Red Light

by Graham Masterton

  ‘Don’t bother,’ said Katie. ‘I don’t want him to get any inkling at all that he’s under surveillance.’

  ‘Fancy a sweet, ma’am?’ said Detective Dooley, turning around to offer Katie an open bag of Emerald Caramels.

  ‘Not while I’m on duty.’

  ‘Oh.’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, I’m only joking. You can have one yourself. Those things always stick to my teeth.’

  A patrol car pulled up close behind them and Garda Ronan Kelly climbed out and walked up to them. Katie put down her window and said, ‘So – what’s the story?’

  ‘Nothing much. A bunch of knackers were trying to hobble bottles of booze from Tesco’s and then putting up a fight about it when they were caught. Cautions, no arrests. Don’t want to be accused of discrimination against the Travelling community, do we? Thieving bastards.’

  ‘Mister Dessie hasn’t reappeared yet,’ said Katie.

  Garda Kelly checked his watch. ‘That’s queer. This time of day he’s always on his rounds, collecting the takings. He usually spends no more than five minutes at each of the knocking shops, and then he’s straight back to Amber’s.’

  Katie was tempted to say, I’m glad you’re so well-acquainted with the daily routine of Michael Gerrety’s messenger-boy, but she didn’t want Horgan and Dooley to catch any hint that Ronan Kelly and Billy Daly had been much friendlier to Mister Dessie than they should have been.

  She climbed out of the back seat of the car and took Garda Kelly to one side, next to the courthouse steps. ‘Why don’t you give Mister Dessie a call, see what he’s up to? You can think of some reason, can’t you, like you’ll meet him for a drink later, something like that, because you’ve got something important to tell him.’

  ‘Supposing he says yes? What have I got that’s important to tell him?’

  ‘You can tell him that the body that was found in Mutton Lane was Bula. It hasn’t been confirmed yet officially, but I don’t mind him knowing. That’s if he hasn’t guessed already.’

  Garda Kelly took out his mobile phone and rang Mister Dessie. He waited and waited, but there was no reply. He tried again, but this time Mister Dessie’s phone was switched off.

  ‘He’s not answering.’

  ‘He doesn’t know that you’ve been tracking his movements?’

  ‘No, I doubt that. We’ve been dead careful. And the times we’ve talked, he’s been sounding normal. Not suspicious, like. Billy was on the phone to him only this morning.’

  Katie shaded her eyes to peer at the rust-coloured building across the street. All of the top floor windows were covered with net curtains, so it was impossible to see who was inside, or what they might be doing.

  ‘He still hasn’t come out,’ she said. ‘Maybe I’ll go in and see what he’s up to.’

  ‘They’ll reck you, won’t they? Then you’ll have to explain what you’re doing there, and that’s going to let the cat out of the bag.’

  ‘Not necessarily. All I have to say to him is that I want to ask him a few questions about Bula. I don’t have to say anything about the Angel of Revenge being after him.’

  She looked back across the street. ‘Besides,’ she said, ‘now that Molloy has pulled the plug on Operation Rocker, I’d like to take a lamp inside and see what kind of a set-up Michael Gerrety’s got in there. All of his brothels that I’ve seen so far are scruffy and smelly. So much for treating his sex workers like royalty.’

  Garda Kelly said, ‘We’re keeping our side of the bargain, me and Billy.’

  ‘Yes, you are,’ said Katie, ‘and I appreciate it.’

  ‘If you collar this woman, like, and it’s because of our assistance, would you maybe see your way clear to forgetting our association with Mister Dessie?’

  ‘You mean, would I not report that you and Billy took bribes from Michael Gerrety?’

  Garda Kelly looked away, down Washington Street. ‘That’s about the shape of it, yeah.’

  ‘I’ve told you that I’ll speak up on your behalf, and I will.’

  ‘But you’ll still report us?’

  ‘Mawakiya was prostituting thirteen-year-old girls, Ronan, and you and Billy knew it, and you took money to turn a blind eye. How can I possibly not report you?’

  Garda Kelly looked back and stared at her, his thin lips tightly pursed. ‘Okay,’ he said, after a moment. ‘Message received and understood.’ Then he walked back to his patrol car.

  Katie went back to Detectives Horgan and Moody. ‘I’m going to try to get inside,’ she said. ‘I’ll give you a shout if I run into any problems.’

  ‘Wouldn’t it be better if I went?’ asked Detective Horgan. ‘I could make out I was a punter.’

  ‘I think this needs a woman’s approach,’ said Katie. ‘Besides, I don’t trust you. You’d be playing the part of a punter with a bit too much enthusiasm.’

  She crossed the street and went up to the brothel’s front door. She was about to ring the bell when a moped stopped at the kerb beside her and a Domino’s pizza delivery boy climbed off it. He took his bag of pizzas off the rack at the back of the moped and came straight up to the door and pressed the bell.

  ‘Who is it?’ asked a disembodied voice from the intercom.

  ‘Domino’s. Got your pizzas.’

  The door buzzed open. The boy pushed his way inside and Katie followed him.

  Thirty-two

  Mister Dessie held up the hacksaw and said, ‘I can’t.’

  ‘You can’t? Why?’ said the woman. ‘Are you afraid of the pain?’

  ‘It’s just not fecking natural to cut your own fecking hand off.’

  ‘Are you worried that you’re going to cry, like Bula cried, and ask for your mother? “Mama!” That’s what Bula said, “Mama, help me!”’

  ‘You leave my mother out of this,’ said Mister Dessie.

  ‘Oh, you think your mother would be proud of you? Look at you! Look at what you have become! You are fat, and you are ugly, and you have no soul! I wanted to make sure that you would not be accepted in heaven, but I think you have already done that yourself.’

  ‘I said to leave my mother out of this, didn’t I? My mother was a saint. Brought us up all on her own, all five of us.’

  ‘Do you have children?’

  ‘Not yet, no.’

  ‘Unless you cut off your hand, you will never be able to. I have counted to five and you have not yet started to cut, so I am going to shoot you between your legs.’

  Mister Dessie laid his hand on the bedside table and then closed his eyes. ‘Saint Anthony, consoler of all the afflicted, pray for me,’ he whispered. ‘Saint Anthony, whom the infant Jesus loved and honoured so much, pray for me. Amen.’

  ‘Are you ready now?’ the woman asked him.

  Without opening his eyes, he dragged the hacksaw across his wrist. It made a rasping sound as it tore through his skin and dark red blood welled up immediately.

  ‘Shit, Christ, shit, that hurts!’ he said, clenching his teeth. He sat there, panting, and at last he opened his eyes and looked at what he had done.

  ‘That hurts too much. I can’t do it. That hurts too fecking much.’

  ‘Here,’ said the woman. There was a dog-eared guidebook to Cork city on the window sill. She held it out in front of his face and said, ‘Bite on this. Then you won’t scream or cry out for mama.’

  He stared at her with utter hatred, but she continued to hold out the guidebook as if she were prepared to wait all day. Eventually he leaned his head forward and gripped it in between his teeth.

  ‘Now,’ she said. ‘Be strong, Mister Dessie! You’re a strong man, aren’t you? Show me what you can do!’

  Mister Dessie pulled the hacksaw back, and then pushed it forward. He was biting so hard on the guidebook that he almost bit right through it, and his eyes filled with tears. He stopped for a few seconds, his belly rising and falling as if he were bobbing in the sea. Suddenly, though, he seemed to be possessed by a terrible rage and he started to saw at his
wrist with such fury that blood sprayed up the wallpaper and even spattered the window.

  It took him less than half a minute to cut through his wrist. His hand dropped on to the carpet with a soft thud. He tossed the hacksaw to one side and fell back on to the bed, shaking, his amputated wrist held up in the air. He was smothered in blood and he was angrily tearing shreds of guidebook pages out of his mouth.

  The women bent down and picked up the hacksaw. She wiped the handle on the curtains and then stood by the bed for a while, watching Mister Dessie waving his bloodied stump around and spitting out paper. Her expression was completely dispassionate, but her lips were moving slightly as if she, too, were saying a prayer – but a prayer of thanks.

  It was then she heard a rapping at the door.

  ‘Mister Dessie? Mister Dessie, are you in there?’

  Mairead turned to Katie and said, ‘I shouldn’t really be disturbing him.’

  ‘He won’t be asleep, will he?’

  ‘Well, no, but he’ll be likely giving Zakky a bit of a pep talk. She’s just started here, you know, and he’ll be showing her the ropes.’

  ‘The ropes? I bet he will. Do you want to give him another knock? I really need to talk to him.’

  Mairead wrapped her gold robe tighter around herself as if she was going to need its protection when an angry Mister Dessie opened the door and demanded to know what she wanted. On the other hand, Katie had shown Mairead her ID after she had come upstairs behind the Domino’s delivery boy, and Mairead was equally afraid of her, and of Michael Gerrety, too. If Himself found out that she had let the Garda into the flat without a warrant, then she would be lucky if all she suffered was some bruises and her nipples twisted and a couple of broken ribs.

  ‘Mister Dessie! I’m sorry to be disturbing you, Mister Dessie, but there’s a lady Garda officer out here wants to have a word with you urgent-like.’

  Mairead tried the door handle, and rattled it, but it was locked. ‘It’s never locked, not usually,’ she told Katie, and her voice was becoming increasingly panicky. ‘It’s the health and safety regulations, you know. And the fire hazard, like. And in case there’s any trouble. Not that we have any trouble here, don’t be thinking that.’

  She knocked again and called out, ‘Mister Dessie! Zakky! Zakky, would you open the door, would you, girl? I’ve got the guards out here! Zakky!’

  There was still no answer from inside the bedroom. At that moment, however, the bathroom door opened just behind them and Zakiyyah appeared in her orange tiger’s head T-shirt with a towel wrapped around her head.

  ‘Did you want me, Mairead?’

  Mairead stared at Katie and then turned around and stared at the locked bedroom door. Then she turned back and stared at Zakiyyah.

  ‘Your room’s locked and I’ve been knocking but I can’t get an answer. I thought you were in there with Mister Dessie. Is Mister Dessie still in there?’

  Zakiyyah nodded. Katie went up to her and put her hand on her shoulder. ‘Zakky? Is that your name?’

  ‘Zakiyyah. But they call me Zakky.’

  ‘What’s going on here, Zakiyyah? Is Mister Dessie in your bedroom?’

  Zakiyyah nodded again.

  ‘What’s he doing in there, Zakiyyah? Mairead here thought he was in there with you.’

  Zakiyyah’s bottom lip began to tremble and two large tears rolled down her cheeks.

  ‘There’s no need for you to be upset, Zakiyyah. I’m a Garda officer, police. I’ll look after you. Just tell me what Mister Dessie is doing.’

  ‘For the love of God, Zakky!’ snapped Mairead. ‘Just fecking tell us, will you?’

  ‘Mairead,’ Katie cautioned her. ‘No need for that.’

  Zakiyyah wiped her eyes with the corner of her towel and said, ‘Mister Dessie came in to see me. I was asleep, but Mister Dessie woke me up.’

  ‘All right, then what?’ said Mairead. ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God, you’d get more sense out of a plank of wood!’

  ‘Go on, Zakiyyah,’ said Katie, gently. ‘Mister Dessie woke you up and what did he do after that?’

  ‘He wanted a gobble. He said he wanted to make sure I was good at it.’

  ‘Well I’ve heard some fecking lines,’ said Mairead, shaking her head.

  ‘Did you do it for him?’ asked Katie.

  Zakiyyah shook her head, so that her towel slipped. ‘There was a lady in my room. She was hiding behind the curtain. She came out and she had a gun and she told Mister Dessie to stop.’

  ‘There was a lady hiding in your room with a gun? What did she look like?’

  ‘She was black, the same as me. She was wearing black clothes. She had a necklace that was all made of bones and things.’

  ‘And you say she had a gun? What did the gun look like?’

  Zakiyyah held up her two index fingers, only about four inches apart. ‘Very small, like a toy gun. Only I don’t think that it was a toy.’

  ‘So she came out from behind the curtain and told Mister Dessie to stop. Then what happened?’

  ‘The lady told me to get out of the room and to go and have a bath and put my dress on. So I did. Well, I’ve had a bath. I haven’t put my dress on yet.’

  ‘It didn’t enter you head to come and tell me what was going on?’ said Mairead. ‘Jesus, girl! If you had two brains you’d be twice as stupid.’

  ‘The woman said not to tell anyone,’ said Zakiyyah. ‘I didn’t know what else to do.’

  ‘Is there any other way out of that room?’ Katie asked Mairead. ‘Is there a fire escape, or a ladder, or a roof you can climb out on to?’

  ‘There’s a fire escape, but you couldn’t get out of the window. The little fanlight opens, but Mister Dessie had the main window bolted shut because the girl in there before kept getting out and running away. Three times she done that. Chinese, she was, and always crying, too.’

  ‘So – as far as we know, both Mister Dessie and the woman are still in there?’

  ‘I’d say so, yes. They must be. There’s nowhere else they could have gone to.’

  Katie called Detective Horgan. ‘It looks like Mister Dessie’s still here, but our suspect could be here, too. It seems like she got into the flat somehow and was waiting for him to show up. She’s locked in one of the bedrooms with him and according to a witness here she’s armed with that shotgun pistol she used on the other three victims. We’ve tried knocking but there’s no response so far.’

  ‘What’s the plan, then, ma’am?’

  ‘Have Dooley go around to the rear of the building. Apparently there’s a fire escape there that gives access to the bedroom window. The window’s supposed to be bolted shut but she may try and break the glass and escape, especially since she can fire shotgun shells.

  ‘Call for armed back-up and then you and Garda Kelly come up here. I’ll have the front door opened for you.’

  ‘Right you are, ma’am.’

  ‘There’s several girls up here, too. I’m not sure how many.’

  ‘Four,’ mouthed Mairead, putting up four fingers. ‘That’s including meself.’

  ‘There’s four girls and I’ll be evacuating all of those immediately. Tell Garda Daly to take them to his patrol car, but call for a van to pick them up and take them to the station. Ask for two female guards to take care of them. And make sure they’re treated with respect.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am.’

  By now Lotus Blossom had appeared at her bedroom door. ‘What is happening out here?’ she said crossly. ‘I have a customer inside and all of this noise is putting him off.’ She made a drooping gesture with her finger.

  Elvira came out, too, wearing only a red and black corset with dangling suspenders. ‘Mairead? What’s going on?’

  Katie turned to Mairead and said, ‘I want all of you out of here now. If you’re not decent throw something on as quick as you can and get out. Get your customer out, too.’

  ‘But he has paid me one hundred and sixty euros already! It is for one hour special service!�
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  ‘Then give him a refund, or a voucher for next time. But get him out.’

  Zakiyyah went into the bathroom and immediately came back out, struggling to get into her rose-patterned dress. Katie gave her a hand to tug it down and zipped up the back for her.

  ‘Now, go,’ she said. ‘I don’t want any of you getting hurt.’

  Zakiyyah clung on to Katie’s sleeve and said, in a low voice so that Mairead wouldn’t hear her, ‘Please – after this, will you help me? I don’t want to come back here. Please.’

  Katie gave her a quick, tight smile and nodded. ‘Don’t you worry. I’ll see you back at the Garda station later. Stay there, and don’t let anybody take you away. Nobody – not even anybody who says they’ve come from social services. Tell them you’re not allowed to, because Superintendent Maguire wants to ask you some questions.’

  ‘Superin—?’

  ‘Just say Katie Maguire. Now, get out of here.’

  A balding man in glasses came out of Lotus Blossom’s room, zipping up his trousers. He glanced at Katie and Katie recognized him as a city councillor. She pretended not to have realized who he was and turned back towards Zakiyyah’s bedroom.

  Mairead was the last to leave. Before the door closed behind her, Katie could hear feet clattering up and down the three flights of stairs. Detective Horgan and Garda Kelly must be on their way. She lifted her nickel-plated Smith & Wesson revolver out of the holster attached to her belt and cautiously approached the bedroom door, holding the gun in both hands with the muzzle pointing upwards.

  She listened intently, although she didn’t press her ear against the door in case the woman suspected she was out there and fired a shot through it.

  She was sure that she could hear a mewling noise. It sounded like a cat that wanted to be let in out of the rain. Then she heard a woman’s voice, although she couldn’t make out what she was saying.

  Detective Horgan burst in through the door at the opposite end of the corridor, closely followed by Garda Kelly. At the same instant, Katie heard the key turning in the bedroom door and it was opened up wide. The young black woman was standing there, with her right arm held out straight. The sunlight was shining through the window behind her, so that Katie was momentarily dazzled.