The second instalment of one hundred thousand pounds he was expecting in his account made the future appear very rosy for him although he had begun to wonder if he was under suspicion from Tomachek, never mind those bastards Thoroughgood and Hardie. A subordinate had tipped him off that Hardie had been sniffing about the CHIS Unit trying to find out the identity of the informant who had housed Frankie Brennan for him, and of course there was nobody registered.
At the meeting with ACC Cousins, Tomachek had gone out of his way to make sure he knew all the details concerning the safe house, and it was that over-elaboration which had ensured Declan Meechan had not gone on the abortive raid on the King’s Stables, and just as well. But what could they prove? Once Meechan and Celine were gone there was nothing and no one left to point a finger at him, he thought.
Farrell took another mouthful of G&T. He checked his watch: Celine had been gone five minutes. He placed the G&T on the mantelpiece and decided it was time to hurry her up, but the sound of the door bell interrupted his train of thought. Farrell wondered if Thoroughgood had made it back already; if so, he had some talking to do.
Making his way out into the hall, he walked up to the door. The lens in the peephole meant he had to take off his treasured glasses and when he looked through the glazing, relief swept over him as he saw his worst fears had not been realised. It was not Thoroughgood on the steps outside the door, but an insignificant sort in a navy blue suit. He opened the door, immediately putting his glasses back on, and saw it was a black-haired male in his early thirties clutching a Bible under his arm, his dog collar evident at the top of his navy jacket.
Ah, pissing priest, thought Farrell dismissively. But this priest was different. In his left hand he held a handgun with a silencer snugly fitted on to the barrel, and now it was pointing straight at Farrell’s forehead.
“Time to meet your maker, Lazarus,” said the priest.
Farrell didn’t even have the time to admonish himself for his stupidity before the bullet was pumped into his forehead at point-blank range. He crumpled on the steps, his life immediately extinguished.
O’Driscoll bent down and hauled Farrell’s body into the hall. That was the easy bit. Now came the part he had almost baulked at when Meechan had issued him instructions over the phone. He had always thought Meechan was essentially the most ruthless gangster he had ever come across, and that included his IRA associates. After the brief telephone conversation he had absolutely no doubt that was the case.
He checked the downstairs rooms systematically, calmly and quietly, but his ears soon picked up the sound of a wardrobe door closing upstairs. Slowly he climbed the stairs, the handgun with the fitted silencer clasped in his left hand and hanging down at his side. He reached the first floor landing and as he took a step, a floorboard creaked from under the carpet runner. The noises coming from the master bedroom across the hall stopped, and the door opened.
Mother Mary, thought O’Driscoll, she’s a beauty all right.
Celine had heard the footsteps coming up the stairs and assumed it was Farrell come to tell her to get a move on; there was no way she was going to let some creepy little copper on the take bully her. She opened the door resolved to let him know he had no right to come barging upstairs.
“I thought I told you I’d …” her words trailed off when she saw the man in the navy blue suit with the dog collar and the jet black hair.
A hint of warning shot through her mind and she placed it. Wasn’t it a priest who had murdered Gary Reid, the man Gus had told her Meechan had hired, known from his days in the IRA before he made the crossing from Belfast to Glasgow? It meant only one thing: Meechan knew she had betrayed him. Celine felt herself freezing, framed in the doorway, her heart pounded and her body was wreathed in a cold clammy sweat. Her eyes locked with those of the male and she thought she noticed a hint of sorrow in those eyes.
“Has Declan sent you?”
He nodded and then he spoke.
“I’m sorry.”
The bullet thudded home, straight into her heart. She collapsed on the landing. O’Driscoll walked over to her body, placed the pistol to her head and pulled the trigger. There was no place for mistakes, no room for sentiment in his line of work but by God, at that moment, he had to apply every shred of detachment he possessed to keep it that way.
He stood up and took a step away, pulling the silencer off the barrel of his handgun and looked down at the beautiful contorted face in front of him.
My God, thought O’Driscoll, how could Meechan live with himself? Still, business was business.
Hardie hammered the Mazda, foot to the floor at every opportunity, desperately trying to get to Tara as quickly as possible. As the vehicle flew along Strathblane Road, passing Milngavie Reservoir on its left, the only sound that could be heard inside was deafening silence. McNab, Hardie and Thoroughgood all had no doubts at the reason behind Farrell’s appearance at Tara, and they knew time was against them.
They reached the Mugdock turn-off and passed a purple Mondeo as it pulled out onto the main road. So intent were they on reaching their destination, the raven-haired male driving the vehicle and wearing the clergyman’s dog collar escaped their notice. Within minutes they reached Tara’s open gates and Hardie accelerated through them and up the driveway, skidding to a halt that threw a shale of chuckies up in the air.
Hardie noticed the front door was slightly open, as had Thoroughgood, and before either McNab or Hardie could say anything, he threw open the passenger door and sprinted through the oak doors of Declan Meechan’s mansion. As they followed him they heard Thoroughgood shout one word:
“Celine!”
The elements of despair, torture and sheer hopelessness in that haunted single word would stay with Hardie, he knew, until the day he died.
In through the open door they ran, noticing the red gelatinous liquid sticking to the steps; both of them had enough experience to realise that this could mean only one thing. Death was inside.
The sight of Farrell’s body propped up against the banister at the bottom of the stair, and the telltale circular black scorch mark synonymous with a point-blank shot to the forehead was evident, but the last thing either Hardie or McNab had expected to see. McNab was first to put his thoughts into words:
“Jesus H Christ, what the fuck does this mean?”
Realisation dawned on Hardie, as his mind struggled to dissect and then associate the information his eyes had relayed to it on the way in to Tara:
“It means we’re way too fuckin’ late.”
McNab was incredulous.
“Meechan has set up Farrell? What about Celine?”
The look on Hardie’s baggy features was one completely without hope. They both knew the answer to that question.
“I think we’d better get our arses upstairs, Gus is going to need us.”
They climbed the stairs in stony silence, Hardie first; they could already hear the sobbing coming from above. Sitting on the landing floor cradling Celine in his arms was Thoroughgood, too distraught to notice the arrival of his colleagues. Over and over he repeated one word;
“No, no, no.”
“My God,” said McNab.
Hardie seared him with a withering look.
“Why don’t you radio for back-up and an ambulance and then you’d better call Tomachek,” he added pointedly, “from downstairs. While you’re at it, Meechan has a drinks cabinet in the lounge, I think we need three large brandies quick.”
McNab nodded his head, unable to take his eyes off the broken figure of Thoroughgood holding the lifeless corpse of the woman he had always loved but never had the chance to love. Rocking back and forward, all the time he held her head next to his in a world all of his own. A world that McNab could not, and had no wish to comprehend.
Slowly he turned and walked down the stairs.
Hardie circled around Thoroughgood. Facing his friend and colleague, he knew there were no words in his or anyone else’s vocabulary that c
ould bring solace to Thoroughgood and instead he placed his hand on his shoulder.
“Come on, Gus, you’ve got to let her go. It’s over.”
Thoroughgood looked at him his eyes glazed.
“How can it be over before it has even begun?”
Malone pulled into the small side road leading into one of the vast forests that chequered the road north to Crianlarich and opened the rear of the Daimler estate, sliding the coffin out onto its supporting shelf and edging the lid open. Meechan’s face smiled up from underneath.
“We’re here, I take it?”
Malone nodded his head in the affirmative.
“Yes, Declan.”
Twenty minutes later a purple Mondeo pulled into the same side of the road and a jet-haired male jumped out. Meechan did likewise and led O’Driscoll away from the vehicles, for the conversation they were about to have was for no one else’s ears.
“It’s done then?” asked Meechan.
O’Driscoll met his friend’s eyes and held them and Meechan could see the reproach burning in them.
“Yes, Declan, it is done; all your loose ends are tied up.”
Looking down, he checked his watch.
“Now, if we are going to catch our Russian friends on the trawler we’d better get cracking.”
O’Driscoll started to turn away in the direction of the Mondeo. He was stopped by Meechan’s grip, and slowly in the semi-dark he turned back.
“Tell me, Brendan, how did she die?”
O’Driscoll’s face was almost blank, bar a semblance of what Meechan thought was perhaps contempt. Barely audible, he spoke:
“Declan, my friend, there are some questions that should never be asked,” and O’Driscoll walked away.
Parallel Lines Page 33
