by Ted Tayler
“That should bring a smile to Henry’s face at least,” said Athena. “I’m sure he’s smitten by her, although where his head was at this morning, who knows?”
Silence fell on the room again. Phoenix was drifting off to sleep. He felt dog-tired, and no mistake. He shook his head and stood.
“Let’s take Hope for a walk. We’ll need to get wrapped up against this wind and rain. If we do it in stages, we can make it to the orangery, then wait for the next shower to blow through. Then we can dart over to the swimming pool via the ice-house entrance. An hour playing with her in the shallow end, taking turns to swim lengths on our own, will serve us better than lazing around here.”
“Translated, that means Daddy wants time alone to think, Hope,” said Athena to their daughter, who knew when a smile was required, and obliged.
“You know me so well, darling,” said Phoenix.
“I’m learning,” replied Athena. “Let’s face whatever the weather or the future throws at us. Together we’re a match for anything.”
CHAPTER 2
Wednesday, 23rd April 2014
Hugo Hanigan breakfasted alone in his penthouse in London. A panoramic view of the financial heart of the capital greeted him through his window every morning.
By the early nineteenth century, London replaced Amsterdam as the world's leading financial centre. For two centuries, it had been a major centre of lending and investment. During the second half of the twentieth century, it played an important role in the development of new financial products such as Eurobonds in the Sixties.
English contract law was adopted in many markets for international finance, with legal services provided in London, and financial institutions located there provided global services. Names such as Lloyd's of London for insurance and the Baltic Exchange for shipping were world-famous.
London continued to hold a leading position as a financial centre and maintained the largest trade surplus in financial services around the world. Like New York, it faced new competitors including fast-rising eastern financial centres such as Hong Kong and Shanghai.
When Hugo first arrived from Dublin in 2005, as Ardal James Hannon, there were already major changes underway. New products such as derivatives launched in the Nineties were ripe for exploitation. His first-class honours degree in Finance opened many doors. His innate instinct for the right path to choose served him well for a decade.
London continued to be the largest centre for derivatives markets. The minefield that covers futures, contracts, or options. Whether exchange-traded or over-the-counter derivatives he set his mind to, the Irishman excelled in turning a profit.
In the last four years, since leaving his old haunts in Cricklewood, to become Hugo Hanigan, he had amassed a huge fortune. He found success in both the foreign exchange markets, and in trading in gold, silver and base metals.
London benefited from its position between the Asian and American time zones, and from its location within the European Union. If an angle existed that could turn an extra pound, then Hugo found it and worked it until the well ran dry. He had few friends in the City; they thought him arrogant, he couldn’t have agreed more. They believed him to be lucky, but they were wrong. Hugo Hanigan never relied on luck.
If others got their fingers burned by picking the wrong options to back, or by staying too long in a specialised market, that was their problem. Hugo never overstayed his welcome, nor did he back any worthless schemes. That wasn’t luck. Hugo called it prudent management. He never mentioned the assistance he gained from the occasional well-placed bribe.
Hugo always identified the right person to contact and paid well for his insider information. He never took the chance he might lose money on a product. He had to cover every angle to ensure he continued to thrive. The fortune he amassed vital to support The Grid and his ambitions for what it might achieve.
Hugo never worried over anybody reporting him to the authorities with suspicions over how he conducted his business. There might be a handful of fellow bankers who believed Hanigan’s private bank was a cover for laundering proceeds from organised crime; none of them would ever be brave enough to express those opinions in public.
Everyone who ever met him told you the same thing. Hugo Hanigan - a thug in a Savile Row suit.
Hugo looked over the top of his copy of the day’s Financial Times, and out on the square mile of the capital that held his domain. He knew what others thought of him. He couldn’t give a toss. They would be sensible to fear him. He would crush a few under the heel of his handmade shoes before long.
Hugo still read nothing in the media concerning the well-orchestrated campaign he ordered just before Easter. Just how thick were these people? He was tempted to run an advertisement on national television. Nothing pretentious; not what incomprehensible rubbish the marketing teams dreamed up these days that defied the viewer to realise which product the advert related to until the last few frames.
What they required was a basic map of Britain. A red bloodstain to show where the death of a gang member had occurred over the previous weeks, and a big arrow pointing out the obvious connection.
Hugo buttered another slice of toast. He poured himself a fresh cup of coffee. His watch told him it was ten-thirty. Hugo never visited his bank until noon. He could sit and seethe for a while longer.
One of his mobile phones rang. The ‘Whisky in the Jar’ ringtone told him which one to answer. A fellow countryman and one of his gangland colleagues.
“This had better not be bad news, Sean Walsh,” he growled.
Hugo listened. Sean couldn’t soften the blow. A verdict had been reached at the Old Bailey in the case against Tommy O’Riordan.
“They found him guilty, boss,” said Sean, “sentencing will take place next Monday.”
“Right,” screamed Hugo. “I want the names of every single fucking juror, get me the address of where that prosecution witness is hiding; and Sean, find out where that Judge and his family live. A message needs to be sent. One they can’t ignore or sweep off the front page by a no-account celebrity with a sob-story to sell. Tommy is one of our own.”
*****
Tommy O’Riordan was the head of a London crime family. He was in his mid-fifties with six brothers and three sisters. The eldest son born to Irish-Catholic parents who moved to Kilburn in North-West London after the Derry riots in August 1969.
Tommy’s mother hoped the move to London kept her children safe from the troubles. Things went south soon after they moved onto the South Kilburn estate. Her feckless husband Tommy Senior soon found low-level criminals with whom to associate. He got caught every time he stepped out of line and spent most of the next two decades in prison.
The children finished their schooling as soon as legal to do so and found work to help keep the family together. Tommy took on his father’s role, as head of the family. Life on the large council estate held too many temptations for him to follow an honest career for long.
The well-established Irish street gangs were eager for fresh blood to join them. Tommy became the first in his family to join. As the years passed, his younger brothers followed his lead.
The female chicks didn’t fall far from the nest either. One by one, as they entered their teens, his three sisters soon found themselves on the arm of one of the other gang members. The three girls married before they reached twenty years old. They now formed part of the Kelly, Walsh and O’Regan tribes that comprised a large part of the criminal fraternity lording it over the borough.
Tommy rose through the ranks until he made ‘top dog’. He had his mother’s stubborn streak, a good degree of intelligence and determined nature. If only he hadn’t inherited his father’s weakness for petty theft, he might have made something of his life. By the age of sixteen, he was bigger and stronger than most of his peers. Despite his mother berating him for setting a bad example to his younger siblings, he started on the slippery slope towards a life of crime.
Tommy Senior made brief appear
ances at the family home. In between terms of imprisonment of various lengths. He did little more than drink when out of prison. Tommy wrote him off as a waste of space and kept asking his mother why she didn’t throw him out. His mother shook her head.
“We married for life, Tommy. For better, or for worse; it may have always been a struggle, but we had ten children to look after. If I threw him out Social Services would soon be around here. They’d look to take the kids away from us. That was even more likely when the young ones still went to school. There’s only you and Colleen Walsh, in the house with me these days. They won’t be bothering us anymore. Anyway, when he comes out next time; where else will he go? Do you want to turn your father out onto the streets? Imagine what our neighbours would think then.”
Ten years ago, his father died in prison. Nothing dramatic, aged sixty-six he suffered a massive heart attack. Tommy’s mother stood at her husband’s graveside, with her family around her. Sons and daughters gathered with their various wives, husbands and partners. Dozens of grandchildren darted among the headstones to swell the congregation.
Members of other Irish families present ingrained in the culture of crime on the estates, stood shoulder to shoulder to see Tommy’s father laid to rest. They didn’t attend out of respect for the old man. They stood there because Tommy told them to be there, for his mother’s sake. Only people with a death-wish refused a request from Tommy O’Riordan.
In the months that followed that bitter December morning, at St. Mary’s Cemetery, in Kensal Green, Orla O’Riordan shrank in stature. Her daughters pleaded with her to eat, to see a doctor, to ask for help, but Orla told them not to fuss over her and continued to decline.
Orla’s old priest persuaded her she should look after her own health for once.
“You’ve put your family first ever since I’ve known you, Mrs O’Riordan. It’s your time now. I’ve made you an appointment; just you make sure you get along and see the doctor on Monday morning.”
Orla did as she was told. It was pancreatic cancer.
Tommy came back with his family to St. Mary’s a year to the day after his father’s burial, to watch his mother lowered into the ground beside him.
At the wake in the biggest Irish social club in the borough, Tommy drowned his sorrows. Sean Walsh and his other lieutenants came to the top table to pay their respects. Others drifted around the hall, drinking, chatting in hushed tones, and polishing off the free food.
Sean Walsh returned from the bar with a bottle of Irish whiskey, the two men sat together and started on the hard stuff.
“Where’s Devlin?” asked Tommy.
“Not seen him for a day or two, Tommy,” replied Sean.
“I think it’s time I had a word with Michael Devlin,” muttered Tommy.
“Just say the word. I’ll have him found, and brought to you,” said Sean.
Tommy nodded. Sean sent a text message.
The two colleagues continued to drink in silence. Tommy thought of Michael Devlin. He was a gang member he grew up with on the estate, and only six months younger than himself. They had known one another for over forty years.
When Tommy joined the street gang in the early Seventies, he started out with a series of petty thefts. As he matured, his talents graduated to extortion from market traders, and armed robbery. The proceeds from his criminal enterprises were significant, and Tommy never drank his profits away or wasted it on fast cars and women.
He invested his cash wisely; the banks he used didn’t ask too many questions. He married Sean’s raven-haired sister, and their two children went to private schools, and now lived and worked in Spain.
The O’Riordan gang were thought by the police to have committed over a dozen murders. Tommy reckoned they should think of a higher number. Drug dealing on a massive scale provided the largest contribution to the gang’s war chest. The murders were necessary; but incidental. Although the police arrested dozens of soldiers that scuttled around the streets and alleyways across the South Kilburn estate like ants; they never found enough evidence to lay specific charges against the gang leaders. Eyewitnesses were thin on the ground.
Michael Devlin showed himself to have many useful talents within the gang’s structure over the decades. Whenever muscle was required on a job, he was one of the first two names they called. He was a follower, not a leader. Tommy needed men such as Devlin. Above all, though, he demanded their loyalty.
Rumours filtered through in recent weeks that Michael Devlin had done something unforgivable. When the police swooped on a house in Kensal Rise, arresting five gang members in their early twenties, something didn’t feel right. They seized a large amount of cash and several kilos of drugs.
The police declared it to be a significant event in the war against crime on the estates. A DCI with whom Tommy O’Riordan clashed on dozens of occasions over the years was interviewed on TV. He declared that ‘the wall of silence has been destroyed, and it was only a matter of time before the police cleaned up the borough’s estates.’
Somebody had talked.
The wake carried on until Tommy O’Riordan was ready to call it a day. Few men left the hall. They knew Tommy had an eye on them. Even though he was well on the way to being drunk. Their wives and girlfriends drifted away, along with the children, and it was midnight before Tommy stumbled to the toilets. A few minutes later, Sean followed him. He helped him back up off the floor and called for a hand to get their leader into a car.
It was early afternoon before Tommy surfaced. Colleen knew better than to disturb him. When she heard him get up and head into the shower, at last, she checked that coffee was available just as he liked it; black and hot, and in his favourite mug, inscribed ‘The Best Dad In The World.’
Tommy was a man of few words when he hungover. He flopped onto the settee and nodded when Colleen brought him his first cup. He picked up the daily paper, skimmed through it, and cast it aside. She left him alone, with the coffee jug on the side-table, and made herself scarce. Tommy found a Racing channel on TV and waited for the coffee to ease the pain.
Colleen stuck her head around the door thirty minutes later.
“Do you want something to eat, Tommy?”
He shook his head.
Another hour passed, and Colleen heard him go back upstairs. Five minutes later he came back. He had dressed in old clothes and on his way out the door before she could ask where he was going.
Tommy decided to walk. The fresh air might do him good, and he didn’t want to risk getting pulled over by a snotty-nosed young copper. He’d still bust the breathalyser, even now. He called Sean Walsh.
“Have you found him yet, Sean?” he asked
“He’s at the car recycling yard,” replied his trusted lieutenant.
“I’ll be there in ten minutes,” said Tommy.
As he cut through the familiar side-streets and alleyways, he recalled many occasions when he, Sean and Michael Devlin chased their rivals before beating the living daylights out of them. He remembered times too when these byways had seen them being chased by the law. Because they always held the upper hand with their local knowledge, they rarely got caught.
You thought you knew people, Tommy thought, as he turned the corner, and saw the scrapyard on the far side of the street. When you grew up together and fought shoulder to shoulder, it was only natural that you believed it was for life. There was no excuse for what Devlin had done.
Tommy walked with his hands stuffed into his coat pockets. As he crossed the street, he withdrew his gloved right hand to feel the weight of the gun he carried under his old overcoat and inside his leather jacket. He hadn’t brought the Smith and Wesson 45 Compact that had been his weapon of choice for a while. This one was a throwaway. A Glock with any identifying marks filed smooth. It would be tossed as soon as this was over.
Tommy waited for a few seconds, as he neared the gates, looking both ways along the street. He darted inside the yard. He convinced himself that nobody saw him. Tommy noticed Sean
’s car parked near the site office. That needed to move sharpish; any links to him, or his colleagues must be many miles away from what occurred here today.
He walked straight into the office, without knocking. Maurice Kelly, the owner, sat behind the wooden desk, Sean Walsh stood beside him, leaning on the desk, facing the door. Kelly sat with the chair rocking back on its legs, his back against the wall. When Tommy burst in, he almost fell off the chair.
“Tommy,” he pleaded. “I want nothing to do with any of this, you understand?”
“I know, Maurice,” Tommy growled, “where is the bastard?”
“In the workshop, Tommy,” replied Sean. “I’ll take you to him.”
“I’ll find him,” said Tommy, turning on his heel and heading back out of the door. “You keep an eye on this one and make sure he keeps his mouth shut. When he’s got the message, we need to get rid of your motor. Get Maurice to drive it as far away from here on what’s left in the tank. He can get a train back. You get off home and report it stolen in the morning.”
“Maurice gave his men the afternoon off, Tommy, as we asked. It’s empty. What are you going to do?” asked Sean, following Tommy as far as the office doorway.
“Deal with the problem, what else?” said Tommy, in a whisper.
Michael Devlin sat on a metal chair in the middle of the workshop floor. His hands tied behind his back. His legs strapped together. The chair stood in the middle of a large sheet of orange plastic sheeting. The smell suggested Devlin had messed himself. When he saw the big workshop doors slide open, and Tommy O’Riordan entered, closing them behind him, he started to sob.
Tommy didn’t speak. He didn’t even turn his head towards Devlin. He skirted the plastic sheeting and headed for the tools lying on the long table at the side of the room. Tommy picked up a heavy spanner and felt the weight of it in his hand. He dropped it back on the table and sensed Devlin jump at the sound. He smiled to himself.