‘That’s just for starters, anyway,’ Walker said, smiling again. ‘What you really want to see is this.’
She tapped at the screen and again held the phone out for Siobhan to see. This time the page was from the phone’s built-in organiser, from the diary section, and headed ‘Saturday 4 September’, the second night of Horgan’s stay in Bristol. But it was what was written beneath the date that took Siobhan’s breath away.
‘Fuck me,’ she whispered, almost to herself. ‘Does that say what I think it says?’
Walker came round and stood beside Siobhan, so the two of them could look at the screen together. Siobhan squinted through the plastic again. There was no doubting what it said: ‘G – CSB, 9 p.m.’ And beneath it was a phone number.
‘“G” for “Gemma”,’ Siobhan said. ‘What do you reckon “CSB” stands for?’
‘Well, if it’s what you are thinking, that would have to be “Clifton Suspension Bridge”, wouldn’t it?’
‘And what are you thinking?’
‘Nothing. I’m keeping an open mind,’ Walker insisted.
‘Do you think maybe she didn’t turn up, and that’s why he … ?’ Siobhan trailed off, thinking it through.
‘It might be one possibility.’
‘A possibility? Come on. I mean, that’s definitely around the time he died, right?’
Walker held her pale palms up in a gesture of surrender. ‘Roughly. The pathologist’s estimate for time of death was twelve hours before or after noon on Sunday 5 September. That’s slightly outside the timeframe, but the body was in the water for a long time, and TODs are difficult at the best of times.’
Siobhan looked at the phone again and then at Walker. ‘Meaning?’
‘Meaning nothing.’ Walker was sounding a little exasperated now. ‘Meaning anything. I just thought you’d want to see it. It doesn’t make any difference to me. No skin off my nose if you tear off on a wild goose chase; but if you do track this Gemma girl down, and it turns out she was in the area at the time, obviously I’d like to talk to her.’
‘What about the number?’ Siobhan said. ‘Have you tried it?’
Walker shrugged. ‘Do you recognise it? It looks like a UK number to me.’
‘It’s not the one Horgan had in his address book for Gemma.’
‘So, odds on, it’s not even her.’
‘Maybe we should just try it,’ Siobhan said, and, fast as a gunslinger, drew her phone from her pocket again and started tapping in the number.
‘No way. Don’t you dare,’ Walker said, snatching Horgan’s phone away. ‘Leave it. I’ll do it. But not on this. I don’t want to give anyone a heart attack, calling from a dead man’s number.’ She took her own phone out of her pocket and dialled, waiting, head cocked, for an answer.
‘Anything?’ Siobhan whispered impatiently.
Walker shook her head. ‘Nothing. It just rings and rings. It’s not even connected to an answering service.’
‘Can’t you trace it? With GPS or something?’
Walker treated Siobhan to a withering look of scepticism. ‘No, Siobhan. That would take time and money, and, like I said before, I see no good reason to spend any more of Avon and Somerset Constabulary’s resources on this. Or mine, for that matter. This is as much as I can do for you. It ends here.’
‘Jesus, what a waste of time this has been,’ Siobhan said, frustrated with herself as much as anything else.
‘Thanks a bunch,’ Walker said. ‘But I did try to warn you last night. It’s just one of those sad stories. Finding the car was never going to tell us much more than we knew already.’
‘There was one thing, though,’ Siobhan said, clutching at straws. She pointed at the reservation form on the table. ‘It told us the hotel Horgan stayed in, didn’t it?’
‘Sure. The Lennox. Very chic, very boutique, very pricey,’ Walker confirmed. ‘What about it?’
‘Have you spoken to them there yet?’
‘Earlier,’ Walker said. ‘Horgan paid in advance online, so they didn’t even notice he hadn’t checked out until one of the maids found some things of his still in the room. They said they emailed him, but, obviously, he never got back to them, so the few bits he left behind were just stuck in a cupboard for the last couple of weeks. I’m going over there in a minute to pick them up and send everything back to the next-of-kin together. But don’t get your hopes up. They said there’s nothing much there: a wash bag, a sweater, some other odds and sods.’
‘Can I come over with you?’
‘I don’t think so, Siobhan,’ Walker demurred. ‘This is still official police business.’
But she hadn’t said no. Not as such.
‘All I want to do is see the place for myself,’ Siobhan pleaded. ‘I’ve come all the way over here and got nothing. Can’t I just join you if you’re going over anyway, rather than having to find the place for myself? I promise I won’t say anything to anyone. I won’t even come in with you, if you don’t want me to.’
Walker puffed out her cheeks and shook her head slowly, the long waves of her hair moving stiffly. ‘Shit, Siobhan, you’re really pushing it here, but okay, all right, I’ll show you where it is. But that’s it. Then you go home, and none of this appears in your story, or I’ll be in crap up to my neck. Okay?’
‘You’ve got nothing to worry about on that score,’ Siobhan said, pouting.‘Far as I can see, there isn’t going to be any story.’
The Lennox Hotel was exactly as Walker had described it: small, stylish and expensive, tastefully remodelled from two large Georgian houses facing a lovely garden square. In the end, Walker didn’t insist on Siobhan staying outside, providing she kept her mouth shut. Not that it made any difference. All they did was wait at reception while the manager went and got a carrier bag from her office. Walker’s prediction regarding what would be in it also proved accurate. Nothing of interest: a brown leather wash bag containing shaving kit and a selection of half-used traveller’s requisites, a rain jacket and a few more loose papers and receipts, including a torn Aer Lingus boarding pass. It was the latter that made Siobhan do a double-take when they took a closer look once they got back to Walker’s car.
‘I think I’m going mad here,’ she said to Walker, who by now looked ready to believe it. ‘This boarding pass, it’s for Cork to Amsterdam.’
‘What’s the date on it?’
‘Same date as he flew here, but half an hour earlier. Six thirty in the evening.’
‘You’re sure?’ Walker was sounding more weary than sceptical.
‘Of course. Look.’ Siobhan leant across, holding up the scrap of paper. ‘Friday 3 September, it says.’
Walker glanced at it and tutted as she pulled out into the traffic. ‘There isn’t even a name on it, Siobhan.’
She scanned the boarding pass again. ‘That bit’s been torn off.’
‘So why assume it’s his?’ There was a definite note of irritation in Walker’s voice now, but Siobhan wasn’t really listening. She was too busy thinking.
‘Why would anyone check in for a flight they weren’t going on?’
‘Who says he did?’ Walker sighed. ‘Believe me, Siobhan, I checked his flights as part of the ID process. He was on the seven p.m. flight out of Cork that evening.’ She checked her mirror, then switched lanes in the heavy traffic. ‘Maybe someone dropped it in Cork and he picked it up.’
‘But why?’ Siobhan was still staring at the boarding pass, specifically the word ‘Electronic’ printed along the top. Why would Horgan have picked up someone else’s boarding pass? It just didn’t add up.
Beside her, Walker sighed like this was the last thing in the world she wanted to be thinking about. ‘Look, Siobhan, if there’s one thing no one can dispute’ – the implicit ‘not even you’ was left hanging in the air – ‘it’s that Horgan was here in Bristol. I helped pull his body out of the river, remember? And that’s his shaving kit you’re holding in your hand.’
Ford was sitting back, rocking his ch
air on its back legs, feet on his desk, tucking into what looked like a double-sized Mars bar in one hand, and a can of Fanta in the other. On seeing Mulcahy, he took a long swig from the can and swallowed noisily.
‘That went well, then,’ Ford said. ‘You look like you’ve been shat on from a height.’
‘Something like that,’ Mulcahy said. ‘Is Aisling around?’
‘Still at lunch.’ Ford stuffed the last of the Mars bar into his mouth and tossed the wrapper at the bin on the far side of the desk, punching the air when it dropped in dead centre. In one fluid movement he lowered his feet to the floor, dusted some crumbs from his T-shirt and swivelled his chair round to face Mulcahy straight on.
‘Is that it for us on Rosscarbery Bay now? Do we just let the Cork lads sort out the rest of it and move on to something else?’
Mulcahy looked at him. Did everyone, even Liam, really think that other people always got the credit for the work done by the ILU? Had he been thinking it himself, albeit subconsciously, when he gave O’Grady that poke earlier? He considered telling Ford what he’d just heard from Murtagh, but dismissed the idea. Ford had passed up what might have been a career-making move to the Armed Response Unit to become his second in command. He’d go straight to the bottom of the pile again if the ILU shut up shop. And the same went for Sweeney and Duffy. Mulcahy knew it was up to him, and only him, to find a way out of the mess. If there was one. Best to proceed as normal for the moment.
‘No, we’ll need to have another word with the Dutch,’ he said. ‘Make sure they’re completely up to speed before the Cork team get there. Aisling’s come up with some interesting info about a vehicle going to the pier on the night of the seizure. If we leave her to follow that up, I think she’ll make something good of it. There’s plenty more mileage for us in Rosscarbery Bay. In the meantime we’ve got to get back to the Spanish about Declan Begley. Have you done up the draft memo on that?’
‘I emailed it to you.’ Ford grinned. ‘It’s only the one paragraph, telling them we conducted enquiries this end, as requested, but found nothing to indicate a Dublin connection to Begley’s murder. Basically, giving them the old heave-ho, politely.’
‘Okay, I’ll have a look,’ Mulcahy said. Ford’s idea of polite didn’t always accord with his own. ‘Anything else?’
Ford dropped his voice to a lower register. ‘That guy I was talking about last night, Solomons, I gave him a call while you were at your meeting. About Begley.’
‘Oh yeah?’ Mulcahy gestured at Ford to follow him into his office. He leant on the edge of his desk while Ford shut the door. ‘So, what did he have to say?’
‘Well, he’s still with the Merseyside Major Crime Unit, all right, but he’s going on secondment in a couple of days.’
‘Lucky you caught him.’
‘You can say that again. He’s actually been working flat out on the Ronson murder this last couple of months, as local liaison for the SOCA team who’re officially heading up the murder inquiry. So he was a bit jumpy even talking to me about it. It’s a big deal for him, I suppose. SOCA’s like the FBI for them, isn’t it?’
‘I suppose so,’ Mulcahy said. ‘So did you get a chance to run what McTiernan said about Begley past him? Did any of it check out?’
‘He hadn’t heard of Begley himself, not in terms of a connection with Ronson, but, like I said, I got the impression his focus was local, so I didn’t push it. To be honest, what he was telling me about the Trevor Ronson inquiry was more interesting. You wouldn’t believe the half of it.’
‘Try me,’ Mulcahy said, intrigued.
‘A lot of it was about how big Ronson was and how much gear he was bringing into England.’
‘They called him “King Cocaine”,’ Mulcahy said. ‘That much I do know.’
‘Right. So after a bit more chat Solomons starts telling me that SOCA are following a definite line of enquiry. He wasn’t hugely forthcoming about it, but, to be honest, what he did say sounded mad, anyway.’
‘How so?’
‘Brace yourself,’ Ford said. ‘According to him, SOCA are working on the theory that one of the Colombian drugs cartels, the one based in Cali, had Ronson whacked.’
‘They what?’ Mulcahy wasn’t sure he was hearing properly. ‘Come off it, Liam. He’s taking the piss.’
‘That’s what I thought, but he said it was absolutely straight up. And after I put the phone down, I was thinking, your man McTiernan said yesterday that Bingo had got himself into a hole he couldn’t climb out of, and everyone was calling him a dead man walking. And I wondered, what if his death and Ronson’s are connected? I mean, you’re the one who said the way Bingo’s body was left on that dump was a message. Well, maybe it was a message from the Cali Cartel – “Don’t fuck with us.”’
‘That’s a hell of a leap, Liam.’ Still, Mulcahy’s thoughts zapped straight to the conversation in the car with McTiernan the day before. What hadn’t he been telling them? And why hadn’t he returned his call?
‘I know, but it would be just like the Bingo of old, wouldn’t it?’ Ford chuckled. ‘He finds himself going up in the world, plenty of dosh, powerful new friends and bang – it all blows up in his face. Literally, in this instance.’
‘Say you didn’t put any of this in your memo to the Spanish.’
‘’Course not,’ Ford said. ‘It wouldn’t be for us to say, would it? It’d be up to the Brits and the Spanish to sort it out.’
‘We’d better hold off on sending it for now, anyway, until we find out some more. You didn’t mention McTiernan to Solomons, did you?’
‘No, I thought you wouldn’t want me to.’
‘Good,’ Mulcahy said, relieved. ‘Christ, why would the Cali Cartel have wanted to kill Ronson? He must’ve been one of their best customers.’
Ford put his hands up. ‘Like I said, Solomons wouldn’t go into it, not on the mobile.’
‘So what are we supposed to do if we want to know more? Go over to Liverpool for a chat? Couldn’t we phone him on a secure line or something?’
‘No, boss.’ Ford was grinning again. ‘Better than that – he’s here in Dublin.’
Mulcahy glared at him suspiciously. ‘What is he doing over here?’
‘Don’t worry,’ Ford laughed. ‘It’s nothing dodgy. Remember I said his wife is a Dub? So she got him to take a couple of days off before he starts his new gig. They’ve come over for some family do, a wedding or something. Tonight’s a write-off, but he’ll meet us tomorrow morning if you want. We’d be doing him a favour, he said, get him away from the in-laws for a couple of hours.’
10
By the time Walker dropped her off in the city centre, Siobhan reckoned that for all her earlier professions of admiration, the policewoman’s patience with her had run completely dry. Such was the look of relief on Walker’s face as she smiled and pulled away into the traffic, Siobhan experienced a sensation not unlike satisfaction. It never did any harm to keep officialdom on its toes. No matter how nice its face.
What she wanted more than anything else now was to find somewhere to sit down for a bite to eat and a cold drink, and to take stock. For all intents and purposes, her trip to Bristol had been a miserable failure. She’d found no trace of Gemma Kearney except, possibly, an initial ‘G’ and an unanswered phone, and that was barely a trace at all. Moreover, regardless of what Walker said, the circumstances of Horgan’s death didn’t seem quite so cut and dried as she’d been led to believe originally. All that stuff about falling or not falling in the water – what was all that about? In terms of a story, though, it still added up to nothing.
Walker had let her out on a bustling paved concourse full of fountains, metal sculptures and benches. But unlike a European piazza, it was surrounded not by nice shops, cafés and restaurants offering succour and sustenance but by three lanes of roaring traffic on every side. The only refreshment available appeared to be from a parked-up van selling hot-dogs, burgers and soft drinks. Not quite what she had in mind. Then,
in the distance, she spied what looked like a restaurant with tables outside in the sun, so she set off in that direction. As she walked, she took out her mobile, checked there was plenty of time before her flight and then, on a whim, tapped in the number for ‘G’ that she had memorised from Horgan’s phone. There was no reason why Gemma Kearney couldn’t have two mobiles. Lots of people did, for home, for business, for having affairs. But again it just rang on endlessly, like it would never be answered again.
The restaurant she’d spotted had no tables free, so she carried on, emerging into a redeveloped docks area: rows of waterside restaurants, drinking sheds, gallery spaces and warehouse apartments with balconies over water. She found a nice place with shady umbrellas over the tables outside and sat down, ordered a Caesar salad and a large glass of sauvignon blanc. The lunchtime crowds were beginning to thin out, people heading back to work for the afternoon, looking like they wished they could stay out and enjoy the fine weather. Feeling tired again, Siobhan sat back and stared vacantly at the rippling movement of light on the water, the glint and sparkle of the sun triggering a long-dormant memory of other oven-hot days, even hotter nights in a canal-side room in Amsterdam, ten, fifteen, could it really be almost twenty years before? Smoking strong black dope with a blond and suntanned Dutch boy called … what? Try as she might, she couldn’t remember his name, only randomly vivid details of that moment, like the flex of his muscular arms as he pulled her in to him.
Amsterdam? She kicked back up to the surface. That’s what was bothering her most. It was bizarre. There was something not right about Horgan having that boarding card for Amsterdam in his possession, no matter how easily Walker dismissed it. Maybe he had picked it up, but in that case why keep it? She pulled her notepad and pen from her bag, jotted down what details she could remember from the slip of torn paper – the flight number, the time, underscoring the word ‘Electronic’ that had been printed across the top. Maybe that was it. It’s all done online these days. You check in and print off the boarding pass yourself. Maybe he originally had other plans, then changed his mind and decided to come to Bristol instead. There was another part to this puzzle, she felt certain, and it simply wasn’t revealing itself.
Dublin Dead Page 10