by Owen Mullen
‘So you say.’
I repeated the words slowly for effect. ‘That’s right. So I say, Colin. You calling me a liar? Because there’s nothing good down that road, trust me on this.’
Kenny listened to the exchange but didn’t contribute. Colin teetered on the brink, weighing whether it was worth a beating, in the end deciding it wasn’t and stepped away, anger draining from his bloated sweating jowls.
‘We have to be sure. You’d do the same.’
No, I wouldn’t.
‘As for guarantees… in our dog-eat-dog business...’ I allowed the sentence to peter out. ‘Let me ask you this, both of you. Apart from Luke Glass, who’s lost anything?’
They stared at me like the dimwits they were. Lucky dimwits, but dimwits nevertheless.
‘I’ll tell you, shall I? Nobody. Nobody’s lost a coin. And nobody will. From here on in, I’ll cover any shortfall. That’s a licence to print money. I’d take it, if I were you. Just know this is a one-time offer. Pass on it and you’re out. There’s no way back.’
People strolled beside the glorious houseboats in fantastical colours anchored all along the towpath. In Little Venice, the willow tree would still be casting its shade in the Basin and I wondered if the boy had caught anything. But I’d had enough of Kenny and Colin Bishop to last me a while, or at least till their cash was delivered in three days. I left them with their mouths hanging open, speechless probably for the first time in their contentious lives, and walked to the next exit up to the road.
Felix would be there. Guaranteed.
15
The Bishops were a hard act to follow. Bridie O’Shea managed it without breaking sweat.
We hadn’t arranged a time. There was no need. All day every day, Bridie was at the table in the back room of Kavanagh’s, the pub she’d inherited from her husband, playing a never-ending game of patience, with a bottle of O’Hara’s Irish Stout and a glass of ruby port and lemon sharing the limited space with a 50g tin of Amber Leaf, a packet of Rizla Blue, three mobile phones and a notebook. The door beyond the long bar would be permanently wedged open so she could glance up from the cards, stare through the haze of cigarette smoke hanging like a veil in the air around her and see what was occurring in her boozer.
But for all the public visibility, entering her presence was by invitation only. With fair hair greying at the roots, she looked like a dissolute grandmother, a casualty of mother’s ruin and Capstan Full Strength. In reality, she could buy and sell the lot of us if the notion took her.
How much I knew about her surprised me: the young Bridie had had no interest in the issues scarring her homeland. That changed when she caught the eye of Wolf Kavanagh, a man two decades older than her and a bomb-maker for the Provisionals, and followed him to England on Christmas Eve, 1972. She was seventeen and an avid pupil. Three months later, the IRA launched its first terror campaign in London with four car bombs. Two were defused, the other two – outside the Old Bailey and the Ministry of Agriculture – went off, injuring two hundred people. Ten arrests were made, including Gerry Kelly, Dolours Price and Marian Price as they boarded a Dublin-bound plane at Heathrow.
At heart, Bridie was a good Catholic girl; she didn’t sleep with Kavanagh until after they married in 1975. A faith that disallowed sexual intercourse out of wedlock with the man she loved nevertheless somehow found a place for the killing and maiming of women and children.
I didn’t get it.
Wolf Kavanagh gradually lost interest in the Cause and filled the gap with protection, prostitution and robbery with violence; he died of cirrhosis of the liver in 1982, leaving his widow a criminal enterprise run from the back room of the pub on Kilburn High Road.
And so it began.
By the time Tony Blair felt the hand of history upon his shoulder and signed the Good Friday Agreement on behalf of the British government in 1998, Bridie had reverted to her maiden name and been out of politics the better part of twenty years. Her values hadn’t altered; she’d never had any. Nowadays, her core objectives were simple: making money and making sure she didn’t miss a black ten on a red jack.
The Bishops had taken time from me I was never getting back. I didn’t have the energy for another confrontation. Felix didn’t ask what was wrong. Instinctively, he just drove. We were in Highgate before I told him to turn around. The anxiety in his voice too obvious to miss. ‘You all right, boss? You okay?’
The truth was complicated and uncomfortable so I lied. ‘I’m fine, Felix. Putting it together, one piece at a time.’
He nodded like he understood. If he did, he was doing better than me.
‘Where to?’
‘Kavanagh’s, Kilburn High Road.’
He knew who the pub belonged to and must’ve heard the ‘by invitation’ rule, because he said, ‘Expecting you, is she?’
‘Unfortunately, she is, Felix. Finnegan set it up.’
‘Where is Vincent?’
‘Ritchie’s got him keeping an eye on Nina.’
Felix would be counting his blessings. My sister was a gig everybody was keen to avoid.
I pushed the door of Kavanagh’s open. Heads turned in my direction and conversation stopped like a scene from a cowboy movie: strangers weren’t welcome in these here parts. The barman stared at me, red veins criss-crossing his face as though somebody had drawn a map of the London underground from memory. He fingered a scar on his left cheek that ran from Mile End to Tottenham Court Road, the skin dirty white and pinched where the repair had been botched. It was an old wound; he’d have been a young man when he acquired it. In the moment the blade bit into him and did its evil work there would’ve been no pain, just a warm, wet sensation, a delayed tingling in the severed nerves, then the devastating realisation he was forever changed. And it hadn’t ended there – three fingers were missing from his left hand.
In the far corner, a guy in a checked shirt and a bootlace tie was changing the strings on a guitar. I heard an ‘Oh, Lonesome Me’ coming and hoped to Christ I’d be gone before he started to sing.
I guessed Bridie’s office had been a storeroom: there was enough space for a table, two chairs, and not much else. Her fingers were thick, the cards in her left hand old and bent at the edges; when I came in, her eyes didn’t leave them.
‘Sit down. What’re you drinkin’? She paused and looked up. ‘Might as well be friendly. As my Wolf used to say, “If you can’t make a friend, don’t make an enemy.”’
‘Very wise.’
Bridie was wearing a lilac blouse over a black skirt that fell to the floor, and sandals. She’d been slim and pretty, once. Now, she was neither. But the spark Wolf Kavanagh had been drawn to burned still behind grey eyes. Those eyes had seen more than I ever would.
She placed the seven of hearts on the eight of clubs and laughed a tobacco laugh. ‘Maybe it is, and maybe it isn’t. All I can tell you is I never met a more argumentative man than Wolf Kavanagh. Cause a row in an empty house so he would, and that’s the God’s truth.’
She ran the letters together to make one word: Godstruth.
‘But he was smart enough to marry you.’
Her eyelashes fluttered; grey eyes met mine, wary and suspicious. ‘So that how it’s goin’ to be, is it? Talkin’ shite to an old woman. Flatterin’ her to get your way. A typical man.’
I leaned closer. ‘Will it work?’
Bridie laughed again. ‘Well, it’s worth a try.’
The hand was a bust. She recorded the failure in the notebook, swept the cards into the centre and shuffled like a Mississippi riverboat queen.
‘When I was seven years old, my grandfather told me a lie. Thought I was too young and wouldn’t notice. Men have been lyin’ to me ever since.’ She changed the subject. ‘How did you get on with them Bishops? Enjoy your walk along the canal, did you?’
This lady was the best-informed woman in London without leaving her cubbyhole. And I recalled that in 1973, when they arrested Dolours and Marian Price getting on the pla
ne, our Bridie hadn’t been with them: a teenager fresh off the boat, yet even then she’d been smarter than everybody else.
‘I shouldn’t be askin’. It’s none of my bloody business.’
I sensed the barman behind me in at the door and answered her original question.
‘Lager by the neck.’
She raised an eyebrow. ‘Not whiskey? With the weekend you’re havin’?’
‘The whisky I drink doesn’t have an e in it.’
‘Then more fool you.’
‘As for Kenny and Colin, they’re… an interesting pair.’
She snorted. ‘Interestin’ my arse. A couple of eejits is what they are. Blow on them hard enough, they’ll fall over. Includin’ them in anythin’ is a mistake, as you’ve no doubt discovered.’
Ash fell from her cigarette onto the table; she flicked it to the floor.
‘Your man said you wanted to talk.’ She meant Vincent Finnegan. ‘Did you imagine sendin’ a broken-down rebel with the message would make a difference? Maybe we’d have a few jars and talk about the old days?’
Bridie leaned towards me and broke into ‘Sean South of Garryowen’. Singing it like a secret. Mocking me. Telling me I’d misjudged her and not to do it again. Then, she stopped, her lips curled, her voice changed and she said, ‘I was out of that bloody fiasco before he’d thrown his first rock at a soldier on the Falls Road and run away to boast about it to his wee pals.’
‘Vincent Finnegan wasn’t always a cripple. In his day—’
She cut into my history lesson. ‘What do you want from me, Mr Glass?’
Her directness was a stark contrast with the cousins. ‘We took a hit on Friday night. It was bad, Bridie.’
‘Tell me somethin’ new.’
I started to speak. She held up her hand, her accent thickening with annoyance. ‘You’re about to say it’s under control, I see it on your face. Don’t. Because that’ll make you the same as every man I’ve ever met: a feckin’ liar. And it would mean we’ll never be friends. That would be a shame.’
She was offering me a chance to level with her. Before I could respond, a glass and a bottle of McGrath’s clinked on the table. Up close, the barman’s eyes were yellowed, the scar a white worm on his dark cheek. I handed the glass back to him. ‘By the neck means I don’t want this.’
When he’d gone, Bridie said, ‘Niall’s in a bad way.’
‘I can see he is. What’s wrong with him?’
She shrugged. ‘Same as Wolf. The drink’s done him in.’
‘What happened to his face?’
‘The same as happened to his hand.’
We were quiet until I said, ‘I’m not here to lie. I’m here to ask you not to pull out of our arrangement.’
‘If you valued my support so highly, why leave me to last?’
Moisture frosted the surface of the bottle, condensing into beads that raced each other to the bottom. I picked up the lager and drank half of it down. Her question was valid, but I’d anticipated it. ‘First, the Bishops are easily rattled, you’re not. Second, the stolen money belonged to Jonas Small. Will that do?’
Bridie was on a roll: a red seven went to a black eight; the three of clubs landed on the four of diamonds; she snapped the nine of hearts onto the ten of spades, smoke trailing from the forgotten cigarette in the ashtray at her elbow. She remembered and lifted it to her lips but didn’t put it in her mouth till she’d said what she had to say.
‘I gave up botherin’ what other people did a long time since. Our deal stands. For now.’
‘Appreciated. Thanks.’
She downed the port and shook her head. ‘Don’t thank me too soon. That’s a yet, not a never. The problem you’re facin’ is bigger than you imagine.’
‘What’re you hearing?’
Bridie ignored me and redirected her attention to the cards. I’d had as much as she was prepared to give. The seat scraped the floor when I pushed it back. As I turned to leave, she grabbed my wrist in her meaty fingers. ‘Are you a gambler, Mr Glass?’
‘Are you?’
She smiled into the past and through the smoke I caught a glimpse of the Donegal girl who’d followed a man into the heart of a hostile country, rosary beads in one hand, an Armalite in the other.
‘If I hadn’t been, Wolf would’ve had no use for me. Fertiliser bombs are unpredictable bastards. Take the bloody hands off you, so they will.’ Bridie lowered her voice, although there was only her and me in the room. ‘I’m willin’ to bet this pub and everythin’ in it, Jonas Small had a proposition for you, would I be right?’
She didn’t need me to tell her so I didn’t.
‘If it’s a proposition you’re after, I might have one myself.’
‘LBC isn’t for sale.’
‘Pleased to hear it. But don’t be too quick to turn me down. You might regret it.’
I didn’t ask and she didn’t explain, which was good because whatever she had in mind, the answer was still no. Cleaning their dirty money was the only bed-sharing I was interested in with these people.
She raised her glass of stout in a toast. ‘If you can’t make a friend, don’t make an enemy.’
‘A nice philosophy.’
She wrote a mobile number in the notebook, tore the page out and thrust it towards me. ‘It is, it is. Except, sometimes… and this is the Godstruth… it just can’t be avoided.’
Out on Kilburn High Road, Felix was behind the wheel. In two days, I’d been face to face with the biggest names in the London underworld.
Bridie O’Shea was the best of them.
But like everybody else, she had an angle.
16
Elise Stanford only had to admire something and Oliver made sure she got it. In the early years her wants had been modest: a birthday present of a brooch with diamonds so tiny you needed a magnifying glass to see them, a new washing machine and tumble dryer, delivered the same afternoon the old one packed in or, on one memorable occasion, a puppy she’d spotted in a pet-shop window; a cute little mongrel with a button nose. They’d had Suzie for a decade. When she died, Elise had cried herself to sleep. Nowadays, it was Botox in Harley Street, holidays in the Caribbean – last time they’d chartered a yacht with its own crew all to themselves – and a personal trainer to help keep the figure he loved so much trim and supple.
Not every woman was so lucky, and while other wives complained to each other about the men they’d married, Elise let them get on with it.
When they met, Oliver Stanford was at the start of his career in the Met, young and handsome, full of plans for their future together and how great it was going to be. Elise had believed him and he’d been right.
But her wonderful life came at a price: Oliver was gone when she woke up in the morning and often wasn’t back until late. Sometimes, especially with the girls not at home, she was lonely. More than once, Elise had been sure he was having an affair. He’d laughed when she accused him of being unfaithful, scolded her for being so silly. It was the demands of the job, he’d said: first to arrive and last to leave, the only way to stay on top and the reason he’d risen so high in the ranks.
She was the wife of Superintendent Stanford, in case she’d forgotten, and he wasn’t finished.
Far from it.
Saturday had been fun until that bastard Glass arrived and spoiled it. For the rest of the afternoon, Oliver had been withdrawn and when their guests had left she’d said, ‘Darling, do you really have to speak to these people yourself? I don’t like the idea of them coming to the house. Couldn’t you delegate it to one of your detectives?’
‘I could. Of course, I could. But talking to them face to face means I know when they’re lying to me.’
Oliver’s way of saying no.
On Monday morning, it was still dark outside when she heard him tiptoe across the bedroom floor as he always did so as not to disturb her. Elise’s eyes fluttered; she sighed, rolled over and returned to the perfect world her husband had created.
Stanford showered and went downstairs. His life was ordered – how he liked it. He was too old for surprises. Every day began the same: two cups of decaffeinated coffee, two slices of lightly toasted bread thinly spread with butter, then a walk with the dogs before driving into the city, missing the worst of the traffic because he was so early.
He took a bite out of the toast and washed it down with coffee: almost forty hours later and he still wasn’t right. Luke Glass hadn’t wasted a sunny afternoon coming all the way to Hendon just to say hello – he’d needed a scapegoat and decided Stanford was it. The deal they’d had since his brother bowed out was working well. Danny had been a psychopath. Luke was less reactive, more measured. At least, he had been. Showing up unannounced was new. Something inside Stanford had snapped when he’d seen him standing by the side of the house – his house – watching Elise, watching their friends.
Who the hell did he think he was?
Glass was blaming him for what happened to his businesses. Wrong. There had been nothing about the attacks on the streets. Not so much as a whisper, otherwise he would’ve warned him and he would’ve been prepared. The gangster wasn’t thinking straight. Shotguns with Liverpool accents, he’d said it himself: out-of-towners, down for a quick scoff and home.
Fuck all to do with the capital. Fuck all to do with him. Everything to do with Luke Glass.
And yes, the bastard had a point: he should’ve contacted him, even if there was nothing to tell, because, at the end of the day, he was a Glass – capable of almost any bloody thing.
The nightclub was the star of his criminal empire. Anything involving LBC had the potential to ruin Stanford; he intended keeping a close eye on how this – whatever it was – turned out. You never could tell what was in the future. If somebody was set on bringing the gangster down, changing horses was an option. Meantime, he’d do what Glass wanted. Not for him. Not for that bastard. For himself; he’d too much invested, involved too many of his contacts, for it to go belly up now.
