Dance With the Dead

by James Nally

  ‘She was one of the hostesses there, sir. She didn’t give me her name. She said something about Liz travelling a lot, I think she meant for or with Reilly. She was about to tell me a lot more, I could tell, when a couple of bouncers showed up at my table and she vanished.’

  ‘Do you think they suspected her of talking?’

  ‘I don’t know, sir. I don’t think so.’

  ‘What did they want, these bouncers?’

  ‘They’d been watching us all night, sir. They saw my warrant card on the way in.’

  His eyebrows shot up and I shut up. He didn’t need to hear any more.

  ‘This hostess woman, she must have told you something about herself?’

  ‘Not that I can recall, sir,’ I lied, my uncertainty giving me away, ‘I’d drank quite a bit before Fintan came up with the idea of going there, so it’s all a bit of a haze. I was off-duty, of course.’

  He shuffled irritably in his seat. I couldn’t tell if his agitation stemmed from my rank unprofessionalism, or blatant obfuscation about Tammy’s identity. He leaned his head back and stared somewhere beyond the ceiling.

  ‘You’re probably aware that many consider Reilly untouchable,’ he said softly, sucking in a lungful of air, holding it for three seconds then releasing it back to the ceiling. ‘I’ve lost count of the officers supposedly on his books, doing his bidding.’

  I nodded. He lowered his eyes down to mine.

  ‘Playing it by the book, I have to report you right now and haul your arse before a disciplinary hearing. Not only did you put your own life in danger, you’ve risked the lives of undercover officers involved in covert operations connected to Reilly. Unwittingly, granted. But trust me, this provides no comfort whatsoever when your multi-million-pound undercover operation goes up in smoke. There are always bigger plays, Lynch. Always. For Christ’s sake remember that.’

  My insides collapsed. I’d never survive another disciplinary hearing. Not with my track record. He breathed in hard, clearly relishing the power he now held over me.

  ‘But I’m not going to do that Lynch. Reilly’s like a bloody cancer in this force. I’ve been trying to find a way to get into him for years. You may have just stumbled across something. So I want you to carry on with your cold case work, linking other murders to Liz Little. I’ve no doubt Reilly has officers here on his books, possibly even inside my team. We can’t afford to have any of this leaking back to him, so please come to me personally with any developments. I’ll get someone to dig out a mobile phone for you with all my direct numbers already programmed in.

  ‘What I need from you now is a statement about everything that happened Saturday night. I’ve got an officer who I trust with my life who can take it from you, here in the room, once we’re finished. I’ll keep this statement somewhere very secure until the day we might need it, when we manage to bring a case against Reilly. You understand why I have to do this? We can’t have his legal team finding out about your fishing trip later and using it against us in court and, trust me, the bastards would.’

  I tried not to nod too much.

  Spence fixed me with a knowing look. ‘I also need the name of that hostess, Lynch, and a description. It’s very noble of you trying to protect her. But she doesn’t need protecting so long as we keep things between us. If we can trace this woman, we can find out once and for all if Reilly had some sort of beef with Liz Little, and that would be dynamite.’

  Of course he hadn’t bought my lie that I couldn’t remember anything about her. But Tammy had placed her trust in me, albeit fleetingly. She wouldn’t want her identity passed on to another cop. I couldn’t do it to her. Besides, Fintan’s words from Saturday night kept echoing through my mind … It’s always worth holding something back when you can … give yourself a little edge. If I spilled everything now about Tammy, Spence would have no further use for me.

  ‘Sorry sir, I was only with her a matter of minutes. I’m not sure I could even pick her out of a line-up.’

  He pursed his lips, weighing me up. ‘I understand, Lynch. But just so you understand, I’ve dreamed of bringing down Reilly for many, many years. Your career’s been on the skids. If we’re smart, we can work together on this, to mutual benefit. Come up with her name, and you’re on my squad. Have a good, long, hard think about that.’

  Chapter 16

  Holloway, North London

  Tuesday, April 6, 1993; 11.25

  As I left the station, frazzled and spent, my pager’s buzz almost gave me a stroke. I called Zoe on my new, Met-police-issue mobile phone.

  ‘How did it go?’

  ‘I’ve just finished making a statement about Saturday night.’

  ‘A statement?’

  ‘Don’t worry. It went really well. You were right! Spence congratulated me on my initiative and unofficially placed me on his team.’

  ‘That’s brilliant. You deserve it, Donal,’ she said. ‘What do you mean, unofficially?’

  ‘Anything to do with Reilly, he wants me to report to him directly. He’s worried about leaky cops. Sounds like he’s been trying to nail JR for years. Please tell me you paged me with yet more good tidings.’

  ‘Well, as the cops say on TV, I’ve got some good news and some bad news.’

  ‘Well, as Van Gogh said to the prostitute, I’m all ears. I’ll take the bad news first.’

  ‘I wonder does that make you an optimist or a pessimist?’

  ‘Only a pessimist would want the bad news last.’

  ‘The sample of red paint you gave me, from Liz’s head wound. I sent it off to the British Coatings Federation. They said it’s high in zinc, so it is probably specialist, but they can’t tell me any more unless they can detect the binding agent.’

  ‘Which means …?’

  ‘They need a bigger sample.’

  ‘Moving swiftly on to the good news …’

  ‘We’ve found a print.’

  My entire top half fizzed like licked sherbet.

  ‘Inside the torch,’ I blabbed.

  ‘Er, yes. On the bulb which must have been replaced at some point. Whoever did left one almost-complete print. How did you know?’

  ‘A wild guess. Honestly Zoe, I couldn’t hear better news right now. I hope to God it belongs to Reilly or one of his goons.’

  ‘I’m getting it run through the system now … that could take a while. But whoever owns this print has a lot of explaining to do.’

  Fintan had paged me three times, so I called him next.

  ‘Why didn’t you tell me Da was coming to stay at our house?’

  ‘I knew you’d overreact and I didn’t want to spoil your date,’ he said. ‘By the way, how did it go? The fact you came home suggests not so well.’

  ‘Never mind that. When did you know he was coming?’

  ‘He called yesterday around lunchtime. He seemed in a bad way. What was I supposed to do? Tell my own father that he can’t kip at ours for a couple of nights?’

  ‘Why can’t he book a hotel like anyone else?’

  ‘He said he didn’t feel secure booking it in his own name. Look, whatever’s going on, he’s under big pressure. He won’t tell me what but I’m not throwing him out on the street when he’s desperate. Maybe Ma knows something. Have you spoken to her?’

  ‘No. Though she left a message Saturday night saying she was worried about him. Now she’s not picking up.’

  ‘She’s probably gone to stay with one of her sisters while he’s away. You know what she’d want you to do. She’d love it if you two could sort things out. Honestly, I think it would really help her health-wise.’

  ‘Don’t even try to fucking guilt trip me, Fintan. He’s the one that banished me, let’s not forget. I was quite happy never clapping eyes on him again, ever. What am I supposed to say to him now?’

  ‘He was asking after you,’ he said. ‘I got the sense he wants to bury the hatchet.’

  I laughed. ‘What worries me is where he wants to bury it. You need to find out what
the hell is going on, Fintan, because I’m not that keen on the company he keeps. And then he needs to find somewhere else to stay.’

  ‘I’ll do my best to get him a room somewhere, okay? But if he tries to, you know, reach out to you, at least hear him out. He deserves that.’

  I let my silence do the talking.

  ‘Anyway, I can’t find anything on this Robert Conlon character,’ he said, exasperated. ‘I’ve spent all morning in the cuttings library, going back through hard copies of the Irish papers, all the way to ’68. I’m now cross-eyed and my hands look like Desmond Tutu’s.’

  ‘Shall I try the local paper?’

  ‘I did that first. Called my old editor at the Leinster Express last night. Another blank.’

  ‘How far back did he look?’

  ‘He’s been in that job so long, he doesn’t need to look. Jesus, it’s not like Offaly/Laois is a hotbed for stranger rapists. A stolen cow would make the front page some weeks. But, I’m excited to say, not this week!’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘As it comes out tomorrow morning, I decided to give him a story.’

  ‘What story?’

  ‘Ah, you know, Police in London are keen to speak to a man originally from Foxburrow in relation to a murder enquiry. Robert Conlon, believed to be in his forties … blah blah.’

  ‘Jesus. I’m not sure that was very smart. I’ve got to tread carefully here.’

  ‘Who’s going to see the Leinster Express in London? No one. So I got him to put your direct number at the end of the piece. If this Garda tipster exists, then he’ll know who to call now.’

  As ever with Fintan, I felt two moves behind and several kinds of terrified about the consequences.

  ‘Do you think this Robert Conlon character exists then?’

  ‘I suppose there’s a chance he was tried in a family court, in camera. You know what it’s like in parts of Offaly. The only virgins are girls who can run faster than their dads. But even if it was family court, the local cops would know about it.’

  ‘If that’s the case, then only a Garda could’ve made this tip.’

  ‘Well, you’ll have to ask them yourself, I’m afraid. Take it through the official channels because I’m beat.’

  Chapter 17

  Islington, North London

  Tuesday, April 6, 1993; 16.30

  ‘You’re the first detective to actually bother to come and see me in person,’ snapped Philip Armstrong at the front door to his achingly twee townhouse offices in Islington.

  Valerie Gillespie’s erstwhile sugar daddy led me towards an enormous study that looked more like an exclusive private members’ club. ‘I trust this is because Valerie’s murder suddenly matters, now that it’s been in all the papers?’

  I sat on a battered old leather sofa. ‘I won’t insult you by trying to defend anything that’s gone before, sir, but, for my part, I started on this yesterday.’

  He sat in the armchair opposite me, legs crossed femininely.

  With his pin-striped suit, cravat, natty little hanky and brogues, Armstrong clearly worked hard to embody stiff upper-class Britishness. I could instantly picture him in gimp-masked submission, taking an almighty rogering from Valerie’s flapping great strap-on. Somewhere along the line, my subconscious had decreed that all posh English people are sexual deviants, thus elevating inverted snobbery to dizzying new heights. I put it down to all those tales you hear about public schools …

  He dry coughed more indignancy. ‘The only detective who bothered to ring me seemed more interested in how we got together than the fact she’d been murdered.’

  I suddenly really wanted to know how they’d got together, and wondered if there might be a way to find out without directly asking.

  ‘I wanted to save her you see,’ he said quietly, looking into the middle distance. ‘I foolishly thought I had. You know, like Julia Roberts in that wretched film. But she couldn’t be saved, in the end. Addicts can’t, can they?’

  ‘I’m told the only person who can save an addict is themselves.’

  He uncrossed his legs and shifted about in the seat, as if to reboot his emotions. ‘So what can I do for you today, officer?’

  ‘I’m trying to establish where Valerie went after she was last captured on CCTV at King’s Cross on December tenth,’ I explained. ‘That was ten days before they found her body. The pathologist estimated she’d been dead for between five and six days. I’m trying to find out where she spent those four missing days.’

  His ruddy posh boy cheeks flared purple. ‘As I told the officer back in December, the last time I saw her was in March of last year so how am I supposed to help you with that? It’s blindingly obvious where she would’ve gone, though, isn’t it? To whatever red-light district is closest to King’s Cross, to score more of that ghastly crack.’

  ‘A mortuary assistant said her body was released to you in February. Is that correct?’

  ‘That’s her up there,’ he said, nodding to an ornate urn on the mantelpiece. ‘Why is this relevant?’

  ‘By rights, sir, a mortuary should keep a murder victim for a minimum of twelve months.’

  ‘I didn’t know that. They contacted me to make the arrangements. They’d already conducted the post-mortem. I can’t see what else they would’ve wanted with her?’

  ‘Do you remember who called you from the mortuary?’

  ‘No, and why would I?’ he said irritably. ‘And what has any of this got to do with her murder?’

  ‘I’m just trying to be thorough, sir.’

  ‘Well, it’s a bit bloody late for that,’ he snarled.

  We sat in excruciating silence.

  ‘Sorry,’ he said, finally, ‘I’ve had a bloody massive deal fall through today and it’s really hacked me off.’

  ‘That’s quite okay, sir. Valerie’s murder must still feel very raw.’

  ‘Right, well, if that’s all,’ he said, getting to his feet. I nodded.

  ‘I’m sure you possess sufficient skills of detection to at least find your own way out,’ he barked, stalking off.

  I took the scenic route, stopping to take a long hard gaze into Valerie’s urn. I’d never been close to fresh ashes before. I wondered again how she came to me last night when I’d never been anywhere near her dead body. I then silently asked her to come to me again tonight, if she could, to let me know more.

  Chapter 18

  Finsbury Park, North London

  Tuesday, April 6, 1993; 19.00

  As we walked past Blackstock Road’s dreary Irish pubs, sketchy Albanian cafés and over-lit kebab shops, Fintan insisted he could detect any urban drug-taking hot spot simply by checking out the local newsagents’.

  ‘Come on, I’ll show you,’ he said, leading me into a typically chaotic ‘news, booze and basics’ corner shop.

  Just a half-hour earlier, I’d called him with my theory that Valerie had spent her final days around Brownswood Road.

  ‘Let’s get down there and talk to the girls,’ he’d suggested excitedly. ‘If she did, then someone must know something.’

  Now he’d temporarily side-lined this mission to deliver a keynote lecture about ‘skankenomics’.

  ‘While I’m buying fags,’ he said, ‘check out the valuables locked away, somewhere near the till.’

  So I did, mentally listing the random items glinting under lock, key and the proprietor’s beady eye: fake roses in glass tubes; athletic socks; silver and gold spray paint cans; video head cleaner; shoelaces; spray cans of computer duster; cheap cigars; batteries and razor blades. I’d seen these items locked away in newsagents all over London countless times before, but never wondered why. On the way out, he lit up a cigarette and set about enlightening me.

  ‘The fake roses in the glass tubes? Junkies discard the flowers and use the vases as bongs. With their bulb ends, they’re ideal. Athletic socks provide the best nosebag for huffing spray paint. Silver and gold spray paint contain more solvent than others and provide a bett
er ‘high’.

  ‘Video head cleaner is amyl nitrate, a party popper that’s massive on the gay scene. Heroin junkies use shoelaces to tourniquet their arms. Those spray cans of computer duster don’t just contain air, as I’d thought, but a liquefied gas that people inhale direct from the nozzle. The cigars are known as blunts, you empty the insides and fill it with marijuana.’

  ‘What about the batteries and blades?’

  ‘They just happen to be the other most shoplifted items. Drugs are everywhere, Donal. Everyone is at it. They should just legalise all of it. If they did, then it would clean up somewhere like this overnight. Think about it, there’d be no profit for the dealers. The women wouldn’t be desperate for money so they wouldn’t have to sell themselves for sex. In the longer term, you could treat them, instead of pretending they don’t exist.’

  ‘Yeah, but you said yourself it’s a one-hit addiction. There’ll be nothing to stop anyone having a go and getting hooked. Jesus, next thing you’ve got half the population being fed their drugs of choice every day.’

  ‘Half the population is already addicted to drugs, Donal. Most of it prescribed by our doctors. Statins, blood-pressure tablets, anti-depressants, painkillers, sleeping tablets. Everyone has a drug, legal or otherwise, so we may as well legalise the lot and get on with it. Look at Mam. She’s been taking sleeping stuff for twenty odd years. Da’s a whiskey fiend. And where would you be without your two bottles of Shiraz a night? Jesus, I’m the only non-addict in the family.’

  ‘Right, so you don’t count your thirty-a-day cigarette habit?’

  ‘I don’t need fags to go to sleep, do I? Bottom line is, the law’s a joke. Crack is illegal, yet we can walk around the corner there and buy a rock at an inflated price and that profit goes straight to a criminal. Where’s the sense in that? Legalise it, you make it affordable. And you make it safer. It won’t be cut or laced with shit.’

  ‘I don’t know. It feels a bit like giving away free chocolate to kids.’

  ‘I know it’s difficult for your Catholic brain to compute, but we all have the power of choice and free will. No one’s going to make you go to a shooting gallery and mainline heroin.’