Begging to Die

by Graham Masterton

  They waited almost a minute, but the door remained closed, and eventually Detective Markey pressed the bell button a second time. While the chimes were still playing, the door was flung open and Eamon Buckley was standing there, bald but unshaven, dressed in a sleeveless vest and a baggy pair of green corduroy trousers.

  He was huge. He filled up almost the entire doorway. He had an overhanging forehead with deep-set eyes buried underneath it and a jutting jaw like an Easter Island monument. His shoulders and upper arms were writhing with tattoos, mostly dragons and snakes, but a GAA badge, too.

  ‘If you’re after selling something, I don’t want it,’ he said in a thick, raspy voice. ‘And if you’re debt collectors come about the car you can go and feck yourselves, the pair of you.’

  Both detectives took out their ID cards. ‘Detective Markey and Detective Scanlan, from Anglesea Street Garda Station,’ said Detective Markey.

  ‘Oh yeah? Well, if some skanger’s told you that I give them a dawk, I never.’

  ‘Nobody’s complained about you assaulting them, Mr Buckley. But one of your customers found a gold ring in a portion of beef mince that you sold her, and we’re interested to know how it might have found its way there.’

  ‘What? What’s their name, this customer?’

  ‘We’re not at liberty to tell you, sir. All we need to know is where the ring might have come from. For instance, could one of your assistants have dropped it in the mince by accident?’

  ‘I have only the one assistant and he don’t wear rings. And I don’t wear rings neither. This is shite, this is. This is some gouger trying to get compo, that’s what this is. I’ve had it before. They say they’ve found a dead wazzer in their tripe or a mouse’s tail in their drisheen. Mind you, they’ve only fecking eaten it all before they discovered that there was anything wrong with it, so there’s never any fecking evidence, like.’

  ‘That’s as may be,’ said Detective Scanlan. ‘But we’d appreciate it if you’d come down to Shandon Street and open up the shop for us, so that our technical experts can carry out a few tests.’

  Eamon Buckley stared at Detective Scanlan with his beady near-together eyes as if she had suggested that he should drop his trousers, come out into his front garden and dance the High-Cauled Cap for them.

  ‘Open up the shop? I will in my fecking gonkapouch, girl. The shop’s closed Wednesdays. Now you can feck off and leave me in peace. I don’t know nothing about no ring and to tell you the truth I don’t give a shite.’

  With that, he slammed the door shut, leaving Detective Markey and Detective Scanlan staring at each other, half in surprise and half in amusement.

  Detective Markey pressed the doorbell again. There was no response, so he pressed it again, and again. After the third chiming of ‘My Wild Irish Rose’, though, Eamon Buckley shouted out, ‘Feck off before I have you for harassment!’

  Detective Scanlan stepped right up to the front door and called out, ‘Mr Buckley! It’s no use at all your refusing to co-operate! We have a District Court warrant to search your shop, can you hear me? If you don’t open it up for us, we’ll have to open it by force and any damage that’s done you’ll have to pay for yourself!’

  There was a lengthy silence. After a while, the front door opened again and Eamon Buckley stood there, glowering at them.

  Detective Scanlan stepped back, but then she reached into her jacket, took out the warrant, and held it up in front of him. ‘This is it, Mr Buckley. You can read it for yourself if you want to. Signed by Judge Gráinne Devins in person.’

  ‘Okay, girl, whatever,’ Eamon Buckley growled at her. ‘Stall it there for a couple of minutes while I put on my coat and my boots. This is a fecking liberty, this is. I don’t know nothing about no fecking ring. It’s a scam, that’s what it is. I’m being persamacuted.’

  While Eamon Buckley went inside to finish dressing, Detective Markey rang the Technical Bureau and told them to meet him and Detective Scanlan outside the butcher’s shop. After nearly ten minutes, Eamon Buckley came out wearing a tight-fitting Crombie overcoat with a moth-eaten velvet collar and a dark brown knitted hat like a tea cosy.

  ‘I fecking warn you,’ he said, as he followed them down the garden path, ‘I’ll be after complaining to Mick Nugent about this.’ Mick Nugent was the Sinn Féin councillor for Cork City North West. Detective Markey said nothing, but opened the back door of their Vectra for him and stood patiently waiting while he squeezed himself in.

  They drove down to Shandon Street by way of Redemption Road. Eamon Buckley reeked of stale cigarettes and every now and then he snorted with a catarrhal thump. None of them spoke. Detective Scanlan didn’t even want to breathe the same air as him, let alone talk.

  They parked outside his shop and once he had heaved himself out of the car Eamon Buckley took out a jangling bunch of keys that would have done justice to a jailer. He opened up the door and led the two detectives inside. The shop was chilly and dark and smelled of stale blood and bleach. Eamon Buckley let up the blinds and then stood in front of the empty glass display counter with his arms folded.

  ‘Well, go on, then,’ he said. ‘Search all you like, but I can tell you for nothing that whatever you’re looking for you won’t find it.’

  ‘I think we’ll be the judges of that, sir,’ said Detective Scanlan.

  They waited uncomfortably for a few more minutes and then a Technical Bureau van drew up outside. Three technicians climbed out, two men and a woman, and one of the men gave them a cheery salute through the window. Once the technicians had pulled on their white Tyvek suits, they came rustling into the shop like three noisy ghosts, lugging their shiny aluminium cases of forensic equipment and a Lumatec ultraviolet lamp.

  ‘How’re you going on?’ the woman technician asked the two detectives. Then she turned to Eamon Buckley and said, ‘Are you the owner of this shop, sir?’

  ‘What of it?’ he retorted.

  ‘Well – we’ll be here for several hours yet,’ she told him, looking around. ‘There’s no need for you to stay. In fact, we’d prefer it if you left us to crack on without you being here. We can lock up for you when we’ve finished, if you can give us the key.’

  ‘If I leave you here by yourselves, how can I be sure that you won’t be planting some evidence?’ Eamon Buckley demanded. ‘Like maybe some blood you’ve brought with you, or somebody’s chopped-off fingers, so that you can leave prints all over the shop.’

  ‘Jesus, I should have thought of that, shouldn’t I?’ said the woman technician. ‘Serious, though, sir, we have a rake of genuine evidence from other investigations to be dealing with. We’re up the walls with it. We don’t need to be inventing any.’

  She pointed to the cold-room door at the rear of the shop. ‘I’m assuming you have a fair amount of meat stored in the back there?’

  ‘What the feck do you think I have in there? Christmas trees? I’m a fecking butcher, aren’t I? Of course there’s fecking meat in there.’

  ‘Sure, like. It’s just that I have to advise you that we may be taking samples of meat away with us so that we can carry out more extensive tests in our laboratory. We’ll provide you with a full list of what we’ve removed.’

  ‘And you’ll be paying me for it, won’t you? Because I won’t be able to sell it once you’ve been messing around with it. The eye of the round, that’s fifteen euros the kilo, and fillet steak, the piece, that’s thirty-eight euros. And I only take cash.’

  Detective Markey said, ‘How about giving us the key, Mr Buckley, and then we can drive you back home.’

  Eamon Buckley hesitated for a moment, but then he took out his massive bunch of keys and used his thumbnail to prise the shop key off its ring. Once he had grudgingly handed it over to the woman technician, Detective Scanlan said, ‘Let’s be out the gap, shall we, Mr Buckley, and let these good people get on.’ She ushered him out through the door, while Detective Markey stayed behind to have a brief conversation with the three technicians.


  Outside on the pavement, Eamon Buckley snorted again, and coughed, and spat, and then he beckoned to Detective Scanlan and said, ‘C’mere till I tell you something.’

  Detective Scanlan was looking at her iPhone to see if she had been sent any new texts.

  ‘What’s on your mind?’ she asked him.

  He leaned close to her, and spoke in a harsh, soft voice, glancing over her shoulder from time to time as if he were making sure that nobody else could hear him.

  ‘I’ll tell you what’s on my mind. I don’t know what the feck you think you’re looking for, but there’s nothing for you to find, like I told you, and if you do find something, whatever it is, then it’s a fecking fit-up. So what I’m telling you is, if you do find something, you’ll need to be doggy wide, girl, twenty-four/seven. I’m one of the best butchers in Cork, do you know what I mean, and there’s nothing I don’t know about cutting up pigs and sheep and cows, and a woman detective wouldn’t be too much different. Except for the fun bags, maybe.’

  Detective Scanlan stared at him for a few seconds, her heart beating fast. When she answered him, her throat had tightened up, but she did everything she could to sound professional and unimpressed.

  ‘Let me tell you something, Mr Buckley. Making a threat to kill or cause serious harm to a garda is a criminal offence. I could arrest you for what you’ve just said, and you could be sent to prison for a maximum of ten years, or have to pay a fine of fifteen hundred euros. But then you know that perfectly well already, don’t you?’

  Eamon Buckley raised both of his huge hands. ‘What the feck are you on about, girl? I never said a word. Not a single fecking word. Prove that I did, go on! Arrest me if you want to, and take me to court, and I’ll tell the judge that you’re lying through your teeth and I never said nothing.’

  He leaned close to her again. He gave her a grin that bared his snaggled, tobacco-stained teeth, and then he lasciviously licked his lips. ‘Some cuts are juicier than others, did you know that? Rump, or flange.’

  Detective Markey came out of the shop. ‘Ready to go?’ he said. Then, seeing Detective Scanlan’s expression, ‘What’s the form, Pad? What’s going on here?’

  ‘Nothing at all,’ said Eamon Buckley. ‘We was just discussing the desperate high price of bodice, wasn’t we, girl?’

  Detective Scanlan opened the Vectra’s rear door and said, ‘Get in.’

  Eamon Buckley climbed in, still grinning at her, and Detective Scanlan slammed the door.

  ‘What’s the story?’ Detective Markey asked her.

  ‘It’s nothing. He threatened me, that’s all.’

  ‘The gobshite. We could haul him in for that.’

  ‘Forget it, Nick. He doesn’t scare me. What’s he going to do, strangle me with a string of sausages?’

  Detective Markey looked at Eamon Buckley sitting in the back seat and Eamon Buckley winked at him and gave him a thumb’s up, as if to say, I know what she’s telling you, and believe me I mean it.

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Detective Markey. ‘It kind of depends how that ring ended up in that mince, wouldn’t you think?’

  11

  It was nearly four o’clock before Conor rang her.

  ‘Katie?’ he said. He sounded stuffed-up, as if his nose were blocked. ‘You’re not in a meeting or anything, are you?’

  ‘Jesus, Con, where have you been? I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for hours. I was beginning to think you’d had an accident.’

  ‘I have in a way. I’m in the emergency room at CUH. I can’t speak now because they’re just about to take me through for an X-ray.’

  He paused, and Katie heard him grunt in pain. Then he said, ‘I was given a bit of a beating up at Foggy Fields. I’ll tell you about it later.’

  ‘What? No, you won’t. I’ll come over there right now.’

  ‘Listen, you don’t have to. It’s not life-threatening. I can still drive, so I’ll see you this evening when you get home.’

  ‘Don’t argue, Con. I’m coming over. I’ll see you in fifteen minutes, if not sooner.’

  Katie told Moirin that she was going to CUH, then she buttoned up her dark green hooded coat and hurried downstairs. As she was crossing the reception area she met Detective Sergeant Begley, who was carrying a plastic bag that smelled strongly of Chinese takeaway.

  ‘Late lunch, Sean?’ she asked him, taking out her car keys.

  ‘I was coming up to see you once I’d had a bite to eat,’ he told her. ‘Garda Brogan rang me.’

  ‘Brogan? He was one of the officers who found that homeless fellow dead outside the Savoy Centre this morning, wasn’t he?’

  ‘That’s right. I’d asked him to call me if any other beggar had taken his place. And sure enough, they had already. Talk about jumping into a dead man’s shoes.’

  He set his bag down carefully on the floor, took out his iPhone and flicked it until he found what he was looking for. ‘There,’ he said, passing it over to Katie. ‘That’s your man.’

  Garda Brogan had sent him a photograph of the beggar who was now sitting in the doorway where Gearoid Ó Beargha had died. He was a scrawny young man with a prominent nose and blond hair tied in a man-bun on top of his head. He was wearing a dirty bronze quilted anorak and a sad-looking grey mongrel was lying on his blanket next to him. Propped up next to him was a cardboard sign saying, No Work Please Generos.

  ‘Brogan spoke to him. He said he was a coffin-maker and that he had come from Romania looking for work, but he hadn’t yet been able to find anybody who would employ him.’

  ‘A coffin-maker? That’s fierce appropriate. But don’t tell me there aren’t enough people dying in Romania to keep him in business back home. They have a measles epidemic there, don’t they?’

  ‘Who knows? Maybe the Romanian undertakers don’t pay as well as ours do, over here. Brogan said he spoke reasonable English and when he asked him for his papers, he showed him his Romanian ID card, and that was all in order.’

  ‘So what did he do then?’

  ‘Nothing. Let him be, like you told us. I’d briefed Brogan that if he found anybody he wasn’t to move them on, and not to give them any cause to think that we might be checking up on them, like, to see if they were part of some organized begging ring.’

  ‘Good work,’ said Katie. ‘But make sure we keep him under constant observation from the CCTV. If anybody comes up to talk to him like they know him, get in touch with me at once. I want to see what they look like. By the way – what about the footage of our deceased fellow, what’s his name, Gearoid? Any results from that yet?’

  ‘The lads upstairs are still scanning through that now, ma’am. Your man settled himself down to sleep real early yesterday evening, about half-past eight, so it could take them three or four hours before they find anything, even if they speed it up. Are you away out now?’

  ‘I’m off to the Wilton Hilton. I’m not sure how long I’m going to be.’

  ‘Okay, but I’ll text you if anything interesting comes up.’

  ‘Thanks. Now away with you and have your lunch. You don’t want your chow mein going cold.’

  *

  She arrived at the emergency room just as Conor was being wheeled in from the X-ray department. She was shocked by how badly he had been beaten up, and if it hadn’t been for his chestnut beard she hardly would have recognized him. His face was monstrously bruised, black and red and swollen, and a large white dressing was stuck across his nose with adhesive plasters. His left eye was almost closed, like an overripe aubergine, and his lips on the left side of his mouth were puffed up and split and crusted with scabs.

  The porter pushed his trolley into one of the cubicles and tugged the blue curtain across to give them some privacy.

  ‘Holy Mother of God, Con,’ said Katie, taking hold of Conor’s hand. ‘Who did this to you?’

  ‘It was my own fault, Katie,’ he told her, in that stuffed-up voice. ‘I was being too nosy, as usual.’

  ‘Con, look at t
he state of you. What on earth happened?’

  ‘I went up to Foggy Fields puppy farm. I told the McQuaide sisters that I wanted to buy a pug puppy for my daughter.’

  ‘What? What daughter? You never told me you had a daughter.’

  ‘I don’t of course. I wanted them to incriminate themselves out of their own mouths, that’s all, and they did. They offered to sell me a pug that was only three weeks old – far too young to be taken away from its mother. It looked pure sick, too.’

  He stopped suddenly, clamped his hand over his mouth, hesitated, and then retched.

  ‘What’s the matter?’ Katie asked him. ‘Do you want me to call for a nurse?’

  Conor took a deep breath and then he shook his head. ‘No, you’re all right. I’ve been gawking so much I don’t have any gawk left in me. Give me a moment.’

  ‘You have to tell me who did this to you, darling. I’ll have them hauled in and charged with assault. They’ll get time for doing this.’

  ‘You can’t. It was my own fault, like I told you. I went around the back of the farm to take a sneaky look inside one of their puppy-breeding sheds.’

  ‘You went inside one of the McQuaide sisters’ sheds without asking their permission?’

  Conor nodded. ‘I was about to take some pictures when this sham-feen the size of Tyson Fury came busting in and caught me at it. I can take care of myself, usually, but I didn’t stand a chance against this fellow. He slapped me and kicked me all over the shop.’

  He paused and swallowed, and then he said, ‘You should have seen it in that shed, Katie. It’s like hell on earth for those poor breeding bitches, and their puppies, too. Hell on earth.’

  ‘I’m sure that it is, Con, and I know how desperate you are to stop this puppy farming, but you were trespassing, for the love of God.’

  ‘I know. But how else was I going to get evidence against them? They wouldn’t have let me take a look voluntarily, like, would they?’

  Katie dragged over a plastic chair and sat down. She felt both sympathetic and exasperated. She didn’t want to make Conor feel any worse, because it was obvious that he was in pain, but he had risked his freedom for the sake of those puppies.