'Not me, you. Your flight's at 6.30.'
'I got time to pick up some clothes?'
'Sure. Those airports are just big shopping malls now.'
Koop shifts in his seat to study Keane. Looking at the policeman is like being in a time-machine. Himself at forty. Stressed, anxious, alternately adrenalised and dragged down by the bureaucracy. He's happier than ever to be going home. Home to Australia.
'What about Carl?' says Koop. It's the first time he's mentioned his brother to anyone since seeing him at Anfield. Koop tries to sound neutral but feels Keane tense in the seat.
'You seen him since you got back?' says Keane.
Koop sits quietly for a few seconds. 'We met at the match last week,' he says eventually. 'He's out legitimately. He's . . . cured.'
'Come on, Koop. It must have crossed your mind that Carl might have had something to do with Kite's murder.'
'Of course it did. For about two minutes.'
'What made you so sure he didn't do it?'
Koop doesn't answer. Not immediately. 'Quit the bullshit, Frank. If Carl was in your sights I'd still be at Stanley Road.'
Keane lets out a long breath. 'Yeah. You're right. Carl didn't do Kite.'
Koop relaxes a little. 'Why are you so sure about that? I mean, I'm biased, but you must have something solid to go on.'
'He's got an alibi. Rock solid. We found him.' Keane glances across at Koop. 'In Bowden. He checked himself back in after your little reunion at Anfield. Maybe there was a moment he thought about killing Kite. Helping his brother out, something like that. Who knows? The point is, he didn't.'
'Burton did say he's been fixed,' murmurs Koop.
'Yeah, well,' says Keane, keeping his eyes on the road. 'Anyway, Carl says he followed you for a while but realised he was being stupid. Didn't know what he was following you for.' Keane pauses. 'So there's at least one of the family who knows when something's a bad idea, eh?'
'Fair enough.'
The two men say nothing while the washed-out landscape passes the window.
'So if it isn't something to do with Carl, what do you want me to do?' Koop asks as they slide onto the 56. That Keane wanted something was obvious to Koop the moment he saw him behind the wheel.
'I think the man who killed your son is in Australia.' Keane keeps his voice even and his eyes dead ahead. 'It's a man called Declan North.'
Koop frowns. 'Never come across him.'
'You won't have. The guy's off radar.'
'What do you mean "off radar"? What is he, a ghost?'
'Something like that.' Now Keane does look at Koop. 'This character's bad, Koop. If what I've heard is right. But there's nothing on him to connect him to Stevie. Kite may be a different matter, although I think he's good enough to skip free of that one as well.'
'Anything else?'
Keane hesitates. 'He's IRA. Ex anyway. Apparently.'
'You're not sure?'
'No, not really. That's the premise we're working on but we don't know. Terrorist organisations don't usually keep handy records.'
Koop is silent. 'And I can do . . . what, exactly?'
Keane shrugs. 'We can't touch him. He's legit. He's there on business, travelling under his own passport, no previous convictions. What do you think the Australians are going to do? Parcel him up and send him back in chains? Christ, I can't even bring this in to MIT! You know what it's like. The DPP wouldn't touch it, Koop.'
Koop knows full well. He butted heads with the Director of Public Prosecutions many times.
'And I'm not exactly Perch's golden boy right now.'
'I don't like it,' says Koop. 'I haven't got a system. I'm retired, for fuck's sake. I deliver coffee, Frank. And my big trip home didn't exactly work out well, now did it?'
Keane reaches into his inside pocket and hands Koop a slip of paper by way of reply.
'Warren Eckhardt,' reads Koop. 'Who's he?'
'He's a detective senior sergeant operating on the Gold Coast. I spoke to him this morning and it sounds like he's joined the dots to some murders over there. Stevie's boss, Koop. A character called Gelagotis and two others. Russian names. There's a big deal going on between our two fair cities. At least that's what Eckhardt thinks and I'm inclined to agree with him.'
Keane glances at Koop. 'Your boy was involved to the hilt, Koop. You know that, right?'
'I didn't, but I do now.'
Keane points to the slip of paper. 'Get in touch with Eckhardt. I think he'd welcome your input. He sounds old school. You're the only one who's been at both ends. If we're right, that could be very useful.'
'In doing what?'
'In getting the fucking psycho who carved up Stevie, Koop. Remember what you used to say? If they put one of ours in the hospital . . .'
'We put one of theirs in the morgue.' Koop finishes the quote. 'That was a long time ago.'
Keane pulls the car into the drop-off zone and is directed to a space by a terror cop in full battle-dress and carrying a submachine gun. 'Ye Olde Englande, eh, Koop?' says Keane.
Koop nods.
'Oh, one more thing,' says Keane. 'North was an art student once.'
Koop blinks. 'What?'
'I know, difficult to swallow. But it's legit; the guy went to art school in Liverpool in eighty-three. New one on me but I guess it would have been handy?'
Koop thinking, yes, that might have been useful for someone in the IRA.
Koop reaches over and shakes Keane's hand. 'Thanks for the lift, Frank. And for, well, for everything else. You've tried to play fair by me. It's probably more than I'd have done in your shoes.'
'I don't think so, Koop. You always do the right thing.' He pulls away from the kerb and Koop watches him go, thinking, no I don't.
56
The morning after he was given the leatherboy as an offering, Declan North calls Tony Link before he's out of bed. It's just after nine and Link is still asleep when the call comes in. Like all new kings, North wakes on the first morning of his reign feeling a powerful and urgent need to inspect his realm.
'I want to see the stuff,' says North. 'All of it.'
Of course you do, thinks Link. Just like Jimmy. 'Sure, Declan. Not a problem, brother. How did it go last night? Have fun?'
'Call me when you have the details,' says North and hangs up. He steps out of bed and pads naked into the bathroom. The boy from last night has long gone. He turned out to be something of a lightweight – started crying at one point – and North booted him out, unsatisfied. Matty Halligan he wasn't, and North finds himself thinking of Matty. It's a curiously unfamiliar feeling. Is this what normal people do? Think of others?
In the bathroom mirror he looks at his bare chest. A fresh-traced line is there, but it looks feeble to North's eyes, a perfect replica of last night's pale imitation of true lust. North pees and gets into the shower. There's no repeat of the room tilting on its axis, although he does place his wrists together once more and face each corner of the shower cubicle, annoyed that one angle is offset, a designer quirk that throws off his carefully calibrated ritual. It isn't right.
Not for a king.
North feels his anger rise and his jaw working beneath the skin. If he listens carefully sometimes he can hear the meshing of muscle and ligament working together. He imagines taking his scalpel and reconfiguring his face as he's done to others.
And now the room does tilt and North sways, reaching out a steadying hand to the cold tile of the shower stall. The room turns 180 degrees and North finds himself upside down. A great roaring sound surfs through his head and he feels the blood rush to his hands and cock. He closes his eyes for what seems like an eternity and when he opens them the room has returned to its regular plane.
He steps from the shower and dries himself, the episode forgotten as always. He has things to do. Things he always does in strange places. Things that have kept him alive and below the radar for so long.
North packs his belongings quickly and efficiently and leaves the hotel,
his room as bare as when he arrived. Outside he catches a taxi which takes him a few kilometres down the strip at Surfers where he checks into another, smaller hotel. Once he has his room key he takes a second taxi back to his original hotel and waits on the balcony, watching the street below and the beach. The air carries the tang of sunscreen and fast food. The people look purposeful, as if their lives have meaning. It's a puzzle to North.
The phone rings.
'It's me,' says Link. 'We'll pick you up in ten. If that's OK?'
'That's fine, Tony,' says North, his voice warm. 'And sorry about the old sharp tongue earlier, eh? Jetlag or something.'
'It's all cool, brother,' says Link.
Ten minutes later North is in the passenger seat of Link's Lexus.
'Stef's meeting us at the lock-up,' Link says.
'Good man,' says North, upping the brogue a little. He found his accent to be a useful tool. A flight magazine article once told him that the Irish accent is considered to be one of the friendliest in the world. North knows that when people said 'Irish' they usually mean Dublin Irish, or the soft, near-impenetrable accents of the West of Ireland, not the sharp wet slap of the Belfast yap. Still, to untutored ears like Link's, the difference is minimal. So North drops his 'th' sounds to 'd' sounds and exaggerates his 'i's' to 'oi's'.
'Nice car,' he says. Noice.
Link smiles, happy to be on safe territory. He was worried that Declan North would talk him through the previous night's encounter with Leatherboy. Toleration was one thing, details of what the kinky fucker gets up to is another thing entirely. 'Got a bit of class,' says Link. 'Like me, eh?' He remembers something. 'Oh, I got that thing for you.' Tony Link lifts a slip of paper from his jacket and hands Menno Koopman's address to North.
'Nashua,' says North. 'Where the fuck is that?'
Instead of answering, Link reaches forward and taps the details into the GPS on the dash of the Lexus. 'New South Wales,' he says. 'About two hours south. Farmer, is he, this Koopman?'
'What do they farm down there?' says North.
Link shrugs. 'Coffee? Bananas? I know there's a shitload of dope growers down that way.'
'Oh?' North perks up.
Link nods. 'Load of fucking hippies originally but there are some serious players operating there now. Big properties. Plenty of places to hide a few acres of weed. Good shit too, if that's what floats your boat.'
North watches the unfamiliar landscape unroll and chews on Link's words.
Menno Koopman, the father of Jimmy Gelagotis's ill-fated messenger, lives in a dope-growing area? Interesting. Declan North lets that percolate for a few minutes as the Lexus cruises west, trying to decide where the information fits into the scheme of things.
Or if it fits. Could be fuck all.
North looks up at the perfect blue sky and Koopman fades from his thoughts momentarily. For someone from Belfast, brought up in the dripping lee of Cavehill, Divis and Black Mountain, the sun would always be a novelty. North feels something knotted in him begin to slowly uncoil at the sight of people in shorts, of hot pavements and air-con units poking from the backs of buildings like warts. This is another land, one in which he feels already . . . if not at home, then at least somewhere he could be.
Eight hundred kays of Charlie would go a long way in this neck of the woods.
North looks across at Tony Link. He and Stefan will do. They'll require training, that's obvious, but he'll need them, their network and their contacts to transform his cocaine – he already thinks of it in those terms; his, and his alone, to do with as he pleases – into liquid. North has amassed a considerable amount of assets already, but more is never enough. And he's not going to be in second place to anyone ever again. Not after those years with Kite.
Maybe he'll start some serious art collecting. The cool stuff. When they've shifted the gear.
'Is it good?' says North. Link knows he's talking about the shipments. 'No damage in transit?'
Link shakes his head. 'It's gold, brother. Pure.' He taps his nose. 'We tried a few lines from each car and it was the best. No word of a lie, the fucking best.'
'Good,' says North. 'I want it to be good.'
Link drives the rest of the way in silence. He pulls in front of the lock-up and dabs his horn. Stefan slides the metal door up and closes it behind them when they're inside.
North shakes hands hurriedly with Stefan Meeks and walks across to the three cars, covered in their soft cotton tarps, keen to see the bounty for himself.
'Jimmy wanted us to get it shifted,' says Stefan. 'Before . . . well, before you arrived.'
'I bet he did,' murmurs North. He jerks his chin at the first car and Stefan lifts the tarp. Just as he did with Jimmy Gelagotis, Meeks opens the boot and pulls back the carpet cover to reveal the white bricks. North sees that one of them has been opened; the one Link tested. Meeks draws out a small box cutter and leans forward.
'Not that one,' says North. 'Take one from the bottom.'
Meeks nods. 'No sweat.' He lifts three bricks out and then three more from the second stack. At the bottom he slides the blade of his box cutter under a single brick and prises it out. North puts out a hand.
'Let me.'
Meeks gives North the brick. He flicks a quizzical glance at Link who replies with an imperceptible shake of the head for Meeks to remain quiet. However the mad Paddy wants to play it is fine with Tony.
North takes out a folding pocket knife and selects a blade. He slices into the brick and digs down into the centre of the white powder. Angling the knife he scoops out a lump the size of a small pea. He puts the blade to his nose and snorts.
'Pretty hot shit, eh man?' says Stefan, bobbing his head.
There's a short pause while North remains stationary.
'Is this some kind of joke?' he says. His soft brogue has slipped back to Belfast staccato. 'Some of your famous Aussie humour? All I heard on the plane was how much you fucks like playing practical jokes.'
Tony Link comes close. 'What the fuck do you mean, Declan? That stuff's pure as!'
'Pure as what? Fecking soap powder?' North holds the brick out to Link. After a second's hesitation he hands him the knife.
Link takes it and repeats the process North has undertaken.
'Fuck!' Tony Link glares at the brick as if it might explode.
'What?' says Meeks, his eyes wide. 'Don't fucking tell me.'
North rips the cotton tarp off the other two Jags and opens the boot of the middle one. He pulls the carpet cover off savagely and digs deep into the pile of white bricks. He rips one open with a finger nail and lifts a dab onto his little finger. He snorts it and immediately kicks the car.
'Fuck, fuck, fuck!'
North takes a sample from a brick on the top pile. It's grade A cocaine. He tries the brick next to it with the same result. In the passenger section of the third car, Tony Link is doing the same.
'Was it you?' says North, his glance darting between Link and Meeks. His eyes have taken on a dangerous green tinge. 'Did either of you two fuckers do this?'
'Fuck, no!'
'Don't be silly, Declan! Think about it. If we'd done this, do you think we'd have brought you here to find out?'
North tries to control his breathing. He places his hands together at the wrists and looks up at the corner of the garage. His eyes are fixed on the angle.
Tony and Stefan exchange quick glances.
After a minute, North unclasps his hands and looks at them. The anger has gone from his voice.
'No,' he says. 'No. I don't think you would have done something as stupid as that, Tony.'
He wanders a few paces towards the cars, his arms crossed in front of him. 'But some slimy fucker has stitched us up. The top layers are all coke. The rest is shit.'
He looks up at Meeks.
'Who knew about this, other than you, Tony and me?'
'A . . . a couple of the lads knew there was something.' Meeks is ashamed of his stumble, of how vulnerable he feels in front
of North. 'But they haven't got the balls for this!'
'Or the organisation,' says Link. He turns to North. 'They're solid, Declan. Good fellers but not exactly what you'd call officer material.'
North acknowledges Link with a gesture. He paces up and down the concrete.
'Koopman,' he says, finally. He picks up his knife from the stack of white bricks and folds the blade. 'Fucking Koopman. I didn't see that coming.'
'Who is Koopman?' asks Meeks. 'He one of your lot?'
North doesn't reply. This has changed everything. His empire crumbles in an instant. The coke on the top layer is substantial – North calculates it might be as much as ten per cent of the total, and eighty kilos of cocaine is still a fuckload of drugs – but it isn't enough for King Dec. Christ, with eight hundred kilos a man could become a god. Instead, he's reduced to scrubbing around in the dirt with the rest of the grimy little fuckers. North has seen first-hand in Colombia what serious money means, what eight-hundred-kilo money means. It means buying a country, or a big enough part of it as makes no difference. It's insulation money, get-out-of-jail money, cartel money, King money, money that could be parlayed into an empire. His fucking money.
And someone has taken it. Why didn't he think about Koopman? His son is the cunt they barbequed on Crosby Beach. He and Kite and everyone else assumed that Koopman turned up as the Avenging Angel, or some such shit. But what if he was the one who sent White out there? What if Koopman has been leveraging this whole scheme, working Stevie White behind Gelagotis's back? It makes sense, doesn't it? Maybe Koopman and Stevie were going to let Gelagotis step up to The Russian, get the Scousers in on the new arrangement and then move on Gelagotis themselves?
It's a big stretch but the pieces fit together too neatly for Declan North's comfort. Koopman was Stevie White's father and the fruit doesn't fall far from the tree.
Koopman has the connections in Liverpool to put a potential squeeze on the delivery.
Koopman is a fucking Australian now, which is where all the trouble has come from.
Every time it's Koopman, Koopman, Koopman.
'This is wrong,' says North. He stands close to Link and Meeks. 'We need to get this stuff out of here, get it sold, get it off our hands.' He looks at Link. 'Where were you going to take it?'
A Dark Place to Die Page 25
