‘Middle of the aisle, couple of old geezers – husband and wife, whatever – and the old guy’s standing a couple of feet out from the shelves, holding up a packet of something, squinting at it like it’s got the Third Secret of Fatima written on the back. And she’s got her trolley parked sideways – fucking sideways, across the aisle – and I lost it.’
He could have walked around them, squeezed past, but Vincent’s mouth twisted and he dropped the basket he was carrying, turned the old guy round, knocking the packet of something out of his hand, pushing his arms up and out, like the stupid fucker was walking a tightrope. And Vincent said, ‘Like that – stand like that. OK? OK, you stupid piece of shit?’
The fear in the old man was so strong Vincent could smell it. ‘What?’ he said, not daring to lower his outstretched arms. ‘Why?’
‘Cos, you and your stupid missus – if you hold your fucking arms out you can block the whole fucking aisle, right?’
The old bitch said something high-pitched, but Vincent gave her trolley a shove and walked on towards the checkout, leaving his basket on the floor. He heard the noise from behind as the trolley crashed into shelves, things falling, things breaking and he didn’t look back.
It was an idiotic thing to do.
As it happened, Vincent walked clear, no problem. But there could have been a couple of security thugs and they might have taken Vincent, then called the police, and that would have been that.
He couldn’t help himself. When he calmed down later he knew the anger was dangerous, but what could he do about that? A couple of nothings like those two, the walking dead, hanging on, taking up space, while Noel was lying cold in a coroner’s drawer. What a fucking waste.
It was a thought that inflamed him half a dozen times a day – fat stupids walking down the street, big-mouth idiots on the television screen in the room at the Westbury. Wherever he looked, alive and fouling up the world, while—
It wasn’t right.
‘They’re making ashes of him,’ he said to Michelle. ‘And I’ll be in another country.’
Before she left the Westbury, Vincent gave Michelle a thick envelope full of money.
‘How long?’ she said.
‘I can’t say for sure. When you’re settled, buy a new phone, text me. Soon as I get to London—’
‘Please, Vincent.’
‘I can’t, not yet. Things, the way—’
One hand gently brushed his thin layer of hair. Close to her ear, Vincent’s voice was low, insistent. ‘If I don’t do this, it’s like I’m saying what happened to Noel doesn’t matter.’
When they kissed she held him long and tight.
47
Inside Castlepoint Garda Station, Detective Chief Superintendent Malachy Hogg approached the corner desk where Bob Tidey was working. ‘Just got word – the hearing’s at lunchtime, the judge’ll see us in his office, five past one. You ready?’
Tidey indicated the computer screen in front of him. ‘Ten minutes, I’ll have it done.’ Several yards away, Rose Cheney held up a single folded sheet. ‘That’s it, keep it simple – best thing,’ Hogg said. He took her statement.
As promised, Connie Wintour had found a judge to give him an interim injunction, putting a stay on the seizure of his mobile phone. This afternoon, the judge would read evidential statements and hear submissions on whether the injunction should be confirmed or discontinued.
When Hogg went back to his office, Bob Tidey sat staring into space for a couple of minutes. Then he took his personal laptop from a drawer and went down the corridor, found an empty office and sat behind a desk. It took him a couple of minutes to start up the laptop and connect a card reader, then he took from his inside jacket pocket the sealed envelope holding Connie Wintour’s phone and tore it open. Within another two minutes, he’d downloaded Connie’s contact list and call information. He found another evidence envelope, put the phone in, sealed it and signed it.
Back in the detectives’ office, he put the envelope in front of Rose Cheney and handed her a pen. ‘The envelope got torn, I had to replace it.’
Cheney stared at him.
Tidey said, ‘Accidentally – taking it out of my pocket, it got torn.’
Cheney said, ‘I won’t lie.’
‘That’s OK – just sign it. No harm done.’
Cheney signed the envelope. ‘Anyone asks, I’ll tell them exactly what happened – you told me the envelope got torn, I signed again.’
Bob Tidey nodded. ‘No one will ask.’
Detective Chief Superintendent Hogg came into the detectives’ office, crooked a finger and said, ‘You two.’ Cheney stood up, and Tidey put away the file he’d been reading. In Hogg’s office, the Detective Chief Superintendent held up a thin file. ‘From Technical – the death of one Justin Kennedy, last seen with most of his head missing. It was suicide. His prints confirm his identity, his fingermarks are all over the shotgun. The weapon belonged to his brother, who’s now living in Turkey.’
Cheney said, ‘He shot himself and then threw the shotgun halfway across the car park?’
‘Seven feet away, the shotgun was. And he didn’t throw it. He sat down, tucked the muzzle under his chin, the stock resting on the floor, and squeezed the trigger. The recoil sent the shotgun flying, and it landed where it did. Beyond doubt, according to Technical. There’s impact marks on the floor, traces on the stock, and all the angles are right.’
Tidey said, ‘Where does that leave us?’
‘Kennedy was involved in a couple of deals with Emmet Sweetman – and that was a nightmare even before Sweetman was murdered. They seemed to have pulled a couple of strokes, the two of them. Now, the Revenue had their hooks into him and several of his associates were taking him to court. Criminal charges were a possibility. His marriage ended a year ago. His girlfriend says he’s been missing for days at a time. All the signs are he just decided it was time to rest his chin on a shotgun.’
‘Sounds reasonable.’
‘We’ll head off for the courts in twenty minutes.’
Back at Bob Tidey’s desk, Rose Cheney said, ‘There’s no way you can use anything you found in Wintour’s phone, you know that? This hearing – the best we get is we confirm Emmet Sweetman called Connie Wintour on the day of his murder.’
‘Anything else I might find out from the phone – it can’t be used in court, but it might point us in the right direction.’
‘I hope you—’
Bob Tidey wasn’t listening.
Across the room, Detective Garda Eddery was leaning back behind his desk, reading the back page of a tabloid. Facing Tidey, the top of the front page carried photos of a footballer and a blonde woman. Most of the bottom half of the page was taken up by a large headline and a photograph.
Tidey whispered, ‘Ah, Jesus.’
He crossed the room and said, ‘Sorry, I need that, just for a second,’ and took the newspaper from Eddery. A minute later, Tidey gave the newspaper back to Eddery, then tapped at his phone and when Maura Coady answered he said, ‘I’m sorry, Maura, I’ve no idea how this happened.’
She hung up.
Vincent Naylor sat on a bench in Stephen’s Green, reading the newspapers. People strolled along the pathways, stood near the water and fed the ducks, or just watched them. On the grass, kids played, couples lay close. Somewhere, a brass band was playing. Vincent finished the broadsheets, skimming page after page. Not a word. It was like the papers had moved on to other business.
He put the Mirror aside and turned to the Daily Record, glanced at the front page—
Jesus fuck.
He read quickly through the opening paragraphs, his breathing heavy. There were just three paragraphs of the story on the front page, the rest of the story carried over to an inside page. Vincent stared at the headline. ABUSE NUN IS SHOOT-OUT HERO. To the right of the headline, there was a photo of the bitch – a bucktoothed old biddy. And a name – Maura Coady.
‘Jesus fucking Christ!’
I
t was only when he saw the man with the laptop bag dangling from his shoulder, stopping, staring at him, that Vincent realised he must have sworn aloud. The guy was tall and thin. What was left of his hair had been allowed to grow long and was brushed across his head. He looked like a worn-out mop. The mop’s face was a picture of disdain. Vincent stood up from the park bench, dropped his newspapers, put a hand to the worn-out mop’s face and pushed and kept pushing. The guy back-pedalled, making indignant noises, until he ran out of footpath and went backwards into the water, landing on his arse, ducks scattering.
The gobshite was screaming as Vincent walked away. Standing up in the water, ranting after Vincent and flailing around in search of his laptop. When Vincent got to the exit from Stephen’s Green he looked back. A young guy in jeans and a T-shirt was making a hopeless effort at pretending he wasn’t following Vincent. The guy had a mobile to his ear.
He tried to run but Vincent caught him within a few yards and pushed his face into the ground, hard. Then he took the guy’s mobile and smashed it.
Ten minutes later, he checked out of the Westbury.
48
The injunction hearing was to be held in Judge Daddley’s office, and he was in no hurry. Detective Superintendent Hogg, Bob Tidey, Rose Cheney and a lawyer from the Chief State Solicitor’s office stood a few yards to the left of the door to the judge’s office. Connie Wintour and his lawyer stood to the right. The conversations were muted, with little eye contact between the two sides.
‘Bugger’s probably having a sandwich,’ Hogg said.
‘What’s he like?’ Cheney asked.
‘Not much nonsense about him, fairly new to the job. We live in hope.’
Bob Tidey was mentally rehearsing his evidence, in case he was grilled. Whether it’s on the witness stand or in a judge’s office, the trick is to be clear about what you want to say, say it and give as little as possible beyond that. Above all, don’t get into a pissing contest with the other side’s lawyer – lawyers live in the urinal, they know all the angles.
Tidey had his evidence stripped down to basics. Police work turned up a previously undiscovered phone belonging to murder victim Emmet Sweetman. It had been used sparingly, for numbers Sweetman didn’t want recorded on his regular phone – namely his girlfriends. And calls to Connie Wintour. The police wished to confirm that Wintour had spoken with the deceased on the day he died, and when the lawyer denied receiving such a call it became necessary to obtain access to his phone, to establish the truth.
When the judge’s clerk beckoned them into the office they found the judge sitting at his desk, swallowing what was left of a cup of coffee, then wiping his lips with a napkin. He lacked the bloated look that barristers and judges inevitably acquired as their careers advanced. Off to the left, a young woman sat behind a stenographer’s machine mounted on a collapsible table.
‘This won’t take long,’ Daddley said. He tapped the file on the desk and said, ‘Anyone leave anything important out of their statements?’
To say yes was to invite a reprimand for wasting the court’s time. No one said anything.
‘Having examined the submissions, I think I understand the facts and the issues.’ He looked up, from one lawyer to the other. ‘Unless anyone has a burning desire to clarify anything that passeth my understanding?’
The lawyers for each side took maybe three seconds to decide if they wished to piss off the judge by suggesting he mightn’t have a full grasp of the issues.
‘In that case – which is Detective Sergeant Tidey?’
Bob Tidey raised a finger.
‘Nice try, Sergeant, and I can’t blame you. I wouldn’t mind knowing myself why an officer of the court would deny receiving a call, when there seems to be evidence that such a call was made to his phone. Perhaps there’s a simple explanation.’
He looked towards Connie Wintour, who kept his mouth shut and his expression blank.
‘However, the facts are plain. The police are entitled to ask anyone whether they got a phone call. The person being questioned – any person, but in this case a lawyer – is entitled to privacy. The explanation might be that someone else answered the phone, even that it was a wrong number. It doesn’t matter. Suppose you were allowed to check Mr Wintour’s phone to see what calls he received that day – suppose the late Mr Sweetman’s number shows up – Mr Wintour might merely say he answered a wrong number. If his phone contained conclusive evidence of anything illegal, the circumstances might be different. Beyond that—’ He opened the file, tapped the top page, Bob Tidey’s statement of evidence. ‘If the courts approve a police officer seizing a lawyer’s phone on the basis of a need to confirm he got a call, where would it end? There’s the issue of personal privacy, and there’s also the issue of professional confidentiality, not to mention client confidentiality. In short, I’m far from convinced that the evidential value of the seizure trumps the intrusion into the rights of the applicant.’
Before leaving the judge’s office, Bob Tidey handed over the envelope containing Connie Wintour’s phone. Wintour’s lawyer passed it to his client and Connie favoured Tidey with an unctuous smile.
‘Bollocks to that,’ Detective Superintendent Hogg said, leading the way out through the main doors. Standing on the steps of the Criminal Courts building, he faced Bob Tidey and Rose Cheney. ‘Off the record – give me the scenario, tell me how you see this. I take it you used the opportunity to have a sneaky look at what’s on Wintour’s phone?’
Tidey said, ‘I wish I had, sir, but it never occurred to me.’
‘How do you see this?’
‘What I’m thinking, sir – Sweetman and Connie, what if they had a stroke going, a property deal? What if Connie was fronting for someone else? When things started unravelling, all sorts of people got into bed with each other. Then, when Sweetman started making deals with the Revenue, making statements, he became a danger to someone.’
Rose Cheney said, ‘In Sweetman’s world, the worst thing you expect is a lawsuit. Connie knows a lot of people who do things another way.’
Hogg nodded. ‘It’s worth a whirl. See if you can follow it anywhere.’
After Hogg left for Castlepoint station, Tidey and Cheney walked down to Ryan’s pub. When they’d been served two soups, Cheney said, ‘Show me what you found on Wintour’s phone.’
‘It’s on my laptop.’
‘You can’t do this officially. You run those numbers through the usual channels it will leave a trail.’
‘So?’
‘I’ve got a contact. Used to work together, long time ago.’ She took out her mobile and began tapping.
49
Maura Coady said, ‘At first, to be honest, I thought it might have been you. Apart from a couple of the sisters, I’ve never talked to anyone else about any of that.’
‘Maura, I—’
‘I know, I realised – I just had to ask myself, why would you?’
‘For the record, I didn’t, I wouldn’t.’
‘I know that reporter spoke to Phil, across the road, and Phil and Jacinta know I was in the convent. They’re good people, but Phil loves chatter. And, on the day of the shooting, I think I told Phil it was me who called the police – that it was my fault, what happened.’
‘Maura—’
‘But I’ve never spoken to them about the other stuff.’
Tidey said, ‘The way the newspapers work – I guess once the reporter found out you were a nun, and that you’d called the police, he decided he had a story. “Hero nun catches armed robbers.” These days, the way things have gone, whenever a bishop or a priest or a nun pops up in a story – the reports are public records, and they’ve got everything on computer – Ferns, Ryan, Murphy, volumes of them.’
Maura’s smile was grim. ‘No end to the scandals.’
‘Even where the reports use pseudonyms, these guys have sources they can tap.’
Maura was sitting across the kitchen table from Tidey, her forearms resting in front of her.
‘I spent half an hour cleaning the eggs from my front door this afternoon. Someone – some person who believed they were avenging the victims of the clergy – they threw two or three eggs at the door. First thing this morning, that newspaper was stuffed through the letter box – with obscenities written on it, in thick red marker. Later, twice, there was loud banging on the door and when I went out there was no one there.’
‘Kids—’
‘The kids are at school. That will start tonight or tomorrow, when someone tells them about the witch living on their street. Today, those were adults.’
‘It won’t last.’
‘It will last – once the witch is identified, there’ll be no going back from it. I’ll always be the neighbourhood child abuser.’
‘I’ll have a word with the local station.’
‘Thanks – but I’m sure those policemen have more important things to do with their time.’ She shook her head. ‘This is no more than a nuisance. Believe me, I can put up with it – it’ll calm down, maybe I’ll move somewhere else, it isn’t important.’
‘All the same—’
‘Really – thanks for coming, thanks for comforting me, but in the grand scale of things—’
‘You did the right thing, Maura. You stepped in when thugs with guns put people’s lives at risk. And you shouldn’t pay a price for that. I promise, I’ll do whatever I can to make this OK.’
Maura’s smile was lighter this time. ‘A few hours ago, after I saw that newspaper headline, I cursed you.’
Tidey smiled. ‘Oh ye of little faith.’
Vincent Naylor was tempted to order something stronger, but it was best to stick with coffee. When the man he was waiting for came into the bar of the Four Seasons Hotel Vincent stood up and they shook hands. The man said he’d have a Ballygowan and Vincent told the waiter.
Vincent assumed that by now the coppers in charge of the Protectica robbery had circulated his photo. The Westbury had suited the look he was counting on for camouflage, the young business nerd, but it was best to leave after the trouble in Stephen’s Green – too risky, hanging around the same area. He felt a little less at ease in the Four Seasons – the suits were more expensive, the bellies bigger and the faces redder. But it was even less likely that a passing cop, with Vincent’s photo in his head, would make the connection between an armed robber and a suit in a Ballsbridge hotel.
The Rage Page 18
