Dublin Dead
Page 23
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‘Liam, call me as soon as you get this, okay?’
A red Honda cut in front of him with a blare of its horn, forcing Mulcahy to tap the brakes. He was back on the M50 and the traffic was heaving and jostling, building towards the late-afternoon rush. It would be just his luck to get pulled over for not using his hands-free. He hung up and in a fit of irritation threw the mobile on the passenger seat, cursing as it bounced off the leather upholstery and into the footwell. Why hadn’t he just put it in the door pocket? Now if Ford called back, he wouldn’t— The phone rang even as he was having the thought. With a fusillade of expletives, he pulled across first to the nearside lane, then to a stop on the narrow hard shoulder, hitting his hazard warning lights, scrabbling on the floor to find the phone.
‘Liam, where the hell have you been?’ he shouted into the phone, over the traffic roaring like a heavy sea just feet away.
He was met with a momentary silence. Then Siobhan’s voice. ‘No, Mulcahy, it’s me – you sound like you’re driving. Are you okay to talk?’
Shit. This was all he needed. He took a deep breath, used the wheel to pull himself upright again and decided he’d better be polite. ‘Yeah, go on. I’ve pulled over now. What are you up to?’
‘I’m down in Cork, of course, like I said I’d be.’
‘Right,’ he said, remembering she’d told him the night before that she was heading down there. Was that only last night? Christ. ‘Did you come up with anything for me? About Kearney, I mean?’
‘Yeah, quite a lot, actually. You wouldn’t believe the half of it.’
‘I probably would,’ Mulcahy said, meaning it.
She laughed. ‘Yeah, maybe you would at that. I tell you, I’m getting a very strong impression that Gemma Kearney is not quite the sweet little angel her mammy thinks she is.’
He winced as a heavy six-wheel gravel truck thundered past, just feet away, its roar deafening, a smattering of stone chips chinking on the car roof. He could barely hear what she was saying to him, something about him having to keep his side of the bargain.
‘What was that?’ he shouted.
‘The name of the guy you’re interested in – it’s Begley, isn’t it?’
He smiled. There was the confirmation. ‘Who did you get that from? The mother?’
‘No, actually, I got that from Kearney’s PA, who I managed to track down this morning. I’m telling you, that accountancy practice of hers is one weird set-up. But I spoke to Mrs Kearney afterwards and asked her about this guy. She knew his name all right. I could almost hear her hackles going up. Said he was the “gangster” – that’s the word she used – who did the dirt on Gemma in Dublin. Apparently, Gemma turned up with him, out at the mother’s house, not long after she started up her business. Mrs K was appalled – after all he’d put the girl through – but Gemma said it was just work, and she needed all the clients she could get. Apparently, he’d asked her to help him buy some property in the area. Mrs K said they left together and she never heard mention of him again.’
‘When was this?’ Mulcahy asked.
‘Must be four or five years ago at least. Whenever Gemma set up on her own. Mrs K said she told Gemma no matter how desperate she was, she’d never need clients like him.’
‘She wasn’t wrong there,’ Mulcahy said, looking at his watch, thinking again about how desperately he needed to talk to Ford.
‘How much do you actually know about this Begley guy, anyway?’ Siobhan was asking. ‘He sounds like a complete shit to me. Gemma’s mother said he moved another girl into the house while Gemma was living there with him. I suppose she would have done anything for the drugs at that stage. And he sacked her and kicked her out not long after, cut her loose completely. What a creep.’
Mulcahy flinched as another enormous truck blasted past, blaring its horn, so close the Saab rocked on its axles this time.
‘Jesus, what was that?’
‘Look, Siobhan, I’m sitting on the side of the M50 here,’ Mulcahy said. ‘I’m going to cause an accident if I stay any longer. Can I call you when I get back to the office?’
‘The deal was, you’d tell me about this guy as soon as I got the name.’
‘Yeah, but, to be fair, I wasn’t expecting to be playing dodgems with juggernauts when you called.’
She wasn’t happy about it, but she agreed so long as he called her within the hour. As soon as she was gone he tried Ford again, but once more only got his voicemail. Fuck it.
‘Liam, come on, I need to talk to you. This thing is really beginning to fall into place. We need to decide on a strategy. Get Aidan and Aisling together and tell them to be ready to move. We’re going to have to act really, really fast.’
Half an hour later he was back in the office with Ford, Duffy and Sweeney sitting round his desk, listening with a kind of awe-filled anticipation.
‘So, before I go,’ Mulcahy said, ‘I ask Cuypers if there’s anything else he can tell me about the rib – him being a sailor, and he’s been banging on so much about how incredibly fast it was.’
‘And?’
‘He said he thought it was a Ballistic but couldn’t be sure.’
Ford put his palms up. ‘The only ballistics I know are to do with bullets.’
‘They’re an English boat manufacturer,’ Aisling said. ‘I came across them when I was doing the research into the trailer.’
‘Did anything ever come of that?’ Mulcahy digressed, curious.
Aisling looked distracted. ‘Did I not say? I found a company based in Dunmanway, called Hourihans. They import and distribute all sorts of trailers. I looked at their website – red logo with a big “H” on it.’
‘She shoots, she scores,’ Ford whispered, punching the air.
‘Well done. We’ll chase that up as soon as we get a chance,’ Mulcahy said. ‘But to get back to the Ballistic thing … Cuypers said this rib was a big one, maybe six, seven metres, which makes sense given the weight of cocaine they were planning to offload onto it. The important point is, it’s not the sort of boat your average day sailor would own.’
‘But you might if you took corporate types out on fishing expeditions, or tourists on sightseeing trips, is that it?’ Ford said.
‘That’s what I’m thinking, yeah.’
‘I’d bet my right bollock this Horgan fella was up to his neck in this.’
‘I’m not sure I’d be so free with the future of humanity, Liam, just yet.’ Mulcahy laughed. ‘What was really interesting was what he said about the outboards on it – two Evinrude 225s. Now those are unusual. American imports, really powerful. Definitely not your standard Yamaha or Honda jobs. And of that size, there can’t be more than a handful in the whole of Ireland.’
‘Can we get the Cork boys out to Glandore quick, to have a check on Horgan’s gear?’ Ford said.
‘Most of it’s been sold off already,’ Mulcahy replied, ‘but there’s another way. Aidan, you get on to the bank. They’ll have a record of all the boats and other equipment that was seized from Horgan by the bailiffs. If there’s a seven-metre Ballistic rib with twin Evinrude outboards on the list, then it’s in the bag. Our bag. We can leave it to the Cork lads to track where it’s gone to and whether there’s anything Technical can get off it at this stage.’
‘Jesus,’ Ford muttered, his fists balled with excitement. ‘I only wish I was down there to do it with them. Could do with a bit of action.’
‘Well, I might be able to help you out with that, too.’
‘Yeah?’ Ford’s eyes lit up.
‘I told Cuypers the deal was off if he didn’t give me more info about this Ryan guy. There was no way he didn’t know more about him – this was the guy who got the three of them off Galley Head and away before the search could catch up with them. He obviously had some serious contacts: got them to Cork, then up to Dublin. I’d put a bet on that he’s the one who’s been bankrolling Cuypers in the meantime, maybe even putting him up until he got arrested.’
‘Who knows. If it was, he made a big mistake. No way was Cuypers wanting to give him up before that.’
‘But you persuaded him?’
Mulcahy smiled. ‘A secret’s not much good if you’re dead, is it? Ryan wasn’t his real name at all. When they got to Cork, Cuypers noticed everyone was calling this guy “Marker” or something like that. Then in Dublin—’
‘Marker? Are you fucking serious?’
Everyone turned to look at Ford, who had a look on his face like he’d just won the lottery, ecstasy and disbelief vying for the upper hand.
‘Yeah, Marker. He gave me a description,’ Mulcahy said. ‘Hundred and eighty centimetres or thereabout, early thirties, cropped dark hair, gym bunny. You know him?’
‘Mark “the Marker” Waldron.’ Ford was looking even happier. ‘It’s got to be. Hard man for the Clondalkin mob. Vicious fucker. And a bloody big fan of Bingo’s, as I recall. Always trying to shaft someone. Tried it on with me once.’
‘Cuypers said something about his left ear?’ Mulcahy said. ‘That’s him. A bloke bit off his earlobe in a mill years back. Oh my fucking mother.’ Ford was barely able to contain himself. ‘Kev and me spent months with a surveillance team trying to nail him and we got nowhere. What the fuck was he doing on a boat? Dirty scrote would barely recognise a bath.’
‘I think we know what he was doing there, Liam. Keeping an eye on the cargo. Making sure it got where it was going to.’
‘Yeah, and did about as good a job as usual.’ Ford rubbed his hands together gleefully. ‘Let’s call Kev O’Neill, get him picked up, yeah?’
Mulcahy put his hands out, palms down, calming. ‘Okay, set it up, but make sure you check back with me before you move on it. I need to talk to Murtagh first. And I want you to be there when they take him in. I want us to get the credit for this. That’s important.’
‘Just try and stop me,’ Ford said. ‘No way would I miss that – not for the fucking world.’
The rest of the afternoon went in a blur of frantic activity: phone calls, briefings and yet more phone calls. The first call to Murtagh was met initially with disbelief, then a torrent of questions and finally an elaborate, if slightly exasperated bouquet of congratulations.
‘You know you’ve overstepped your brief by a hell of a margin here, Mike,’ Murtagh said gruffly. ‘But I suppose I can’t really complain about it, given that I was the one who told you to come up with something to prove your worth.
Murtagh said he’d need an hour to call O’Grady and bring him up to date. He then suggested Mulcahy should come over and brief the Cork investigation team on the new developments via the video-conferencing facility as soon as possible. ‘It might be useful for you to go down to Cork as well, afterwards, Mike, to make sure you’re seen to share the credit for this. In the meantime I’ll get O’Grady to send some lads out to Glandore and check out this Horgan character’s boating business.’
Mulcahy looked up, saw Duffy waving at him from the door.
‘Eh, hang on a second, Donal,’ he said, and motioned Duffy in, who handed him a piece of paper with a number of items marked with orange highlighter pen, and followed it up with a huge grin and a double thumbs-up.
As soon as he saw what was on the page he grinned right back at him.
‘Actually, there’s no need, Donal. I’ve just been passed a note by Aidan here. It’s a schedule of assets seized by the bank from Glor na Mara, Horgan’s boating business. Among the items listed are three rigid inflatable boats, including, I quote, “one 6.5m Ballistic rib with twin Evinrude 225hp out-board engines”. That’s an exact match for what Cuypers told me. I think that wraps it up as far as Horgan is concerned.’
‘Christ Almighty,’ Murtagh muttered. ‘Haven’t you left anything at all for them to do down there?’
But of course he had. The second man on the rib, for instance, needed to be identified and tracked down, and an hour later, in the course of the briefing he gave to O’Grady’s stunned Southern Region investigation team, Mulcahy was able to point them in a possible direction for that, too, suggesting the one person they might want to interview as a matter of urgency was Horgan’s boating business partner, who the Skibbereen CID sergeant, McCann, had named as Conor Hayes.
Mulcahy was also able to outline to the Cork team the actions being initiated in Dublin to mop up the man known as Ryan, aka Mark Waldron, and to see if any trace could be found of the Atlantean’s English skipper, Jenkins. And Murtagh had fulfilled his promise and made sure the big man himself, Commissioner Thurlock Garvey, had been patched in to the briefing as well, so there was no question that the glory for these crucial developments was going to anyone other than Mulcahy and the ILU. To his credit, Detective Superintendent Sean O’Grady in Cork had looked only marginally less pleased than the rest of his crew regarding the breakthrough.
All of which left Mulcahy, on his way back from Murtagh’s office, feeling elated but totally knackered. Walking through the Garda Memorial Garden, his mobile trilled. He looked at the screen and cursed, so loudly a woman walking past the gate outside looked up, startled, and frowned across at him. He’d completely forgotten to call Siobhan back.
‘Mulcahy, you are a complete and utter cu—’
‘Hang on, Siobhan,’ he interjected before she could get going properly. ‘I’m sorry, I really am, but I’ve got a major operation going on here. It slipped my mind, okay?’
‘Yeah, right,’ she said, not willing to let it go but sounding a lot mellower than he expected. ‘But a deal’s a deal, Mulcahy, and you promised you’d tell me more about this Begley guy. That said, I did find a bit more out myself in the meantime, anyway.’
‘How did you do that?’ Mulcahy asked, as ever marvelling at her ability to get hold of sensitive information.
‘I just Googled his name,’ she said, her tone scornful. ‘It was all over the bloody Irish Times and Indo on Monday. I knew I’d seen it somewhere recently. It is the same guy, isn’t it – the one who was murdered out in Spain last week? That’s this mysterious “other thing” you were working on?’
Mulcahy decided he’d better calm down; the excitement of the last few hours had maybe gone to his head.
‘Yes, it is, but I’d appreciate it if you could—’
‘They described him as a drugs baron,’ she cut in. ‘Was he really that big?’
He couldn’t but get the feeling he was being interviewed. ‘Anything I say is off the record, Siobhan. We agreed, yes?’
‘Of course. I just wanted to know if he was ever involved in bringing the drugs in himself.’
Mulcahy stiffened. It was an innocent enough question on the surface, but he knew her too well. Siobhan Fallon never ‘just wanted to know’ anything, and this was very specific. He drew in a long breath.
‘Mulcahy?’
‘Yes, I’m here,’ he said, still thinking through how much he could afford to tell her, reminding himself that he had, after all, promised to fill her in.
‘Look,’ he said eventually, ‘Begley was a sort of midranking thug when he lived here in Dublin. Nothing special. But when he moved to Spain, we know he met some fairly major operators. So smuggling was a possibility, yeah, but we’re still not sure. Why do you ask?’
What she said next made the hairs stand up on the back of his neck.
‘Well, it’s weird. I’m down here in this place trying to get some more detail on Horgan, and I’ve just had the strangest chat with this guy who was in business with him, and the guy just seemed ridiculously shifty. I don’t know why – it’s so nice around here, all these boats and stuff – but I just thought—’
‘Hang on a sec, Siobhan,’ Mulcahy broke in. ‘What boats and stuff? Where are you calling from?’
There was a pause at the end of the line, which he assumed was Siobhan bridling at the abruptness of his question. Then she obviously decided to let it go.
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br /> ‘It’s gorgeous, actually,’ she said. ‘Tiny place a few miles outside Skibbereen, like a little fishing village, on the sea. Except I don’t see any trawlers. Probably mostly tourism these days. Glandore, it’s called.’
‘For fuck’s sake!’ Mulcahy thought he was saying it to himself, but somehow it burst up and escaped his lips in an angry growl.
‘Excuse me?’ came the indignant response from Siobhan. ‘Mulcahy, what is going on up there? You’re behaving like a complete arse. What have I done wrong now? All I’m doing is standing on the harbour wall here admiring the view.’
‘What made you ask about smuggling, Siobhan? It can’t have been the bloody view. What aren’t you telling me?’
‘Me telling you … ?’ She paused, building towards anger. ‘For fuck’s sake, Mulcahy, you’re the one who’s been holding out on me. We had a deal, and you’re the one who hasn’t kept his side of it.’
‘Who were you talking to, Siobhan? Tell me, please.’ He all but shouted it into the phone in his frustration.
‘His name was Conor Hayes,’ she said, startled, but getting stroppier herself by the second. ‘What’s it to you? What the fuck is going on?’
He knew there was no point trying to hide it any more. He looked at his watch. The Cork team probably wouldn’t even get there for another couple of hours. He prayed to Christ she hadn’t spooked Hayes. The only thing he could do was try to get her away from there before she blew the whole thing out of the water.
‘Look, Siobhan, that honestly doesn’t matter now,’ he said, ‘but you’ve got to get out of there. I can’t tell you why, but you have to believe me. I’ll be down there myself in the morning. I’ll give you an exclusive briefing, if it makes a difference, in Skibbereen, wherever, tomorrow morning. But only if you leave Glandore now and don’t talk to anyone else there in the meantime … ’