‘No, I mean about this massive load of cocaine that’s supposedly gone missing in Rotterdam. Didn’t you think that’s a bit weird?’
‘Well, yeah. I’d have thought we would’ve got wind of a story like that before now, from the Dutch if nobody else.’
‘Maybe they’re doing an ostrich on it,’ Mulcahy said. ‘Pretending it doesn’t exist. Nobody’s actually seen it, have they? And the Brits obviously want to play the Ronson hit close to their chests, too. Probably to prevent all-out war in Liverpool with the gangs.’
‘I suppose,’ Ford agreed warily.
‘Didn’t you think anything about the coke itself?’ Mulcahy asked again, trying to prompt the right response from Ford. ‘That size load, I mean.’
Ford scowled as a lorry thundered past too close for comfort, its slipstream swirling exhaust fumes and grit into their faces. ‘You mean in terms of the Atlantean, Rosscarbery Bay?’
‘Yes, that’s exactly what I mean.’
‘Sure, I thought it.’ Ford shrugged, stopping on the corner and turning to Mulcahy. ‘A tonne of coke goes missing in Rotterdam. A couple of months later the Atlantean turns up off Cork with not an awful lot less than that on board. Bit handy that, I thought. If it did happen. But that’s the problem, isn’t it? We don’t even know for sure it did happen.’
‘Oh, come on, Liam – you know as well as I do that the Brits wouldn’t be pursuing that line of enquiry if there wasn’t some solid evidence for it.’
‘So why didn’t the Brits make the connection with the Atlantean? Why didn’t they come to us with it?’
‘Why would it even occur to them?’ Mulcahy said. ‘It is Ronson’s murder they’re looking into, not a smuggling operation. And, anyway, they don’t know what we know.’ Mulcahy tapped the lapel of Ford’s jacket with his index finger. ‘They don’t know that the Atlantean sailed from Holland. We didn’t know it ourselves before last week.’
‘Neither do we now. Not for certain,’ Ford reminded him. ‘The Cork team haven’t even got there yet. And what are you suggesting? That we should tell the Brits about this?’
‘God, no,’ Mulcahy said. ‘We don’t even know if there is a link yet. We need time to think this through, and then go and prove it.’
‘Prove it?’ Ford snorted. He was getting irritable now. ‘How do you propose we go about that? You know the stats better than I do, boss. Sixteen million containers a year go through Rotterdam Port, with upwards of what – a hundred, two hundred tonnes of coke smuggled in among them? What are we going to do, try and identify which one it was? And what good would it do us, anyway? Even if it was the same coke, it won’t tell us anything about who was behind the job.’
‘It would be a bloody good start.’
‘If there is a link,’ Ford said grudgingly.
‘And if we think there could be, then we have a duty to investigate it.’
Ford’s expression contained everything Mulcahy needed to know regarding his opinion of investigations initiated for the sake of duty.
‘You were the one accusing me of leaping to conclusions last night, boss. And if you don’t mind me saying so, you’re going in for a bit of pole-vaulting here yourself. Let me get this right. You’re seriously thinking Bingo could be linked to the Atlantean now, as well as the Ronson murder? Bingo fuckin’ Begley?’
Mulcahy held his hands up placatingly, knowing he’d have to get Ford on board if he was going to take this any further. ‘Look, one thing’s for sure – you and me have been caught on the hop here, assuming that Declan Begley was still the same small-time little shit he was when we knew him ten years ago. Come on, that’s got to have crossed your mind, too.’
‘Okay,’ Ford said. ‘Maybe it did.’
‘And you’ve got to admit there’s something going on here. I don’t claim to know what it is, or whether it links to Rosscarbery Bay, or if any or all of those threads will come together when we examine them, but it’s got to be worth having a look at least, yeah? I mean, if there was a link, it would be massive. Don’t you agree?’
‘I suppose so,’ Ford nodded. He looked like he was about to add a rider, but Mulcahy cut in ahead of him.
‘Right, in which case the first thing we need to do is get on to the murder team in Malaga and get their victim profile of Begley. That should give us an up-to-date idea of what he had his sticky fingers in recently, and the extent of any money laundering he might have been suspected of, yeah?’
‘Maybe,’ Ford said, with a little more enthusiasm. ‘But what about SOCA? Shouldn’t we talk to them about Ronson and Begley?’
‘Yes, we should, but I’d like to have this other info in place first. To get both sides of the equation, you know? When we get back, could you get in touch with someone on the Dutch end and find out what they have to say about Hayford’s murder and the missing cocaine? That’s what we really need to know.’
‘I could give that Dutch intelligence guy a call, the one we’re liaising with about the boat. I’m sure he’d fast-track me through to whoever we need to talk to.’
‘Great. I’m sure he could.’
Across the road, over Ford’s shoulder, something caught Mulcahy’s eye and he looked up. On the corner of Parliament Street, the sunlight falling on the Italianate arcades and painted terracotta frieze of Sunlight Chambers made the building look, for once, perfectly at home on the banks of the Liffey. It was the sort of low, bright light that used to fill his heart with warmth on cold winter days in Madrid, its intensity so unexpected and welcome. It made his heart lift now, too.
‘While we’re at it,’ he said, ‘why don’t we get Aisling and Aidan working on this, as well, throw everything we’ve got at it for a couple of days, see what comes out the other end?’
‘A couple of days?’ Ford said, his eyebrows like steeples. ‘Are you sure you’re feeling all right? Even if there is something to this, don’t you think we’d be better off passing it on to O’Grady and the lads in Southern Region to chase up? I mean, they’ve got a hell of a lot more resources than we do.’
‘No, not a chance,’ Mulcahy said, a glimpse of the possibilities, the bigger picture, coming together in his mind now. ‘Look, Liam, trust me on this. I’ve got my reasons. If it comes to nothing, so be it, but if we do pull the lid off something big, I want it to be all our own work, and nobody else’s.’
*
Mo Sheeran was the name he gave her, a source from way back, when Griffin had been halfway to making managing editor on the old Irish Press and Sheeran had been climbing the ranks of the CID. Unlike Griffin, though, Sheeran had switched vocations in his late forties and left his hardcore anti-terrorism job with the Garda Siochana to become a senior member of the national airline’s security staff.
‘Don’t piss him off,’ Griffin warned her. ‘He’ll find a way to hurt you.’
She rang Sheeran at Aer Lingus, wondering whether Mo stood for Maurice or Moses and deciding she’d better not ask, in case the guy thought she was hoping to quote him on anything. Just from the way he answered the phone – quick, abrupt, not a scintilla of warmth or hesitation – she could tell he was a serious player, imagined him as a tall, broad-shouldered man with a sharp suit, a firm jaw and close-cropped grey hair.
She explained who she was, what her connection to Griffin was and what she wanted. He made no comment other than to take her number and tell her he would call her back in five minutes. When he did, she could tell he was in a different space, smaller, quieter, more private, she guessed.
‘Is this for Griffin or yourself?’ Sheeran asked.
‘For the paper,’ she said.
For some reason he seemed to like that, the snort he made sounding marginally more positive than negative.
‘This is confidential information. It’s not to be published, recorded or broadcast in any way. I will refute any attribution. Understood?’
‘Yes, understood.’
‘Okay. What flight was it? Have you got a number?’
‘That’s
the thing,’ Siobhan said. ‘There were two flights, both from Cork, both on the same night, Friday 3 September. I think the guy checked in for both but only got on one.’
She gave Sheeran the details, glad now she had double-checked the flight numbers online beforehand. He didn’t sound the type to tolerate fumbling vagueness. She heard him inputting something on a keyboard, a pause, then the same again.
‘Is this a drugs story?’ he asked.
‘Drugs? No, a missing person.’ She made a poor job of concealing her surprise. ‘Why would you think it was drugs?’
‘I don’t think it’s anything,’ he said sharply. ‘It’s your story. Bristol and Amsterdam were the destinations, yes?’
‘Yes,’ she said, feeling the tension coil in her stomach.
‘You’re right,’ Sheeran said. ‘He checked in online for both flights but only boarded one. Could only have boarded one as they departed within half an hour of each other. The flight Mr Cormac Horgan actually boarded on Friday 3 September was the earlier of the two, EI844 to Amsterdam.’
‘And the Bristol flight?’
‘Seat went empty.’
14
St Stephen’s Green was busier than usual: hundreds, maybe thousands of optimistic souls venturing out from shops, offices and assorted other workplaces, streaming into the great park on the southern fringe of the city centre to soak up one last blast of late summer sunshine over the lunch hour. Mulcahy arrived a few minutes early, entering via the imposing stone arch on the Grafton Street side. Siobhan had said she would meet him by the O’Donovan Rossa memorial, but the benches there were already taken, and the patch of grass around it was filling up with sun-worshippers, too. He looked around, saw an elderly couple get up from a bench overlooking the lake and hurried over, feeling a ridiculous sense of frustration when two girls in grey bank-teller’s uniforms got there and nabbed it before him. Why was he even thinking about getting a seat? All he wanted was to get the encounter over and done with.
He checked his watch again. Still a couple of minutes to go and he really didn’t feel like hanging around. His phone rang: Siobhan’s caller ID.
‘Mulcahy, it’s me – are you there yet? I’m going to be a couple of minutes late. You okay to wait?’
‘Yes, okay. But it’s packed here. I think we should find somewhere else, somewhere to sit—’ He stopped himself, wondering where this sudden obsession with sitting had come from.
‘You could try the Yeats garden,’ she said. ‘Do you know it? Over by the lake. It’s always quiet in there.’
He had an idea, but she told him where it was, anyway, tucked away behind a tall screen of shrubbery on the far side of the pond. Like she said, it was fairly empty, no more than a dozen people scattered around, sitting, reading, munching on salads or sandwiches. It was all paved, more like an amphitheatre than a garden, with lots of steps and different levels all in cut stone. He sat down on one of the low slate ledges that doubled as seats, feeling the day’s accumulated heat radiating into the backs of his thighs, put his head in his hands, smoothing his hair at the sides.
A green metal sculpture, two, maybe three metres high, stood on a circular pedestal in a far corner. A vaguely human shape but more like a sheet of canvas ripped by a gale. Was it supposed to be something to do with Yeats? All he could recall from school was something about treading softly on dreams, and a title that stuck in his mind, ‘The Circus Animals’ Desertion’, though he couldn’t remember a word of the poem or even what it was about. Siobhan would probably know it, he reckoned, smiling at the easy assumption and realising, or maybe just admitting, for the first time, that he actually wanted to see her.
*
The minute she laid eyes on him – sitting there, oblivious, his big frame slouched over, hands clasped under his chin, elbows on his knees, smiling to himself as he stared at the Henry Moore bronze of W. B. Yeats at the far end of the garden – she knew that, for her, it was going to be the same as before with him. The same as always. Even now, when things were totally different.
‘Hiya,’ she said, forcing life into her voice, smiling the professional smile and mwah-mwahing either side of his big rough-hewn face, careful not to touch. He looked more perplexed than pleased to see her, but moved his jacket off the wall so she could sit.
‘I love this place,’ she said. ‘It’s like a secret garden, so tucked away and quiet.’ She felt his eyes examining her as she placed her bag between them and sat down. For some reason she couldn’t meet his gaze.
‘You look different,’ he said, eyes still combing her. ‘You changed your hair.’
‘I did that a while back.’ She touched the top of her head self-consciously, smoothed her hand over the crown, down the nape to her bare neck. She hardly ever thought of how it was before. But, of course, he would remember it as it was back then – the mop of black curls, cropped now. ‘A new start, a new look, you know?’
But he couldn’t know. He could have no idea of how, almost from the moment she’d woken up in the hospital, she’d wanted to tear the whole filthy mass of it out by the roots. No one could know. It defied reason. For months, even after the pain of her other injuries had eased, she’d felt the prongs from the barbed-wire crown Rinn had scraped through her hair, into her scalp. No matter how many times they washed her hair, no matter how often they told her the skin beneath had healed, she felt the sharp points of it digging down, pressing in. Until one day she took a scissors to her locks herself, and it was as if the cold sting of steel got swept away with the curls.
‘It looks great. I mean, you’re looking great. Being back at work must suit you.’
‘You’re not such a fright yourself,’ she said, and surprised herself by putting out a hand and touching his shirt, the merest whisper, above the elbow. ‘It’s good to see you, Mulcahy.’
‘You too. For a while there I thought you’d gone off me.’
It was such a ridiculous thing to say, she looked up at him, into his eyes and his teasing smile, and they both laughed.
‘Here,’ she said, opening her handbag and digging out the brown paper bag inside. ‘I brought you this.’
He took it, but this time she saw his eyes take in the scar on the back of her outstretched hand and glance quickly away again. Embarrassed. Disgusted maybe.
‘What’s this?’ As if he didn’t know already. He untwisted the paper at the top and pulled the book half out, then stopped.
‘Ah, your book,’ he said flatly, taking in the title, the cover. ‘“Crucified.” Nice. I mean, congratulations. And thanks. I’ll … uh … I’ll save that for later.’
He pushed it back in the paper bag and put it down on the ledge beside him, like he was afraid he’d get infected if he held on to it any longer.
‘Look, Mulcahy, about that … ’ She breathed deep, hadn’t intended getting into it so soon, but it was there now between them.
He was putting his hand up. ‘It’s okay. We said everything that needs to be said the other night. So let’s just leave it at that, yeah?’
It annoyed her that she felt any need to apologise to him for the book. She wanted him to listen to her defend it like it deserved, but what was the point? It was obvious where he stood on the subject, that nothing she could say would change his mind. And there was no point setting out to upset him. Not when she needed a favour from him. ‘Okay.’
‘What was it you wanted to see me about?’ he asked. ‘This missing kid you were chasing up?’
‘Yeah, but she’s no kid. Did you have any luck getting me that contact?’
He looked away, over towards the statue again. ‘Sorry – it’s been a busy week. But there is a guy I thought of this morning, after you rang.’
He reached in his pocket, handed over a yellow Post-it note with a name and number on it. ‘Give him a call, mention my name if you have to. He might be able to help.’
She glanced at it and put it in the inside pocket of her bag. ‘Thanks. There’s something else I wanted to run by you, a
s well. Do you mind?’
‘Missing persons isn’t really my thing, Siobhan. You’d be better off—’
She held up a finger. ‘Please, Mulcahy. I just want to see if you think this is weird, too. You’ve got good instincts. And you’re here now, yeah?’
He shrugged, like he knew there was no point resisting, which there wasn’t really. She started telling him again about Gemma Kearney and Cormac Horgan, reminded him what she’d said to him a couple of nights before. He seemed to remember most of it.
‘And I told you we weren’t sure Gemma had actually gone to Bristol, right?’
He nodded and mumbled something she didn’t catch.
‘Well, she was there – definitely. I know that for a fact now. I was over there myself yesterday.’
His eyes widened. ‘You went to Bristol to check this out? It must be some story.’
‘It’s no story at all yet, but I’m telling you, Mulcahy, there’s something not right about it.’
He listened while she told him what she’d learnt from Sergeant Walker, about finding the mobile phone in the car, the appointment with ‘G’ and, later, the message waiting for Horgan from Gemma when he checked into his hotel. He agreed that it was all a bit strange, but he seemed more surprised about the level of access Walker had allowed her than anything else.
‘Well, you know, I have a good record of charming the pants off my sources,’ she said, smiling broadly – the old smile, the confident smile. Then she saw him look away, redden a little, and she realised what she’d said. Christ, how could she be so stupid? Oh well, he was the one who wanted to skim over things. She could do that, too.
‘The thing is, Mulcahy, the more I look at Horgan’s story, the less it makes sense. When I did my piece on his suicide, it was easy. The bridge was there; he’d bankrupted a multimillion-pound business; there were no suspicious circumstances. Therefore, you know, he must have gone to Bristol to kill himself. But once you put Gemma in the mix, none of it adds up. I mean, what the hell were they doing there? It sure as hell wasn’t for a romantic weekend away.’
Dublin Dead Page 14