by J M Gregson
‘I do remember, sir. It is one of the more consistent of your theories. Ros O’Connor has formed a serious association over the last few months with a man called John Alderson. I believe they were fellow parishioners at their local Catholic church, though Alderson seems to be rather sceptical about what he calls Holy Mother Church.’
‘They’ll be shagging each other.’ Tucker produced the crude word with relish, as if it might restore his status as a proper policeman. ‘That’s the modern way, you know. Leap into bed at the drop of a hat.’
‘Or even other, more intimate, garments, sir. I believe your surmise is correct. However, we are assured that this is not a casual affair but a more serious and long-term passion. The two seem attached to each other and make no secret of the fact that they now intend to get married, after a decent interval.’
‘Decent interval my arse!’ Tucker seemed to have acquired a sudden taste for vulgarity. ‘You grill this Alderson fellow, Peach. I’ve a feeling in my water that he might have done this. Where was he on Friday night?’
‘He claims that he was at home, sir. But he has no one who can substantiate that.’
‘There you are then! It’s almost an admission of guilt, don’t you think?’
Percy had a sudden, awful vision of Tucker as a JP, a sudden fleeting sympathy for the petty villains of the country whom he normally pursued so vigorously. ‘John Alderson lives at home. He knew that the woman who is to become his partner was away in Settle on Friday evening, sir. It means that he cannot easily establish his innocence, but not that he is indisputably guilty.’
Tucker stared at him, then nodded sadly. ‘Tricky thing, the law. Always found that. And the lawyers are a damned sight worse than tricky!’ He paused for a moment, hoping Peach would join him in the universal police whinge about lawyers. ‘I suppose we’ve got to gather more evidence before we put away this Alderson fellow.’
Percy noted the chief’s first use of the word ‘we’ but thought it no more than a rhetorical flourish as he anticipated an arrest. ‘We do know that the victim went to Alderson’s house on the morning of his death, sir.’
‘I told you! This looks to me like our man!’ Tucker was almost as pleased as if he had discovered this meeting for himself. Percy was almost reluctant to go on damning the man, but there was no alternative. ‘According to John Alderson’s account, Dominic O’Connor went there to warn him off his wife. He told him that he would make any divorce as difficult as possible, since both he and Ros were practising Catholics. He also said that he would deny Ros as much of his wealth as was humanly possible if they split up. Alderson says that he told him in effect to get knotted. He said that whatever O’Connor did wouldn’t make any difference to the way he and Ros felt about each other.’
Tucker could hardly wait for him to finish. ‘You can surely see what this means, Peach! It gives this man Alderson an even stronger motive. He got to O’Connor and killed him that very night, before he could implement any of these threats to impoverish his wife.’
‘I can surely see, sir, yes. I put that very thought to Alderson, about an hour ago.’
‘And how did he react?’
‘He reiterated his story that he hadn’t left his house on that night, sir.’
‘He would, you know, he would.’
‘Yes, sir. I appreciate that. But we still have to find the evidence to support your view that he’s guilty, before we can arrest him.’
‘Then you should get about it, Peach. Use all the resources of your team to secure the arrest of Alderson by the end of the weekend. Or the arrest of someone else, of course.’
Covering himself with that blanket injunction, T.B. Tucker departed majestically to the pleasures of his weekend, leaving DCI Peach to gather his frayed resources for an assault upon the crime face.
SEVENTEEN
Cafferty wasn’t important. He was just the driver. His skills might mean life or death for his passenger, but he wasn’t a soldier. He wasn’t fighting glorious battles for the Cause. He wouldn’t have the glory of this latest achievement. That would rightly go to the soldier.
Patrick Riordan’s thin chest swelled automatically with the vision of glory as the car moved swiftly through the city streets. The fight would go on until the vision was fully achieved and Ireland was freed for ever from the English yoke. The whole of Ireland, not just the present Eire. Those mealy mouthed politicians on both sides might think they’d made a settlement with their Sunningdale Agreement and all the subsequent climbdowns, but this period was no more than an interlude. The real Irishmen like him felt closer now to a united, independent Ireland than they’d been for centuries, and it would be men like him who would scale the last barriers. He would be one of the real patriots who achieved the final victory. His name would go down in Irish history.
He did not realise that it is the men with the ideas, not the soldiers who force them through, who go down in history. The men who for centuries have used people like Patrick Riordan never tell them that.
Pat had known tonight’s target well, thirty years and more ago. They’d grown up in the same Belfast suburb, attended the same primary and secondary schools. Fitzpatrick was six years older than him, so they hadn’t spoken much at school. ‘Fitz’ had been a hero of the rugby team, towering above all others in the line-outs, shrugging off tackles, forcing his way over the try-line with lesser bodies clinging ineffectively around his shoulders. Schoolboys remembered that kind of picture long after others had been forgotten.
But Riordan remembered much more vividly how Fitzpatrick had spoken for the Cause, how bright and articulate he had been for Ireland in those heady days in the Eighties and Nineties, which were long gone but sometimes seemed but yesterday. Seamus Fitzpatrick had stood head and shoulders above his peers, morally as well as physically, and his eyes had blazed with the righteousness of the Cause as he urged young Irishmen to join him.
He was James Fitzpatrick now, not Seamus. He had made his peace with England and taken the tyrant’s gold. He had condemned the IRA when they conducted the great bombing of the centre of Manchester in 1996. He had turned traitor to the Cause he had once espoused. He was a prominent supporter of the Labour Party now, a man who spoke at conferences and had risen steadily through the council ranks of local politics. People had spoken of him as a possible Labour MP and it had looked for a time as if he might take that route.
But local eminence was more his line. He wanted to be a big man in the city of his choice, Manchester. This was the place where he had made a name for himself through his successful business and his well-publicised work on the council. This was where he had gained much publicity and secured the moral high ground locally by his instant condemnation of the IRA bombing which had devastated the city centre. He had been prominent in much of the subsequent redevelopment, securing central funds, driving through the plans, and suggesting the architects who had seen proud new buildings rise from the debris.
Well, nothing came without a price, in Patrick Riordan’s view. And tonight the man who had grown up in Belfast as Seamus Fitzpatrick was going to pay the price of his treachery.
Cafferty was nervous. It didn’t affect his driving, which came to him automatically, but he was crouched tensely over the wheel. He answered Riordan’s questions in monosyllables; eventually he made it clear that he didn’t want to talk at all unless it should be absolutely necessary. ‘Suits me, Mick!’ said Pat Riordan, smiling a superior smile in the passenger seat. You couldn’t expect men who weren’t soldiers to be as cool and confident as he was.
James Fitzpatrick was speaking at a Labour party meeting about future policies. The party committees were anxious to be prepared for the next election, which wasn’t due for another couple of years but might come at any time, with Europe in chaos over its currency and the economic recession showing little sign of abating. It looked from the opinion polls as if Labour would walk in on the back of the discontent which economic troubles always brought to an existing government. But
you needed to have policies formed and a manifesto prepared against the possibility of a snap election. You couldn’t trust those Tories: that was one of the few old saws guaranteed a chorus of approval at a Labour party gathering.
The meeting wasn’t in any of the city’s major meeting places. Crowds at party gatherings were thin. Except in the months before an election, only the keenest attended. The attendance at this one was a little bigger than usual, because James Fitzpatrick had a loyal local following to add to the surprising number of party officials who felt it their duty to be there. But the numbers didn’t warrant a major hiring fee. This gathering would be in a large, single-storey building, some way from the city centre.
Pat Riordan had examined the place carefully three days ago and concluded that it leant itself admirably to assassination.
In truth, he would probably have decided that whatever the venue. Like many a man bent upon glory, Riordan was impatient for action at almost any price. Glory is a dangerous aspiration. It upsets the judgement. Men in pursuit of glory are careless of their own lives as well as of those they plan to terminate. The delusion of an honourable death makes men careless of danger and leads to reckless decisions. The man who thought himself so cool made one of those now.
The large, shabby building was a former storage facility. It had large doors at the front, but no other means of entrance or exit. A man planning murderous violence should have preferred at least one more entrance, which would have accorded him a greater element of surprise and a better possibility of a swift getaway.
The building was also at the end of a cul-de-sac. No professional killer liked that. Psychologically, it made you feel trapped: with only one exit, you felt like a rat running along a single drainpipe. It faced you with an immediate tricky decision. Did you park your getaway car near the entrance, risking curiosity and suspicion? Or did you park it outside the cul-de-sac altogether, on the busy main thoroughfare at the end of it? This made you much more anonymous, but meant you would have to race the best part of two hundred yards on foot to your waiting car, probably with people in frenzied pursuit.
Patrick Riordan decided that they would park beside the entrance to the hall.
This meant they had to be there early, to secure the place they wanted. They parked an hour before the scheduled time for the meeting. Cafferty reversed the VW CC GT carefully into position, eight yards from the high doors, facing straight down the narrow little street. It was a stolen car, and it was the sort he’d wanted, fast and sleek. And its owner was away for the weekend, so that its absence would not be swiftly reported.
Riordan stuck the red rose sticker which was the Labour Party emblem predominantly on the side of the windscreen. That would insure them against any challenge as to their presence here, he thought, and he was right. No curious eyes moved any further than that cheerful English symbol. He and Cafferty disappeared swiftly from the scene.
The car was in position, but its occupants must maintain a low profile until the time for action came. They found a pub on the corner of a neighbouring street and bought themselves two halves of bitter. Cafferty wanted a whisky chaser, but Riordan wouldn’t allow it. Soldiers didn’t drink much, if they wanted to remain alert and efficient, and neither would their drivers. The English troops in the trenches might have been dosed with rum to make them go over the top, but they were English and merely cannon-fodder, not dedicated men like him.
You needed to have your reactions razor-sharp for what he was going to do tonight. And you didn’t want any confusion in your driver; it would be foolish to throw away your triumph through any bungling of your escape. In any case, this pub probably wouldn’t have Irish, he told Cafferty, and they shouldn’t attract attention to themselves by asking for Jameson’s. He fancied a whisky himself, but he’d have it later, as a celebration.
The minutes ticked by very slowly. The two tense men found conversation increasingly difficult. Eventually they ceased to attempt it. At one minute to seven, Riordan and Cafferty were back in the car.
It was a warm May evening, so that the loose brown anorak the killer now had to adopt looked a little out of place. Most of the men they’d watched going into the meeting wore only light sweaters; some were in shirt sleeves. There was even the odd young woman in a summer dress, though youth was rare in this gathering. But Pat needed the anorak to conceal the Armalite. He slipped quietly into the back of the hall without anyone taking much notice of his dress. This was Manchester, after all, not Torquay, and people were accustomed to caution about the weather.
The place looked bigger inside than out. There were thirty-two rows of seats, with thirty chairs in each row. The hall could accommodate 960, Riordan calculated, though there were less than a quarter of that number here tonight. He made these calculations because he had no interest in what was being said on the raised wooden stage at the front of the hall. He sat in the penultimate row and made his preparations – in a thinly populated arena, you attracted attention to yourself if you sat isolated from everyone else on the last row of all.
There were boring introductory speeches from two Labour Party worthies, one very bald and one very portly. They said conventional things and received conventional applause. Riordan found himself at once bored and tense. It was a strange combination, which he didn’t believe he’d ever encountered before. He was totally uninterested in what was being said, but feverish with expectation of the action to come. He felt the pulse in his temple racing as he made his hands move together in the polite applause which greeted the opening speeches. You wanted to be unnoticed, so you made yourself a part of the tapestry by producing the same reactions as the other unsuspecting extras around you.
There was a quickening of expectation as Seamus Fitzpatrick rose to speak. Or James Fitzpatrick, as they called him here. Pat curled his lip with contempt at that; the name emphasised how the man had sold out to the enemy. He tried to shut out the content of what his target was saying. He didn’t want to hear any of it, in case it upset his concentration as the moment approached.
But he had to admit that Fitzpatrick remained an effective and persuasive speaker, as he had been in his youth when he had spoken for the Cause. He acknowledged the men who had introduced him, by means of gracious words and a half-turn in their direction. They had many years of faithful and diligent service to the Labour cause, he said, making Pat start by his use of that word. Fitzpatrick said that people forgot that nothing was achieved without hard work, and these men had toiled hard and selflessly in years past. The triumphs of the 1997 election and the two which had followed were due to the work of men like them.
Then he turned to the future and what they must all do now. He made a couple of little jokes which got the audience on his side and showed that he had the common touch. He moved more sombrely into the present recession, which thanks to the Tories was now a double-dip one and the most serious setback the nation had suffered since the great slump of the 1930s. He made a couple of cheap cracks about the government and its distinctively Etonian cabinet, which was safe ground for an Irishman in a Manchester socialist meeting. He touched on the establishment and how out of touch they were with the harsh reality of recession, though he had the sense to keep away from the monarchy.
Having hit the easy targets, Fitzpatrick moved on to more positive things. Pat Riordan didn’t attempt to follow what the man was saying about the necessity for economic growth and the means by which he would foster it. His moment was getting near now. He fingered the smooth steel of the Armalite beneath his anorak. It was still bright outside, but this big room had only small windows in its sides and it was becoming quite gloomy. Someone switched on lights over the stage area and James Fitzpatrick made the obvious joke about bringing light to our darkness; it elicited dutiful laughter. He was speaking about the city now and the particular things that should be done here. This was a logical progression, because everyone knew his real aim was to become Lord Mayor of Manchester. He was clever all right, thought Riordan: he’d been c
lever long ago, when he’d been Seamus and dedicated to the Cause.
Thirteen minutes to eight. They’d synchronised watches before he came in here. Time seemed to stand still as the moment approached. Fitzpatrick was standing at the microphone, moving towards the climax of his argument and the moment when he’d take questions from the audience, as he’d promised to do at the outset. Patrick Riordan could hear all sorts of tiny sounds now. He was pleased by that: it must be a good thing that your senses became extra sharp as key moments in your life approached.
He heard Cafferty start the car outside, exactly at ten to, as they’d agreed. He glanced around him, swift and sharp as a fox about to seize its chicken. There was no one behind him and only one man level with him, yards away at the other end of the row. He slid the Armalite from his anorak, rested it on the back of the seat in front of him. No one in the hall noticed the movement.
Fitzpatrick was making a point emphatically, waving his right arm in the air as he reached the climax of his peroration. Riordan was reminded of an old print of Gladstone speaking passionately about home rule for Ireland, which his mother had kept on the wall of their tenement home. He shot Fitzpatrick at that moment, watched his target whirl and scream with the blow of the impact. He fired twice more at the falling target before it hit the ground.
Then he was away, out of his seat, into the aisle, thrusting open the high wooden door and bursting into the sudden dazzle of the still bright evening outside. Cafferty flung the passenger door open as he saw him and he was into the car and away even as the first men appeared behind him on the single step of the former warehouse. ‘Get your head down!’ his driver yelled, and Riordan realised as the tyres screamed and the seat thrust against his back that Cafferty was wearing a crash helmet as some sort of protection against the bullets which would fly around his head if they didn’t get clean away.
For the first time, Patrick Riordan considered the thought that he might not survive this.
