walk from Winthrop Street to Lower Shandon Street, would it, if he went there directly?’
‘If that,’ said Katie. ‘But what abo
ut the black girl in the headscarf who looked like Rihanna? There’s no sign that she was following him from here, is there?’
‘I’ve seen no sign of her so far,’ said Detective Ryan. ‘But there’s a camera on Mercer Street opposite the GPO and that feeds through to one of the monitors next door, so I haven’t had time yet to look at the recordings from that. I’m hoping it’ll show us which direction your man went in next – whether he turned up Winthrop Street or carried on straight along Oliver Plunkett Street. But you never know. They might show us more than that.’
Katie said, ‘We’re pushed for time right now. But I’d appreciate it if you can run through those Mercer Street recordings as soon as possible – even if they only tell us which way he went. It could make all the difference. Like, if he carried straight on, then where was he going? If he didn’t have enough time to get to Lower Shandon Street by midday, then are we looking at a different man, though I can’t think how we could be.’
Detective Ryan made the image of the black man in the purple suit run forwards, and then backwards, and then forwards again. ‘Like you say, ma’am, it’s highly unlikely, but if there were two different African men walking around the city on the same morning, both wearing purple suits, then I’ll make sure that I find out who they were, if it kills me.’
They were ten minutes late for their appointment on South Mall at the offices of Moody & McCarthy Solicitors. A receptionist showed them through to the oak-panelled conference room, where Michael Gerrety was already sitting with his lawyer, James Moody, smoking a cigar so that their air was pungent and bluish-grey.
Michael Gerrety and James Moody both stood up when Katie and Detective Sergeant ó Nuallán were shown in. Michael Gerrety was wearing an immaculate cream suit with a white rosebud pinned to his lapel, and as usual he looked extremely pleased with himself. James Moody was a large man with a stoop and sloping shoulders. He had dyed black hair slicked back from his craggy forehead and eyes that looked like two malevolent trolls hiding in the caves under his eyebrows. His lips were crimson and blubbery and he had a tendency to spit when he talked, but Katie had encountered him many times before and she knew him for a very wily and uncompromising lawyer, apart from being one of the most expensive in Cork.
‘What’s happened to Inspector Fennessy?’ asked Michael Gerrety. ‘I was looking forward to crossing swords with him. Very sharp-witted, Inspector Fennessy. So what are the Garda trying to do now, charm me into submission?’
‘At least we’re not trying to choke you into submission,’ said Katie, flapping her hand at his cigar smoke.
‘Oh, my apologies, superintendent,’ he said. He went across to the sash window and opened it, so that the smoke shuddered out and they could hear the traffic noises from the street below. ‘Carole doesn’t allow me to smoke my cigars indoors or in the car, so I don’t have many opportunities to pollute the atmosphere.’
‘I wouldn’t say that, Mr Gerrety,’ said Katie, sitting down at the conference table and opening up her briefcase. ‘I’d say that you pollute the atmosphere with every breath you take.’
‘Now then, detective superintendent,’ put in James Moody. ‘Let’s keep this amicable, shall we? I realize that we can’t leave this table today as friends, but we can at least leave with all of our differences resolved.’
‘There’s only one way we can leave this table today with any of our differences resolved, and that’s if Mr Gerrety agrees not to deny any of the charges that we’ve brought against him and to come to a negotiated settlement with the Criminal Assets Bureau for the surrender of the profits that he and his wife have made from prostitution.’
Michael Gerrety smiled broadly but said nothing. James Moody raised one of his eyebrows and said, ‘Well, now, is that all?’ although it was obvious that he was being sarcastic.
‘As a matter of fact, no, it isn’t all,’ said Katie. ‘He must immediately close down his website, Cork Fantasy Girls, and undertake never again to advertise the sexual services of either women or men. He must close all of his premises that are used for purposes of prostitution and cooperate with all the relevant agencies and charities for the rehabilitation of the women involved – or their repatriation to their native countries if they’re here in Ireland illegally.’
‘Have you had a response yet from the Director of Public Prosecutions?’ asked James Moody, spitting a fleck of saliva on to the middle of the polished mahogany table. ‘I mean, you have actually filed the charges with the DPP, haven’t you, along with whatever evidence you claim to possess?’
‘Of course, and Inspector Fennessy and I have been discussing them with her directly. I know it’s unusual for us to meet like this, but the DPP is very sensitive to the political complications that will inevitably arise from this case – apart from the number of people whose reputations could be compromised.’
Michael Gerrety’s sea-green eyes widened in amusement. ‘You mean some of the eminent local councillors who might prefer not to be named in open court?’
‘Fair play to you, there’s that to it,’ said Katie. ‘I won’t pretend that there isn’t. But the DPP has two main concerns. One is to spare the girls the humiliation of having to admit publicly to what they do, because there’s no question that it’s going to make headlines for weeks all over the media. Two, she wants to spare the taxpayer the expense of what could be a very complex and high-profile trial, with scores of expert witnesses having to be called.’
‘But that’s precisely what’s needed, a high-profile trial,’ James Moody interrupted her, spitting out the word ‘precisely’. ‘My client is looking forward to it with relish. For the first time he will have the opportunity to air his views on the protection of sex workers and his campaign to turn on the Green Light. He considers that he has advanced the cause of feminism in Ireland by decades, single-handedly, and he has done this by giving sex workers over the age of consent the opportunity to sell their services safely, respectably and hygienically, in secure environments.’
‘Do we really want to go back to the days of streetwalking?’ added Michael Gerrety, still with that self-satisfied smile. ‘Do we really want to go back to women having it in alleyways and up against pissy-smelling bus shelters, with no condoms to prevent them from catching all sorts, and nobody to chaperone them if a client turns nasty?’
Katie opened her briefcase and took out a thick green document wallet. ‘Don’t try to pretend that you’re some kind of a saint, Mr Gerrety. We have first-hand evidence that in return for your so-called protection you exploit women by drugging them, by blackmailing them, and by threatening them with physical punishment if they refuse to do what you tell them.’
Michael Gerrety turned to James Moody with his hands held out, as if he had never heard any suggestion like this before and was totally innocent, but Katie continued. ‘Cork Fantasy Girls purports to be a dating and escort and massage website, but you would have to be upstairs in a bungalow not to know what’s really on offer.
‘We also have first-hand evidence that you traffic in girls illegally from Eastern Europe and West Africa and that you confiscate any identity documents that they might happen to have to prevent them from leaving. We have evidence that you farm girls out to other pimps, especially girls you think are less attractive, or older women who have lost their looks. You run a cattle market, Mr Gerrety, that’s what you do. You and your Green Light! It’s a cattle market and you’re the auctioneer, and the only thing green about it is the money that’s pouring into your pockets.’
‘My client strongly objects to being bracketed with “other pimps”,’ put in James Moody.
‘I apologize,’ said Katie. ‘The trouble is, I don’t know of any other word that describes men who live off the profits of prostitution. Procurers, perhaps?’
James Moody ignored that. He dragged out a handkerchief and wiped his mouth, and then he said, ‘Of course, we’re aware of the majority of your so-called evidence against my client already, since it was itemized in the thirty-
nine charges that for some reason the Garda saw fit to bring against him. But he believes very strongly that public and political opinion is in favour of his Green Light campaign and that it is time for Irish law to catch up with the times. Besides that, he doesn’t see that by posting advertisements for these young women’s companionship on his website that he is in any way contravening the Criminal Justice Act 1994. If their clients happen to have sexual relationships with them, it is hardly his responsibility, is it?
‘You must be aware that Canada’s supreme court has unanimously struck down the country’s anti-prostitution laws in their entirety, including keeping a brothel, living off the avails of prostitution, and even street soliciting. They did it because sex workers were seeking safer conditions. A similar ruling is bound to happen here in the Republic, in the not too distant future. Perhaps this case will be the catalyst for such a ruling.’
Michael Gerrety stood up again and walked towards the window. As he looked down at the passers-by in the street below, he reminded Katie of Orson Welles in The Third Man, looking at the people down below him from the top of the Vienna Ferris wheel. ‘Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever?’
‘I fully understand that it’s your duty to uphold the law, superintendent,’ he said, without turning to look at her. ‘But certain laws have been rendered obsolete by technological advances like the internet, and even more so by the rapid changes in our moral attitudes.
‘We are kinder towards each other these days, more tolerant. We are much more understanding that we all have needs, both physical and psychological. It’s over a decade now since gay sex was decriminalized in Ireland. Surely it’s time that we accepted that everybody has God-given desires that need to be satisfied, but that some of us have no partner we can satisfy them with.
‘If a man is prepared to pay for sex with a woman, and a woman is prepared to sell herself to him, where is the harm? The only harm comes when such a transaction is illegal and has to be carried out clandestinely, which leaves the woman unprotected against sexually transmitted diseases or unwanted pregnancy or random violence. Worse than that, it means that sex workers are ruthlessly exploited by the vilest kind of low life and become entangled with all kinds of sordid criminality, such as drug-running and slavery. Sex should be a natural and healthy form of commerce, no less natural and healthy than the restaurant business, for example. Restaurants satisfy a natural hunger in return for money. Is that immoral? What’s the difference between serving up a pork chop and prostitution?’
Red Light Page 16
