“But—”
“Later.”
Burns slammed the door of her office.
“Shower of penis-wielding wankers! Like I’ve not enough shit to be…”
It was only as she sat down that DSI Burns noticed the red-headed woman sitting on the other side of her desk. This at least solved the problem of what to do with the cold coffee, as DSI Burns promptly spilled it all over herself. “Christ.”
“Oh deary, are you alright?”
“Ahhh, yeah, fine – I mean, it’s cold.”
Burns pulled her sodden and severely stained blouse away from her skin. It was only new on today too.
Burns looked up to see Moira Clarke’s head sticking in the door. “I tried to tell you.”
Burns took a deep breath and looked down at the front of her blouse. “You did, Moira. Sorry, I’m having a bit of a day here.”
The last bit was delivered as a general apology to the world.
“Sure sounds like it,” said the redhead. “Some vinegar will lift that right out.”
“Yeah.”
Moira tossed a box of tissues through the door and beat a hasty retreat. DSI Burns pulled out a couple and patted down the front of her blouse, to at least stop herself from dripping onto the desk. Then she tossed the sodden wad of tissue into the bin while taking a first proper look at her guest. The woman had a large perm of red hair on top of a wide face, heavy with make-up. Her accent was American, and it had an incongruous Tinkerbell tinkle to it.
“Sorry, forgive my manners.” DSI Burns stood and extended her right hand across the table. “DSI Susan Burns, and you are?”
“FBI Special Agent Alana Dove.”
With a soft whirr of mechanics, the other woman extended her hand. DSI Burns pulled hers back reflexively and then remembered herself. “Oh God, sorry,” she said, shaking hands. “How rude of me. You caught me a bit off guard there, is all.”
“That’s quite alright, throws everybody for a loop the first time.” She patted her right arm under her cream jacket. “This here is the catchily-titled GL480. It’s a prototype designed by the boys over at DARPA. I’ve had targeted muscle reinnervation surgery that allows me to control this modular prosthetic limb. It’s a really high-tech piece of machinery.”
“Right, wow. Very impressive.”
DSI Burns tried to look as natural as she could while shaking hands with a robotic hand, which was surprisingly warm. As they shook, the metal fingers tightened around hers.
“Oh sorry, I’m still breaking it in. It goes a little power-shake crazy from time to time.”
Agent Dove spent the next minute prising the prosthetic hand’s iron grasp from around Burns’s fingers, as both women smiling politely. Once done, Burns sat back down, stretching her fingers out under the desk. “So, Agent Dove, you’re a long way from home. What can I help you with?”
“I’m hoping we can help each other. We got a DNA match. One of the bodies you recently recovered is one of ours.”
“Ah, we thought it might be an American.”
“No, I mean FBI. Special Agent Daniel Zayas.”
Agent Dove took a headshot photograph from her bag and slid it across the table. It showed the smiling face of a Latino man in his forties with a receding hairline.
“I see. When did he disappear?”
“About eighteen years ago.”
“That fits the timeline we’ve established. Do you have any idea of the identity of the second individual?”
“No clue, I’m afraid.”
“Was your agent here on some form of official business?” Burns asked the question more to see Dove’s reaction than in the expectation of a meaningful answer. If an FBI agent had disappeared in Ireland while on official business, she would undoubtedly have already known about it.
“Holidays. We think he may’ve been trying to trace his family roots.”
Burns gave her a quizzical look and then looked at the picture again. “Really? What was the second name again?”
“Zayas. The Irish is on his mother’s side.”
“Yes, I’m sure,” said Burns, who would’ve bet her fully functioning right arm that this was bullshit too. “Was there an investigation at the time?”
“Yes. The last trace we had of Agent Zayas was him getting on a ferry from here to Britain. Liverpool, I believe. He was never heard from again.”
“I see.”
Burns looked down at the photograph again, as much to have something to look at other than Agent Dove. She was trying not to stare. The woman’s face didn’t appear to move. It had either been Botoxed to within an inch of its life or she’d had something else done. Her skin had an unnatural smoothness to it. When Dove blinked, it happened unusually slowly, like she was taking a second-long nap. She reminded her of the make-up dummy her sister had had as a child – and it was not a flattering comparison. The overall effect made it feel like she was having a conversation with an animatronic robot.
“Can I be honest with you, Inspector?” Though they were alone, Dove leaned in and lowered her voice. “Off the record, we had believed that Agent Zayas was going through some personal issues at the time. There was a theory that he may have…” She walked two of her fingers along the edge of Burn’s desk and then jumped them off. “Either on the ferry or soon after.”
“I see. Any revised theories now that he’s turned up buried in the Wicklow Mountains?”
Agent Dove shrugged, the smile remaining fixed on her face. “Robbery homicide? Despite the best advice, a lot of tourists do travel with a great deal of cash on them. You know what people are like.”
“Yes,” agreed Burns, “but I’m afraid robbery homicide, while not entirely unprecedented, is extremely rare in this part of the world. Nobody is snatching a tourist’s wallet and then burying them up in the mountains.”
“I believe neither body was found with a wallet.”
“Yes, but they were found buried with two fully loaded handguns, which doesn’t really mesh with your hypothesis.”
“Well,” said Dove, with that same smile fixed to her face, “I guess that’s what I’m here to find out. I am hoping for your full cooperation with my investigation.”
Burns gave her own tight smile in response. “I think you’ll find this is my investigation. The FBI has no jurisdiction here, obviously, though I will be happy to keep you fully up to speed.”
“We always have a full investigation into the death of any American citizen in suspicious circumstances.”
“Yes, but this is still a matter for Irish law enforcement. As I said, we will be happy to keep you informed of any—”
“I expect to be fully involved in any investigation.”
“I’m afraid that’s not possible.”
“He’s our guy.”
“It’s our country.”
“I had hoped we’d be able to get along.”
“So had I, Agent Dove, but you can’t just come marching in here—”
The phone on DSI Burn’s desk started to ring.
“You should get that. It will be your commissioner.”
Burns looked at the display on the phone and recognised the number. She gave Dove a long, hard look. Dove gave her the same frozen smile and then blinked, unnervingly slowly.
Chapter Thirteen
Bunny leaned on his hurley and looked up at the crucifix hanging high on the wall, and in particular at the figure nailed to it. Something about it bothered him. He’d seen thousands of them over the years, of course – it wasn’t that long ago that no house in Ireland was complete without having Our Lord and Saviour nailed to a piece of wood somewhere on the walls. That and the pictures of Pope John Paul II and John F. Kennedy were very much the holy trinity of twentieth-century Irish interior design. Fashions had changed over time and IKEA had gradually replaced icons. Still, this crucifix wasn’t right. It was the face. Normally Jesus wore an expression of angst appropriate to having nails stuck in you. On this one, he looked positively cheerful. Bunny h
ad an inkling this was by design, like even the pain of crucifixion couldn’t stop the son of God from being impressed at the bargains on offer.
Bunny turned at the sound of a throat being cleared politely behind him. Jerry Malone stood there, all five-foot-nothing of him, his wide smile leaving barely enough room on his face for other features. He wore a golden crucifix around his neck too. Subtle. Jesus Malone, as everyone called him, should probably be in line for some form of entrepreneurial award. Not that he would accept it, of course, as that would mean admitting something he had always ferociously denied.
Ten years ago, his second-hand car dealership and repair business had been on the verge of bankruptcy when he had a divine moment of inspiration. He’d been passing a skip when he saw a battered, framed picture of the Virgin Mary. He had retrieved it and placed it on the wall of his garage. Suddenly, clapped-out bangers that he couldn’t convince even joyriders to steal for the insurance pay-out started selling. Malone Motors went from a wasteland to the busiest dealership in Dublin. Jerry put it down to the good Lord smiling down upon him. Most of those in the know put it down to Jerry realising a fundamental truth: nobody, but nobody, trusted a mechanic or a second-hand car dealer. A born-again, hallelujah, happy-clappy car dealer on the other hand… You couldn’t fault the logic. If someone lived in fear of burning in eternal hell, they’d probably not weld two lemons together and sell it to you. Even atheists believed in Jesus Malone. The walls of this branch of Malone Motors, now one of four in the Greater Dublin Area, were festooned with religious paraphernalia. As well as the crucifix, there were framed portraits of the Virgin Mary, St Jude, St Augustus, Mother Theresa and Pope John Paul II. There was also a portrait that someone with even fewer scruples than Jesus Malone had managed to convince him was of the latest Pope. Despite every member of staff wearing a crucifix and liberally smattering “God bless” and “Praise the Lord” into conversations with customers, none of them appeared to know that the picture was in fact the comedian George Carlin. They did all agree that the Pope was a good-looking man, however.
In short, Jesus Malone was one of the most untrustworthy people on the planet and Bunny trusted him completely to fix his car. That was because, while he may or may not have found God, Malone had no great desire to meet him again soon, so Bunny’s car would be dealt with lovingly and cheaply.
“Bunny. How are you? Great to see you. God bless.”
“Yeah. Just thought I’d pop in and see how me car was getting along?”
Bunny casually rested his hurley against his shoulder. It was something of a leading question, given that Bunny’s beloved Porsche 928S, the finest vehicle the 1980s had to offer in Bunny’s admittedly biased opinion, lay behind Jesus with its innards spread out beside it.
“Honestly, it’s not going great. Like I told you last time, this car is really more hassle to you than it’s worth.”
“Just fix it.”
“Well, I can order the parts in again from Britain if you want, but honestly, I could do you a great deal on a new—”
“How long will it take?”
“It’s hard to say for sure.”
“Try.” Bunny casually rested the head of the hurley on Jesus’ shoulder.
“I do wish you wouldn’t do that.”
“What? Do you not like Mabel?”
“Mabel? I thought it was called Susan.”
“That was the last one. She got broken dealing with—”
Jesus threw his hands up. “I don’t want to know. We go back a long way, Bunny. I’m hurt that you think intimidation is necessary. I run an honest business here.”
Bunny nodded. “There’s a couple of lads over behind you with a drill that appear to be ‘fixing’ the mileage on that Ford Focus.”
“I resent the implications of that statement, Bunny. Next time, could you not bring the hurley with you, it makes my staff very nervous.”
“What? It’s just a bit of sporting equipment.”
“Yeah, so is a baseball bat. My brother is the manager up at that big sports store on Henry Street, says they sell hundreds of baseball bats every year.”
“Is that so?”
“Yeah. And they’ve had the same three baseballs in stock since 2007.”
“Speaking of which, any chance I’ll get my car back for Christmas?”
Jesus Malone sighed. “Hang on, I’ll go check.”
“Wonderful. Thanks be to Jesus.”
As Jesus scurried away, Bunny walked over to look at his car. It looked so sad and vulnerable.
“She looks bad, Detective, but then don’t we all?”
Zayas sat on a pile of tyres beside the wall. Bunny ignored him.
“Do you think you’ll get a chance to drive her again before…”
Bunny spoke in a whisper. “Would you piss off and mind your own business.” He turned around. Zayas was now leaning up against the wall beneath the crucifix.
“But you are my business, Detective. We are joined at the hip now, don’t you think?”
“Just feck off and leave me alone.”
Bunny was disturbed by the sound of a throat being politely cleared. Jesus Malone was looking at him, his previously ubiquitous smile noticeable for its absence. “Everything OK, Bunny?”
“You tell me. The parts?”
“First week of January, I’m afraid. It’s a nightmare to get anything at this time of year. Seriously, are you alright, Bunny? You don’t look well.”
“Sorry, I think I’m going down with something.”
Bunny tried to ignore the figure in the white suit now leaning on his car’s bonnet, laughing at his choice of words.
“Are you alright with the loaner in the meantime?”
Bunny didn’t answer.
“Bunny?”
“What? Sorry. Yeah, it’ll be grand. Thanks, Jerry. Have a Merry Christmas and all that.”
Malone looked up at Bunny, his face a picture of worry, and not the normal kind of worry that being face-to-face with Bunny McGarry typically inspired in people. “Cheers. You should seriously get yourself checked out though – you’re white as a sheet. It’s like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Bunny walked out of the gates of Malone Motors and stopped, trying to remember where he had parked Jesus’s “loaner”, a 1995 Fiat Uno. Nobody would steal it, but they might accidentally step on it. Bunny felt ridiculous crammed into the thing, but it was all that was available. To be fair, he didn’t have much more room when driving his own car, but he happily put up with that.
He remembered that he had parked it up around the corner. The streets round here were a chaotic free-for-all due to a lack of parking restrictions, so office workers anywhere within a mile competed to be the first here in the morning. It was a sneaky oasis in the sea of parking meters that Dublin had become.
As Bunny headed off to his left, he passed the smirking figure of Zayas leaning against the wall of the garage.
“Excellent work, Detective. It is good to keep up the pretence of normality. Try to remain calm.”
Bunny ignored him, tried to get his mind to focus on something else. Sunday. Who would he pick in the St Jude’s team for Sunday? Invariably, it would be whoever turned up, but still.
Zayas fell into step behind him.
“Do you think they will have identified the bodies by now? It has been a couple of days.”
“You’re not real.” Bunny hissed it through gritted teeth as he quickened his pace.
“No. I’m your mind losing its grip under justifiable stress. And just because I’m not real, it doesn’t mean I’m not a problem.”
“Stop following me.”
“I’m not the one following you.”
Bunny stopped and turned around. Zayas was nowhere to be seen, but Bunny did clock a man with lank red hair walking a collie dog on the far side of the road. He glanced at Bunny and then looked away. Bunny turned around and started walking again.
“Oh dear, Detective, I do hope you’re not getting paranoid.”
/>
Bunny turned the corner; the loaner was parked up across the street. Every time Bunny saw it, his heart sank a little further. As metaphors went for how his life was heading, it was a little on the nose.
Further down the street, Bunny heard a car door open as he fumbled with the keys. The button to disarm the alarm only worked about one time in six, and even then it didn’t open the door. He thumbed it repeatedly until the front lights flashed and then put the key in and heaved the door handle upwards to disengage the lock. It would actually be easier to smash the window in and rob the damn thing – if you could even call it robbing. The object had to have some form of value to someone for it to be considered theft.
“Mister McGa—”
Bunny felt the presence of the man behind him just before he began to speak. On instinct, he swung around and grabbed the stranger’s hand as he reached up to tap him on the shoulder, twisting his arm around and slamming the man into the side of the car.
Five-foot-eight or so, the man was wearing a suit and far too much aftershave. He had a recent holiday tan and was wearing a gold bracelet that fell to the ground as Bunny twisted his hand into his back. He yelped in pain.
“Who the fuck are you?”
“Get off me!”
Bunny shoved his face beside the man’s ear. “Answer the fecking question!”
“Doesn’t matter who I am.”
Bunny grabbed the man’s fingers and squeezed. “I’ll decide what matters. Who sent you?”
“Agh… inside pocket.”
Bunny shoved his hand inside the man’s jacket and pulled out a white envelope. “What the hell is this?”
“In accordance with the powers given to me by the Private Security Services Act 2004, you’ve been served with a summons. Have a nice day, you fucking prick.”
Bunny squeezed the man’s fingers – a little harder than he meant to – and heard a cracking noise.
“Agghhhhhh.”
Bunny released him and stepped back. He still held the unopened envelope. The man in the suit cupped his right hand. “You fucking lunatic, you broke my bleedin’ finger.”
Last Orders (The Dublin Trilogy Book 4) Page 9
