Potter's Field

by Dolan, Chris;

  “You wouldn’t think that such a big and… individual looking man could slip under the noses of targets and informers and police. But he did. Regularly. He would come in – from Scotland – do his homework, his preparation, set up, wait his moment, complete the task and strike camp without anyone noticing a thing. He’d walk through the ensuing hullabaloo and no one gave him a second look.”

  “Did he do work for the IRA in America?” Coulter was giving her rehearsed questions – the whole thing set up for Maddy’s benefit. Aine was more than a police patsy, however. She didn’t take her eye off Maddy. “A key operator. He kept in touch with fundraisers and money launderers.”

  “Was he ever employed as a hit man for you there?”

  “Please don’t use ‘you’,” she corrected Coulter abruptly. “My position within the rebel movement was rather more complex than that.” In what way? Maddy wondered. Was she a spy, an accidental paramilitary?

  “No formation of the Republican movement organised assassinations in America.”

  “How easily can Lennon evade detection getting in and out the country?” Coulter continued, chastened.

  “It’s been harder for everyone since 9/11. But Lennon is a favourite son of the IRA and will have more papers, the best forgeries, than any other operator. He’ll have contacts with boats moored at advantageous spots. He’ll know about changing ship mid-crossing… There was an old escape route. Boat from the Clyde coast, hopping into another bound for Wales. Taken by personal plane to the Channel Islands, and from there, private boat to the Basque Country. The whole trip, organised properly, could be done in a day and a half.”

  Maddy spoke for the first time: “Anything like that rumoured over the last few weeks?”

  “I’m not in a position to know.” There was still a note of regret. When a passionate foot soldier turns informer something, it seems, is lost.

  “Tell Ms Shannon how Lennon works.”

  Corrigan nodded. “Two shopping bags.” She paused for a moment, leaving Maddy wondering where that sentence could possibly lead. “He arrives at his location with the ordinance requisite for the particular mission, and two bags. He spends months working out in advance the equipment that will be most effective. One bag is wide, made of cloth. The other thinner, longer. Thick plastic, like you might get a new jacket in from a fancy shop.” Corrigan eyed Maddy closely, milking the drama. “The first bag is full of foodstuffs. Lennon is good because he’s patient. He can stake a target out for days, even weeks. He chooses his position, his stand, very carefully. A rooftop, a neighbouring window, in an abandoned-looking car, or amongst trees. Once he’s collocated, he doesn’t budge. He’ll be perfectly hidden and he has a stillness you wouldn’t believe. He can eat and drink and move his muscles minimally so that he never seizes up, or gets weak. He can do without sleep until the job is done.”

  “Surely a haversack would be more efficient than plastic shopping bags?” Maddy was irked by Aine Corrigan’s hero-worship.

  “He’s developed his sytem perfectly,” Corrigan dismissed Maddy’s comment with a note of irritation. “He sets his sights. Readies his weapon. And waits. Waits until the moment is perfect. Until the stranger is in the exact spot he wants him. Until he’s certain of no possible intruder or witness. When the light is just right, and escape conditions perfect… then he shoots. If it takes weeks for that moment to arrive, so be it. He never gets flustered and he never loses hope. That’s why he’s the best marksman in the business. The work he does for small-time gangsters here is nothing. A cover. They only ask Ian Lennon to do the top jobs. About once every five years.”

  “What’s the other bag for?” Maddy wanted to put an end to this adulation.

  “One bag for food. What goes in must come out. It has to have a tie on it, so he can seal and re-seal it. That’s dedication.”

  Back out in the street, shoppers and pigeons had taken the places of the mourners and dignitaries. Russell rushed Corrigan off to a waiting unmarked car. Coulter made no mention of what she had said. They talked about Whyte instead.

  “We’re keeping an eye open but, to be honest, apart from your strange little meeting with him, he’s not top of our priority list.”

  So Maddy has “strange little meetings” when she’s attacked by a witness who is hiding out. While an ex-terrorist from abroad has them hanging on her every word.

  “We went back to the Docherties. They think Whyte’s just of a nervous disposition. Bit paranoid. Thinks everyone’s blaming him for everything.”

  “There was a time when you thought he might be the killer, Coulter.”

  “And I’m still not striking him off. We’ve got men out there trying to find him. He’s no Ian Lennon. He can’t have got far. My bet is he’s in a hotel not far from town. He’ll have to use his credit card sometime. Then we’ll get him.”

  Maddy took her leave without saying anything about Elaine Docherty’s computer files. The way back to an open, honest, level keel seemed too complicated now.

  Binnie had probably relished the idea for years. Yet when the moment came, to give him his due, he seemed to find it difficult. “Maddy, you work hard and play hard, I’ve always admired that in you—”

  Liar. He thought she was pushy and reckless.

  “Always been envious of it, truth to tell.”

  That was nearer the mark.

  “I’ve said before that you should take the holidays owed you, that there’s no need to stay in late every night. There was bound to come a burnout point.”

  Maddy decided not to say much until she knew the extent of the damage. Was she being reprimanded? Taken off the Kelvingrove and Bearsden cases? Sacked?

  “You’ve been far too good a lawyer for us to lose you now. Your judgement’s been a bit impaired recently, let’s leave it at that.”

  “Sorry, sir. Judgement?”

  “Quite apart from stating openly to the police that you do not believe their case – there are procedures for such circumstances! – a witness has been living with you and—”

  “Hardly living! Nor strictly speaking a witness—”

  “And that another witness, being searched for by the police, made contact with you and you failed to report it.”

  “There was a perfectly good—”

  “Ms Shannon! Please don’t make matters worse. Take till the end of this week reorienting yourself with the Petrus case. You can take some holidays due to you. Kindly brief Mr. McKillop on the murders before the end of the week.” Now the old bastard was enjoying himself. “Including any information you may be in possession of but have failed to report to the police.”

  Sorry. Things got out of hand this end. Hope you can sort everything at yours. I’ll help in any way I can. Alan.

  She turned off her email. He had dobbed her in. End of.

  Dan sat outside typing solemnly. Izzie and Manda found reasons to come in to her office – tea, some little piece of information on a variety of pending cases, diary dates. The rumour mill had turned smoothly. She wasn’t quite sure what they knew, but they knew she was in deep shit. Dan, presumably, had been informed of his new caseload. Dan was a loyal friend, but he was also a diligent and ambitious lawyer.

  She had promised Belinda she would attend Paul’s funeral. She’d have to go now as a friend, not an avenging angel of the law. She came out of her glass cubicle. “Think I might need a drink after the crematorium. Could bring you up to speed then, Dan. Vicky Bar at five anyone?”

  No takers. Dan had a meeting. Didn’t quite say who with – Binnie, or Coulter, or Deena Gajendra. Or the lawyer assigned to the case, Mark Alexander. She couldn’t see the two of them getting on like a house on fire. Whatever, Dan was hitting the ground running. Izzie was meeting her mother. Manda didn’t seem to have a reason.

  “Tomorrow, Maddy, eh?” she said, and Dan and Izzie concurred enthusiastically. Maybe they had her welfare in mind. On black days like these she’d been known to drink too much, say too much, make matters worse. Better a
ll round if she had an early night. Scream at the world in the privacy of your own home. Before leaving she checked her emails again. Couple more from Alan. She didn’t open them. Two new ones concerning Petrus. She forwarded them to her home computer. A press release from the Police Department concerning the child murders. She opened that.

  After today’s ecumencial service for the repose of the souls of the poor victims, the Churches had agreed to become more proactive in the moral lives of the young. The Moderator of the Church of Scotland and a leading Islamic leader had agreed to join the Parliamentary Steering Group on Youth and Delinquency, as had a senior representative of the Roman Catholic church, Monsignor Patrick Connolly.

  She was open to every passing emotion. Sorrow, pity, guilt, as Paul’s coffin slipped into the hidden fire. Affection, compassion, even sisterhood, for Belinda, as she addressed the mourners.

  The woman spoke of her son like he was a saint, a youthful sage, a spirit so bright and hopeful that the dark world just had to put it out. As if his death was proof of his extraordinariness – if he had lived, he’d have dwindled into ordinariness.

  “The Aborigines’ land,” Belinda said, “is marked out by sacred places. People learn of them in songs, and can travel the world, following their songlines. Paolo’s life is a note in a songline. He died in a garden and, no matter how dark and brutal his death might have been, I cannot believe that that was mere chance. My son lived to die among flowers.”

  The young priest did a better job than the mother, Maddy thought vaguely, as she zoned in and out of his sermon, too. “Humanists believe that, at death, we fade and vanish like dry leaves. What a terrible idea. Paul Pacchini is not some piece of biodegradable waste. He is, like the rest of us, soul as well as body. We believe he is in heaven, and that all the youthfulness and energy and potential denied him on this earth will be fulfilled in the next. An innocent will be dearly cherished on high.”

  They caught up with Tony Kennedy on Dumbarton Road. The lock-up where he kept his van was down off a side street.

  “You left the wake early, Tony.”

  “What’s the point? Can’t bring Sy back, can I?”

  “Maybe the missus could have done with your support.”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “Straight back to work. The day they bury your son.”

  “Where’d you get the cuts and bruises, Tony?”

  “Fight. In the pub the other night.”

  “About what?”

  “Who knows. Some shite. Hayburn Vaults. Go and ask.”

  Alan Coulter got in between Russell and Kennedy. “You been paid a visit by anyone recently, Tony? An unwelcome face from the past?”

  “Nuh. How?”

  “Did Ian Lennon come looking for you?”

  “No.”

  “What for?”

  “I said – he didn’t come.”

  “Before – when you took a message for him. It wasn’t just about gardening, was it? Who else did you go and see?”

  “Nobody. Leave me alone.”

  “We can protect you from him.”

  Tony slinked between the two of them, and headed off down the street.

  Coulter and Russell went back to their car. A fortnight ago, they thought they had more or less wound this case up. Their boss still thinks they have. Robertson seems quite happy about the whole affair, convinced Lennon will be pulled from under his slimy rock sooner or later. The public think the same. As does every editor, politician and TV pundit. The brute is guilty ten times over and his vanishing proves it. If he hasn’t topped himself, he’ll be killed in a shoot-out with armed police when they finally discover his hide-out.

  Loyalists in Northern Ireland are using him for political leverage; victims of IRA violence flag him up as an example of brutal criminal oppression. Moral panickers point to him as the demonic stealer of childhood and innocence… Everyone has a stake in seeing a bloody end to Mr. Lennon.

  But Coulter had begun to worry. He emailed Maddy to tell her that he tried all he could to protect her. It was Russell who shopped her. Coulter pleaded her case with the Chief Constable, Robertson. She never got back to him. Probably never even read his notes.

  If only they could pick up his trail. Find a connection between Lennon and Paul Pacchini – complete the picture that connected the accused to all the victims. How had these kids got in his way?

  Russell had no doubts at all. Lennon had been his man from Day One. Had Coulter been blinded by the absolute belief of everyone around him? His own desire to have the case solved, so he could go back to the wife and kids, sort out life at home?

  It was as if the pores of her mind were wide open; her emotional immune system stalled. Her mother’s dread infected her the minute she walked into the ward. She felt the boredom and false empathy of a blank-faced burly nurse who’d spent too many years among the dying and the grieving.

  “The doctor says they don’t understand his condition perfectly,” Rosa told her. “It’s possible his body and his mind are just healing themselves. That he’ll return to us fine.”

  Maddy squeezed her mother’s hand and the two of them sat in silence for half an hour together. The feeling she should have had in church came to her now, a grace, connectedness, sitting there, hands folded and head bent before her grandfather fighting serenely for his life. She fell into a meditative state. The boys in the park, reaching out for one another, Frances in her deathbed of flowers, Belinda astral-planing over the brute realities of her own life, Jackie and Anne two Maters Dolorosas. She wasn’t trying to make sense of it all. Not going round in circles, thinking of all the clues and suspects and circumstances. Just letting the thoughts come to her, as she looked at Nonno’s calm, composed face. Until she heard herself say, “No one’s ever mentioned that.”

  “What, dear?”

  “Nothing. Sorry. Thinking out loud.”

  She had to listen in to her own head to find out herself what it was no one had ever mentioned.

  “They’re all religious.”

  “Who are?” Rosa was getting irked.

  Sy and Paul and Frances, Catholic, to varying degrees. Frances and Sy by schooling, if nothing else. Paul through his stepmother. And, through his natural mother, spiritual; unorthodox, but still religious.

  Nonno lay with his eyes shut, but his face looking up to heaven, head tilted back. Rosa stared at her daughter but, getting no response, turned back to gaze out at the Necropolis beyond.

  V

  Drums keep pounding a rhythm to the brain

  Half-past six and Maddy has a glass of wine in her hand and a ciggie burning in the ashtray, CD turned up full pelt. She’s been knocking on Louis Casci’s chat-room door for an hour. Nobody home. Buddy Rich’s twelve-year-old daughter singing like a woman who’s seen all the hell and all the indulgence the world can offer. Little girls still break their hearts, a-ha

  The bottle of Navarra tempranillo is half finished already. She flicks from Horseboy Paisley to Lovin’ Couple Glasgow. Patti from Kilmarnock likes to do a slow strip in her bedroom, in a series of photos, from a top layer of cardigan and slippers down to Littlewoods tights and six-in-a-pack size 38 knickers. Maddy couldn’t believe the woman’s choice of curtains – totally clashed with the wallpaper. Muscleman from Musselburgh only had one muscle of any note, but his wife was a better mixer of fabrics than Patti. And the beat goes on

  Perhaps Maddy shouldn’t be looking for Elaine or her husband or Whyte at all. There was somebody else in amongst all these files. Maybe that was what Whyte was scared of.

  Then who? She took another gulp of wine. Lennon? Christ, she couldn’t see him in here. Think, Maddy. What about her religious theory? Was Monsignor Connolly in here?! God, wouldn’t that be something? She felt queasy. She hadn’t had anything to eat. Should do something about that. She heaved herself up and went to the kitchen, singing at the top of her voice to compete with Kathy Rich.

  Men still keep marching off to war

  She returned
with tortilla chips and cheese and chutney, home-made by her mother, a spoon, and another bottle of wine. A Petrus print-out was lying on the tray. Statistics proving that cancer rates both amongst Petrus workers deployed on or near the landfill, and in neighbouring housing estates, had gone sky-high since the dump. Skin disorders, too – eczemas, melanomas, you name it. Lawyers on stellar salaries are happily protecting the bastards who caused all this. Using the same Law Maddy applies, studies, works with. And the beat goes on

  Then, it was there.

  She’d been clicking her mouse, going through the ScotEx site almost unconsciously. She looked up and there was Elaine. Lying across a bed, not quite naked, breasts exposed, looking at a man in front of her. Her face had been digitally smudged, but you could still see it was her. In one in particular, definitely Elaine Docherty: heavy-lidded, full-lipped. Of the man she was looking at, only his bare back and backside was visible to the camera. A young man. Well, a slim and fit one anyway.

  Sy?

  There were about ten photographs in this session – and a couple of previous sessions on separate files. The earlier ones didn’t seem to feature the young man. At the centre of each image was Elaine. Only her body was shown in full. But she was always with at least one other man. Hands came at her from every side.

  In a few images, the back of one of the men’s head was seen. Undoubtedly, her husband. Long thin arms, the elegant artist’s fingers. The legs of his specs over his ears. The other set of hands belonged to the photographer, extending out from behind into frame. Darker skinned, hairier. From a ring on his finger and his watch it would be easy to prove if it was indeed Martin Whyte.