Dublin Dead

by Gerard O'Donovan

  ‘Come off it, Eddie. What the hell’s that got to do with anything?’

  McTiernan smiled to himself and gave a little snort of satisfaction before answering. ‘I would’ve thought you lads’d know all this already. Bingo and Trevor Ronson got fierce friendly over the last few years. They were always hanging out over at Ronson’s waterfront place in Puerto Banus, y’know. Living it up, like.’

  Mulcahy and Ford exchanged glances.

  ‘Bingo?’ Ford was the first to get it out. ‘Fuck’s sake, Ronson was major league. What the hell was he doing messing around with a low life like Bingo?’

  ‘Ah, but that’s just it.’ McTiernan smiled. ‘You’re thinking of Bingo as he was when he left Dublin. But, y’know, he was doing very well for himself out in Spain. Got himself seriously well connected, went pretty much from low life to high life. Too high by the looks of it – over his head, maybe?’

  ‘Bingo?’ Mulcahy and Ford chimed, still exchanging looks of disbelief.

  ‘Yeah, I know what you lads think,’ McTiernan continued, ‘but he wasn’t like that any more. Bingo changed out there. Made a real go of it, like. He was always a smart cookie, y’know, just played his cards close, stayed under the radar. These last few years out there he was stashing it away big time. Nothing too showy, but he was into something big, no question. Like I say, I’m kinda surprised you fellas don’t know about this yerselves.’

  McTiernan chuckled to himself and licked his lips. ‘To be honest, fellas, I went out there kinda hoping Bingo might want to take one or two of my places off my hands, for cash, like, on the quiet. But then some of the lads warned me off, told me it was all blowing back on him. Just as well, eh?’

  He paused for effect, then leant forward in a still more confiding manner, pushing the dog aside so as not to squash it with his belly as he moved. ‘It’s only a guess, like,’ he whispered, ‘but, if you ask me, Ronson and Bingo both getting whacked in the space of a few weeks wasn’t much of a coincidence. And you can be bloody sure there’s plenty more out in Marbella thinking exactly the same as me right now.’

  If he did know more, that was as much as McTiernan was willing to give. Mulcahy zoned out while Ford took down the details of the arrest he wanted them to sort out. Then they sat and watched him tramp heavily away, back towards the golf course, the dog waddling damply behind him on its lead.

  ‘Those two could do with getting out for walks more often,’ Ford snorted, before switching on the engine and turning the car towards the city. ‘That feckin’ dog looks like a slug on stilts.’

  Mulcahy said nothing, still trying to get his head round the bomb McTiernan had dropped about Trevor Ronson. There was no doubting Eddie would know the impact of what he was saying, and his info was nearly always spot on, but a link between Ronson’s murder and Begley’s? It wasn’t that it was inconceivable – not if what he’d said about the two of them being so pally was true. Theirs was a dangerous world and people often got caught in the crossfire. The real question was, were there wider implications? It might be worth having another, quieter word later.

  Unusually, Ford also kept quiet for most of the journey back into town. Still more unusual was the fact that the traffic flowed, some sweet spot having opened up between the school run and the early evening outrush of workers from central Dublin to the suburbs, and they made good time. Even so, it was getting on for a quarter past five by the time Ford turned the Mondeo into Dame Street.

  ‘This thing needs a fill-up,’ Ford said, tapping the fuel warning light on the dashboard. ‘I’ll drop you off at the gate and swing round to the pumps. Doesn’t seem fair on the next lads to leave ’em with the stench of dead dog and an empty tank.’

  ‘Damp dog,’ Mulcahy corrected.

  ‘Smells the same to me.’

  Ford pulled up outside the Olympia Theatre. Across the street, between the swaggeringly ornate Allied Irish Bank and the accusingly plain Sick and Indigent Roomkeepers’ Society, a narrow gateway led into Dublin Castle’s lower yard. Mulcahy looked at Ford but didn’t move.

  ‘I didn’t like the sound of what Eddie was on about,’ he said at last.

  ‘You and me both,’ Ford said, a grimness in his expression. ‘More like a bloody fantasy if you ask me. You sure he’s still reliable? Sounds like he’s been out of the game a while.’

  Mulcahy shook his head. ‘That’s the thing about Eddie. He’s never either in or out completely. All his pals are up to their necks in it, though. You heard him – a trip out to Marbella and he’s boozing and schmoozing with some of the main players on the Costa. Irish, English, Dutch … doesn’t matter – he knows them all. Even a few of the East Europeans, despite what he says.’

  ‘So are you going to get in touch with the Brits, then?’

  ‘I’m not sure,’ Mulcahy said. ‘I don’t want to stir anything up if I can help it. Most of my contacts over there are with the Serious Organised Crime Agency, and they tend to do stuff by the book. Official channels and all that. I’m not sure it’s worth going down that road at this stage. The Brits will be throwing some serious weight at the Ronson killing. It’s a question of whether we want to get caught up in it. Even if there is something in what Eddie says, I’d need something more substantial than his word to bring it up with them.’

  ‘Maybe we could try the local lads, in Liverpool.’ Ford scratched his head. ‘What would they be? Merseyside Police?’

  ‘Yes,’ Mulcahy said, turning to Ford like a light had gone on in his head. ‘That’s not a bad idea. They’ve got their own Level Three op there, the Major Crime Unit. Weren’t they on that Operation Trinity thing you worked on a couple of years back?’

  ‘Operation Triton, yeah,’ Ford said. He thought for a second. ‘Actually, there was a really good guy on that, Paul Solomons, a DS that I got on well with. His missus is from Dublin. He’d be up for some share and share alike, I’m sure – if he’s still there.’

  ‘Could you dig out his number and give him a call when you get a chance?’ Mulcahy suggested. ‘You know, nothing too specific – just get the inside track on the Ronson thing and drop Bingo’s name in passing. You don’t have to tell him he’s dead. They may not even be aware of that yet.’

  ‘Sure,’ Ford said. ‘You don’t want to speak to him yourself?’

  ‘No, you know him, you call him,’ Mulcahy said. ‘It’d only arouse his suspicion if I called him.’

  ‘Why are you worried about that?’

  ‘Like I said, I don’t want to get us tangled up in a multi-jurisdiction investigation unless I know what’s in it for us. If we need to get involved, fair enough, in which case we’ll go in prepared, and at a level where we have some proper input. If we stumble into something the Brits are already running, we could end up chasing our tails on some bullshit investigative carousel and get nothing out of it.’

  ‘You should know,’ Ford said.

  ‘Yeah, well, if I learnt anything from seven years with Europol, it’s that you never go into anything like this blind if you can help it.’

  ‘Solomons will be solid, I’m sure. He’s a laid-back guy. Great on Triton, only interested in getting the job done, whatever it took.’

  ‘Good,’ Mulcahy said. ‘I’ve got a couple of calls to make before I finish, but you might as well get straight off after you drop the car back. There’s nothing more we can do today.’

  ‘You sure? You don’t fancy a quick pint in the Long Hall?’

  Mulcahy shook his head. ‘Can’t. I’ve got this Rosscarbery thing to work through and I’m meeting Orla out in Monkstown for dinner afterwards.’

  Ford swung an arm round the steering wheel and leered over at him.

  ‘I’m telling you, boss, you got a fit one there. Nothing like a physio to get physical with, eh?’

  ‘Go to hell, Liam.’ Mulcahy hooked his fingers into the handle and pushed at the car door. When he was out, he turned and leant back in. ‘And do me a favour, find a woman of your own and get your mind off mine, would you?’


  ‘I’m only taking an interest,’ Ford said, doing his best to look offended.

  Mulcahy stared him down. Sure enough, the look of injury quickly reverted to a leer as Ford lifted both hands off the wheel and cupped them in front of his chest. Mulcahy slammed the door as Ford, cackling like a complete headcase, revved the engine and pulled out into the traffic.

  She heard them laughing as soon as she stepped out of the lift. As ever on a Monday, the Sunday Herald’s newsroom was mostly deserted. There was none of the hum and hassle and stink of stress and sweat that you got on Fridays and Saturdays as deadlines loomed and the great task of building a Sunday newspaper from scratch every week got seriously under way. Now there were just the advertising and IT guys, plus some subs and editors working the soft-end stuff, the arts, travel and TV pages, which were all got out of the way before the news operation got into full swing later in the week.

  Siobhan thought the laughter was coming from the news desk, felt sure the wheezing chortle of one of the two loud voices was that of Paddy Griffin. She frowned as she heard the wheeze become a hacking cough, thinking he must’ve had a skinful, although he’d recently been warned to go easy on the drink. Paddy never was one for taking advice, medical or otherwise, she thought, as she rounded the corner and stopped, disconcerted by the sight of Griffin, rocking in his chair, helpless, holding his hands up as if begging the man sitting opposite him for mercy. Every hair on her neck stiffened as she realised who it was: Cillian O’Gorman, the horrible little slimeball. What in hell’s name was he doing in today?

  As if she’d pricked the bubble of their mirth, both men stopped laughing instantly, turned to her open-mouthed, then looked back at one another and exploded into paroxysms again. She tried to suppress the creeping suspicion that it was herself who’d been the butt of their joke, and shrugged off her jacket and hung it up before walking up to the desk. Griffin was pulling a handkerchief from his pocket, still spluttering. O’Gorman kept his small eyes fixed on her as she approached. He was lounging back, elbows out, hands clasped over his belly and his right leg propped blokishly on his left knee – in her chair, at her desk, beside Griffin’s.

  ‘Paddy, how’re you doing?’ she said, and nodded at O’Gorman, who smiled back up at her but didn’t budge an inch. ‘Could you shift, please, Cillian? I need to get to my desk.’

  ‘Oh Christ, I’ve usurped the seat of power again,’ O’Gorman said in mock horror, throwing up his hands and giving Griffin a knowing look. He made a meal of getting up and standing beside the chair, bowing and muttering, ‘Your throne, madam.’

  Siobhan ignored him, pulled the chair out so viciously he had to jump to avoid a crack on the ankle, then sat down. She was about to log on when she felt a weight on the chairback and realised O’Gorman was standing behind her now, looking over her shoulder. No way was she going to let the little weasel see her password. She turned and glared up at him.

  ‘Do you mind?’

  ‘Not at all, darling – you go right ahead.’ He smirked, turning his attention back to Griffin. ‘I’d better be getting off, Paddy, before I get us into any more trouble. But thanks for this, and for the jar. It was good to catch up. Call you tomorrow, soon as it’s done. Be seein’ ya, yeah?’

  Without a word of farewell to her, he was gone, strutting down the passageway like the complete cock that he was.

  ‘All right, Scoop?’ Griffin said, giving her an avuncular smile, a stale whiff of stout on his breath. He nodded towards the departing figure, shook his head. ‘Bloody mad eejit.’

  ‘What was he doing in?’ she asked.

  ‘Ah, nothing.’ Griffin gave his eyes a last wipe with the handkerchief before putting it back in his pocket. ‘Something that came in this afternoon – I asked him to follow up on it.’

  ‘Comedy job, was it?’

  Griffin gave her a sharp look, like she’d crossed some line. ‘No. Political, actually, and urgent. Jimmy Duggan’s off sick and this needs to be done tomorrow.’

  A stab of unease ripped through her stomach. Duggan was the Herald’s political correspondent, and it was usually she who covered for him when he was off. ‘I could have done that – I’m around tomorrow.’

  ‘No, you couldn’t,’ Griffin said gruffly, ‘and you’re not in tomorrow, anyway. I told you to take the day off in lieu of today, remember?’

  Siobhan widened her eyes. ‘Of course I do, and I remember just as clearly telling you I didn’t want to take it, not when I was already wasting one day of my week slogging down to Cork and back for a useless fucking funeral.’

  She instantly regretted saying it, knowing there was too much aggression, too much complaint in her tone. It would be hard enough to argue the case for chasing up Gemma Kearney’s story when she’d so resisted covering the funeral in the first place. On the train back, she had envisaged joshing Griffin a little, flattering him, telling him he’d been right all along, that Horgan’s funeral had dug up an interesting new angle – how it would all just fall into place, and she’d get what she wanted, as usual. From the furious look on Griffin’s face she could tell she’d blown any chance of that now. He was shaking his head again, but not in a good way. In fact he was looking completely pissed off with her. She decided to try a more conciliatory tack.

  ‘Look, Paddy, I’m sorry. The thing is—’

  ‘No, Siobhan,’ Griffin interjected, the slur in his voice from the drink instantly more audible. ‘You look, because I’m getting tired of this. I agreed to have you back from sick leave early on the understanding that you’d take it easy, for your benefit, not mine. But you’re just not playing ball. You’re either grabbing at every stupid bit of work that comes in, without even knowing what it is, or arguing the toss over what I actually want you to do. It’s not on, girl. I mean, I told you to go home this afternoon, but no, here you are, dragging yourself in at half past five, and for what? So you can get on my back again for sending you out on a story that, in my professional opinion, had legs for a bit more. And which, by the way, I still think has. And which it’s your bloody job to make sure does, okay?’

  ‘But that’s what I’m saying, Paddy.’ She paused, trying to find the right words, but they wouldn’t come to her. It was too late, anyway. Griffin was already on a rant.

  ‘I don’t care what you’re saying, Siobhan. I don’t want to hear it, okay? I don’t want to hear it now, and I don’t want to hear it tomorrow. In fact, I don’t want to hear it anytime this week.’ Griffin had got out of his chair and was towering above her, stabbing an insistent forefinger in her direction. ‘Last time I checked, I was still the news editor here. I make the decisions about who does what and what’s best for everyone, and I’m deciding now: I don’t want to see you in here again this week, Siobhan. File that story when you get a chance and take the rest of the week off.’

  ‘Jesus, Paddy, what in hell’s the mat—’

  But Griffin just put the flat of his hand in front of her face to shut her up. ‘I’m serious, Siobhan,’ he said, grabbing his jacket and folding it over his arm. ‘I’m going home now and I’m telling you to do the same. Get some rest, or go do some promotion for that book of yours. Anything. But don’t come near this office again before next week or there’ll be trouble. I mean it. You’re not fit for it.’

  5

  Head down against the rain, Mulcahy crossed the castle’s lower yard, the sky darkening into dusk. The lights were going on early behind the wide plate-glass windows of the Stamping Building, casting a soft yellow glow onto the wet tarmac at his feet and up across the grey stone walls and carved Gothic pinnacles of the Chapel Royal opposite. Rounding the corner, he spotted Detective Garda Aidan Duffy, and another man he didn’t recognise, exiting the fine Georgian doorway of the Garda National Drugs Unit.

  ‘Hold the door there, lads, would you?’ He ran the last few yards, grabbing the heavy oak door from Duffy, who had a large sports bag slung over his shoulder and was looking a little sheepishly at his watch.

 
‘I waited as long as I could, boss, but I have to head off for training now, okay? I told you last week, yeah?’

  Mulcahy stopped. Duffy was short for a cop, five ten or so, but powerfully built and ideally made for the position of scrum half, which he occupied on the Garda Siochana rugby ‘A’ team, the sort of major achievement that brought plenty of in-job admiration with it. Mulcahy was sure Duffy considered himself desperately unlucky to be working for the one cop in the entire country who had no interest in any kind of football, let alone rugby, and few other sports for that matter unless they involved water and sails. The guy was always apologising for going off for training, although in truth Mulcahy didn’t mind. He only cared about Duffy’s other, even rarer talent, which was for following the intricacies of paper trails and money. For that he’d be willing to put up with pretty much anything. ‘No problem, Aidan. I’ll see you tomorrow. Is Aisling up there?’

  ‘Yeah, still holding the fort.’

  Inside, Mulcahy flicked the rain off his hair and coat sleeves, and made his way up the stairs to the International Liaison Unit’s office at the back of the building. There were still quite a few people working in the open-plan space on the first floor, but he ignored most of them, raising an amiable hand to one or two but making it clear he wasn’t stopping for a chat. Despite what Duffy had said, his other colleague, Detective Garda Aisling Sweeney, was nowhere to be seen, although her computer was still on and he could see a bag on the floor beneath her desk. In the glass-walled sanctuary of his own office, he shrugged off his jacket and logged on to his computer, his free hand picking up the phone on his desk.

  He went straight through to voicemail. ‘Eddie, it’s me, Mulcahy,’ he said. ‘Couple of things you said earlier, I got the impression you didn’t want to elaborate with Liam there. Give me a call when you get a chance, yeah?’