‘I wanted to ask if you could help me out.’
‘Me, help you?’ she said. ‘Jesus, you’ve changed your tune. How?’
‘Tell me what the story is with Gemma Kearney. Why are you so interested in her?’
Siobhan stared hard at Mulcahy, as if wondering whether he was suffering short-term memory loss. ‘I told you, she’s disappeared. As for why, I told you that, too – her mother approached me.’
‘And that’s the only reason?’
‘Sure. What other reason would there be?’ She stopped, narrowed her eyes. ‘You’ve found something, haven’t you?’
He was all too aware he hadn’t got her to commit to staying off the record, but he knew if he didn’t hold out some kind of tangible lure, she wouldn’t anyway.
‘Look, I shouldn’t be telling you this, but when I was checking her out for you, I found out that her name had also arisen in relation to another investigation I’ve been working on. I need to ask you some questions about her and I don’t want you asking any back. Will you do that for me?’
‘What’s in it for me?’ she said, putting her drink down and fixing him with a look that suggested she was more at home with this kind of negotiation than he was.
‘Well, if you’re willing to play the long game, you might get a bigger story out of it.’
‘How much bigger?’
He glanced around again and this time came back with his voice pitched a little lower. ‘Look, Gemma’s involvement could be a complete coincidence. If it comes to nothing, you’ll be the first to know.’
‘Jesus, Mulcahy, you’ll never win deal-maker of the year. What if it does come to something?’
‘Same thing, but you get the inside story, without mentioning my name. My bosses would be down on me like a ton of bricks if they knew I was talking to you. I know it was nothing compared to what you went through, but they really did haul me over the coals for letting you get to Rinn. If they thought I was feeding you a story—’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ she broke in, the colour rising in her cheeks. ‘You didn’t “let” me do anything. I tracked Rinn down on my own.’
‘Let’s not get into that now,’ Mulcahy said. ‘All I’m saying is that I have to be really careful. They won’t let me get away with it again. And, whether you like it or not, your name is still poison as far as some in the force are concerned.’
She sat back, and he felt the full heft of her blue eyes on him again. ‘Okay, tell me what you want.’
‘Everything you’ve got on Gemma, past and present, but there’s one thing in particular I want to know.’
‘Is it about Horgan?’
‘Horgan?’ Mulcahy asked, surprised. ‘No. Why do you ask?’
‘Just a thought,’ she said, moving on quickly. ‘This is all about drugs, yeah? I mean, your interest in Gemma’s past. That’s why you’re asking?’
‘Yes, I think she used to hang around with some pretty rough types when she was working for Klene Records. Gangster types.’
‘And by gangsters you mean drug dealers?’
‘I think one of them might have been her boyfriend for a while. You said something earlier about her being involved with some hard case who got her into drugs. Can you tell me more?’
She shrugged. ‘Like I said, Mrs K wouldn’t go into it.’
‘She didn’t mention a name?’
Siobhan shook her head. ‘She just said Horgan was the one who helped Gemma put that part of her life behind her.’
‘Do you think you could ask her again? I need to find out if Gemma might have met up with this old boyfriend recently. Do you think her mother might know? Do you think you could get it out of her?’
‘What was this guy’s name?’
‘That’s what I’m not sure of,’ he lied, ‘but if she comes up with the right name, I’ll know.’
He scratched his ear and immediately pulled his hand away, glad he wasn’t in a game of poker. Siobhan didn’t appear to have noticed.
‘They weren’t close, but it’s possible she might know, I suppose,’ she said. ‘This was all years ago, though, wasn’t it? Why do you think it could have anything to do with Gemma’s disappearance now?’
‘That’s just my point, Siobhan. I don’t know.’
‘Why not ask Mrs Kearney yourself?’
‘You said you were having a hard enough job getting anything out of her about it, and she trusts you,’ Mulcahy said. ‘Anyway, if I did that, there’d be no chance of a story in it for you, would there? Like you said, fair’s fair – it was you who brought her to my attention in the first place.’
Siobhan cocked an eyebrow at him. ‘One thing I do know, Mulcahy, is that you’re not doing this for my benefit.’
‘Mutual benefit,’ he said. ‘Will you help me?’
She looked away, like she was weighing up each pro, each con separately, knowing that for now at least he would be getting the better part of the bargain.
‘Okay, on one condition,’ she said. ‘If the name I get matches the one you’re thinking of, you have to confirm it straight away and tell me why he’s of interest to you. No waiting. Is it a deal?’
He thought about it for a second, then reached his hand across the table and shook hers. ‘Deal.’
Thursday
19
The clouds were slabs of slate, low in the sky, pelting the city with warm rain. Rain that trickled down the wind-screen without fogging it up inside. Rain that carried the ghost of sunny days past. A ‘soft day’ they’d call it down the country, but that just didn’t fit when you were stuck in a traffic jam in Ranelagh at a quarter to eight in the morning. And the entire economy was threatening to expire and take the rest of Europe with it. Or so they were saying on the radio. The reports on Morning Ireland were relentlessly negative: yet more forecasts of savage budget cuts and years of austerity to come. Mulcahy looked across the road at a four-foot-high scrawl of red paint screaming WANKER BANKERS from a hoarding around an abandoned building site. But that wasn’t even half the truth. For all that the bankers were at fault – and they were – they couldn’t have ruined the country without the developers, who in turn couldn’t have done it without the government, who couldn’t have done anything at all without the people who kept voting them back into power so everyone could keep pretending the Irish were the only people on the planet who could have wealth without responsibility. Maybe they were all wankers to some extent, if only for their blind optimism.
He switched the radio off, but there was no escaping the gloom. His mind immediately drifted to the one subject he’d been trying to keep at bay: Siobhan Fallon, and the nagging sense of loss he’d felt on his way home to Milltown the night before. It was as if seeing her again had raised a ghost that had been haunting him all those months without his even realising it. He had wanted her so much the year before, been so intoxicated with her during the Rinn investigation that he’d made a couple of really stupid mistakes, putting both their lives at risk. Even now, when everything was different, irretrievably so, there was still something animal between them. It crackled across the distance between their thighs when he sat beside her. It hummed in the fraction of a second longer that she always held his gaze. Even now, when it was perfectly evident that pain and circumstance had taken her beyond the point where she could even see him in that light, it was still there, taunting. And what killed him, what really put the tin hat on it, was the realisation that this was precisely what was missing from his feelings for Orla. That urge. That need. Not if he spent ten lifetimes with her, could he imagine feeling that kind of intensity for Orla.
The lights were green again and the traffic into town shifted forward even fewer metres than before. Mulcahy slipped the Saab into gear and covered the gap that had opened between him and the car in front. Cursing himself for being so down on everything, he hooked up his hands-free kit and put in a call to Javier Martinez in Spain. At least Martinez would be in the office already: they were an hour ahead in Madrid.
‘Look, Jav, sorry to push on, but you know this case we were talking about at the weekend – do you have any good contacts on the team down in Malaga?’
‘Por supuesto, hombre.’ Martinez sounded almost offended at the suggestion that his network might not extend so far. ‘You know me. What do you need?’
‘One of my people here was trying to get some information about the victim’s recent movements in and out of Spain. She keeps getting the brush-off from some lazy cabrón who thinks formalities are more important than urgency, you know?’
Martinez knew all right, and when Mulcahy finished outlining the basics of Begley’s murder for him, he said he would find out who was in overall charge of the case and call straight back.
‘Actually, I’m in the car, Jav. Could you drop me the details by email? And if you were a real pal, you might give the guy a call and tell him to be nice to me.’
‘Butter him over for you, you mean.’
‘That would be “butter him up”, Jav,’ Mulcahy snorted. ‘Buttering him over might compromise all our careers.’
Martinez was still hooting when he hung up.
The lights turned green ahead again, but this time the queue didn’t move an inch. There must have been an accident ahead. He rapped out a beat with his fingers on the steering wheel. Like a guilty conscience his thoughts stole back to Siobhan, but this time in terms of what more she’d had to say about Gemma Kearney.
Which was not a huge amount, really. From what the mother had said, Kearney seemed to live a pretty solitary, work-oriented existence. Siobhan had made enquiries with the appropriate institutions and Kearney’s academic and professional qualifications had checked out. Her practice appeared to be legit, although it had a reputation for catering for only a small and very select clientele. As far as he could see, Siobhan had spent most of her time chasing around after this dead guy Horgan, with nothing much to show for it. He had the impression she would have said some more about that but then his phone had rung – Orla – and in the time it took to say he’d call her back later, Siobhan had decided she was tired and was going home.
The cars in front shifted forward minimally and Mulcahy was following suit when his mobile pinged: voicemail. Someone must have phoned while he was talking to Martinez. It was Claire Brogan, asking him to call her, as soon as he got a chance, with regard to Eddie McTiernan’s murder. Her team had turned up a witness and she needed to check a couple of things with him. He considered leaving it for later, but he couldn’t, too intrigued. Again he checked the queue ahead. Through the veil of raindrops the traffic was solid for as far as he could see.
He got straight through to Brogan, who explained that, the previous evening, a Chechen woman who was working illegally as a live-in maid in one of the houses opposite McTiernan’s had come forward. She had witnessed the shooting from an upstairs window but been terrified she would be deported if she said anything – until she confided in the woman of the house and was made to go to the Gardai.
‘It took us a while to track down a translator for her, but—’
‘I hope you got a better one than last time,’ Mulcahy interrupted, laughing. It was because he could speak Spanish that he got involved in her case the year before.
‘Ha, ha, very funny,’ Brogan said, not meaning it, like a teacher ticking off a naughty child. ‘The point is, this girl saw the entire thing, start to finish, and gave us a good rundown, including a description of the shooter.’
‘Do you reckon she’s reliable?’
‘Sure. It all rings true. She said she saw McTiernan coming out of the house and walking over to his car, leaning in to get something. Next thing a small, green car – a Golf or a Jazz or something that size – zooms up and stops outside. Shooter jumps out of the driver’s side, walks up to McTiernan with a shotgun straight out – proper job, not a sawn-off – there’s two loud bangs, and, well, you saw the result. McTiernan didn’t even have time to react. He’s thrown back against the car with a crater in his chest, and the shooter turns, walks calmly back to his car and drives away.’
‘There was just the one guy? No driver?’ Mulcahy’s thoughts leapt to what Solomons had said about the hit on Ronson in Liverpool. The motorbike rider there had been on his own. Cool, too. And he’d used a shotgun. For that to happen once was strange enough, but twice? It was one of those dumb criminal conventions held over from the old days – when vehicles are used, there has to be a dedicated driver.
‘As far as we can tell, unless the car was a left-hand drive, which seems pretty unlikely. The vehicle details are vague beyond size and colour, no reg number or anything. I think our girl was mesmerised by this guy holding the shotgun. As you would be, I suppose. But her description of him was good: tall, at least six foot, not young, thirties she reckoned, thin and wearing a black coat or jacket. So far so general, but then she says he had very blond hair, quite long – shoulder length – and, get this, he was heavily tanned. We’re getting her together with an e-fit artist this morning to pin that down, but those are the essentials and I just wanted to see if it rang any bells with you.’
Mulcahy was lost for words. Heavily tanned? Christ Almighty, surely it wasn’t actually possible? A Colombian hit man making his way around Europe shooting people? Here in Ireland? It just refused to make any sense. And why would they have come after Eddie McTiernan? There had to be another explanation.
‘Mike, are you there still?’
‘Yes, Claire. Sorry – the signal must have dropped off.’
‘Well, do you have any ideas?’
He cursed to himself. Sure he had ideas, but he didn’t want to admit them, let alone share them. It was just too stupid. And he knew from hard-won experience that Brogan didn’t have a good record for being open to conjecture. If he started telling her about Colombian assassins on the loose without any hard evidence to back it up, she’d most likely laugh in his face. And anyway, half of McTiernan’s circle probably had deep suntans. They all spent most of the year out in Spain. Better to be as noncommittal as he could, and say just enough so it couldn’t come back to bite him further down the line.
‘Eh, not on the specifics, no,’ he said, ‘but you know McTiernan had lots of connections out in Spain, don’t you? He owned properties out there, spent a lot of time there with his wife, and socialised with some seriously dodgy types, so probably did a bit of business with them, too.’
She was way too good not to have established that information already, but her interest was aroused nonetheless. ‘You mean drugs business?’
‘Eddie always insisted he was out of the game, but some of the guys he hung around with were in it up to their necks. One of them was gunned down recently, over in Spain. We’re actually doing some digging around on it for the Spanish at the moment. Do you want me to send the details over to you?’
Mulcahy didn’t want to have to commit himself beyond that. He heard the angry beeping of a car horn from behind, looked ahead and saw that the traffic had moved five or six yards forward. Salvation. He waved a hand at the rear-view mirror and put the car into gear. ‘Look, Claire, I’m in traffic. I’ve got to go, but I’ll get back to you as soon as I get into the office, okay?’
He didn’t wait for her to respond. He hung up and moved off. All the cars ahead were doing the same now. Whatever the blockage had been, it was unplugged. A gap opened up in the lane beside him and he moved into it, the flow marginally freer thanks to vehicles turning left onto Canal Road. He could get to Dublin Castle by that route, too, maybe even more quickly. And for some reason he was keener than ever to be sitting at his desk, getting on with his day.
*
Siobhan Fallon was also on the road, although by now she was already an hour and a half out of Dublin. She was making good time in her ancient
yet still serviceable red Alfa Spider. Although the windscreen wipers were only barely adequate and the fabric roof had a tendency to leak around the seams, it could still just about manage the occasional long excursion. And the recently completed M8 motorway made all the difference. Once, when she was a teenager, it had taken her four hours to drive down to Cork. Now they said it could be done in two and a half. She wondered what the record was.
Since she’d left Mulcahy at the gates to her apartment block the night before, she’d been wondering if he had any real idea how much he’d let slip to her about Gemma Kearney. He was a bright guy, but way too straight for his own good – although that was also the thing she’d always liked most about him. It hadn’t even occurred to him that by confirming Gemma Kearney’s past involvement with a drugs gang, he’d encouraged her to think she might be on to a bigger story than she’d imagined. Bigger even than he imagined, she suspected. She wasn’t sure why, in the end, she had changed her mind and not told him what she’d discovered about Horgan’s pre-Bristol trip to Amsterdam. She’d played it cool, hadn’t given too much away. After all, Mulcahy was the one who’d set the terms of the ‘deal’. He was the one who said he didn’t want her asking questions. Well, he could hardly expect her to provide him with unsolicited answers either then, could he? Big idiot. She smiled to herself, recalling how he had stammered when he took that phone call and turned away, embarrassed. Must’ve been the girlfriend, though he never said so.
Flicking the indicator, she moved out smoothly past a slow-going Toyota, peered through the smear of rain on the windscreen, saw there was no traffic whatsoever on the straight road ahead and was struck by an urge to put her foot down. Fuck the weather. She pushed the pedal to the floor, felt the muscles in her thigh stretching, the surge of speed press her back into her seat, the knot in her stomach easing as her jangling thoughts were left behind in the slip-stream and all she could hear was the rain buffeting the bodywork and the engine screaming as it strained to meet her expectations.
Dublin Dead Page 19