by Jeff Gulvin
Now he sat in the only chair with his legs crossed and half a tumbler of Irish in one hand and a burning cigarette in the other. He studied the Camel insignia on the end as Ryan placed the packet back in his pocket.
‘Still smoking this Turkish shit are ye?’ he muttered.
‘It’s either that or a roll-up, Coal. You’re lucky it’s not late in the month.’
The Coalman took a long drag and blew smoke rings. ‘So what is it you’re after, Mr Ryan? I heard that you’d moved on.’
‘I have,’ Ryan said. ‘This is a favour for a mate.’
‘I’m not sure I’m in the business any more.’
‘You’re here aren’t you?’
The Coalman nodded. ‘That I am, Sir. That I am.’ He swallowed all of his whiskey and poured three fingers more. ‘What is it ye want?’
Ryan crossed one leg under him, sitting where he was on the bed. ‘Eilish McCauley,’ he said.
The Coalman squinted at him.
‘You know her?’
‘I might. What does she look like?’
Ryan handed him the photograph Vanner had given him, one of the ones from the party that Jimmy Crack had obtained from The Mixer. The Coalman took it, drank more whiskey and looked thoughtfully at it. ‘Not bad,’ he said. ‘Red hair. I like ’em with red hair.’ He laughed then. ‘You know the song, Mr Ryan. Takes a redheaded woman …’
Ryan nodded. ‘Bruce Springsteen. I heard it, yeah.’
‘True enough so it is.’ The Coalman looked again at the picture and he closed one eye. ‘Who’s this lot she’s hangin’ out with?’
‘The fat one’s the Daddy of a Harlesden crack team.’
‘Jamaicans?’
Ryan shook his head. ‘British.’
‘Don’t know them.’
‘What about her?’
‘Not seen her.’
‘You sure?’
‘Aye. I’m sure. B’Jesus, I’d know if I had.’
Ryan put out his cigarette and took the picture back. ‘My old Guv’nor on the Drug Squad reckons they might have some kind of deal going with Jimmy Carter. The geezer that shot up his snooker hall is the body armour for the Daddy there.’
The Coalman’s eyes clouded. ‘Jimmy Carter. Now you’re talking about a serious man so you are.’
Ryan sat down on the bed once more. ‘Can you do some digging for me—see what you can find out?’
The Coalman sank the rest of his drink and weighed the empty glass in his hand. He glanced about the room. ‘Paid for is it?’
Ryan stood up. ‘For tonight yeah.’ He grinned as he wrote his mobile number on a slip of paper and handed it to him. ‘Give some Jack’n’Danny a tug. Call it old times’ sake.’
In the morning Weir sat with Morrison while the AMIP team gathered in the incident room. Monday, early, rain lashing at the windows and the investigation hampered rather than helped by SO13 and apparently going nowhere.
‘We’re hamstrung,’ he told Morrison. ‘PIRA haven’t claimed the killing yet it was definitely their weapon.’
‘Mistake,’ Morrison said.
Weir nodded. ‘If it was them at all. If 13 think it was a mistake, they’ll be wondering who they were after.’
Morrison smiled and made a calming motion with the flat of his hand. ‘Meaning they’ll be taking more notice of that than this.’
Weir scraped a hand across his skull. ‘Meaning I don’t know what, Andrew’
Morrison glanced through the window at the team gathering outside. He saw Ryan come through the swing doors spilling coffee and cursing. He looked at Weir once more. ‘Frank, if this is PIRA, 13 will do everything to get who did it. Webb was right when he talked about no jobs going wrong on them. Since 5 became the lead agency for UK source gathering it’s worked bloody well. They win more than they lose.’
‘I know all that, Guv. But it’s the way they swan in here with their mouths shut and their bloody positive vetting.’
‘Got to be that way, Frank. Tongues wag don’t they.’
‘I know. I know.’ Weir stood up. ‘We better get to it. I’m starting to sound like Ryan.’
They moved outside and Weir addressed the briefing. He told the team that SO13 were due in the incident room that morning but not until later.
‘They’ve got something to tell us at last.’ Ryan said it without any conviction in his voice.
Weir shrugged his shoulders. ‘We’ll find out when they get here.’
‘I think it’s bullshit, Guv’nor.’
Weir soured his lips as he looked at him. ‘You got anything more helpful to say, Sid? Because if you haven’t keep it shut.’
Ryan wagged his head from side to side. ‘It isn’t PIRA. It’s a hit all right. But it isn’t PIRA.’ He looked at his colleagues, then beyond Weir to the board with the pictures pinned up. ‘We’ve checked every avenue there is,’ he said, ‘and we haven’t got one iota of evidence to suggest that PIRA were after Jessica Turner.’
‘Security installations,’ Weir commented.
‘Yeah, but bugger all to do with anything they’d be interested in. The only security deal she worked on was CableTech, and they only do CCTV.’
Weir looked at the others then back at Ryan once more. ‘So what’re you saying?’
Ryan sighed heavily. ‘I’m saying we’re looking in the wrong place.’
‘And the right place?’
‘What about the husband?’
‘Alec Turner?’
Ryan nodded. ‘Jessica was well insured, Guv. He’s going to collect a packet.’
‘How well insured?’
‘Couple of hundred thousand.’
Silence. Weir thinned out his eyes and glanced at Morrison. Morrison moved off the desk. ‘Tokarev pistol, Sid. You know how rare that is in any form of shooting?’
Ryan looked at the floor. ‘Guns go walkabout, Sir. It happens all the time.’
‘But this gun we know was used to kill an RUC officer in Ulster.’ Morrison shook his head. ‘It’s too much of a coincidence.’
Weir took the floor again. ‘SO13 think it was PIRA,’ he stated.
‘Maybe.’
Again he looked at Ryan.
‘Meaning?’
‘You’ve heard it from them yourself, Guv. They don’t have any shootists who’re women. They never have had. Not over here. Not close quarters. Those guys are in, bang and out. They don’t use sleepers.’
‘We come back to the weapon, Sid.’
Pamela looked at Ryan then. ‘What’s your point about the insurance, Sid? You think Alec Turner knew she was OTS and imported some other bird to shoot her while he was in Ulster?’
‘It wouldn’t be the first time.’
‘He had no money worries.’
‘No. But he wasn’t rich either.’
Tony Rob spoke then. ‘There is another angle to all this. Maybe Jessica Turner didn’t have any connection with Ulster, but perhaps whoever she was seeing did. He hasn’t come forward has he.’
Again silence. Weir could hear the rain on the window. ‘The lover,’ he said.
Rob nodded.
Ryan lifted his eyebrows. ‘It’s possible.’
Morrison looked doubtful. ‘Unlikely,’ he said. ‘If PIRA have a target they go after them.’
Weir placed both hands on the top of his head and looked at all of their faces. ‘Whatever it is we need the lover. We need to know why he didn’t come forward. If we find him we might get somewhere. Find him,’ he said.
Webb arrived then with DCI Westbrook and they stood at the back of the room. Weir put the lover connection to them and Webb scratched his head. ‘The only way they’d do that is if she was involved in something. PIRA kill their targets. Apart from the innocents in bombings they’re selected for military or political reasons. Jessica Turner would need to be in it up to her neck to become legitimate enough for them.’
‘And they never claimed it,’ Ryan finished the sentence for him.
Webb glanced at h
im and nodded.
‘Which means one of two things,’ Ryan went on. ‘Either it wasn’t them or they got the wrong person.’
Webb nodded. ‘That’s about the size of it yeah.’
Morrison stood up then and spoke to Westbrook. ‘Have you got anything?’
Westbrook looked at Webb. ‘We had two definite maybes,’ he said flatly. ‘One of them is alibi’d.’
‘How?’ Ryan knew the answer but wanted to voice it anyway.
Webb just looked at him.
‘Come on, Webby. How?’
‘Ryan.’ Morrison snapped at him.
‘You know the game, Slips.’ Webb grinned at him. ‘If I tell you she’s alibi’d she is.’
‘What about the other?’ Weir said.
Webb looked back at him. ‘We’re still looking at her, Guv’nor. You’ll know if we find anything.’
After the briefing broke up Webb came over to Ryan’s desk and sat down. They looked at one another. Ten years had passed since they had worked together. Webb grinned at him. ‘Still paranoid then, Slips.’
‘Fuck off, Webby’
‘You could always get a transfer. Always looking for good coppers on the fifteenth floor.’
‘What’s the plonk like?’
‘Plonk’s good, Sid. Brains as well as looks.’
‘Never cared about brains. Just as long as they’ve got a pulse.’
Pamela overheard them. ‘Ryan, you’re a dinosaur. You know that?’
Ryan looked over his shoulder at her. ‘My best quality, Pammy.’
He looked at Webb again. ‘We have to find the lover.’
Webb nodded. ‘You need him.’
‘Got no background without him. He hasn’t come forward. It might just be because he’s got a wife and kids but it might be something else.’ He finished rolling his cigarette and looked at it. Then he looked at the rain rolling in rivers down the window. He put the cigarette in his shirt pocket. ‘You reckon it’s them but a mistake, yeah?’
Webb nodded.
‘So who were they after?’
Webb smiled. ‘We’ll find out.’
‘Snout?’
‘Maybe, they’re paranoid about snouts. We make sure of that.’
‘Misinformation?’
‘Shit happens, Slips.’
Vanner addressed the Drug Squad at Campbell Row. They were gathered in the cramped confines of the squad room and again Vanner was grateful for the mooted move to Hendon.
‘We’ve made a little progress with the posse,’ he was saying. ‘Immigration gave Carmel Connolly’s address a spin and arrested two illegals’. They found three rocks under one of the beds. It’s the illegals’ gear but we were able to use it to lean on Carmel a little.’
‘You setting her up, Guv?’ Sammy sat forward in his chair.
Vanner shook his head. ‘You know what blacks are like, Sammy. They don’t give up their own. We did get something though. The white girl in the photos we got from the snout.’
‘The BMW?’ China said.
‘Name’s Eilish McCauley. Lives near Roundwell Park in Willesden. Got two half-caste kids and a brother James. They’re Irish. Jimmy and me eyeballed them in the park. I don’t know if they’re linked to Stepper-Nap, but we know from Carmel that he sleeps with her.’
‘White baby mother.’ Sammy lifted his eyebrows. ‘Make him look fine on the street.’
Vanner rolled up his sleeves and sat down on the desk. ‘We know that Young Young beat up an illegal in Jimmy Carter’s snooker hall. Holden Biggs, from the Tottenham team that Stepper does his diplomatic routine with.’ He thought for a moment. ‘By rights Young Young should be propping up some flyover somewhere. Jimmy Carter is old school. Gangster outfit from over the water. He never takes prisoners.’ He glanced at Jimmy Crack. ‘Funny thing here though is Young Young’s walking around. He’s beat up but he’s breathing. Not at all like Carter.’
‘So Stepper’s talking to him?’ Anne said.
‘Maybe.’ Vanner looked at her. ‘He doesn’t want a war. Maybe he bunged him a few grand. Maybe not. But when we pushed Carmel about the Brit-Boys she told us to ask Eilish McCauley’
Quiet slipped over the room while everyone digested his words. Vanner said: ‘Maybe there’s more to it than just avoiding a war.’
‘Like an Irish crack connection?’ Sammy said.
Vanner made a face. ‘Crack’s a black drug.’
‘Coke isn’t. And they’re having hassle over there. More now than ever. I’ve got a mate on the Antrim Road. Ever since the ceasefire things have got worse.’
‘PIRA control all drugs to Ulster,’ Vanner said. ‘They get a rake-off from everybody. Maybe Jimmy’s doing our posse a turn. If he is then Eilish McCauley’s the connection.’ He looked behind him as the wind rattled against the loose-fitting window. He pushed his sleeves down again. ‘I’ve had a word with Slippery. He had a snout over on Shoot up Hill.’
‘The Coalman,’ Sammy said. ‘I knew him, Guv.’
‘Reliable?’
‘In his day yeah. Not much happens in Kilburn that he doesn’t hear about.’
‘How come he slipped out of sight?’
‘Slippery moved over to AMIP. Before that things were pretty quiet.’
Vanner nodded. ‘Slips phoned me this morning. They had a meet last night. The Coalman’s going to put his ear to the ground for us — see what he can come up with.’ He stood up. ‘In the meantime we’re setting up a pick-up in Jamaica. Dion Rafter, the snout down in Winchester wants a move back up here.’ He looked at Jimmy.
‘Rafter’s bird is a runner for the posse,’ Jimmy said. ‘He can set something up so she doesn’t know we’re watching. Hopefully we’ll tag her all the way through. Meet her when she gets back and follow her, maybe to the wash house, maybe to the doctor. Either way we get a little on Stepper-Nap.’
Jimmy Carter played three-card brag with Billy Hammond and Carl Lever, two of his cronies from Finchley. They sat around a circular, felt-topped table in the upstairs room at the club. Bobby Simpson, the stocky bouncer who had organised the hit on Young Young stood by the door, his features wrinkled like a bulldog chewing a wasp. Money going down on the table, moisture gathered in a cluster of droplets on Carter’s brow, an open bottle of Tequila beside him. He always drank Tequila when he played cards. It helped his concentration. It helped him now. He held a pair of twos and Lever was raising him nicely, a match fixed like a miniature wedge in the corner of his mouth.
‘Good hand, Carl?’ Carter watched as the fifties were laid on the pile of notes between them.
‘Lay your dosh down and I’ll show you.’
Carter smiled then, poured another shot from his bottle, downed it and rubbed the red hair on his forearm. It reminded him of Eilish McCauley and his smile widened considerably. Billy Hammond sat back in his chair, hands over his belly where it squashed against the buttons of his shirt. He had folded already, his cards laid face down on the table.
‘What d’ye reckon, Billy?’ Carter asked him. ‘Your man winding me up?’
Hammond lifted one corner of his mouth. ‘Don’t know why you’re asking me, Jim. I’m a monkey down already’
Carter looked back at Lever who smiled thinly. ‘Time marches on, Jim. What’s it gonna be?’
Carter lifted four fifty-pound notes from his stake and pressed them over those placed by Lever. ‘There’s yours, Carl. And here’s some more for luck.’
Lever’s face fell. ‘You’re not seeing me then?’
‘Does it look like I’m seeing you?’
Lever hunched forward now, tongue pressed to his lips and concentrated on the curled cards in his paw.
‘Time marches on, Carl,’ Hammond said.
Young Young turned off the High Road and cruised past the lighted front of the snooker hall. Music thumped at him from the stereo as he spun the steering wheel with the flat of his hand. One doorman. The blond one, not the fat bastard who’d jumped him. He stood blowing on his hands, a crombie
overcoat covering his penguin suit. Fifty yards further on, Young Young glanced to his left and spotted Carter’s Bentley in the small carpark beyond the twelve-foot-high gates. He pulled into a parking space on the right and switched off the engine.
He sat quietly now, watching the illuminated hands of the dashboard clock. Ten thirty. The club shut at eleven during the week. An hour after that Carter would come out, walk to the carpark and get his car. He knew. He had watched him. Leaning over the seat, Young Young took his gun from the floor in the back.
Upstairs, Carter scraped the pile of money towards him with both hands as if to accentuate Lever’s loss. Lever sat, poker-faced with his elbows on the table. Hammond sipped iced whisky.
‘You should know I never bluff,’ Carter was saying, ‘ace high for Christ’s sake. Who d’you think you are — Henry bleeding Gondorf?’
‘Who’s he?’ Hammond said. ‘That fella we played with the last time?’
‘It’s a film, you prat,’ Lever said through his teeth. ‘Paul fucking Newman.’
Hammond took up the cards and squeezed them into a shuffle. Lever looked at Carter. ‘If we’re playing on I’ll need to cash a cheque.’
‘You want to play on then?’
‘Course I want to play on. You’ve got all my money.’
Carter snapped his fingers at Bobby Simpson who came over. Lever was scribbling out a cheque with a gold-nibbed fountain pen. Carter handed Simpson the empty Tequila bottle.
‘Get another,’ he said. ‘And get Carl a grand.’
Simpson weighed the bottle in his hand. ‘I’m driving then, Boss.’
‘Looks that way doesn’t it.’
Young Young watched the clock tick beyond midnight and shifted himself in the seat where his trousers stuck to the leather. The adrenaline pumped through his veins and his backside was loose with the tension. He glanced again in the mirror behind him. The club was closed. The car beyond the one behind his was gone. The steps of the club were empty. Again he looked at the clock.