by Jane Ryan
Seán’s mind whirred on his strategic plan for the next twelve months. He’d created a niche for his product. The purity levels drew addicts at all levels of society and when people were hooked he would cut supply, sending them like fire ants to other dealers with a fraction of his product purity. Fights would break out in poorer suburbs, local gardaí would be overwhelmed with violent junkies. His dealers would field calls from his middle-class customers, willing to pay whatever he asked to reinstate the flow. His fingers flew over the blocks of money as he duct-taped the ends and stacked them into the timber frame. Over two and a half million would be hidden in the wall between his hall and living room. His ‘premium insulation’ gave him an ounce of protection and he needed to believe he could protect himself.
Fuentes were vicious, even for a cartel. Seán measured the exact size of the walls and began to score his plasterboard sheets. The mundane task helped him arrange his thoughts. Guy had charged a levy since the early days, called it a ‘tithe’ like he was some kind of bishop or government department. Seán paid ten percent of what he made every month to Guy. It went straight to his bottom line without Fuentes knowledge and Seán was determined to put an end to the tithe and Guy. The option of trading a kill for a kill with the Dunne gang was tempting, but Fuentes retribution for an unsanctioned hit would be merciless. And Seán had no answer for that. Yet.
Seán hammered nails into the plasterboard, attaching it to the wooden frame. When the time was right, he would shop Guy to Fuentes, offer to kill him and pay this money as a promise of his fidelity.
Time to add the last sheet of plasterboard. Seán’s tools lay neat and ready: wire-cutters, Semtex and circuit boards for a booby trap. If someone other than him found this money, a nasty surprise awaited them.
He hammered in the last couple of nails. He had bought rolls of a soft floral wallpaper as a finishing touch, something he hoped would make his girlfriend and her nine-year-old daughter happy.
Lost in his task, he didn’t see Sheila Devereux retreating noiselessly out his back door. She’d stolen a key from Gavin. Of course a sentry should have stopped her, but who among them would stop Granny Dev if she was determined to enter? Or own up to flouting Seán’s strict instructions to let no one pass?
Chapter 42
2019
The hexagonal shapes on the tour bus pulsed in my eyeline. During winter it ran every twenty-five minutes. This was the blue route and I tried to memorise its times and stops. An angry shiver in my pocket told me my Irish phone was ringing, the screen filled with a jumble of unfamiliar numbers.
‘Hola? Is that Bridget Harney?’ A sun-soaked accent.
‘Yes? Who’s this, please?’
‘Ramon Mendes from Treasury. Where are you now? You sound like you are on a motorboat?’
I laughed over the revving engine. ‘Wouldn’t that be nice? I’m on a tourist bus.’
‘Where is your next stop?’
I checked the map I was given when I bought my ticket. ‘Casa Batlló.’
‘Vale! Get off and look for Bar Nolla. It’s near the stop, an old-fashioned Catalan bar. I’ll be inside waiting for you.’
‘Thank you.’
‘Adiós.’
Bar Nolla was certainly old-fashioned and authentic. Two squat open wooden doors lay either side of a battered wine cask, now a table. Although ready for business, the place looked empty. The interior was small but bright and the spice of savoury anchovies flavoured the air.
‘Bridget?’ said the single occupant.
A lanky, dark-haired man with thick-rimmed glasses, he was more town clerk than Treasury detective.
‘Ramon Mendes.’ He held out his hand and took mine in a warm, dry grip.
‘Good to meet you, Ramon, and thank you for contacting me. You’re the first real police I’ve met in Barcelona and I’ve come from Carrer de la Marina Mossos Esquadra.’
He gave a throaty laugh. ‘I hope you didn’t give them your passport?’
‘I did.’
‘You won’t be getting it back until you leave.’
He indicated I should join him at a small, neat table. Smoked curled from a cigarette turning to a soft sausage of grey ash. He stubbed it out.
‘Your English is pitch-perfect – even, if I might say, Irish-sounding.’
He laughed. ‘I went to Ireland on an Erasmus programme. I spent a year studying in UCD. It was grand.’
I grinned. He did a good flat Dublin accent, unexpected in these surroundings.
‘Ah, good old University College Dublin! I went to Trinity. You should’ve come to us – we had a better Erasmus programme.’
‘You would say that,’ said Ramon, an easy smile hanging off his mouth.
We’d found a patch of common ground.
‘Juanito! Ponerme un café.’
I couldn’t see anyone, but the hissing of a coffee machine from deep in the bar’s interior told me something was being prepared.
‘Mossos tracked you since your arrival. I’m sure Sergeant O’Driscoll advised you about how things work?’
‘He mentioned something about it,’ I said.
‘They’ll rate you as a threat and ramp their surveillance up and down accordingly.’ He indicated a brown ramekin containing small white fish steeped in what smelt like vinegar. ‘These are boquerones – anchovies but with much less salt. Try one.’
I speared a little fish with a small fork and ate it. Dry vinegar exploded on my tongue.
A frothy coffee was put in front of me, wisps of steam rising off it. The server grunted at Ramon, said something and they laughed. My Spanish never passed ‘buenos días' so I was lost.
When the server had gone back into the recesses of the bar Ramon’s easy smile slipped away.
‘Look like a happy tourist for the benefit of the Mossos and anyone else.’ He lit another cigarette. ‘When Flannery was spotted, I staked out Plaça de Catalunya. He was moved hours after he was picked up on CCTV.’
‘Was he was tipped off?’
‘No,’ he gave an expressive shrug. ‘Well, perhaps, but it is of no account – cartel operatives move freely in this city. I believe Flannery is being held by Fuentes. The two Africans you see in the CCTV footage are known to us. They took Flannery late in the evening. I tried to follow but lost them around the port. I didn’t want to call it in as someone would have alerted Fuentes, but I’m sure Flannery will pop up again on CCTV.’
This didn’t fit with Flannery and I shuddered. Something about deep water masquerading as smooth and shallow, with my naked foot at the edge.
‘Flannery’s a big noise in Ireland,’ I said. ‘We have a huge problem with controlled prescription drugs and cocaine. He’s one of our main drug importers. I thought he was here to do a deal with Fuentes. He lost a couple of tonnes of their product, which would have hurt them a little, but wouldn’t he have come here on his own terms? To make amends and pay up for the shipment he lost?’
‘I wouldn’t be so sure. From the manner in which he’s being held, I’d say they’re going to kill him.’
‘For losing a shipment?’ A pulse throbbed in my eyelid, right over my iris – it made my vision flicker as it danced out a syncopated beat. ‘That’s not right. He can’t be taken like this. I have to apprehend him – he has to pay.’
Emotions warred with the words crowding behind my tongue and fought to get out. I made a shucking noise with my teeth.
‘You OK?’ said Ramon.
I took a breath. ‘Yes. I don’t understand why Fuentes would kill Flannery. He’s one of their men.’
He gave me a long look, measuring me. I wasn’t alone in taking risks.
‘Couple of things. Flannery isn’t a kingpin in Spain. Maybe in Ireland he’s El Jeffe, but not here – there are too many cartels, each with their own generals. I’m guessing from his docile behaviour that he is drugged. It is a standard way of operating for Fuentes. What is not standard is how they’re going after Flannery. You lose a shipment belonging to Fuente
s and your options are limited to pay or die. But Fuentes will shoot you where you live – Flannery was brought here to be interrogated and disposed of. I would say Fuentes are trying to protect an informer. Someone who’s of value to them and hard to replace. Do you have informers in your police or government?’
The café closed in on me. A buzzing heat in my chest climbed to my face, scorching my throat along the way. DS O’Connor’s face flashed in my mind.
‘Anything’s possible. How do you know this?’
Again the shrug. ‘I’ve seen it before. Fuentes have any amount of rising stars wanting to fill the boots of the men like Flannery. But officials, people who can clear a path for their shipments or keep operatives out of prison, are gold. Fuentes will protect them at any cost. Which means this is dangerous. If your Flannery is being sacrificed to keep an asset in place, the Mossos in the Fuentes pay will want to keep any investigation into Flannery at a minimum. Do you have a second place you can stay?’
‘I can get one.’
Ramon smiled and flicked his cigarette into the crenelated ashtray. ‘You’re right. Don’t tell me if you have a place. Take a circuitous route when you go there and check for a tail. A little information . . .’ Ramon took a pull from his expresso. ‘I’ve been told the Mossos are focusing on three locations Fuentes have used in the past. They’re narrowing it down and should have something solid in the next twelve to twenty-four hours. Flannery may be captured within the day.’
I had condensed a lifetime of pursuit into Flannery and here he was, to be plated and served to me. Something so easy was not to be trusted.
‘You don’t look satisfied,’ said Ramon.
‘I want Flannery apprehended, for sure, but it’s difficult to be so removed from the intelligence-gathering. I’ve no idea how solid your information is.’
Ramon tore at the left corner of a ridged napkin.
‘I understand. I’m not in on the intel either,’ the outer corners of his eyes creased as he scrutinised me, ‘and I get why you are suspicious. You are right to be. The Mossos can’t be trusted – it may be a small bunch of them, but we’ve no idea how far up the chain the corruption goes. We are being “presented” with this information. If you were back in Carrer de la Marina you’d be given this same information by whatever Caporal would talk to you.’
I ate another boquerone.
‘You believe a cohort in the Mossos know where Flannery is and are drip-feeding this information to their superiors?’ I asked.
Ramon’s mouth turned down on one side. ‘Yes. They’ve known where Flannery is from the moment he was brought here. Fuentes traffic more cocaine into Spain than any other cartel. Do you have any idea how much money they control? We estimate Fuentes have the GNP of a small country. They’re pulling everyone’s strings on this.’
His face didn’t change expression so I kept mine neutral too.
‘Do you still think you can arrest Flannery? Take him home to Ireland?’ he asked.
‘If I find him first, I believe I have a chance.’
‘Will you be able to prosecute him? Dismantle his organisation?’
The body in the Dublin Mountains would be hard to explain away. The difficulty the drugs seizure had caused Flannery’s OCG and his lieutenant being bugged were bound to unlock something for me.
‘We’re closer than we’ve ever been and the drugs seizure is causing cracks in his gang.’
‘My gut is we’ll find Flannery dead in an alley, but who knows? You might get lucky and force the Mossos to apprehend him. Trick is to do it in the glare of the press or another agency. The Mossos are wary of Treasury, but we can’t carry guns. Check in with me a couple of times a day, text or something. You don’t want to get embroiled in a Mossos shootout. You won’t survive it.’
His face split in a grin at the comic-book terror he must have seen in my face.
‘You afraid?’ he said.
‘I’d be an idiot if I wasn’t.’
‘Good, it will keep you alert.’ He stood to pay and put some crumpled bills on a silver change plate I hadn’t noticed was there. ‘Hey, Juanito! The service in this place is terrible!’
He added something in Spanish and a shout came from the back of the bar. Juanito appeared and raised a fleshy fist in mock outrage.
‘Let’s go. I’ll take you to Plaça de Catalunya. It’s what they would expect.’ He nodded over his shoulder at two navy uniformed Mossos slouching outside the bar, their distinctive red-and-navy berets at a fashionable angle.
‘Not subtle, is it?’
‘No,’ said Ramon, ‘but I’d say you played it well in Carrer de la Marina. They don’t rate you so they’re not bothering to disguise themselves.’
I laughed. It sounded nervous and tinny.
Chapter 43
There was a powdery tickle at the back of my throat, the last thing I needed was a cold from the flight over. Ramon’s briefing stayed with me as I walked around the city. I spread out my obsession with Flannery and viewed it from different vantage points without much luck. My quarry was too near. I had white line fever. My route back to the hotel was lengthy – I wanted to orientate myself in this city. The air was crisp and a uniformed Mossos saluted me as if I were a visiting dignitary riding around in an open-top car.
In my room I checked the hiding spot – nothing had been moved. A longing to hear Paul Doherty’s voice came over me and I dialled him on my Irish cell. He picked up on the second ring.
‘Hi.’
He had a voice like a pair of leather cowboy boots.
‘Hey, I’m glad you picked up,’ I said.
‘Why wouldn’t I?’
‘I’m not disturbing you, am I?’
‘No more than usual, Bridge.’
We both laughed.
‘It’s good to hear you,’ I said.
‘Is everything OK? This Flannery thing doesn’t sound safe. I was talking to Joe about it today and he’s worried.’
The idea of him talking about me when I wasn’t in front of him brought rare comfort.
‘It’s strange. Spain has this reputation of being the girl next door, easy-going and sunny. But not so. I’m being stonewalled and our own authorities are telling me to keep my head down. The Mossos are closing in on Flannery so I should have a location soon.’
Silence.
‘It doesn’t sound safe,’ he said then. ‘Will you be part of the squad that arrests him?’
‘No. I might get a vantage point at the outskirts of the operation but from what I’ve been told I’ll be at the station away from everything.’
‘That doesn’t sound like you.’
‘You’re smiling,’ I said.
‘I am.’
‘So what will you do, Bridge?’
Everything so straight at the beginning of our conversation twisted and tangled at the sound of his voice. The pregnancy and his impending fatherhood was a splinter in my mind that skin had grown over and was now so deep I’d have to get a hot needle at it. So I said nothing.
‘I’ll stay in the station like a good little Blueshirt.’
‘I find that hard to believe. Do you know where Flannery is right now?’
‘No.’
‘That’s something.’
‘Why? What do you think I’d do, Paul?’
‘That’s a loaded question. Do you want me to answer?’
A picture of how others saw me swirled in the peppery smoke of my brain.
‘Go on, tell me.’
‘Are you armed?’ he said.
‘No.’
‘You’re not thinking of approaching him on your own, are you?’
The question dulled the digital line or sharpened it to a fine point. I couldn’t decide which and my breath came hard.
‘Of course not.’
He gave a growl of agreement. ‘Please stay safe, Bridge. Don’t do anything rash.’
‘Sure.’
‘When do you get back?’
‘I’d say the end of the we
ek.’
‘OK, see you then. And Bridge?’
‘Yes?’
‘Come back in one piece.’
We hung up, but I’d no sensation of a trouble shared.
I was alone with my thoughts, yet I wasn’t on my own and would never be again. Fears for a clutch of cells rippling inside me piled on. I had lost something in the pursuit of Seán Flannery, learning everything about his existence and watching him every opportunity I got, all but swapping my life for his. With so much violence in my world, who was I to bring a defenceless child into it? My true nature was being revealed to me. I was the violence. My mother once told me decent people had the same urges as everyone else – it was how they acted on them that made the difference.
The day dragged on as I played the happy-calamari-eating-plod, ignoring a staring face in the queue for Sagrada Familia and again reflected in a shop window on Avinguda Diagonal.
It was late when I got back to my hotel room, but sleep wouldn’t come so I stopped trying to entice it and I washed my face in the tiny bathroom. The neon backlit mirror did me no favours and the face looking back was a death mask with holes for eyes. The night lengthened and still I couldn’t find any rest. I got out of bed, sinking to the floor to change the shape of my environment. I could kill Seán Flannery in combat, but what if he was drugged and a captive? Could I stop myself murdering him in cold blood?