by Ted Tayler
He continued walking around the floor covered by the sheeting. Devlin still sobbed quietly. Tommy had seen what he wanted as soon as he entered. This was just a charade. He wanted Devlin to sweat.
The four-foot-long metal bar would be perfect. Tommy picked it up by one end and trailed it along the floor behind him as he continued to circle his former friend. When he drew level with him; he stopped.
“Do you know what the lowest form of a human being is, Michael Devlin?” he whispered.
He crossed to the long table once more and turned the radio up full blast. Radio One music echoed around the workshop. Tommy took hold of the bar in both hands and swinging from the hip, smashed it into Devlin’s right knee.
Devlin’s screams were muffled by the sounds from the tannoy. Tommy ambled around to the other side. Devlin’s head dropped to his chest. Tommy took aim once more. The metal bar found its target. Devlin’s left knee shattered, the same as the right.
Tommy dropped the bar and strolled back over to the table. He lowered the volume. For the first time, he walked onto the plastic sheeting. He gagged at the smell coming from Devlin, but he needed to tell him the answer to his question.
“A grass, Michael. A grass.”
He wasn’t convinced Devlin heard him, but no matter.
Tommy made a final trip to the table to turn the music up to maximum. Then he walked around behind Devlin. He removed the Glock from his jacket pocket. He placed the muzzle against the back of Devlin’s head.
“I had so much more pain in mind for you, Michael. Because we were friends for so long; I’ve decided to be merciful.”
Tommy fired once.
The loud music was superfluous. Tommy turned off the tannoy. It had been getting on his nerves. He removed the ties that bound Devlin and kicked away the metal chair so the lifeless body slithered onto the floor. Tommy wrapped the body in the sheeting, sealing it with tape. He winced at the crunching sounds from Devlin’s knees when he tried to straighten out his legs. He had a few tidying up jobs to do, and then he could head home.
Tommy looked at the old clock on the workshop wall. Four-thirty, Kelly finished working on the cars at five, so any activity in the yard after that would be commented upon by a nosy neighbour. He needed to move fast. He knew how the crushing process worked. When he walked back outside, Sean’s car had disappeared. Maurice Kelly should be miles away by now, and his second-in-command tucked up at home.
The next car off the rank for the crusher was a two-litre Audi. Tommy saw that the rear seats were set as far forward possible. He made a mental note to add a fifty-pound note to the hush money he handed over to Maurice Kelly. The boot space could have been a problem; but not now. He returned inside and dragged the body of Michael Devlin outside and hoisted him up and into the boot. He closed the door shut.
“Bags of room,” he muttered.
Tommy moved the mobile crane into position, attached the chains, and transferred the Audi into the car-crusher. It took half as long again as Maurice Kelly, or one of his regular staff because Tommy was out of practice. It had been one of a hundred legitimate skills he picked up since he arrived here from Ireland. The problem was that grafting for a living didn’t pay as much as the other skills he’d learned.
Finding the ‘Start’ button on the control panel proved simple enough. The old compactor started its work, and the car and its contents pancaked. Tommy transferred the Audi to the stack Maurice suggested at the far end of the site. It could rust, and its contents rot away against the back fence for a while. There was no rush.
Tommy nosed around in the office and found cleaning materials for what passed for the toilets in the corner of the building. Then he took a hose to the car-crusher, pouring a bottle of bleach around the interior, in case any blood seeped through the plastic sheeting.
When he was ready to leave, Tommy checked the street was empty. He slipped out onto the street. He closed the gates of the yard behind him. It was a pleasant summer’s evening; ideal weather for a stroll. He paid a visit to Little Venice for a walk by the canal. The effects of the hangover were long gone. His head had cleared; he needed somewhere quiet, a good distance away from the scrapyard, to dispose of the Glock. He passed dog-walkers, joggers and cyclists with the same idea as himself; to find a quiet spot.
“It’s Piccadilly Circus out here,” he groaned, “who knew?”
Tommy found himself on a stretch of the pathway leading up to a bridge. He bent over, as if to tie a loose shoelace, and looking left and right, satisfied himself he was alone. He removed the Glock from his jacket and dropped it into the canal. He climbed up the steep embankment and scrambled over the wall onto the walkway that led onto the bridge.
Tommy knew this part of the borough. It had been one of several adventure playgrounds he and his brothers used as children. The nearby streets had been gentrified in the past twenty years. House prices had skyrocketed since the O’Riordan’s spent their holidays playing around here. Tommy soon found his way back to the more familiar surroundings of the South Kilburn estate. That was his patch.
He entered his home through the back door. Colleen heard him come in but kept her distance. Tommy would speak to her when ready and not a minute before. She carried on watching her favourite soap on the TV.
Tommy removed the old coat, trousers, gloves and shoes he had worn. He bundled them up in a bag and took them to the bottom of the garden. None of the neighbours hung any washing out on the line this late in the evening, but nobody would complain if Tommy O’Riordan lit a bonfire. Thirty minutes later, any trace of the clothes he wore had gone for good. He stood and watched, thinking back over the past few hours. There was nothing he could think of that would cause him to lose sleep. Nobody dared talk. Not unless they wanted to suffer the same fate as Michael Devlin.
Tommy kicked the glowing embers across the rough patch of grass and scattered several handfuls of topsoil and compost over the surface. He was no gardener, but he had learned to be a dab hand at covering his tracks. He strolled up the path to the back door and entered the house.
“I’m home, darling,” he called, “do we have any food to eat?”
Colleen sighed, turned off the TV and headed for the kitchen. Life didn’t change much in the O’Riordan household.
CHAPTER 3
Life continued much as ever for other families on the South Kilburn estate; for a few weeks, at least.
Sean Walsh called to report his stolen car first thing the following morning. The police weren’t that concerned. They added it to a long number of things towards the bottom of their list of priorities.
Maurice Kelly arrived home from Nantwich at lunchtime the next day. He had reached the outskirts of the Cheshire town with a flashing light on the petrol gauge warning him he had been driving on fumes. The quiet lay-by was screened from the main road by trees and bushes.
The conversation with Sean Walsh yesterday afternoon had been brief. When he abandoned the car, it had to be in no condition for the police to know who drove it. Maurice removed the one-gallon plastic container of petrol he brought with him, from the boot. He poured the contents over the driver’s seat and dashboard, then dropped a lighted rag through the open window.
Maurice Kelly set off across the fields behind the lay-by. He skirted the main road until he scaled a gate and got himself onto a pavement beside a minor road that took him into town. He treated himself to a meal and five pints of Guinness at a pub just off the centre; then climbed the stairs on unsteady legs to his room.
Despite the hassle of driving so far away from Kilburn; today had been a nice little earner for Maurice Kelly. He slept well. His conscience clear. Michael Devlin had grassed on his colleagues. The Kelly family knew better than to rat out their mates. He took a train to Euston after breakfast, and the tube up to Kilburn delivered him back on familiar ground.
The scrapyard staff arrived at eight-thirty to open the business for the day. It wasn’t uncommon for the boss to start later than they did. Kelly
was getting on in years, he liked a drink, and he was the boss.
Maurice waved to his lads when he arrived later and disappeared into the office. His desk phone flashed. Someone had left a message not long after he left in Sean Walsh’s car yesterday. Maurice played it back.
“Mr Kelly? It’s John here; John Kelly, no relation. Ha-ha. You’ve got my wife’s Audi A3 there to be scrapped? She’s getting herself into of a state. She left her Rick Springfield CDs in the glove compartment. Several of them are irreplaceable. Can you rescue them for her, please? We’re going back to Oz, to see family. Back in six weeks. You’ve got my number. Look forward to hearing from you.”
Maurice closed his eyes for a second. It was too late; what could he do? He deleted the message, not bothering to highlight the incoming number.
On the other side of the estate, Colleen had cooked a meal for Tommy last evening, and then they sat together in silence, watching the TV. He never mentioned where he had been, nor what he had been doing. Colleen never asked. The only thing she noticed the following morning, was Tommy’s better mood. She had to be thankful for small mercies.
Mairead Devlin, on the other hand, was a worried wife and mother. Her husband Michael didn’t return home last night. She knew better than to jump to conclusions. He had been in and out of trouble with the law ever since she met him at St Mary’s primary school.
It wasn’t inconceivable he had been with another woman; he always had a roving eye. She had her suspicions over the years, but if he stayed out at night, it often turned out he was with his thieving friends. Mairead talked to her eldest daughter, Faith on the phone.
“Give him the benefit of the doubt, mum,” suggested Faith, “he’ll creep in before the day’s out. I haven’t heard of any trouble on the estate, nor of any robberies.”
Mairead remained worried. She spent a restless night, then still with no sign of Michael returning, she phoned her family for their support. When the Devlin’s arrived at the police station, they came in force. Her eight children accompanied her. The many grandchildren stayed at school, at a nursery, or with a childminder.
Mairead didn’t want the police to dismiss the possibility of her husband being missing as something of little consequence. Michael’s history might suggest he would turn up in his own good time. She wanted to make sure they took the matter seriously. The father of a large and loving family had disappeared, without a trace.
The desk sergeant took the details. He promised it would be a priority. Mairead’s children had heard the rumours about their father. Nothing had been allowed to reach Mairead’s ears.
The sergeant knew those rumours to be true. He gave little away to the Devlin’s while they stood in front of him inside the station. When they left, he phoned the detectives that dealt with Devlin when he gave his evidence.
“There may be a problem,” he reported, “Michael Devlin has gone missing.”
The information was received and noted by the Metropolitan CID. Investigations followed. Everyone on the estate they talked to remained tight-lipped.
Michael Devlin was nowhere to be found; neither alive and well, seriously injured, nor dead.
The O’Riordan’s, Walsh’s, Kelly’s and the rest came under scrutiny over the weeks that followed. Questions were asked about Sean Walsh. He reported a car stolen the day that Michael Devlin disappeared. Was that a coincidence? Or could these events be connected?
Had the stolen vehicle been sighted anywhere? The answers were either of little use or a long time arriving. The burnt-out car near Nantwich was checked over by local crime scenes investigations officers. Nothing useful could be gathered from the car’s blackened interior. The vehicle was not listed as being involved in any crime.
In time, they identified Sean Walsh as being the legal owner from the rear number plate that remained legible after the fire burnt itself out. He received notification of his car’s whereabouts that informed him he was responsible for its removal. Sean arranged for a local scrapyard to collect it and had it destroyed a week later. Tommy settled the bill. One more possible loose end had gone away.
There was confusion at the police station in Kilburn when they heard from their Cheshire colleagues, at last. Had Michael Devlin done a runner? What should they tell his wife when she called in, asking for an update? Mrs Devlin came to the station every other day.
The police tried to confirm where Tommy and the rest of his gang had been that afternoon. Nobody knew. A few brave souls chided the police for pestering the family.
“What do you think they did? Tommy buried his mother the previous day. The wake carried on until the early hours. They would have been in bed for most of the next day.”
Despite the Devlin family’s attempts to sustain the police interest in discovering what happened to Michael Devlin, the trail had gone cold, any possible leads exhausted. Tommy started to relax. Sean bought himself a new motor. Maurice Kelly carried on with the car and metal recycling business, sailing close to the wind as always.
There’s a phrase that’s been around for centuries; the ‘luck of the Irish’, which suggests they profit from extreme good fortune. Many consider it to be a derisory term, implying they hadn’t the brains to have pulled something off, so it must have happened by pure luck.
A combination of events followed around six weeks after Michael Devlin’s death. Things that suggest that ‘dumb luck’ caused Tommy O’Riordan to find himself in the dock at the Old Bailey. His being Irish had nothing to do with it.
An Environment Agency official paid a visit to the Kelly scrapyard. He was there to investigate a report of illegal waste tipping. He went to the office and asked Maurice to show him his licences, to check they were in order.
The scrapyard owner was frantic as he tried to think if anything outside might raise any suspicions. Maurice couldn’t recall any problem items. He needed to have a word with his staff to make sure they took greater care where they dumped stuff in the future. He tried to think who reported him to the Council in the first place.
A sudden thought occurred to Maurice. He would have to steer this bloke away from the far end of the yard. That stack of compacted cars remained on site. He hadn’t got around to clearing it yet.
“I’ll inspect the site now, if I may,” the official said, “your paperwork appears to be in order.”
“I’ll come with you,” said Maurice, more in hope than expectation.
“I’d prefer to do it alone,” said the officer, “it will only take five minutes. Please don’t trouble yourself.”
Maurice watched him as far as he could from the office window. Five minutes was a long time. He could walk to the far fence and back in that time. With luck, he wouldn’t be standing and staring too long at any one place, though.
As he watched to see if he could work out where the official headed, a sudden movement caught his eye. A cherry-picker appeared above the fence in the distance. A man in a hi-viz jacket and a white hard hat inspected the street light. This gave him as good an excuse as any to wander out into the yard. He would chat with the bloke and keep an eye on the Environment Agency fellow at the same time.
Maurice trotted over towards the fence.
“What’s happening here then?” he asked.
“We’ve been sub-contracted by the Council,” the man replied. “I’m removing half of the light bulbs in these streets altogether, and then replacing the others with energy-saving, long-life bulbs. It’s part of the budget cuts, mate. The Council reckon they’ll save money, but the streets won’t be safe to walk at night.”
Maurice could see where this was heading. He relied on the nearby street lighting to deter opportunist thieves risking the spiked fences and climbing into the yard. He didn’t want them salvaging items from cars before he got around to them. He might have to invest in security lighting. Terrific.
The official returned and there didn’t appear to be anything troubling him.
“I’m off for now,” he said, shaking Maurice by the hand
. “Keep an eye of that stack of crushed cars by the back fence, won’t you?”
“Oh, I will,” replied Maurice, relief spreading through his body. He needed a drink. As soon as this bloke disappeared, he would get the bottle of vodka out of the desk drawer.
Maurice watched the hi-viz jacketed sub-contractor as he bobbed up above the fence at different points around the site. His thirst got the better of him, however, and he went inside the office to take a few well-deserved swigs.
In Perth, Western Australia, John Kelly and his wife Carol had been visiting relatives. Carol was a native, born and bred; she emigrated to the UK in the Seventies and met John in Nottingham. Rick Springfield had been her favourite performer since the Sixties. When a change of job for John meant a move to Maida Vale, his workmates dubbed him ‘Ned’ as they already had two John’s in their factory department.
John was a hen-pecked husband. Throughout their trip, he put up with Carol’s moaning over her CDs. In the end, she persuaded him to call the police in Kilburn.
“OK, don’t keep on Carol. Though what good it will do, I don’t know,” he said, picking up the phone.
As ‘dumb luck’ had it, he got through to the same desk sergeant that dealt with Mairead Devlin. John Kelly told him they called Maurice Kelly, begging him to retrieve precious items from a car they scrapped before leaving for Australia. They left a contact number but hadn’t heard a thing.
“What date was this, sir?” the sergeant asked. Kelly told him. The sergeant snapped his pencil. That date rang a very loud bell.
Heaven knows what this bloke thought they could do about these CDs at this late stage, but that lined three ducks up in a row. Devlin’s disappearance, Walsh’s car being reported stolen, and now a car in a scrapyard. A yard slap bang in the middle of the square mile controlled by the Irish gang run by Tommy O’Riordan. The man who suffered financial pain following Devlin’s cooperation with the police. What were the odds of three things happening on the same day in a confined space such as that, not being connected?