Dead Men

by Leather, Stephen

  He rubbed the falcon’s brown chest feathers. It arched its neck, spread its wings and called again, ‘Kiy-ee, kiy-ee.’ It was a female, almost six years old. Females generally made better hunters than males. They were larger, had keener eyesight and were better suited temperamentally to the task. They were patient: a male would rush in and waste its energy chasing anything that moved, but the females watched and waited until sure of making a kill. It was one of the few instances in male-dominated Saudi life when the male was regarded as inferior to the female.

  Macgregor only gave the falcon water once a week. The bird took enough liquid otherwise from the blood of its prey. All the birds were weighed twice a day, first thing in the morning and last thing at night. The key to keeping a falcon alert was to make sure it wasn’t too well fed. Overfeeding led to laziness, but underfeeding made it resentful and testy. The trick was to keep it just hungry enough to make it a determined hunter. The Saker hunted every day under Macgregor’s watchful eye, and the old man flew it several times a week, as he did all his hunting birds. The falcons were trained in the cool air of the early evening, but hunted best in the hours between sunrise and midday. Othman had been driven out into the desert as the sun was edging over the horizon, smearing the black sky with a reddish glow. Macgregor had prepared the birds as the sun had climbed higher and now, an hour into the day, a slight breeze was blowing from the west, ruffling the falcon’s feathers.

  Macgregor lowered his binoculars. ‘Two o’clock, sir,’ he called. ‘About four hundred metres.’

  Othman turned towards the two o’clock position. A small bird was flapping purposefully, heading towards the town in the distance. The old man raised his arm in the direction of the prey and pushed his gloved hand forward. As the falcon spread its wings, the old man opened his fingers wide, releasing the jesses. The falcon climbed into the air. The old man shielded his eyes with his gloved hand.

  The falcon was heading directly for its prey. The Saker did not kill by dropping from a great height, it built up speed and attacked from behind and to the side, ripping at the victim’s throat with its talons and following it to the ground to finish the kill with its beak. As Othman watched it gain on the small bird, he held his breath, eyes burning fiercely. ‘Go on, pretty one,’ he muttered. ‘Kill for me.’

  The falcon hit the bird hard, then veered to the left as the shattered ball of feathers tumbled to the ground. It cried in triumph as it glided in a full circle, then landed on its prey and began to feed.

  Macgregor hurried across the sand to retrieve the falcon before it ate too much.

  Othman heard an engine buzz in the distance, sounding like an angry wasp. He narrowed his eyes. A quad bike with large tyres was heading his way, spurts of sand spraying up behind it. Othman had been expecting its driver. His name was Muhammad Aslam – Servant of the Kind One. It was an appropriate name, Othman knew, because Muhammad Aslam was a fixer. Not a fixer in the way that Othman himself acted as a facilitator, organising multimillion-dollar deals and overseeing complex financial transactions. Muhammad Aslam operated at the other end of the spectrum, arranging violence for those who did not want to get their hands dirty. He could make bad things happen – at a price – his ability to do that enhanced by his employment with al-Shurta, the Saudi public security police.

  Othman’s two bodyguards reached for their handguns but Othman nodded at Masood, who called that the visitor was expected. The men took their hands from their weapons but kept their eyes on the quad bike as it slowed and came to a standstill close to the Range Rovers.

  As Muhammad Aslam climbed off it, a bodyguard went over and patted him down, then motioned for him to join Othman. Aslam was forty-two years old, but two decades with the Saudi police had aged him. There were dark patches under his eyes, deep wrinkles across his forehead and at either side of his mouth, and he had a badly trimmed drooping grey moustache. He was wearing a red baseball cap and sunglasses, both of which he removed as he approached. He bowed his head as he greeted Othman.

  ‘Let us go to the shade,’ said Othman. ‘The sun is fierce today.’

  They walked together to a large marquee that had been set up some distance away from the Range Rovers. Inside, a jug of iced mint tea, another of iced water, and a plate of fruit had been set out on a table, with three chairs. Aslam waited until Othman was seated, then sat down himself. Masood poured tea for them, then backed out of the marquee, leaving them to talk alone.

  Othman pushed the plate of fruit towards Aslam, who nodded his thanks and took an orange segment. ‘I need your help,’ said Othman.

  ‘Whatever you need, I am here,’ said Aslam. He bit into the orange and sucked noisily.

  ‘I need a man who can hunt,’ said Othman. ‘I need a man who can hunt and kill.’

  ‘There are many such men in the world,’ said Aslam.

  ‘My sons have been killed,’ said the old man. ‘I want revenge. It was the infidels who killed them, and I want them killed by a Muslim. They used their religion against my sons, so I will use Islam against them.’

  ‘I can find you such a man,’ said Aslam. ‘Inshallah.’ God willing.

  ‘The infidels who killed my sons made sure they suffered, so I want them to suffer in the same way. I want them killed by hand, I want them to bleed and to scream. I want them to hear the names of my beloved sons as they die.’

  ‘It shall be done, I swear,’ said Aslam.

  ‘Money is no object,’ said Othman. ‘I shall pay whatever I must, but I want it done quickly. I am an old man and I do not know how much time I have left.’

  ‘You have a long and fruitful life ahead of you, I am sure,’ said Aslam.

  A slight smile creased Othman’s weathered face. ‘Do not flatter me, my friend,’ he said. ‘I am too old for sweet words.’

  ‘I did not mean to offend,’ said Aslam. ‘I shall carry out your wishes immediately.’

  Othman nodded. ‘I thank you for that. Let me know your fee and I shall have the money transferred to your account.’

  ‘Do you wish updates on my progress?’

  ‘I require only to know that the man and the woman are dead, that they died in pain, with the names of my sons in their ears.’

  Aslam stood up, bowed, then walked back through the sand towards his quad bike. One of the bodyguards went with him.

  Macgregor came into the marquee with the falcon. Othman held out his gloved hand, palm down, and the bird hopped on to it. He caught the jesses between his thumb and first finger, and with his other hand he stroked the falcon’s chest feathers. ‘So, sweet thing,’ he whispered, ‘are you ready to kill again?’

  The bird returned the old man’s cold stare for several seconds, then it arched its neck and cried to the sky.

  Shepherd finished his coffee, folded his copy of the Daily Mail, and stood up. He had been sitting in the coffee shop for a quarter of an hour. He hadn’t seen Charlotte Button go into the office so he assumed she was already there. He went outside, waited for a gap in the traffic and jogged across the road. The door that led to the offices on the upper floors was between a butcher’s and a florist’s. There were three brass nameplates and an entryphone with three buttons. Shepherd pressed the middle one and waved up at the CCTV camera that monitored the entrance.

  The door buzzed and he pushed it open. Button hadn’t closed the door to the office and she smiled as he came up the stairs. She was wearing a red suit, the skirt cut just above the knee, and red high heels. ‘You could have at least brought me a tea,’ she said. You were in the coffee shop for fifteen minutes, weren’t you? Doing the Daily Mail crossword?’

  ‘The Sudoku, actually,’ said Shepherd, ‘so I guess that means you weren’t looking over my shoulder. Anyway, I was just checking I was clean. I wouldn’t want to blow a perfectly good SOCA safe-house.’ He followed her into the office, unable to stop himself admiring her legs. Button often wore jeans or other trousers so they were rarely on display. She had very good ones, he decided. Firm and shape
ly, the ankles smaller than his wrists.

  ‘I’ve got a meeting at SOCA headquarters this afternoon,’ she said, ‘and flashing a bit of skin tends to cut me a lot of slack.’

  ‘If my legs were as good as yours, I’d be flashing them too,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Why, thank you, kind sir.’

  The office was lined with filing cabinets and volumes on tax law. There were four desks, one in each corner of the room, and a door. Button went through it and sat on a high-backed executive chair behind a large oak desk. ‘Everything okay?’ she asked.

  Shepherd took one of the two wooden chairs on his side of the desk. ‘Raring to go,’ he said.

  ‘I’m glad your hair’s growing back because we’ll be making use of your roguish good looks,’ she said, as she opened a manila file and passed a photograph across the table.

  ‘You are joking, I hope,’ said Shepherd, as he scrutinised the photograph. It was a head-and-shoulders shot, ten inches by eight, of a woman in her mid-thirties with shoulder-length wavy red hair and freckles across her nose. She was laughing and there was a sparkle in her green eyes. ‘Elaine Carter,’ said Button.

  ‘Pretty,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Possible serial killer,’ said Button.

  ‘Ah,’said Shepherd. ‘I thought serial killers were all middle-aged white males.’

  ‘That’s if you believe in profiling,’ said Button. ‘Elaine here is a special case.’ She passed over another photograph, of a man lying face down on a terracotta tiled floor, a pool of blood around his head. ‘Her husband was Robbie Carter, an RUC Special Branch officer. An inspector.’

  Shepherd looked at the photograph. The hair at the back of the man’s head was matted with blood. ‘She killed her husband?’ he asked.

  ‘Spider, your psychic skills leave a lot to be desired. We’ll get on a lot quicker if you let me tell you what we know and you make the occasional grunt.’

  Shepherd looked more closely at the photograph of the dead man. There were smaller pools of blood around his knees.

  ‘Robbie Carter was shot by an IRA execution squad in nineteen ninety-six,’ continued Button. ‘They gunned him down in front of his wife and young son.’ She slid five photographs out of the file and spread them in front of Shepherd, like a poker player displaying a winning hand. She tapped the photograph on the far left. ‘Adrian Dunne. He was caught fleeing a punishment shooting a year after Carter was killed. He’d used the same gun as he had for the Carter killing and was sent down for life. Released under the Good Friday Agreement.’ She took another photograph and placed it on top of the first. It was a crime-scene shot. The body in it was naked and lying face down. There were gunshot wounds to the man’s head and knees. ‘Dunne was killed two weeks ago.’

  She ran a red-painted fingernail down the photograph next to the one of Dunne. This man was the oldest of the five, with thinning grey hair and the ruddy cheeks of someone who had spent a lot of time outdoors. ‘Joseph McFee. Left the Provos once the Peace Process got rolling and is thought to have joined the Real IRA. He didn’t actually shoot Carter, and no evidence was presented that suggested he was carrying a gun, but he got life as well, plus additional life sentences for killing two British soldiers and three other policemen. He was released two months after Dunne.’

  ‘Is it just me or is the world going crazy?’ asked Shepherd. ‘He murders two soldiers and four coppers and we let him out?’

  ‘It was part of the Peace Process,’ said Button. ‘That was the deal.’

  ‘Then the deal sucks, as my son would say. What we’re saying is that if you murder a drug-dealer you’ll spend twenty years plus behind bars. Kill a copper or a soldier and they’ll let you out early.’

  ‘You won’t hear any arguments from me on that score,’ said Button. She took a photograph from the file and laid it over the head-and-shoulders picture of McFee. It was from a crime scene, an almost exact match of the first. ‘McFee was shot last week.’

  She paused to make sure she had his undivided attention. ‘Both men, McFee and Dunne, were shot with the same gun. Robbie Carter’s service revolver.’

  Shepherd quirked an eyebrow. ‘Open and shut, then?’

  ‘If it was, they wouldn’t have called us in,’ said Button. ‘Carter’s gun was never found. His wife said she had no idea where it was and there was a suggestion that the killers took it with them.’

  ‘Is that possible?’

  Button shrugged. ‘Elaine Carter didn’t mention the gun being taken at the time but she was pretty forthcoming with other details. In fact, it was her recollections that helped put the execution squad behind bars. So we’re assuming that the gun wasn’t taken at the time. The rifling on the bullets used in both killings is an exact match to those on record for Carter’s gun. A Smith and Wesson .357 Magnum.’

  ‘Nice gun,’said Shepherd. ‘Not regular police issue,though. Back in the nineties the RUC were using the ninemillimetre Smith & Wesson 5904.’

  ‘Back then Special Branch were allowed a degree of flexibility in their choice of handgun,’ said Button. ‘The Magnum would be a man-stopper, I gather.’

  ‘It would do a lot of damage, that’s for sure,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘All guns issued to officers are test-fired at the PSNI’s Weapons and Explosives Research Centre and they keep a ballistic report on file along with a sample casing and an expended round,’ said Button. ‘WERC gave our technical people their samples and the report and, as I said, the bullets are a match. So, now we’ve got two of Carter’s killers dead, and three still alive. For the time being, at least.’ She pointed at the photograph in the middle. ‘This is Gerry Lynn. A hard man, is Mr Lynn. He’s the one who shot Carter in the legs. They went in to kill Carter, so the shots to the knee seem to have been nothing more than badness on Lynn’s part. Ballistics showed that his wasn’t a killing shot. He was released after serving three years, again under the Good Friday Agreement.’ Shepherd looked expectantly at the file, but Button shook her head. ‘Mr Lynn is very much alive, but is obviously a little jittery.’

  ‘Under police protection?’

  Button chuckled. ‘Far too macho to let the police take care of him,’ she said. ‘The IRA have him under wraps. He’s been their golden boy since the Northern Bank robbery in December two thousand and four.’

  It had been Ireland’s biggest ever raid. A group of men had kidnapped bank employees and got away with twenty-six million pounds, which, by all accounts, had swelled the coffers of the IRA. ‘Lynn was involved in that?’

  ‘That’s the intel the RUC had, but it was never proved.’

  ‘They never found the bulk of the money, either,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘It’s been laundered by now,’ said Button. ‘And if Lynn kept any, it’s well hidden.’ She tapped the photograph second from the right. ‘The driver, Willie McEvoy, was the first to be caught and was sentenced to life. Released six years ago under the Good Friday Agreement. Now he’s a drug-dealer in East Belfast. Heroin, cocaine, cannabis, you name it, Mr McEvoy can supply it. He’s been refusing police protection, no doubt because he’s afraid it’ll cramp his style.’

  Shepherd picked up the fifth photograph. ‘This one I know, of course,’ he said.

  ‘Ah, yes, he’s quite the celebrity,’ said Button. ‘Noel Kinsella. He fired one shot in the Carter house, which missed. Bullet ricocheted off the floor and smacked into a kitchen cabinet. Once Lynn and Dunne were taken into custody, Kinsella did a runner. He was located in the States and the authorities started extradition proceedings but even after Nine Eleven the Americans were loath to do anything to offend the Irish-American lobby so they entered a legal limbo. Then Kinsella had a change of heart, stopped opposing extradition and agreed to fly to the UK.’

  ‘Because he knew that under the Good Friday Agreement he wouldn’t do any time?’

  ‘Exactly,’ said Button. ‘He pleaded guilty, showed no remorse, was sentenced to life by a very angry judge, and was out on the streets by teatime.
The thing that set alarm bells ringing was that the killing started after he agreed to come back and face the music.’

  ‘The last straw, is that what you mean?’

  ‘At least the others served some time, even if only a few years. But it was all over the papers that Kinsella was coming back into the welcoming arms of Sinn Fein and that he wouldn’t be doing any time. There’s even talk of a role for him in the Northern Ireland Assembly.’

  ‘Is that possible?’ asked Shepherd.

  ‘The way things are going, you can’t rule it out,’ said Button. ‘It’s Alice in Wonderland territory.’

  ‘Two murders don’t necessarily mean there’ll be more,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘Two murders with Robbie Carter’s gun can’t be coincidence.’

  ‘If it’s the widow, good luck to her,’ said Shepherd.

  ‘That’s a gut reaction,’ said Button.

  ‘They killed her husband in cold blood and walk out after a few years,’ said Shepherd. ‘That’s not justice.’

  ‘It’s not about justice, it’s about bringing an end to the IRA’s armed struggle,’ said Button.

  ‘The Government did a deal with terrorists,’ said Shepherd. ‘Lay down your arms and we’ll let your killers go free.’ He pointed at the photograph of Carter. ‘They shot him in ’ninety-six, right? The IRA called a ceasefire in ’ninety-four. Then, because things weren’t going their way, they called off the ceasefire and were killing again. When the Government caved in they announced that the ceasefire was on again.’