Alone with the Dead: A PC Donal Lynch Thriller

by James Nally

  I’d made an arse of myself, so forced a smile: ‘Look I’m sorry, Lilian. I’m just not used to talking about it.’

  ‘Well you’ll be pleased to know you won’t have to for a couple of weeks now. I’m going on holiday. Can I book you in for Wednesday 7th August?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, walking out of her office, certain that I’d never set foot in her surgery again.

  Chapter 13

  London, England

  Monday, August 5; 15:30

  August arrived, sticky, fuming and breathless, cranking up agitation on South London’s seething streets and tense estates.

  It had been more than a month since Marion Ryan’s murder and the police had still made no arrests. The story no longer got a single mention in the media.

  That afternoon, Fintan rang me with news: Shep was taking over the investigation. DS Dan Shepard. How on earth had he become involved?

  Later, I found a mysterious handwritten note on my desk instructing me to meet the man himself at six p.m. that evening, at the Feathers. The site of my glittering career before joining the police, and mine and Shep’s first meeting. I’d left suddenly, unannounced and under a cloud.

  I’d been bartending about a week when I noticed that Seamus, the manager, neither took nor was offered money for drinks by certain officers. I assumed this was some sort of arrangement for the nightly ‘lock-in’, and that these officers would expect the same from me. So whenever I handed a drink to a cop – and you can always recognise a cop – I never asked for money. Those not ‘in’ on the racket paid as a matter of course. The rest thought me terrific at my job.

  I was about to ring the bell one night to scatter civilian drinkers when a voice behind me said: ‘Do you not want paying for this?’

  ‘Sorry, miles away,’ I smiled.

  ‘Detective Superintendent Dan Shepard,’ he said, holding out a hand. I held out mine. ‘That’ll be one pound forty,’ I said, and he laughed.

  Looks-wise, he could have been Sean Connery’s tress-blessed younger brother: dark, arched eyebrows, thick white, collar-length hair, knowing blue eyes that always seemed mildly amused by something. He had the aura of someone born to power; he owned the room.

  ‘Where are you from?’ he asked.

  ‘A small town in the Midlands,’ I said, ‘the flat bit you drive through to get to somewhere nice.’

  ‘Oh I know it well,’ he said, ‘I spent most of my summers in the Midlands, as a kid.’

  ‘So you know Tullamore?’

  ‘Of course. My people come from Tipperary, Clonmel.’

  ‘I hear it’s a long way,’ I teased.

  ‘Well, my heart’s still there, I can tell you. God, I used to love it. Everyone making a fuss of you, giving you cake and lemonade. The nights in the pub. Later I found out that my old man used to have to borrow the money to go, and a suit. Can you imagine?’

  Another middle Irish son, I thought, having to find his own way.

  ‘What did he do here?’

  ‘Spent his life working on the buildings, until it killed him. His last job was in ’76, digging the tunnel so the tube could get to Heathrow airport. The irony was he’d never once flown home himself. He never had the dough.’

  ‘Do you ever go back yourself?’

  He shook his head wistfully.

  ‘Anyway, slainte,’ he said a little sadly, raising his double scotch.

  He headed to a seat in the far corner of the lounge, where he sat bolt upright and slung it back in one. Seamus came downstairs and told me he was popping out for a short while. He was always ‘popping out’. I struggled to imagine where he’d be going for a quarter of an hour at this time of night.

  When I next looked, Shep had gone. He only ever stayed for one, always around closing time, but he seemed on very good terms with the regulars.

  Over the weeks, I got to know several of the officers by name. And soon it became routine that Shep would pop in to chat to me every day at closing time, often asking about who’d been in and at what time. This soon progressed to what they’d been gossiping about. If a titbit of news particularly pleased him, he’d stand me a pint. He was a man you wanted to please.

  I finally twigged that Seamus also ‘popped out’ every night around the same time Shep finished his nightcap: Seamus must have been his snout. I didn’t dare confirm this by spying on them, and I never mentioned it to a soul. But I had no doubt that Seamus was passing on all he heard from pissed coppers during their late-night sessions. As was I. It was hard to refuse the man.

  No doubt, the lock-ins generated little money but lots of valuable indiscretion. Because the Yard handled everything from Royal security to organised crime, the sheer scale of suppressed scandals made my eyes water. I learned about Princess Diana’s apparent habit of stalking married men, the celebrity customers of major drugs dealers, the sexual peccadilloes of senior government ministers. Hardly a night passed when I didn’t think: ‘Imagine what Fintan would do with that information?’

  Of course, I should have expected my new job to come with conditions. Four weeks in, Fintan called the pub one afternoon and instructed me to meet him at the Queen Victoria memorial, down the road near Buckingham Palace. I wondered why he couldn’t just come to the Feathers.

  As we walked through St James’s Park, he told me how Scotland Yard had set up a secret ‘Ghost Squad’ to crack down on corruption. As a result, officers had grown paranoid about meeting him, or even talking to him on the phone, making his job nigh-on impossible. I was only half-listening, when he asked me if I could help him out.

  ‘Help out how?’

  ‘Well any cop could go into the Feathers and chat to the barman, couldn’t they? That wouldn’t raise an eyebrow.’

  ‘I suppose …’

  ‘You could pass on messages for me,’ said Fintan, ‘you know, act as a sort of go-between for me and my contacts.’

  For several minutes, I was too shocked to speak. God knows why.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ Fintan laughed, ‘I’m not asking you to pass brown envelopes, just phone numbers, times and places where I can meet or talk to people, stuff like that.’

  What staggered me most was Fintan’s matter-of-fact tone, as if bent cops, immoral hacks and shadowy fixers was a business standard.

  ‘Isn’t that corrupt?’

  ‘How is it corrupt? You’re just passing on messages?’

  ‘I mean you getting information from cops on the take?’

  ‘Who said anything about them being on the take?’

  ‘Why else would they give information to you?’

  Fintan stopped walking so he could focus on putting me right: ‘Some leak information to me because they can’t accept a cover-up, or unaccountability. Others to boost their own careers, or to bring down a rival. The smarter ones recognise the power of the press, and use it to put pressure on their own organisation. Look, it’s not my job to work out their motivation. If it’s in the public interest, I print it.’

  ‘But you pay some of them, right? Some of them must do it just for the money?’

  ‘There are a few who’ve had money troubles, and some who are plain greedy, but what’s important is that they pass on vital information. This stops the people in power getting away with murder.’

  ‘Murder?’ I scoffed.

  ‘Trust me,’ said Fintan, ‘Northern Ireland, Hillsborough, the miners’ strike, Lockerbie, you name it, senior police and politicians have lied and lied to cover their arses. People in power don’t serve the public, they serve their own agendas, which is getting more power.’

  ‘Yeah but that doesn’t justify …’

  ‘Look what’s happened to Eve. There are cops, as well as judges and politicians that would have let her hang to save their own arses, and you know it.’

  ‘Well, yeah but, this middle man stuff, it all sounds so sleazy,’ I said.

  ‘Everything to do with power is sleazy, Donal, Jesus. I’m just asking you to pass on a phone number every now an
d then.’

  I examined his jowly pale face, looking ten years older than his twenty-eight and racked with indignation. He’d been banished from Ireland by the gilded circle. Now he wanted to wage war against the powerful, using any means necessary. This was his unfinished business.

  ‘How do you think we get stories, Donal?’ he patronised. ‘You think we just publish what Scotland Yard tells us? God they’d love that. The public has a right to know certain things that the people at the top don’t want them to know. It’s called democracy.’

  ‘Call it what you like, Fintan. I can’t do it. That’s the end of it.’

  Fintan took a deep breath.

  ‘I think it might be too late for that,’ he said, eyeing me sourly.

  ‘What do you mean?’ I said.

  ‘No doubt you’ve seen Seamus giving out free drinks? Who do you think is paying for those drinks?’

  I’ve always hated riddles.

  ‘You’ve most likely seen Seamus passing envelopes,’ said Fintan, ‘what do you think is in those envelopes? And where do you suppose the cash comes from?’

  ‘I’ve never seen any envelopes. And if I had, what would it have to do with me? Nothing,’ I protested.

  ‘Is that right?’ said Fintan, challenging me with his glare. ‘You think the Ghost Squad haven’t been into the Feathers and seen you giving out free drinks?’

  Every drop of blood in my head went south.

  ‘You think they don’t know who you are? You think they’d believe you if you said you didn’t know anything about what was going on? That, as a brother of mine, you’re not complicit in the whole thing?’

  ‘I’m not complicit in anything!’

  ‘You may as well help me, Donal. If they launch a witch hunt you’ll be taking the fall anyway. At least this way you’ll get some protection, from me and the officers you help. As it stands, you’re totally isolated.’

  I only became aware that my mouth was hanging open when I tried to say ‘Jesus Christ’, but dribbled instead.

  ‘Have a think about it,’ said Fintan, raising his collar against the biting wind, checking left and right then scurrying off. Fintan Lynch, champion of the free press, like a rat caught out in the open.

  As I saw it, I had only one option: quit the Feathers and lay low for a while.

  Instead, that closing time, I asked Dan Shepard to meet me the following morning at the most obscure location I could think of, a Harlesden café so squalid that even we used to avoid it.

  I figured that, after all the helpful information I passed his way, Shep owed me. As a senior officer, surely he could offer me the ‘protection’ Fintan seemed to think I’d need. And, although conscious that I may have been suffering either A) Stockholm Syndrome or B) some sort of unconscious craving for a father figure, I actually liked Shep.

  Next morning, Shep’s flint-sharp suit, rolled-up Times and flashy rainbow golf umbrella caught the eye of a few road workers sitting nearby. He had a quiet word with the boss who led us through to a closed-off back room. Shep was a man people wanted to please.

  I told him everything: the non-payment for drinks, Seamus allegedly passing brown envelopes, the lock-ins. Fintan could hang. I wasn’t prepared to turn a blind eye to reporters paying bent cops. Shep listened intently but showed not one flicker of surprise. When I wrapped up, he reached into his inside pocket, took out cigarettes and a gold lighter, lit up and leaned back to survey me.

  Finally, he spoke. ‘Of course, we knew who you were,’ he smiled, and I felt myself redden. ‘We were having a bit of fun with you,’ he added, smirking and taking another drag.

  ‘We assumed your brother had planted you. But there was only one way we could know for sure.’

  I frowned. What is it with these people?

  ‘The lads agreed to let slip some dynamite information your way. We sat with the Sunday News every week, to see if any of it appeared. When it didn’t, we were a little disappointed, to be honest. Your brother’s been a right pain in the arse for us. We were hoping for payback. But we realised you weren’t biting.’

  He took a mouthful of tea so I could catch up.

  ‘Listen, Donal, thanks for telling me what you know. But we’re all over it.’

  ‘You are?’

  ‘We know certain officers are selling information to newspapers, and to private investigators. But it’s far more complicated than you think.’

  My mind flashed back to Fintan, in the shadow of Buck Palace, railing against people in power and their secret agendas. There must be plenty in power who’d much rather avoid a scandal of this magnitude in the police force.

  Shep put out his fag and swallowed the last remnants of his tea.

  ‘I have to ask you,’ he said, ‘can you carry on working at the Feathers, but for us? You could really help us build a case. All you’d have to do is tell me everything you see and hear, maybe ask a few questions.’

  ‘I don’t know. It sounds risky.’

  ‘Your role would be known only to me. I’d protect you. You have my word on that.’

  ‘I, I don’t think so …’

  ‘Would you be willing to make a statement about what you just told me?’

  ‘I’d rather not. He’s flesh and blood, after all.’

  ‘I had to ask,’ said Shep, smiling to let me know he’d expected my answer. He got to his feet and pulled his coat from the back of the chair: ‘What are your plans now?’

  ‘I’m not even going back,’ I said, ‘Seamus scares the shit out of me.’

  Shep laughed: ‘Have you anything else lined up?’

  ‘No.’ I shrugged.

  ‘Why don’t you join the Met?’ he said. ‘You’d make a decent detective. I’ll even put in a word.’

  Now here I found myself, two years on, back at the Feathers. I walked in to find nothing had changed, except the bar staff – both bleach blonde Aussie surfer types. I recognised some of the old regulars but managed to skirt around their half-cut eyelines to reach a low-profile table in the far corner of the lounge.

  Why had Shep invited me here? Maybe he had decided to bump me up to Acting Detective Constable? By the time he strode through the door, I’d convinced myself that this had to be the case.

  Like everyone in London that scorching August, he looked a little sweaty and steamed up.

  I remembered how few senior officers derived so much obvious satisfaction at being called ‘Guv’ than Shep, or being stood a drink.

  ‘Afternoon, Guv,’ I said, getting to my feet, ‘what can I get you?’

  I delivered his double neat scotch and sat where he told me.

  ‘Right, the reason I wanted to meet you is to make sure I’m not going mad.’

  ‘Guv?’

  He leaned forward, conspiratorially: ‘You were the first officer on the scene of Marion Ryan’s murder, correct?’

  ‘Yes, Guv.’

  ‘And tell me what conclusions you made please, on that night, about the crime?’

  I chose my words carefully, as if being cross-examined in court: ‘Well I assumed she’d let her killer in. There were no signs of a forced entry or a struggle, either at the front door or at the door into their flat. We found her at the top of the stairs on the landing, with her keys, post, coat and a handbag that hadn’t been touched. I think she let her killer in.’

  ‘Precisely,’ boomed Shep, sitting bolt upright, ‘she must have let the person or people who killed her into 21 Sangora Road. Marion knew this person or these people so well that she even stopped to pick up her post as they chatted. She then unlocked the door to her flat and invited them inside.’

  I sensed that this clandestine rendezvous wasn’t about my career after all but nodded eagerly, just in case.

  ‘But of course DS Glenn doesn’t think so. Or at least the so-called criminologists he surrounds himself with don’t think so. They think that she was murdered by a maniac who barged in when she unlocked the front door. What do you think of that, Lynch?’ he barked, like a Head
master challenged by an upstart pupil.

  ‘Well it’s a possibility, of course. I assume he has other supporting evidence to pursue that line?’

  ‘Shall I tell you what DS Glenn is, Lynch? He’s a politician. And you know what politicians do?’

  I shook my head.

  ‘They jump on bandwagons, Lynch. And they try to ride them all the way to the top.’

  Shep registered my confusion.

  ‘DS Glenn has been seduced by cod science,’ he spat. ‘He’s been bringing in these forensic criminal profilers on his investigations. Have you heard about those, Lynch?’

  I’d read all about profiling in the criminology correspondence course I’d failed to finish. The results had impressed me.

  ‘Yes, Sir, I’ve read a lot about it, as it happens.’

  ‘What do you think of it, Lynch? Be honest with me now.’

  I knew that I shouldn’t be honest with him, now or probably ever, if I was going to get that promotion.

  ‘Well, Sir, in the cases I read about, profiling certainly helped narrow down the list of suspects.’

  ‘Precisely,’ boomed Shep, he loved that word. ‘It narrows down the list of suspects but it doesn’t go out and gather evidence against them and catch them, does it?’

  I shook my head, trapped as I was in the eye of his rhetorical storm.

  ‘Most of it is plain common sense, isn’t it? I mean if there’s a serial rapist out there, then of course he’s going to be aged between twenty and forty-five, ugly, awkward with women, loves his old mum, lives alone, bashes off to porn, has a menial job, poor personal hygiene and no friends. I mean you don’t fucking say?’

  I had to laugh. Shep enjoyed being a comedian. I then realised that, at certain points in my life, I matched five if not six of the characteristics he’d just listed. I stopped laughing.

  ‘You don’t need to spend seven years studying a pile of “ologies” to tell me that, do you, Lynch? But, if you believe the Scotland Yard PR machine, profiling is the future of detective work. Have you seen the articles about DS Glenn and his “progressive, groundbreaking work” with Professor Richards? Of course the Commissioner loves it. Makes us sound like we’ve cracked some sort of secret code to catching baddies. There’s a room full of the fuckers now at Scotland Yard, taking up desks that should belong to detectives.’