Noel didn’t fuck with drugs. Didn’t take them, didn’t sell them. Noel always said you get into that game and you’re playing chicken with a bunch of psychos. Noel wasn’t a leading figure in anything. Noel robbed.
They even brought Da into it. Some thick fuck of a cop was quoted about how the old man had been done for violent behaviour in Aberdeen – sounded like he’d clocked a barman at closing time. Now he’s in the papers as the head of a ‘criminal family’. Almost made Vincent feel sorry for the prick.
Vincent let the paper fall to the floor again. It was down there with several newspapers, collected over the past couple of days. The first reports of the shooting and the robbery, the piece from the Daily Record about the bastard from the ERU, explaining why it was OK to shoot Noel and Kevin. Strangest thing of all was reading the tiny piece that mentioned the plans for Noel’s funeral. It was unreal. All that decency, all the fun and the clever stuff – the little things that made him special – all melted to nothing. It was over, Noel was all he’d ever be, and that wasn’t enough. He deserved a whole life. Not this broken-off part of a life.
Vincent stared out the window, focused on some spot in midair between here and the back of the building across the way.
After a long while, he looked at his watch. Almost time to get ready.
One of the three uniforms was pale and blinking a lot. He shook his head when he saw Rose Cheney and said, ‘I don’t think you should get too close.’ The corpse was about twenty yards away, in a seated position, leaning back against a wall. What was left of him.
Cheney waved a thumb at Bob Tidey and asked the uniform, ‘Do you think he might manage to keep his lunch down?’
‘I just meant, I didn’t mean—’
‘Not to worry,’ Cheney said, ‘no one’s going any closer to that poor sod than they need to.’
Two of the uniforms were guarding the entrance and exit to the underground garage. The third, the nervous one, was standing as close to the body as he dared. Detective Superintendent Hogg finished talking to three people from Technical, each clothed head to foot in white forensics suits, each carrying a couple of small cases. He joined Tidey and Cheney. ‘Justin Kennedy’s the victim’s name, according to the apartment manager.’
Tidey raised an eyebrow. ‘He identified that?’
For once, the claim that someone blew someone’s head off wasn’t an exaggeration. Most of the victim’s head was splattered up the wall above the rest of the body. ‘It’s his car, Kennedy’s car, that he’s sitting beside – the manager says that’s how he usually dresses. A property guy, puts deals together, well known in the business – his name popped up as an associate of Emmet Sweetman. He shared an apartment upstairs with his girlfriend.’
The body was dressed in an expensive light grey business suit, the look somewhat spoiled by the volume of blood that covered the shoulders.
Bob Tidey said, ‘Anyone hear anything, see anything?’
‘We need to do a canvass, but I doubt it. The fella that found the body – a young man, lives on the third floor – came down to collect his car, saw the blood, called the apartment manager.’
Tidey and Cheney walked closer. The double-barrelled shotgun was lying about six feet in front of the body. The door of the car, an Alfa Romeo, was slightly open.
‘It’s like he got out of the car,’ Tidey said, ‘turned round, maybe he got pushed or whatever, ended up sitting like that, you think? Maybe the shooter made the poor bastard sit down for a chat before he blew him away?’
Hogg said, ‘I’ve put in for some more uniforms – we need to start the canvass, and this area needs to be fingertipped.’
Bob Tidey told Hogg about Sweetman’s spare mobile, about the calls to Connie Wintour. ‘A crooked banker and a dodgy lawyer – the dodgy lawyer has a lot of clients who know their way around a gun. He could be the connection between the Sweetman and Snead murders.’
Hogg said, ‘All you’ve got’s a record of a call from Sweetman’s mobile to the dodgy lawyer. You need to firm that up. Go talk to Wintour, see if he admits knowing Sweetman, if he talked to him the day of the murder.’
‘You need us here?’
‘Go see Wintour.’
‘Sure, but he’ll hide behind his rights as a lawyer.’
Hogg snorted. ‘This is a murder inquiry. Mr Wintour is an officer of the court and he should be honoured to help us with our inquiries – err on the side of recklessness.’
45
Lifting the teacup to her lips, Maura Coady sighed when the doorbell rang. She put the cup down. When she opened the door, her neighbours Phil and Jacinta were standing with a smaller, much younger man.
‘Everything OK, Miss Coady?’
‘Fine, Phil – everything’s fine.’
Jacinta said, ‘This young man here, his name is Anthony, he’s from the newspapers.’
The younger man nodded and held out a hand. ‘Ms Coady, pleased to meet you. Phil here tells me—’
Phil was leaning forward. ‘Anthony wrote about the shooting, described it just as it happened.’
Maura said, ‘I’m afraid I really can’t—’
‘Don’t worry, Ms Coady, I know how distressing this must have been, and I’ll only take a moment of your time. I was wondering—’
Maura backed away. ‘I really can’t talk right now, I’ve got something on the stove.’
‘I can wait, it’s no bother—’
‘You’ll have to excuse me—’ Maura was closing the door.
‘Ms Coady—’
She closed the door, surprised to find herself at ease with her rudeness. She’d managed to push the shooting to the back of her mind and she wanted to keep it that way. If she’d had a list of things she didn’t want to do, talking to a newspaper reporter would be near the top.
As she sat by the table, lifting the teacup, she noticed her hand trembling.
Outside, Phil and Jacinta Heneghan were explaining to Anthony Prendergast that Maura Coady was a real lady. ‘Old school, they call it – old values,’ Phil said.
‘She’s special, Miss Coady,’ Jacinta said. ‘You know she’s a nun, don’t you?’
‘Is that right?’ Anthony Prendergast said.
Either you win or you lose. And this afternoon, in this bookie shop, Shay Harrison was a winner. Shay never saw the point of place betting. There’s a horse you like, you put your money on the nose, it either makes it first past the post or it’s an also-ran. The notion of betting that a horse will be placed second or third – that might be all right if the horse is up against an Arkle or a Red Rum. Mostly, a gambler has to have the balls to make a choice, no hedging his bets.
Shay collected his winnings on Iolanthe Bear, in the two thirty at Leicester. To put your wad on the nose for a long shot, with a strong favourite in the field, you have to be mad. Except when it turns out like this. Shay Harrison wasn’t a guesser, he was a thinker. He thought about the owner, the trainer, the jockey, the course, the weather, the form – and when it was all done whirling around inside his head and he looked at the runners and riders it was like there was a glow coming off just one of them, and that’s when he knew. Didn’t always work out – didn’t often work out – but when it did . . .
Iolanthe Bear, twenty to bloody one, skating home in front of the evens favourite. Part of Shay wished he’d dared put more on it, but a tenner at twenty to one wasn’t to be sneezed at. The thing that made Shay special, the way he saw it, was that he knew when to put his winnings in his pocket and head home. You lose on a long shot, it’s OK to hang around, to try to make up for it by taking the short odds on a couple of favourites. That way, maybe you end up losing not too much. But if you bingo a long shot you have to watch out you don’t lose the run of yourself, hanging on, feeding the machine until it’s like the long shot never came in. Which is when you feel like the fool you are.
Shay knew at least half of the dozen punters in the betting shop. He’d talk about this some other time, probably over a
pint, but on the day, no – it was bad form to boast or to whinge. You stay cool. The thing to do was to take winning or losing as the same thing – a result. In the long run, with luck, they even out. This past year, for Shay, the results had been bloody brilliant. Shay nodded to a neighbour, Jimmy Higgins, turned for the door and a man said to him, quietly, ‘All that stuff about wood choppers, about feeding you into a machine – that was all bullshit.’
Shay looked round and the man was standing there, hoodie up, and a hand rising with a gun, and Shay wanted to say I didn’t, I swear, I didn’t say a fucking—
He jerked his head down and to one side, but the man adjusted his aim and fired the bullet into his temple and Shay Harrison, Protectica employee and lucky gambler, felt nothing when his face hit the floor of the bookie shop.
When Maura Coady answered the doorbell she found the reporter chap standing there, a big smile on his face. ‘Ms Coady, I wonder—’ He held a small camera to his face and it clicked and he smiled again. ‘It won’t take a minute, just a couple of words—’
‘No, please, I’ve nothing—’
‘It’s about the—’
Maura closed the door, turned and stood trembling in her hallway. She suddenly wanted the walls to be closer, the hallway smaller, everything that mattered within reach and the rest of the world gone away.
46
Connie Wintour’s office was on the second floor of an old building within walking distance of the Criminal Courts of Justice. The hall and stairs were narrow, the decor was mid-twentieth-century shabby. Inside, the office was one part chrome to two parts beech. Wintour’s secretary glanced away from her Mac long enough to recognise Bob Tidey, then returned to her work. ‘I’m afraid Mr Wintour is unavailable.’ Her voice distant, without inflection.
Bob Tidey said, ‘But he’s here?’
‘He’s not available.’
‘Is he with a client?’
‘He’s not available.’
Tidey said, ‘Not to worry, Linda, he’s always glad to see me.’ She was still getting to her feet when Tidey opened the pebbled-glass door that led to the inner office.
In another chrome-and-wood room, the walls behind him lined with legal volumes, Connie Wintour was sitting back, feet up on a desk big enough to use as a landing pad for a small helicopter. The desk was almost bare – just a mobile, a large notepad, a pen and a worn leather desk diary, arranged symmetrically on either side of a fashionably retro white Bakelite desk phone. Connie’s eyes were closed, his expression one of intense concentration. He was wearing a large set of wireless earphones. One hand rested on the desk, two fingers gently keeping time, patiently coaxing inaudible music from his invisible orchestra.
‘You’ll have to leave. Mr Wintour doesn’t—’
Tidey said, ‘Shh, Linda, don’t spoil the concert.’
Wintour’s fingers made a series of short, emphatic taps, as though bringing a musical passage to a peak.
Tidey took a couple of steps to the right, towards the bank of filing cabinets along one wall. He pulled a drawer all the way out, then slammed it shut. Wintour’s eyes opened, he took in the scene, stared for several moments. Then he closed his eyes again. One hand made a lazy bye-bye motion.
Tidey jerked the drawer open and slammed it again. And again. Wearily, Wintour slid off the earphones and shook his head. ‘Childish as ever, Sergeant Tidey.’
‘Just a word or two, Connie.’
Wintour lowered his feet from the desk and said to Rose, ‘Cornelius Wintour, my dear. And you are?’
‘Detective Garda Rose Cheney.’
‘Delighted,’ Connie said. He turned to Tidey. ‘And who are you stitching up today, Sergeant?’
It was one of Connie Wintour’s selling points as a lawyer – he never tired of passionately accusing Garda witnesses of framing his clients. He had a lengthy list of regulars who used his services primarily because they got a kick out of watching him throw insults and allegations at Gardai on the witness stand. The fact that such clients more often than not went to jail didn’t lessen the kick they got from Connie’s cross-examinations.
Tidey said, ‘Why did Emmet Sweetman call you on the day he was murdered?’
Wintour raised one eyebrow. ‘You’re a bit old, Sergeant, for using the Garda College book of trick questions.’
‘The question was very simple, Connie. Why did Emmet Sweetman call you on the day he was murdered?’
‘You ask why he called me – but the purpose of the question is to establish whether he called me. Am I right?’
‘As it happens – no.’
Wintour smiled. ‘I can confirm, then, Sergeant, that I’ve never spoken to Mr Sweetman in my life.’
Tidey nodded. ‘You say no – our inquiries say yes.’
Rose Cheney leaned across the desk and lifted Connie’s mobile. ‘And this looks like a relevant piece of evidence in sorting out who’s telling the truth.’
Wintour was on his feet. ‘Don’t be fucking absurd. Fishing expeditions aren’t – Put that phone back or I’ll have an injunction with your name on it before you get to the bottom of the stairs.’
‘No need to rush, Connie,’ Tidey said. He took a grey evidence envelope from a jacket pocket and held it out. Cheney slid the phone into the envelope. Tidey licked the envelope, then he signed and dated it. He passed the envelope to Cheney, who also signed it, then put it in her handbag. ‘You get hold of your favourite judge, Connie, and we present our evidence and let him sort it out.’
‘You’ve no right to conduct a search without a warrant.’
‘No search, Connie – the mobile was in plain sight, and it’s relevant to a murder inquiry. Since there’s a conflict about whether or not you got a call from a murder victim on the day of his death, we’re just safeguarding a vital piece of evidence.’
Cheney said, ‘Now, if you’ll call that judge, we can arrange a hearing and get this over with.’
Vincent Naylor watched Michelle Flood arrive in the second-floor lobby of the Westbury Hotel. The lobby was wide and long, with a couple of dozen coffee tables scattered around, along with couches and deep chairs. It was busy, a lot of people here for afternoon tea. In the centre of the lobby there was a guy playing the piano.
Vincent sat in a wingback chair near the entrance to the bar, sipping coffee and watching Michelle approach. I’ll be close to the bar, he’d told her. She was wearing black slacks and a lacy black top over a white blouse. Nothing showy, but classy all the same. She walked right past him, stopped, looked around, this way and that.
The piano player was working on a pimped-up version of a Sinatra number. Vincent stood up. Michelle looked right past him, into the small bar. Vincent stared at her from about six feet away, until he made eye contact. Her face became a mix of surprise, confusion and relief. She walked towards him, kissed him on the cheek and murmured, ‘Jesus, what’s happened to you?’
A waiter brought more coffee and a second cup. ‘I can’t get used to it,’ Michelle said. ‘The difference.’
Vincent Naylor’s hair was barely there. His dark curls were gone. What was left was cropped so tight it might have been sprayed on. He was wearing a black suit, a blue shirt and a dark grey tie. His shoes were black leather, highly polished. He looked like a creep from a television show about wannabe entrepreneurs. Only his nails, bitten short, betrayed him.
‘No one would look for me here.’
‘When I didn’t hear from you, when I heard about Noel – you must—’ Her voice was soft. ‘I know how much he meant to you.’
Vincent shook his head. He looked down at the table and said nothing for a while. Then, leaning forward, his face close to Michelle’s, he said, ‘I’m in trouble. I have to leave the country.’
‘For how long?’
‘Have the police been to see you?
‘Why would they?’
‘I was worried there might be some comeback on – someone might connect you to me.’
‘What’s happening,
Vincent?’
He held her gaze. ‘This thing with Noel – I can’t stay in Dublin.’
‘How can I help?’
‘There are ways – people I know, I can get whatever papers I need, transport. But I have things I need to do.’
‘Then what?’
He touched a finger to the side of his mouth, the nail scraping at the skin. ‘I didn’t want to leave without seeing you.’
‘Have you decided where you’re going?’
‘England, to start – then, maybe—’
‘It has to be a city. No way do I end up in the sticks.’
After a moment, Vincent said, ‘You mean it?’
‘God help me.’
He brought her up to his room and after a while she said, ‘Let’s go now, tonight.’
‘I haven’t got the stuff I need.’
Vincent was lying back, hands behind his head. Michelle laid her cheek against his chest, breathing in his scent. ‘How long will that take?’ she said.
‘Couple of days, maybe.’
‘Then – we go?’
‘There are other things I need to do.’
‘Such as?’
It was a while before he replied.
When she came back from the bathroom, Michelle’s eyes were rough. The tissue in her hand was crushed and wet.
‘Vincent, please, this isn’t you.’
He looked into her clear blue eyes and he’d never seen anything so pure, so beautiful, so full of everything he never thought he would have. And he nodded slowly and he said, ‘This is me.’
He told her about the supermarket. He’d been buying a toothbrush, paste, food, bits and pieces, after he left the MacCleneghan building.
The Rage Page 17
