Mulcahy stepped back. It was the classic gangster whine of self-justification and it always irked the hell out of him because it was such a delusion. He waved a hand around the filthy kitchen. ‘And what’s this?’ he snapped back at her. ‘The big win? Sitting in some shithole in the middle of nowhere, your life in tatters, your boyfriend dead and you scared shitless the same guy’s coming to kill you, too?’
Her response was the last one he’d expected. She burst out laughing. She sat on the chair in front of him, laughing so hard, so aggressively she broke into a coughing fit.
‘Is that what you think happened?’ she said, catching her breath. ‘Jesus, you really are as thick as the rest of them, aren’t you? Declan said it would fool the lot of you, and he was right as usual. That man’s a genius, I always said so.’ She laughed again and slapped the table with mirth.
‘What are you talking about?’ Mulcahy was beginning to wonder if the woman wasn’t seriously unstable.
She didn’t even respond to him, just nodded her head, laughing, but inwardly, more subdued now.
‘This is pointless, Gemma,’ Mulcahy insisted. ‘Whether you like it or not, you’re out of here. I’m taking you into custody. Come on, in the car, now.’
To his surprise she looked up at him with a strangely serene smile. ‘Okay. I suppose you were never going to leave me alone after that lecture.’ She smiled resignedly. ‘But I have to take care of the dog first. She’s out in the barn. I can’t just leave her tied up out there.’
‘I didn’t see any dog,’ Siobhan said, her eyes still out on stalks.
Neither had Mulcahy, nor heard one.
‘Useless old mutt, she’s deaf as a post. Probably fast asleep. I can’t leave her without any food or water.’ She stood up, went to the kitchen sink and filled a clear glass jug with water. ‘Will you let me do that at least?’
Mulcahy hesitated. He didn’t like the idea, but if it got them out of there without any more fuss.
‘Okay, but you have to be quick about it.’
His anxiety returned as soon as they were out in the open again. The looming barns, the expanse of muddy concrete yard. Too many places to hide. Keeping behind the two women, he followed them over to the barn, the feeling of exposure gnawing away at him, the sense that someone else was there, watching them. As Kearney rattled the chain on the door and mused over which key on her bunch was the right one for the padlock, he was so tense he almost lost his life when his phone buzzed in his pocket.
‘Hang on,’ he said, just as Kearney started pulling the heavy chain free with an almighty clatter. He turned his back automatically, put a hand up to his ear, took the call.
It was Ford, sounding stressed. Or what he could hear of him was, the signal being so poor.
‘Boss, thanks be to … sus … I’ve been trying … ugh … for ages.’
Mulcahy looked at the phone screen. Only one bar on the signal-strength icon. ‘Yeah, hi, Liam. I’m out at Blaggard Farm. The signal’s a bit crap here. What’s the matter?’
But the signal was just too weak. All he heard was, ‘Aisling got a ca … ano … passen … van.’
He moved forward a few paces, to get out of the shadow of the barn. He looked over his shoulder. Kearney was heaving the door open. He tried to catch Siobhan’s eye to tell her to wait, but she was pulling at it, too, and the screech of metal on metal as it shifted was such he had to turn away, squeeze his eyes shut to hear what Ford was saying, the sense of urgency the only thing clear in his voice. Something now about a call from the Spanish SIO, Chief Inspector Ferrer.
He took one more step forward and suddenly the reception was clear.
‘ … something about a technicians’ strike in Spain,’ Ford was saying, ‘and the DNA on Begley not coming through. They never told us that, did they, boss? He never told you they hadn’t got the DNA on Begley?’
In an instant the space in which Mulcahy existed condensed into a single pinpoint of star-bright understanding. He heard his own voice, a distant thing, say, ‘What?’ and then Ford’s crackling response: ‘Cunt says it wasn’t him, boss. They’re saying the guy in the dump wasn’t Bingo. Did you get that?’
Mulcahy’s thoughts were already expanding far beyond that now, and he was turning on his heel, and he was looking at a black empty space where Siobhan and Gemma Kearney had been standing only half a minute before. That realisation struck him like a punch. Of course there was no dog. How could there be? He had to take a step back to steady himself, and instantly the connection to Ford was gone.
He crushed the phone to his cheek, sorely tempted to dash the damn thing against the cobbles on the yard, but knowing that to do so would kill the one chance he might have to get help. He pushed the handset back against his ear, hoping against hope. ‘Liam, I don’t know if you can hear this – I think the signal’s gone – but get on to Murtagh, get on to O’Grady, get an armed-response unit out here, quick as you can. I’m going to need some serious back-up.’
30
‘Where the hell is he? How the fuck could you let him go like that?’
Gemma Kearney was standing a foot or two inside the barn door, looking out into the yard for any sign of movement, for any clue, in fact, of where the copper might have disappeared to. She turned quickly, angrily, to the man resting the barrel of his shotgun on Siobhan’s shoulder, pressing the twin muzzles hard against the soft skin under her jaw, forcing her head over at a painful angle.
‘I’m telling you, he was taking a phone call. I didn’t want to spook him, Dec,’ Kearney said in an angry, hissing whisper. ‘Last time I looked, he was following us in. And why didn’t you take him out yourself with that thing, seeing how you’re so handy with it, and so full of foresight? It’s not like you couldn’t have managed her without it.’
Out of the side of her eye, Siobhan saw the man tense the forefinger he held poised across the double triggers at the end of the long, black barrel. Then she saw his thumb come up and decock each of the firing hammers in turn and felt the cold, hard weight of the gun barrel come off her neck, off her shoulder. She would have breathed a sigh of relief, but she wasn’t feeling any. She couldn’t see any real reason to be relieved. Her chief concern now was also theirs. Where the fuck had Mulcahy gone, and how the hell had he known what was awaiting them inside the barn?
‘You, over there, move,’ the man said to her. He jerked both his head and the shotgun in the same direction, towards the interior of the barn, towards the cabin. The thought of it made her stomach churn, but with disgust, not fear. For some reason she didn’t seem to be feeling any fear. Annoyance, anger, caution, disgust? Yes. But not fear.
She did what he said, walking ahead of him, head down to seem more quiescent, her mind racing all the while. Gemma had called him Dec, which could only mean … But how? Did it matter? He was real enough for her not to have to go proving it to herself. When she got to the front door of the cabin, the man – Begley, she must start thinking of him as – pointed the gun at a shallow step in front of it.
‘Sit down there. Keep your hands where I can see ’em.’
His accent was weird. Real hard-man Dublin, but like it had been ironed flat and lifeless. Must be all the time he’d been abroad. She looked up at him, this Begley, as he turned away to see what Kearney was doing, still at the door. Had he come over on the ferry with Gemma, in the van? Was that it? He was tall, a lithe six foot, the blond hair a bad dye job, the tan deep enough to have been built up over years. The hair. She remembered now. She had seen him down by the pier the evening before. She had walked past his car, seen through the windscreen his face turn away to avoid her eyes, fleetingly pinned him as some shy farmer boy with a crap car and even worse hair. Christ, what a fool she was.
‘He might have just gone to his car,’ Kearney whispered back into the gloom. ‘I can’t see it from here. The caravan’s in the way. Will I go out and have a look?’
‘Is he carrying?’ Begley said. It took Siobhan a couple of seconds to realise
he was talking to her. She looked up at him blankly.
‘Has he got a fucking gun?’ he hissed at her.
Mulcahy, a gun? She knew some detectives did, but not all the time. She’d never seen him with one. Was that the right answer?
‘Does he or not?’ Begley’s face was down near hers now, glaring, spitting at her. She felt nothing but disgust. Shook her head. No, no gun.
‘He probably wouldn’t shoot a woman, anyway. Or a helpless animal,’ Kearney sneered. ‘He has that old-fashioned look about him, doesn’t he, Siobhan?’
Kearney was coming over to them now, quickly, looking over her shoulder all the time. ‘Here, give me that,’ she said, pointing at Begley’s shotgun. ‘I’ll have a better chance with that. You have this.’
For the first time Siobhan noticed Kearney also had a gun in her hand, a small automatic pistol, which she proffered to Begley now, pulling the shotgun from his grip. As he let it go, almost meekly, Siobhan saw with a stab of understanding right into the heart of their relationship. Kearney was the one taking charge. She was the more dangerous of the two.
‘You take care of her inside,’ Kearney said to Begley. ‘Come out after me when you’re done.’
There you are at last, my old familiar, Siobhan thought, as fear sank its claw into her gut and twisted hard.
Through the tiny rust hole in the galvanised-metal sheeting, he could just about see the three indistinct figures inside the barn, like ghosts in the dim light. The splodge of blue, seated, quiet, was Siobhan. The other two were standing, floating, wavering, pacing. One squat and brown by the flare of light that was the barn door: Kearney. The other taller, all in black, topped with a mane of dull gold: Declan Begley. Of course it was. Who else could it bloody be?
Mulcahy cursed himself for the thousandth time for not having figured it out earlier. He should have guessed, the minute he saw that cabin in the barn, that there was something not right about the situation. He should have known for sure when he saw the new lock, and when he saw Kearney arrive in that pale blue car, that there had to be two of them staying at the farm.
But most of all he cursed himself for not working out, the very second he heard about McTiernan’s murder, that poor Eddie could never have been the target of some vengeful Colombian hit man. Because there was no Colombian hit man. Or if there had been, then it was almost certainly his corpse that had been found on the dump in Fuengirola. Outsmarted, somehow, by Declan Begley, when he came to look for him, and killed. With Kearney’s more than willing help, no doubt. No wonder El Güero hadn’t turned up back in Colombia, or that the guys in SOCA hadn’t been able to pick up his trail. And Begley, ever the opportunist, had seen his chance to continue doing what he did best: cleaning, washing, erasing traces. This time cleaning up after himself, and on a grand and murderous scale, making sure that everyone who knew of his involvement in the cocaine theft, even Conor Hayes, would never get a chance to tell anyone.
Except for Gemma Kearney, of course. What had been their plan? To jet off into the sunset together, armed with clean, new identities and enough drugs money to do them for ten lifetimes? And now there was only him, Mike Mulcahy, left to stop them.
Mulcahy held that thought bright at the forefront of his mind, right beside the fear, as he forced himself to focus on how exactly he was going to do that. He had found himself a useful hiding place, but he knew that Begley and Kearney would soon decide they had to come after him. They would figure out that, being a cop, he probably wouldn’t just run off and abandon Siobhan to her fate, and they would reckon Siobhan herself would be their best hope of flushing him out, of drawing him into a trap. What he had to decide now was whether to play a waiting game or try to move so fast they wouldn’t see him coming. He watched the figure in brown walk inside, take something from Begley and then head back towards the barn door and out. Right, he thought, this could well be the best chance he would get.
Moving with all the agility a man of his size could muster, he picked his way carefully through the stacks of rubbish and loose detritus that littered the passageway between the two barns. Behind him, he could hear Kearney in the yard calling for him, her voice soft in fake entreaty. He had a couple of minutes at most, he reckoned. In his mind’s eye he recalled the police photos of the farm in Suffolk where that other safe house had been, a gaping panel at the back of the barn to allow easy escape. Or access, of course. There had to be a way in there. A couple of minutes. If he didn’t get in by then, both he and Siobhan would die and Begley and Kearney would be home free. He wasn’t going to let that happen. He wasn’t going to die for them.
‘Get up. Come on, in there,’ Begley growled at her, waving the pistol at the open door behind.
Keep them talking, Siobhan thought. That’s what they always say.
‘What are you going to do with us?’ she said as she struggled to stand up. Her legs had ceased to function normally, and she was aware now of a tremor in her voice.
The look Begley gave her seemed to be one of genuine disbelief.
‘What the fuck do you think we’re going to do? Apart from her out there, you two are the only people on the planet who know I’m still alive.’
‘We don’t have to tell anyone.’
He didn’t even bother to laugh at that. ‘A reporter and a cop? Yeah, I mean, who would you tell? Fuck off.’
‘But we won’t know where you’re going, who you’re going to be. You don’t have to hurt us. You could just leave us here and go. I could make a legend of you, Declan. Think of the headlines.’
It was pathetic, even she could see that, but it was the best she could come up with.
‘There’ll be headlines all right, but it’s not me’ll be in them.’ Begley shook his head, gave a short, horse-like snort. ‘You’re all the fuckin’ same – think all people want is to be famous. Not me. I’m happy as I am, so long as I have money to back it up.’
‘But—’
‘Shut up talking, would you. Now get the fuck in there.’ His anger was real now. If her hair had been longer, he would have caught her by it. Instead he seized her by the neck and pushed. She fell back awkwardly against the door jamb, felt the ache of its sharp, hard edge connect with the back of her skull and then her knees went from under her.
She squeezed her eyes shut as she slid down, trying to block it out, determined not to give in to the fear. If she gave in to it, she would have no chance. Then, as she opened them again, looking up at Begley bending over her, snarling, his hand out to drag her to her feet again, from the corner of her eye she saw it, a wisp of shadow moving, gliding through the darkness behind him, and felt the claw in her belly grip so tight she just couldn’t keep it in any more …
Had she done it deliberately? He could have sworn she caught sight of him just before he got there. He almost quailed, stalled, made a misstep, for fear that Begley would see it in her eyes. But then she made that moan and Begley got too stoked up on her terror, too focused on bending down to pick her up, to hurt her some more, the rush of blood deafening him to what was coming up behind him. The man didn’t have a chance, bent over like that, his neck exposed.
‘Easy there, big man,’ Mulcahy whispered. ‘Don’t move a muscle, now. One twitch from you and your brains will be going through that door without you.’
Mulcahy accompanied the threat with the sound of his thumb cocking the hammer on the Sig, snapping it into place with a hard metallic click. Begley froze. Mulcahy pushed the muzzle still deeper into Begley’s neck, hoping it hurt, and patted his hand down along Begley’s arm until he came to the gun. Never take your eyes off the face, he heard an old instructor echo across time.
‘I’ll be having that,’ he said, prising Begley’s pistol from his open fingers and slipping it into his own jacket pocket. Then, with a vicious sweep of his boot, he scooped Begley’s feet out from under him. Mulcahy watched Begley topple, flail uselessly for support, and hit the ground with a loud curse.
‘Shut the fuck up, Bingo,’ Mulcahy said, re
aching forward now and pulling Siobhan to her feet by her outstretched arm, pulling her back behind him. She looked dazed, ashen-faced, but alert enough to do what he needed her to do.
‘Are you okay?’
She nodded, not snapped out of it yet.
Out in the yard, Mulcahy heard Kearney shout for him again, all pretence of care gone. She’d be back in again any second, that shotgun in her hand.
‘See that bit of baling twine over there?’ he said to Siobhan, pointing at a scrap of filthy green string lying on the floor a few metres away. ‘Go get it for me, yeah?’
She nodded slowly, understanding what he was saying, and went to get it, making a wide arc round Begley, who was staring up at Mulcahy, a frown of recognition diluting the contempt in his expression.
‘Jesus, is it yourself?’ Begley laughed, pulling himself up into a sitting position. ‘Together again after all these years. Fuck’s sake. And there was me thinking that Colombian cunt was the worst we’d have to deal with. Looks like the missus’ll have to take another scalp, eh?’ Begley rubbed his dyed blond hair mockingly. If he was worried, he sure as hell wasn’t showing it. With his other hand he slapped the side of his thigh, laughing at some private joke, the arrogance alive in his eyes. ‘Thought I was a gonner there in the doorway, y’know, but he only nicked me. Then I saw her coming up behind. Ka-boom! She’s got a taste for it now. You’ll fuckin’ see.’
‘Shut up, I said,’ Mulcahy growled, refusing to be spooked. ‘If you bring her back in here, it’ll be my pleasure to put a bullet in both of you. Now, turn around, on your knees, hands behind your back.’ Mulcahy backed up a step, his gun arm straight, aiming at the centre of Begley’s forehead, knowing in his soul if it came to it, he wouldn’t hesitate to pull the trigger, and take the consequences later.
Begley got the message. The smile vanished and he twisted himself round onto his knees, turning away from Mulcahy, arms behind, palms out, as Siobhan came back. She proffered the filthy piece of twine to Mulcahy, but he shook his head and instead raised his gun, flat in the palm of his hand, and brought it down with a vicious crack on the back of Begley’s skull. The man slumped forward, expelling a low groan as he sprawled unconscious on the floor. Mulcahy moved quickly, sinking his knee into the small of Begley’s back, pulling the limp arms and wrists together, gesturing for Siobhan to hand him the twine now.
Dublin Dead Page 29