Why wasn’t I surprised?
He continued. “In 1991, a sixteen-year-old girl in Belfast danced with an off-duty soldier at a disco. She didn’t know he was a soldier, but word got out and she was grabbed off the street, taken somewhere and kneecapped, had her left kneecap blown out, never danced or walked properly again. McGreely was suspected of being the shooter, but the family relocated to England rather than testify against him. That’s what we’re dealing with here.”
After swallowing my revulsion, I brought Smitherman up to speed with my conversation with Doyle, which had led me to Gary White and then to Barry Mates, who’d mentioned George Duncan. I explained that both Mates and Duncan were in the Chackarti family hierarchy but, despite knowing the family’s antipathy to terrorism, had still agreed to do something which had enabled this offshoot of the IRA to cause explosions.
“Duncan, it seems, could be acting of his own volition. Mates said Duncan asked him to do it as a favour to him. Favours aren’t usually how any chain of command works; it’s usually a direct order. So this suggests he wasn’t doing it for the family. Ali Chackarti and his brothers aren’t that keen on being sucked into some terrorist vortex. I mean, the family’ll do favours for known IRA sympathisers when it’s, for want of another phrase, ordinary criminality,” I said, using my index finger to indicate quotation marks, “lorry hijacking and all that, and we all know they’ve got police protection somewhere along the line,” – Smitherman pulled an expression which suggested he’d just bitten into something extremely bitter-tasting – “but the police will only protect them when ordinary criminality’s involved. They’ll run and hide when bombs start going off. No police officer, no matter how bent, is gonna cover up for bombings.”
Smitherman was nodding sagely.
“So,” I said, “if we can establish that’s what the family’s involved in, maybe the family’ll turn those responsible out into the cold, which’ll make it easier for us.”
“Could have possibilities.”
“First thing tomorrow, I’m gonna grab Duncan and question him. He doesn’t know we’re on to him. Mates and White aren’t gonna say anything, so we get him to turn, we’re closer to discovering who wanted the cars to use for the bombings. Then we can nail the bastard to the floor.”
“I can tell you’re a university man, using expressions like that.” He shook his head.
I stood up and was about to leave.
“Good work today, DS McGraw.”
First Taylor’s gushing, now praise from Smitherman. Someone’s smiling on me.
*
I was still floating, and too emotionally charged to go home just yet, so I decided to stay in the office a while longer. I brought up Cormac McGreely’s file again. The file also included pictures of his wife, Sinead, and young son John. She’d be late fifties now and John would probably be about twenty-one.
The picture of McGreely was now over fifteen years old, as were the pictures of his wife and son. This was his passport application photograph and he’d look different from this now. In the file there were several pictures of him taken at events he’d attended, plus a couple with his family. I selected pictures which showed them looking natural and unposed, rather than the forced poses adopted for official pictures.
I then had another idea and phoned Jacqueline Chandler. I’d expected the answerphone, given the time, but she answered herself. I asked if I could borrow her services next day, but she said she was available now, as it was only nine twenty and she was working late because she was off tomorrow.
She was a freelance courtroom sketch artist who’d recently drawn, from the memory of my friend Richard Clements, an extremely good picture of the man I believed to be responsible for murdering a young London police officer. I had discovered later it had indeed been him, but, due to factors beyond my control, he’d evaded justice.
Life often throws existential curveballs because, but for this police officer being murdered, I would never have met Sally Taylor.
Chandler was exceptionally good at what she did, which was why her work was in such demand from TV channels and newspapers which wanted sketches of defendants for news coverage, and I was hoping she could do what I was going to ask of her.
She arrived ten minutes later as she was now based in nearby Covent Garden, and was shown upstairs to the open plan office Special Branch currently operated from. She was tall, thin and prematurely grey, which, according to her, was the legacy of being an art teacher in a boys’ school for several years. She was dressed casually in jeans and a sweater covered in paint blotches. She sat by my desk and immediately noticed the bruise on my upper cheek.
“The girlfriend did it,” I said with a grin, pointing to the bruise. “Told her I fancied her sister.”
She broke out into laughter. “Serves you right, you swine.”
After a brief chat I told her what I wanted.
“See these pictures?” They were the ones of the McGreely family, and I’d blown them up to large size so she could see the facial features better. “They’re all at least fifteen years older now. What I wanna know is, what would these people look like now, based on these images? You think you can do that? You think you can age them to what they might look like now, fifteen or so years on?”
“You kidding me? Did Van Gogh hack off one of his ears?” She gave me an almost sardonic glare. “You wanna know how many of these I’ve done down the years? Yes, I can do that, but bear in mind that there’ll be certain caveats.”
“Such as what?” I asked.
“They might have put on weight, had reconstructive surgery done, had dental surgery which changed the outlines of their jaws, gone bald, stuff like that. But, allowing for things like those, I can certainly show you what they could look like now, based on these pictures, though it’ll only be my best guess. When do you want them done by?”
“Yesterday?” I raised my eyebrows.
“Tomorrow morning okay?”
“That’d be great.”
*
It was now almost 10 pm. I was now well past the likelihood of any further meaningful productivity, and it’d been a long day. I’d recovered from my emotionally draining talk with Taylor earlier. I was also hungry and I wanted at least a couple of beers before I went home, so I walked around to the Red Lion in Whitehall and had two glorious pints and, as there were no sandwiches or pies left, nothing to eat. After a quick stop in the nearby Tesco Express to buy a pack of four large sausage rolls, as I knew there was nothing in at my flat, I caught the District line tube back from Westminster to Acton.
After being in Taylor’s flat, my flat felt cold and unwelcoming. There was no warmth or love or laughter. This place’d simply become somewhere to stay one or two nights a week, and it felt about as inviting as a room at a Travelodge. Everything looked exactly the same as when I’d left yesterday morning, and I didn’t know why, but this realisation depressed me.
First thing I’d noticed on arriving back was I’d forgotten to turn on the washing machine when I’d left for work yesterday morning, so, at eleven twenty-five at night, I began doing laundry as I was all out of clean clothes. I know how to live.
The news’d finished and there was nothing on TV. I’d cancelled my satellite TV subscription when I’d started spending most of my time at Chez Taylor, so I was stuck with terrestrial TV. I slumped down in my armchair, looking at whatever dreadful film it was being shown on Channel 5 whilst eating the two remaining sausage rolls, which I couldn’t even be bothered to put in the microwave, accompanied by a mug of tea as I also had no beer in the fridge. I wasn’t particularly watching the film, but I was too apathetic to switch off and read something.
I’d lived here in this flat with my ex-partner for close on four years. I’d still been in CID when we’d moved in together and, initially, things between us had been good. But I now struggled to think of any really memorable times we’d shared after we’d been together for a year. There probably were some; I just couldn’t think o
f any, and, if that was the case, then how good could they have been?
I don’t know when, how or why it all started, but we’d just begun allowing things to drift along. Gradually we’d stopped doing things together. It wasn’t planned or by design; it just happened. After a while, she’d begun taking on different shifts requiring her to work more evenings and weekends, which meant I was often here in the flat alone when she wasn’t, and the same with her. And then gradually we’d drifted into more or less just living our own lives, separately from each other, for about two years.
But one night I could remember, about sixteen months back, we’d gone to a party for someone in her family and on returning, and I still can’t remember what brought it on or who’d instigated it, we’d ended up having frantic sex on the floor of the front room, almost like we’d just met at a drunken party earlier. There’d been no love or seduction, just pure lust. Next morning, though, it was as if nothing had happened. Even while it was happening, it had felt like a one-night stand, sex with someone I’d just met, and, if I didn’t know better, I’d have sworn she’d looked almost embarrassed next morning as she left for work.
On several occasions after this, I’d started inventing meetings or stake-outs to attend in the evenings, or volunteering for overtime, simply to avoid going back to the flat and spending time with her. There were even evenings when, with both of us at home, we’d done our own thing for dinner rather than eat together.
It wasn’t that we disliked each other. When she told me she was moving out and returning to Wiltshire, I was genuinely happy for her as she’d landed a position she wanted, and we’d parted as friends. I’d even sent her a birthday card recently. She’d at least had the gumption to take the decisive step to officially end a relationship we’d unofficially ended three years back.
Thinking about it now, I could only assume that, subconsciously, maybe we’d realised we just didn’t want whatever it was we thought we had, or each other, after all. Perhaps one or both of us had thought the other simply wasn’t enough to go the whole distance with. It was hard to say. We barely spoke to each other, so we never talked about it.
But Sally Taylor was definitely enough. She was more than enough, and the thought we’d both nailed our colours to the mast earlier this evening gave my late evening musing a warm glow as I watched my laundry spin.
S I X
Wednesday
I’D HAD PROBLEMS sleeping last night and had spent half the night either staring at the wall or looking out the window as the rain splatted against it, so, just after six thirty, as I’d missed training last night, I ran two fast laps around the nearby park, which was the equivalent of two and a bit miles. The grass needed cutting, and my trainers were soaked when I’d completed the run. This park was where London Wasps used to train before they relocated to Coventry, and I’d occasionally see these big buggers running about passing the ball as I jogged round the edges.
After the run, which I’d completed in fourteen and a half minutes, the blood was pumping freely and my muscles felt invigorated. I felt even better and more alive after I’d showered, though I noticed the bruise under my right eye was now a vivid shade of dark blue and yellow, and the eye was still partially closed because of the swelling, which had slightly increased overnight. Any contest to impersonate the Elephant Man and I was in with a chance.
*
To my surprise, Jacqueline Chandler had already completed her sketches of the McGreely family and had left them for me in a sealed envelope at the reception desk, along with a note saying, No charge but you owe me a good lunch!!
I laid them all out on a desk, the originals at the top and the artist’s impressions below the original, and compared them. They were exactly the same pictures, but they were different, if that makes any sense. Cormac and Sinead McGreely looked much the same, though she’d assumed Sinead would have had her long hair cut shorter by now, so she’d allowed for this. Each face had a few lines and looked a little older but, otherwise, no real changes. They were still clearly identifiable as the people from their earlier pictures. The biggest difference, though, was in John McGreely. In the original pictures he was just a small, fresh-faced cherubic little boy, but now he was depicted as a man. He’d been a little kid when it was assumed he’d perished, so Chandler’s sketch was largely a feat of imagination. Still, it was a good starting point.
I fed the new pictures into the database and requested information on anyone in our files matching these images, and received a negative reply. I then fed the sketch of Cormac McGreely into the database and compared this new face to the man or men seen in the CCTV images at Regent’s Park and at Bluewater, but again the answer was inconclusive.
*
I was on my way to talk to George Duncan. I had his address and knew where to find him this time of the day. Before leaving I’d called DI Glett and asked for his take on Duncan and his position in Chackarti world, given what he knew about the family.
“He’s a main man, right up near the top of the family, been with the family a lot of years. Started off doing the usual low-level thug stuff, collecting debts, dishing out a few slaps to those behind on their loan payments and refusing to pay the full vig, driving contraband and so on, and gradually worked his way up. He now works directly for Ali Chackarti himself, acts as his personal driver and bodyguard. We think he largely oversees the distribution of narcotics and all the alcohol and tobacco they bring back from France and Belgium, and you’d not believe how much they bring into the country. They’ve got a couple of front companies they smuggle the stuff in through and they’ve some bent immigration officers in their pockets helping them out. Dunc makes the decisions as to where and how much, and who gets what, and who organises distribution. You wanna hazard a guess how much the Chackartis are estimated to make from this smuggling?”
It was a rhetorical question, but I was prepared to bet the figure probably exceeded the entire budget for Special Branch. “So, why would he be asking Matey to steal some cars which end up with the IRA?”
He laughed. “How the fuck would I know that?”
“Is he likely to have known he was doing it for the IRA?” Glett took a few moments to think. “He’s big and stupid, is our Dunc, but you gotta assume he wouldn’t just instigate stealing cars unless he knew why. You don’t become somebody in the Chackartis by being that fucking stupid.” I heard the humour in his voice. “In your position I’d be assuming he was acting in full knowledge of who he was doing it for.”
I turned a few things over in my mind. “So, given that we know Ali Chackarti and his brothers, and all those others in the higher echelons, aren’t keen on being involved in terrorism . . .”
“Means he’s doing it for someone outside the family,” Glett leapt in.
“What would Ali think about that, I wonder?”
“Be dead chuffed, wouldn’t he?” he said irreverently. “I know Big Dunc; you want some backup talking to him?”
*
Big Dunc lived in a tree-lined road of detached houses from where you could see the Alexandra Palace in the near distance. The Ally Pally, as Londoners know it, stands high on a hill in North London overlooking the city. Back when I’d been a student, a few friends and I had got rat-arsed drunk one night in a pub near here; I don’t remember how or why, or even why we were in this part of North London at all, but we’d ended up in the grounds of the Ally Pally and, whilst staggering about in the dark, I’d slipped and fallen into the ornamental pond. The freezing cold water had had a very sobering effect on me.
Glett was at the end of the road waiting when I arrived. I’d vetoed his suggestion we turn up mob-handed because I didn’t want to set alarm bells ringing at the top of the family. The Chackartis were connected in all the right places and a police raid on a significant figure in the family would soon reach the family’s higher levels, and I didn’t want the shutters coming down just yet. I was hoping I could trust Matey and White not to be stupid.
“That was some wa
ll you walked into,” Glett said, taking note of my bruise. “Your girlfriend packs quite a punch.” He grinned, looking at his watch. “Dunc’ll be home now. He doesn’t start till midday most days, so he takes his kids to school. Quite the family man, is our Dunc.” I sensed sarcasm.
“How d’you wanna play this?” I asked.
He smiled. “The easy way.”
We walked up the garden path and rang the doorbell and, a few seconds later, the door opened. I immediately realised why they called him Big Dunc. He stood at least six-three and was built by the same firm who’d built Stonehenge. I’ve seen sequoia trees with a smaller circumference than his chest. He was wearing a black T-shirt and the muscles in his upper arm were stretching out the short sleeves. The weightlifter’s vein was very noticeable in his triceps. Facially, with his sculpted chin and black moustache, he reminded me of Jaws, a villain in the later James Bond films. I was glad I was armed.
“Can I help you two gentlemen?” He smiled, or was it a grimace? “But if you’re selling I’m not buying, and if you’re Jehovah’s Witnesses you can sod off.”
“None of the above,” Glett said as he produced his ID. I did the same. “Like to talk to you.”
“Not without my brief being present you don’t.”
He talked in a flat monotone with no inflection, as though he were reciting lines he’d learnt by rote. He probably thought brief was an abbreviation of briefcase.
“Why d’you need a brief? Just a few quick questions,” Glett urged him. “We’re not here to arrest you.”
“You fucking deaf? I said not without a brief.” He was sounding aggressive. “So either arrest me or get off my property.”
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